The Kill Call

by Stephen Booth

  ‘So have we really got suspicious circumstances here, Diane?’

  She hesitated. The expense of calling in a Home Office pathologist was only justified when there was substantial evidence of suspicious circumstances, the proverbial foul play. The DI wouldn’t want to get caught out trying to justify the expense in the face of an ‘accidental death’ verdict by the High Peak coroner.

  ‘This body has no ID. That’s a good indication of suspicious circumstances in itself, isn’t it?’

  ‘Maybe.’

  Fry noted his reluctance. The decision was his at this stage, as the senior officer present. Personally, she had a strong feeling about the body in the field, but she was wary of talking about feelings. The notorious detective’s ‘hunch’ didn’t fit well with the pragmatic, evidence-based decision-making processes that came with the training. It sounded so old school.

  ‘All right,’ she said. ‘So he could have left his wallet and car keys at home, if he went out for a walk. He could have worn his nice new brogues instead of bothering to change into something more appropriate. I can see that’s possible. But why wouldn’t he have taken a mobile phone?’

  ‘He could have walked out of the house in the middle of a row with his wife. Slammed the front door without picking up his keys or phone, and decided not to go back for them.’

  Fry turned away. ‘Done that yourself, too, have you?’

  ‘What did you say, Diane?’

  ‘Nothing, sir. I was just saying that it was more likely horse droppings than a cow pat. We’ve got hoof marks all over the scene.’

  ‘There’s your first line on a potential witness, then.’

  ‘Yes, I’m on to it,’ said Fry. ‘But without more resources out here, it’s going to be totally impossible to interview all the hunt supporters. Anyway, I’m convinced they’re just going to close ranks.’

  Fry thought of the SIOs’ mantra: What do I know now? What do I need to know? How am I going to find out? On the other hand, her most important question might be ‘How much are they going to let me find out?’

  ‘Think of another approach,’ said Hitchens.

  She sighed. ‘We could round up the sabs. There aren’t anywhere near as many of them.’

  ‘There you go, then. Anyway, a confirmed ID is your first priority.’

  ‘Naturally.’

  The DI studied her for a moment, and waited until a SOCO passed out of earshot.

  ‘Are you all right, Diane?’ he said.

  ‘Yes, sir. Fine.’

  ‘Good.’

  It was well known that Hitchens had been asking everyone in CID if they were ‘all right’, ever since the arrival of the new detective superintendent. Probably it was a form of caring for staff morale.

  ‘An ID by tomorrow then,’ he said. ‘Top priority.’

  ‘It’s early days, sir.’

  ‘Of course. Early days.’

  Fry watched Hitchens walk back to his car, his job done for now. He could go back to his paperwork at the office until another major operational decision was called for.

  But he was right, of course. They couldn’t get a serious enquiry under way until there was an ID on the victim. An identification would come one way or another – possibly through a missing-person report, maybe through fingerprints or DNA, if the victim had a criminal record. If not, then a trawl around the available dental records, or more likely a tip-off from a member of the public when the media appeals went out.

  That all took time, of course. It could be months, if not years, if they had to rely on appeals and bulletins to other forces around the country. And sometimes with an unidentified body, it was more than months and years – it was never. There were old cases lying on the files where no ID had been achieved after five or ten years, or more. Those were the victims with no family or friends to come forward and claim them, people who appeared to have no available lives to be pieced together.

  Fry shook her head. The man in the field surely wasn’t one of those. This victim was no homeless vagrant, nor a runaway teenager or illegal immigrant. She was convinced he must be a man with a house somewhere, a job, a car, a bank account. There was probably a wife expecting him home, row or not. Or at least a pet waiting to be fed. Someone would have missed him when he didn’t come back last night, colleagues would notice that he wasn’t at work today. Even if he was a solitary tourist, his holiday would be due to finish some time. It was unfeasible that he could stay unidentified for long.

  Fry’s phone rang. It was Hitchens on his way back to Edendale, safely in his car and out of the rain.

  ‘Diane, why haven’t you got Ben Cooper at the scene?’ he said. ‘Is he on a rest day, or processing?’

  ‘Processing,’ said Fry. ‘He’s back at the office.’

  And it was only then that she noticed a missed call on her phone.

  There was always a wind blowing, up here on the moors. Looking across the valley, Cooper could see acres of pale grass rippling on the plateau, clouded by swirls of rain. It was as if the whole moorland was moving, a vast tide rushing endlessly eastwards in the direction of Nottinghamshire.

  Because of the number of police vehicles already present, he had been unable to get his Toyota near the crime scene, even with four-wheel drive. So Cooper had to walk the last few hundred yards on a lane that rose steeply from the village of Birchlow.

  At the bottom, there had been plenty of evidence of the Eden Valley Hunt meet, and Matt had been tense with the expectation of encountering people he knew. But the main body of the hunt must have been away in the fields somewhere, following their artificial fox-scented trail.

  Cooper stopped for a few moments to catch his breath, trying to orientate himself. Near the top of the lane, the views were spectacular, with several gritstone edges dominating the northern and eastern skylines – White Edge, Froggatt Edge, Curbar and Baslow. But, for the most part, Longstone Moor wasn’t one of the wild, barren moors characteristic of the Dark Peak further north. Its expanses were positively civilized, with farms, quarries, fields, and a criss-crossing of tracks formed by generations of people crossing the moor.

  Ever since he was a child, Cooper had never stopped being fascinated by the layer upon layer of history that formed the landscape he’d grown up in. Thousands of years of history, visible right there in front of him, wherever he went – Neolithic stone circles and burial chambers, medieval guide stoops way out on the moors, the bumps and hollows of the lead mines, whose abandoned workings dated back to the arrival of the Romans. Cooper felt himself to be a part of that history, completely inseparable from it. Those people who’d built the stone circles, who’d worked in the lead mines, and carved the names on the guide stoops – they’d all been his ancestors.

  Ahead of him, Longstone Edge itself was carved by the vast, white scars of opencast mining called rakes. Some were abandoned now, great gashes in the landscape as if a series of earthquakes had split the ground open. But open-cast mining was still active here, on a big scale. Longstone Edge had been the subject of a long-running campaign protesting against the extent of limestone extraction, thirteen million tons of Peak District hillside trucked away every year for roadworks and building projects.

  He could see graded piles of chippings awaiting collection near the new haulage road to Cavendish Mill. Some abandoned workings had filled with water, forming the kind of small lake known locally as a flash, its surface seething with rain.

  Putting his head down, Cooper carried on walking. If he remembered rightly, the mere names of the tracks in this area were redolent with history. At one time, Black Harry the highwayman had terrorized travellers crossing the moors around Longstone and Birchlow. His activities had gone on for years before they were cut short on the gibbet at Wardlow Mires. But his name still lived on in Black Harry Lane, Black Harry Gate, and Black Harry House. His memory was preserved forever on the White Peak sheets of the Ordnance Survey map.

  In fact, with so many clues to Black Harry’s whereabouts, it was fu
nny that the highwayman had taken so long to catch.

  Fry found Wayne Abbott loading some equipment back into his vehicle. Abbott was lucky enough to have been given a 4x4 to drive and had managed to get near the scene without having to hike across the fields.

  ‘Those hoof marks,’ said Fry. ‘When were they left?’

  ‘Ah, I expect you mean pre-or post-mortem? It’s difficult to say.’

  ‘Still –?’

  The crime-scene manager shrugged. ‘No, really – it’s too difficult to say. Unless we find a hoof mark underneath the body, or some other conflicting trace …’

  ‘Let me know soonest if you do.’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘So we still don’t know how he got from dinner at the Le Chien Noir to a field near Birchlow,’ said Fry thoughtfully.

  ‘On horseback?’ suggested Murfin. ‘Since we have all these hoof marks.’

  Fry shook her head. ‘It seems pretty unlikely to me, but forensics will be able to tell us when they get his clothes in the lab.’

  ‘Well, how else do the horses come into it?’

  ‘I don’t know. But there are an awful lot of the hunting fraternity hallooing about down there with their fancy jackets and strangled vowels.’

  ‘Ah. The fox-hunting re-enactment society, I call them.’

  ‘I prefer “the unspeakable in pursuit of the uneatable”,’ said Fry.

  ‘That’s not one of my quotes.’

  ‘No, it’s Oscar Wilde.’

  Fry hated not knowing more about the victim. Was he a saboteur? Could his killers have been members of the hunt? But he didn’t look the type to be an animal rights protestor. No mohican, no sabbing equipment. And none of the genuine sabs had any knowledge of him. Or they weren’t willing to admit they had. But why were horses’ hoof marks found? There had to be a reason for their presence, and the hunt were the obvious suspects.

  She turned at the sound of clumsy footsteps clattering on the rocks. She was met by a startled gaze and a snort of alarm from a black muzzle.

  ‘Those damn sheep.’

  Then she looked up at the sky in surprise. Well, at least it had stopped raining at last.

  Cooper had reached the outer cordon, where blue-and-white crime-scene tape was strung between two gate posts and across the path. He gave his name to the officer at the cordon as he passed through, and saw Fry and Murfin walking back across the field from the body tent. Fry looked cold and tired, her coat and hair filmed with rain.

  ‘Ben – I didn’t think you were serious,’ she said when he got nearer.

  ‘Why wouldn’t I be?’

  ‘Nobody comes out of a nice dry office on a day like this, if they can possibly help it.’

  ‘But I said I’d come, didn’t I? Why would I say that, if I didn’t mean it?’

  Fry shrugged. ‘To impress someone?’

  Cooper turned away. Though Fry was wrong about his reason, he didn’t want her to probe any further.

  ‘So what’s the situation?’ he said. ‘Have you got an ID? Any initial lines of enquiry?’

  ‘Just a minute,’ said Fry. ‘Before you get carried away – I don’t really need you here. I don’t want to be responsible for wrecking the duty roster just because you got bored sitting around on your backside.’

  ‘Actually, I think you do need me, Diane.’

  ‘Oh? How do you make that out?’

  ‘You said members of the Eden Valley Hunt were involved?’

  ‘They might be. We haven’t established that yet.’

  ‘Horses, though.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And what do you know about horses? What do you know about the hunt, or hunt supporters?’

  ‘I can ask.’

  Cooper gazed steadily at her. ‘You know perfectly well that I can talk to them better than you, and get more information out of them. You’ll just get everyone’s backs up.’

  ‘What do you mean by that?’

  ‘You know what I mean.’

  ‘No, do tell me. How do I get everyone’s backs up?’

  ‘Well, I bet you have your own fixed views on field sports already. Have you expressed any opinions yet while you’ve been here? Shall I ask Gavin?’

  Fry bit her lip. She always seemed to hate admitting that he was right.

  ‘All right, I’ll compromise,’ she said finally. ‘I’ll fill you in with what we have so far, and I’ll let you look at the scene. If you can contribute anything useful, you can stay, and I’ll square it with the DI.’

  ‘Great.’

  ‘Wait. But if I think you’re just bullshitting and you’ve nothing new to contribute, you’re out of here and back to your paperwork, no matter how boring you’re finding it.’

  Cooper smiled. ‘OK, Diane. It’s a deal.’

  She looked at him, evidently wondering whether he was serious. She had never really understood him, and he didn’t suppose it was going to be any different today.

  Cooper listened carefully while Fry filled him in.

  ‘These hoof marks,’ said Cooper when she’d finished. ‘You said something about the hunt?’

  ‘As I told you, the Eden Valley Hunt has been out this morning. There was a police presence for the meet. They were expecting trouble from saboteurs. Got it, too.’

  ‘Yes, I saw the hunt.’

  ‘There were so many dogs. Why do they need so many?’

  ‘Dogs?’ said Cooper. ‘You mean hounds.’

  Fry shook her head. ‘I know a dog when I see one.’

  Cooper sighed. He’d grown up with a different relationship to the Eden Valley Hunt. Not only did the hunt rely on the goodwill of local farmers, it was one of the great organizers of social events. A dinner dance at Hassop Hall, a hunt ball at the Palace Hotel in Buxton, Buck’s fizz and a horn-blowing competition, a charity auction in aid of the air ambulance … Not many weeks ago, the hunt had thrown their annual Christmas party for farmers’ children. Cooper could recollect being taken to it himself a few times, when he was very small. The parties actually took place just after Christmas – but nevertheless involved a visit by Santa, dropping in at Edendale on his way home to Lapland.

  ‘But apart from the hoof marks, you have no evidence anyone from the hunt was involved?’

  ‘Well – that, and all the people milling around on horseback a few hundred yards away from the scene. It’s pretty persuasive circumstantial evidence.’

  ‘Was it the hounds who found the body?’ asked Cooper.

  ‘Apparently, they came down this way, but the dog men were on hand – oh, what do you call them?’

  ‘The huntsman? The whipper-in?’

  ‘Yes, them. They called the hounds away, but didn’t realize what the pack had found. They assumed it must be a dead sheep or something. It was the helicopter crew who actually called it in.’

  ‘The hounds are supposed to follow a scent trail. I wonder why they would get distracted by a human smell?’

  ‘I don’t know. Perhaps he smelled a bit foxy.’

  Cooper could see that Fry was getting exasperated. But the light was fading anyway, and there wasn’t much else that could be done here. There was just one thing more.

  ‘If he was killed at around eight thirty, it would have been daylight,’ said Cooper. ‘I wonder who would have been able to see the scene from the surrounding area.’

  Fry gazed around. ‘Can’t tell in this light. There seems to be a farm way over there, past that barn. Maybe a lorry driver on one of the quarry roads. No one in Birchlow – the village is in a dip from here.’

  ‘You might see the lower part of the track, though.’

  ‘If his killers came that way. The SOCOs will try to establish an approach route in the morning when the light is better. And hopefully, the weather.’

  Cooper peered through the dusk. ‘What about Eyam? Some of those houses are in a direct line of sight to the crime scene. And there aren’t even any trees in the way.’

  ‘It’s way across the valley,�
� said Fry. ‘Too far away for anyone to have seen anything, surely?’

  The southern side of Longstone Moor was occupied only by a few quiet, self-contained farmsteads sheltering behind their walls of silage bags. But on the north side of the moor, it was quite different. Lorries and giant dumper trucks ran backwards and forwards to the quarries on unmade roads, blowing clouds of white dust behind them, as if their wheels were on fire. The rain had carved channels down some of those roads, forcing lorries up on to eroded bank sides. Cooper could hear the booming of the empty wagons, the scream of reversing alarms on the dumpers. Nobody would be out walking in this area – the dust was too thick, too gritty on the wind.

  ‘It depends,’ said Cooper. ‘It depends on what there was for anyone to see.’

  Seventy-five miles away, in the Great Barr area of Birmingham, Erin Lacey was watching her father pack. The Mercedes already stood in the drive, and his laptop was in its case, ready to go.

  ‘How long will you be away?’ she asked.

  ‘I’m not sure, love.’

  ‘Will you phone?’

  ‘Of course.’

  Michael Clay looked at his daughter. ‘I know how you feel about this, Erin. I realize you don’t approve.’

  ‘No. And I’m not going to pretend otherwise.’

  Erin tried hard to control her feelings. She knew that getting angry wouldn’t do any good. Her father could be very stubborn when he got an idea into his head. For a middle-aged accountant, he was remarkably headstrong about some things. And this idea was the most ludicrous one he’d ever had, as far as Erin was concerned.

  As he zipped up his bag, she thought about how much he’d changed, not just since her mother had died a few years ago, but after the death of her uncle Stuart. When pancreatic cancer took his older brother last year, Michael Clay had been hit very hard. It had taken him a long time to get round to sorting out Uncle Stuart’s possessions, to sift through the memories. She could understand that, of course.

  But after that, everything had seemed to happen very quickly. Her father had developed this obsession with what had happened in the past – the very dim and distant past, so far as Erin was concerned. And then this woman had appeared.