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Cooper and Fry Crime Fiction Series Books 1-3: Black Dog, Dancing With the Virgins, Blood on the Tongue. Stephen Booth
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‘It was obvious that he wanted to go further. I don’t need telling about young men like Sherratt, Chief Inspector. I had to nip it in the bud. I couldn’t have him pestering my daughter.’
‘Did she say he was pestering her? Did she complain?’
‘Well, in a way.’
‘Mmm. Yet from what you say, it sounds as though Laura was equally interested in the young man.’
‘For God’s sake, she was only fifteen. That age is … difficult. They’re easily influenced, in the full flush of adolescent hormones. Surely you understand that.’
It was obvious to them both that Vernon was floundering.
‘So you sacked him.’
‘Yes. Last week. I told him we didn’t need him any more. He wasn’t very pleased, I can tell you.’
‘You tend to deal with these things yourself, do you, sir? Rather than your wife.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Well, you’re away all day on business. Sometimes you work long hours, no doubt. You arrive home late in the evenings. But your wife is at home most of the time, I gather. She would have had more contact with a gardener. Yet you would do something like that yourself, rather than letting your wife do it.’
‘Yes.’
‘I just thought, it might have been difficult to find the opportunity to speak to Sherratt, if you weren’t at home during the day.’
‘I made a point of it on this occasion, Chief Inspector.’
‘I would also have thought it might be difficult for you to get the chance to observe the boy.’
‘Observe him? You’re losing me.’
‘I’m going on your description just now. You described him looking at your daughter and showing off to her while she watched. That suggests to me, sir, that you must have spent some time observing him. Perhaps I should say, observing them both.’
Vernon was pacing towards the windows with his whisky. His hands were moving again now, touching his lips as if he feared his mouth might react of its own accord. ‘I don’t know what you’re getting at. It’s quite natural. Are those men of yours finished up there yet?’
‘Shall we see, sir?’ suggested Tailby.
Sheila Kelk’s gaze passed over Daniel’s shoulder to the doorway from the main hall. The tall policeman stood there, smiling politely, raising a slightly quizzical eyebrow. She wasn’t sure how long he had been standing there.
Daniel turned and stared at him. ‘And who exactly are you?’
‘Detective Chief Inspector Tailby, Edendale CID. Here with Mr Vernon’s permission, of course.’
‘Oh, sure.’
There were more footsteps in the hall behind Tailby.
‘Daniel?’ Graham Vernon looked tired rather than impatient now, the conflicting pressures starting to wear him down. He looked from Tailby to his son. ‘We didn’t expect you quite so soon.’
‘Mr Daniel Vernon, is it? I’d like to have a chat with you sometime, sir, when it’s convenient.’
Sheila looked at Daniel and received a glare so venomous that her mouth shut suddenly, and she began to drag the Dyson towards the dining room, away from the scene of confrontation.
‘Of course, Chief Inspector.’ The young man walked towards the policeman, staring up at him with an expression of undisguised fury. ‘I’m absolutely dying to tell you a few things you may not know about my parents.’
‘Where to next, then?’ said Cooper.
‘What’s up with you? Eaten too much cheese at lunch?’
‘I’m fine. Where to next?’
‘Thorpe Farm,’ said Fry, consulting the map.
‘That’s one of the smallholdings. There’s another one at the end of the same lane. Bents Farm. We’d better make sure we don’t miss it out.’
Cooper had to wait while two women on horseback passed them, the horses walking slowly and elegantly, their muscled hindquarters shining with good health. The riders nodded a greeting and looked down into the car to study them, as if motorists were unusual in Moorhay. Someone appeared at the door of the bar at the Drover, wedged it open and propped a blackboard outside. From the tiny shop and post office came the sound of laughter.
Across the road, a workman was playing a transistor radio as he repointed the wall of a cottage. An old lady emerged from the open doorway to speak to him on his ladder, probably asking him if he wanted a cup of tea. She saw the Toyota and said something else to the workman, who turned round to look. Cooper had already visited the old lady, who had seemed to know more about everyone in the village than was good for her. But she had known nothing about Laura Vernon. Nothing at all.
It seemed to Cooper that there was more life about the village of Moorhay today than ever before when he had been there previously. It was as if the murder of Laura Vernon had given it a new vitality, had brought its inhabitants together in the face of adversity. Or maybe it had just given them something to talk about.
He turned the Toyota confidently into a rutted lane overshadowed by trees, with a tall border of grass growing up the middle that brushed along the underside of the car. The trees were mostly beech, with some huge horse chestnuts creating a dense canopy overhead. In the autumn, the children of the village would be drawn to this track with their sticks and stones to knock down the conkers.
‘Who lives out here, then?’ said Fry. ‘I suppose it’s your Auntie Alice or something, is it? It’s bound to be someone who greets you like the prodigal son. Some second cousin or other. Have your mother and father got big families? Inbreeding affects the brain, you know.’
‘I don’t know these places,’ said Cooper.
Within a few yards of leaving the road the track took a turn and they were reduced to a crawl to protect the suspension. Already they might as well have been miles from the village. The trees completely cut off their view of houses that were only a couple of hundred yards away. It was a very old patch of woodland they were driving through, and Cooper could see it was not managed, as a woodland should be to remain healthy. Many dead branches and boughs brought down by winter gales lay rotting among the remaining beeches. They were covered in lichen and clumps of white fungi, and the bracken and ferns were chest-high. Parts of the stone wall in front of the wood had collapsed, and a makeshift post and wire fence used to block the gaps had long since given up the battle. A handsome cock pheasant walking along the edge of the wood paused with one foot in the air, its claws frozen in surprise. The greens, reds and golds of its plumage were vibrant and iridescent, and for a moment Cooper wanted to stop the car and reach out for the bird. But it suddenly burst into a run and dodged and weaved its way back into the dense undergrowth, its tail extended straight out behind it.
The pheasant had started a train of thought for Cooper about poachers, and he turned towards Fry to mention it. But he realized that she hadn’t even noticed the bird.
‘There are no signs,’ she complained, frowning out of the window, as if the AA had failed her.
‘There don’t need to be,’ said Cooper. ‘Everyone in Moorhay will know that Thorpe and Bents Farms are this way.’ And though the thought inspired by the bird stayed with him, he decided to keep it to himself for a while.
Soon the trees gave way to a view up the slope of the hill. The land here was largely rough grass. It was divided by stone walls,