Стивен Бут - Blind to the Bones

Real fire was quite different. Real fire was a much more violent and angry red. There was no mistaking the threat from flames, the actual destructive power of them. Their red was more like what Alton saw when he held his hands up against a candle and watched the bones of his fingers become outlined in glowing crimson as flames flickered through his translucent skin. His hands looked as though they were lying in a furnace, ready to be forged like iron in an unimaginable heat. That was the colour of fire. Within his own flesh, he held the true redness of burning coals.

Sometimes, at night, it crossed his mind that the invasion of nature into his churchyard was his own fault, for having agreed to bless the well dressing. Instead of giving approval to this worship of the goddess of water and the power of the spring, perhaps he should have been evoking the word of God to exorcize the pagan powers and drive them back into the darkness. He imagined scattering the flower-dressed panels with holy water and watching the designs shrivel and burn.

But when he awoke in the morning, he knew that he was being foolish. Superstitious, even. The church was pragmatic, and it did what the people expected of it. Other churches let people bring animals to be blessed. He only blessed the water.

And it was St Asaph’s patronal day, too. The first of May. The day when the villagers would once have followed the Wakes Week tradition, with a night vigil in church on the Sunday nearest the saint’s day, followed by a week of celebration. Women would have baked the Wakes Cakes, based on their own traditional recipes. But no longer.

Alton didn’t know how guilty he should be about his feelings towards Neil. But Philip Granger had succeeded in making it all seem extremely wrong. Since Thursday, the knowledge that had been preying on his mind was the fact that Philip had gone on from St Asaph’s to Shepley Head Lodge, and not to work in Glossop, as he had said. Michael Dearden was a churchwarden.

Though Dearden hadn’t spoken to Alton since then, that only made it worse. His imagination could fill in the details. He had been creating his own hell within himself, and he had to resolve it somehow.

During his walk up the hill, Derek Alton had passed through alternate bursts of clear skies and heavy showers. By the time he reached the air shaft, he was soaked. But as he turned away from the hill, it wasn’t just the cold and damp that made Alton shiver and pull his coat closer around his shoulders. Dusk had descended, and it was time for him to leave.

Down below, Longdendale looked vast and mysterious in the gathering darkness. It lay like a rumpled sheet tugged into peaks and valleys by a restless sleeper, the lights of scattered villages and farms gradually appearing with the dusk.

Alton had already spent an hour on the hillside, but his vigil had brought no answers — only the chill that had numbed his fingers. He had been given no more answers here than he had in church. He had to make his own decision.

Ben Cooper and Diane Fry both crashed into their chairs at their desks in the CID room. Cooper could see that Fry looked as tired as he felt himself. Actually, more tired. She looked exhausted and dark-eyed.

There was more paperwork on Cooper’s desk, but he couldn’t be bothered to look at it. He stared at the ceiling for a while and found his thoughts wandering.

‘Diane,’ he said.

‘Yes?’

‘When you went to Wolverhampton with Gavin the other day, you were back in your old home town, weren’t you?’

Fry didn’t respond immediately. But Cooper knew she had heard the question. He could see the telltale stiffening of her shoulders, the almost visible defensive cloak that she began to throw around herself whenever her private life was mentioned.

‘Yes,’ she said.

‘I remember you telling me that Warley was where you grew up. You, and your sister.’

‘Your memory’s too good sometimes, Ben.’

‘But it was important to you,’ he said. ‘I mean, it seemed to be important to you at the time, when you told me about it, Diane.’

‘So?’

Her ability to make him feel uncomfortable was uncanny. And it came so easily to her — all it took was a very slight change in the tone of her voice to insert a little sliver of ice behind her words. She had a pretty unnerving stare, too. But this time, she hadn’t even needed to look at him to let him know that his intrusion was unwelcome. There were subtle messages in every part of her body.

‘I was just wondering what it meant to you now, your old home town. Did going back there make you regret leaving it? Did it still feel like home? Did it bring back memories?’

‘Ben, have I ever told you that you ask too many questions?’

‘I’m a detective,’ said Cooper lightly. ‘That’s what I’m supposed to do.’

‘Fine — if you were asking the right questions of the right people. But I’m not a suspect in any of your cases, of which you have plenty that you might usefully be thinking about. Perhaps we ought to talk about improving your focus some time.’

‘I’ll take that as a “yes”,’ said Cooper.

‘Ben, as far as you’re concerned, I’ve forgotten everything that I ever knew about my home town, and what happened to me there. OK?’

‘But you haven’t forgotten your sister,’ said Cooper.

‘Oh, for God’s sake. Not that again.’

‘Well, you haven’t.’

‘Yes, I have.’

‘Diane, I know you haven’t. Since you’ve been in Derbyshire, you’ve still been looking for her. You told me—’

‘I don’t care what I told you. Just because I told you something, it doesn’t mean it’s true.’

‘Yeah, but this was true, Diane. You can’t pretend it wasn’t.’

She turned her tired eyes to stare at him. ‘Ben, leave it alone.’

Cooper hesitated momentarily. He felt like a nervous horse lining up for the last, big fence at the Horse of the Year Show. Yet he had something riding his back that wouldn’t let him shy away from the fence, but spurred him on to go for it.

‘Diane,’ he said, ‘what would you say if I could help you find out what happened to Angie?’

Cooper wondered how much longer he could meet Diane Fry’s stare. It seemed to go on for a long time, as the temperature in the room dropped and the blood began to suffuse his cheeks. Fry opened her mouth once to speak, then closed it again. Cooper hoped the waiting wouldn’t last too long. It would be better to get it over with.

In the end, Fry broke the stare and stood up without speaking. She walked across the office and looked out of the window, with an expression that suggested she was seeing anything except the back of the main stand of Edendale Football Club across the road. She was trying to hold herself steady, but Cooper could see that her hands shook where they rested on the window ledge. When she did speak, there was none of the anger that he had expected. Her voice was almost a whisper.

‘You’re talking to me about my sister again. I told you not to.’

Cooper nodded, his throat too dry and constricted to speak. But he realized that Fry couldn’t see him. He swallowed, and tried again.

‘Yes, Diane.’

‘So what is this? You think you could do a better job than me, even at finding my own sister?’

‘No. I just thought... Well, if I could help you, I would.’

Fry’s forehead sank gently against the window pane, and her eyes closed for a moment.

‘I can’t believe this.’

The door of the CID room opened and Gavin Murfin stepped in, carrying a paper bag which was already showing grease stains. He smiled when he saw Fry and Cooper.

‘Hey, Diane,’ he said, ‘I’ve got some results on that phone enquiry. Guess who Neil Granger was making calls to the night before he was killed?’