‘Do you think Raymond Sutton knew about the bodies buried on his farm?’ asked Fry. ‘You’ve talked to him, Ben, what do you think?’
‘I think he might have had a suspicion,’ said Cooper. ‘But no more than that — just a suspicion that something bad had happened.’
‘Involving his brother?’
‘I don’t know. He talks about Hell a lot. Somebody is going to be damned.’
‘So here’s a scenario,’ said Fry. ‘One or both of the Sutton brothers killed these women, either during some barking mad pagan rituals in Derek’s case, or out of religious mania in Raymond’s case, because they were damned and needed to be punished and sent to Hell.’
‘Well …’
‘Whatever. I’m vague on the details yet. But word got out in the area — as it was bound to do round here. Rumour, rumour. Gossip, gossip.’
‘And then people just kept quiet?’
‘Well, in my scenario, Dixon of Dock Green turns up at the farm to see what’s what.’
‘PC Palfreyman?’
‘Yes, PC Bloody Palfreyman. “Evening, all,” he says. “What’s this I hear about you two lads committing a couple of nasty murders? We can’t be having that, you know. I might have to give you a clip round the ear for being naughty boys.”’
‘It could only have been one murder,’ said Cooper reasonably. ‘The second victim died three years after Mr Palfreyman retired.’
‘True. But the principle is the same.’
‘You really think he might have known all about what went on at Pity Wood Farm, and covered up for the Suttons?’
‘Why not? “I called and had a few words. It never happened again.”’
Cooper shook his head. ‘I can’t see it. Granted, Palfreyman has his own ideas about justice, like so many of the old coppers did. But he wouldn’t cover up a murder, let alone two. That couldn’t be considered justice, not in anyone’s book. Could it?’
‘Well, actually, it might depend,’ said Fry, ‘on who those women were.’
‘Might it?’
Cooper considered that idea, and gradually realized what she was hinting at. There was one category of women who were considered not only dispensable, but sometimes undesirable.
‘Do you mean street girls?’ he said.
‘“Street girls” isn’t really a suitable euphemism out here,’ pointed out Fry. ‘Shall we call them sex workers?’
‘Prostitutes, if you like. But where would they do business?’
‘Wherever there are numbers of men with nothing much else to do.’
Cooper pictured Pity Wood Farm. ‘Targeting itinerant farmworkers, for example?’
‘Who else?’
At first, he thought it was a rhetorical question. But the tone had been wrong, and Fry seemed to be waiting for an answer.
‘Yes, who else?’ said Cooper, regarding her curiously.
‘All right. I was thinking about old-fashioned police officers who operate under their own discretion and run their own patch, with no questions asked.’
‘That old thing?’ said Tom Farnham. ‘Who would want that? It’s just an old skull. Some damn superstition of Derek Sutton’s. Mad bugger, he was.’
Farnham fidgeted with the spray can he’d been using to touch up a dent on the lawnmower. Its repair was nearly complete now. Its working parts gleamed with oil, and its paintwork had been cleaned and polished.
‘But you do have it, sir?’
Farnham sighed. ‘Don’t you need a warrant or something?’
‘Only if you don’t agree to help us. But why would you want to prevent us seeing this skull if it’s worthless?’
‘Why indeed? Screaming Billy, that’s what the old fool called it. Supposed to protect the farm from bad luck, or something. Raymond didn’t see eye to eye with him on that, not at all. He wanted it out of the house when the place was sold. Said he wouldn’t curse the new owners with it. Raymond, he didn’t care about anything else — he was glad to get shut of the place in the end. It was just that skull he had a bee in his bonnet about. He rang and asked me to get rid of it before the new bloke took over the farm. So I did him a favour, see? For old times’ sake, and all that.’
‘Very loyal of you, sir. And it’s still here?’
‘Yes, it’s still here.’
Farnham moved across to his work bench and took a key from his pocket. He unlocked a cupboard under the bench and withdrew a cardboard box packed with old newspaper. In the middle of the newspaper, something smooth and yellow nestled.
Cooper took the box from him and pulled on a pair of latex gloves. He carefully lifted the skull free and placed it in a plastic evidence bag. The bone was faintly yellow, like paper that had been left in the sun.
‘You couldn’t sell it, then?’ said Fry.
‘What?’
‘That’s what you were hoping for, I imagine.’
‘Oh, for Christ’s sake. Raymond couldn’t have cared less. He just wanted it out of Pity Wood. He’s never mentioned it to me since, so why shouldn’t I sell it? I got nothing out of all the time I spent working with the Suttons, you know. Look at me, I’m broke. I try to make a living repairing other folks’ lawnmowers. A few quid would have helped me out a bit.’
‘But you had no luck?’
‘There were a few collectors interested. But it’s not good enough quality, they said. Too damaged.’
‘Damaged?’
‘A bit of bashing about. Look, at the back there. But that’s to be expected, when it’s so old. I mean, it had been in the farmhouse for, I don’t know — centuries, I suppose.’
‘Are you sure of that, sir?’
‘How do you mean?’
‘Can you tell whether this is an old skull, or a more recent one?’
‘More recent one?’
Farnham stared at her, then snorted and began shaking his head vigorously. ‘Oh, no. You’re not going to pin something like that on me. You’re trying to tie me in with those bodies you found at the farm, aren’t you?’
Cooper tensed. The fact that the head had been removed from one of the bodies had not been released to the media, so Farnham shouldn’t know that. But had he really made an admission? Or was he just putting two and two together, and making a clever guess?
‘You’ve confirmed that you were working at the farm during the relevant period,’ said Fry. ‘You must have known who else was working there. If you want to help us, you should suggest some names. That would be your most sensible move, Mr Farnham.’
He looked at the skull Cooper was holding in its new evidence bag. Several teeth were missing from the jaw, and the skull grinned horribly, as if at some private joke of its own.
‘You know, they were mostly workers who came for a few weeks or a few days, then moved on. You can’t expect me to remember their names. I hardly got the chance to know some of them to speak to.’
‘So where did these individuals come from?’
‘They were contracted in. See, that was the way it was at Pity Wood in those days. We didn’t employ any workers ourselves. We had a contract for labour, and when we asked for them, they turned up. Sometimes we wanted people on a regular basis, but other times we just needed a gang in for a few days. It depended on what we were doing. It changed every year at Pity Wood. Every season.’ He looked at Cooper. ‘You understand, don’t you?’
