Stephen Booth - Dying to Sin

And there was certainly no way of achieving justice — not justice in the terms of the law, nor justice in any subjective sense. Even if Derek Sutton had still been alive, what would have been the point of punishing him? His brother was an accessory to the crime, of course. After the fact, if not before. No matter how contemptuous he’d been, no matter how many disapproving silences he’d indulged in over the kitchen table, Raymond had gone along with his brother’s superstitions, and had told no one about the skull.

Well, of course he hadn’t. Sharing a house with a crazy brother was one thing. Watching that brother get carted off to spend the rest of his life in a psychiatric institution while you were left to cope entirely on your own — that was a different thing altogether. The decision wouldn’t have been an easy one for most families, let alone the Suttons of Pity Wood Farm. In fact, there was no decision involved. Blood was blood, and you stood by your own. End of story.

Cooper finished his report and stood up. Yes, it would have been the end of the story. If only Raymond Sutton had died himself before the farm was dug up. That had been his plan, Cooper was sure.

But The Oaks had looked after him too well. Their care had prolonged his life longer than he’d expected. Physically, he was probably in better condition now than when he was looking after himself at home. So Raymond had sat in his room at The Oaks, watching the seasons change over the hills, while the sale of the farm went through, the paperwork was completed, and the builders moved in. From that moment, he must have been expecting every day to hear the news that something had been found. Each morning he must have looked for the newspapers to read the headlines, every evening he must have been the first in front of the TV for the start of East Midlands Today . And every day he must have lived in expectation of the footsteps in the hallway of his care home, the voices of strangers speaking his name.

When Raymond Sutton abandoned the farm and sold up immediately after the death of his brother, he hadn’t expected to live very long. A matter of days or weeks, perhaps. But then he’d done a terrible thing. He’d survived.

Raymond had thought he was tappy, just like his brother. Approaching his end, preparing to meet his maker. All those other euphemisms for dying. But in the end he’d lived too long to escape being called to account for his actions. How ironic that Raymond was also the only member of his family who expected to be punished for eternity.

To follow Christ means dying to sin . Raymond Sutton would die twice over.

Fry produced a series of evidence bags. They contained the items they’d found at the house in Bunratty Road, hidden behind the wardrobe in the bedroom of Martin Rourke’s daughter.

‘Was this the woman they buried four years ago?’ asked Fry. ‘Her name is Orla Doyle, an Irish national. Black hair. She would be thirty-two years old by now.’

‘I don’t know who she was,’ said Rourke.

He was starting to sweat now, Fry could see. He hadn’t felt guilty for the death of Nadezda Halak, but Orla Doyle was a name a bit closer to home.

‘You were too greedy, Mr Rourke,’ said Fry. ‘This is Orla Doyle’s passport, found in your house this morning, so you can’t try to tell us you had no connection with her. I suppose you realized from dealing with illegal immigrants that there was a lucrative market for passports? And not forged ones, either, but genuine passports, taken from dead people. Is there a premium on them in the human import business, Mr Rourke?’

‘I’m not answering that.’

‘In fact, it must be even better if the person involved is not only dead, but has never been reported missing.’

Rourke just shook his head. His face was closing up now, and she wouldn’t get much more from him. But she still had evidence to confront him with.

Fry help up a second bag. ‘This is a Slovakian passport, sir. Discovered in the same hiding place, behind your daughter’s wardrobe. Not as much call for a Slovak identity in Ireland, I suppose, even now? This one is for Nadezda Halak, from the city of Ko. sice. Nadezda would be twenty-four by now, if she was still alive. Would you like to see what’s actually left of her, sir? I can arrange for that to happen.’

Rourke shook his head, resorting to a silence that was no good for the tapes. Fry nodded at Lenaghan.

‘Interview suspended.’

Fry couldn’t wait to make the call to her DI and tell him that she’d not only established how Nadezda Halak died, but had also confirmed the identity of the second body at Pity Wood Farm. She was buzzing with satisfaction, and at the end of the conversation with Hitchens, she still felt she hadn’t talked enough, so she rang Ben Cooper and told her story all over again.

‘That’s brilliant, Diane,’ he said. ‘So the trip to Ireland was really worthwhile, after all.’

‘Yes, it was.’

Then Fry remembered it was Tuesday, the day she’d been afraid of being away from Edendale, and her excitement began to ebb away.

‘So what’s going on back home?’ she said cautiously.

‘Oh, the new superintendent has arrived.’

‘Making an impression, is she?’

‘You might say that. There’s no doubt who’s in charge. She’s already taking the credit.’

‘But she hasn’t done anything,’ said Fry. ‘She can’t have. Not yet.’

‘Maybe. It’s hard to tell what’s been going on behind the scenes.’

Fry sighed. ‘Has she done anything I need to know about?’

‘Put Gavin in his place with a firm hand.’

‘Oh, well …’

‘And Jack Elder is being released.’

‘Elder? He was my prisoner.’

‘Not after tomorrow,’ said Cooper. ‘He’ll be in court in the morning, then he’ll get bail and walk away.’

‘Damnation.’

‘The superintendent is right, though, Diane — we don’t have any evidence to connect Mr Elder with a serious offence. He’s not a credible murder suspect.’

‘No, but he’s a link,’ said Fry. ‘I’m sure of it.’

‘It’s a pity you’re not here to put your case to Branagh.’

‘Yes, isn’t it?’

‘It appears Orla Doyle is one of our missing persons,’ said Lenaghan when he’d escorted Rourke back to his cell. ‘What a result. You can come here again, Detective Sergeant Fry.’

‘Thank you. I think I can say it was a mutually satisfactory visit, Garda Lenaghan.’

‘Tony,’ he said.

‘What?’

‘You ought to call me Tony.’

Cooper got out the Toyota to drive into Sheffield, where he had an appointment with the forensic anthropologist, Dr Jamieson. A traffic officer he passed in the car park greeted him with a weather forecast.

‘Fog.’

‘That’s bad news.’

‘The roads are very busy, too. There’ll be fatalities before nightfall.’

And Cooper thought it could be worse than that. If they cancelled flights at Robin Hood Airport, Fry might not be getting back from Dublin. Not today, anyway.

As he drove to Sheffield, Cooper tried to get everything straight in his head. But whenever he thought about the story, it began to unravel, like a tapestry with a loose stitch. If he tugged at it in the wrong place, everything changed shape, the picture twisted and distorted, figures vanishing from the scene and others coming closer together.

After a few minutes, the picture was becoming awfully grey and murky, just like the weather, like the landscape behind that belt of December rain.

‘Oh, you were hoping to tie this skull in with Victim B?’ said Dr Jamieson, when Cooper found him in his laboratory at the university.

‘Well … yes, that was the assumption.’