'They're going to dig him up. Dig him up so they can compare his DNA with that found under Glynis's fingernails. That'll prove things one way or the other.'
'Good!' he snapped, leaning forward as if about to rise from the chair. 'Good! And then maybe them and you will leave me alone to die in peace.'
I lifted my hands in a gesture that said I was happy with his reply, and sat back to enjoy the sun, hoping to lower his guard and encourage him to tell me more. I wasn't disappointed.
'Paedophiles,' he ranted, after a few seconds. 'That's what they are. Paedophiles. And all you all want to do is defend them. Who defends the poor kiddies? Tell me that. Who defends the victims?' I sat forward again and he grabbed my arm. 'And asylum seekers,' he rambled. 'Bringing diseases with them. Aids and TB. Why do we let them in? They make a mess of their own countries and come here, and what do they do? Have loads of kids, draining the Health Service; try to make this place like the one they've left. So why do they come, all the Pakis and niggers? Because we're too soft, that's why. Send 'em all back, that's what we should do. Go into any town and what do you see? Beggars, making more than you and me ever did, sponging on society. Scum, that's what they are: scum.'
I prised his fingers off my arm. 'Is that what the vagrant in Swansea was, Henry? Was he scum, too?'
'He was…' He grabbed the stick and hi§ hands shook as he leaned on it. 'He was… a parasite. Took our money under false pretences.'
'What did you do? Give him a good kicking?'
'Natural causes, that's what the inquest decided. He died of natural causes.'
'Oh, so you only pissed on his sleeping bag and let him freeze to death.'
'He deserved everything he got.'
'And you got early retirement on a full pension, on the grounds of ill health.'
He nailed me with his rheumy eyes and said: 'Aye, well, they got the date of that a bit wrong, didn't they?'
Major Warburton saw me and half rose from his chair as I strode through the lounge, but I just kept going. I'd had my fill of old soldiers for one day.
Pete Goodfellow was sitting at my desk when I arrived back at the nick, busy with my paperwork. My In basket was empty and he'd arranged everything into four neat piles.
'Wow, that looks efficient,' I said as I walked into my office.
'Hi Chas,' he replied, starting to rise from my chair. 'Had a good day?'
'You stay there,' I told him, sitting in the visitor's place, 'and keep up the good work. I've been to see the investigating officer in the South Wales job.'
'Learn anything?'
I told him all about my little talk with Henry Bernard Ratcliffe. When I finished Pete said: 'So you think he'd be capable of fixing the confession.'
'I think he'd be capable of fixing the confession, the evidence and the coroner, Pete. Even allowing for the state of his health he's a bundle of fun. What about you? Did you find anything for me?'
'Mmm,' he replied, pushing a sheet from the telephone pad my way. 'One of the names that Rosie gave you who was in the dead girl's class. Still lives in the village. There's a telephone number, too.'
'Hey, that's great,' I said. 'I'll ring her tonight.'
Dave returned from wherever he'd been and joined us. He was wearing a short-sleeved shirt with little pictures of Abbott and Costello all over it and his nose and cheeks were the colour of tomato soup.
'Before I forget,' he began, 'the brass band's playing in a competition at Leeds Town Hall on Friday. Fancy coming along to support the boys?'
'Er, no Dave. Count me out, please,' I replied.
'It's always a good night out.'
'No, I've a few things to do.'
'Pete's coming, aren't you?'
'Try stopping me,' he said.
'I can't make it.'
'Fair enough. So where've you been skiving off these last two days.'
'Conducting investigations,' I told him. 'You look as if you've been sitting in a beer garden all day.'
'Someone's got to keep their eye on the ball. I've been thinking about Sebastian at Dob Hall. We should have a talk to him. And Mrs Grainger. I have my suspicions about them.'
'Ah,' I replied, unable to disguise my unease. 'Fact is, Dave, I had a word with her yesterday. You'd gone out but I decided you were right: we should talk to her while Sir Morton was away. I didn't catch Sebastian, though.'
'Right,' he said. 'Right.' But his expression was at odds with the words. He looked as if I'd eaten his last custard cream. I thanked Pete and he left us.
'Sit down,' I told Dave, 'and I'll fill you in.'
When I finished he nodded knowingly and said: 'So I'm right. All is not well there.'
'That's the way it looks. '
'You reckon Sebastian tried it on with her?'
'Mmm.'
'And you saw all this through the telescope?'
'Yep. And that's not all. There's a son and a daughter-in-law who live nearby. We ought to talk to them as soon as possible.'
'Don't change the subject. You spent all yesterday afternoon up at Stoodley Pike spying on Mrs Grainger as she lay topless on a sunbed?'
'Not quite, she was wearing a one-piece costume.'
'You're turning into a dirty old man, you know that?'
'You could be right. It was rather fun.'
'Remind me to keep you away from my wife and daughter. Where do they live?'
'Who?'
'The son and daughter-in-law.'
'Heptonstall.'
'Let's go see them, then.'
'I'm supposed to say that.'
Three churches appears excessive in a village the size of Heptonstall, but the Victorian parish church was built to replace its 15th century predecessor after its roof was blown off. For some reason they left the old church standing, so you could argue that they only count as one. Mopping up any Nonconformists is the Methodist chapel, where John Wesley preached. Corduroy and worsted paid for them, blood, sweat and religious fervour did the rest. Sylvia Plath is buried in the churchyard.
A steep cobbled lane leads up to the village, high on a windswept hill. The place had a renaissance in the Sixties, inspired by Plath and her husband, Ted Hughes, when it attracted a community of poets and painters, some good, most indifferent. After one winter most of them left.
'What are they called?' Dave asked as the road levelled and I eased off the accelerator.
'Julian and Abigail.'
They lived in three wool-maker's cottages knocked into one, on the far side of the village. It was three stories high, with a row of windows all along the top floor to allow light into the rooms where the work was done. That's what the books say, but it could have been to save lifting blocks of Yorkshire stone all the way up there. Builders were a canny lot even in those days. We parked alongside an elderly Volvo 340 and Dave pressed the bell. The thud-thud-thud of a drum machine or a big engine shook the ground beneath our feet.
Abigail Grainger answered the door. She had black hair that reached halfway down her back and was wearing a tie-dyed kaftan and beads. For a moment I was back at art college, bottle of cider in my hand, asking if this was where the party was. Dave checked her identity and introduced us.
'Is Mr Grainger in?' he asked.
'Please come in,' she said with a smile. 'Yes, but he's busy for the moment.' The noise was louder now, and had resolved into a dum dum da-dum, dum dum da-dum, dum dum da-dum, repeated endlessly. She led us into a
