Текст книги "Black Dog"

Автор книги: Stephen Booth

Соавторы: Stephen Booth
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Текущая страница: 22 (всего у книги 26 страниц)

‘Fry? What have you got that I haven't got? Why don't you ever get so that you can't take all the shit any more? Are your tits made of steel, or what?’

She jerked away to the edge of the bed as if he had slapped her. She turned her back on him, clenching her fists and gritting her teeth, attempting to control her anger at the taunt. The blood flushed through her face and neck and into her throat at the ingratitude. Her palms itched to reach out and hold on to something, to prove the unfairness of the jibe. He was totally wrong.

She was not a passionless bitch, not some machine with no feelings. He was so, so wrong.

She was conscious of Cooper's bare, lean body only inches away, and tensely aware of the dark, curling hair spreading down his abdomen towards his tautly swelling erection.

‘I'll show you steel tits,' she said. She pulled her blouse roughly over her head and reached round to unhook her bra, in the same moment turning back towards him and leaning over his naked chest. Then she stopped. Her breasts were swinging free, her nipples beginning to harden with excitement as they brushed gently against his hot skin. The expression on her face changed and darkened with anger. She grabbed him by the shoulders and shook him violently. His head lolled forward, his cheek bouncing into the soft flesh of her breasts. Ben Cooper was unconscious and snoring.

‘Bastard!’

Finally she went back to the sitting room, her mind repeating what he had said, over and over. Steel tits. What had he meant? She undressed, did her exercises automatically and without enthusiasm, pulled a rug over her and lay down on the sofa. Her body was weary, but her mind was whirling endlessly. She tried to read a book, but found the pages were a blur. She discarded the book, turned over restlessly and eventually put out the light. She pressed her face into her pillow, hugged her steel tits to herself, and wept.

25

The old man sat upright on the plastic chair in the interview room, staring at DCI Tailby and DC Fry with frozen dignity, as if he were the only one present who knew how to behave properly.

‘Interview commenced at 1430 Friday twenty-seventh August. Those present are Detective Chief Inspector Tailby . . 'Detective Constable Fry . .

Tailby nodded at Harry. 'Could you identify yourself for the tape, please, sir.'

‘ My name's Harold Dickinson.'

‘ You're entitled to have a solicitor present, Mr Dickinson. Do you have your own, or would you like the duty solici tor?'

‘ I'll not need one of them.'

‘ Are you quite sure? ’

Harry ignored the question, waiting for the next one. Tape or not, he seemed to say, there were times when speaking was a waste of breath.

‘ Have you been given food and sufficient rest?' asked Tailby formally. 'Have you been given the opportunity to make a phone call?''Where's my dog?'

‘ He's being looked after, Mr Dickinson,' said Fry. 'She's a she, not a he,' he said, with open contempt. Tailby glared back across the table. 'We have to ask you some more questions, Mr Dickinson. ’

Harry stared at him impassively. Somehow he made his waxed paper suit look as if it had come from a rack at Marks and Spencers. The disposable plimsolls they had given him looked almost as if they had been polished overnight.

‘ Well. You can ask,' he said .

*

They interviewed Harry at intervals throughout the day, making sure he was fed at the correct times, ensuring he got the proper rests, asking him repeatedly if he wanted a solicitor.

The Police and Criminal Evidence Act obliged them to make sure he understood questions, was not distressed or fatigued or under the influence of any substance that affected his level of awareness, and that he was offered refreshment and allowed access to toilet facilities.

They alternated their teams of interviewers, aiming to break his story by changing direction and the type of question they asked. This also allowed the officers to spend time on the tedious job of listening to their recordings on earphones and transcribing them on to Record of Interview sheets. They analysed their results in between sessions and considered the next strategy. Besides, the interviewers needed a rest, too, after an hour with Harry Dickinson.

*

'Look, Harry, we all know that old men sometimes feel randy too. Your sexual urges don't disappear altogether, do they? Eh, Harry? Not like some people think. I suppose the young girls still get you excited, don't they? ’

DI Hitchens was leaning across the table, staring into Harry's face. He was watching for a crack in the impassive facade, probing and pushing for a reaction.

‘ It's just not a nice thought, is it, that your old granddad might be lusting after the young women like he always used to when he was young? Best to pretend it doesn't happen, eh? Sweep it under the carpet and keep quiet. What you don't know about doesn't hurt. But we know better, don't we, Harry? ’

Harry said nothing, secure in his superior experience, look ing at Hitchens as if he were a simpleton.

‘ Because sometimes it goes too far, doesn't it? Sometimes you just can't control yourself. Can you, Harry? ’

The old man raised an eyebrow dismissively, suggesting that he knew more than a thing or two about control .

*

All the interviewers had been trained to use the proper interviewing techniques. Open questions were the key to the GEMAC procedure – Greeting, Explanation, Mutual Activity, Closure. The aim was to create spiral questions – open questions such as who, what, why, when, where and how, followed by probing of the answers. The theory was that if someone was inventing a story, it was almost impossible to maintain a lie under detailed probing.

As for closed questions, which invited only a single-word reply – they were too much of a temptation for someone like Harry.

*

‘We have the statement of a Mr Gary Edwards, a bird-watcher, who saw a person answering your description passing along the path near the place where Laura Vernon's body was found. A person accompanied by a dog. Was that you, Mr Dickinson?’

Diane Fry looked up expectantly as Harry opened his mouth to speak. He was starting to look relaxed and calm, yet still somehow aloof from what was going on around him in the claustrophobic interview room. Ironically, he seemed immune from the stresses the interviewers were suffering. They knew that they would shortly have to allow him another rest break without having made any progress at all.

‘ Observant chap, was he, this bird-watcher? Did he describe the colour of my eyes, and all?'

‘ It was an old man that Mr Edwards saw.'

‘ Do we all look alike then?' said Harry, with an infuriating smile .

*

'Idle and foolish remarks will be disregarded', the rule book said. But the interviewers found themselves seizing eagerly on every remark that Harry Dickinson let drop, no matter how idle or foolish. At least it was a reaction, something more than that same stony, contemptuous stare.

Harry had the air of a man patiently enduring an outrageous impertinence. He allowed them no emotional feedback, only the unspoken promise of a sober and abiding enmity.

*

'Is that the policy you use towards your wife, Harry? What they don't know about doesn't hurt. Women will think the worst of you, no matter what you tell them. So you might as well tell them nothing. Isn't that right? They're happier with their own imaginings anyway. Isn't that right, Harry? ’

The one thing Harry wanted was his pipe, but he wouldn't give them the pleasure of being able to refuse him. He looked from Hitchens to Fry with a blank, slightly puzzled expression, as if wondering how they came to be in his room.

‘ Or does Gwen know all about your activities, Harry? Perhaps she'll want to tell us all about it. Because we've got her here, Harry. She's in another interview room now. What do you think of that?'

‘ Who's going to feed my dog?' said Harry .

*

Bert Cooper was in the CID room, handling the routine crime reported overnight. His head was thumping as if someone was driving a pneumatic drill through his brain. His mouth was dry and tasted foul, and his body ached all over. He had told DS Rennie that the injury to his head was the result of an accident on the farm. For half an hour he had been forced to submit to a barrage of sheep-shagging jokes, while his stomach churned and he fought the bile that constantly threatened to rise up in his throat.

He had woken this morning with no idea where he was. A strange bed in a strange flat, and no recollection how he had got there, apart from the clue of a thundering hangover and a body stiffened solid with bruises, as he discovered when he tried to move.

But there had been a note scribbled on the back of an old envelope on the bedside table. 'Have been called into the office. I suggest you call in sick. Whatever you do, I don't want to know about it.' In his groggy state, it had taken several minutes before he had been able to work out who the `DF' was who had signed the note.

Then a few grey, fragmented memories had started to trickle into his brain. The visit to the dojo he remembered; then the phone call to Helen Milner and how Diane Fry had shafted him, how she had planned to humiliate him. It was so obvious now that she had deliberately ruined his chances with Helen and had planned to make him look small in front of his friends at the dojo. She had not mentioned that she was a fourth dan black belt when he had boasted of his skill and invited her to a bout. She had lied to him, and when he realized what she had planned, he had walked out in a blazing fury.

Vaguely he remembered the pub near the bus station. It was the third pub he had been in, but he knew something had happened there. From that point on, though, the memories disintegrated completely. Had there been something to do with pigs? Yes, he thought there probably had. Which didn't go anywhere near explaining how he had ended up in Diane Fry's bed and what had caused his injuries. Had she beaten him up? It didn't seem beyond the bounds of possibility. She had kicked him in the teeth in every other way she could find.

Even sitting in the office when he eventually dragged himself into work, Cooper found the memories he needed still eluded him. All that he could think of were his black dogs – the series of disasters that had knocked the legs from under him, coming one after another.

Then he thought of his mother lying in hospital, and he groaned. How could he have forgotten about her and done something so stupid? He thought of his meeting with Superintendent Jepson and swore vehemently. No doubt that was Diane Fry's work as well – she had got in thick with DI Hitchens and used a bit of influence on him. No doubt it had been while they were away in Yorkshire overnight together. Very cosy. That was something he certainly couldn't compete with.

Then Cooper remembered lying to his mother and winced with shame. He remembered Helen Milner rejecting him, and felt despair. He was worth nothing to anybody. And now he had made a fool of himself at the very least last night, got horribly drunk and done God knew what else besides. He might as well go home now to the farm and throw himself in the slurry pit. There was nothing but those evil black dogs running through his mind, snapping and growling. Black dogs and pigs.

Among the morning's crimes was a report of three youths suffering minor injuries in a late-night brawl in Edendale. A falling-out among drunks was presumed. The youths themselves weren't talking and had been sent home. There were other more pressing matters – a list of burglaries and car thefts, a ram raid at a building society.

And, as he had discovered from DS Rennie, there had been an alleged rape at Moorhay, for which Harry Dickinson had been arrested. Cooper shook his head and poked around in the drawer of his desk for some painkillers, but found none. Nothing was right this morning. Just nothing.

Later in the morning, Diane Fry herself appeared in the CID room. Cooper kept his eyes down, not knowing what to say to her. What did you say to a woman whose bed you had woken up in without a clue about what happened between you during the previous few hours? The only possible approach was to let her speak first —if she wanted to.

But she made him wait in agony for several minutes, moving papers around on her own desk, making notes, taking a phone call. Eventually she drifted over towards where he sat. He was aware of her presence, but didn't look up, willing her to speak first.

‘You look like shit.'

‘Thanks. I feel it.’

Fry walked on past his desk. Cooper sat in a daze for a while longer, until she came back, clutching a handful of reports.

‘You want some paracetamol or something?’

‘I'll be all right.'

‘Just don't throw up all over the desk, will you? I can't stand the smell of sick.'

‘I'm fine. Really.'

‘Right.’

Even in his befuddled state, he sensed Fry hesitating, hovering behind him like a baleful matron. She gave off no aura of guilt, only a mood of simmering anger, tinged with reluctant concern. Cooper began to reconsider the possible scenarios of the night before. There were still huge blanks in his memory and there was no way he could make the stuff about pigs fit anywhere. But suddenly he knew for certain that he had done something awful, something totally stupid. So what was it that he was expected to say? Maybe it was 'sorry'. But how could you apologize for what you couldn't remember doing?

‘Thanks, anyway,' he said feebly. 'Thanks, Diane, for – whatever.’

She sighed heavily, put down her papers and wedged herself on to his desk. Cooper winced at the movement and her sudden proximity.

‘I don't know if you're in a fit state to talk about it. But you know we've got Harry Dickinson in?' she said.

‘Yeah.' Cooper glanced up at her. She was looking at him with a mixture of pity and scorn. It seemed like an improvement. 'What has he said?’

She snorted. `Damn-all. He's more worried about his blasted dog.'

‘So where's this girl who says he attacked her?’

‘Rape suite. They're interviewing her now.’

And do Mr Tailby and Mr Hitchens think they're going to break Harry Dickinson and get him to confess?’

Fry looked thoughtful as she pulled up a chair next to his desk. She absently pushed some of his files aside to create a few inches of surface to lean on.

‘It's a funny thing, that, actually. When the lads picked him up, they said he acted as though he was expecting them. "You were quick", that's all he said. But now I keep getting the feeling that he's puzzled by what we're asking him. It's like we've been putting totally the wrong questions to him all along, and he can't understand why.’

A feeling, Diane?''Yeah. So?'

‘Nothing.’

Cooper was busy scribbling on a piece of paper with his ballpoint pen. The fog in his head was clearing gradually, revealing ragged patches of light. This was better than paracetamol for making your brain work.

‘What are you doing, Ben?'

‘I think you could be right about the questions you were asking. Just take a look at that. There's got to be a link.’

He had sketched a rough diagram. It showed lines running between members of the Vernon and Milner families. Old Harry Dickinson was there, connected to Laura Vernon by the finding of the body; his son-in-law Andrew was linked to Graham Vernon through business; Helen Milner connected to Graham through the incident at the party; there was Helen's cousin Simeon, who had been Laura's boyfriend and had been helping Harry and his friends at the smallholding; and then there was Harry again, a wavery line running from him to Graham Vernon, representing the proposed meeting, purpose unknown.

Fry pointed at Harry's name.

‘Strictly speaking, he didn't . . .'

‘... find the body, I know. He only found the trainer.’

And that wasn't really him, it was his dog.'

‘But the meeting he talked about with Vernon is bound to leave a question mark. What was he up to? Besides, the bird-watcher saw him.'

‘Maybe. Maybe not.'

‘Harry Dickinson is involved. No doubt about it.' A feeling?'

‘No. A certainty.’

He looked cautiously at Fry. Magically, the tension between them seemed to have dispersed as soon as they had begun to talk about the Vernon case. She had needed someone to talk to, and she had been drawn towards him despite the contempt which still lingered in her eyes. Whatever had happened between them, perhaps it could eventually be forgiven, or at least set aside so that they could get on with the job. One day, he might even manage to remember what it was that had happened.

‘All right. So let's assume Harry's involved. Consider the possibility, then, that he's covering up for somebody. Who might that be?'

‘Not Graham Vernon, anyway.'

‘No love lost there, certainly.'

‘It has to be family,' said Cooper.

‘Families stick together, don't they? They close ranks against outsiders when there's trouble.'

‘It's what families are for.'

‘Simeon Holmes, then. His great-nephew.'

‘Harry would protect him for the sake of the family.’

‘Family loyalty. They say it's a powerful motivation.’

‘But he says he was with about thirty other bikers at Matlock Bath, nearly twenty miles away,' said Cooper.

‘Has anybody managed to break that alibi?'

‘Have you tried being a police officer asking for information from bikers about one of their own?’

His head was beginning to thump again. For a few minutes, he had almost forgotten the pain.

‘There's another thing, though, Diane. I think you ought to talk to the bird-watcher again. Gary Edwards.’

‘Him? Why?'

‘There's something not right about his statement.'

‘That's true. Dave Rennie took that statement. Mr Tailby said himself it wasn't up to scratch. Rennie never pushed Edwards on the time.'

‘So has he been seen again already?’

Fry frowned. 'No. I don't think so. It would have been put through as an action, but probably got allocated a low priority when Sherratt was pulled in.’

And then just got filed somewhere in the system.' And after they started pulling people off the enquiry . . 'Yeah, like me, for instance. Talk to him yourself, Diane. Will you?'

‘You think he can positively tie in Harry? His description is too vague, you know.'

‘You've got to press him on it. There's something. I just know there is. You've got to do it.’

There was a moment's silence, broken only by Fry's intake of breath. 'Who do you think you are, Ben?' Cooper looked up, startled by the tone of her voice. For a while, he had forgotten all the things that he had to worry about, all the reasons he had to hate Diane Fry. Now she was glaring at him, making it clearer than ever that the feeling was mutual.

‘I only came in here to tell you what was happening because I thought you'd be interested. But the fact is, you're off this case. You've got plenty of other things you should be concentrating on. And there are several other reasons why I don't think I should have to listen to you telling me what I've got to do. So who do you think you are?’

Cooper felt the full flush of his anger coming back to him. He had never found anybody so infuriating as he did Diane Fry. How was it she was able to provoke him into saying things that he would never dream of saying to anyone else?

‘Just at this moment I don't know who the hell I am. Sometimes I feel as though I'm not anybody really. As though I'm just rehearsing for a role that my family want me to play. Learning to be just like my father.'

‘Oh yes? At least you've got a family,' she said. 'What do you mean?'

‘Never mind. It doesn't matter.' She pulled abruptly away from his desk, glancing around with distaste at the mess.

Are you going to let me down, then?' he asked.

She didn't answer, but changed the subject. 'I've got some other news for you. Lee Sherratt has been bailed.’

‘What?'

‘He claims he had no intention of using the gun. He says you startled him, and he had it in his hands at the time. Cleaning it. And it was only an air rifle anyway. You don't even need a licence for one of those. OK, he admits he was poaching – but what's that? A few quid in fines?’

Fry was beginning to move away, back towards the interview rooms and another spell with Harry Dickinson. 'What about Laura Vernon?' asked Cooper.

‘What about her? We can't tie Sherratt in with Laura Vernon. Mr Tailby's done his best.'

'Is he not hopeful?'

‘There's no evidence. Sure, the semen in the used condom was his – but we have Charlotte Vernon's statement that she had sex with him more than once. And it might have been Sherratt seen talking to Laura at six-fifteen that night. In fact, I'm damn sure it was. But unless he admits it, there's no evidence of that, either. And Sherratt knows it perfectly well.'

‘But there's the bite mark. Have they taken an impression of his teeth for comparison?'

‘Yes, but it was a waste of time. The report came back from the forensic odontologist at Sheffield. Mr Tailby is furious that it took so long for a result like that to come through.'

‘Like what?'

‘Ben – that bite mark is the wrong shape. Not only were the teeth not Lee Sherratt's – they weren't even human.'

*

‘So what do you imagine will happen to your dog, Mr Dickinson?'

‘ What do you mean? ’

Diane Fry thrust her chin forward aggressively. 'If your dog attacked and bit Laura Vernon, it could be considered an aggravated offence under section three of the Dangerous Dogs Act.'

‘ I don't understand.'

‘ A court could make an order to have your dog destroyed. Put down,' she said.

‘ You'd better put me down first.'

‘ It's a possibility, though,' said Hitchens, interested in Harry's reaction. 'If the dog was responsible for the attack which led to Laura's death, it would be more than likely. What's the wording, Diane?'

‘ The Act refers to "a dog that injures any person while dangerously out of control in a public place".'

‘ You can't tell they're a dog's teeth,' said Harry.

‘ Oh, yes, we can. We have experts on those sort of things these days, Harry. Experts with very expensive bits of equip ment. Such as scanning electron microscopes and electronic image enhancers. They can tell.'

‘ Aye?'

‘ Do you want to hear a bit of what one of these experts says? I've got it here.' Hitchens pulled out the report from the odontologist. He deliberately skipped the bit about the bite mark being of insufficient depth to assess by normal methods, which was why the expensive equipment had had to be used. 'Here we are. The odontologist says: "It should be noted that human bite marks have a unique oval form, and most of the times there is found a 'suck mark' in the middle of the oval injury. Most human bites exhibit markings from several of the six upper front teeth or lower teeth, sometimes both. Canine bite marks, however, have an angular shape, like a diamond, compared to the human bite mark, which is more curved. Following electronic image enhancement, the pattern injuries caused by canine teeth are clearly distinguishable under the electron microscope." ‘

Hitchens looked up. 'In other words, they were canine teeth, Harry. Laura Vernon was bitten by a dog. We think it was your dog. ’

Harry stared into the distance. The detectives waited, instinctively recognizing the time to be silent.

‘ What if I told you that I killed the lass, and she was bitten after she was dead? Would that do? ’

Fry felt a surge of excitement and astonishment. After all the stonewalling that the old man had done, could it really be so simple? But DI Hitchens was more cautious. He had heard too many statements that sounded like confessions in the heightened atmosphere of the interview room, but which failed to hold up in the cold light of a court hearing. And Harry's remark hadn't even been a statement; it had been a question.

‘ You'd have to convince us first, Harry. Do you want to tell us what really happened now? ’

But Fry interrupted. She had a different question, which she couldn't wait to ask.

‘ Would you really sacrifice yourself for a dog? ’

Harry turned his steady gaze on her. It was clear from the pain in his eyes that his tough exterior had been cracked at last. An intense emotion was breaking through the restraint, a passion that could no longer be controlled by close-mouthed pride.

‘ You wouldn't understand,' he said. 'It's obvious to a blind man, you've not got an ounce of love in you. ’