06.The Dead Place

by Stephen Booth

  ‘Do you have a complete skeleton?’ asked the professor suddenly.

  Cooper was startled. ‘Why do you ask?’

  ‘It could be significant.’ Robertson smiled. ‘That’s what detectives say when they’re interviewing a witness, isn’t it?’

  ‘On TV it is, anyway.’

  Robertson’s face changed, but he hid his expression behind his whisky glass.

  ‘There are some bones missing,’ said Cooper. ‘It may mean nothing, though. The forensic anthropologist’s report suggests the activity of scavengers.’

  ‘It’s quite possible. But if you’re thinking along ritual lines, you should bear in mind that there have been many different attitudes to death, and some of our ancestors’ practices have caused problems for archaeologists.’

  ‘Problems?’

  ‘Animals and birds do tend to carry off the smaller skeletal parts, so it was usually only the larger bones that survived excarnation – that’s the technical term for leaving the corpse out in the open air. But after the animals and birds had taken their pick, the long bones and skull were often taken for use in ceremonies.’

  Robertson looked at him expectantly. When Cooper asked the next question he felt as though he was responding to a cue, like one of Pavlov’s dogs.

  ‘What kind of ceremonies?’

  ‘Any ceremony in which it was useful to have the assistance of one’s dead ancestors. Skulls are considered particularly powerful. But other bones have their significance, too. They relate to the continuing influence of ancestral spirits.’

  Robertson stood up and walked to the window, clasping his hands behind his back and staring at the ground like an Oxford don in his college quad.

  ‘You must think about death quite a bit, sir?’ said Cooper.

  But the professor just laughed, his mouth opening wide to show strong teeth and a glimpse of a moist tongue.

  ‘Try reading Ecclesiastes.’

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘Old Testament, dear boy. “As one dies, so does the other. They all have the same breath, and man has no advantage over the beasts. All are from the dust, and all to dust turn again.”’

  Cooper was starting to feel much the way he had at school during lessons from one of his more pedantic history teachers.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Robertson, studying his expression. ‘I’m afraid I miss my little group of students, and I can’t resist an opportunity to lecture.’

  ‘That’s all right, sir.’

  ‘Anything else?’

  Cooper still hadn’t been given a chance to hear the tapes of the phone calls that Fry was so worried about. But her hunt through the area for locations had left him turning over in his mind the possible meanings of the phrase the caller had used.

  ‘Yes. What does “the dead place” mean to you?’

  Robertson gazed out of the window thoughtfully, took a sip of his Glenfiddich, and shook his head, stirring the wings of grey hair over his temples. He repeated the phrase silently to himself a couple of times, his lips glittering with drops of whisky as they moved.

  ‘It could mean anything, couldn’t it?’ said Cooper finally.

  The professor jerked as if woken from a daze. ‘Yes, I’m afraid so.’

  Cooper closed his notebook. ‘Well, I think that’s about it for now, sir.’

  ‘Please don’t hesitate to get in touch if you need to talk again. It all sounds most intriguing.’

  As he made his way back through the tiled hallway, Cooper passed under the coat rack. He wondered if the professor had shot the deer himself and taken its feet instead of its antlers as a trophy.

  ‘Fashions change,’ said Robertson, his voice echoing in the hallway. ‘But our deepest instincts don’t, I’m afraid. We’re fascinated by death, yet afraid of it. The enclosed coffin is a symptom of our refusal to accept the reality. Did you know the word “burial” derives from the Anglo-Saxon birgan, meaning to conceal. Personally, I’ve always felt the sarcophagus was a rather more civilized option.’

  ‘A sarcophagus?’ Cooper’s head was suddenly filled with images of Egyptian mummies, and a half-remembered kaleidoscope of pyramids, pharaohs and golden effigies of Tutankhamen.

  ‘At least we’d enjoy a bit of light and air,’ said Robertson as he opened his front door.

  And Cooper was still shaking his head at the professor’s non-sequitur as he drove past the new houses, out of Totley, and back towards the Derbyshire border.

  It was Graceless who lay dead on the boards of Mr Jarvis’s porch. As Ben Cooper walked up the steps, the first thing he noticed was the bloodstained patch of hair on the dog’s side, just behind her front leg.

  ‘Did you see anybody, Mr Jarvis?’

  ‘No. They were off in the woods somewhere. But I heard the shot.’

  It was immediately obvious to Cooper that the dog had been killed by a rifle bullet, not by a discharge from a shotgun, as he’d expected. He’d seen dogs killed by shotgun pellets before. In fact, a few weeks ago, Matt had shot a stray Doberman that had been worrying his sheep. A cartridge full of pellets caused a very visible mess. But in this case, the blood seemed to have come from a single wound, close enough to the heart and other vital organs to be instantly fatal.

  When he bent to examine the injury, Cooper saw that the blood had already darkened and begun to dry. It had matted the hair even more and made it difficult to find the exact entry point of the bullet. He forced apart two hanks of sticky fur and glimpsed a neat black hole in the dog’s skin.

  ‘Only one shot?’

  ‘That’s all I heard. I thought there must be folk out rabbiting.’

  ‘Maybe there were. And a stray shot …’

  ‘Oh, aye. A stray shot that hit the old lass right in the heart. That’d be what it was, no doubt.’

  Jarvis threw a blanket over the dog and turned away.

  ‘Where are the other dogs?’ said Cooper.

  ‘Down in the paddock.’

  Everything was soaking wet, including the boards and the dog. Jarvis took off his cap, revealing a patch of white scalp where his hair had receded but the sun had never reached his skin.

  ‘You’d best get moving if you’re going to stand a chance of catching them,’ he said.

  ‘We’ll be following the incident up, sir.’

  ‘Bloody amazing.’

  He reached down to the dog’s neck and unfastened the collar. When Cooper followed him to the door of the house, he saw Jarvis drop the strip of worn leather into a drawer of the kitchen dresser. He thought he glimpsed other collars in there, perhaps mementos of previous dogs he’d owned. A little private collection of memories.

  ‘If you could just show me exactly where you found the dog, sir?’ said Cooper.

  They walked through the overgrown paddock and down towards the stream. The three remaining dogs were pacing restlessly backwards and forwards in the grass. One of them crept behind the abandoned trailer and waited out of sight for Cooper to pass. But it only wanted to sidle up to him and push its wet muzzle into his hand. He patted the dog’s head and rubbed its ears.

  ‘Why did you come down here in the first place?’ asked Cooper as he stood looking at the stream running through the damp shade of the ash trees.

  ‘I heard a noise in the woods during the night.’

  ‘What sort of noise? Voices?’

  Jarvis frowned. ‘No, not that. A metallic thump, like they’d walked into something in the dark.’

  Cooper glanced up at the paddock, with its lumps of rusting metal hidden by the long grass.

  ‘More than likely,’ he said. ‘And what did you do, Mr Jarvis?’

  ‘I went out to have a look, of course.’

  ‘What time was this?’

  ‘It must have been about midnight, and it were siling down.’

  ‘Not a good time for someone to be taking a midnight stroll, then.’

  Jarvis gave him a sour look, but didn’t bother to reply.

  ‘When you went outside, did you
see anybody?’ asked Cooper.

  ‘No. There was just a bag on the ground near the porch. A game bag – like shooters and poachers use sometimes, you know what I mean? So I picked it up. I thought maybe somebody had left me a bit of a present.’

  ‘Has that happened before?’

  ‘I know a few lads who go shooting,’ said Jarvis evasively.

  ‘OK. So what was in the bag?’

  ‘Cack. It were full of cack.’

  For a moment, Cooper didn’t understand. ‘You mean dung? It was full of animal excreta?’

  Jarvis shook his head and screwed up his face, as if remembering all too clearly the distinctive smell as he opened the bag.

  ‘Human,’ he said.

  ‘Are you sure?’

  Jarvis gave him a derisive look, but didn’t answer. Some questions were too stupid to waste breath on.

  ‘Do you have any idea who might have a reason to do that?’

  ‘Somebody I’ve pissed off, I suppose. That doesn’t take much working out.’

  ‘And have you pissed off many people? Have you had a dispute with someone recently?’

  ‘Ramblers, now and then. They’re a bloody nuisance, some of them.’

  ‘Have you still got the bag?’

  ‘I burned it.’

  Cooper sighed. ‘I don’t suppose Mrs Jarvis saw anything?’

  ‘She was fast asleep. She sleeps through anything.’

  The three dogs sprawled on the porch steps now, their huge heads hanging over the edge as they watched the men walk towards the gate. Cooper recalled the motorbike he’d seen outside the house the first time he’d visited. It wasn’t here now, and he wondered who rode it. Probably one of Mr Jarvis’s sons. Or maybe even the mysterious Mrs Jarvis herself. Perhaps he should have taken more notice of the bike at the time, but he’d been too intrigued by the abandoned hulks in the paddock, and too keen to get out of the rain.

  ‘Oh, the bag of cack,’ said Jarvis.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘She doesn’t know anything about it. The wife, I mean.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘She gets upset about stuff. No point in telling her.’

  ‘I don’t think that’ll be a problem, sir.’

  Cooper coasted to the corner of the track and stopped the car. He turned towards the driver’s window, as if having difficulty adjusting his seat belt. From here, the roof and upper storey of the Jarvis house were still visible through the trees. But the movement he’d seen in an upstairs window failed to resolve itself into more than a pale blur. It was the face of a person standing too far back from the window to be recognizable in the shadows. Was it Mrs Jarvis? Or just her husband, anxious to see whether Cooper had left the premises? Of course, it could be someone else entirely. There was no way of telling.

  Cooper closed the window, pressed the accelerator and bumped the Toyota back up the track from Litton Foot. When he was fifty yards from the house, he pushed a CD into the player and filled the car with the sound of Runrig’s ‘Hearthammer’.

  As a result, he just missed hearing the grumble of a motorcycle engine as it moved hesitantly through the damp woods of Ravensdale.

  When Cooper walked back into the CID room, Fry was listening to the tapes again, with her headphones over her ears and an expression of concentrated loathing on her face.

  ‘What’s that, Diane?’ Cooper asked as he took off his coat, shaking a few drops of water on to the carpet.

  She paused the tape and slipped off her headphones. ‘Our talkative psycho. These clues he’s given us in his second call have got to be his big mistake.’

  ‘Is he a man who makes mistakes, do you think?’

  ‘No,’ said Fry. ‘Bastard.’

  She began to put the headphones back on, but Cooper stopped her.

  ‘Hold on. Can I listen? I haven’t had a chance to hear it yet.’

  Fry nodded. She unplugged the headphones and started the tape again. Cooper listened to it for a few moments, trying to filter out the words from the distortion that robbed them of any recognizable humanity. Then he remembered Audrey Steele’s dental records. If they hadn’t arrived, he’d have to make another call to Moorhouse’s. He checked the fax machine, and gave a murmur of satisfaction.

  ‘Diane, I’ve got the dental records for Audrey Steele.’

  ‘Are you going to send them to Sheffield?’

  ‘It’s already done. I got the dentist to send them direct, and this is just a copy. Trouble is, all this stuff doesn’t mean anything to me.’

  ‘You’ll have to wait until we hear what the experts have to say.’

  Cooper was looking at the fax when the voice coming from the tape machine penetrated his concentration.

  ‘What was that bit?’ he said.

  Fry looked up in surprise. ‘What?’

  ‘What did he say just then?’

  The tape was still running, and Cooper waved his hand urgently. ‘Wind it back a bit, Diane. Let me listen to that last part again.’

  ‘If you want, Ben. There’s nothing in it, though. Only a lot of pretentious drivel he likes to spout.’

  But she did as he asked, and replayed the last couple of minutes.

  ‘Well, if that isn’t pretentious, I don’t know what is,’ she said.

  ‘Not that part,’ said Cooper. ‘Shh.’

  They should decay in the open air until their flesh is gone, said the metallic voice.

  Then there was a pause. And to Cooper it seemed a perfectly drawn-out pause, like the skilful timing of an experienced actor.

  Or, of course, a sarcophagus.

  12

  Melvyn Hudson forced himself to smile sympathetically at a passing griever. He was afraid his expression might come out as a grimace and give the wrong impression. As soon as he could, he took the old man by the arm and encouraged him gently towards the limousines.

  ‘It was nothing, Abraham,’ he said. ‘Nothing to do with us.’

  ‘Why did the police come, then?’

  ‘It was only one officer. Just routine enquiries, I expect.’

  Abraham Slack was a little more frail than he used to be, and paler. But he still had a strength and dignity that made Hudson feel uncertain when he had to deal with him.

  The old man took a deep breath. ‘It’s damaging to the firm’s reputation, Melvyn.’

  ‘Yes, yes, I know. But nothing will come of it.’

  ‘There would never have been anything like this in your father’s day.’

  ‘Abraham, you know damn well there wouldn’t still be a company if it weren’t for me – so don’t start telling me what it was like in my father’s day.’

  Hudson realized he was losing his composure. He looked around anxiously, and saw some of the mourners watching him. This was the last funeral of the afternoon, and the crematorium staff would be getting impatient if the family weren’t shepherded off the premises soon.

  ‘This is not the time,’ he said.

  ‘We need to talk, Melvyn,’ said Abraham.

  ‘Later, later.’ Hudson brushed nervously at his black jacket as he strode back towards the chapel, his face returning automatically to its professional expression.

  Tom Jarvis put on his boots and collected a spade from the workshop. He walked slowly away from the house, past the empty pigsties and down to a small paddock at the edge of the woods. They called this place the orchard because it contained two apple trees. But the fruit had suffered from blight for years, and now the windfalls already starting to litter the ground looked more like wrinkled plums than apples. Even the birds wouldn’t touch them, unless the winter weather got really bad.

  The ground was damp here, but it was the only part of the property where the soil was deep enough, without hitting rock. Jarvis settled his cap firmly on his head, spat on his hands, and began to dig. His mind seemed to switch off when he was involved in physical work. It helped him to avoid thinking about things too much.

  He had been digging for about half an hour and had
built up a good sweat, when he stopped for a moment to wipe his forehead. Across the stream, someone was watching him. The person was partly hidden by the trees, and was given away only by a slight movement. Jarvis stared at the figure for a while, until it slipped away into the woods, back towards the Alder Hall estate.

  With a sigh, Jarvis took up his spade and began to dig again. The grave needed to be a bit deeper yet, and the soil was heavy. There was no need for him to call out, or go after the person who had been watching him. He already knew exactly who it was.

  ‘Well, this is nice,’ said Professor Robertson. ‘And such a surprise. I really hadn’t anticipated an outing this evening. I think I’m going to like you, Detective Constable Cooper. You bring a little excitement into my life.’

  The professor stood on the grass between the graves in St Mark’s churchyard. His hands were thrust into the pockets of his coat, as if he was afraid to touch anything. Long strands of hair hung over his ears, flapping in the breeze that blew down from the hillsides above Edendale. Below the church, the River Eden could be seen snaking its way through the town.

  ‘I’m really sorry to drag you all the way out here, sir,’ said Cooper. ‘But it could be important.’

  ‘Not at all, not at all. It’s good to get out of the study and away from the books now and then. Very stimulating.’ Robertson nodded, and smiled slyly. ‘Besides, I’m thrilled to get a chance to meet your colleague.’

  Behind Cooper, Fry was leaning against a tombstone, listening but saying nothing. He tried to avoid her eye.

  ‘And these things are actually sarcophagi, you say?’

  ‘Certainly.’

  There were five of them, standing upright against a wall of the church, near the bell tower. Someone had arranged them in descending order, from six feet in length down to one the size of a small child. There were deep cracks in the stone and some of the corners had been sheered off. Pale green lichen had spread across the lower surfaces, like a shroud of cobwebs.

  Cooper reached out a hand to touch the nearest one. He ran his fingers over the rough stone, and felt the chisel marks made by the mason. Despite the occasional bits of damage, the sarcophagi were remarkably intact for their age. Whatever their age was, exactly. They seemed to belong to that murky period of history beyond the medieval.