‘I’ve got a couple of torches in the Range Rover,’ said Jarrow. ‘We might need them in there.’
‘Good idea,’ said Banks.
They waited until Jarrow brought the torches and tested them, then Banks led the way around the remains of the garden wall, just as overgrown on the outside as on the inside, and along the end of the building to their left. They were at the back of the house now, and able to step into the yard over a ruined section of wall. When they arrived at the doorway of the first building, Winsome and Joanna pushed it open and disappeared inside. Banks and Jarrow continued across a stretch of high grass to the back of the house itself.
It was just as dilapidated as the outbuildings from the outside, though it might have been a grand house in its day. Banks stopped before they got to the door and pointed. Jarrow followed his gaze. The pathway worn through the undergrowth from the door to a driveway that crossed the back of the property was clear to see. Obviously, if one or more people had been squatting here, they needed to be able to get in and out, no matter how far they had to walk to the nearest shop or telephone. Ultimately, through a network of unfenced roads, tracks and laneways, if they had any means of transport they could connect with the A66, and from there to Carlisle, Darlington, the M1, A1, and pretty much anywhere else in the country. But the quickest way to Ingleby was the way Banks and the others had just come.
There were no signs of any cars around, except the burned-out chassis of an old Morris Minor in a backyard filled with rusty farm, gardening and mining equipment. Banks’s father used to drive a Morris Minor years ago. He remembered family outings to the countryside as a child, his mother and father sitting proudly up front, him and his brother Roy fighting in the back. They were good memories: hot sweet tea from a Thermos, orange juice and sandwiches and buns in a field by the river, or even on a roadside lay-by, ice creams, swimming in the river shallows if it was a warm enough day.
The implements were nothing unusual. Banks had seen similar things in some of the Dales’ museums. The closest anything came to transport was an old wooden cartwheel with most of the spokes missing. The silence beyond the wind was even more all-encompassing up here than in Ingleby. A curlew’s sad call drifted from the distant moors, but that was all, apart from Jarrow’s heavy breathing and the moaning of the wind in the flues, a loose board clattering somewhere. There was a heavy wooden door with peeling green paint wedged into the doorway at the back, halfway along the building. A simple push from Jarrow’s shoulder opened it and they walked inside, switching on their torches. It seemed to be one long room, like the banquet hall of an old Viking dwelling or a school dormitory, and the torchlight picked out two rows of thin foam mattresses. There were ten on each side, all stained and damp. Here and there, two of the mattresses had been pulled close together, as if their occupants were trying to mimic a double bed or huddle close for warmth. There were no pillows. Whoever had been there, it looked as though they were gone. The walls were stone, and there was no ceiling, only bare rafters holding up the roof. In one or two places, the tiles and surfacing had disappeared, letting in the light from outside. Rain, too, no doubt, as the buckets carefully placed under each hole attested. Dirty blankets lay bunched up beside most of the mattresses.
The smell was almost overwhelming. A human smell, only magnified: dirty socks, urine, vomit, sweat. The smell of poverty and desperation. Gnawed bones, chicken legs most likely, and some empty takeaway food cartons and Costa Coffee cups littered the floor. McDonald’s. Burger King. Kentucky Fried Chicken. The food must have been freezing before it got here, Banks thought, even though someone must have had a car. The nearest McDonald’s was probably the one in Eastvale, at least fifteen miles away. Still, perhaps it was better than nothing. There appeared to be no cooking or food storage facilities here.
At the far end of the room was a trough of murky water with a long spoon on a hook, curved at the bottom so it could be used for drinking. Next to it, behind a ratty, moth-eaten curtain, was a bucket. Banks didn’t need the torchlight to show him what was in it. He turned away in disgust. His eyes lighted on a tattered paperback lying beside one of the mattresses. He knelt down and picked it up carefully. It wasn’t in English, and he couldn’t guess what language it was from any of the words, though the sheer number of consonants, and the odd symbols crowning some of the letters, made him think of Polish. The paper was already faded, and some of the pages were torn. Banks put it back.
‘What do you think?’ Jarrow whispered.
‘I don’t know,’ said Banks, still kneeling by the thin foam mattress. He stood up and brushed off his trousers. ‘I can tell you one thing, though. I doubt very much we’re dealing with Gypsies or Travellers. They don’t usually live like this.’
‘Squatters?’
‘More like it. Let’s go.’
Glad to be outside again, Banks and Jarrow took a few deep breaths of relatively fresh air and watched the women coming over to meet them. ‘It’s a rudimentary loo,’ Winsome said, ‘though there’s no sewage system from what I can see.’
‘There’s a sort of basic shower, too,’ Joanna added. ‘It’s hooked up to a cold water tank. There doesn’t seem to be any hot.’
‘There wouldn’t be,’ said Banks. ‘Someone would have to pay for that. Maybe they fill a cold water tank from the beck, or just let the rain collect.’ He told them what he and Jarrow had found in the larger building.
Winsome and Joanna poked their heads inside and came out quickly. ‘My God,’ said Winsome. ‘What’s been happening here?’
‘I’m not sure,’ said Banks. ‘It looks like a squat, but do you remember that converted barn outside Richmond a few years back? It was in a bit better shape than this set-up, but not much. They found a whole bunch of unskilled migrant labourers living there in dreadful conditions. They were mostly Eastern European, and they’d been enticed over here by promises of work. For a fee, of course. Instead they found themselves basically bound in slavery to a gangmaster, owing so much money they could never pay their way out of it, and what they did have to pay left them nothing to live on — or to run away with.’
‘The kind of people Warren Corrigan preys on,’ said Winsome.
Banks gave her an appreciative glance. ‘So you do listen to the briefings?’
Winsome smiled. ‘Of course, sir. Sometimes.’
‘The impression I got was that he operates mostly in the cities, but it’s a good point. Keep it in mind. It looks very much as if Bill Quinn’s team might have had a man on the inside. We’ll have a little talk with pal Corrigan soon.’ Banks glanced towards the final, and smallest, of the three buildings. The boards were still in the windows, and the back door was shut, though, again, it proved not to be locked, and it wasn’t much of a barrier against Jarrow’s firm shoulder.
At first, the two torch beams picked out nothing except a pile of dirty bedding, another trough of filthy water, a rickety old chair and a few damp ragged towels and lengths of rope. A broken broom handle leaned against the wall by the door, and Banks used it to poke among the tangle of sheets and blankets on the floor. The handle touched something firm but yielding. Already feeling that clenching in his gut that warned him what was coming, Banks used the stick to hook and pull away the rest of the sheets and blankets, and the four of them gazed down on a man’s body. He was naked, and his skin gleamed with a strange greenish tinge in the artificial light. He was thin, he had longish, greasy dark hair and the beginnings of a beard, and beside him, among the heap of filthy bedding, was a worn donkey jacket and a pair of dirty jeans.