Stephen Booth - Blind to the Bones

‘Hold on, what’s that?’ said Beardsley.

Whittingham peered into the darkness. ‘I think you mean “who”.’

Someone was lying alongside the air shaft, stretched out on the ground with his head turned to the side, as if sleeping.

‘It’s some hiker,’ said Whittingham. ‘This is access land up here. They camp anywhere.’

‘You all right, mate?’ called Beardsley.

‘He’s asleep.’

‘I doubt it. He hasn’t got a sleeping bag or anything.’

‘That doesn’t stop ’em.’

‘Hey up, mate. Wake up.’

For some reason, neither of the firefighters wanted to go near the sleeping man. They stood back from him, as if afraid to intrude on his privacy or to make too much noise with their boots and flame-proof overalls.

‘You don’t think he was caught in the fire, do you?’ said Beardsley.

‘Why?’

‘I don’t know. He doesn’t look well to me. We should get the paramedics out.’

‘Hang on. Let’s just check.’

Whittingham laid his equipment on the heather. He bent down to the prone figure and took him by the shoulder to shake him. He got no response.

‘Paramedics, Sub?’ said Beardsley.

‘It’s a bit late for that, I think. He’s dead.’

‘No? Oh God, has this buggered up our rest time?’

‘Have you got some light there?’

Beardsley shone a torch on the figure. ‘Hey, that’s blood,’ he said.

‘Yes, I know that, Beardsley. Shine it on his face, will you?’

The torch beam moved, but failed to pick up a reflection where they would have expected white skin.

‘Bloody hell,’ said Beardsley. ‘What happened to his eyes? I can’t even see them for the blood. And his face is black. Has he been burned by the fire?’

Whittingham leaned a bit closer and took off his right glove. Avoiding the pools of blood where the eyes should have been, he touched a finger gently to the face of the dead man.

‘No,’ he said. ‘I think he did that to himself.’

Sunday

Sunday mornings had become a battleground for Ben Cooper. It was like going over the top in the trenches every time they opened the doors. In the minutes of waiting, he could see the whites of the eyes of the people alongside him, and feel their tension rising. Five minutes to ten, and there was still no sign of anyone on the other side of the glass.

The first time he went to do his weekly shop at Somerfield’s supermarket on Sunday morning, he thought he would be the only customer. But he was far from being alone in wanting to shop at that time. There had been a small crowd waiting outside the doors.

After his first few visits, Cooper realized he was seeing exactly the same faces each week. There was the man with the denim jeans so baggy they surely must never have fit him, and the old woman with a knitted hat pulled tight over an explosion of white curls. And then there was the little man with the walking stick and bent legs, who moved slower than everyone else and needed a shopping trolley to keep him upright and mobile.

Soon, members of this group had started saying ‘hello’ to him when he arrived, as if he’d been accepted into some sort of club. Each of them had their own little rituals once they got inside the store. Some browsed among the fresh vegetables, or rushed to be first in the queue at the delicatessen counter. Some headed straight for the cat food, or did a preliminary circuit to spot the ‘Buy One, Get One Free’ offers. Occasionally, they would pass each other in the aisles and complain that something had been moved again. There was always a small traffic jam by the cabinets where the frozen meals for one were kept.

When an assistant manager finally appeared and unlocked the doors, Cooper stood back to let most of the Sunday-morning crowd grab their trolleys and get in before him. The little man with the stick reached the doors last, as always. Cooper was just about to follow him, when his mobile phone rang. He pulled it from his belt and checked the number on the display. It was one he didn’t recognize. Work though, probably.

For some reason, the idea that the office was calling him on his rest day irritated him more than it ever had before. Previously, it had never seemed to matter. But now, the interruption of his Sunday-morning routine was different. It could upset his entire week. Sunday was for shopping, cleaning the flat or doing some ironing, a quick lunch, then an afternoon with the papers and TV before visiting his mother. Then he would finish off with an evening in the pub, where the usual crowd would be expecting him, and his usual drink would be on the counter almost before he got through the door. Even within three months, the routine had developed a reassuring predictability.

Cooper let the phone ring a couple more times as he pushed a trolley into the first aisle: fresh fruit and vegetables. In a second, the answering service would cut in, and he could pretend that he had been unavailable. Then someone else would have to take on whatever job it was they wanted him for. He wouldn’t even know what it had been until Monday morning. He wouldn’t know whether it had been something trivial, or the most exciting case of his life.

‘Oh, well,’ he sighed, as he caught the call before the next ring.

‘Hello, Ben. It’s Tracy Udall.’

Cooper had a moment’s difficulty in putting a face to the name. But then a picture of PC Udall in her body armour seemed to materialize in front of him, among the piles of carrots and parsnips.

‘Morning, Tracy. What can I do for you?’

‘I thought I’d mention that I’m on duty tomorrow, and I’ll be going up to Withens again in the morning.’

‘Yes?’

‘I’m going to talk to the Oxleys. Or try to.’

‘Good luck, then.’

‘I’ll be setting off from Glossop section station about ten o’clock.’

‘I’m working tomorrow myself,’ said Cooper, trying to puzzle out what Udall was talking about. He had only been on loan for the day of the raid. There was more than enough work to be done in CID at Edendale, even on a Monday morning.

‘Fine,’ said Udall cheerfully. ‘See you around.’ And she rang off.

Cooper shook his head as he put his phone away. But it wasn’t worth worrying over. He had fruit and vegetables to think about.

He began to fill a plastic bag with apples. Just up the aisle, the man with the stick was poking a finger at some enormous oranges that looked as though they’d been pumped up with steroids. The old man liked to trail round the aisles with Cooper whenever possible, so that he could talk to him. This morning, he was deliberately lingering in the fruit section to allow Cooper to catch up. The man with the stick never bought oranges. He was a tinned peaches and pineapple chunks man.

Then Cooper’s phone rang again.

‘What now?’

He couldn’t let it ring for long this time. He saw that the number was one of the direct lines into E Division headquarters at West Street.

‘Ah, Cooper. I didn’t think you were going to answer.’

‘No, sir,’ said Cooper, recognizing DI Paul Hitchens’ voice immediately. ‘I mean, yes. I just had a bit of difficulty because my hands weren’t free.’

‘You’re not driving, are you?’

‘No, sir.’ Cooper tucked the phone between his shoulder and ear as he pushed his trolley past the apples and drew up to the dairy cabinets. He heard Hitchens take a breath.

‘Look, I’m sorry to bother you on your rest day, but something has come up, which you need to know about before you come on duty in the morning.’

‘A case, sir? Have we got an incident?’

‘Well, not exactly. We’re loaning you out again.’

‘Sorry?’

‘The Rural Crime Team were very pleased with you yesterday. They’ve asked if they can have you for a while longer. Apparently, they have some more enquiries coming to a conclusion.’