The Dead Place. Stephen Booth
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in tangles of spiky leaves. Now that summer was nearly over, the nettles, like everything else, were starting to die.
Cooper could feel the dampness penetrating the hems of his trousers as he brushed through the grass. Even when it wasn’t raining, it would be permanently wet down here on the low-lying ground at Litton Foot. White bracket fungus flourished wherever it could find an inch of surface soft enough to plant its spores. Layers of it grew from the rubber seal on the lid of the abandoned freezer, and from the crumbling foam insulation behind the dashboard of the car.
He saw that there were other rusted hulks lying in the paddock, and more of them hidden in brambles growing around a gate that led down to the woods. But it was too wet, and Cooper didn’t feel interested enough to explore.
A man in jeans and a thick sweater stood watching him from a wooden porch built on to the back of the house. Cooper hoped he hadn’t looked too interested in the wrecked Datsun. The man had the expression of a used car salesman spotting an approaching customer. Predatory, yet ready to turn on the charm. Cooper could feel himself being assessed.
‘Mr Jarvis?’ he called.
‘Aye. What can I do for you?’
Before he answered, Cooper moved a bit closer. He had to watch where he was putting his feet to avoid stepping on shards of rusted metal lying in the grass.
As he got closer, he saw that the porch itself seemed to have been made out of old timber salvaged from a converted chapel or schoolroom. The boards Mr Jarvis was standing on were massive planks of weathered oak, full of knotholes and the heads of six-inch nails embedded in the wood and painted over. Here and there, patches of black paint still showed through a layer of varnish. The whole structure must weigh a ton – no modern pine decking from Homebase for Tom Jarvis.
‘Detective Constable Cooper, sir. Edendale CID.’
Cooper was used to a variety of reactions when he identified himself. He was rarely a welcome visitor, even to someone who’d been the victim of a recent crime. Then, he was often the target of their frustration. But there was no anxiety or surprise from Tom Jarvis, only a slight disappointment that he hadn’t found a customer for the old Datsun after all.
‘Did you want something?’ he said.
‘Could I ask you a few questions, sir? Nothing to worry about – just routine.’
‘Come up on to the porch, then.’
The deck of the porch was quite a long way off the ground, and Mr Jarvis was looking down on him from a height of about nine feet. Cooper could have scrambled up, but he thought he might lose dignity doing it. Instead, he walked around to the side to reach a set of wide wooden steps that led down to a path into the trees.
Going up the steps, he felt as though he was mounting a stage. That was something he hadn’t done for a long time, not since he went up to collect his certificates at his school prize-giving. For a moment, Cooper felt as vulnerable as he had when he’d been convinced he was going to trip over the top step and fall flat on his face in front of eight hundred pupils and parents.
‘How are you, Mr Jarvis?’ he said.
‘Sound. I’m sound.’
‘This porch is a solid piece of work, sir. Did you build it yourself?’
‘With a bit of help from my sons. Joinery used to be my trade, but this was a challenge. I wanted something that’d last, not some rubbish that would blow down in the first gale.’
‘It won’t do that.’
Jarvis kicked a post reflectively. His boot connected with a dull thud. ‘No, I reckon it won’t.’
Cooper grasped the rail to help himself up the last step. The wood felt smooth and comfortable, and he saw that it was turned in decorative patterns, like the end of a church pew. It was the sort of smoothness that resulted from the touch of many hands over centuries of use, wherever it had originally come from.
‘You’ll be all right,’ said Jarvis from the end of the porch. ‘They won’t bother you. They always sleep at this time of day, and it’d take Armageddon to wake ’em up.’
Puzzled, Cooper looked up. Four huge mongrel dogs lay in a tangled heap on the porch, like a badly made rug. At least, he thought there were four. There could have been another shaggy head or two somewhere in the middle of the heap, without making much difference.
‘What are their names?’ he said, knowing it always went down well with the punters to show an interest in their pets.
Jarvis grimaced at the dogs. ‘Feckless, Pointless, Graceless and Aimless.’
‘Really?’
‘Don’t ask me why. It was her idea.’
‘Whose?’
He jerked his head towards the house. ‘Hers. The wife’s.’
‘Well, I don’t need to ask why. Mrs Jarvis must be a fan of Cold Comfort Farm. The Starkadders and Aunt Ada Doom.’
‘Aunt who?’
‘“Something nasty in the woodshed.”’
Jarvis shrugged, his expression unreadable. ‘If you say so.’
Cooper stepped carefully over the dogs. None of them moved, or even opened an eye to look at him. There seemed to be an awful lot of muddy paws and scruffy tails protruding from the heap and sprawling across the oak boards. But Mr Jarvis said there were only four dogs, and Cooper had to believe him.
‘Just routine,’ said Jarvis. ‘That’s what you all say, isn’t it? Do they teach you that in police school?’
Cooper laughed. ‘Yes. But I do mean it for once.’
Jarvis gave him a brief nod. ‘You’ve time for a brew then, if it’s just routine.’
‘No, sir. Thank you.’
‘Suit yourself.’
‘Actually, it’s about the human remains that were found at the edge of your property,’ said Cooper.
‘Bloody hell, that was weeks ago. Have you found out who the poor bugger was?’
‘Not yet.’
‘Some dropout, I reckon,’ said Jarvis.
Cooper smiled at the old-fashioned term. It was what his grandfather had called anyone with long hair, an expression he’d picked up in the sixties and never stopped using.
‘Why do you say that, sir?’
‘Well, it was a skeleton. That person must have been there for years. Yet nobody missed them.’
‘Perhaps.’
Cooper produced the photographs he’d been given by Suzi Lee. ‘This is a facial reconstruction. Does it remind you of anyone you might have seen around this area at any time?’
‘The dead person?’ said Jarvis, making no attempt to reach for the pictures.
‘Yes, sir. We’ve had them done by a forensic artist, so the likeness won’t be exact. We’re hoping it might jog someone’s memory.’
Rather reluctantly, Jarvis took the photos. He frowned at the appearance of the face, perhaps noticing the inhuman aspects of it first before focusing on the features that might be recogniz able.
‘A woman,’ he said.
‘Yes, sir. We know that much, at least. She was white, aged between forty and forty-five, five feet seven inches tall. The hair and eyes may not be quite right.’
Jarvis was silent, staring fixedly at the photos. Cooper waited patiently, conscious of a trickle of dampness in his collar and a pool of water forming at his feet as the rain ran off his clothes on to the porch.
‘Do they ring any bells, sir?’