Stephen Booth - Dying to Sin

Cooper scented the stench of ammonia, much more powerful than it had been at Pity Wood Farm. He knew better now, and he didn’t look around for any cats.

Hitchens gave his detectives a thumbs up, then replaced it with a two-fingered salute. Victory? Or just two drinks down at the pub?

The clear-up and removal of evidence from the industrial unit at Staveley would be a long business. Fry and Cooper left after a couple of hours’ talking to the neighbouring tenants and drove back towards Edendale.

The suspects from the operation would have been processed by now and would be residing in the custody suite. But interviews wouldn’t be taking place until senior officers were happy that all the facts were in place, and that might not be for twenty-four hours yet. Drinks were definitely looking a possibility.

Cooper took a hands-free call on his mobile as they were heading out of Staveley into heavy traffic through Brimington. It was the officer on con obs duty at the hospital, keeping a constant watch on Raymond Sutton in case he made another attempt on his own life.

Sutton had begun talking again, and the officer had made detailed notes. Con obs was a really boring duty.

‘Raymond Sutton is claiming that his brother Alan died falling downstairs during an argument,’ Cooper explained to Fry when he finished the call. ‘He says he and Derek set off to put their brother into a car to take him to hospital, because it takes so long for an ambulance to get to Pity Wood. But before they got him in the car, they realized he was dead.’

‘Go on.’

‘Well, then they panicked, because they thought they’d be accused of murdering their brother. Their fingerprints would be on his body, his blood would be on their clothes. Raymond says they knew they wouldn’t have much chance if they told the true story to the police.’

‘So they buried their brother?’ said Fry.

‘Yes.’

‘On the principle of “out of sight, out of mind”, I suppose.’

‘Something like that.’

Fry glared at the traffic lights that had brought them to a halt near the crematorium.

‘But they didn’t bury him on the farm,’ she said.

‘Oh, no. Not on their own patch.’

‘You don’t shit on your own doorstep, do you? That’s a good rule.’

‘Besides, it would have been too much of a reminder,’ said Cooper. ‘Instead, they had to find somewhere remote, and safe from being dug up.’

‘Like a protected heritage site.’

‘Ideal.’

‘And yet it also had to be somewhere where there was already a lot of disturbed ground, where no one would notice a grave.’

‘Yes,’ said Cooper. ‘Those spoil heaps at Magpie Mine were perfect for them.’

‘Has Raymond said that’s where they buried the body?’

‘He’s given directions for the search team. They’re sending a human remains dog in.’

‘But, Ben, did nobody in Rakedale notice Alan was missing?’

‘Raymond says they made up a story about him going off to make his living some other way, because he couldn’t stand farming any more. Nobody questioned it at the time. Alan himself had said as much in the village. So it was accepted as the truth, whether anyone had any private doubts or not.’

‘Just another one of those beliefs without any substance in reality,’ said Fry. ‘If you accept one totally improbable thing, why not another? Especially if everyone else around you seems to take it as fact.’

‘Yes. I suspect everyone in Rakedale more or less forgot about Alan Sutton after a while.’

‘Except his brothers.’

‘Oh, the brothers never forgot,’ said Cooper. ‘They lived with his ghost. I think even Raymond felt his presence, and he wasn’t the superstitious one. What a nightmare.’

Cooper thought they probably couldn’t even begin to appreciate the depth of the nightmare at this distance. What went on inside the closed circles of families was often incomprehensible to outsiders.

‘The Sutton brothers were so closely bound together that they reacted against each other constantly. Raymond became more and more disapproving and censorious, and Derek’s behaviour became increasingly bizarre and superstitious.’

‘Was Derek being deliberately provocative?’

‘I’m sure there must have been an element of that, on both sides. And once they were trapped in the cycle, it was bound to escalate.’

Cooper was steering the Toyota round the Chesterfield bypass, using the twisted spire of the parish church as a landmark while he headed for the A619.

In fact, the Sutton brothers must have spent years tormenting and annoying each other. There had been no need for words. The brothers had understood each other fully, and they had probably abandoned any hope of ever winning an argument. But, even in their silence, they would have enraged each other. A soundless, continuous friction.

‘It was their way of trying to get a response from each other,’ said Cooper. ‘These were two old men who didn’t know how to communicate in any other way. They must have loved one another very much, underneath all that.’

‘Families, eh?’

‘Yes, families. What a good thing they didn’t have children in that household.’

‘Oh, I don’t know,’ said Fry. ‘Loving and hating someone at the same time is a good lesson for future life.’

Fry had touched a nerve there, whether she was aware of it or not. Loving and hating someone at the same time . Cooper saw that in himself, whenever he dared to peek into the darker corners of his mind. There was no denying or suppressing that stuff, not completely. It might be possible to control the conscious actions, like a really good liar. But there was nothing you could do to change what was in your heart and in your mind. There were some memories and instincts that clung too close to the soul to be shrugged off and walked away from.

‘You know, there’s just one thing missing still,’ said Cooper as they crested the hill before the descent into Edendale.

‘Oh?’

‘Just one little thing, Diane. But we still can’t get a confirmed ID on one of our victims from Pity Wood Farm without it.’

‘What’s that, Ben?’

‘Orla Doyle’s head.’

The Dog Inn was in festive mood, decorated with streamers and balloons. The lights on the tree were twinkling, an illuminated Santa flickered behind the counter. There just weren’t any customers to help Mrs Dain celebrate.

‘This is suspiciously like an intuition, Diane,’ said Cooper, as they stood in the middle of the bar.

‘Just bear with me for a while.’

‘I don’t know where to start looking.’

Fry smiled. ‘That’s because you’re not from the Black Country, Ben.’

‘What?’

‘And you missed the signs of superstition — the horseshoe on the door, the number thirteen absent from the jukebox. I bet that’s old Mrs Dain.’

‘What has Mrs Dain got to do with it?’

‘I think she shared some beliefs with Derek Sutton,’ said Fry. ‘Maybe they shared more than that when they were younger.’

‘Well, the old lady did say she had a soft spot for him — and Raymond, too.’

‘It’s Derek I’m interested in at the moment. You see, I’m betting he had a gift for Mrs Dain. The Dog Inn needs a bit of help staying in business, by the look of it. And you don’t need two of the things, do you?’

Cooper stared at her. ‘Two? You mean …?’

A couple of officers entered the pub wearing blue boiler suits and carrying a set of tools — chisels, hammers, wrecking bars. They spread plastic sheets on the floor in front of the central fireplace.

‘It’s a good job the fire is out,’ said Fry. ‘But then, I left instructions beforehand.’

It didn’t take long for the officers to remove enough bricks from the chimney breast to uncover a cavity. One of them reached in a hand and carefully eased out a package.