Val McDermid 3-Book Crime Collection: A Place of Execution, The Distant Echo, The Grave Tattoo. Val McDermid
was frozen stiff in a Derbyshire sheep field.
‘Your farm’s a bit off the beaten track for someone coming from Buxton to Scardale, isn’t it?’ he asked. It was the only thing that gave him any grounds for doubting Dearden’s theory of how Crowther had died.
Dearden chuckled. ‘You’re thinking like a motorist, lad. Peter Crowther thought like a countryman. You go back and look at an Ordnance Survey map. If you drew a line from Scardale to Buxton, avoiding the worst of the ups and downs, it’d go straight through that field. In the old days, before we all got our Land Rovers, there would be somebody from Scardale across my land at least once a day. It’s not marked on the map as a footpath, mind you. It’s not a right of way. But anybody from round here knows to respect livestock, so it never bothered me, nor my father before me, that the folk from Scardale used it for a short cut.’ He shook his head. ‘I never thought it’d be the death of any of them.’
George got to his feet. ‘Thanks for your help, Mr Dearden. And for the warm. We’ll be back to take a formal statement. And I’ll make sure somebody lets you know when we’ve moved the body.’
‘That’d be welcome.’ Dearden followed him out to the front door. The old man peered past him down the lane at a maroon Jaguar with two wheels up on the verge. ‘That’ll be the doctor,’ he said.
By the time George had walked back up the lane and into the field, the police surgeon was getting to his feet and brushing down his wide-shouldered camel overcoat. He peered curiously at George through square glasses with heavy black frames. ‘And you are?’ he asked.
‘This is Detective Inspector Bennett,’ Clough chipped in. ‘Sir, this is Dr Blake, the police surgeon. He’s just been carrying out a preliminary examination.’
The doctor gave a curt nod. ‘Well, he’s definitely dead. From the rectal temperature, I’d say he’s been that way from somewhere between five and eight hours. No signs of violence or injury. Looking at the way he’s dressed – no overcoat, no waterproof – I’d say the likeliest cause of death is exposure. Of course, we won’t know for sure till the pathologist’s gutted him on the slab, but I’d say this is natural causes. Unless you’ve found a way of charging the Derbyshire weather with murder,’ he added with a sardonic twist of his mouth.
‘Thanks, Doc,’ George said. ‘So, sometime between – what? One and four this morning?’
‘Not just a pretty face, eh? Oh, of course, you must be the graduate we’ve all heard so much about,’ the doctor said with a patronizing smile. ‘Yes, Inspector, that’s right. Once you know who he is, you might even be able to figure out what he was doing wandering round the Derbyshire moors in the middle of the night in a pair of worn-out shoes that would hardly keep out the weather in the town, never mind out here.’ Blake pulled on a pair of heavy leather gloves.
‘We know who he is and what he was doing here,’ George said mildly. He’d been patronized by experts and wasn’t about to be riled by a pompous ass who couldn’t be more than five years older than him.
The doctor’s eyebrows rose. ‘Gosh. There you go, Sergeant, the perfect example of how educating our police officers will advance the fight against crime. Well, I’ll leave you to it. You’ll have my report early next week.’ He side-stepped George with a sketchy wave and set off towards the gate.
‘Actually, sir, I’d like it tomorrow,’ George said.
Blake stopped and half turned. ‘It’s the weekend, Inspector, and there can be no urgency since you already have an identity for your corpse and a reason for his being here.’
‘Indeed, sir. But this death is connected to a larger investigation and I require the report tomorrow. I’m sorry if that interferes with your plans, but that is why the county pays you so handsomely. Sir.’ George’s smile was pleasant, but his eyes held Blake’s without flinching.
The doctor tutted. ‘Oh, very well. But this isn’t Derby, Inspector. We’re a small community out here. Most of us try to bear that in mind.’ He walked briskly away.
‘It’s obviously my week for making friends,’ George remarked as he turned back to Clough.
‘He’s a lazy sod,’ Clough said carelessly. ‘About time somebody reminded him who pays for his Jag and his golf club subscription. You’d think he would have been curious about the identity of a body he’d just been on intimate terms with, wouldn’t you? He’ll be on the blower this afternoon demanding to know what name to put on his report, I bet you.’
‘We’re going to have to go and break the news to Mrs Hawkin,’ George said. ‘And fast. The jungle drums will have been beating. She’ll know there’s a body on the moors, and she’s bound to be thinking the worst.’ He shook his head. ‘It’s a bad day when hearing your brother’s dead passes for good news.’
Kathy Lomas was feeding her pigs, filling their troughs with a mixture of wilted turnip tops and the vegetable trimmings and leftovers of the village. The thunder of galloping feet over the frozen ground caught her attention and she turned to see Charlie Lomas racing down the back field as if the hounds of hell were after him. He would have run straight past her if she hadn’t reached out to grab one of his flailing arms.
His momentum whirled him round and cannoned him into the pigsty wall, where he would have tipped right over into the sty if his aunt hadn’t grabbed the back of his heavy leather jerkin.
‘What’s up, Charlie?’ Kathy demanded. ‘What’s happened?’
Winded, he bent double, hands on knees, chest heaving for breath. At last, he managed to stammer, ‘Old Dennis Dearden’s dog found a body in one of his sheep fields.’
Kathy’s hand flew to her chest. ‘Oh no, Charlie. No,’ she gasped. ‘That can’t be right. No, I won’t believe it.’
Charlie struggled into a half-erect position, leaning on the wall and panting. ‘I was down by the Scarlaston. I’ve got some illegal traps down there and I wanted to get them cleared out before the searchers got that far up Denderdale. I cut back up through Carter’s Copse and I overheard a couple of bobbies talking about it. It’s right, Auntie Kathy, they’ve found a body on Dennis Dearden’s land.’
Kathy reached out convulsively for her nephew and clung on to him. They stood in their awkward embrace till Charlie had his breath back. ‘You’ve got to tell Ruth,’ she finally said.
He shook his head. ‘I can’t. I can’t. I was going to tell Ma.’
‘I’ll come with you,’ Kathy said firmly, grabbing his arm above the elbow and marching him across the back fields to the manor. ‘Those bloody bastards,’ she muttered angrily as they went. ‘How dare they be tittle-tattling about it before anybody’s seen fit to tell our Ruth. Well, I’m damned if I’m going to wait on their pleasure to break the news.’
Kathy dragged Charlie into the manor kitchen without knocking. Ruth and Philip were sitting at the kitchen table over the remains of breakfast. His breakfast, Kathy noticed. She didn’t think Ruth had had anything but tea and cigarettes since Alison had disappeared.
‘Charlie’s got summat to tell you,’ she said baldly. She knew the pointlessness of dressing up bad news.
Charlie repeated his stumbling words, anxiously eyeing Ruth. If she hadn’t been sitting down already, she’d have collapsed. What colour was left in her face seeped away till she resembled a putty model. Then she started shivering as if she had a fever. Her teeth were chattering and her whole body was trembling. Kathy crossed the kitchen in half a dozen strides and took hold of her, rocking her as she had her children.
Philip Hawkin appeared oblivious to everything around him. Like Ruth, he’d paled at the news. But that was the only common point in their responses. He pushed his chair back from the table and walked out of the room like a man sleepwalking. Kathy was too occupied with Ruth to take it in at first, but Charlie stood staring after him open-mouthed, unable to credit what he’d just seen.
Ruth