The Kill Call

edge of Birchlow, with farmland to the rear and views over the village itself to the front. ‘For Sale’ signs stood outside the house, and an estate agent arrived, breathless and worried, to let them in.
    ‘The property belongs to a local farmer, who had it built for his son,’ he explained. ‘But the son has left the area. He moved to Leeds to try a career as a teacher.’
    ‘So you found a tenant for him while the house was empty?’ said Fry. ‘Isn’t that unusual?’
    The agent fiddled with a set of keys to find the right one for the front door.
    ‘We knew the property would be vacant for a long period,’ he said. ‘It’s been on the market for two years already.’
    ‘Why haven’t you been able to sell it?’
    ‘It has an occupancy restriction.’
    Cooper nodded. ‘Oh, the five-year permanent residence rule?’
    ‘That, or a strong local connection and essential need. You know the way it goes.’
    ‘Yes, that must make it difficult.’
    In some areas, the national park planning authority had taken steps to prevent villages from being taken over by incomers and second-home owners, restricting ownership of new properties to people with a minimum of five years permanent residence in the parish or adjoining parishes living in unsatisfactory accommodation or setting up a household for the first time. The only exceptions were those who had an essential need to live close to their work, or to care for an elderly or sick relative.
    ‘It reduces the market value by a vast amount,’ said the agent. ‘Unrestricted, this property might have fetched the best part of three hundred thousand, but we’re marketing Eden View for just below two hundred. Even so, it’s going to be difficult finding the right buyer.’
    Cooper looked at the house. That seemed a shame. But then, there were lots of people who were having difficulty selling their houses. He remembered Fry telling him once about the young migrant workers who had been replacing the students in her part of town. Poles, Czechs, Romanians. It was odd that the country should be so open to European migrants on the one hand, while here in some of the villages, properties could only be bought by someone from the very same parish, by a person who belonged here, in the old-fashioned, traditional sense. They were two distinct worlds, existing alongside each other.
    Finally the agent let them into the house. The interior seemed incongruous, hardly fitting for a house worth half a million pounds on the open market. No one was taking much care about cleaning and maintenance. That might be common for a rented property, but the feeling of the place didn’t fit the image of Michael Clay, the businessman and certified accountant.
    In the sitting room, a pile of celebrity gossip magazines lay on the table by an armchair. They all seemed to have headlines like Chanelle spills the beanz . Not what he would have imagined as Mr Clay’s choice of reading.
    ‘Perhaps I was right about there being a woman involved,’ said Fry. ‘But I just had the wrong man.’
    ‘You think Michael Clay might have been the one having an affair?’
    ‘This looks like a kind of love nest to me, Ben.’
    ‘A love nest on the cheap, though.’
    ‘Well, yes.’
    ‘Clay’s wife died five years ago,’ said Cooper. ‘Why would he go to such lengths to conceal a relationship? Who was he hiding it from?’
    Fry shrugged. ‘His children? I bet Erin Lacey doesn’t know about this place. Or maybe his business colleagues? Perhaps he was ashamed of his relationship. Ashamed of her , whoever she is.’
    The kitchen seemed to contain a microwave and not much else. Cooper opened a cupboard. No, he was wrong. Half a jar of coffee and a tin of powdered milk.
    ‘I can’t imagine that Michael Clay spent much time here himself.’
    In a corner were black plastic bin liners bursting with rubbish. Amazing how often he saw that. As if it was too much trouble to put the stuff out for the binmen once a week. Or maybe the household had got on the wrong side of the garbage police and been penalized for putting the wrong stuff in their recycling bin. You could get your collections suspended for failing to distinguish between tin foil and plastic these days. Some authorities were really cracking down on bin crime.
    One wall of the main bedroom was decorated with a poster containing the famous peace symbol, a circle surrounding a cross with its horizontal arms inclined downwards. Cooper had once read