‘It belonged to the gardener? So that’s Lee Sherratt’s dog in
O O O
the photograph?’
‘No, no, not him. What, Lee Sherratt? He was never really
what you’d call a gardener anyway. Or one for keeping animals
either, I should think. He’d rather shoot ‘em than look after ‘em.
No, it was the one before him. That photo must have been taken
a year ago, I’d say.’
‘Who was that, Mrs Kelk? Who did the dog belong to?’ ‘The old gardener. I’m sorry, it was before my time at the
Mount, you see. I don’t know his name. But Laura said it
was an old man that used to come. A strange old man from
O
the village.’
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28
L)iane Fry drove up to the smallholding, this time having no trouble with the gates or the geese, which seemed to be notable by their absence. The stream of rusty water From the broken pipe had dried up, and an air of unnatural silence hung about the buildings.
Her headlights caught the white pick-up, which had been parked near a small wooden shed. She parked in front of it and got out. Its doors were unlocked and the keys were in the ignition. Then she saw Sam Beeley. He was alone, leaning against a wall by the vehicle, almost invisible in the gloom. His expression was vague and sad and full of suffering, and his eyes were fixed somewhere in the distance. He seemed so preoccupied that he hardly noticed Fry’s arrival until she was standing right in front of him.
‘On your own, Mr Beeley? Where are your friends?’
He looked at her vaguely. ‘Harry and Wilford? They’ve left me to it.”
Sam looked shockingly pale, despite the strong sun that had been baking the area for weeks. The veins showed through in his neck and along the line of his jaw amongst sparse grey stubble. His skin hung in loose folds from his cheeks and there were dark-blue shadows under his eyes.
‘Are you all right, Mr Beeley?’
‘Right as I’ll ever be.’
Fry turned and looked up towards the crags of Raven’s Side, where she had lain with Ben Cooper half an hour before, looking down on Thorpe Farm. There had been no sign of him there when she had returned from the car park up the steep path. No indication of where he had gone, no attempt to leave a message. It was typically infuriating behaviour — just what she had come to expect from him.
‘Have you seen Detective Constable Cooper tonight? You remember Ben Cooper?’
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‘Eh? Sergeant Cooper’s lad? I remember him.’ A ghost of a smile touched Sam’s pale lips at the memory of the compost heap fiasco.
‘Have you seen him? Has he been here?’
Sam looked at her blankly, shaking his head in incomprehension.
‘And where have Mr Dickinson and Mr Cutts gone?’
o
He looked as though answering her would be too much effort.
She wanted to get hold oi his jacket and shake him until he
responded, but thought he looked so frail that he would fall
apart in her hands.
‘Mr Beeley, I need to know. Where have they gone?’
Sam rallied momentarily, as if the tone of her voice had pierced
his lethargy. He moved a hand feebly, not quite completing the
gesture. ‘Out on the Baulk.’
o
The old man sagged again. He was clutching his ivory headed stick as if his life depended on it, and his bony hands were tense and white at the knuckles where they gripped the Alsatian’s head.
Fry thought of her first visit to the smallholding. ‘He doesn’t look like he’s got strong wrists, but it’s all in the technique,’ Wilford Cutts had said. She had seen those same hands break the neck of a large bird with one twist. She thought of the three old men, and she thought of Harrv Dickinson covering up for someone
o
involved in the death of Laura Vernon. Did it have to be family?
She looked again at Sam, seeing him afresh. He looked like a
o ‘ O
