Dying to Sin

immigrants that there was a lucrative market for passports? And not forged ones, either, but genuine passports, taken from dead people. Is there a premium on them in the human import business, Mr Rourke?’

‘I’m not answering that.’

‘In fact, it must be even better if the person involved is not only dead, but has never been reported missing.’

Rourke just shook his head. His face was closing up now, and she wouldn’t get much more from him. But she still had evidence to confront him with.

Fry help up a second bag. ‘This is a Slovakian passport, sir. Discovered in the same hiding place, behind your daughter’s wardrobe. Not as much call for a Slovak identity in Ireland, I suppose, even now? This one is for Nadezda Halak, from the city of Ko. sice. Nadezda would be twenty-four by now, if she was still alive. Would you like to see what’s actually left of her, sir? I can arrange for that to happen.’

Rourke shook his head, resorting to a silence that was no good for the tapes. Fry nodded at Lenaghan.

‘Interview suspended.’

Fry couldn’t wait to make the call to her DI and tell him that she’d not only established how Nadezda Halak died, but had also confirmed the identity of the second body at Pity Wood Farm. She was buzzing with satisfaction, and at the end of the conversation with Hitchens, she still felt she hadn’t talked enough, so she rang Ben Cooper and told her story all over again.

‘That’s brilliant, Diane,’ he said. ‘So the trip to Ireland was really worthwhile, after all.’

‘Yes, it was.’

Then Fry remembered it was Tuesday, the day she’d been afraid of being away from Edendale, and her excitement began to ebb away.

‘So what’s going on back home?’ she said cautiously.

‘Oh, the new superintendent has arrived.’

‘Making an impression, is she?’

‘You might say that. There’s no doubt who’s in charge. She’s already taking the credit.’

‘But she hasn’t done anything,’ said Fry. ‘She can’t have. Not yet.’

‘Maybe. It’s hard to tell what’s been going on behind the scenes.’

Fry sighed. ‘Has she done anything I need to know about?’

‘Put Gavin in his place with a firm hand.’

‘Oh, well …’

‘And Jack Elder is being released.’

‘Elder? He was my prisoner.’

‘Not after tomorrow,’ said Cooper. ‘He’ll be in court in the morning, then he’ll get bail and walk away.’

‘Damnation.’

‘The superintendent is right, though, Diane — we don’t have any evidence to connect Mr Elder with a serious offence. He’s not a credible murder suspect.’

‘No, but he’s a link,’ said Fry. ‘I’m sure of it.’

‘It’s a pity you’re not here to put your case to Branagh.’

‘Yes, isn’t it?’

‘It appears Orla Doyle is one of our missing persons,’ said Lenaghan when he’d escorted Rourke back to his cell. ‘What a result. You can come here again, Detective Sergeant Fry.’

‘Thank you. I think I can say it was a mutually satisfactory visit, Garda Lenaghan.’

‘Tony,’ he said.

‘What?’

‘You ought to call me Tony.’

Cooper got out the Toyota to drive into Sheffield, where he had an appointment with the forensic anthropologist, Dr Jamieson. A traffic officer he passed in the car park greeted him with a weather forecast.

‘Fog.’

‘That’s bad news.’

‘The roads are very busy, too. There’ll be fatalities before nightfall.’

And Cooper thought it could be worse than that. If they cancelled flights at Robin Hood Airport, Fry might not be getting back from Dublin. Not today, anyway.

As he drove to Sheffield, Cooper tried to get everything straight in his head. But whenever he thought about the story, it began to unravel, like a tapestry with a loose stitch. If he tugged at it in the wrong place, everything changed shape, the picture twisted and distorted, figures vanishing from the scene and others coming closer together.

After a few minutes, the picture was becoming awfully grey and murky, just like the weather, like the landscape behind that belt of December rain.

‘Oh, you were hoping to tie this skull in with Victim B?’ said Dr Jamieson, when Cooper found him in his laboratory at the university.

‘Well … yes, that was the assumption.’

‘An assumption, eh? I don’t believe in them myself. Do you find they achieve anything?’

‘Well, Doctor, it does seem a logical conclusion that this skull belonged to the woman we’ve found with a missing head. Particularly when they both came from the same property.’

‘I see,’ said Jamieson. ‘So where does the male victim come in?’

‘Male victim?’

‘The person the skull belongs to. Because this is definitely male. Look at the distinctive shape of the jaw, the size of the occipital dome. Somewhere, there’s a male victim who’s missing a head.’

‘So this is the real Screaming Billy, after all,’ said Cooper. ‘Despite what Raymond Sutton said. This is the ancient skull that has been in the wall of the farmhouse.’

‘Oh? What’s that?’

‘A local superstition, Doctor. A skull that protects the owners of the farm from bad luck. They call them screaming skulls.’

‘Interesting. And how long is the skull supposed to have been in the wall of the farmhouse?’

‘Centuries, according to local folklore.’

Dr Jamieson shook his head. ‘Never trust folklore, then. If this came out of the wall of that farmhouse, it’s a much more recent addition to the decor.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Science doesn’t lie, DC Cooper. Not within living memory, anyway. This skull is ten years old, at most. What I mean is — I’d estimate ten years since it was parted from its unfortunate owner.’

Cooper looked at the skull. ‘But Screaming Billy is supposed to go back to the eighteenth century, at least.’

The anthropologist shrugged. ‘This isn’t Billy, then, I’m afraid. I suggest we refer to him as Victim C.’

32

A few minutes later, Cooper was getting back into his Toyota in the university car park. ‘Not within living memory.’ Where had he heard that phrase recently? Oh, yes. It had been used by PC Palfreyman, the first time that Cooper had visited him at Hollowbrook Cottage, as early as Friday morning.

That seemed a long time ago now. Palfreyman had been answering a question about whether there had been an argument between the Sutton brothers. ‘Not within living memory.’ That was exactly what he’d said.

Well, Cooper supposed that living memory resided in the older generation, people like Raymond Sutton and Mrs Dain. But it wasn’t everything, not in an area like the Peak District. When living memory died, the landscape still retained an imprint of times that had passed. The lead miners might be long gone, but their workings still shaped the contours of the hills and valleys. Their shafts and soughs survived, directly under the feet of modern visitors. Their ghosts, perhaps, still lingered where those Red Soil men had died, choking in the blackness, their