Текст книги " In the Dark Places (Abbatoir Blues) "

Автор книги: Peter Robinson

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Текущая страница: 8 (всего у книги 22 страниц)

“I’ve seen a couple of them coming or going from houses when I’ve been shopping.”

“It might help if you could let me know the addresses.”

“I’m afraid I don’t remember. The streets are all named after trees, and I get confused. I could probably point out some of the houses.”

Winsome nodded and Terry watched her make a note in her black book. “We’ll send someone over when it’s convenient for you,” she said. “Maybe tomorrow morning, if that’s OK? We’d like to have a word with some of them.”

“I’m not going anywhere. I don’t suppose they’ll be able to tell you much, though. After all, they wouldn’t have been there when the lorries were.”

“No, but even so . . .”

“Yes. You have to be thorough.” Again, Terry felt disappointed that she wasn’t going to accompany him on a walk around the village to identify the children’s houses. He could point out the highlights of Drewick, such as they were. As it happened, he could only remember where one or two of the children lived, so it probably wouldn’t do her any good. They could canvass the whole village if they wanted. It wouldn’t take long. He also realized that it probably wasn’t a job for someone of her rank; she’d send a patrol car, most likely, and at most a DC to question the kids. But she had come to see him again in person. That was something to hold on to.

Before he hardly noticed, she was putting away her notebook and preparing to get up and leave. He was trying to think of a way to get her to stay when he had forgotten to offer her basic hospitality. “Forgive me,” he said. “I forgot to ask if you wanted anything to drink. Would you like something? Tea? Coffee?”

Winsome smiled. “No, thanks. It’s getting a bit late. I ought to be off. We’re not only in it for the perks, you know.”

He started to protest that wasn’t what he meant when he noticed the cheeky grin on her face. “Got me there,” he said.

He grasped the arms of the chair to heave himself up and follow her out, but she said, “No, that’s all right. Stay there. I can find my own way. Don’t worry about it.” Then she smiled again and the next thing he knew the door had closed behind her.

He sagged back into the chair feeling like an abject failure. He banged the chair arm with his fist, then thumped his gammy leg, too, just for good measure.

6

CALEB ROSS HAD BEEN DRIVING AROUND THE DALES farms for thirty-five years, thirty of them for Vaughn’s ABP, always the white vans with the high sides, covered and leakproof, in their various incarnations. He wouldn’t say he knew the roads the way he knew the gnarled veins on the backs of his hands, but he knew most of them well enough that he didn’t have to drive every inch; he could usually let the internal cruise control take over for a while. He was also used to people overtaking him. Everyone wanted to overtake him, no matter what speed he was traveling, so he had learned to stay at a reasonable fifty and to wave drivers on when he could see that the road ahead was clear. If anyone honked a horn at him, he never heard it because he was always playing his loud music, usually of the kind known as progressive rock, from Rick Wakeman to Genesis and Emerson, Lake & Palmer. He liked the operatic structures of the concept albums and the fantastic stories they told—The Six Wives of Henry VIII, Journey to the Centre of the Earth, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner—they kept him interested as he did what was, most of the time, an extremely dull job. And an occasional puff or two on the old wacky baccy didn’t do any harm, either.

Early that Tuesday afternoon, he was driving south over Belderfell Pass from the western end of Swainsdale, listening to Pink Floyd’s “Grantchester Meadows.” It was not as progressive as some of the music he liked, but it suited his mood. He loved the drive for its panoramic views, no human habitation but for an occasional abandoned farmhouse, a distant dot on the vast landscape. Even in March, the greens were rich on the lower pastures and contrasted sharply with the patches of sere grass higher up. Belderfell Beck ran far below, a thin silver line winding along the narrow groove of the valley bottom, and squiggly lines of rills meandered down the daleside.

But Caleb didn’t enjoy the journey so much on days like this. On days like this, only the experienced, the foolhardy and the lost ventured over Belderfell Pass. It had been clear when Caleb had made his way up the hill out of Swainsdale, but now heavy clouds massed and threatened from the north and west, and the wind was getting up, changing direction every few seconds, buffeting the high sides of the van. Caleb gripped the steering wheel tightly.

He lit a cigarette and shuffled in his seat to get more comfortable. Beside the road, which hugged the steep valley side, the land fell away on his left, a long sheer drop littered with rocky outcrops. It seemed especially dizzying when you were driving south, magnetic, too, as if the edge were calling you over, drawing you to it. Caleb tried to stick close to the center of the road. Sheep grazed and wandered on and off the pavement, which was fenced only sporadically.

Caleb was driving carefully, but he had a schedule to keep, and he was already running late, so perhaps his foot was pressed down a little harder than it should have been. Then again, the faster he got over the pass, the less likely it was that the conditions would worsen while he was up there. At least it wasn’t raining yet, and there was no ice on the road.

Then it happened, it seemed, with the change in direction of one rough blast of wind. The next thing Caleb knew, hailstones as big as marbles were pelting down on the van, almost hard enough to shatter the windscreen. He certainly heard them over the music, and he felt as he imagined a soldier might feel under fire. Instinctively, he found himself hunkering down in his seat, as if he were dodging bullets, wondering if he should pull over until it stopped. Sometimes these storms were blessedly brief. The soothing pastoral of “Grantchester Meadows” played on through the bombardment.

Before he could make his mind up, the hail pellets fell so thickly that for a moment he couldn’t see a thing, only hear the unrelenting rat-a-tat-tat on the metal and glass, and then he saw a dark shadow looming toward him, a frightened sheep running in front of the van, right into his path. He was at one of the steepest points of the pass, and he knew he was still too close to the center of the road. He felt himself hit the sheep before he jerked the steering wheel to avoid what he now saw was an oncoming car, but the combination of hail, shock, speed and lack of visibility disoriented him so much that, before he knew it, he crashed right through the flimsy fence and became airborne.

For a split second, he had the strangest sensation of being free. He had no control. There was nothing he could do. He was floating, cut loose from all that bound him to the world, and it came as a great ecstatic rush of release. But the euphoria soon gave way to panic as the van nose-dived down to the valley bottom with the gentle music still playing and hailstones tapping their staccato rhythm on the metal, Caleb screaming as he scrambled to unfasten his safety belt. Maybe if he jumped . . . ? But he didn’t have time. The van had almost reached the bottom when it hit a huge limestone outcrop square on. The engine block smashed through the dashboard, taking the steering wheel with it, and squashed Caleb in his seat as a wanton boy might squash a fly. Then the van shattered into pieces and scattered itself and its load over the valley bottom.

Before the last scrap of metal had stopped spinning, the hailstorm ended, and the sun lanced through the clouds.

WINSOME AND Gerry Masterson arrived in Hallerby after a morning of paperwork and phone calls, and parked outside the George and Dragon. Winsome glanced around the village. The houses lining the road were mostly modern semis or short terraces, built of redbrick, with a mix of slate and red pantile roofs, the occasional bay window and a touch of pebbledash in evidence. There was no country charm here, though one or two larger detached homes stood back from the road, closer to the riverbank, and seemed older and grander. There was no village green, as everything lay spread out along the roadside: small foursquare chapel, the George and Dragon, a row of shops including a hairdresser, general store and outdoor gear supplier, a community hall and a fish-and-chips shop. The church was behind the row of shops, reached by a narrow ginnel, and Winsome could just see the tips of the tombstones in the cemetery. That was about it for Hallerby. At least the sun was shining, even though there was a definite chill in the air, and on the eastern horizon Winsome could see the Hambleton Hills catching light.

“Where should we start?” asked Gerry.

Winsome nodded toward the pub. “Why not here?” she said. “Let’s take a leaf out of the boss’s book. These places are usually the hub of village gossip. Besides,” she added, “I hate knocking on doors. It makes me feel like a commercial traveler. And the dogs can drive you crazy.”

Gerry smiled. “I remember from my uniform days,” she said.

Winsome gave her an appraising look. Her “uniform” days weren’t far behind, but she was showing excellent promise as a detective, especially in the fields of intelligence gathering and computers. There didn’t seem to be any fact or snippet of information that was beyond the touch of her fingers on a keyboard. It was the other, more human, skills she needed to develop.

“It’s a miracle the place is still open,” said Winsome. “So many village pubs seem to be closing for good these days.”

The interior seemed dark after the bright sunlight, but their eyes soon adjusted. It was a modern pub, not one of those old-fashioned places with lots of brass and heavy varnished wood. The tables were square and made of some sort of black synthetic substance. The chairs had tubular legs. There was even a carpet on the floor. Video machines flashed and winked on the far side of the room. The lunch menu was chalked on a board on the wall and offered the usual pub grub.

“What’ll you have?” Winsome asked.

“Diet bitter lemon, please.”

“Sure you don’t want something a bit stronger?”

“You must be joking,” said Gerry. “If the boss found out we’d been drinking on the job he’d go spare.”

Winsome smiled. “I do hear he’s not averse to a tipple himself now and then.”

Gerry laughed. “Doesn’t matter.”

Winsome ordered two diet bitter lemons and turned to the barman after he had taken the small bottles from the glass-covered refrigerated area. “Are you the landlord?” she asked.

“For my sins. Gordon Fullerton. At your service.”

Winsome flashed him her identification card and introduced Gerry.

“I thought I recognized you from the papers,” Fullerton said. “Aren’t you the—”

“Mind if we ask you a few questions?” Winsome cut in. “Sorry, I don’t mean to be rude, but it’s not a social call.”

“There’s not been any trouble, has there? I keep a quiet pub, and you won’t find any after-hours drinking here, either, whether the local bobby’s in or not.”

Winsome thought he was protesting too much, but she wasn’t interested in after-hours drinking. “No, it’s nothing like that. We’re here because of your location.”

“Location?” Fullerton scratched his head, and Winsome noticed a few flakes of dandruff float to the shoulders of his brown cardigan. His wispy grayish hair looked both uncombed and unwashed, though he was otherwise presentable. Clean-shaven, with a small nick on his chin, clear-eyed behind wire-rimmed glasses, not too much of a potbelly, as far as she could see. There were only four other customers in the place, two couples occupying separate tables and engaged in eating their lasagne and chips. If business was always as bad as this, Winsome found herself wondering if the pub could last much longer. There couldn’t be enough drinkers in the village to support it, and people were so scared of drinking and driving these days, they mostly stayed home to drink. Also, money was tight, the economy poor and people tended to buy their home supplies cheaply at Bargain Booze and drink while they watched telly in the evening, instead of going to the local anymore. It was a shame, really, she thought, though she had never been much of a pub-goer herself, a whole tradition slowly dying. But times change. Nowadays it was all city center wine bars and gastropubs, for those who could afford them, and a taxi home.

“That lane heading off the high street just outside, know where it goes?” she asked.

“Kirkway Lane? Aye. It’s centuries’ old. Roman, I think. It runs through Kirkway Woods, then across a few patches of waste ground beside an old airfield up Drewick way. I think it used to go all the way up to Northallerton years ago, but now it sort of peters out in the woods just past the airfield. Nobody uses it much these days. We just get the odd lorry now and then.”

“Lorries? How often?”

“Not that often.”

“How many times a week?” Winsome persisted.

“Certainly not every week. Far more irregular. I’ve seen them maybe three, four times in the past year or so.”

“Coming or going?”

“Both. They come off the high street from the direction of the A1 and turn left up Kirkway Lane. Then later they come back down, turn right and head back toward the A1.”

“How much later?”

“An hour, two. I don’t stand around watching and waiting, you know, but sometimes it’s devilish quiet around here. Mostly I’ve just heard them.”

“What time do they usually arrive?”

“I don’t really remember. Different times, I suppose.”

“Any particular days of the week?”

“Not so as I remember.”

“Did any of them have any markings? A company name or logo or something?”

“No, they’re just plain lorries, as a rule.”

“How big are they?”

“It varies. You can’t get anything really big up there, like those juggernauts or pantechnicons, or whatever they call them. Just lorries.”

“Big enough to hold a tractor or a combine?” asked Winsome.

“Not a combine, I shouldn’t think,” said Fullerton. “That road’s too narrow. Tractors and other heavy equipment, though. Aye. Why?”

“Livestock?”

“Well, they’re not your typical livestock transporters, but I don’t see as to why they couldn’t be used for that. What’s going on?”

“When was the last time you saw or heard one?”

“Funny you should mention that. It were this last Sunday.”

Winsome felt a surge of excitement. “What time?”

“Let’s see. I were just bringing Fred and Barney—them’s the whippets, like—back from their run, so it would have been just after ten.”

“Which way was it going?”

“Coming down, heading for the A1.”

“You didn’t notice it going up earlier?”

“No. But it could have gone up while I was walking the dogs. I wouldn’t have noticed anything.”

“Can you remember what it looked like?”

“Just like a moving van, really, like I said. Not one of those really big ones, like a furniture van or something.”

“Could you see the driver?”

“Just about. I think he was wearing a flat cap, and I do remember noticing something a bit odd.” He touched his cheek, just beside his ear. “He has those long sort of sideburns that come halfway around the chin. Do you know what I mean?”

“Muttonchops?” said Gerry.

“That’s right. I was close enough to see them.”

“Did you notice what color the lorry was?” Winsome asked.

“Dark green. Racing green, I think they call it.”

“Did this one have any markings, the name of a firm, phone number, anything at all distinguishing about it?”

“No, it were just a green lorry. I mean, it might have had a phone number and a name on the side, but I didn’t notice it. It certainly didn’t have any logos or anything. I’d remember that.”

“I don’t suppose you remember the number plate?” asked Winsome.

“It’s a long time since I used to stand by the roadside scribbling down car number plates.”

“Did you see anything else at all on Sunday morning?”

“No. I’m afraid that’s all.”

“Thanks a lot, Mr. Fullerton,” Winsome said. “You’ve been a great help.”

“I have?” said Fullerton, looking puzzled.

BANKS LOOKED through the window of the helicopter as the pilot took it slowly down as close to the wreckage as he could get. The moving dots soon became people, emergency services, crash investigators, even some CSIs, all of whom had laboriously made their way down the steep valley side via obscure and bone-jolting farm tracks gleaned from Ordnance Survey maps. Most of the tracks hadn’t been used for years, as the farms had died and the farmers had moved away. The location, about halfway along the pass, had very few points of access, and that was no doubt one reason for the economic failure of the farms. There was no road that ran along the valley bottom. Nobody lived there anymore.

Banks turned to glance at Annie beside him. She was sitting straight up, arms folded, earmuffs covering her ears, eyes tight shut. He was going to tell her that they would be arriving at any moment, but he realized she wouldn’t hear him. The noise of the helicopter was deafening, and the swaying, bobbing motion it made, as if it were being tossed on waves in a stormy sea, was probably what was responsible for Annie’s pale face and the contents of the paper bag she clutched on her lap.

Banks could already see that the crash site was spread over a wide area. The valley bottom was narrow, not more than a quarter of a mile wide, and bits of white van and various pieces of engine metal glinted in the sun, which seemed to illuminate the scene with an almost gleeful garishness, as if to say nature doesn’t care, the universe doesn’t care, we move to our own rhythms, follow our own whims, and life on earth means nothing.

An abrupt landing jolted Banks back to reality. The rotor blades started to slow down; the noise diminished from a roar to a whoosh. Banks touched Annie’s shoulder gently and smiled when she looked at him. He mouthed the words, “We’re down,” and they took off their earmuffs. The pilot opened the door for them, and they both scrambled out. Even Banks felt glad to standing on terra firma once again. Annie stumbled, her hair blowing in the downdraft generated by the rotor blades, bent forward and put the bag over her mouth. The pilot reached back into the cockpit and came up with a bottle of spring water, which he kindly handed to her. When she had finished with the bag, she gave him a weak smile and drank the water. He reached out his hand to take the paper bag, too. “Wouldn’t want you contaminating the scene, ma’am,” he said.

Annie pulled a face and handed it over.

“I assume you want me to wait, sir?” the pilot asked Banks.

“Yes, if you would, Mal.” Banks glanced at Annie. “DC Cabbot might hitch a ride back with the CSIs, but I’ll be needing you. Others may, too.”

“Right you are, sir.”

Banks and Annie trotted off toward Stefan Nowak, whom they had spotted directing his men to mark the positions of various bits and pieces of wreckage. Neither spoke about Annie’s reaction to the helicopter flight. Banks knew something of what she felt like. He had suffered from car sickness as a child, until he was fourteen, when all of a sudden it had simply gone away. But the combination of stark terror and nausea Annie had just experienced could be very disorienting, he knew. The farther they got from the draft of the slowly turning helicopter blades, the worse the smell of raw decaying meat became.

Nowak was standing beside something made out of metal and human body parts that resembled a Damien Hirst sculpture or some Giger-designed creature from the Alien series. That bits of it had once been a man, a car seat, an engine and a steering wheel was just about possible to discern, but it wasn’t as easy to estimate where one began and the other ended. Both Banks and Annie stood with their backs to it as they spoke to Stefan. Banks wondered if Annie was wishing she still had her paper bag. He almost wished he had one himself.

“I know,” Nowak said, looking at their expressions. “I’ve seen tidier crime scenes. We think it’s the driver.” He pointed up the steep daleside to a rocky outcrop. “It looks as if he plunged over the edge and hit that rock full on. Most unfortunate.”

Banks winced, and Annie turned paler. “That’s putting it mildly,” Banks said. “But it’s not why we were called out here. The chief super wouldn’t authorize a helicopter for a road accident.”

“Too true,” said Nowak. “The investigators will do their jobs, of course, but it was an accident, all right. The fellow going the other way reported it. He wasn’t hurt, but he’s very shaken. The paramedics took him to Muker to get him some hot sweet tea and keep an eye on him for a while. You can talk to him there later if you need.”

“What did he say?”

“There was a brief but heavy hailstorm. Our chap here was in the middle of the road. A sheep ran out, in front of both the car and the van, and when this driver hit the sheep and swerved to get out of the way of the oncoming car, he ran the van over the edge. Anyway, you’re right, it’s not him you’re here about. Had to be a bit circumspect on the phone, but I don’t suppose it matters much now.” He looked up at the news helicopter arriving from the south. “Want to follow me?”

“Do we have to?” Annie muttered. “I just know this isn’t going to be good.”

Nowak favored her with a heart-melting smile. “Not if you don’t want to, my dear,” he said.

“It’s all right,” she said. “Lead on.”

“Careful where you tread.”

Nowak led them away from the driver’s crushed and broken body, treading carefully between scraps of metal and bits of engine. Banks had noticed that the ground was also scattered with black bin bags, most of them broken or split open and spilling their loads. The flags of black plastic flapped in the wind that roared eternally along the narrow channel of the valley bottom. That was how the pass had got its name; belder was Old English for “bellow” or “roar.”

Here and there, Banks could make out the carcass of a dead sheep, pig or calf, a stillborn lamb, some of them whole, some just parts, a head, torso, hindquarters. Most of the animal bodies had split open to reveal inner organs, trails of glistening intestines and snail tracks of blood. It was a gruesome and surreal sight, he thought, and for a moment he could have sworn they were all museum animals, like the lions and tigers that had ended up on the overhead tramlines when the Germans bombed Leeds Museum in 1941. But when he looked more closely, there was enough blood and gore to convince him that they were real. The scattering of animal body parts and van wreckage seemed to spread across the whole valley bottom, as if it were some sort of battlefield. The field at Towton, Banks remembered from a book he had read, had been so drenched in blood that the becks and rivers had run red when the thaw came. Annie wasn’t showing any reaction, but Banks found himself feeling a bit sick. Mostly, it was the smell.

“As I told you on the phone,” Nowak said, “the driver, Caleb Ross was his name, worked for Vaughn’s ABP, so this”– he spread his arm in a gesture to take in the whole area—“is only to be expected.”

Vaughn’s Animal By-Products was a company that dealt in the removal and disposal of fallen stock. If a farmer had a dead animal on his farm, it was Vaughn’s, or someone like them, that he called. Caleb Ross would have driven from farm to farm, following a list of orders to pick up, and when his van was full he would take his load to the incinerator out back at Vaughn’s yard. Banks had seen the distinctive white vans often around Eastvale, and woe betide you if you got stuck behind one on a slow winding road.

Banks heard the sound of another helicopter and wondered if Mal had taken off for some reason. But when he looked up, he saw the logo of yet another news station. There was also a line of vans way up the steep valley side, parked on the pass road, which had been sealed off to regular traffic. The media were here already. Hardly surprising, Banks thought, when he considered the drama of the crash and the scene. They’d be getting great visuals from their helicopters, too, and there was no way to stop them short of calling out the RAF.

“Peter Darby here yet?” he asked Nowak.

“No. He’s waiting for a mate to come over from Salford. Some specialist in crash scene photography. They should be here soon. Geoff Hamilton and his team are here, though, and Dr. Burns. In the meantime we’ve been asked not to touch anything, just put down markers where we think they’re necessary. We’re taking plenty of photographs of our own, though. We’re also arranging to have some lighting brought in. It’ll be dark before long, and it doesn’t look as if any of us will be going anywhere for a while yet.”

“The wonders of the modern mobile phone,” said Banks. “These days, it seems everyone’s a photographer.”

“Just as well they’re useful for something,” said Nowak. “There’s no reception down here. I had to get one of the local officers to call you from Muker, the lad who went with the other driver. I think one of the crash scene specialists has a satellite phone, though, if you need to use one.”

When they found Dr. Burns, he was kneeling by something on the ground, obscuring it from Banks’s view. When Banks got close enough to see around him, he wished he hadn’t. It was half a human body, the left half, by the looks of it, both armless and headless.

“Oh, Christ,” Banks said, tasting bile in his throat.

Dr. Burns looked up. “I don’t think He had much to do with it.”

“The crash did this?”

“The crash spilled the load and crushed the van driver,” said Dr. Burns. “But this was just a part of it, wrapped in that black plastic bag there like some of the animal parts. I very much doubt it happened in the crash. The butchery is far too neat for that. You can see the—”

“I’ll take your word for it, Doc. Since when did Vaughn’s get in the human body disposal business?”

“They’re not, as far as I know,” said Dr. Burns. “This, you might say, was superfluous to the load.”

“A stowaway?”

“If you like. You’ll have to ask the dispatcher, but I doubt if he knows anything about it.”

“Maybe he did it?”

“Maybe,” said Burns. “That’s for you to find out.”

“Any idea who it is?”

“None at all.”

“Found any other bits?”

“Not yet.” Dr. Burns nodded toward a line of uniformed police officers. “They’re still looking.”

At that moment, one of the officers raised his arm and shouted, “Over here, Doctor.”

Banks followed Dr. Burns, along with Annie and Stefan, and they found the other half of the human being, again armless. Still no head.

“What the hell’s going on,” Banks whispered, almost to himself.

“There is one thing I can tell you, Alan,” said Dr. Burns, gently pulling away the fabric of the victim’s shirt with tweezers. “Actually, you can see for yourself.”

Banks looked at the exposed skin, which was a rich light coffee color, even in death, and he saw the bottom half of what was probably a spider’s web tattoo on what was left of the neck.

“Bloody hell,” he said. “Morgan Spencer.”