He suddenly feels silly and exposed and flushed with the beer. Unduly scrutinised. He hears himself saying can I buy you a pint?
No says Brindle. But thank you.
That stare thinks Mace. Like someone trapped under ice. The look of a man who has seen too much.
Sure? It’s a once-in-a-lifetime chance.
I don’t drink.
Wow.
What?
A policeman who doesn’t drink says Mace. A rarity. Especially a detective.
Brindle adjusts himself slightly in his seat and presses his back against the chair. He holds his hands in his lap.
How do you know I’m a policeman?
Elite-murder says Mace then lowering his voice adds: Cold Storage. Am I right?
Brindle says nothing.
I bet you’ve seen some right grim cases says Mace. I read about a few of them. Even reported on one or two up here. The body parts in the suitcases. The microwaved babies. Gangland torture. Lively Leeds. And then before that – beautiful Bradford wasn’t it? The red-light. Street-walkers and their sad little punters. Lasses hacked and torn on industrial estates. In crack dens. And you went into all that straight at the deep end – straight from a degree. Criminal Psychology. I am right aren’t I?
Brindle stares back.
Go on he says.
Four years up in Durham on a scholarship continues Mace. A First I believe. A rapid rise. Fast-track and all that. Stayed out of the politics of it all I imagine. Best way. Made yourself trustworthy and reliable. Sidestepped the snide remarks about being the college boy. Old-school detective work aided by modern thinking; the best of both worlds. And then of course the notorious Cold Storage – more secretive than Opus Dei and a nickname invested with double meaning. Triple meaning. Cold bodies and icy cops. Only ever spoken of in hushed tones. A near-mythological place. They say it takes a certain type to work Cold Storage yet here they are sending you up here in the middle of a bloody snowstorm on Christmas bloody Eve the bastards. It’s almost as if they want to punish you for being—
For being what?
Too good.
Brindle gently moves his cup of steaming tea a half-turn on its saucer then clears his throat. He looks up. Squints.
Journalist he says. Delusions of literary grandeur but neither the dedication nor basic talent to actually do anything about it. Has a degree and the debt that goes with it. Has forgotten most of the useless information he learned about French poetry and classical drama and the godforsaken Russians. Drinks too much; drinks his bitterness away most nights in fact. Promises himself abstinence at an unseen point in a distant future; promises himself it every sorry morning. Lungs like a spent fireplace. Still in his twenties and thinks he has seen everything. Thinks he knows everything. It doesn’t feel like the rot has set in just yet but it has – oh it has. Good enough at his job but then again it’s not exactly hard work up here in the hills where sheep-rustling stories and cake-bakes hog the front pages. Spent some time in the capital. Sure. The wild years. Got up to all sorts. Thought he was being rock ‘n’ roll by embracing Blakean excess; thought he was being a modern bohemian but he was just doing what millions of others have done before him: pissing his life away. Found out that the road of excess leads to the palace of a Balham bedsit. Said he was there for the culture but that soon faded; said he was there to make his name make his fortune make his bones as they say but that soon faded. They were proud of him back home but – Christ almighty – that soon faded too. Considers himself anti-capitalist but does nothing about it; considers himself a freedom fighter but feels trapped. A liberal in rhetoric only; a humanitarian who does nothing for humans. Might like narcotics and the seedier side of life. Certainly he’s experimented in that area. But then everyone of his generation has and isn’t it boring to think just how much they have experimented yet have singularly failed to gain any further insight into the human condition from these hedonistic pursuits? I wonder what state he’ll be in by the time he hits forty?
Jim Brindle fixes Roddy Mace with another of his grey stares.
Am I right?
AFTERWARDS HE PUT the body of the girl whose name he did not know into the river. Wedged it under an overhang. Weighted it and wedged it. Deep. Submerged it and left it. Sunk it. Dumped it.
Underwater so the flies wouldn’t get to it.
When he went back that night it was bloated from the river water but otherwise the girl looked like she was just holding her breath.
It was warm. A balmy July night. Beautiful. He unhooked the button badge pinned to her chest – Rave On! – and pocketed it.
The sound of water over rock seemed louder in the half-light.
He fished the body out and took it home. It took two hours to walk one mile.
It was heavy and dripping.
He was tired and stumbling.
Halfway home he undressed it and touched it and then dressed it again.
On the way he saw a barn owl explode from a branch like white fireworks. Its magnesium feathers shimmered in his torch-beam and its wing-tips were chromelike. Its eyes like lasers. Talons stowed.
And then later after cups of tea in the darkness of the kitchen as his mother slept upstairs he went to Muncy’s campsite in the early hours and took down the girl’s tent. He quietly collected the poles and pegs and folded the canvas and took it all to the farm where he burnt it all out back.
Shoes.
Clothes.
Sleeping bag.
Noodles.
The tent poles he hammered flat and later still he used them to trim the rotting edges of the chicken-coop gangplank.
After the fire was gone he put the ash in the ash pit and that was that.
The tinned food Rutter kept for him and his mother.
And the girl went in with the pigs. By dawn she was digested. By midday fertiliser.
There had been a small mention in the Valley Mercury a week or so later. Local not national. STUDENT MISSING ON COAST-TO-COAST. They had presumed that she had moved on. That she was already walking to the next site. They suspected the boyfriend. They always do. They searched the route between the two sites. The boyfriend had an alibi. They found nothing.
What remained of the bones he bleached and scattered in the scars up top. One or two thrown in each. Offerings to the soil. Traces of their brief time together.
He had only ever wanted someone to gently touch him.
THE COLD HELPS. Winter is in his favour because the frozen ground and the icy air and the compacted snow have slowed the process. But it has been days and now the body is discharging though its exit points. There is fluid leaking from the Muncy girl. Leaking and running and foaming. Rutter feels it – viscous and gluey.
Even in the most remote storm drain – the one that is gated off and way beyond the last bleak shore of the reservoir – even here in this frozen mausoleum in which he has hidden her the process cannot be prevented. It can only be slowed to a snail’s pace.
Her coat and trousers and blouse and sweatshirt help hold her together but underneath the body is already rotting.
She is a darkening red now and the skin is papery thin. It reveals a complex map of blue veins that appear to have risen to the surface in their hardening. Patches of it are blackening into blood-clotted lesions like small countries on a map of the world.
When he pulls the girl’s trousers down things are worse. When he tugs them down he sees that the body of the girl has soiled itself and the underwear is full of matter. Discharge.
And things are receding already. Even with the cold the girl is receding from view. The flesh is withdrawing from her narrow frame. Her gums fingertips eyelids and lips are all shortening; yet the torso seems an oversized trunk that is bloated and distended. He has seen it happen to enough pigs and sheep to know that the ballooning is part of the process.
When Rutter looks in the mouth the teeth appear lengthened too. He puts his fingers in and feels the tongue: black and sponge-like. He pulls at the teeth an
d feels them wobble in her jaw. He pats her hair. It is dirty and matted and brittle.
There are no maggots though. Not in winter.
No. Not yet.
He thinks again. Remembers. Remembers that same feeling rising. How he only ever wanted to feel the touch of another.
IT’S A GOOD job your reputation precedes you otherwise I might be offended.
Brindle closes his notepad and looks up at Mace.
Mace pulls out a chair and sits. He puts his fresh pint on the table but the table is unsteady and some of it slops out. A small puddle forms on the table and then runs over the edge. Brindle winces. Drips hit the carpet.
So you’re stuck here too then.
Yes says Brindle.
Christmas Eve and you’re stuck in the Magnet.
He nods.
That has been established.
Haven’t you got somewhere you’re meant to be?
Of course says Brindle.
A wife waiting for you I mean.
No. No wife.
Across the pub a group of teenagers enter and furtively look around. Brindle notes they’re underage. At the bar there is a group of men with their feet planted and their arms cocked at right angles. Their chests puffed as pints are upended and drained. Big men. Farm men.
What about your family? says Mace. Mine are going to be gutted I’m not there in the morning to try on another ill-fitting sweater and express excitement when I open my Lynx bathroom pack. All that fake bonhomie just feels so fucking hypocritical. Don’t you think?
Brindle does not answer for a moment. Then Brindle says:
You should be grateful. Some people have nothing. Have no one.
Mace sips his beer. He feels wrong-footed; he feels wrong-headed.
You really guessed all that stuff by looking at me?
Brindle pours more hot water from the teapot into his cup and then reaches into his jacket and pulls out an Earl Grey bag and drops it in.
Across the room someone put some coins into the jukebox and it kicks into life. ABBA. When Brindle says nothing Mace raises his voice over the music and says I’m Roddy Mace by the way. And despite what you might have heard I fucking hate ABBA.
I know who you are. And – no – I didn’t guess all that. I already know about you.
You know about me?
Yes says Brindle.
He dunks and dips his tea bag. Across the room a party popper is pulled and both men flinch. Thin twists of coloured paper float down then settle on the head of a bald man who has his back turned. He brushes it away and then carries on drinking.
So you think she’s dead then?
You’re a reporter says Brindle. I’m hardly going to tell you that.
I know she is anyway. Or I’m fairly certain. No one survives the moors in this weather.
It’s a small town continues Brindle. My job is to find out about people here. All the people. Sift through the information that is already there and piece things together.
Information?
Crime is a jigsaw. Information is the pieces. We are all of us being continually documented. You find what pieces you can then you join them together and see the big picture. As a journalist you will know this already. Or you should.
Well yes says Mace. Of course. We all leave a trail.
So I know about your time on the tabloids. The London years. Your odd decision to take a career back-step by relocating to here. It’s all documented.
Should I be flattered? Or scared? Are you always this – what’s the word?
Thorough? says Brindle.
Invasive.
Both men fall silent. Mace sips his beer and Brindle his tea. The detective puts down his cup.
This place says Mace. Don’t be too confident. It’s full of secrets.
Why did you do it? asks Brindle. Move here to Yorkshire. It’s archived in the media trade-press. Your move away from tabloid-land I mean.
Mace takes another sip.
I didn’t think anyone had noticed.
Someone always notices.
Mace shrugs.
The things you have to do to get ahead didn’t interest me. I’ve always wanted to be a writer and that’s not writing. Working on a tabloid. It’s just not creatively satisfying. It wasn’t writing.
The music on the jukebox changes. It’s another Christmas song. They are all Christmas songs now. ‘Little Drummer Boy’ then ‘White Christmas’ and now ‘Fairytale of New York’. A drunk couple do their own rendition. They take the male and female parts and emphasise the swearing. Brindle watches them for a moment and then turns to Mace.
And that’s the only reason – it wasn’t creatively satisfying?
Mace nods but he is unsure.
It’s different here he says. There are other things going on. Things beneath the surface. There’s a community.
What are you running away from?
His voices rises in pitch.
I’m not running away from anything he says. He frowns and then adds: you’ve not said if you think Melanie Muncy has been killed.
You’ve not said why you left London and came to this backwater.
Why should I? I’m not under questioning. I only came over to say hello.
Hello says Brindle.
He picks up his cup.
Are you like this with everyone?
Brindle doesn’t reply.
It’s true what they say then says Mace.
I don’t know what they say says Brindle.
Aren’t you interested in what people say about you?
No.
No?
No says Brindle.
Mace shakes his head.
So you’re stuck here for Christmas Day then.
Brindle looks bored. Impassive. His interest waning.
Unless I get airlifted out he says. Yes. It looks like that.
You’re staying upstairs.
Yes.
They’re doing a roast says Mace.
What?
A turkey dinner. For Christmas. All the trimmings. Looks like I’ll probably be here too.
The jukebox-volume seems to rise a notch. Brindle finds himself forced to raise his register with it.
I don’t eat turkey.
Me neither. It’s barely digestible. Who do you think did it?
Did what?
The girl. Melanie.
I didn’t say I thought anyone had done it says Brindle.
Mace leans in. He is trying to be discreet.
I could help you if you like.
Help me?
If you like says Mace.
I’m fine says Brindle. I like to work alone. And anyway you’re not even from here. And I need to go and make some calls.
I’ve been here long enough to get established though says Mace. Especially working on the Mercury. It’s only a local rag but it’s what they read. It outsells The Times or the Guardian a hundred to one round here and it’s opened plenty of doors for me. Got me in all the meetings that matter.
That’s what you think.
Maybe but that lot over there at the bar – they’re all from the Dales. They’re born and bred. They know everything about everyone. More than any copper from the city ever could. Trust me: there’s things you get to know about only if you live here.
The volume of the pub has increased to a level that is making conversation difficult and some younger men appear to be involved in some sort of organised drinking game that involves a lot of grunting and back-slapping. They are upending glasses and then putting them on their heads. They have weathered faces and big boots.
Mace finishes the rest of his beer and emits a small belch. He leans back in his chair and runs his hand through his hair. He pulls it back so that it’s left standing in tufts.
Alright he says. Let me say two words to you and I’ll then leave you to it. There’s beer to be drunk and Christmas to be commiserated and I’d be an even greater failure as a regional hack if I didn’t even at least attempt to get in o
n this.
Brindle raises his eyebrows.
Two words says Mace.
Go on.
Steven fucking Rutter.
RUTTER AT THIRTEEN.
A summer’s evening in the copse up top.
Way down below his mother is shouting.
She’s shouting. But she’s miles away.
Get them pigs slopped out she bellows. Get them grunters fed. Fetch the logs and kindling in. Then get on off up to bed.
Bed he thinks. It only bloody seven.
He’s a pig-man now. It means he is an expert in something now. It means he is a farmer now. He has a purpose. He nurtures these beasts and he knows things the other boys don’t know and he can bond with animals and he can read the habits of animals and know the ways of animals.
He knows responsibility. He knows pigs.
Big pigs angry pigs aggressive pigs. Hungry pigs. They eat through anything. Slops and carcasses. Offal and bones. They’d eat all day if they could – and do.
Strong jaws strong teeth strong stomachs – these beasts can make almost anything disappear. Barely a trace.
They eat through anything.
Yes. Slops and carcasses offal and bones. He knows this. He notices this. Twelve hours is all it takes to process anything once living. Digest it.
And like a sow he has noticed his mother getting bigger. Getting fatter. Getting porkier. A big fat pig hog she is. One day he notices her distended belly bulging through the gaps of the house coat she wears over her great flopping namesakes in the summer. Her dirty dugs fuller than ever. Waddling about.
The men had stopped coming around and then just a couple or three weeks later he had heard howling and moaning and heaving from her bedroom and he put his ear to it and then his shoulder and he pushed but there was something weighted up against it and it was her but the door opened an inch or two or three and he saw there something small and wet blossoming from inside her. A brown thing hanging out. Halfway to the floor. A mewling thing. Life.
Feeling the door shift she screamed at him. She told him to piss off and get out and look after those animals and then get yourself disappeared. So he did. He did that. Disappeared himself up the dale.
When he came back from the reservoir hours later he heard something crying and then he didn’t hear something crying and that night late when he was meant to be sleeping he looked out the window and saw his mother limping out towards the pig pen with a bucket and a torch and for the next seven days he had to do all the chores himself. The feeding the slopping the cleaning and the cooking. For a week she was bedbound and then she was back on her feet again.
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