said Tailby angrily, gesturing at the spot where Laura Vernon lay.
‘We’ve got patrols trying all possible locations now. But so many men were taken up by the search down here –’
‘They’d damn well better turn the lad up soon. I want to wrap this one up quickly, Paul. Otherwise, people will be connecting it to the Edson case and we’ll have all the hysteria about a serial killer on the loose. We don’t want that – do we, Paul?’
Hitchens turned and looked appealingly at Fry. She kept her face impassive. If people chose to have bad luck, she wasn’t about to offer to share it with them.
‘Right,’ said Tailby. ‘What’s next? Let’s see – what’s his name? The finder?’
‘Dickinson,’ said Hitchens. ‘Harry Dickinson.’
Harry was in the kitchen. He had finally taken off his jacket, and the sleeves of his shirt were rolled up to show white, sinewy arms. At his wrists there was a clear line like a tidemark between the pale skin untouched by sun and his brown, weathered hands, sprinkled with liver spots and something dark and more ingrained. Harry was at the sink using a small blue plastic-handled mop to scrub out the teacups and polish the spoons. His face was as serious as if he were performing brain surgery.
‘He always does the washing-up,’ said Gwen when the detectives came to the door. ‘He says I don’t do it properly.’
‘We’d just like a few words, Mrs Dickinson,’ said Tailby. ‘Further to our enquiries.’
Harry seemed to become aware of them slowly. He put down the mop and dried his hands carefully on a towel, rolled his sleeves down over his arms and reached behind the door to put his jacket back on. Then he walked unhurriedly past them, without a word, into the dim front room of the cottage, where there was a glimpse of the road through a gap in white net curtains.
Hitchens and Tailby followed him and found him sitting upright on a hard-backed chair. He was facing them like a judge examining the suspects entering the dock. The detectives found two more chairs pushed close to a mahogany dining table and set them opposite the old man. Diane Fry slipped quietly into the room and leaned against the wall near the door with her notebook, while Hitchens and Tailby introduced themselves, showing their warrant cards.
‘Harry Dickinson?’ said Hitchens. The old man nodded. ‘This is Detective Chief Inspector Tailby, Harry. I’m Detective Inspector Hitchens. From Edendale.’
‘Where’s the lad?’ asked Harry.
‘Who?’
‘The one who was here before. Sergeant Cooper’s lad.’
Tailby looked at Hitchens, raising an eyebrow.
‘Ben Cooper is only a detective constable, Harry. This is a murder enquiry now. You understand that? Detective Chief Inspector Tailby here is the senior investigating officer who will be in charge of the enquiry.’
‘Oh aye,’ said Harry. ‘The man in charge.’
‘You are aware that we have found a body, Mr Dickinson?’ said Tailby. He spoke loudly and clearly, as if he had decided that they were dealing with an idiot.
Harry’s eyes travelled slowly from Hitchens to Tailby. At first he had looked unimpressed, now he looked stubborn.
‘The Mount girl, is it?’
‘The Vernon family live at the Mount,’ explained Hitchens for Tailby’s sake. ‘That’s the name of the house.’
‘The remains haven’t yet been formally identified, Mr Dickinson,’ said Tailby. ‘Until they have, we can’t commit ourselves to a positive statement in that regard. However, it is generally known that we have been conducting an extensive search for a fifteen-year-old female by that name for some hours. In the circumstances there would seem to be a strong degree of possibility that the remains discovered in the vicinity may be those of Laura Vernon.’
An old carriage clock in an oak case ticked quietly to itself on the mantelpiece, providing the only sound in the room as it counted off the seconds. Fry thought that time seemed to be passing particularly slowly within the room, as if it was sealed off from the rest of the world in a time zone of its own, where normal rules didn’t apply.
‘You talk like a proper pillock, don’t you?’ said Harry.
Tailby’s jaw muscles tightened, but he restrained himself.
‘We’d like to hear from you how you came to find the trainer, Mr Dickinson.’
‘I’ve told it –’
‘Yes, I know you’ve told it before. Just tell us again, please.’
‘I’ve got other things to do, you know.’
‘Yes, I know,’ said Tailby coolly. ‘It’s dominoes night.’
Harry took his pipe from the pocket of his jacket and poked at the contents of the ceramic bowl. His movements were slow and relaxed, and his expression was studiously placid. Hitchens began to stir, but Tailby quelled him with a movement of his hand.
‘You’ll no doubt understand one day,’ said Harry. ‘That at my age you can’t go rushing up and down hill twice in one afternoon and be in any fit state to go out of the house later on, without having a bit of a kip in between. I don’t have the energy for it any more. There’s no fighting it.’ He ran a hand across his neatly groomed hair, smoothing down the grey, Brylcreemed strands. ‘No matter how many dead bodies you’ve found.’
‘The sooner we get it over with, the sooner we’ll be able to leave you in peace.’
‘I can’t do anything more than that, not even for some top-brass copper and all his big words. All this coming and going and folk clattering about the house – it wears me out.’
Tailby sighed. ‘We’d really like to hear your story in your own words, Mr Dickinson. Just tell us the story, will you?’
Harry stared at him defiantly. ‘The story. Aye, well. Do you want it with hand gestures or without, this story?’
To Diane Fry there seemed to be something wrong with the scene, a sort of subtle reversal. It was as though the two detectives were waiting to be interviewed by the old man, not the other way round. Hitchens and Tailby were unsettled, shifting uncomfortably in their hard chairs, not sure what to say to break the moment. Harry, though, was totally at ease, calm and still, his feet planted in front of him on a worn patch of carpet. He had placed himself with his back to the window, so that he was outlined against the view of the street, a faint aura forming around his head and shoulders. Hitchens and Tailby were looking into the light, waiting for the old man to speak again.
‘Without, then, is it?’
‘Without, if you like, Mr Dickinson.’
‘I was out with Jess.’
‘Jess?’
‘My dog.’
‘Of course. You were walking your dog.’
Harry
