Black dog bcadf-1

by Stephen Booth

  ‘You never know. It might be worth it, for once.’

  ‘There was a bloke in the paper,’ said Sam. ‘Seventy-four years old, he was. He had fastened his nipples and his testicles up to electrical terminals. They called it an autocratic experiment.’

  ‘Aye? What happened?’

  ‘He had the charge too strong. It killed him. Blew his balls

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  off, for all I know.’

  ‘Old age doesn’t stop you wanting it. It just stops you doing it properly,’ said Harry.

  They nodded wisely, watching the three young girls from the post office cycle past, long legs whirling as their spinning spokes flickered in the sun.

  ‘That lass in the shop,’ said Sam. ‘The one with the big bum and the bolt through her tongue. That was Sheila Kelk’s girl, from Wye Close.’

  ‘Oh aye?’ said Harry, uninterested.

  ‘They live near the Sherratts.’

  The council dustbin wagon rumbled and hissed somewhere on Howe Lane. The wheelie bins still stood on the pavement waiting for it, painted with white numbers or the names of houses. Inside the bins was the accumulated debris that could tell the whole story of people’s lives.

  ‘You could do it with a car,’ said Wilford. ‘They do that all

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  the time round here. Blokes from Sheffield and that. They drive out somewhere on the hills where no one 11 rind them and gas themselves with the exhaust.’

  ‘You’re right, Wilford. They do. Bloody nuisance, they are, littering the place.’

  ‘I haven’t had a car for years,’ said Sam. ‘So that’s a waste of time.’

  He pushed himself to his feet, leaning painfullv on his ivorv headed stick as Harry supported his elbow. They only had a few more yards to go to Sam’s house, but it might as well have been miles away.

  ‘But I’ve got a car,’ said Wilford.

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  Cooper waited until Rennie and the other DC were out of the office before he phoned Helen Milner. Despite the events of the day, his brother’s comments had been preying on his mind, and they had reemerged as soon as he sat at his desk. He needed to

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  know what Helen was holding back.

  She sounded cautious when she answered, but surprised him by how readily she began to tell him about the parties at the Mount, as if she had already rehearsed what she would say.

  ‘They go to the Vernons for the food, plenty of alcohol and plenty of sex,’ she said. ‘A bit of soft drugs too, probably. There was no pretence about it. Everyone seemed to know what to expect when they went to the Mount. All except me, that is.’

  ‘Are we talking a bit of old-fashioned wife swapping?’

  ‘I guess so. Graham and Charlotte Vernon certainly seemed to swap with anyone who was available. It became their hobby, I think. Some people take up trainspotting or line dancing,’ she said sourly.

  Her description of the sexual activities which the guests expected went a long way towards justifying Matt’s reference to orgies, as far as Cooper was concerned. There had been no old people at the Mount parties, only those of the Vernons’ age or younger. Graham, it seemed, chose most of the guests personally; some came by recommendation from friends. Listening to Helen’s account, though, it struck Cooper that the parties weren’t just a bit of fun for Graham Vernon. They also helped

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  his business. All the guests were clients or potential clients, and attendance at the parties tied them together in what V ernoii would no doubt have called a mutually beneficial relationship. It put a whole new slant on the idea of corporate entertainment. ‘Oh yes, it was business as well as pleasure,’ said Helen when he suggested it. ‘He probably claims back the VAT on

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  the booze.’

  ‘Was Laura Vernon at these parties?’

  ‘Yes, but only at the beginning. They made sure they had her there on show when people arrived. But before the action started, they packed her off to the home of some pony-club friend in Edendale, where they let her stay the night. Out of sight, out of mind, as Grandma would say.’

  ‘We know she was sexually experienced. Do you think she might have got involved with any of her father’s friends?’

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  ‘One of the perks for daddy’s best clients? Maybe. It sounds about right.’

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  Helen sounded very bitter, but it was more than just distaste at the casual treatment of a teenage girl. You didn’t have to be a police officer to know that far worse exploitation was an all too familiar story these days. Cooper thought about his nieces, Josie and Amy, and clenched his fists. He dreaded to think what he would do if anyone came near those two.

  ‘She enjoyed every minute of the attention while she was there,’ said Helen. ‘But my feeling was that it was mostly a performance for daddy. She was daddy’s girl, all right. Though Charlotte Vernon would tell you differently, I think. Charlotte thought Laura was as good as gold, and really believed that she had no idea what went on at those parties. I’m sure that provided an extra spice for Laura. The excitement of living dangerously, enjoying a big secret.’

  Cooper wondered what she based this judgement on, but had too many other questions piling up in his mind to go down a side track.

  ‘Daddy’s girl?’

  ‘You can take that how you like. Imagine the worst, if you want. As far as I’m concerned, Graham Vernon is capable of anything.’

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  ‘You really dislike him, don’t you?’

  ‘Dislike him? Hate him, you mean.’

  He frowned. He thought that the word ‘hate’ didn’t sit too comfortably in Helen’s mouth.

  ‘And you, Helen?’ he asked cautiously. ‘How did you get involved in these parties?’

  ‘I was invited because 1 had met Graham Vcriion at my parents’ house a few weeks before.’

  ‘I suppose he took a fancy to you.’

  She sighed. ‘I can’t believe how naive I was. Dad really didn’t

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  want me to go, but he wouldn’t say why. I thought it would be exciting, you see. A bit more glamorous than the staff room of a primary school, anyway. When I arrived it all seemed good fun at first. Everybody was very friendly. Attentive, even.’ There was a strange vibration of the phone, as if she were shuddering at the recollection. ‘I had a bit too much to drink, but everybody else was the same. I sobered up pretty quickly when Graham Vernon got me in one of the bedrooms.’

  Ben Cooper thought at first he must have misheard her. Helen’s last words didn’t seem to conjure up a rational picture in his mind. The picture he had was completely wrong. Completely.

  ‘Hold on. Are you telling me —?’

  But Helen wasn’t listening. She was absorbed in her own memories. ‘He’s a big man, you know. He was far too strong

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  for me. Before I knew what was happening, he had pushed me down among the expensive coats on the bed, and his whole weight was on top of me so I could barely breathe. He was laughing all the time, as if it was some sort of joke that I was struggling. I can remember now the smell of the wine on his breath, the feel of his fingers digging into my arms, the sight of his face so close to mine that I had to shut my eyes …’

  Cooper waited in silence. He wanted to ask her to stop now, to tell her that he had enough information, that there were times when you could know too much. But her words continued to spill down the phone line, cold and fast, like a stream loosened from its winter ice.

  ‘The worst thing was that somehow I couldn’t force myself

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  to shout for help. It was because I was in his house, Ben. I was too embarrassed to cry out or scream. Too embarrassed! It sounds ridiculous, doesn’t it? Totally pathetic. I didn’t want to make a fuss.’

  Finally, there was a crack in Helen’s voice, a single, painful flav that betrayed the truth behind the unemotional delivery. Cooper had never felt so helpless, never so lacki
ng in the right things to saw.

  The think about all those women who have ever been raped,’ said Helen, ‘and who have then had to explain in court why they didn’t fight back or shout for help. I never understood it before that night, Ben. I understand it now.’

  Cooper remembered reading a report of a court case, the trial of a notorious American serial killer who had been convicted of the brutal rape and murder of several women. Sentencing the killer to the electric chair, the judge had made a famous comment: ‘The male sexual urge has a strength out of all proportion to any useful purpose that it serves.’ But for some people, it did serve a purpose. The purpose of domination.

  ‘I was saved in the end, when somebody started knocking on the bedroom door. There seemed to be a group of them out there, and something was causing them great hilarity. Of course, I was convinced that it was me they were all laughing at. Stupid, isn’t it? And when Graham Vernon finally let me go, I had to walk past them downstairs as if nothing had happened. I couldn’t bear the thought of all those people looking at me, seeing the state I was in, all messed up, with my best dress crumpled and my hair all over the place. That was all I could think about at the time. But they wouldn’t have cared what I’d been doing, would they? Because they were all the same as him. Graham Vernon. Don’t ask me why I hate him, Ben.’

  Cooper wished he could reach out and touch her, to reassure her that everything was OK. But maybe it wouldn’t have been the right thing to do, even if he had actually been there with her, instead of on the end of an impersonal phone line.

  ‘Thanks for telling me, Helen,’ he said, knowing it sounded totally inadequate.

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  ‘As a matter of fact, it helps to tell somebody. And you’re not difficult to talk to, Ben.’

  ‘I’m glad.’

  She paused. ‘Ben —’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Do you go off duty sometime?’

  ‘Of course. Tonight.’ He hesitated, a fateful hesitation. ‘But - well, I’ve got something that I have to do.’ ‘I see.’

  He hadn’t forgotten his promise to Diane Fry, and he hated to let people down. But there were times when, no matter what you did, no matter how you tried, there was always someone that you were letting down. And it was usually yourself.

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  23

  1 he Way of the Eagle Martial Arts Centre was tucked away

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  in the basement of a former textile warehouse in Stone Bottom, at the end of Bargate. The ground floor of the warehouse was occupied by a computer software company, and above it, on three more floors, were craft workshops, creative designers, a small-scale publisher of countryside books and an employment agency. The steps down to the dojo were always bathed in the smell of freshly baked bread from the ventilators in the back wall of the baker’s in Hollowgate.

  Diane Fry followed Ben Cooper’s Toyota as it turned off Bargate and bounced down the carefully relaid stone setts between a corner pub and three-storey terraced houses whose front doors were reached by short flights of steps lined with iron railings. On the left, a steep alley ran back up towards the Market Square and Edendale’s main shopping streets.

  The daytime car park for the craftspeople and office workers was closed by a barrier, but a small patch of derelict land had been partially cleared next to the old warehouse. They parked their cars in the middle of an area of mud-filled potholes fringed by broken bricks and shoulder-high thistles. There were several other vehicles there already, and the sound of dull thumps and hoarse screams filtered through the steel grilles of windows set near ground level.

  The buildings were clustered so close together in Stone Bottom that they seemed grotesquely out of proportion from the ground as they leaned towards each other, dark and shadowy against the sky, set with long, blank rows of tiny windows. The slamming of their car doors echoed loudly against the walls and reverberated down the stone setts to the narrow bridge over the

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  River Eden.

  Fry collected her sports bag from her boot and joined Cooper at the door. Though the baker’s had stopped work for the evening, they could still smell the warm, yeasty scent of the

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  bread lingering around the basement steps and in the dark corners between the buildings.

  ‘That’s making me feel hungry. I haven’t had anything since lunchtime, and I only managed to grab a sandwich between

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  interviews.’

  Cooper shrugged. He had been at the hospital at lunchtime and he hadn’t eaten any lunch at all. In fact, he hadn’t even thought about food. The hunger that was gnawing at his bcllv now wasn’t caused by the smell of baking, but by the need to prove that there was something he could do right. Something he could do better than Diane Fry.

  ‘What have you been doing todav then, Diane?’

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  ‘I interviewed Charlotte Vernon this morning. You wouldn’t believe that woman, Ben. She tried to put on an act for me. Wanted me to believe that she was some sort of hard-faced, sex-mad bitch who didn’t care about anything, let alone her daughter. Anybody could have seen through it. The woman is broken up inside. But why would someone put on an act like that?’

  He paused, regarding Fry curiously. ‘I could think of several reasons.’

  ‘Such as?’

  ‘She may feel she has to play the part that’s expected of her. People do that all the time. They try to live up to an image they’ve created for themselves, or meet the expectations that other people have of them, as if they have no real personality of their own. Or she may have been diverting your attention from something else. On the other hand, it could have been a

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  double-bluff. She may have been hiding the truth by pushing it in your face so hard that you would refuse to accept it.’

  ‘Amazing, Ben. You make people sound really complicated. In my experience, their motivations are usually very simple and boring.’

  ‘Motivations like ambition and greed? The old favourites? They can certainly make people ruthless and selfish, can’t they?’

  Fry bridled at his tone of voice, though she didn’t know what he was getting at. ‘And sex, of course,’ she said.

  ‘Oh yes, let’s not forget sex.’ Cooper collected two locker

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  keys and signed Fry into the visitors’ book, stabbing the page with the point or the pen. ‘But sex isn’t so simple either, is it?’

  ‘For some of us it’s very simple, I can assure you. But not for the Vernons and Milners, apparently.’

  Cooper paused to greet another dojo member passing through towards the changing rooms. He was a tall young man, a fellow brown-belt student. All the students and instructors here knew Ben Cooper — he often thought of them as a second familv, united by a common attitude and purpose. The chief instructor, the sensei, was the closest thing he had to a father now.

  ‘Why do you include the Milners?’ he asked.

  ‘Oh yes. Charlotte Vernon named Andrew Milner as one of her many lovers. He and his wife have denied it. But his daughter had some very interesting things to say. Did you know Simeon Holmes is her cousin?’

  ‘You’ve talked to Helen Milner today?’

  ‘That’s right. What’s the matter?’

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  Cooper had his mobile phone in his bag, since it wasn’t safe to leave it in the car. And his memory was quite good enough to remember Helen’s phone number.

  ‘You go ahead, Diane,’ he said. T’ve told Sensei Hughes you’re coming. You go and get warmed up. I’ve got a phone call to make first. I may be a few minutes.’

  Fry looked surprised. ‘Well, OK. Whatever.’

  The atmosphere in the changing room was the familiar one of sweat and soap. At one side were three rows of metal lockers for members’ valuables. A thick makiwara practice punching board had been left against the wall by the door.

  Cooper started to get undressed while he listened to t
he phone ringing. With one hand he unbuttoned his shirt and

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  began to unroll his gi, the loose white suit that was obligatory in the training hall. It was tied up in his brown cloth belt, the mark of a successful fourth-grade student, just one level below the various tiers of clans, the black-belt masters. The ringing went on for so long that he nearly pressed the button to stop the call. ‘Hello?’

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  ‘Helen?’

  ‘Ben? What a surprise — twice in one day. You only just caught me, I was about to go out.’

  ‘Oh. Anywhere interesting?’

  She laughed. ‘Parent-Teacher Association darts night, would you believe? We take a team round local pubs and clubs to raise money for the school.’

  ‘I never knew you could play darts.”

  ‘I can’t. I think I’m supposed to be the comic turn.’

  ‘I won’t keep you. There’s something else I wanted to ask you. About the Vernons.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘These parties you described at the Mount. You said your father knew about them?’

  ‘Oh yes, he’d been there himself. Vernon thought it was a huge joke, inviting him and Mum along. Dad was totally shocked. He really freaked out over it when he got home. He said it was the most embarrassing night of his life, the biggest insult he could imagine, all that sort of stuff. Yes, I thought you might ask about that. It was the cause of what happened afterwards, really.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Well, I’m sure that was the reason Graham Vernon invited me later. It was aimed at Dad, of course. To annoy him even more. I think that was the worst thing of all. He was taunting Dad through me.’

  ‘But your father let you go?’

  ‘He didn’t dare say anything. Vernon invited me in front of him, don’t forget. Poor Dad. He was always such a coward. It may have been the biggest insult he could imagine, but still he couldn’t make a stand over it.’

  ‘Did you tell your father what happened when you went to the Mount?’