Dead And Buried

And what was that smell? She made her way along a short passage and found herself in a galley-style catering kitchen with tiled walls and overhead stainless-steel extractor hoods. Yes, this was where the smell was coming from. The odour of scampi and chips seemed to have been absorbed into the walls and ventilation ducts, and was now being released back into the air.

Fry was reminded of the theory that ghosts were the lingering echoes of people whose lives and deaths were imprinted indelibly in the stone. This smell seemed to bring a sense of life back to the stale air, peopling the abandoned kitchens with the shadowy spirits of those who’d worked there over the years.

But that was Gavin Murfin who’d put the idea of ghosts into her head. She ought to know better than to listen to him, even for a moment.

‘Owner’s accommodation?’ she said.

Murfin jerked his head. ‘Upstairs.’

She found the access to the stairs just past a series of doors marked as ladies, gents and disabled toilet facilities, and another door giving access to the rear yard area.

Upstairs, a room had been turned into a small function suite, with its own corner bar for private parties. It was the brightest room in the pub, thanks to four large sash and case windows looking out over the moor. It was laid with a dark blue carpet, leaving a tiny wooden dance floor area in the middle. It would never have hosted any major events. Thirty or forty people would have filled it to capacity. A small wedding, perhaps. An office party. Groups of laughing workers deposited by minibus. No chance of walking home from here.

The guest rooms were also on the first floor. Just three of them. According to the name plaques on their doors, they were called the Bakewell, Buxton and Bradwell rooms.

There was another, narrower set of stairs leading to the top floor, where the pub’s owner had lived. But the owner’s accommodation was completely bare. In every room, the furniture had been removed, the carpets stripped from the floor, the curtains pulled down from the windows. There were clear marks against the walls where a picture had hung or a chest of drawers had stood. The former occupants had removed themselves completely.

A few minutes later, Fry found herself looking down two flights of stairs into the rear corridor, the gloom in the doorways barely relieved by the light from the huge sash window on the landing. For a moment she was puzzled and disturbed by the way the shadows seemed to move below her, as if the darkness was writhing around itself, invisible snakes stirring the dust on the floor.

It was only when her eyes adjusted to the light that she realised what she was seeing. Smoke and flames from the hillside, casting their distant outlines through the window, thrusting their ominous presence right into the heart of the building.

‘If you want to know about the pub, you could start with Mad Maurice, I suppose,’ said Murfin.

‘Who?’ asked Fry.

‘Maurice Wharton, the last landlord. He ran the pub right up until the day it closed.’

‘He lived on the premises too, of course?’

‘Yes, with his wife and children. I can’t remember their names, but we can soon find that out.’

‘No live-in staff?’

‘Not that I remember. The bar staff usually came up from town for their shift. A lot of them were students earning a bit of money during the evenings or at weekends.’

Fry sniffed the air, detecting again that faint whiff of chips.

‘Who did the cooking here? There must have been some kitchen staff.’

Murfin didn’t answer, and Fry glanced at him, ready to ask the question again.

‘I don’t know,’ he said.

Fry turned to Hurst, softening her instinctive response a little.

‘Find out, will you?’

‘Sure.’

She looked at Murfin again. ‘Gavin, did I hear that you were liaising with the firefighters?’

‘Yes,’ said Murfin. ‘Trumpton reported seeing a white pickup. They can’t be specific about the make or model, or how many people were in it. Or how long it was here before it left. They were a bit vague about the colour, come to think of it — white being so easily confused with blue or red, like. I suppose it’s true what they say in the song. Smoke does get in your eyes.’

‘Trumpton?’ said Fry again.

Murfin ignored her with a complacent smile.

‘So two people were here, at least,’ he said.

‘Well that didn’t take much figuring out, Sherlock, since one of them got left behind, and he happens to be dead.’

‘And someone drove the pickup away,’ added Murfin helpfully.

‘Thanks, Gavin.’

‘Just saying.’

‘What were they doing here? It doesn’t make sense.’

Hurst shrugged. ‘People break into empty buildings all the time. They could have been looking for somewhere to smoke dope, have sex, find a squat for a few weeks.’

‘In the middle of burning moorland? They’d have to be particularly desperate, or stupid.’

‘Fair point.’

Fry looked around the empty rooms. ‘I’d say they might have taken the opportunity to find something worth stealing, but it seems a bit unlikely.’