he could take the words back. He felt embarrassed, realizing that Raymond Sutton might never have been the type for reading books, except one. Certainly not shamefully disrespectful parodies like
Still, his brain kept throwing up images from the Gibbons book. The preacher, Amos Starkadder, hectoring the Church of the Quivering Brethren — ‘
Cooper wondered irreverently whether Raymond Sutton might get into the role on Christmas Day, if asked to pull a cracker by one of the female residents. ‘
‘So you’re like me, and you don’t believe in evil spirits?’ asked Sutton suddenly.
‘What? Ghosts, you mean?’
‘Not ghosts so much. More of … well, perhaps a presence in the atmosphere of the house.’
‘I’m not sure. Perhaps, in certain circumstances.’
‘When something dreadful has happened.’
‘Yes.’
‘Have you been to the old house?’
‘Yes, Mr Sutton.’
‘I always swore I wouldn’t take anything away from the place. I wanted it all burned, destroyed. I wanted someone to come in with a bulldozer and a big bloody skip, and cart it all off. It was cursed.’
‘Yes, sir.’
Sutton looked at him, working his mouth nervously. ‘There was one thing, though. There was the good book. Our family Bible.’
‘I saw it,’ said Cooper.
The old man gripped his arm. ‘Is it still there?’
‘Do you want me to see if I can get it for you?’
‘Yes.’ His grip relaxed, to Cooper’s relief. ‘Can you do that?’
‘I’ll have to ask my supervisor. But I’m sure it’s still safe.’
‘Thank you. You’re a good lad, coming to see me.’
‘Mr Sutton, I need to ask you about any employees you had on the farm in the last four years.’
‘Employees?’
‘You had a poultry production business. Do you remember the birds?’
Cooper noticed his voice rising, the way people’s voices did when they were talking to someone who was deaf or stupid, or foreign. Was Raymond Sutton deaf? There was no sign of a hearing aid, but that proved nothing. Small items like hearing aids and spectacles went missing very easily in residential care homes. False teeth too, sometimes.
‘We raised poultry, yes. We had thousands in the big sheds,’ said Sutton. ‘Did you want to buy some birds? You’re too late. We got rid of them. All the lot.’
‘No, I want to ask you about your employees. Can you remember the names of anyone who worked for you at the farm during that time? During the last four years?’
Sutton hummed quietly. It occurred to Cooper that he might not actually know what year it was now, so the question might be meaningless.
‘I brought the farm records book,’ he said. ‘It might bring back memories. See if you can think of a few names to go with these initials, look.’
Sutton glanced at the book for a moment, and sighed. ‘The service round here is terrible. I’d kill for a cup of tea.’
As he signed himself out at the door a few minutes later, Elaine smiled at him.
‘Was Raymond a bit better?’
‘Yes, a bit. I was trying to jog his memory.’
‘It works sometimes. He’s a bit unpredictable. It depends how tired he is.’
Cooper looked at the collection of old ladies on their chairs in front of the TV set.
‘Some of the residents will be going home to their families for Christmas, I suppose?’ he asked her.
‘Yes, some. But not all.’
‘Are a few of them too ill to leave?’
‘Yes, and then there are those who don’t have families. Well, not families who want to see them at Christmas, anyway.’
‘I see.’
Cooper stood outside for a few minutes, looking at the windows of The Oaks. He had no idea when family and community had started to fall apart, but he had a feeling his grandparents wouldn’t have recognized society the way it was now. In their time, old folk had been looked after, instead of being allowed to spend their final years abandoned and alone. He had known, deep down, that the disintegration of family life was happening everywhere — not just in the big cities, but right here in the villages that had always relied so much on a sense of community.
Of course, he saw the results every day among the people he had to deal with in his job. Children running out of control on the streets, young people walking away from home to lives full of drugs and destitution. Single mothers everywhere, trying to raise families on their own. Mentally disturbed individuals who either lived outside society, or ended up in prison. Old people dying, neglected, their deaths unnoticed for months by their family or neighbours, or even by the postman. It would never have happened at one time, he was sure.
Of course, people had died for quite different reasons back then.
Back in the town centre, the streets were full of light — the white bulbs of the Christmas trees attached to the buildings, the occasional orange streetlamp, the light from shop windows falling on the pavements. Beneath the lights, the last stragglers were on their way to the car parks, some of them setting off across the county after a day at the cattle market. School children were hanging around outside the chip shops with their friends, celebrating the last day of term.
The hotel on the square had a stream of smoke drifting from one of its chimneys, and a flashing tree in an upper window. It was a better display than the official tree in the park across the way. A yellow Sixes bus went by, the slogan ‘Be a dirty stop-out’ on the back.
It was really going cold now, and Cooper thought he felt the first touch of rain.
That night, Matt took his brother to their local pub, the Queen Anne. It was one of the oldest pubs in the Peak District, dating back to the early seventeenth century, it was said, and reputedly haunted by the friendly ghost of a landlord who died in the cellar tending his ales. But all the best pubs had at least one ghost, didn’t they?
The wooden bar was stained black, and a line of stools stood in front of it. The food at the Queen Anne was traditional enough to satisfy even Matt — home-made steak-and-ale pie, haddock and chips, chicken and chips, T- bone steak. There was practically dancing in the streets when T-bone steak came back on the menu after the BSE scare. The doom mongers had predicted it was gone for ever — eating meat off the bone being considered far too risky for men who spent their days operating high-powered machinery with sharp blades and handling bad-tempered animals that could kill with a single kick.
Ales were served on a rotation basis, and tonight the bar boasted Barnsley Bitter, Ale Force from the Storm Brewery at Macclesfield, and Towns of Chesterfield. Even a cask-strength whisky. Enough to drown your sorrows, whatever they might be. But a pint of Towns would suit, for now. It was good to get out of the rain.
‘I’ll get the first round in,’ Matt said.
‘I won’t argue.’
Cooper noticed they’d introduced lamb madras to the menu at the Queen Anne. There were two bars, one that had been a smoking area until the ban came in. Like himself, Matt had never smoked, but would probably have liked to see the smoking bar retained. Tradition again? Or a stubborn fondness for dangerous activities?
Ben remembered their great-uncle, who had farmed all his life, explaining that a farmer’s life and the lives of his animals followed an annual cycle that moved with the seasons and was influenced by natural elements, such as the weather.
‘Not these days,’ said Matt sourly, when he was reminded of it. ‘More like influenced by the price of milk and the latest EU regulations.’
