Fry made a note of the name. ‘Anything else?’
‘Well, Dad once talked to me about a kind of religion called Santeria. He said its practitioners gave themselves power by digging up a body to remove the head, and the fingers and
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toes. I think there were other bones, too. I forget which. Another time he talked about necromancy. I thought that was just a way of predicting the future or something, like reading tea leaves. But Dad said it was a means of communicating with the dead. There was a ritual to perform. But it had to be within a year of the person’s death, because that was how long the spirit hung around the body.’
‘Did he go into any more detail than that?’
‘No.’ Mrs Somerville hunched her shoulders and folded her arms across her body, as if she suddenly felt cold. ‘I gave him a piece of my mind then, told him to pull himself together. I said he was getting obsessed and should ask for professional help. He shut up, and didn’t mention it again.’
‘I don’t suppose he ever did seek help?’
‘I doubt it. He just shut himself up in his house, with his library and his computer.’
‘Mrs Somerville, do you have any reason to believe that your father took his interests further than theoretical research?’
‘How do you mean?’
‘Do you think he ever tried to put some of those rituals into practice?’
She swallowed, but shook her head vigorously. ‘No, no, he would never have gone that far. Dad isn’t a practical man, you see. The details would be quite beyond him.’
‘But if he used the internet a lot, he might have made contact with people who were more practical - individuals keen to exploit his interests. Did he ever mention anybody like that?’
‘No, he didn’t talk about anybody else. Do you mean, people who might… supply him?’
‘There are individuals who’ll provide any service, for the right money,’ said Fry. ‘I presume Professor Robertson is reasonably well off?’
‘Yes, he has plenty of money put away.’
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‘Are you sure he never referred to anybody else? If you remember anything, even the smallest hint, please tell me.’
‘No. I don’t think he had direct contact with many people, after the courses finished.’
Fry had been about to get up and leave, but she stopped. ‘Courses?’
‘He had a little group of students at one time who came to him to learn about Thanatology. I think they were a sort of off-shoot from his university work. But they stopped coming when Mum was very ill. Dad didn’t want anybody in the house then.’
‘They used to come to the house?’
‘Yes, he gave private tuition. I don’t think there were more than half a dozen of them.’
‘Do you know any names?’
‘No, I never met any of them. But, please - I haven’t explained yet why I wanted to come in and see you tonight. You see, I spoke to Dad earlier today, and he sounded odd, not himself at all. I thought he was ill, but he told me to stop worrying. I didn’t believe him, so I arranged to go and visit him this evening in Totley. I wanted to see him for myself and assess his - well, his condition.’
‘And what happened?’
Lucy Somerville sighed, and her head drooped. Fry saw now what had brought her into the station. She was feeling guilty. ‘I didn’t go, in the end. I had to do some shopping this afternoon, and when I got home there was a message from Dad on my answering machine. He said I was not to bother coming to see him, because he’d be out.’
‘Did he say where he was going?’ asked Fry.
‘Yes. That’s what worried me most of all. It was such an odd thing to say.’
‘What, Mrs Somerville?’
‘He said he was going to find “the dead place”.’
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Cooper had to drive back through Litton to reach the road in Tideswell Dale. A sculpture trail had been created in the woods here. Thinking about it, he realized it must be barely more than a mile across the hill from Ravensdale, with only a farm and the grounds of Alder Hall lying between the dales.
On an impulse, Cooper pulled into the parking area. There were a couple of visitors’ cars under the trees, but no one in sight. The rain was keeping people at home. He collected his waterproof from the back seat and locked the Toyota.
At intervals along the trail were big, deeply-carved figures made from some reddish-brown wood - a sinister- looking owl, a reclining sheep. At the top of the slope, where an abandoned quarry had been converted into a picnic area, he came across a larger-than-life carving of a sleeping lead miner in his boots, muffler and flat cap. The miner’s eyes were closed, his right arm rested on his hammer, and his hand clutched a beer mug.
The carving overlooked the road. But when he moved a little higher up the slope, Cooper could see across the fields to the east - a vista of enclosed pasture land with sheep scattered across the landscape like snow. Some of the stone walls looked much too close together. Like the land at Wardlow, these fields retained their medieval shapes, the long narrow strips that were so impractical for modern farming methods. Beyond the Litton road, Alder Hall itself wasn’t visible. But its boundaries were clearly marked by the woods, those plantations created by generations of Saxtons.
Cooper remembered one chore he hadn’t done yet, and he looked up Madeleine Chadwick’s number on his mobile.
‘Detective Constable Cooper, Mrs Chadwick. I visited you on Saturday to talk about ‘
