06.The Dead Place Read online

‘As you can see, there aren’t many others to talk to.’

  Cooper looked at the red phone box itself, twenty yards away from where he was standing. It was more than a pity, wasn’t it? It was a big stroke of luck for the individual who’d made the phone call. There was no way he could have known that the occupiers of that property opposite weren’t watching every movement he made.

  Although he hadn’t heard the tapes himself yet, Cooper was starting to have a sneaking doubt about the caller’s intentions. On the surface, he appeared to have taken care to conceal his identity, as might be expected. But some of this individual’s actions looked almost reckless – as if he wanted to be identified. Maybe the whole thing was no more than a cry for help. But there was no point in suggesting the idea to Fry.

  Behind the churchyard, Cooper could see a sprawl of farm buildings and trailers, and a wandering pattern of drystone walls. A cockerel crowed somewhere nearby, though it was already afternoon. The phone box stood close to a footpath sign, its fingerpost so weathered that the lettering had worn away completely, and now it seemed to indicate a path that led nowhere.

  Then the sun came out, and the limestone walls formed themselves into a bright tracery running across the landscape. Cooper wondered what he might find if he followed those white pathways. The instinct to pursue the light rather than return to the gloomy churchyard was almost irresistible.

  Half a mile north, at the junction with the A623, there was a smaller collection of houses called Wardlow Mires. A petrol station and another pub called the Three Stags’ Heads sat among farms and some derelict buildings covered in honeysuckle.

  The A623 took traffic through sheep pastures and across the plateau towards Manchester. Almost as soon as Cooper turned on to it, he sensed the landscape opening out on his left. In a gap between the hills stood a strange, isolated outcrop of limestone. Its distinctive shape looked almost artificial – straight, pillared walls of white rock split by crevices and fissures, and a rounded cap grassed over like a green skullcap. The slopes of short, sheep-nibbled grass around it seemed to be gradually encroaching on the limestone, as if reaching up to pull it back into the ground.

  The rock looked familiar. Searching his memory, Cooper thought it might be called Peter’s Stone. He had no idea what the name meant, but guessed it was probably some biblical reference to St Peter, the reasons for it lost in the passage of time and the mists of folklore.

  ‘Can I listen to the tapes some time, Diane?’ he said.

  ‘Don’t imagine you’ll recognize the voice. It’s electronically disguised.’

  ‘I might have some ideas, though.’

  ‘Yes, OK. Remind me when we get back.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  Fry tapped a finger on the map. ‘Ben, we should be going the other way. Eyam.’

  Cooper pulled over and reversed into the Litton turning. ‘By the way,’ he said, ‘my unidentified remains were found at Litton Foot, in Ravensdale.’

  ‘Yes? What about them?’

  ‘Litton Foot is less than three miles from Wardlow across country. It falls within your circle.’

  Fry looked at the map. ‘But your body is eighteen months old, Ben.’

  ‘I know.’ Cooper shrugged. ‘I just thought I’d mention it.’

  ‘Tell me about Eyam.’

  ‘For a start, it’s pronounced “Eem”. The village was infected by the plague from some infected cloth, but the villagers quarantined themselves so they wouldn’t spread it to the rest of Derbyshire.’

  ‘When was this?’

  ‘Seventeenth century.’

  ‘OK.’

  ‘Well, three hundred and fifty people died in Eyam. The names of the victims are recorded on some of the cottages. Plague victims couldn’t be buried in the churchyard, so their graves are in the fields around the village. Whole families together sometimes.’

  ‘Are these places well known?’

  ‘Well known? They’re a tourist attraction.’

  Back at West Street, Diane Fry disappeared for a meeting with the DI before the evening briefing, and Cooper didn’t get a chance to remind her of her promise. So instead of listening to the tapes, he took the opportunity to spread out the photos of the human remains found in Ravensdale.

  The quality of crime scene photography had improved tremendously since the photographic department spent money on replacing its printing equipment. Colours had started to bear some relationship to reality, instead of looking like snaps taken by a passing tourist with a Polaroid. Now you could see that the stuff on the floor near a body was actually blood, not the corner of a donkey-brown rug.

  Outdoors, they sometimes managed to get quite interesting lighting effects. In one of the Ravensdale photographs, Cooper could make out the dappling effect of sunlight through the canopy of trees. The sun had swung round to the south by the time the shots were taken, so it must have been around the middle of the day. The photographer would have been wondering when he’d get a chance for his lunch.

  There was also a sketch plan done by one of the SOCOs, complete with arrows indicating the points of the compass. It confirmed what Cooper had noticed at the site: the feet of the victim had been pointing to the east and the head to the west.

  He had a feeling there was some significance in that alignment. It was one of those half-remembered things, a vague superstition in the back of his mind. He couldn’t have said who had put the idea in his head, or when. Maybe it was only something he’d overheard as a child, a whispered conversation among elderly relatives at a funeral, a bit of local folklore.

  East to west. Yes, there was some significance, he was sure. But the alignment of the body was just as likely to be a coincidence, wasn’t it?

  From the fragments collected at the scene, the dead woman seemed to have been wearing a rather plain, light blue dress, underwear, tights and blue strappy shoes with one-inch heels. No coat, nothing worn outside the dress. It was unlikely that she’d walked down to the stream at Litton Foot herself, but not impossible.

  The skeleton had been incomplete when it was found, with several small bones missing. And there was no jewellery that might have been used for identification. No engraved bracelets, no wedding ring. This woman had been someone’s daughter and mother. But had she been someone’s wife, too?

  Cooper knew he might never be able to get a lead on how the woman had died. Not from the remains, at least. Forensics could perform wonders, but not miracles.

  And there was the question of what had happened to Jane Raven Lee’s body after her death. The possibilities were bothering him. The dead woman hadn’t been buried, she’d been laid out and exposed to the elements. The whole thing had too much ritual about it. Cooper wished there was someone on hand who could tell him whether he was discerning a significant fact, or just imagining things again.

  The evening briefing didn’t last long. There wasn’t much to report, after all. A forensic examination of the scene had found no signs of a struggle near Sandra Birley’s car, which suggested her abductor had given her no chance to make a run for it, and had probably used a weapon to subdue her quickly. The Skoda had still been locked, and there was no sign of the keys.

  The concrete floor of a multistorey car park was hell for a fingertip search. Who could say whether an item found on the oil-stained surface had been dropped by Sandra Birley, her attacker, or one of a thousand other people who had used Level 8 in the past few weeks? Scores of fibres had been recovered from the retaining wall and the ramp barrier. Partial footwear impressions were numberless. And the SOCOs had collected enough small change to pay their coffee fund for a week.

  ‘One question I’d like answered,’ said DCI Kessen, ‘is whether our man knew which CCTV cameras were dummies, and which weren’t. And if so, how? There’s no way of telling just by looking at them, is there?’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ said DI Hitchens. ‘Maybe he’d worked there himself, or he knows somebody who does. Anyway, DC Cooper is already on to the employees angle.�
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  ‘What do we make of the husband? What are the odds we’ll find a green Audi on the CCTV footage?’

  Hitchens shrugged. ‘He seemed genuine enough to me. He says he was at home when his wife phoned him. We should be able to confirm that from phone records.’

  ‘So not much to go on at this stage.’

  ‘We do have two confirmed sightings of Sandra Birley prior to her abduction,’ said Hitchens. ‘She was seen leaving her office and walking down Fargate in the direction of the multistorey car park between seven fifteen and seven thirty. Even allowing for a margin of error on the part of the witnesses, she ought to have reached her vehicle by around seven forty.’

  ‘Hold on,’ said Fry. ‘When was the last sighting of her exactly?’

  Hitchens consulted his notes. ‘No later than seven thirty. A shopkeeper in Fargate saw her passing his shop.’

  ‘He was in his shop at seven thirty? What sort of shop is this? I thought everything in Edendale closed by six at the latest.’

  ‘It’s a shoe shop. And yes, it was closed. As luck would have it, the proprietor was in the store room stock-taking – he’s closing down and selling up soon, so he’s doing a full stock check. But he could see through the shop on to the street. He said he’d seen Sandra Birley many times, and he knew she worked at Peak Mutual, though he didn’t know her name. We showed him the photos, and he’s positive about the ID.’

  ‘OK.’

  Fry picked up the transcripts of the two phone calls. The fax sheets had been sitting on her desk only since this morning, but already they were getting smudged and creased at the corners. It was a plain paper fax, and they were supposed to be a lot better than the old thermal rolls. Maybe it was something to do with her hands. Too much heat.

  She checked the information at the top of the first page, though she knew both messages almost by heart. Soon there will be a killing … All you have to do is find the dead place.

  ‘This second call was received by the control room at Ripley shortly after three thirty yesterday afternoon,’ she said.

  ‘What of it, DS Fry?’

  ‘He appears to be warning us of his intentions. “Soon there will be a killing.” That’s what he says.’

  ‘Yes.’

  Fry dropped the sheets. ‘If Sandra Birley was the victim he was talking about in his phone calls, it means he had four hours to drive into the town centre and either set up an abduction he’d already planned in advance – or choose a victim.’

  ‘Still, it’s possible.’

  ‘What we don’t want to face is the possibility that Sandra Birley isn’t the victim he was warning us about. That his killing is yet to take place.’

  ‘We’ll probably get another call from him, Diane. He’s obviously an attention seeker, so he’ll want us to know this is him. No doubt he’ll think he’s being very clever.’

  ‘What did the psychologist say?’ asked Kessen.

  ‘She told us to listen to the phone calls,’ said Fry.

  Hitchens scowled. ‘Actually, that wasn’t quite all Dr Kane said. She gave us some useful ideas about what the caller is trying to tell us.’

  ‘Are we expecting miracles from her?’ asked Fry.

  Kessen looked at her for the first time that day. And Fry knew that he’d seen everything, heard everything, and taken it all in. She found herself fooled by his manner every time.

  ‘We can always hope, DS Fry,’ he said.

  Then the DCI turned back to Hitchens.

  ‘By the way,’ he said, ‘let me make one thing clear. Nothing goes from us to the media about these phone calls. Not a word. Otherwise we’ll have every lunatic in the country calling in. And one lunatic at a time is quite enough.’

  A few minutes later, Cooper knocked on the door of the DI’s office to explain his problem. With the briefing over, Hitchens was already getting ready to go home. Cooper caught the chink of bottles, and saw that the DI was checking the contents of a carrier bag. From the frown on his face, he was wondering whether he’d bought the right wine for dinner tonight.

  ‘I could use some advice on the Ravensdale human remains case, sir,’ said Cooper. ‘If I might be allowed to consult –’

  The DI held up a hand. ‘If you’re going to mention anybody who charges for their services, Ben, the answer is “no”. We’ve already met the cost of a facial reconstruction on your case. Forensic artists don’t come cheap, you know. Unless you can come up with enough evidence to turn the case into a murder enquiry, you’re on your own.’

  ‘But, sir, there could be unusual areas of significance – subjects I don’t know anything about.’

  ‘I’m sure everyone understands that, Ben. But you’ll have to cope for a while. We have other priorities at the moment.’

  ‘Well, mightn’t there be …?’

  But the DI shook his head. He tucked the bag under his arm and rattled his car keys impatiently.

  Cooper went back to his desk. He separated one of the photographs of the facial reconstruction from its stack and clipped it on to the copy holder attached to his PC screen. The room was emptying, and no one paid any attention to him, or noticed that Ben Cooper was talking to himself again. It was just one sentence anyway, spoken resignedly to the photograph next to his screen.

  ‘It’s just you and me then, Jane,’ he said.

  The face of Jane Raven Lee gazed back at him silently – the muddy brown flesh, the random streaks against her skull, the blank eyes awaiting an identity.

  8

  When Cooper got back to his flat that night, the light on the answering machine was flashing and the cats were demanding to be fed. One was always more urgent than the other, so it was a few minutes before he pressed the button to play back his messages. There were three of them.

  ‘Ben, it’s Matt. Give me a call.’

  The first one was a very short message, but it made Cooper frown. His brother didn’t usually call him unless it was really necessary. In fact, Matt was always scrupulous about not phoning his mobile because he knew he used it for work. He supposed he’d have to call back and see what was wrong. But there were two more messages to listen to yet.

  ‘Ben. Matt. Give me a call as soon as you can. It’s important.’

  Now Cooper began to feel uneasy. He pressed the button for the third message.

  ‘Ben, please give me a call. It’s very important.’ Then a pause. ‘It’s about Mum.’

  Turning her Peugeot from Castleton Road into Grosvenor Avenue, Diane Fry finally pulled up at the kerb outside number 12. The house had once been solid and prosperous, just one detached Victorian villa in a tree-lined street. Its front door nestled in mock porticos, and the bedsits on the top floor were reached only by hidden servants’ staircases. But now most of the occupants were students at the High Peak College campus on the west side of town.

  Fry often found her flat depressing, especially when it was empty. But she’d found Wardlow depressing, too. The very ordinariness of the place had made the calls from the phone box near the church seem even more disturbing.

  Though Wardlow had been bad enough, at least it wasn’t the real back of beyond, the area they called the Dark Peak. Up there was only desolation – bleak, empty moorlands with nothing to redeem them. She recalled the road sign she’d seen last time she was there: sheep for 7 miles. Seven miles. That was the distance all the way across Birmingham from Chelmsley Wood to Chad Valley, taking in a population of about a million people. But here in Derbyshire you could find seven miles of nothing. That just about summed it up.

  She’d transferred from the West Midlands as an outsider, the new girl who had to prove herself. It had been a struggle at times, just as she’d expected. But she’d been focused, and she’d worked hard. And now she got a lot of respect, though it was mostly from people she despised.

  Fry went to the window, thinking she’d heard a car in the street. But she could see no vehicles, not even pedestrians passing on their way home for the night. All she could see out
there was Edendale.

  No, wait. There was someone. Two figures parting on the corner, so close to the edge of her field of view that she had to press her forehead to the window pane to see them. A second later, one of the figures came into focus, walking towards the house. Angie.

  Fry pulled away from the window before she was seen, and went into the kitchen. Two minutes later, she heard Angie’s key in the lock.

  ‘Hi, Sis.’

  ‘Hi. Had a good day?’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘What have you been doing?’

  Angie had that secret little smile on her face as she took off her denim jacket. It was hard for Diane to know how to feel towards her sister. She knew she ought to be glad that Angie looked so much better than when she first moved in. Her skin was less pallid now, her eyes not quite so shadowed, her wrists and shoulders less painfully thin and bony. Anyone who didn’t know them might not be able to guess which sister was the recovering heroin addict.

  Yet Diane was unable to suppress a resentment that was there every day now, barely below the surface of their relationship. No sooner had she been reunited with Angie than her sister had started to drift away from her again, and this time it seemed more personal. Would it have been different if she’d found Angie herself, without the interference of Ben Cooper? She would never know.

  ‘Actually, I’ve got myself a job,’ said Angie.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Did you think I was going to sponge off you for ever, Di? I’m going to pay you some rent.’

  Angie kicked off her shoes and collapsed on the settee. Diane realized she was hovering in the doorway like a disapproving parent, so she perched on the edge of an armchair.

  ‘That’s great,’ she said. ‘What sort of job?’

  There was that smile again. Angie felt among the cushions for the remote and switched on the TV. ‘I’m going to work in a bar.’

  ‘You mean you’re going to serve behind a bar,’ said Diane carefully.

  Angie looked at her, and laughed at her expression. ‘What did you think, I was going to be a lap dancer or something? Do they have Spearmint Rhino in Edendale?’