Blind to the bones bcadf-4 Page 18

  ‘But have the complaints stopped?’ said Cooper.

  ‘No. And the Oxleys had quite colourful careers, by all accounts. All the boys have court records. There were even some arson charges at one time. Ryan and Jake are the ones giving most cause for most concern at the moment. Actually, the Social Services case officer is quite optimistic about Ryan - she says he’s a sensible lad at heart and will probably settle down.’

  ‘Really?’

  There’s no need to sound quite so cynical, Ben. Many of our young offenders settle down and become perfectly respectable citizens.’

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  ‘OK/ said Cooper. ‘And Jake?’

  ‘He’s causing some problems at the moment.’

  ‘Is there nothing that can be done with him?’

  ‘Basically, there are two options. Either we take him away from his parents and pnt him into local authority care. Or we leave him where he is, until he’s old enough to earn himself a spell in a detention centre.’

  ‘And that would be the start of a long cycle of court appearances, and eventually prison.’

  ‘Exactly. But we operate on the principle that the best place for a child is at home, with his family. So, with this kind of case, we’re in a cleft stick.’

  ‘What about the older ones?’

  Udall hesitated. ‘Scott and his cousins, you mean? They’re not the concern of Social Services any more, and I only asked about the children. But there’ll be court records we can look up.’

  ‘And the girls aren’t a problem? Lorraine and Stacey?’

  ‘Not that I know of.’

  ‘Well, if they’re clean, let’s hope they stay that way.’

  ‘Amen.’

  Finally, Udall checked her personal radio and chose a battery. Cooper waited patiently while she made sure the radio was on the right channel and placed it in its holster. She adjusted the lead to the handset, so that it wouldn’t be in the way if she had to draw her baton. Then she gave her duty belt a final tug, and was ready. She lifted an eyebrow at the way Cooper was watching her.

  ‘How do I look?’ she said.

  ‘Terrifying.’

  Thanks a lot.’

  ‘But only if I were a criminal/ said Cooper. ‘Or an Alsatian dog.’

  PC Udall’s liveried Vauxhall Astra was white, with an orange flash and black-and-white checkerboard patterns down each side, and a blue beacon on the roof. It had those yellow and red diagonal stripes on the tailgate which had been dubbed a ‘baboon’s bum’, after something very similar had been spotted on a BBC wildlife programme. The code number of the vehicle was painted on the roof in large black letters for identification by the air support unit. A bottle of mineral water had been thrown on the back seat.

  Ben Cooper had never felt entirely comfortable being driven by someone else. He much preferred being at the wheel than being

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  a passenger. He had always supposed it was something to do with a need to be in control. But maybe today it was also the result of Tracy Udall’s tendency to wave her hands breezily as she talked. The B6105 Woodhead Road out of Glossop was narrow and winding, and at one point, as it descended into Longdendale, there was a sharp kink in the road called The Devil’s Elbow, which had been a notorious accident black spot for years.

  There was a long string of five reservoirs filling the valley bottom. One of them, Valehouse, came into sight as they approached the Devil’s Elbow, then they descended the hill towards its neighbour, Rhodeswood. They drove alongside Torside Reservoir for a while, past the national park information point. Although it was Monday, there were small sailing boats on Torside Reservoir. The track of the former railway line ran right by the road here, converted into the Longdendale Trail.

  Finally, they crossed the dam between Torside and Woodhead and eased cautiously out into the traffic on the A628.

  ‘This end of the valley has always had a few problem areas for us,’ said Udall. ‘Hadfield and Hollingworth, particularly. The closer you get to the outskirts of Manchester, the bigger the problems. The motorway makes it so much easier for people to get to Longdendale now.’

  ‘What about the upper end of the valley?’

  ‘Well, not so much. The crime rate tends to decline when the population disappears.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Look at your map. See those names along the road? Then look around you here. Where’s the village of Crowden? Where’s Woodhead? Where’s Saltersbrook?’

  Cooper looked. ‘Judging from this map, we must have driven through all of them in the last half-hour, but I missed them. Did I fall asleep, or what?’

  ‘No. It’s because they’re not there any more.’

  ‘They just died?’

  ‘They were removed,’ said Udall. ‘Flattened, cleared, eliminated. Apart from their names, they were wiped off the map.’

  ‘You’re kidding.’

  ‘Nope. I’m told there used to be at least five inns along this stretch of road, between Crowden and Saltersbrook. Crowden alone had a school with forty pupils in it. And there was a seventeenth-century Stuart mansion called Crowden Hall. They’ve all gone.’

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  ‘We’re not talking about villages that disappeared under the water when the reservoirs were built, Tracy?’

  ‘No, these villages were well above the water line. They were right here, on the road. You can still see where the houses were, in some cases. But a few foundations are all that’s left. In fact, take a look at Saltersbrook, and you’ll find the ruins of the village inn on the old packhorse road. At Woodhead, there was one house that stood right over the entrances to the railway tunnels. It’s just a few square yards of concrete now.’

  ‘But why?’

  ‘Well, this is a water catchment area, Ben - the hillsides gather the water that feeds the reservoirs down in the valley.’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘The water companies decided that the presence of people in Longdendale might pollute the water supply for the customers in Manchester and the Lancashire cotton towns. So they moved them all out and demolished their villages.’

  ‘Including a Stuart mansion,’ said Cooper. ‘But I suppose they didn’t care quite so much about those things in the nineteenth century.’

  Udall laughed. ‘Nineteenth century, nothing. My dad remembers Crowden Hall. In fact, he has a photograph of it in a drawer somewhere. The hall was demolished in 1937 by Manchester Corporation.’

  ‘Damn.’

  ‘One of the pubs survived right into the 1960s. But that went, too. And only a couple of years ago, the water company spent 300,000 pounds moving an entire farming operation a mile further up the hill at Crowden, to get it away from the road. They said it was to safeguard water quality from grazing sheep. They had to build a new house for the farmer in that case. But he was one of the lucky ones, I think. Entire communities have just disappeared from this area.’

  Cooper looked back at the boats on Torside Reservoir. Presumably, sailing was an activity that could be trusted not to pollute the water.

  ‘And what about Withens?’ he said.

  Udall shrugged. ‘I don’t know. But it doesn’t look like a place that will last, does it?’

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  15

  At 7 Waterloo Terrace, Ruby Wallwin had cooked lunch for herself - stewed beef with new potatoes and baby carrots. But she made no attempt to eat what she’d cooked. She put the food on a plate and sat at the table, but didn’t touch a thing. Instead, she stared at the wall and listened to the clock, until her meal time was over. Then she disposed of the uneaten food, poured a half drunk cup of tea down the sink and washed the pots, taking comfort from the feel of the hot water on her hands and the lemony smell of the washing-up liquid.

  Afterwards, Mrs Wallwin turned on both her radios and the television. She had a radio in the kitchen, and another upstairs in her bedroom, while the TV was in the sitting room. It meant there was something she could hear in every room. She didn’t know w
hat the programmes were that they were broadcasting she needed them only for the sound of the voices. Some of those voices had become familiar, and were like friends chatting in the next room, waiting for her to join them. There were other times when she found the voices inside her house only made things worse. Then she would turn them all off, until she could no longer stand the silence again.

  When she went out of the house, Ruby Wallwin always left a few lights on and a radio playing quietly. She didn’t do it to deter burglars - she had nothing worth stealing, after all. She did it so that the house wouldn’t be quite so dark and silent when she came back to it.

  Yesterday, she’d been to the morning service at St Asaph’s. She had sat on her own, surrounded by empty pews. There were a few people of her own age in church, but Mrs Wallwin hadn’t

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  lived in the village very long, so she didn’t feel able to sit with them, though they said ‘hello’ when they saw her.

  Ruby Wallwin had particularly wanted to speak to the vicar, the Reverend Alton. She didn’t know him all that well, but he seemed like a decent man. She had taken her time leaving the church after the service, hoping that he would notice her. But Mr Alton had seemed very distracted, and he had disappeared into the vestry before she could get his attention.

  Mrs Wallwin would have spoken to the vicar. She didn’t want to speak to the police.

  Ben Cooper stood in front of the black brick terrace, watching the grey shapes of the wood pigeons that were flying in a small flock now, out over the fields and back again. The sound of the chainsaw that was still operating somewhere behind the houses only seemed to accentuate the eerie silence. Waterloo Terrace stood below the road, sheltered by its screen of trees as if it lay in a cocoon, separate from the rest of the village.

  ‘Do the Oxleys own these houses?’ he asked.

  ‘No, they’re rented,’ said Tracy Udall.

  ‘Council property?’

  ‘A private landlord.’

  ‘They’re a bit run-down, aren’t they?’

  ‘I don’t suppose the Oxleys are ideal tenants.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Where would you like to start, Ben?’

  ‘My choice, eh? Let’s see the list again.’

  Udall’s list was very organized. Number 1 Waterloo Terrace was recorded as being occupied by Mr Lucas Oxley. Strangely, numbers 2 and 3 were listed the same way. Why would Lucas Oxley need three houses? But then his family was rather large, according to Derek Alton.

  There were certainly more Oxleys nearby. The fourth house in the terrace was occupied by Mr Scott Oxley, and number 5 was Ms Frances Oxley. But 6 and 7 provided a bit of variety - their occupiers were Mr and Mrs Melvyn Tagg, and Mrs Ruby Wallwin respectively. The eighth house was said to be unoccupied.

  ‘Who should we tackle first?’ said Cooper to himself. ‘Eeny, meeny or mo? Oxley, Oxley or Oxley? I wonder if they’ve ever thought of starting a firm of solicitors?’

  He looked at the terrace of houses again. Logic dictated that he

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  should start at number 1 and see if Mr Lucas Oxley was home again. But he wasn’t feeling logical today, and something told him it might be helpful to approach the Oxleys at a tangent. Besides, he could still remember the dog.

  ‘Number 7 it is, then. Mrs Wallwin.’

  Closer to, the bricks weren’t really black at all. They had an almost purplish tinge, as if they had been steeped in blackberry juice. Number 7 showed few signs of decoration. Its paintwork was a sort of chestnut brown, or had been at one time. The combination with the black bricks was somehow depressing. There were lace curtains in the windows, which gave it an old-fashioned air. It might have been part of a setting for one of those urban town scapes painted by L. S. Lowry. After all, the painter had lived for a number of years at Mottram, down the valley, so it was possible he had seen Waterloo Terrace.

  To reach number 7, Cooper and Udall had to pass a fenced-off area where six green wheelie bins were stored. They reached the front walls of the row of gardens. All the gardens were long and narrow, and all were overgrown, despite the past efforts at growing vegetables. They walked up the path, avoiding the nettles that were spreading from the soil on to the stone flags. Cooper took a quick glance at number 8, which was on the other side of one of the dark brick passageways. Its windows were dirty and curtain less, and it had an air of neglect. There was nothing more depressing than a house that had been left empty for a long time, and in Waterloo Terrace it was more depressing than ever.

  ‘I haven’t complained to the police about anything,’ said Mrs Wallwin, when she found Ben Cooper and Tracy Udall on her doorstep.

  Cooper was surprised at the defensive note in her voice. Though she was slight and rather frail looking, she stood right on the step, as if she hoped to block the doorway. Many old people were far too trusting about who they opened their doors to. But not in Withens, it seemed.

  ‘Mrs Wallwin? Good afternoon. We just want to ask you a few questions,’ said Udall in her pleasantest manner. With most elderly people, her charm would have worked perfectly.

  ‘What about?’ said Mrs Wallwin.

  ‘May we come in?’

  ‘What for?’

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  ‘It doesn’t matter/ said Cooper. ‘Do you know a young man called Neil Granger?’

  And Mrs Wallwin’s face softened a bit then.

  ‘Yes, of course I do. I know him and his brother. They used to live here.’

  ‘Here?’ said Cooper. ‘You mean here, in Waterloo Terrace?’

  ‘Next door. They were looked after by their uncle and aunt when they were teenagers. Their dad was sent to prison, and they never saw him again after he came out. Then their poor mother fell ill with cancer and couldn’t look after them herself.’

  ‘Their uncle and aunt would be Mr and Mrs Oxley?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘They have quite a few children of their own, don’t they?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Do they cause you any trouble, Mrs Wallwin?’

  ‘Not to speak of. They can be a bit noisy, but all kids are like that.’

  Mrs Wallwin was wearing rather worn pink slippers, and her legs were painfully thin. Cooper could detect a musty smell, like old newspapers or clothes that hadn’t been aired properly.

  ‘When did you last see Neil Granger?’ he asked.

  ‘He was by here the other night.’

  ‘Which night?’

  ‘It would be Friday.’

  ‘Do you know what time?’

  She shook her head. ‘He went off with the others. His uncle and his cousins. They went off up to the pub, I should think.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  Beyond Mrs Wallwin, Cooper could see a small table in the hallway. There were a couple of familiar-looking envelopes on it, with red slogans on the outside. ‘You’re a winner!’ ‘Open now for some wonderful news!’ The usual junk mail, not yet thrown away.

  ‘Neil and Philip don’t live here any more,’ said Mrs Wallwin. ‘The house is empty now. I only got this one because my son works for the company.’

  ‘The company?’

  ‘The water company.’

  ‘Do you live alone, Mrs Wallwin?’ said Udall. She sounded genuinely concerned, but it didn’t wash.

  ‘Why do you ask?’

  There have been a few problems in this area. A lot of houses

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  have been broken into. We just want to be sure that you’re safe and secure.’

  ‘I’m safe, all right. Nobody comes here.’

  ‘Nobody?’

  The old lady looked suddenly worried, as if she had given the wrong answer.

  ‘My son comes to see me,’ she said. ‘Of course he does. Why shouldn’t he?’

  ‘As long as you’re all right, love,’ said Udall.

  And this time the sincerity of her concern seemed to get through.

  ‘I wouldn’t want to die here alone,’ said the
old lady suddenly. ‘It might be days and days before anyone found me.’

  I’m sure that wouldn’t happen, Mrs Wallwin. You’ve got neighbours here.’

  ‘Yes, I have,’ she said. Till say goodbye now.’

  And suddenly she began to close the door. But Cooper noticed that she left it on the chain and watched them through the narrow gap as they walked down the path.

  ‘Are you sure about that, Ben?’ said Udall as they reached the gate.

  ‘What?’

  ‘I attended an incident once when I was stationed in Chesterfield. Someone living in a block of flats reported to the housing office that she hadn’t seen an elderly neighbour in a while. I knew the man was dead before we even got the door open. The smell was on the landing - that smell you know is going to cling to your uniform for ages, until you wash it.’

  ‘I know the smell/ said Cooper.

  ‘But, of course, I had to call for the doctor to certify death. The old man was lying on his bed. There was fungus growing around his eyes and dead maggots lying on the floor all around the bed. The doctor said he’d been dead for quite a long time. Not days, or weeks - months.’

  ‘And you’re saying it took that long for the neighbours to notice?’

  ‘It wasn’t really their fault. The old man made it clear he didn’t want any contact. He always refused to answer the door, even though they knew he was in, because they could hear him through the walls, moving about the flat. Now and then, they’d catch a glimpse of him scuttling towards the stairs like a sneak thief, but that was all.’