Blind to the Bones (65 page)

Dearden practised sighting along the barrels into the night. His eyes would soon get accustomed to the darkness. True, it would be impossible to see who his intruders were before he shot at them. But unless they were up to no good, they wouldn't be in his yard at night, would they?

He moved the barrels slowly from side to side, allowing himself some satisfaction at the weight of the barrels and the hard nudge of the stock against his shoulder. He felt strong at last. Let them come now. He was ready for them.

I
t was only because his eyes were already adjusted to the darkness that Derek Alton saw the movement at all. Even then, it was far too late. The flash followed a second later. Alton would not have been able to say whether he had started to throw himself away from the direction of the discharge, or whether his body had simply rolled with the force of the blast. The impact hit him at the same time that the deafening roar filled the yard. It was a great blast of hot breath that scorched his body and burned his face, the stink filling his nostrils like a giant's belch. Alton was spun sideways by the force of the hot breath, and his shoulder and right hand were thrashed against the edge of a wall as he fell.

For Derek Alton, it was the pain that came last. And by then its dark waves barely lapped at his awareness before he floated above it and away. He experienced a surge of joy and reassurance, like a man who had made a long overdue sacrifice.

Sunday

O
n Sunday, Ben Cooper was supposed to be off duty. Instead, he found himself that morning pulling his Toyota into the car park near the Yorkshire Traction bus stop at Withens. When he got out of the car, he could hear the rumble of heavy machinery somewhere – probably the sound of a tractor on the farm next to Waterloo Terrace.

Cooper cut through a path alongside the churchyard to reach the close where the Renshaws' house was, the Old Rectory. There was some scaffolding against the side of the house, and the sound of hammering from the roof. Probably there were broken tiles to be replaced after the winter. By now, starlings and other birds would be looking for gaps in the roof so that they could get in to build their nests in a warm, insulated attic. The owners were sensible to get the repairs done.

Then Cooper realized the flat-bed lorry parked near the scaffolding looked familiar. Anonymous, but familiar.

He walked round the scaffolding until he could see one of the men working on the roof. He recognized the back of Scott Oxley's head, but couldn't see much else of him because he was hidden by some of the planks at the top of the scaffolding. He recognized Scott's voice, too, when he shouted an instruction to his mate. Another figure came into view, and an arm reached out to pass Scott a hammer. A face peered over the scaffolding and looked down at Cooper. It was Ryan.

‘'Morning,' said Cooper.

Ryan stared at him, still holding the hammer. Scott slithered down the roof a couple of feet and looked over his shoulder, but didn't return the greeting. Above Scott, Cooper could see a gap in the roof about four feet across.

‘Replacing a few tiles?' he said.

‘Is it illegal, then?'

‘Depends.'

Ryan looked vaguely worried. ‘What does it depend on?'

‘Shut up,' said Scott. ‘He's just trying to wind us up. Give me that hammer.'

‘Is the householder at home?' said Cooper.

‘He's gone out. And we don't know when he'll be back.'

‘Pity. I might have to talk to you two for a bit, then.'

Scott began to hit a roof nail with his hammer, muttering something that sounded like ‘nothing fuckin' better to do'.

But Cooper wasn't going to lose the opportunity of talking to a captive audience. The Oxleys couldn't easily get off the roof and climb down the scaffolding to reach their van. There was no easy escape route today. And the home owner wasn't even around to tell him to leave.

‘Much to do, is there?' said Cooper. ‘How long are you going to be on this job?'

‘A day or two,' said Scott.

Ryan was slowly moving back behind the scaffolding, so that Cooper couldn't see him. How old was Ryan again? Was it fourteen or fifteen? But it was Sunday, of course, so there was no school for him to be attending.

‘Just a weekend job, then?'

‘Yeah.'

‘Finished by Monday?'

‘Yeah.'

‘That's good, because they've forecast rain.'

Scott swore under the sound of the hammer. ‘We've got a fuckin' tarpaulin,' he said.

‘But you'll be finished by Monday anyway?'

‘Yes!'

‘Where do you get the tiles from?' said Cooper.

‘Eh?'

‘Well, they're old tiles on that roof, aren't they? It isn't easy to get a good match. Do you have a local supplier?'

‘Are you thinking of going into the roofing business, or what?' said Scott.

‘I'm interested. Local enterprises need our support. I might have some roof repairs I need doing myself one day.'

A mobile phone started ringing somewhere. Cooper knew it wasn't his by the sound of the ring, but he took it out of his pocket and looked at it anyway, just in case. Then he saw that Scott Oxley had taken a phone off the leather belt he wore round his jeans. Scott listened for a few minutes, grunted a couple of times, then thrust the phone back. He glowered down at Cooper.

‘Bastard,' he said.

‘Sorry? I was just enquiring about some work.'

‘You came here to make sure we kept out of the way.'

Cooper frowned. ‘What do you mean?'

But Scott was clambering down the scaffolding as fast as he could, his boots rattling on the ladder on the final descent. Ryan swung down after him, like a natural scaffolder.

Cooper took a step backwards, concerned about the change in Scott's manner. ‘What's the problem?' he said. ‘Why are you stopping work?'

Scott paused only for a second before he got into the cab of the lorry.

‘The rain came early,' he said.

Puzzled, Cooper stood watching the Oxleys as they drove off. He looked up at the sky, then at the hole in the roof of the house. A starling flew down and landed on the tiles before hopping into the hole and disappearing. Cooper shook his head.

‘I think I'll be taking my business elsewhere, after all,' he said.

As Cooper walked back towards the car park, he looked at his mobile phone again. Was there something he ought to know about? But nobody had called him, and his radio was back in the car. Besides, it was his day off, and no one would know that he was in Withens.

A
s if to reflect the tragedy at the Deardens' house, a retaining wall had collapsed during the night. It had been holding back part of the slope behind the lodge, but now it looked as if an explosion had taken place in the hillside and burst through the wall. The dressed stones lay scattered across the yard, covered in black soil, small pebbles and plant debris. It seemed as if even the landscape had managed to force its way through their defences.

Earlier, Diane Fry had watched the ambulance bounce carefully down on to the road. Derek Alton had been alive when the paramedics got to him. But shotgun wounds were messy, and it was difficult to tell how serious his internal injuries might be. Fry couldn't believe that she might be about to lose another potential witness.

Since Shepley Head Lodge was over the border, South Yorkshire Police had been called to deal with the incident, though for once liaison had worked and news had filtered through to Fry. But with Michael Dearden holed up in the house, nobody was making a move until a firearms unit arrived.

Fry wondered where Ben Cooper was, and whether he would even pick up on news of the incident when it was a neighbouring force's operation.

‘Has Dearden got any family in there?' asked the South Yorkshire inspector who had arrived to take charge.

‘His wife, sir.'

‘We need to get her out safely. That's the first priority.'

Fry reckoned Gail Dearden would be safe as long as she didn't do anything stupid. From what she had heard of Michael, he was reacting to a perceived threat from outside, not inside.

‘Are we going to talk to him?' she said.

‘The negotiator will talk to Dearden when he arrives. Perhaps he'll see sense, but it depends what his state of mind is. I'm not putting any of our officers at risk.'

‘I suspect Michael Dearden didn't even know who he was shooting at,' said Fry. ‘But what I'd really like to know is what the hell the vicar came up here for.'

Fry looked at the outbuildings and the back door of Shepley Head Lodge. Probably it was perfectly normal in this area to call at the back door of a house when you were visiting someone you knew. But in the dark?

‘Did Mr Alton have a torch?' she said to the officers nearby. ‘Anybody seen one?'

They shook their heads and shrugged. Fry turned back to the inspector.

‘There are some people called Renshaw down in Withens, they're friends of the Deardens. Perhaps we should give them a call and ask them to talk to Michael Dearden.'

‘Time enough for that later,' said the inspector. ‘Where
is
the negotiator?'

‘On his way, sir.'

B
en Cooper reached the Withens car park and got back into his Toyota. He sat for a few minutes listening to the messages going backwards and forwards to the control room on the radio, but there seemed to be nothing immediately pressing in his part of Derbyshire.

He had parked where he could see both Waterloo Terrace and the rest of the village. But he found that, if he looked straight ahead, he was facing the slopes of Withens Moor, where the air shafts were trailing a few wisps of steam as the cool morning air met the heat produced by the high-voltage cables.

It was strange to think that there were three abandoned railway tunnels two hundred feet below the shafts, and not far away their entrances, protected by steel gates and warning notices. Cooper found himself thinking about the navvies who had built the original tunnels back in the nineteenth century. Most of them had not been Irish immigrants, as he had always thought navvies were. Maybe he had just been prejudiced by the stereotyped image of the Irish labourer in big boots, with a handkerchief tied round his head and his backside protruding from his trousers.

But surely it was more than that. Irish migrant workers had played a major part in building England's canal and railway systems, and had later moved into other areas of the construction industry. Wasn't there one little island off the west coast of Ireland where almost all the men of working age went into tunnel building? They were all related and might even have had the same surname, too, though Cooper couldn't remember what it was.

So why were the Woodhead navvies almost exclusively English? They were from Yorkshire, a lot of them. And Cheshire, too. But Woodhead had been in Cheshire back then. The whole of Longdendale had been in Cheshire. So really it was the Yorkshiremen who had been the foreigners in these parts.

Cooper was wondering whether he ought to call in and check there was nothing he was missing when he jerked upright, startled by a loud rap on the passenger's side window. He bumped his head on the grab handle, and rubbed at it guiltily as he peered through the window, expecting to see Diane Fry or a senior officer catching him out. He hadn't been dozing, not really. Just thinking.

But it wasn't Diane Fry, or anybody more senior. It wasn't even Gavin Murfin grinning at him through the window, pleased at having made him jump. The face he saw was Lucas Oxley's.

Cooper was so surprised that he was a bit slow to respond. He saw Oxley try the door handle, but of course the locks were on. He noticed the brim of Oxley's hat resting against the glass, turning over at the edge so that Cooper could see the man's eyes more clearly, despite the distracting reflections of his wan, startled face. Oxley rapped again, getting irritated, and gestured at him to wind the window down.

At last, Cooper pressed the button for the electric window. Well, it was pretty unbelievable. But it seemed that Lucas Oxley finally wanted to talk to him.

‘I
t's not me that wants to talk to you,' said Lucas Oxley. ‘I hope you understand that.'

Ben Cooper had turned the radio down and invited him to sit in the car, but Oxley hadn't even condescended to acknowledge that foolish idea, and Cooper had immediately regretted it. He was on new ground here, and he had to tread carefully, take it step by step.

‘Fair enough, sir.'

‘It's our Ryan,' said Oxley. ‘He says he wants to tell you something.'

‘Sensible lad.'

‘But I've got to be there when he does.'

‘Certainly, sir. I would have insisted on it anyway. Ryan is a juvenile.'

‘He's fifteen.'

‘Yes.'

‘I've tried to talk him out of it, of course,' said Oxley. ‘I don't even know what it is he wants to tell you – he won't say. And God knows we've got enough on just now. But the lad's stubborn. Stubborn like –'