Dying to Sin bcadf-8 Read online

  Just ahead were some abandoned pieces of machinery slowly rusting in the damp air. He remembered a small winching truck, its sides eaten away by corrosion, its tyres flat and sinking into the ground. There were iron hoppers and a huge cylindrical boiler, gradually being reduced to such a fragile state of ruin that they would crumble in the fingers.

  ‘Go carefully,’ said Cooper.

  ‘I already am.’

  The far west of the site had contained the crushing circle and the washing floor. Here, heaps of crushed stone had been dumped, creating mountains of spoil that sheltered the mine from the adjoining fields and woods. One false step could be lethal, let alone the risk of creating a noisy cascade of stone.

  ‘It’s getting too dangerous,’ said Cooper. ‘Don’t you think so?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  Fry had begun to shiver. The damp and cold were insidious — they crept into your bones and clung to your clothes. No one in their right minds would be out here on a night like this, unless they had serious business.

  ‘What do you want to do, Diane?’

  ‘How far is it to the edge of the car park?’

  ‘Not more than a few yards now. It’s just past the slime ponds, where the route of the sough heads off towards the north.’

  ‘Oh, great.’

  They moved on again, with Cooper paying as much attention to what might be going on around him as to where he was putting his feet. It was because of his lack of concentration that he was the one to stumble over a mine shaft and kick a scatter of small stones that rattled on the steel grille.

  He looked up guiltily, expecting figures to appear from the fog. But the only shape he could see ahead was that of a lone, stunted tree, somehow struggling to survive between the spoil heaps. Its bare branches marked the outer perimeter of the mine.

  Fry stood on a heap of stones and looked down at him.

  ‘Hurry up, Ben.’

  They slid down the last few yards to the picnic area. But they were just in time to see tail lights disappearing back towards the road.

  ‘Damnation,’ said Fry.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Cooper. ‘That was my fault.’

  ‘No, we couldn’t have got here any quicker. It was a washout, after all. We should have called it off when you said, Ben.’

  Cooper could hear the disappointment in her tone. Fry had been so sure that Elder was going to provide an important link that would hand her a breakthrough in this enquiry. He struggled to find something to say that would be supportive without provoking her to bite his head off. But he failed.

  ‘Oh, well. Back the way we came then, Diane?’

  ‘I suppose so. But we can use the torches now.’

  As they walked back towards the invisible machinery and winding house, Fry began to curse. Maybe she found the fog liberating, felt freed by the fact that she couldn’t hear or see anyone. Cooper was trailing behind her, watching his step.

  ‘What a disaster,’ she said. ‘It’s one bloody disaster after another. Why am I wasting my life here?’

  ‘It isn’t that bad, Diane. Life can be fun, too.’

  ‘Fun? I’m nearly thirty years old, and I haven’t had sex for months.’

  Cooper didn’t know what to say. He was gob-smacked — and not just in a surprised way, but in the way that felt as though his brain had shut down completely and he had no control over his vocal cords. His mouth fell open, and his eyes flickered nervously until they settled on a suggestion of movement behind the winding gear. But it was only a corner of the engine house, momentarily revealed through a gap in the fog.

  ‘Mmm, tumbleweed,’ said Fry.

  Cooper cleared his throat. ‘Nearly thirty. Does that mean it’s your birthday soon?’

  ‘Next week.’ Fry sighed. ‘Yes, Christmas. I must have been some kind of miracle baby.’

  Cooper became aware that the banging of corrugated-iron sheets had stopped. That could only mean the wind had dropped. He stopped and looked across the mine to the east. He couldn’t see the agent’s house now, or the base of the chimney, and certainly not the scaffold-like horse gin marking the site of the Red Soil shaft. The bank of fog was too dense.

  ‘Diane, have you noticed the banging has stopped?’ he said.

  ‘Yes, thank God.’

  ‘Didn’t it occur to you that there shouldn’t have been any banging in the first place?’ said Cooper. ‘There’s no wind.’

  Fry looked at the thick blanket of fog enveloping the mine. ‘No, it didn’t occur to me. But you’re right.’

  ‘Damn it, I should have noticed before. Damn it.’

  Cooper stood quite still and listened, straining his ears for the slightest noise. After a few moments, he became convinced that he was only imagining things, creating voices where there weren’t any. It was another effect of the fog, producing sounds which weren’t really sounds at all but the components of silence. It seemed to him that he was hearing an echo, but without the noise that should have preceded it.

  ‘Do you think Jack Elder is still here in the mine somewhere?’ said Fry.

  ‘If not him, then someone else that he came to meet,’ said Cooper. ‘That banging sounded like a signal to me.’

  At that moment, a figure appeared ahead of them, catching the light from their torches and throwing a vast, distorted shadow on the wall of the engine house.

  ‘Can you see who it is?’ whispered Cooper.

  ‘Yes,’ said Fry. ‘It’s PC Bloody Palfreyman. And he’s carrying a shotgun.’

  From his position on the mound, David Palfreyman heard the voices, but couldn’t locate them in the fog. He stepped quickly behind the winding gear, bringing the shotgun up ready.

  Two of them, at least. That was pretty much as he’d expected. He could take two out easily, one with each barrel. And he’d be sure of killing them, if he got close enough. Or make a nice mess of them, anyway, if he couldn’t.

  The fog should help him. And this maze of ruined buildings and the mountains of spoil made it easy to slip out of sight at any moment.

  He’d known they would come, had judged them just right. He hadn’t lost his old instincts. No one came on to his patch and treated him like that. There were different forms of justice, and some were more final than others. Tonight, they would find out everything they needed to know about his form of justice.

  It was only when the light of the torches hit him that Palfreyman realized he’d exposed his position. Had they recognized him? It didn’t matter. He knew this place better than they did, and he could be among them before they got anywhere near their car.

  Palfreyman laughed quietly to himself. Poor sods. They thought they were the kings around here now. Some of them thought they were pretty clever. But they’d pissed PC David Palfreyman off, and they had it coming.

  He slithered down the east side of the mound and ran to the corner of the winding house. He could see them now, trying to keep low, scrambling towards a vehicle parked in front of the agent’s house.

  Cooper and Fry had taken cover at the base of the square chimney, where the roof of the flue had collapsed. There was no more cover left between here and the car. They would have to cross the track and yards of muddy ground churned by cattle before they got anywhere near it.

  Standing, half-stooped, in the stink and gloom, Cooper felt the presence of Fry beside him, the only source of warmth in the cold night. Fry had made the call on her mobile, and back-up would be here, an armed response vehicle on its way. But the ARV had probably been cruising the M1 when its crew got the shout. They could be twenty minutes reaching Sheldon. Even the helicopter wouldn’t be getting airborne from Ripley in this fog.

  ‘We’re in trouble, Diane,’ whispered Cooper.

  ‘I think I’d figured that out.’

  ‘Are we going to make a run for the car, or what?’

  ‘Well, he saw us, so he must know roughly where we are.’

  ‘And if he can see the car — ’

  ‘Yes. Why didn’t
we leave it out of sight? Whose idea was it to bring it all the way in?’

  ‘Yours,’ said Cooper.

  ‘Oh. Well, it would only have been further away if we hadn’t.’

  ‘I suppose.’

  ‘At least now we know what the package was that Jack Elder brought,’ said Fry. ‘He must have the right contacts in Nottingham to get hold of an illegal shotgun. I wonder what influence Palfreyman has over people like Elder to make them do what he wants. Is it fear? Respect? I don’t understand it.’

  ‘Do you have any ideas about how we’re going to get out of this, or are you just talking for the sake of it?’ hissed Cooper.

  ‘Are you carrying a weapon at all?’

  ‘Just my ASP.’

  ‘Me too.’

  ‘Are you suggesting we wait until he gets within arm’s length and take him down with a baton across the back of the head? He’s got a shotgun, Diane.’

  ‘Ben, I don’t have any other ideas.’

  Cooper was silent for a moment, absorbing the shock of hearing Fry admit that she didn’t know what to do. It must have been painful for her to say it.

  He leaned closer and whispered. ‘Well, we’re going to have to run for it, aren’t we?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Let’s go now, before he gets a fix on our exact position.’

  ‘Wait,’ said Fry.

  ‘What now?’

  ‘I haven’t got the right shoes on for running.’

  ‘Tough.’ Cooper peered round the corner of the chimney. ‘I can’t see him now. Perhaps he’s gone the other way.’

  ‘Some hopes.’

  ‘Well, we can’t wait any longer. I’d rather die in the open air than down here.’

  ‘All right, let’s go. One-two-three. Now!’

  They burst from cover and raced across the open ground, stumbling and sliding but managing not to fall flat on their faces. Fry broke to the left as they reached the car, remembering that Cooper had the keys. But Cooper waited until he was close to the vehicle before pressing the button to de-activate the locks, knowing that the lights would flash and alert anyone watching. There was nothing he could do about that.

  Moments later, they were both inside, gasping with exertion and sweating despite the cold. Cooper started the car, thankful that he’d reversed into the mine.

  ‘Thank God for that. Drive!’ said Fry.

  A second after she’d spoken, the butt of a shotgun crashed through the window, showering her with fragments of glass. Fry screamed as two barrels thrust through the gap, pointing straight at her head.

  36

  There was a long moment, frozen in time, while the fog drifted in through the car window. David Palfreyman stood quite still, his finger tensed on the trigger. Behind him, he could hear the sound of another car approaching.

  Suddenly, it had become a different situation. Maybe he’d miscalculated, and made his move at the wrong time. But it wasn’t beyond his abilities to sort out. None of these people were clever enough to get away from him.

  ‘You two stay there,’ he grunted. ‘And don’t bloody move.’

  Cooper raised his head. For a second, he glimpsed Palfreyman at the shattered window, bending down to peer into the car. His shotgun was resting on the glass, both barrels pointing into the passenger seat. If it was fired at that range, in an enclosed space, he and Fry were both dead meat.

  But then Palfreyman was gone, stepping away from the car and vanishing instantly into the fog.

  Fry had her eyes closed, until Cooper touched her arm.

  ‘Am I still alive?’ she said.

  ‘Yes, somehow.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘I don’t know. Something spooked him.’

  Fry looked at him in concern, and Cooper realized that he was shaking as much as she was.

  ‘What the hell are you waiting for, then?’ she said.

  Cooper started the ignition and accelerated across the mud, not bothering with the lights. Because of that, the driver of the car coming towards him didn’t see the Toyota at all, and they smashed head on into each other before Cooper could even get as far as the first gate.

  ‘Is that our back-up?’ asked Fry, shielding her eyes against the glare of the other car’s headlights.

  Then the doors of the Toyota were jerked open, and they both found themselves looking into the wrong end of a nine-millimetre pistol. It definitely wasn’t their back-up.

  A few minutes later, Fry and Cooper had been dragged out of their car and pushed into the agent’s house after one of the two men in black balaclavas had shot the padlock off the door. The door was slammed, and they stood behind it, trying to hear what was going on outside.

  ‘Friends of Palfreyman’s,’ said Cooper. ‘Trying to decide which of them gets the privilege of shooting us.’

  ‘I hope it takes a long time for them to make their minds up.’

  ‘Let’s face it, we were outnumbered and outgunned, even when it was just Palfreyman on his own.’

  ‘That maniac. PC Bloody — ’

  ‘Hold on, Diane.’

  Cooper was peering through the window, watching the two men moving around outside. They seemed to be trying to separate the bonnet of their car from his, and they were having trouble with the bumper. One of the men was tall and dressed in a black coat and jeans. The other was smaller and thicker set, but they both wore balaclavas that hid their faces, so even without the fog, identification would be impossible.

  Or would it?

  Cooper watched the taller figure. His dark outline looked vaguely familiar, but the associations being set off in Cooper’s mind were all wrong. Ridiculous, in these circumstances. He was actually thinking of the vicar at All Saints, Here we are … Dying to sin … And he was thinking of himself, laughing at a private joke and being glared at by Liz for sniggering in church. And if they don’t like your face, they’ll cut off your hand.

  ‘Oh, shit,’ he said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Diane,’ he whispered. ‘Cast your mind back. Did you say Joanne Brindley was in a pantomime?’

  ‘What on earth do you mean?’

  ‘Think. Was it the one at the Royal Theatre? Aladdin?’

  ‘Well, she was in something. I interviewed her while she was dressed in a police tunic and tights. But what has that got to do with anything?’

  ‘And a sort of Fu Manchu moustache?’

  ‘That’s right. She said she was only in the chorus to make up the numbers, but there are some really good actors in the cast.’

  ‘One very good actor, at least,’ said Cooper. ‘He plays Abanazar, a difficult role to get right. He’s Mrs Brindley’s husband, Alex.’

  ‘Mr Brindley is an actor?’

  ‘Yes. And you said yourself a good actor would be the only person who could lie without giving himself away.’

  Fry joined him at the window. ‘Is that him? Brindley? I don’t believe it.’

  ‘He’s in character,’ said Cooper.

  ‘Alex Brindley was the only person in Rakedale I thought wasn’t lying to me.’

  ‘He played a good part, then. Keeping his grasp on the magic lamp.’

  The two men had moved back towards the door of the house, and they were pulling their nine millimetres out of their pockets again. This was probably it, their last moments. Cooper wondered whether he should pray. He felt ridiculously glad that he’d been to church on Sunday.

  Then one of the men dropped his torch in the mud, and both of them stopped, just outside the door. For a second, before it died completely, the light of the torch caught the paleness of a face, gleaming with water. And a voice came out of the darkness.

  ‘You should never have come on to my patch.’

  Cooper was deafened by the boom of a shotgun fired at close range. The blast stunned his ears, and the flash made him screw his eyes tight shut, anticipating a spray of pellets entering his flesh, ripping open his face.

  But the pain didn’t come — only another boom as
the second barrel was discharged. And then a high-pitched scream that split the air, amplified by the fog into an awful ear-bursting noise.

  The smell of burnt gunpowder filled Cooper’s nostrils, hot and acrid. This wasn’t potassium nitrate cooking in the kitchen at Pity Wood Farm. This was the real thing, and far more deadly.

  Cooper found himself spread flat on the ground, his face pressed to the concrete, trying desperately to dig himself into the floor, the taste of stone in his mouth. He became aware that Fry was close beside him, her body pushed up against his, seeking any inch of safety.

  They waited, afraid to move or breathe, until they heard footsteps heading away over the spoil heap, back towards the cars. Cooper felt Fry begin to tense, as if she was going to stand up. He grabbed her arm and pulled her back down.

  ‘Wait!’

  Her face was close to his now, and he could see her eyes glinting with fear and excitement.

  ‘Someone is being killed,’ she said. ‘We should do something to stop it.’

  ‘Like what? We’re not armed. Remember the first rule is to protect your own life, otherwise you’re no use for protecting members of the public.’

  ‘I’m the senior officer here, Ben.’

  ‘So? Are you going to get us both killed to prove something? That won’t impress Superintendent Branagh, you know.’

  ‘Bastard,’ she hissed. But she stayed down, waiting until they finally heard a car engine start up. A vehicle passed slowly along the roadway towards the agent’s house.

  ‘OK?’ she said.

  ‘OK. But take it slow and quiet.’

  When they emerged from the door, nothing was moving outside. Two bodies lay in the mud, still wearing their balaclavas. A double-barrelled shotgun had been broken open and left on the roof of Cooper’s Toyota. There was no sign of David Palfreyman.

  Fry and Cooper stood looking at the bodies, knowing that they shouldn’t touch anything, wondering how they’d managed to survive. They looked up when more headlights swung across the mine buildings and lit up the engine house. They were ready to run again. But they saw the blue flash, and they knew it was finally their back-up.