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Back Dying to Sin Save as PDF
Chapters (43)
  1. Dedication
  2. Epigraph
  3. Chapter One
  4. Chapter Two
  5. Chapter Three
  6. Chapter Four
  7. Chapter Five
  8. Chapter Six
  9. Chapter Seven
  10. Chapter Eight
  11. Chapter Nine
  12. Chapter Ten
  13. Chapter Eleven
  14. Chapter Twelve
  15. Chapter Thirteen
  16. Chapter Fourteen
  17. Chapter Fifteen
  18. Chapter Sixteen
  19. Chapter Seventeen
  20. Chapter Eighteen
  21. Chapter Nineteen
  22. Chapter Twenty
  23. Chapter Twenty-One
  24. Chapter Twenty-Two
  25. Chapter Twenty-Three
  26. Chapter Twenty-Four
  27. Chapter Twenty-Five
  28. Chapter Twenty-Six
  29. Chapter Twenty-Seven
  30. Chapter Twenty-Eight
  31. Chapter Twenty-Nine
  32. Chapter Thirty
  33. Chapter Thirty-One
  34. Chapter Thirty-Two
  35. Chapter Thirty-Three
  36. Chapter Thirty-Four
  37. Chapter Thirty-Five
  38. Chapter Thirty-Six
  39. Chapter Thirty-Seven
  40. Chapter Thirty-Eight
  41. About the Author
  42. Also by Stephen Booth
  43. About the Publisher

‘It’s no surprise. His brother went the same way. Well, not the same way – a bit different, I suppose. The result is the same. The place we all end up.’

She winked at Cooper and edged a bit closer, scraping the rubber end of her stick on the carpet. When she was near enough, she touched his sleeve. He noticed a faintly mischievous gleam in her eye, behind the harmless smile.

Diane Fry would have told him that he had work to do back at the office, and not to waste his time with batty old women just because he felt sorry for them. But there was something more than that about Mrs Greatorex. The glitter in her eye suggested that she wasn’t really batty at all. And old ladies … well, old ladies knew things that other people didn’t.

‘I lived near the Suttons before I came in here, you know,’ she said.

‘Did you? At Rakedale?’

‘One of the cottages on Main Street is mine. The one with the green door.’

‘I think I know it.’

Cooper decided not to tell her that the cottage was standing empty and the paintwork of the door could barely be called green any more. He guessed she hadn’t been home for a long time.

‘I know them all in that village. Have you met the family at the pub, the Dains?’

‘Yes, I have.’

‘Ada Dain is a friend of mine.’

‘It’s the Suttons I’m really interested in,’ said Cooper. ‘The Suttons of Pity Wood Farm.’

‘Pity Wood. Oh, aye.’

The old lady glanced to one side and clutched his arm a bit more tightly. ‘I could tell you a few things about the Suttons,’ she said.

‘Could you?’ said Cooper. ‘Could you really? Shall we have a sit down in the sun lounge for a moment?’

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Three

Fry hadn’t been in a theatre for a long time. She thought it had probably been the Birmingham Rep, and it was a smart new theatre then, all glass and white walls. Nothing like the Royal Theatre, Edendale. This place looked as though it had hardly been designed to accommodate the public at all. The access was via narrow corridors, and flight after flight of shallow, plush-covered steps.

She found Jo Brindley in a makeshift dressing room, waiting for her call to go on stage for a rehearsal. There were four or five other women there, but they left when Fry arrived and stood outside in the corridor, chattering.

‘We thought we had it all off perfectly, but the director and choreographer decided to make some changes after the first couple of nights,’ said Mrs Brindley. ‘It’s putting all the girls into a bit of a tizz. They’ll be nervous when we go on again. Sometimes it’s better just to leave things alone, don’t you think?’