The Dead Place (52 page)

There's magic in our bones. They produce our red blood cells, trillions of them surging through our bodies. I think the magic must lie in the marrow, that pale, mysterious jelly. If

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only I could suck out enough of it, my blood might be stronger, and my bones might heal.

Yet every time I think about blood or pain, I get a sensation along the nerves in the backs of my calves, an involuntary cringing, a sudden discomfort like the blood withdrawing from my veins, like shallow water dragging over sharp stones. What kind of direct connection is there between my brain and the muscles in my legs? It's one of those peculiarities of the body, a secret that no pathologist will ever bring to light with his knife.

But soon he'll be gone, the man who made me like this. When the last shreds of his flesh are stripped away, his grip on my life will be broken. Finally, his spirit will separate from his body, prised away like a dead snail sucked from its shell, like sewage pumped from a septic tank. His voice will fall silent in my head, the pain of his presence will stop, and the nightmares will be over. No more of those endless memories of beatings, the feel of his neck in my hands, a neck soaked with sweat as he lies helpless and bleeding - but I can't, can't bring myself to kill him.

Just one more day. And then I can be like everyone else. It takes just one more day.

And this will be a real killing. The final, complete and perfect destruction. By tonight, he'll be gone for ever. Gone from the dead place.

Fry thought the journal had finished. She turned the page at what seemed to be the last entry. But on the other side, there was a final scrawl - two lines in hastily printed capitals: IT WAS ALL A LIE. HE'S STILL HERE IN MY HEAD. WHO ELSE DO I HAVE TO KILL TO GET RID OF THIS THING INSIDE ME?

'There's an earlier entry that looks identical to one of the phone calls,' said Fry, when she'd finished reading.

Cooper nodded. 'Some of it is borrowed from Professor

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Robertson. Notes from when Vernon was his student, perhaps? He seems to have taken in every word as gospel. But the professor could be very persuasive. Mesmerizing almost.'

Fry slid the journal back into its plastic bag and took off her gloves.

'And what about the human remains at Fox House Farm, Ben?'

'I think that'll turn out to be Vernon's father.'

'Richard Slack? You think Vernon stole the body of his own father?'

'It would have been easier to achieve than with Audrey Steele,' said Cooper. 'Especially as Richard was due to be buried rather than cremated. There were people already complicit by then.'

'But why?'

'It would make sense, if Vernon took on board some of the ideas that Freddy Robertson was teaching him - the practice of excarnation, the sarcophagus and the charnel house. He left a body in "the dead place" to be sure that all the flesh had gone from the bones.'

'And he was going back at intervals to check on progress?'

'He wanted to be sure that his father's spirit had gone. He was afraid it would linger unless the bones were completely clean and dry. That's what Robertson had told him, you see.'

'And when the bones were finally clean '

'Vernon thought he'd be free. Free of the nightmares, free of the memory of his father. He seems to have believed that his father was still in his head somehow. Well, you've read it, Diane. He expresses it clearly enough himself in his journal.'

'So perhaps when he called, he knew he was getting close: "Soon there will be a killing." He might not have been talking about his own death at all.'

Cooper sat back, suddenly weary. 'Vernon must have hated his father very much. It appears his father abused him badly as a small child. Vernon bore the pain in his bones all his life.

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I noticed him moving stiffly, but thought it was a recent beating. It wasn't - it was a very old one. A series of vicious beatings, dating back to infancy.'

'Richard Slack was worth more as meat for the worms than he ever was alive.'

'Yes, you might say that.'

'And if his father was still alive, no doubt he'd turn up at the child's funeral and send flowers,' said Fry distantly.

Cooper stared at her.

'Diane, are you all right?' he said.

Fry seemed to shake herself out of some reverie. 'Fine. Look, I understand now what Vernon meant about the dead place being in other people's hearts,' she said. 'But there had to be a physical place too, didn't there?'

'Where else for him but his own home? The house he grew up in, the place he associated with his parents, particularly with the man he'd always hated so much. This house was always a dead place for Vernon.'

Fry was quiet for a few moments. Watching her, Cooper knew she'd return to the same subject that had obsessed her all along, though he didn't know why.

'Those messages he sent,' she said. 'The gibbet and the rock, and all that. Do you think Vernon was hoping we'd work out the clues in time and stop him?'

'We'll never know, will we?'

'If he was, Ben, we were too late.'

There was nothing Cooper could say to that. 'Too late' were the saddest words in the language, and they both knew it.

'Was it Rod Stewart?' he said.

'What?'

'That line from a song. "I'm not quite as dumb as I seem".'

'I don't know any Rod Stewart songs,' said Fry.

'Come on, you must do.'

'Well, I hope I don't.' Fry shivered suddenly. 'Bloody Freddy

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Robertson. He could have saved us so much time. Why didn't he tell us what he knew?'

'This Lucy Somerville, his daughter,' said Cooper. 'I imagine she's an only child?'

'Yes. Why?'

'It means Professor Robertson never had a son of his own.'

'Oh, I see.'

'And Vernon never had a real father. Not one that he cared about.'

'So Robertson became a father figure?'

'Very much so, I think. It's all in the journal, Diane, when you have time to read it.'

Fry glanced at the book on the table. 'I'm not sure I want to read it.'

'Believe me, it's all there. Robertson's big mistake was to come here to Greenshaw Lodge at the wrong time. He chose the moment when Vernon's faith in him had been destroyed. As far as Vernon was concerned, his substitute father had let him down, too. Robertson was killed with a rifle, not a shotgun, wasn't he?'

'So the doctor says. A single bullet, close to the heart. Enough to cause fatal internal injuries and major blood loss.'

Cooper felt a sudden stab of guilt. It was quite irrational, and something he could never admit to Fry. But, sitting here in this tragic house, almost surrounded by human corpses, he felt guilty that he'd never found out who shot Tom Jarvis's dog. Now, poor old Graceless would be pushed so far down the list of priorities that her death would lie on the files for ever, and her killer would never face justice. Mr Jarvis would become just one more person Cooper hoped never to meet on the streets of Edendale, in case he was challenged for an explanation. He looked at Fry. There was something else that needed explaining.

'Diane, there's something about the tapes of those phone

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calls, isn't there?' he said. 'A personal reason you find them so hard to listen to?'

'How did you know?'

Cooper almost told her, but held his tongue at the last second. Some instinct suggested it wouldn't be wise to tell the truth for once.

'I just guessed.'

But Fry had that look on her face again, the one that suggested she didn't believe him. 'Don't worry, Ben. I think I know who must have told you.'

'No, really '

'Well, maybe you're right,' she said. 'But it doesn't matter.'

Fry watched the scenes of crime team carrying out the last boxes to one of the vans. There was still a lot of activity around the nearest tent, where Freddy Robertson's body hadn't been removed to the mortuary yet.

'But Robertson could still have told us what he knew,' she said. 'He could have saved his own life, he could have saved Vernon's. What was wrong with the bloody man?'

'Do you want my expert opinion?' said Cooper.

'Go on, then.'

'He was just weird.'

Fry caught the look in his eye and saw the joke.

'Oh, that's your view as an expert? You haven't just borrowed that opinion from someone else and used it as your own, I suppose?'

'I'm very experienced in my field,' said Cooper.

'Yes, as long as it's a field of sheep.'

Cooper struggled to keep pace with her as she walked out of the house and headed towards the lane, past the crime scene vans. 'By the way, Diane, what sort of fees can expert consultants claim? Do I send my invoice to you, or to the DI?'

And then Fry laughed. It was the first time he'd seen her laugh for months. It altered her whole face, the way the sun could change the landscape after rain. She looked at him and

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opened her mouth to speak, and Cooper felt his heart lift, as if she were about to tell him something he'd waited years to hear.

But he would never know what Fry was going to say. Her first words were interrupted by the ringing of his mobile. With an instinctive expectation of the worst, Cooper looked at the number showing on the caller display.

'It's Matt,' he said. 'And there's only one thing he'll be calling me about.'

If life were really a book, it ought to be possible to turn the last page without pain. The way a life ended shouldn't make anyone forget the way it was lived. But Ben Cooper had a deeper fear. It was one that he hardly knew how to acknowledge. While his sister Claire sat with Matt watching over their mother, Ben waited outside in the trees, reluctant to miss the last shreds of light as the day came to an end. The dusk deepened so gradually that it was only when the air began to chill his skin that he realized he'd been standing in the dark for the last half-hour.

After the past few days, he was afraid that he wouldn't know how to accept death. He wasn't sure that he'd understand how he was supposed to react, what other people would expect of him. When the reality of dying came close enough to touch him personally, he was terrified that his mind would go into denial. How could he face the physical truth of what he had talked about with Freddy Robertson? The slow process of decomposition that began with the final breath, the stages of decay and the mould of fermentation, the swarming bacteria and digestive enzymes that would return the body to the earth.

Surely, when the moment came, it would be too much to cope with. He'd be frozen with fear, terrified to express a thought or emotion, in case it burst a barrier that held back the worms and the demons of the grave. Everyone would

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think he was heartless and cold, that he was showing no grief. He might not be able to face his family, feeling as he did.

Ben wondered if there was anybody he could explain it to. He thought about talking to Matt or Claire, but he knew they wouldn't understand. It wasn't fair to inflict it on them anyway. Nobody wanted to think about death. Not really think about it. He was afraid he might shock them by referring to his mother's body as 'it'. But his perception of dying had changed. He no longer believed that what remained after death would still be the person he'd known and loved.

For a moment, he watched the lights on the relief road. One after another, they flickered and died on the parapet of the footbridge, though the vehicles themselves weren't visible behind the fencing. The hum of traffic reminded him of the garden of remembrance at the crematorium. He shivered, and went back to the ward and let the others take a break.

Ben Cooper held his mother's hand for a long time, until he finally fell asleep in the chair by her bed. He must have dozed for only a short while. Yet he woke feeling as if a long time had passed and the world had changed while he slept. He'd been dreaming about being lost in great, echoing caves where water ran all around him. But the dream slipped rapidly away as he opened his eyes and remembered where he was.

He was still holding his mother's hand, but her fingers felt limp and cold.

'Mum?'

Her eyes were closed - as if she, too, were asleep. He wondered what she'd be dreaming about. Ben put his palm against her forehead. It was smooth - smoother than her skin had been for years. And much cooler, too.

He looked at the unnatural whiteness of her still face, and at first he thought that she must have been replaced with a marble statue of herself while he slept. A beautiful statue, finely sculpted, but lacking the vital spark of life.

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'Mum?'

But he'd seen it often enough to know the truth. His mother's stillness was beyond sleep, beyond the slightest trace of breathing.

Ben laid his mother's hand gently on the cover, making sure it was in a comfortable position. Then he patted it twice and looked up at the window. He wasn't quite sure what he was supposed to feel at this moment. He'd expected to go through all kinds of emotions, but none of them seemed to come. There was only a spreading numbness, a sort of emptiness waiting for something to fill it.

Finally, he got up from the bed and opened the door. He turned once and took a last look at his mother. She seemed peaceful, for which he was grateful. And her bed had recently been made, so that she looked neat and tidy, clean and comfortable. That seemed to be important, too.

Slowly, Ben walked the few yards down the corridor to the nurses' station. A young nurse in a blue uniform looked up at him, and smiled.

'Yes, sir? Is there anything I can do for you?'

'It's my mother,' he said. 'I think she's dead.'

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37

Although it was two days after his mother had died, Diane Fry was still being unusually attentive. It made Cooper nervous. Like an efficient supervisor, she'd been concerned for his welfare, tentatively asking the usual questions to test his state of mind, his ability to do the job, and wondering whether she should send him home, in case he embarrassed his colleagues. And now she'd left a message asking him to meet her here at the sculpture trail in Tideswell Dale, if he felt up to it. What was all that about?