Dying to Sin. Stephen Booth

he saw the front of the farm, Cooper realized why the builders had gone in the back way. The main access must already have been an ocean of mud when they arrived. It looked as though the previous owners had allowed their cattle free rein. The ground was seriously poached, right up to the walls of the farmhouse. The lane from the gate past the barn would be almost impassable on foot, unless you were wearing waders.

      Cooper shook his head. No one would have allowed that to happen unless they no longer cared about the farm, or had no stake in its future.

      He pulled his Toyota over towards the wall and leaned on the topping stones for a while. He could see that someone had been into Pity Wood this way, and quite recently. Tyre tracks ran through the mud, where a vehicle had churned deep, wet ruts. The tracks didn’t run all the way up to the house, but stopped near the barn. If he looked a bit more closely at the ruts, then asked around to find out when cattle were last in here, he could probably have a good stab at how long it was since the vehicle had come and gone.

      But it didn’t matter, did it? This crime wasn’t recent enough.

      Cooper felt sure they’d be looking into the past to find the information they needed, studying that little time capsule of a kitchen, not the cement-covered building site. The answers would lie in the lives of the people who’d abandoned Pity Wood Farm to its fate.

       4

      At The Oaks residential care home in Edendale, Raymond Sutton was sitting in the big lounge – the one with a view of the fields at the back, where he got an occasional glimpse of cattle grazing in the distance. Holsteins, but it was better than nothing. The TV was on, of course. Some of the old girls watched it all the time, though they didn’t always know what they were seeing. Most of the stuff that was on during the day was rubbish – brainless quiz shows, old films, kiddies’ cartoons. He’d never been one for sitting indoors watching the telly. Raymond liked the news, though. Just because you were old and getting a bit stiff in the joints, it didn’t mean you should let your brain cells die.

      He saw a car enter the gateway from the road and head up the drive. Thanks to his new hearing aid, he could hear the tyres crunch on the gravel. There were many sounds that he’d missed when his hearing started to fail, but the noise of cars wasn’t one of them. His home at Pity Wood had been far enough off the road to save him from traffic.

      He didn’t recognize this particular car. Red, which was unusual these days. Everyone seemed to go for grey or silver, which made it difficult to distinguish between them. He could see it was a four-wheel drive, too. Japanese – Mitsubishi, Toyota? One of those makes. He might have known the difference once, but it didn’t matter that much any more.

      Four-wheel drive, though, and very muddy around the wheel arches and the bottom of the doors. Somebody who knew the countryside, then. He wondered which of the residents they were visiting.

      One of the carers came into the room. The one called Elaine. Young, dark-haired, one of the nicer ones. She was always gentle with him when she had to get him out of bed or into the bath. A little bit of kindness could make his last days more tolerable.

      ‘Raymond,’ she said. ‘Are you feeling up to visitors? There are some people here asking to see you. They’re from the police.’

      Cooper felt he could probably have done a better job interviewing Raymond Sutton on his own. But DI Hitchens was in charge of the investigation for now, so he was within his rights to do whatever he wanted. Some might say that the Senior Investigating Officer should be back at the office co-ordinating the enquiry and allocating resources, but what did he know? He was just a DC.

      They were shown into a lounge by the care assistant, whose name badge said she was called Elaine. Mr Sutton had either been put in there on his own, or the other residents had been moved out somewhere else when they arrived. Whichever it was, they found the old man in splendid isolation, perched in one of those big chairs that only old people ever sat in. There were other, similar chairs ranged round the walls of the room, and a big television set stood in the corner, mercifully switched off a moment before. Many interviews conducted in people’s own homes resulted in conversations shouted over the noise of the telly. It was often a temptation to take someone down to the station just for the sake of being able to hear what they were saying.

      ‘Mr Sutton? I’m Detective Inspector Hitchens, and this is Detective Constable Cooper. From Edendale CID.’

      Hitchens offered a view of his warrant card, as procedure recommended. But Sutton held out his hand instead to greet his visitors, and Hitchens was obliged to shake it. Cooper did the same, grasping a hand with paper-thin skin that trembled slightly in his palm. The old man smelled of soap, and his clothes were clean and neat, though the cardigan he was wearing no longer fit him so well as it once might have.

      They sat on chairs either side of him, and Hitchens opened the conversation.

      ‘Mr Sutton, you are the former owner of Pity Wood Farm at Rakedale. Is that right?’

      ‘Aye. That’s where I live. Pity Wood.’

      Hitchens shook his head. ‘That’s where you used to live. You sold the farm, didn’t you?’

      ‘I did. You’re right. I don’t remember who bought it.’

      ‘We know who bought it, Mr Sutton.’

      ‘Who was it? I can’t remember their name.’

      ‘Mr Goodwin, from Manchester.’

      ‘I don’t know him. It was all done through the estate agents and solicitors. You’ll have to ask them where he is.’

      ‘No, we want to ask you about Pity Wood Farm.’

      ‘Pity Wood, that’s where I live.’

      ‘You don’t live there any more. Don’t you remember?’

      Sutton laughed – a dry, crackly laugh, with little humour in it, as if the DI was tormenting him with a feather in a sensitive spot.

      ‘I remember some things quite well. But I don’t recall this feller that bought the farm. What did you say his name was?’

      ‘Goodwin.’

      ‘I don’t know him.’

      ‘No sir –’

      The old man turned away from Hitchens and studied Cooper instead, his eyes glinting. ‘You’ll come to see me again, won’t you? I don’t get many visitors.’

      Hitchens became impatient then, and made the mistake of putting his hand on Sutton’s sleeve to get his attention. The old man drew his arm away abruptly and stared at Hitchens in indignation.

      ‘Just a minute, young man. Take your hands off me, or I’ll get them to send for the police.’

      ‘Mr Sutton. We have to ask you some questions, I’m afraid, sir. There have been human remains found at Pity Wood this morning. The dead body of a woman. We need to know how this person ended up buried on your farm.’

      ‘Questions? Well, you can only try. Open the barn door, and you might find a cow.’

      Hitchens opened his mouth, but shut it again quickly, as if he’d just found the cow and didn’t want it to escape.

      They left Mr Sutton sitting in the lounge on his own, and found the care assistant who’d let them in to The Oaks.

      ‘I’m sorry if you didn’t have much luck, Inspector,’ she said. ‘Raymond has good days and bad days. You’d be surprised how much he can remember sometimes. His brain is still quite active. But other times, he gets a bit, well… confused, even distressed. It’s perfectly normal for his condition, but you can never quite tell what’s going to upset him. Memories, I suppose.’

      ‘If he has a good day, would it be possible to bring him out for a couple of hours?’ asked Hitchens. ‘We’d like him to come