Where’s your superior? asks Brindle and then looks at his notepad. Where’s Roy Pinder?
He’s out says Temple.
Get him here Brindle says then taps the map with his pen.
What are these?
He is told: scars.
Scars?
Like quarries. But wooded.
What are they for?
He doesn’t get an answer. Gets a shrug instead.
Brindle expected this. It is always this way. He has not been sent to get along with them – he has been sent to do the job that they are incapable of. So it’s his way now.
He looks at the map again. He sees crags and boulders. Gulleys and streams.
The terrain on the map is bad enough but it does not show the two feet of snow that has fallen. It does not register temperature. It does not record sound. It does not show blood.
He asks: you’ve scoured all this? Got the locals on board?
He gets another shrug.
We’ve checked around the reservoir.
The first twenty-four hours says Brindle. I suppose you know that is when cases are made – or fail.
The PC nods. He is young. His accent local. He has the face of a fat man but not the build. One day he will be bald.
How long since she was seen?
I don’t know. I’m guessing it’s something like thirty-six hours.
Don’t guess snaps Brindle. Tell me.
Thirty-six hours. Hang on. No.
Come on. Make your mind up.
Maybe more. Forty-eight?
Then you’re fucked aren’t you.
Not necessarily—
Yes necessarily says Brindle. Thirty-six hours plus subzero temperatures multiplied by moorlands equals you being fucked. And you’re telling me not necessarily.
Brindle continues: frankly everything from this point onwards is just damage-limitation in respect of my reputation. My department.
Are you saying the girl is—?
I’m saying that you lot are fucked and the best you can hope for is that she’s being gang-banged in a brutalist tower-block squat as we speak. If you’re lucky she’ll turn up bandy-legged and bleeding at the local cop-shop by new year. That’s the best outcome. But I doubt it.
How can you be certain? says the PC.
Experience says Brindle.
But without a body—
Without a body you’re left standing around scratching your heads wondering what the Christmas-day film is and I’ll be doing all the work as usual. What about the father?
They call him Ray Muncy.
Any previous?
Ray? No. He’s loaded is Ray. A good lad.
Know him do you? says Brindle.
Of course says PC Temple. Everyone knows Ray. He’s a dalesman. He’s valley blood.
Well enough to be struck off his Christmas-card list when you arrest him?
Arrest Ray? says the constable.
If it came to it.
You think Ray’s done something to her?
Highly possible.
But you’ve got no evidence protests the PC. You’ve not even met him.
I’ve got statistics.
Statistics?
Brindle rolls his eyes.
Come on son this is basic stuff. More often than not victims know their killer. Sometimes they’re related. Father–daughter usually. This is basic stuff.
You don’t know that she’s been killed.
And you don’t know that she hasn’t been.
The PC looks at Brindle. Brindle looks at the map and shakes his head.
Are you lot from the city always like this? says the PC.
Yes says Brindle. Yes we are. Especially me.
RAY MUNCY INTERCEPTS Roy Pinder as he returns to the station carrying a polystyrene tray of chips and curry sauce. It is steaming in the cold still air.
Well? says Muncy.
Pinder pauses on the station steps and turns to face him.
Well what Ray?
Any news?
Roy Pinder spears a chip on a wooden fork that seems impossibly small in his chubby fingers and slowly puts it in his mouth. It is too hot so he shifts it around for a moment then chews.
My men are on it.
Something’s not right here.
And my men are on it.
Maybe you need more of an incentive.
Incentive? says Pinder.
Yes.
Pinder smiles. He spears another chip and points it at Muncy. As he does a drop of curry sauce falls to the snow between them.
Are you trying to bribe me Ray?
No. That’s not the word for it.
What is then?
I need you to find Melanie. That’s all. You need to step things up. Because from here it looks like you’re doing fuck-all.
We’re out looking. My best men are up on those moors now.
It’s not good enough. I need assurances.
Pinder forks two more chips into his mouth. He smiles through the mush as he chews.
Assurances Ray?
Yes.
Well lucky for you they’re bringing someone in. Sending someone up. Some slick cunt. The top boy apparently.
He stirs the chips around in the curry sauce. With his fork he slops it over them and then scoops another one up.
A moment passes before Ray Muncy speaks.
Do you see much of your old friend Roy?
What friend is that then?
You know which one.
I don’t believe I do Raymond.
Your famous friend.
A shadow flickers across Pinder’s eyes. The fork returns to the tray. He rests it on the lip. He moves down a step closer to Muncy.
Who would that be then?
You know who.
Tell me.
The one they’re going to give a knighthood to.
Pinder studies Muncy’s face then but he doesn’t speak.
Muncy lowers his voice.
Come on he says. You know I’ve always been good at keeping secrets.
Is this some sort of threat Raymond? Bribes first then threats is it now?
He’s retired isn’t he? says Muncy. Larry Lister I mean. You don’t see him on the telly now do you? Different era I suppose. All those secrets though. So many stories.
Roy Pinder’s eyes harden.
It’s a shame about your Melanie he says.
Ray Muncy stares back.
Do you know something about where she’s at?
Roy Pinder says nothing. He stirs the chips in the sauce a second time. Drowns them in it. He chews one slowly and deliberately noisy.
Because I swear if you do I’ll bring the whole fucking thing down.
Pinder swallows then speaks.
As I recall you’ve said that before. And look where that got you.
Where?
Here says Roy Pinder. Right here. Your lass missing and begging me for my help.
He looks up and then down the street then he leans in and whispers at Muncy.
You’ll do well to remember who runs this valley before you start shooting your mouth.
I’ve got nothing to lose says Ray Muncy. If Lister falls then you fall too.
Pinder points his fork at him.
If I fall everyone falls.
AND LATER THE same night after the humiliation of the X he is drunk in a pub – a quiet pub a dead pub a pub where hope goes to curl up and die – on the edge of the city. It’s one of the old ones without the whistles and bells of a branded chain. Just a smoky shell of a place where defeated drinkers slump hunched against emphysemic walls and not even a daily bleaching can clean the floors. Rutter is alone and the safety and comfort of the Odeon X is over it is gone and now alcohol is in him for the first time. The alcohol is whisky and it is in him and it nips at his gullet but he is doing what it is that real men do.
He is drinking and he is glad he has no sense of taste because this way the drink goes down easier.
One tumbler then
another. A double then another.
The alcohol warms his stomach. The alcohol heats up his throat and neck; the neck of a wrung chicken his mother once said. Neck like an empty ball sac she said.
He drains his glass and stares into it for a moment and then he stands and moves sideways. He is dizzy on the drink. He clatters into an empty table and somebody shouts wahey – aye aye sailor and he fumbles in his pockets and he drops some money and then he leaves.
He walks without any thought for direction and he gets lost and then barrels around the streets and at some point someone tries to trip him up – a group of young men in short-sleeve shirts are laughing and jeering – and there are women stumbling and squatting and pissing in back alleys and then he turns a corner and then another corner and he walks down an alley and he finds he is back in the car park and he sees his car but as he heads towards it he sees a woman by her car with her keys in her hand and she’s big and he thinks maybe it is the fuckbucket from the X who spurned him or maybe it isn’t but the ground is all angles and his legs are running away with him and then he is on her and over her and in her and –
And later he will remember little except the sound of the struggle and the raincoat she was wearing. And her shoes. He will also remember her red shoes.
Then everything is just a series of photographs forever out of reach. Of butting and biting. Of snarling and spitting. The sound of heels being dragged twitching over stone to a cold silent place.
Then a gently slapping sound like a clock ticking and a scarf slipping around her mouth to keep her gagged. Gently almost. Her scarf not his. A fancy perfumed thing pulled back tight like the reins on a gelding. Reining her in breaking her in. Bull and heifer. Steed and mare.
He thinks: mud moors trees wind dogs water flesh touch soil men oil blood mother gravel drains bones pigs stones.
And afterwards he will take it home with him. The scarf and the body.
Limp in the back. Shoes placed neatly on top of her. He will drive drunk through the night out of the city and back to the pigs in their pen in the dark of the dale.
But not before he has been seen; not before he has been watched and recorded and noted and documented.
If the hills have eyes then so does the city.
THERE’S NO CORDON. He expected a cordon but of course there is no reason for one. No body. No crime scene.
No cordon.
But there are plenty of police up in the hamlet. Their vans and cars line the turning circle and block the road. Roddy Mace parks up and drains the rest of the coffee that’s now gone cold. Kills the music.
He sees Elaine Stonehouse. One of the PCs and another pub regular. He gives her a wave. She nods back and stamps her feet to keep warm.
Mace walks over.
Season’s greetings Elaine. Nippy out today.
Hello Roddy. Got your newshound sniff on have you?
Dennis Grogan wanted me to check in on the latest he says. Any developments?
Elaine Stonehouse shakes her head.
Nothing you can tell me? he asks.
Are you doing a piece then?
Mace turns the collar of his winter coat up and squints up the hillside.
Maybe he says. Maybe.
What I mean is am I speaking on or off the record here?
Any way you want it Elaine. I’m just doing some fact-gathering. It’s Christmas so there’ll be nothing going to print anyway.
Good. Because I don’t want my name in the paper and there’s nothing to tell anyway.
Behind Elaine Stonehouse more officers are quietly kitting themselves out in walking gear. Flak jackets and sticks. There are dogs too. Not all of the men are police though. Some are familiar local faces. Men who help out with Mountain Rescue. Chasms and quarries and clefts and fissures and bogs and moors are their terrain; all as dangerous as a razor-edged arête in this weather.
There’s always something to tell says Mace. That’s the first rule of journalism Elaine. Even when nothing has happened there’s a story there: missing girl found doing Christmas shopping in Leeds – moorland search-party called off – PC Stonehouse gets the drinks in for the first time in her life. Something like that.
I think it’s going to be a bit more than that actually.
You do?
You never said whether I am speaking on or off the record.
How about off the record then says Roddy Mace.
Elaine Stonehouse looks over her shoulder and then checks the radio that is in her breast pocket.
Off the record I’d say something has happened to Melanie Muncy. Something not good. We’ve turned up nothing that suggests she’s run away. Her wallets and keys and money are at home and her phone’s been found. Dropped or dumped. She only went out for a walk with the dog. We’ve checked the cameras at the train and bus stations – and the service stations. Nothing.
Boyfriend?
Not that we know of.
Doesn’t mean there isn’t one.
Of course. But her friends know nothing about one.
Again – it doesn’t mean—
I know Roddy.
Christmas he says. It can be an emotional time.
Yes.
A time for rows. Stresses and strains.
Don’t I know it.
What about her family?
We’re looking at them. The mother’s going spare. June Muncy. Lost it they reckon.
I heard she had a few screws loose anyway says Mace.
I wouldn’t like to say.
And the father?
Ray. Hard to say. He’s a strange fish.
I heard that too.
He seems oddly calm. Confident that we’ll find her.
And you’re not?
Elaine Stonehouse shrugs. Raises her eyebrows.
So if she hasn’t decided to head south for the bright lights of the big city –
Then something may have happened says Elaine.
Like what?
I’m not into speculating. That’s your job. Mace ponders for a moment.
I see myself more as a wordsmith weaving webs of fact and poetry he says. A documenter of the epoch.
You’re a pretentious bastard you are.
Mace looks at the hamlet. At the few houses creeping up the hill that is cast in perpetual shadow and the uneven mix of the old wind-chiselled cottages interrupted by the occasional new-build cast in a lighter tone of stone.
By this place’s standards yes I’d say I was.
They fall silent for a moment.
Anyone in mind? asks Mace.
There are always names.
Like who?
Like Mr Piss Off and Mrs Mind Your Own Business says Elaine Stonehouse. I’m sure you’ll be the first to find out when we know something substantial Roddy. Something printable.
Mace raises his hands. Palms out.
I’m just doing my job Elaine.
And I’m just doing mine. Or trying to. Anyway shouldn’t you be at home stuffing something?
Very good. And that’s it? That’s the local plod’s grand plan?
She looks around again and then lowers her voice.
Look – between you and me they’ve sent someone up.
Someone up? From London you mean?
I don’t know. Maybe not London. But someone.
Who?
I don’t know.
Can you find out?
Wait a minute.
Stonehouse turns and goes over to one of her colleagues. One of the dog-handlers. They talk for a moment and then Mace sees them both glance over at him. He stamps his feet. Crumps the snow until Stonehouse returns.
Some detective by the name of Brindle.
Brindle says Mace. Jim Brindle?
She shrugs.
Do you know him?
I’ve heard of him says Mace. Bit of a mad fucker apparently but he’s done some big cases. The biggest in the north – murders and worse.
What’s worse than murder?
Plenty. They sa
y he’s up-and-coming. There’s a lot of stories about Brindle.
Like what?
Mace shrugs.
You know – just anecdotes. He’s young too.
Just what the valley needs. Another cocky baby-faced prick.
He’s not devilishly young like me says Mace. And not half as handsome either.
He looks up at the sky. Elaine Stonehouse follows his gaze.
Looks like more snow she says. A lot more snow.
Can I quote you on that?
No you bloody can’t.
THE ROOM IS cramped and still smells of smoke years after the ban. Even now the furniture and carpet holds the stale scent. Clings to it. It is a bygone odour thinks Brindle; one day nothing will smell like this.
He opens the window and looks out across the market square then turns back to the room. It is cramped and dated. Not quaint and period but tired and neglected. Tourists hoping for a taste of Yorkshire past here would find only a sagging mattress and anaglypta. A carpet that looks like a migraine. Curtains a burnt orange colour and a dark stain splashed across the hem of one of them.
A formica surface runs the length of the room with a folded plastic chair propped next to it.
With one finger Brindle opens the drawer. The Bible is a cheap Reader’s Digest edition. Condensed from the original version it promises.
An unduly large flat-screen TV fastened to a bracket that is bolted onto the wall is the one concession to the modern age. It has had to be tilted and angled to fit in the corner of the room.
Brindle has already met Roy Pinder. Pinder is the man who runs the town’s tiny police outfit. Brindle thinks that Roy Pinder is a fucking idiot. Brindle knows that Roy Pinder is a fucking idiot.
And Brindle knows that Pinder feels the same about him too.
Brindle and Pinder he thinks. Sounds like – what?
A figure-skating duo. A type of wallpaper. A recipe for disaster.
The pub is called The Magnet and he can already guess the type of people it attracts.
It’s early but already he can hear noise coming up through the creaking floorboards. The clinking of glasses being washed down below. The vibration of a deep raised voice. Traces of that thick accent. Laughter. Somewhere down the crooked hallway a door slams.
Brindle lifts his suitcase onto the bed and slowly unzips his case. Sees everything laid out. Folded and neat but not neat enough. He begins the long controlled process of finding a correct home for everything. He counts woodchips he counts carpet-swirls he counts the seconds in between each breath as he holds it there like a cool soothing cloud of vapour in the centre of himself.
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