06.The Dead Place

by Stephen Booth

  But then I looked at the sky. I was facing north, and I wasn’t sure if that was right. The feet of a body should be pointing to the east, and the head to the west. But which direction should you pray to? Where is God? North, south, east or west? Where does a soul go when it’s released? Does it flicker upwards into the sun, like a swirl of mist vanishing at dawn? Or is it absorbed into the earth’s atmosphere, drawn into the aurora, where it dances for ever in the flames of the north?

  I brought my face lower, until I could hold it close to the bones. I sniffed, tilting my head to catch the play of light and shadow. A skeleton is a remarkable thing. Seen up close, it could be a soaring architectural structure – a cityscape or a cathedral. I saw the ribs curving in graceful arches, the skull a mysterious dome with dark recesses where moonlight glittered on something cold and wet.

  Slowly, I allowed myself to follow the grain on the outer sheath of the scapula, to enjoy the planes and angles. I smiled with pleasure at the pure, white smoothness of a joint where once there had been gristle and black strings of tendon. I was so close to the bones that I could see my breath condense on their surfaces. I inhaled the faintest of scents – the scent of a perfect death, pure and clean, and irresistible.

  Then I flicked open the blade. I began to work my way inch by inch, brushing at a bit of dirt with a cloth, teasing loose a spider’s web. With the edge of my scalpel, I scraped at a dark encrustation on the lower pelvic plate, until the paler surface of the bone appeared. It was still slightly stained, but it’ll weather like the rest, given time. I wasn’t wearing gloves tonight, but I held my hands at an angle, tilted at the wrist, so that my fingers were clear of the surfaces. I felt like a musician fingering the keys of a delicate instrument.

  The thought makes me smile again. In a way, I’m rather like a musician, because music requires a certain kind of skill that comes from practice and dedication. You have to be single-minded, if you’re seeking perfection.

  Tonight I wasn’t disturbed. So this time I wasn’t meant to stop. When I was finished, I put away the scalpel with a feeling of satisfaction. I wanted to do everything possible to reach a point as close to perfection as I could achieve. I might not have the chance to go back again. This was probably my final visit. My last hour in the dead place.

  30

  Fry hadn’t really been watching for Ben Cooper to come on duty that morning. A prisoner had come into the cells overnight, and she’d been consulting the custody sergeant about interview arrangements.

  As she passed through the security door from the custody suite to go back to the main building, she paused and pulled up her collar against a flurry of rain. Then she glanced across at the staff car park. Her attention had been drawn by a flash of light from a windscreen as a car backed into a parking space. She recognized Cooper’s red Toyota, and she hesitated, intending to wait for him so they could walk up to the CID room together. She saw Cooper get out, but he didn’t look round.

  Then the passenger door began to swing open, and Fry realized he’d given someone a lift to work. He was the perfect Good Samaritan. Probably Gavin Murfin’s car had broken down, and Cooper had stepped in to help.

  She was about to move away when she caught a glimpse of blonde hair and a navy-blue sweater. Cooper’s early-morning passenger was entirely the wrong shape to be Gavin Murfin. Entirely wrong. The image of a broken-down car vanished from her mind, to be replaced by a different scenario altogether.

  Fry found it difficult to concentrate as she made her way back upstairs. She was trying to remember what else she had to attend to that was urgent before she went out. There was definitely something. Probably several things. But one thing she wanted to do was get those skeletons in the Alder Hall crypt checked out. John Casey had said there had been an earlier inventory of the bones, which should help a lot.

  ‘Alder Hall? Oh, I think I can help you here,’ said Dr Jamieson when Fry rang him. ‘The study you’re referring to was carried out by one of my predecessors. The records will be here in our archives.’

  ‘That would be wonderful. But are you sure?’

  ‘I can soon check. I’ll get back to you ASAP.’

  As soon as Cooper entered the room, he sensed something was wrong. There was one of those atmospheres, a vague uneasiness that was difficult to put his finger on. He looked at Fry, and saw her putting the phone down. The tightness of her expression confirmed his suspicion.

  ‘There was an incident at the funeral director’s during the night,’ she said, without bothering to say ‘good morning’.

  Puzzled, Cooper looked at his watch. It wasn’t as if he was late for duty or anything. He was a bit early, in fact. He felt a surge of irritation at her rudeness.

  ‘An incident? At Hudson and Slack, you mean?’

  ‘Where else?’

  ‘Well, I don’t know,’ he said. ‘There are plenty of other funeral directors in this division.’

  Fry gave him a cool stare. ‘Yes, at Hudson and Slack. A person or persons unknown set fire to the place in the early hours of the morning. The fire service reports extensive damage. I haven’t been out there yet. I thought you might want to come along – if you’re not busy with something else, that is.’

  ‘What would I be busy with?’

  ‘Well, I don’t know. There are plenty of other ongoing cases in this division.’

  Cooper sighed. ‘OK, Diane. Was that what the phone call was about?’

  ‘No. Believe it or not, that was a helpful anthropologist. With a bit of luck, he might be able to produce records of the bone collection at Alder Hall.’

  ‘That is a bit of luck.’

  ‘The first one so far.’

  ‘I have to say, those bones looked pretty old to me,’ said Cooper. ‘If there was a recent human skull from those remains in Ravensdale, it would stand out, wouldn’t it?’

  ‘An expert, are you? Learned a bit more than we thought from your friend the professor?’

  Cooper shook his head, trying to shake off the irritation. ‘It might mean we don’t have to bring Dr Jamieson’s team in to look at the bones, if the records tally. So we’d save on the budget, too.’

  ‘And, hey presto, everyone’s happy,’ said Fry.

  But Cooper looked at her thoughtfully. Happy was far from how she looked.

  ‘According to John Casey, those bones were found somewhere in the grounds of the hall,’ she said. ‘Do you think Mrs Chadwick would know where exactly?’

  ‘She might do.’

  ‘Ask her, then.’

  ‘Sure.’

  He looked down at his desk. Work was waiting for him. If anything was really urgent – well, it was hard luck, unless he could snatch a few minutes. But Fry hadn’t finished yet.

  ‘Ben, you don’t believe the Alder Hall crypt is what he means by “the dead place”, do you?’ she said.

  ‘It’s just a feeling. You might not understand.’

  ‘Try me.’

  ‘I felt … Well, when I was down there, it felt as though the place had been dead for too long. Does that make sense?’

  Fry stared at him, as though she might actually be trying to understand him. ‘It’s no more than that?’

  ‘Sorry.’

  Cooper put his jacket back on, and they headed out. He didn’t like to admit to Fry what he was actually thinking. It was something Freddy Robertson had said to him, when he’d been explaining the purpose of a sarcophagus and the charnel house, and the rituals that went with them.

  The memory had come back to him as he stood in the crypt at Alder Hall. For a moment, Cooper had felt a hint of what his ancient ancestors had instinctively believed. The bones piled in that crypt had been perfectly clean and dry, free of the last shreds of flesh that had once clung to them. If it was the fragments of a physical structure that held a soul to its body, then the spirits that hovered around those bones had long since departed.

  ‘By the way,’ said Fry in the car, ‘I’ve started making enquiries into John Casey’s ba
ckground.’

  ‘The property agent? Why?’

  ‘Well, those two sets of remains were found on Alder Hall estate land. Admittedly, they were much nearer to Mr Jarvis’s property than to the hall, but that’s only because of the size of the estate. Casey is the man immediately responsible for the site, and he has the opportunity for unrestricted access, too. Once you’re inside those gates, anything you do is entirely out of public view. That doesn’t apply to anyone approaching from the Ravensdale side, where there are residents in the cottages, and walkers on the footpath.’

  ‘Not to mention the Jarvises and their dogs.’

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘Well, John Casey may not be the most efficient property agent in the world. But he struck me as vaguely incompetent, rather than criminal.’

  ‘Didn’t you think he was a bit quick to draw our attention to Maurice Goodwin and his role at Alder Hall? That was too convenient, I thought.’

  ‘Did you?’

  ‘Look, Goodwin left the company three months ago. And Casey just happens not to have made arrangements for somebody else to check the hall regularly since then? And he just happens not to have found a replacement for Goodwin. Why not? What’s so special about the job that he wasn’t satisfied with any of the applicants?’

  ‘I don’t know. Diane, what are you suggesting?’

  ‘I’m wondering if Casey had Maurice Goodwin lined up as a scapegoat to take the blame if things went wrong. In any case, I’d like to know why Goodwin left the job in the first place.’

  ‘A personality clash, Mr Casey said.’

  ‘That usually means a blazing row with the boss. What if John Casey deliberately manoeuvred Goodwin into a position where he’d decide that he’d had enough and walk out?’

  ‘Leaving Casey himself with free run of the estate?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘But a free run to do what, Diane? Dump dead bodies in the undergrowth?’

  ‘Or provide the opportunity for somebody else to do it.’

  ‘It’d be a bit risky,’ said Cooper. ‘What if a buyer came along to inspect the property? He could have ended up with surveyors and builders swarming all over the estate.’

  ‘Not without plenty of warning. Casey is the man with the keys, remember. Besides, the hall has been on the market for two years. I’ll bet he exhausted the supply of potential buyers a long time ago.’

  ‘Two years, that’s right …’ Cooper worked the timings out in his head. ‘I bet whoever dumped Audrey Steele’s body was hoping the hall would never find a buyer, and the estate would stay neglected. He overlooked the fact that “right to roam” would give walkers free access.’

  ‘I wonder if Casey ever suggested bringing the price of the property down,’ said Fry.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Well, that’s what an agent would normally do if he couldn’t find a buyer. He’d advise the seller to come down a bit. If you refuse to lower the price, it looks as though you’re not serious about selling.’

  ‘You seem to know a lot about the property market all of a sudden, Diane. I thought you’d never owned a house of your own. You rent a flat, like me.’

  ‘I haven’t always lived in Derbyshire. I had a life in civilization before I came here.’

  Fry turned away and looked out of the car window, as if her thoughts had started to stray.

  ‘Well, if Alder Hall is “the dead place”,’ said Cooper, ‘then John Casey was right about one thing, at least.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘It’s a little different from the normal house sale.’

  He laughed, and glanced at Fry. But her face never changed. She’d drifted off somewhere, to a place where there wasn’t much to laugh about.

  The car park at Hudson and Slack was empty, except for the fire investigator’s van and two police vehicles. There appeared to be no damage to the building at first, as Cooper and Fry drove down the street. The sign over the entrance was intact, and still claimed Hudson and Slack to be a dependable family business. It was only when they parked next to a patrol car that they saw the blackened walls and shattered windows. The parking area was running with water, but it was difficult to tell how much of it was rain and how much was from the firefighters’ hoses.

  ‘The damage is serious, but confined to the offices and a store room,’ said the fire investigator, brushing soot off his fluorescent jacket. ‘Luckily, the internal doors are all pretty solid and fitted with automatic closure mechanisms. They resisted the flames long enough for the first appliance on the scene to get the fire under control within half an hour or so.’

  ‘There’s no doubt it was started deliberately?’ asked Fry.

  ‘None at all. The back door has been forced, and there are indications of accelerant all over the store room. The fire ignited within five or six feet of the doorway. Similar story with the vehicle.’

  ‘Vehicle?’

  He gestured towards the compound behind the building. ‘There’s a burnt-out hearse. Your arsonists smashed the windscreen, chucked accelerant in and torched it. I found the remains of a plastic petrol can on the front seat.’

  ‘That might be useful.’

  The investigator smiled. ‘Plastic doesn’t hold up well in a fire, so it’s just a molten lump. But you’re welcome to it. I doubt Forensics will tell you much, except that it’s green.’

  ‘Green? What does that mean?’

  ‘Well, if they were following regulations, the petrol should have been unleaded.’

  Two lines of crime scene tape stretched from the building to the fence, and a uniformed officer in a waterproof jacket stood by with a clipboard, guarding the perimeter. There was a cough and a shower of rubble, and a scenes-of-crime officer emerged from the damaged doorway. Cooper saw with pleasure that it was Liz Petty. Well, given current staffing levels, it was a fifty-fifty chance she’d have been called out.

  Petty smiled, then looked at Fry and ducked her head to wipe a smear of soot from her face with a gloved hand.

  ‘No secret about what happened here,’ she said.

  ‘So we hear,’ said Fry. ‘But no doubt you’ve got a contribution to make.’

  The SOCO blinked slightly, but carefully avoided meeting anyone’s eye. She pointed at the fence. ‘That’s the way the offenders entered the property. They cut the fence and came over the wall from the railway line.’

  Cooper walked to the wall and looked down into the cutting. ‘There are some industrial units on the other side of the line.’

  ‘Security cameras?’ asked Fry.

  ‘A few, but they’re covering their own premises. There’s no reason they should have a camera pointing this way.’

  ‘We’ll have to see if any of them had a night shift working.’

  Petty ran a hand along the edge of the door frame. ‘I’ve lifted some good tool marks from the door. But it was probably just an ordinary crowbar or wrecking bar they used.’

  ‘Why does this door open outwards?’ asked Fry.

  ‘Ironically, because it’s a fire exit.’

  ‘And there was accelerant used in the store room?’

  ‘Yes, and two inner doors were forced open. By the way, I’d like to get the doors removed and taken to the lab.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Well, your offenders were in a hurry, so they didn’t bother to jemmy the inner doors – they just kicked them open. I’m pretty sure there are boot prints on the panels. But with the amount of fire damage, we’ll need lab facilities to get anything useful from them.’

  ‘You keep saying “they”,’ said Cooper. ‘What makes you think there was more than one person?’

  Petty shrugged. ‘Well, there’s no direct evidence, unless we can get two separate boot prints from the doors. But they didn’t hang about here, you know. The fire service say they had a crew on the scene within ten minutes of the alarm. I’d say there were two people, possibly three. Two to break the doors open, while the third spread the petrol. Then they got out of th
e building quick, chucked in a match or a lighted rag, and left the scene. Apart from the one who wasn’t satisfied with what he’d achieved …’

  ‘You mean the hearse.’

  ‘Yes. That wasn’t really necessary. It looks like spite. It must have delayed their getaway by a couple of minutes.’

  Without crossing the tape, Cooper moved to where he could see the compound and the scorched paintwork of the hearse. Curiously, only the front end of the vehicle had been damaged, leaving the rear compartment almost intact, though blackened inside by smoke.

  ‘What happened to the other vehicles?’ asked Fry. ‘There were several limousines in there, and another hearse, too.’

  ‘The staff were allowed to remove them,’ said Petty. ‘They had a funeral scheduled first thing this morning, so the uniforms let them get on with it. There was even a body in the fridge. That part of the building is undamaged, but the power’s off, so they could hardly leave the poor soul in there.’

  ‘I suppose it was the right decision,’ said Fry grudgingly. ‘Can we get inside, or are you still keeping the place to yourself?’

  ‘Just walk on the stepping plates and stay close to the wall.’

  Cooper hung back as Fry went inside. He looked at Petty. ‘Sorry about Diane. She’s been like that ever since I came on duty. I don’t know what’s up with her.’

  The SOCO began to strip off her gloves. Her face was flushed and glittering with rain. ‘I think I might know.’

  ‘Really? Has she talked to you?’

  ‘I can’t tell you, Ben.’ She looked at the window of the store room, protected by steel bars but with its glass shattered from the heat of the fire. ‘You’d better go, or you’ll be in trouble.’

  Cooper began to move towards the doorway, but hesitated. ‘See you later?’

  Petty nodded. ‘Yeah.’

  *

  Diane Fry stood in the burnt-out building, her nostrils filled with the stench of smoke and charred furniture. Water still sloshed around on the floor from the fire crew’s hoses, black and floating with ash. She was aware of Cooper talking to Liz Petty outside, but she couldn’t hear what they were saying, and she didn’t want to. She moved further away from the window, in case she overheard her name. Deep inside, she was holding on to a tide of anger. It felt too strong to resist for ever, or the dam would burst. She had to channel it in some way.