Blind to the Bones (69 page)

Finally, Cooper looked up and saw her. Fry saw the expression of surprise on his face, and remembered that she was still wearing the hard hat she'd borrowed from one of the contractors. She must look almost as bad as he did, with his face and hands blackened by smoke, like one of the Border Rats made up for a performance.

‘Ben,' she said, ‘how often have I told you – no heroics.'

H
alf an hour later, DC Gavin Murfin arrived in Withens with the latest contingent of emergency services. Ben Cooper had been sent off to hospital with orders to get himself checked over. And after Murfin enquired about casualties, he had some news for Diane Fry.

‘That missing teddy bear turned up,' he said.

‘Emma Renshaw's golden plush?'

‘Yep. Guess where?'

‘I've no idea, Gavin. Did Alex Dearden have it? Have we traced where the antiques are stored?'

‘No such luck. It was in the car.'

‘Which car?'

‘
Her
car – Emma's. It was in the boot.'

‘So the Renshaws had it all the time, and didn't know.'

‘Looks like it. Bit odd, that.'

‘Yes.'

‘Oh, and the hospital say the verdict is hopeful on the vicar. He was lucky – the wall of the building he was standing next to took some of the blast, and most of the shotgun pellets that hit him went into his arm and leg down the right side. Good job someone got to him quick, though – the doctors say he might have bled to death otherwise.'

‘Is he feeling well enough to talk yet?'

‘Nope. He's had most of the pellets dug out of him, but he's still in dreamland from the painkillers.'

‘Pity.'

Murfin looked at her.

‘You're sure everybody's all right, Diane?'

‘Yes,' said Fry. ‘Everybody's fine.'

Murfin turned towards where some uniformed officers were trying to restore order among the residents of Withens. ‘I'll see what's going on over there, then,' he said.

‘Gavin …'

‘Yeah?'

‘Weren't you supposed to be checking on what calls Neil Granger had been making on his mobile the night he was killed?'

‘I did. I told you.'

‘No, you didn't,' said Fry.

‘Well, I tried to anyway. But you were talking to Ben at the time. You were having some kind of heart to heart, like.'

‘Tell me again, Gavin.'

‘Neil Granger made several calls to a number in Glossop. The number was in his phone's memory, so it was easy to find out who it was.'

Fry stared at him. ‘You should have told me this, Gavin. If I was busy, you should have told me later. This is important.'

‘Not really,' said Murfin defensively. ‘It was only who you might have expected him to be phoning.'

‘Hey!'

Diane Fry turned at the shout. A man in a yellow fluorescent jacket and a hard hat was standing behind her, holding a roll of blue plastic sheeting.

‘What do you want? Are you one of the contractors? I'm afraid you'll have to wait. There'll be no work on this site today.'

‘No, I work for the National Grid. Tunnel maintenance.'

‘I'm sorry, but whatever it is you want, you're in the wrong place. You'll have to move away.'

‘Well, I'm only doing what I was told. And it was one of your blokes that told me to do it.'

The man seemed to be about to offer Fry the roll of plastic he was carrying. She backed away.

‘Sorry? What are you talking about?
Who
did you say you are?'

‘My name's Norton. Sandy Norton.' He clutched the plastic sheeting to his chest again and inclined his head sideways. ‘
He
knows me. That one over there.'

Fry followed his gesture. ‘Gavin! There's a gentleman here says he knows you. Deal with him, will you?'

‘Hey up, mate,' said Murfin, walking back across the road. ‘How's it going down in Tunnel Town? What have you got there?'

‘It's what I found.'

‘Found?'

‘In the middle tunnel. Under the air shaft. We had a look, like your mate told us we should. This is what we found. I thought you'd want to see it. But say so if you're not bothered, and I'll burn it.'

‘Let's see.'

Norton began to unwrap the plastic. There were several layers, and Fry was beginning to think there was nothing inside it at all, when the contents finally appeared.

‘A stick,' she said. ‘Gavin, it looks like one of those sticks the Border Rats use.'

‘You're right.'

Norton pointed with a grubby finger. ‘And look, at this end –'

‘Don't touch it!' said Fry. ‘Have you touched it?'

‘I was wearing gloves in the tunnel,' said Norton defensively. ‘And as soon as I saw this, I wrapped it up. Was that the right thing to do?'

‘It'll do fine, thank you.'

‘Well, I'm glad about that. It's blood, isn't it?'

‘It looks like it.'

‘It was the other bloke that told me to look, you know. But I couldn't find him to give it to him. Was he right, then?'

Fry looked over her shoulder at the black terrace and the smouldering buildings behind it. The grey shapes of a few wood pigeons still flapped in and out of the clouds of smoke. They would have to look for a new home soon.

‘Yes, he was right,' she said.

Monday

B
y the bank holiday Monday, Withens didn't feel quite so isolated. In fact, the entire world was rushing by only yards away, and it seemed to be coming nearer.

There were visitors in the village to see the well dressing, and the Quiet Shepherd was doing good trade. But Ben Cooper felt the world was intruding in other ways, too, perhaps more subtly. Walkers following Euroroute E8 all the way from Turkey were ending up in Longdendale. Lorries on trans-Pennine journeys often turned off the A628 to park overnight by the side of the road above Withens, gradually creating their own lay-by by churning up the grass and compacting the ground. Those lorries were from all over the world. Even the acid rain destroying the peat moors might be from anywhere, too – not just Manchester.

Sitting in his car with his mobile phone pressed to his ear, Cooper reflected that if he drew everything on to a map, it would show the village surrounded, though still isolated. It was cut off by the traffic roaring by to the south, and by the power cables of the National Grid and the proposed new trans-Pennine expresses in the tunnels to the west. Together, they formed a net that Withens would never escape. Perhaps the water company would want to clear the whole valley to preserve the purity of its water. The land might be needed for a lorry park or maintenance sheds for the new rail link. And when that happened what would become of people like the Oxleys?

‘I don't believe it was Craig Oxley alone who killed Barry Cully,' said Cooper into his phone. ‘Do you? It's too convenient.'

Diane Fry's voice sounded distant. Not only was she miles away in Edendale, but her mind would be on other things, preparing for an important interview. She was always meticulous about planning interviews, making notes on the areas she wanted to make sure she covered with her questions. Nothing was to be missed out.

‘There's no evidence otherwise, Ben,' she said. ‘The rest of the Oxleys are saying nothing at all.'

‘And they won't, no matter how often they're interviewed. I think Ryan only spoke up because he's been terrified by the Anti-Social Behaviour Order. He knew that if anyone else got into trouble, the whole family would be out of Waterloo Terrace. So he decided it was safer to break ranks and blame Craig, who is safely dead and out of the way already. But I'm convinced the Oxleys do things together, not alone.'

‘And that's your theory, Ben?'

‘And the story is right here, in the collective memory of the Oxleys, and it always will be. We just have no way of getting access to it. Not in a way that we could present to a judge and jury.'

Cooper watched a group of people passing along the road in their black rag coats and their hats and sunglasses. They were some of the dancers and musicians arriving from Hey Bridge for the May Day performance of the Border Rats.

‘You mean all that Border Rats nonsense?' said Fry. ‘The Crown Prosecution Service would love us if we presented them with that lot as key witnesses.'

Because of the crowds and the displays in the village, Cooper had been obliged to park his car on the roadside below the village, on the other side of the church. Somebody driving too fast into Withens had hit a carrion crow that had been feeding on the squashed remains of a rabbit. Its tattered black shape lay half in a pothole on the verge.

Cooper stared at the remains of the crow, its pinions fluttering in the slipstream of a passing car.

‘Nature turned out not to be on their side, didn't it?' he said.

‘Who?'

‘The Oxleys.'

‘Don't talk rubbish, Ben,' said Fry.

Cooper didn't bother to defend himself. He was watching the movement of the loose scree on the opposite slope as it slid a little bit nearer to Withens. It might take time, but nature never did give up the war.

‘I was thinking about Craig Oxley on the way here,' he said. ‘I'm not sure what the point is of sending young people into custody. Not in the present system. They just come out worse at the end of it.'

‘I know.'

‘If there's one group in the prison system who could actually be helped, surely it's young people. If anybody really cared about them, their lives could be turned round at that age. They could be given education, at least. I mean proper education – not training for a future as a car thief or a mobile-phone bandit.'

‘There aren't all that many cases like his, Ben.'

‘No. The system probably considers Craig Oxley to be one of its successes. He won't be clogging up the courts again, will he? He won't be taking up valuable police time any more.'

‘There's no point in talking to you when you're in this mood, Ben,' said Fry. ‘Go home and get some sleep, see if you can get a dose of reality. Or a sense of proportion at least. You'll have got over it in the morning. And don't forget, we've got a meeting to re-schedule. We still need to have that talk about your future.'

‘You're kidding.'

‘Not at all.'

‘Give me a break, Diane.'

‘We can't keep putting it off.'

‘But you'll be busy.'

‘Not too busy for you, Ben.'

There was a pause while Cooper tried to picture the expression on her face. Sometimes phones just weren't good enough for communication.

‘You said you'd be in Withens later on?' said Fry. ‘You want to see this Border Rats thing through to the end, don't you?'

‘That's right. You're still coming, aren't you?'

‘Unfortunately. I have to see the Renshaws one last time. I promised them I'd keep them informed personally about progress on the enquiry. I wish I didn't have to come to Withens ever again. It isn't going to be easy this afternoon.'

‘No,' said Cooper. ‘Not easy at all.'

T
he picture in the Withens well dressing depicted the sainthood of St Asaph. The legend, picked out in blue hydrangea petals and buttercups, explained that 1 May was his patronal day. The makers of the well dressing had used chrysanthemums and maize, sweetcorn and rice, some of it coloured with icing-sugar dyes. Everything had to be natural.

Ben Cooper saw Eric Oxley holding a plastic watering can. He was spraying the picture with water to make sure it didn't dry out. Already, the background of the picture was starting to crumble away a little, the fluorspar trickling to the bottom of the frame, like fine gravel.

‘A pity Derek Alton won't be here to bless the well dressing,' said Cooper, standing behind Eric's shoulder. ‘But at least you can use the church. We've finished with the graveyard now.'

Eric turned round, sending a spray of water on to Cooper's trousers. But he was already damp from the steady drizzle, so it didn't matter.

‘I'm sure you'll be pleased to hear Mr Alton will recover fully, after he's had all the shotgun pellets removed from his side. He'll be in a state of shock for a while though, I think. In fact, he had two bad shocks. I don't know which was worse.'

‘Everyone knows you don't disturb that end of the graveyard,' said Eric. ‘It's where the railwaymen are buried.'

‘The ones who died of cholera?'

‘That's right. Who would go digging up the ground there?'

‘The Reverend Alton would, obviously.'