Dead in the Dark

by Stephen Booth

  ‘Mr Zalewski seems to have had a violent row with someone,’ said Fry. ‘A fatal row.’

  ‘Well, I can tell you straight, I don’t know nothing about that. As far as I’m concerned, he were a good tenant.’

  ‘And it was you who found the body this morning?’

  ‘Yeah. I had to go up there to see what was wrong.’

  ‘Had to?’

  ‘Because of the blood. Look, you can still see the stain,’ said Pollitt almost proudly, pointed at the ceiling.

  A red patch had gathered near a light fitting, where blood had soaked into the plaster and spread sideways, forming uneven tidemarks and darkening in the centre as it dried.

  ‘I’m afraid it will be there permanently, sir, unless you redecorate,’ said Fry.

  ‘Aye, I reckon it will.’

  Looking round the shop, Fry thought that prospect was unlikely. It hadn’t been decorated in here for some years.

  ‘That’s what told me something was wrong,’ said Pollitt, still craning his neck to admire the stain.

  Fry stared with distaste at the view she was getting of his double chin, covered in a patchy stubble.

  ‘Well, you did the right thing, sir,’ she said.

  ‘How long had he been dead?’ asked Pollitt. ‘Do you know?’

  He was asking too many questions now. Fry’s instinct told her that his interest was prurient. People she met were often like this, peripheral witnesses to a violent crime who felt they’d earned an entitlement to all the gory details.

  ‘We’re not sure,’ she said.

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘What time did you notice the blood on your ceiling?’

  ‘About seven-thirty, when I opened the shop.’

  ‘You were here early, sir.’

  ‘You have to open up early to get the customers,’ said Pollitt. ‘Passing trade, like.’

  ‘Passing trade?’

  ‘People call in for odds and ends.’

  Fry knew she mustn’t push it. There was a fine line between not asking enough questions and seeming to know too much. Best to stay focussed on the main issue for now.

  ‘Mr Pollitt,’ she said, ‘did you ever see anyone visiting Krystian Zalewski?’

  He shook his head. ‘No. But then, I wouldn’t. You’ve seen it – you get into the flat from the backyard. And the lad was out most of the day. If he had visitors, maybe they came in the evening after I locked up the shop. The only day I even knew he was here was on a Saturday now and then. He reckoned to work about every other weekend. If he was at home I could hear his radio sometimes. That was it, really.’

  ‘You never had to go up to the flat to speak to him?’

  ‘Only once or twice,’ said Pollitt. ‘He didn’t know how to use the wheelie bins – what rubbish to put in which one, you know what I mean? I had to explain it to him. They won’t take your bin if you’ve put the wrong stuff in.’

  ‘What about collecting the rent?’

  ‘I didn’t have to bother. He put it through the door of the shop once a week without fail. Cash in an envelope. He always paid in full and never fell behind. Like I said, he were a good tenant.’

  ‘So you’ll be sorry to lose him,’ said Fry.

  Pollitt shrugged. ‘There’ll be another along in a day or two. There’re plenty of migrants. It’s one thing we’re not short of around here. Not until Brexit, anyway.’

  6

  Ben Cooper was getting his new home straight, after a fashion. The cat, Hope, had settled in, which was the most important thing. She came and went through her cat flap as if she’d been doing it all her life. She’d developed a knack of catching the flap with the tip of her tail as she went through, and letting it bang with a noise that she seemed to find satisfying, and which alerted her owner to the fact that she’d gone out, or had just come in and was ready for food.

  She’d also made friends with a ginger-and-white tom that belonged to the old lady next door. Hopes had been spayed and the tom was neutered, so there was no chance of any unexpected kittens.

  The cat’s satisfaction with her new home made Cooper himself feel more relaxed. A couple of the neighbours had called by to say hello. He’d popped into the local pub, the Bull’s Head, and no one had stared at him too much.

  In fact, Cooper had begun to meet a few people in Foolow. He’d learned from some of the older residents to call it ‘Fooler’, though if he used that name anywhere else no one would know where he was talking about. That was normal in the Peak District. Eyam was ‘Eem’, Edensor was ‘Enser’, Tideswell was ‘Tidza’. It was a sign of ownership of the landscape, adopting a version in the local accent that outsiders wouldn’t recognise.

  The village nestled in a cluster of trees, barely a stone’s throw from where he’d grown up. Its name meant ‘Bird Hill’, bestowed by some ancient Scandinavian settler. One of his English teachers at school had been an enthusiast for the study of local place names and their origins. He’d made an analysis of etymology and the mixing of elements from different languages an unofficial part of the syllabus. So Cooper knew it was a peculiarity of Peak District names that one of the words for a hill was ‘low’. It looked odd when you came across a place called High Low. And it was all due to the pesky Scandinavians.

  On the village green at Foolow stood an ornate cross and a former bullring. St Hugh’s Church looked old but had been built in the nineteenth century, which was practically yesterday in the history of this area. Lead mining had been one of the major occupations here since the fifteenth century. Mounds and hillocks around the parish marked the sites of former lead mines, and sinkholes caused by the mine workings were a problem. The most recent had appeared about four years ago, he’d been told.

  Tollhouse Cottage was nearly three hundred years old, built for farm labourers or estate workers at a time when houses were intended to last several lifetimes. The walls were solid, not those timber and plasterboard things you could put your fist through. Without the door or a window open, he could hear nothing from outside. Its limestone walls oozed with history and the steps to its front door were worn smooth by generations of previous occupants. It was squeezed into its village setting as if it had always been there, as if it had grown organically over the centuries, jostling with its neighbours for the available space and light, as much a natural part of its environment as the trees and the grass and the heather on the hills.

  On summer evenings he was able to sit on the patio in the backyard, open a bottle of beer, and take in the view and the evening air. The view from here was the attraction that had swung his purchase of the house. When he looked out over the patchwork of fields, the sun broke through the clouds sporadically, highlighting one field and then another, changing the colours in the landscape as it went, catching a white-painted farmhouse here, casting shadows from a copse of trees over there.

  The tracery of white limestone walls was like a map laid over the landscape, so painstakingly constructed that it seemed to hold the countryside together. He sometimes thought that if you followed the right lines on that map you could discover any story, find the clues to any mystery. All the answers might lie caught in this gleaming web.

  Over a low wall, he occasionally saw his neighbours from up the row going to and from their houses. And Gavin Murfin had been right when he called at the cottage that first week. The ‘old biddy’ next door was no trouble once he’d made a fuss of her cat. She’d even made him an apple pie not long after he’d moved in. Two doors down, the teacher and her husband were a bit more distant, but they nodded and smiled whenever they saw him.

  The wood-burning stove would be able to keep the cottage warm when the weather turned cold – it was a smaller version of the one at Bridge End Farm and he knew it would be cosy in here during the winter. Although the cottage was small, there was still a lot of empty space. He’d meant to get more stuff when he’d finished the decorating, but he seemed to have forgotten.

  Tonight Cooper was on his way to a different pub a couple
of villages away – the Barrel Inn at Bretton, up on the top of the ridge. Laying claim to being the highest pub in Derbyshire, it was also where he’d first talked to Dr Chloe Young, apart from a conversation over a post-mortem table in the mortuary.

  Dr Young was the newly appointed Eden Valley pathologist, currently assisting Dr Juliana van Doon so that she could work part-time as she coasted towards retirement. Cooper’s relationship with Chloe Young had been progressing slowly but steadily. But that was fine with him. There was no rush.

  Young had come to the house in Foolow in her yellow VW Beetle. He was always surprised how different she looked outside the mortuary. The first time they’d met off duty he’d hardly recognised her. That was the way it could be with people you only saw in particular circumstances, in a specific role or location. They became one-dimensional figures, and it was disorienting to find they were real people with unexpected aspects to their lives. Chloe Young had her hair down, which instantly transformed her from the professional in a mortuary apron and scrubs, with a complicated hair knot tied up under a hat. He liked the way she dressed too, casual but stylish.

  ‘So they do let you have some time off?’ said Young when he let her into the cottage.

  ‘Of course. Why wouldn’t they?’

  ‘Well, you hear stories about police officers. Dedicated to their work, always on call. They say they’re married to their jobs. You know what I mean.’

  ‘Not me,’ said Cooper.

  ‘Good.’

  While he put on his jacket, Cooper sneaked a glance at his phone. No messages, so far at least. Perhaps he should turn it off for the evening? But he hesitated. Well, he’d set it to vibrate on silent anyway.

  ‘Do you have a murder case, or is it just a missing person?’

  ‘Well, we have no body,’ said Cooper. ‘Correction – no bodies.’

  ‘And you’re attempting to find them?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘So you’re trying to make work for me after all. I see.’

  Cooper’s Toyota was parked on a bit of rough ground at the back of the cottage, while Young’s Beetle was on the street.

  ‘I’ll drive,’ she said cheerfully, jangling her keys.

  He wanted to argue, but it obviously made sense. The VW felt a bit cramped when he got into the passenger seat, but it was okay. At least, it was okay until he discovered how fast Young liked to drive. He was jerked back against the seat as she took off through Foolow and swung into Bradshaw Lane.

  ‘There’s a speed limit, you know,’ he said.

  ‘But no speed cameras. And no patrolling policemen, because they’re too short-staffed.’ She glanced at him. ‘Not ones who are on duty, anyway.’

  ‘Just make sure we get there in one piece.’

  ‘I’m an exceptionally good driver.’

  ‘If you say so.’

  Luckily, it wasn’t far to the Barrel Inn. And like so many Peak District roads at a quiet time of the year, they met hardly any traffic coming the other way. A tractor or a milk tanker on a narrow bend would have been a different matter. They might never have made it to the pub at all.

  Dr Young was no more than five feet six, possibly less, with hair that was dark, almost black. Cooper recalled the first time he’d met her, the sheen of it catching the light reflected from the stainless steel dissecting table, the French twist knotting it at the back of her head to keep it away from her face.

  And then, when she’d removed a pair of protective glasses, he’d seen those cool green eyes, verging on hazel. She was so different from his idea of what pathologists looked like, such a contrast to the lean, hunched posture, sharp eye and disapproving expression of Dr Juliana van Doon that the image had stayed with him for some time, until he was able to meet her again.

  Chloe Young was originally a Sheffielder, but after graduating from Cambridge she’d done postgraduate work and had a spell in a research position in London. Then she came back north to work in Sheffield. When he met her that first time, Young had been taking part in a neurobiological study of suicidal behaviour. She was present in Dr van Doon’s mortuary to take samples of brain tissue from suicide victims before they degraded too much to be useful in her study. It hardly sounded like a promising start to a relationship. What Cooper remembered most was when she later described her career up to date and said: ‘I don’t know where I’ll end up next.’ Yet here she was, still working in Edendale. Something must be keeping her here.

  She seemed quite unselfconscious and at ease with him, as if she’d known him all her life. For a moment, Cooper wondered whether she did know him. Perhaps they’d encountered each other at some time in the past and he’d forgotten – though she was the sort of person he was unlikely to forget.

  She’d told him that the Peak District was one of the factors that had encouraged her to return to the north. He liked that. Cooper always imagined that if he ever had to leave the area for some reason, it would be these hills and valleys and moors that would draw him back as irresistibly as a magnet. Young had said that she used to feel it was her own personal national park. That was the way he felt too.

  ‘What would you like?’ he said when they got to the bar at the Barrel.

  ‘Vodka,’ she said.

  ‘And?’

  ‘Just vodka. It’s like a little black dress. It goes with anything.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ she said. ‘I’ll only have one. Got to be careful with a police officer in the car.’

  They found a table by the window and Cooper wondered how to start the conversation. He didn’t know her well enough to ask after her family, or to have any idea what else was likely to be going on in her life except a constant flow of dead bodies through the mortuary.

  But Young had the advantage of him.

  ‘How’s Carol?’ she said. ‘I haven’t seen her for a while.’

  ‘Oh, she’s fine. Busy, you know. Like we all are.’

  It was an awkward reminder that Carol Villiers had known Chloe Young long before he’d met her. Villiers had even been out with her brother for a few months, many years ago. The Young family were from Sheffield, a city that sat right on the Yorkshire edge of the Peak District. It was Villiers who Chloe had got in touch with when she came to work in the Eden Valley. It had always bothered Cooper that they might talk about him to each other. But you had to have trust, didn’t you? That was important, both to his connection with Chloe Young and in his working relationship with Villiers.

  ‘Have you decided what you’re going to do next? Will you take the full-time vacancy when Dr van Doon retires?’

  ‘It’s one of the options,’ she said.

  It wasn’t like her to be coy. Was she just teasing him? Now, that he didn’t like much. He was aware that Chloe Young was extremely well educated. ‘Qualifications coming out of her ears’ was the way Villiers had expressed it.

  Cooper had managed a few A levels before he joined Derbyshire Constabulary. He’d watched the influx of younger graduates over the years with some uneasiness. He knew it didn’t make any real sense, but he still felt a twinge of inferiority when he was talking to people with that level of education. Chloe Young’s qualifications were part of who she was. She was a forensic pathologist with a specialty in neurobiology and the study of brain tissue samples. He was a copper who’d managed to work his way up to inspector rank.

  ‘You’ve never gone far away from Edendale, have you?’ said Young. ‘Not for any period of time.’

  ‘I’ve never wanted to,’ said Cooper.

  ‘So you must have seen a lot of changes in this area.’

  Cooper laughed. ‘Changes? I’ve seen things change so much. When I took my A levels at Eden Valley College and joined the police service, life looked very positive, and I don’t think it was just my age. Now, it’s very different.’

  Young looked serious. ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘Well, there are so many things. I see people working really hard, but exist
ing on wages so low that they couldn’t afford the lifestyle they once expected, people who can’t afford to pay a mortgage without doing at least two jobs. Young people can’t get on the housing ladder, tenants are struggling with soaring rents. Disabled people lie awake at night worrying about their benefits being cut. The unemployed on jobseeker’s allowance feel they’re being pushed from pillar to post to avoid being sanctioned. I meet all these people in my job.’

  ‘I’m sure you do.’

  ‘Oh, on the surface it doesn’t look too bad. Visitors to the area don’t see it. But I know there’s a waiting list for appointments at the Citizens’ Advice Bureau to get debt counselling or advice about eviction. The number of food banks has been expanding – there are three in Edendale alone now. Some households can’t afford to get a broken refrigerator or a cooker repaired.’

  Cooper took a long drink of his beer.

  ‘I met an outsourced care worker recently,’ he said. ‘She was driving from one fifteen-minute appointment to another, going from door to door trying to deal with people who need full-time care. Out here, in some of these villages, the social institutions are being eroded. Churches are becoming redundant and closing and clergy are thin on the ground and stretched across six or seven parishes. Where are people supposed to go for support?’

  ‘I don’t know the answer to that.’

  ‘No, of course you don’t, Chloe. No one does.’

  ‘I do see the results of this,’ she said. ‘Right at the end of the process, I suppose. We’re very rarely aware of what’s gone on before. But you see it all at the blunt end, don’t you?’

  Cooper nodded. ‘Do you know, there was a case recently where we went to the house of an old couple. The wife was disabled and her husband had cancer. She told us she lived in fear of her disability living allowance being stopped and losing the car she uses to ferry her husband to hospital for treatment. They both dread the postman delivering a brown envelope from the Department for Work and Pensions, containing bad news.’

  ‘That’s sad.’

  ‘It makes them feel worthless, Chloe. That’s something that shouldn’t happen to anyone. And we’re right in the middle, ill-equipped and untrained to help.’