Stephen Booth - Black Dog

‘There are some that would have a troubled conscience, though,’ suggested Wilford. ‘They say that can be as bad as anything anybody else can do to you.’

‘It can drive folks mad,’ agreed Sam.

‘Like being in your own hell, I reckon. That would be punishment, all right.’

‘Worse than community service, any road.’

‘Worse than prison?’ asked Harry.

They looked unsure about that. They were picturing a narrow, confined cell and bars, the knowledge of hundreds of other men crowded together like ants, allowed out into a yard for an hour each day. Shut away from the light and the air for ever.

‘You’d have to have a conscience to start with, of course,’ said Wilford.

‘There aren’t many that have one these days,’ agreed Sam.

They both looked at Harry, waiting for his response. But Harry didn’t seem to want to think about it. He got up stiffly, collected their glasses and walked across the room to the bar. He looked to neither right nor left as he moved through the crowd of youngsters, his back upright, like a man entirely apart from those around him. Drinkers parted automatically to let him through, and the landlord served him without having to be told the order.

Harry’s jacket and tie looked incongruously formal and sober among the T-shirts and shorts of the other customers. He could have been an elderly undertaker who had wandered into a wedding reception. When he turned his head, the peak of his cap swung like a knife across a background of pink limbs and sunburnt faces.

‘So the bloke who killed this lass,’ said Harry when he returned to the corner table. ‘Do you reckon he’ll get away with it?’

‘Depends,’ said Wilford. ‘Depends whether the coppers have a bit of luck. Perhaps somebody saw something and decides to tell them about it. Or some bobby asks the right question by accident. That’s the only way it happens.’

‘They have their suspicions, no doubt.’

‘It doesn’t matter what they suspect. They can’t do anything without evidence,’ said Wilford confidently.

‘Evidence. Aye, that’s what they’ll want.’

‘They’ll be desperate for it. Desperate for a bit of evidence.’

‘They reckon that Sherratt lad has gone missing,’ said Sam.

‘Daft bugger.’

‘It’ll keep the coppers busy, I suppose, looking for him. He’ll be the number one suspect.’

‘Unless they fancy blaming it on one of the family,’ said Wilford. ‘That’s where they always look first.’

‘Aye,’ said Sam, brightening suddenly. ‘Or the boyfriend.’

‘Ah! Which boyfriend?’ asked Harry.

‘That’s the question. With that one, that’s the first question you’d have to ask.’

‘And only fifteen,’ said Sam.

They shook their heads in despair.

‘Well, that’s the best bit, eh, Harry?’

‘Oh aye,’ said Harry. ‘That’s the best bit. When they do all their enquiring, they’ll turn up all sorts. They’re bound to find out about those buggers at the Mount. The Vernons.’

‘Maybe when they do …’

‘… they won’t be so bothered about finding out who put the cat among their pigeons.’

‘Maybe,’ said Harry, ‘they’d even give him a medal.’

The youths at the other end of the pub turned in astonishment to stare at the three old men in the corner. For once, the laughter of the old men was even louder and more unnatural than their own.

Helen stood with her grandmother on the doorstep of the cottage, watching the lights of the Renault disappear past the bend by the church. The night was clear and still quite warm, and the stars glowed in a dark-blue blanket of sky. Only the streetlamps here and there and the security lights outside the Coach House and the Old Vicarage created areas that seemed truly dark.

‘It was nice to see Sergeant Cooper’s son, wasn’t it? He’s made a nice-looking young man.’

‘Yes, Grandma.’

‘Ben, is it?’

‘That’s right.’

‘He’s the one you used to bring round to the house after school sometimes, isn’t he, Helen?’

‘Only once or twice, Grandma. And that was years ago.’

‘I remember, though. I remember how you looked at him. And then you told me one day that you were going to marry him when you grew up. I remember that.’

‘All little girls get crushes like that. I don’t even know him now.’

‘I suppose so. But he has nice eyes. Dark brown.’

They turned back into the house. Helen noticed that Gwen was reluctant even to look into the kitchen, let alone go near the door, although the police had long since taken away the bloodstained trainer and the pages of the Buxton Advertiser with it.

‘They’ll be up at the Mount now,’ said Helen. ‘I don’t envy them the job. They have to tell Mr and Mrs Vernon what they’ve found.’

Her grandmother looked at the clock, fiddled with her cardigan, folded and unfolded a small piece of pink tissue from her sleeve.

‘One of them will have to go and identify the body, you know. I suppose he’ll be the one who does it. But it will hit her hard, Charlotte Vernon. Don’t you think so, Grandma?’

Gwen shook her head, and Helen saw a small tear gather at the corner of one eye, brightening for a moment the dry skin of her cheek.

‘I know I should do,’ said Gwen. ‘I know I should feel sorry for them, but I don’t. I can’t help it, Helen.’

Helen sat on the side of her grandmother’s chair and put her arm around her thin shoulders.

‘It’s all right, Grandma. It’s understandable. There’s no need to upset yourself. What if I make some hot chocolate, then there might be something you can watch on TV until Granddad comes back.’

Gwen nodded and sniffed, and found another piece of tissue that was still intact to wipe her nose. Helen patted her shoulder and began to move towards the kitchen until her grandmother’s voice stopped her. It sounded harsh and full of fear, and trembling on the edge of despair.

‘What’s going to happen to Harry?’ she said. ‘Oh dear God, what will they do to Harry?’

The mortuary assistant drew back the plastic sheet from the face with care. The relatives should never be allowed to see the injuries on the body, unless it was absolutely necessary. In this case, the face was bad enough, although it had been cleaned up as far as possible in the time they had been given. The maggots had been scooped away and bottled, the eyes cleaned and closed, the dried blood scraped off for testing. With the hair pushed back, the injuries to the side of the head were not readily visible.

‘Yes,’ said Graham Vernon, without hesitation.

‘You are identifying the remains as those of your daughter, Laura Vernon, sir?’ asked DCI Tailby.

‘Yes. That’s what I said, isn’t it?’

‘Thank you very much, sir.’

‘Is that it?’

‘It’s a necessary formality which allows the other procedures to get under way.’

The assistant was already drawing the sheet back over Laura’s face, returning her to the anonymity of the recently dead, until the postmortem examination could be completed.

‘Does one of your procedures involve catching my daughter’s murderer, by any chance, Chief Inspector?’ said Vernon, without taking his eyes from the body.

There was no need for Tailby to have been present in person when Graham Vernon identified his daughter’s body, but he saw it as a valuable chance to observe the reactions of relatives. He watched Vernon now as the man stepped away from the sheeted mound that had been his daughter. He saw his eyes linger with that familiar horrid fascination on the loose ridges and hollows of green plastic that concealed the dead girl’s face. Vernon’s hands moved constantly, touching his face and his mouth, smoothing his jacket, rubbing their soft fingers together in a series of involuntary gestures that could mean nervousness or barely concealed distress. His face told its own story.