When they got Charlie Dean in an interview room at West Street, he spilled the whole story about his assignation with Sheena Sullivan in the woods, the car getting stuck in the mud, the mysterious stranger in the red rain jacket who’d appeared out of the night and made such an impression on them both.
‘You can see why we didn’t come forward,’ said Dean.
He looked appealingly from Fry to Irvine, but found no understanding from either of them. Fry stared at him, seeing a man who thought far too much of himself, perhaps imagined he was the centre of the universe. Did Mr Dean really believe his actions had no consequences, except for himself? Yes, it was perfectly possible. He wouldn’t be the first to sit in this interview room and look baffled that no one else thought he was important.
‘You’re a married man,’ said Fry. ‘And yet you took a woman into the woods in your car for sex. And you admit you’ve done this many times? What were you thinking?’
He stared at her as if she was an idiot. ‘Well, obviously … I was thinking that I’d get away with it and never have to explain myself.’
‘No excuses, no reasons? No rationalisation?’
‘I always think rationalisation after the act is a bit futile,’ said Dean. ‘We all live in the moment, don’t we? We don’t feel we have to explain our actions to ourselves. So it’s only other people who have those expectations of us. Excuses, reasons …? Detective Sergeant, it’s all so much bullshit.’
Fry supposed he might be considered attractive by a certain type of woman. He was dark and well built, with a boyish smirk and a mischievous gleam in his eye. Once he’d recovered from the stress of being picked up by the police and taken into the station, he’d collected himself well and told a good story. At the same time, he’d managed to exude an air of assurance and self-possession, a man who was in control and could handle any problem. It was his own image, she supposed, a role he’d created for himself.
She looked at the details Irvine had taken from him, and remembered that Charlie Dean was an estate agent. It might be wrong to follow the stereotype, but it must be a job which gave him the opportunities to act out his role. If you were hesitant or unsure of yourself, you might be willing to let a man like Mr Dean steer you in whatever direction he wanted you to go. If he told you a house was perfect for you, it would be tempting to believe him.
‘We need more details of this man you encountered,’ said Fry. ‘A description. What type of car he was driving.’
Dean shrugged. ‘I’m sorry. It was so dark. And in the circumstances I just wanted to get my friend out of there.’
‘Your friend. Whose name you told us earlier is Mrs Sheena Sullivan.’
‘Yes.’
She could see that it had caused him some pain to reveal the name of the woman he’d been with. It was probably the sort of discomfort he felt when having to admit that the property he was selling you suffered from rising damp. There was no point in denying it once the survey had been done. In this case, he had no choice but to give up Sheena Sullivan’s name.
‘I wouldn’t want her husband to find out,’ said Dean. ‘Obviously.’
He directed a roguish, bad boy smile at Fry, but the charm was lost on her.
‘And your own wife, sir? You haven’t mentioned her.’
‘Oh, and Barbara too,’ he said.
Fry had never met anyone she could imagine marrying and spending the rest of her life with. Encounters with the likes of Charlie Dean were enough to put her off the idea completely.
‘You’ve made things a lot more difficult for us, sir,’ she said. ‘This sort of delay could have serious implications for our investigation, you know.’
Now Dean licked his lips nervously. ‘You’ll catch him, though, won’t you? The man in the red rain jacket, I mean.’
‘Let’s hope so, sir. Let’s hope so.’
Sheena Sullivan smoked a cigarette anxiously as she told her version of the story. They’d located her at the hairdressing salon in Wirksworth where she worked as a stylist, and she talked to Diane Fry in the back room of the salon. There was just room for two of them to sit among fresh supplies of gel sprays and boxes of Barbicide disinfectant, close to a tiny kitchen area.
Her statement was fractured and hesitant, though generally consistent with Dean’s. She continually returned to the impression that the man in the red rain jacket had made on her.
‘So what did you notice about him?’ asked Fry. ‘Anything would be helpful. Any small details that could help us identify him.’
‘He seemed big,’ she said. ‘But he was standing against the headlights of his car, you know, so I didn’t see much of him, apart from the coat. He frightened me, I can tell you that. He was already breathing heavily when he got out of his car. I don’t want to imagine what he’d been doing. And there was something about his voice…’
Sheena shuddered visibly and took a drag on her cigarette. She’d opened a small window that looked out on to a backyard, but smoking in the workplace was still illegal. There were times to point these things out, but this wasn’t one of them. Not when Fry wanted Mrs Sullivan to feel relaxed enough to talk.
‘The coat?’ said Fry. ‘You mentioned the coat?’
‘Yes, it had a logo on the chest. Red and blue, with a name next to it. I couldn’t read the lettering.’
‘But you saw the colours.’
‘In the car headlights. The colours were reflected in the light. That’s why I noticed the logo. It just sort of stood out.’
Sheena pushed her blonde hair back from her forehead and looked at Fry with a pleading expression. She looked frail and vulnerable, and a little lost. Fry really wanted to ask her what she saw in a man like Charlie Dean, and how she’d ended up in this situation. But it wasn’t the right time for that either. And she suspected that Sheena Sullivan wouldn’t know the answer anyway.
‘Berghaus,’ said Luke Irvine when Fry described the logo. ‘Everyone knows the Berghaus logo. You see BBC news reporters wearing it all the time.’
‘I’ve never noticed,’ said Fry.
Irvine looked at her. ‘I bet you don’t care about designer labels at all,’ he said.
‘What are you trying to say, DC Irvine? Are you making some comment about the way I dress? Do you think you’re in a position to criticise my fashion sense?’
Irvine began to backtrack. ‘No, no. I mean – I suppose you don’t recognise it because you just don’t watch much telly.’
Fry still wasn’t mollified. ‘Maybe.’
It was true that she didn’t watch TV very often. The news, a few films. There seemed to be very little else of interest for her to watch. Not really to watch. The TV set was often switched on in the flat, but only for the sound of voices in the background, which made the place feel less empty. So she had been vaguely aware of programmes that everyone talked about in the office. There had been Big Brother, then I’m a Celebrity. The X Factor and Strictly Come Dancing. When their names were mentioned she could nod and feel some satisfaction that she at least knew whether it was reality TV or a talent show. But why she should have noticed what BBC reporters were wearing on the news she couldn’t imagine.
‘All right then, Luke. Get yourself a list of local suppliers and see if you can identify that style of coat. With a bit of luck it might be an unusual type.’
Irvine blinked. ‘Have you any idea how many outdoor clothing shops there are in this area? Every village has at least one. I can think of six in Edendale alone.’
‘That will keep you busy, then. You’d better get started.’
Like every other senior police officer, Detective Superintendent Hazel Branagh had a thankless job. She was tasked with managing crime in the sprawling territory of Derbyshire E Division, and she was having to do it with diminishing resources.
She’d sent a message summoning Diane Fry to her office, and first she asked for an update on the murder inquiry, though she had copies of the reports on her desk.
‘These two people you’ve interviewed,’ she said, after she’d listened to an outline.
‘Charles Dean and Sheena Sullivan.’
‘Are they potential suspects?’
‘We can put them in the area, but we can’t place them at the crime scene. Besides, what would be their motive? There’s no connection with the victim that we can see.’
‘Just witnesses, then.’
‘And unreliable ones,’ said Fry.
‘Really?’
‘They would never have come forward of their own volition. They’ve both got their own concerns, a need to keep their activities secret for obvious reasons. And I’m still not convinced they’re telling us everything they did or saw.’
‘There must be more that forensics can come up with?’
Fry shrugged. ‘So far they’ve offered us a heap of garbage. Literally.’
‘I’ve seen the list of items,’ said Branagh. ‘Evidential value?’
‘Well, as evidence, it’s all practically worthless. But some of it does give us another lead.’
‘Does it?’
‘Those woods are used by off-roaders, and there have been some conflicts in the past. Local officers say they feared a violent confrontation would result eventually. Nothing like this perhaps, but—’
‘It’s a bit of a stretch.’
‘Everything is a bit of a stretch at the moment, ma’am. We can’t even find anything in our victim’s background that looks relevant.’
‘So what do we have on him? Did he have any links with the location? This Sparrow Wood place. Was he in the habit of visiting the area?’
‘Apparently not.’
Branagh stood up and turned away thoughtfully. Her broad shoulders blocked out most of the light from the window. Fry had heard some of the male officers say that she would make a good prop forward for the divisional rugby team. It was unkind. But, at this moment, she could see what they meant. With her bulky outline, she looked as though she could bear any weight that was thrust on her.
‘Are you aware that Detective Inspector Hitchens is moving on from E Division?’ asked Branagh finally.
‘I … had heard some talk,’ admitted Fry.
‘He hasn’t mentioned it to you himself?’
‘No. Well, I don’t suppose he would have thought it necessary. Not since I transferred to the Special Operations Unit. I haven’t been a part of Divisional CID for some months now.’
‘Of course. But you must have thought about it, Diane.’
‘About what, ma’am?’
‘The vacancy.’ Branagh glanced at Fry over her shoulder and raised a sceptical eyebrow. ‘Oh, surely? When I ranked as a DS, I had my eye out for any inspector’s job that was coming vacant, no matter what the speciality. And some jobs that weren’t vacant, probably.’
‘I hadn’t considered it. I mean, the SCU—’
‘I know, I know. But there won’t be any promotions available there, you know. Every chief officer in the region has the odd DI to spare. Here in E Division, if we don’t find a suitable candidate locally, we’ll have no trouble recruiting from outside. In fact, they’ll be lining up at the door. And I don’t want that. Personally, I always think the devil you know is preferable to the devil you don’t.’
‘I’m flattered, ma’am,’ said Fry. ‘I think.’
Branagh nodded, and gave an uncharacteristic sigh. ‘You’re aware, I’m sure, that there has always been a bit of competition between yourself and DS Cooper. Two good officers, but very different in style. I can see from the personnel records that it was already happening before I arrived in E Division.’
‘Yes, I suppose it’s true,’ said Fry.
Well, of course it was true. Fry remembered it well, that first sergeant’s job coming up after she’d transferred to Edendale from the West Midlands, and the glaring obviousness of Ben Cooper’s desire for the promotion. No, not a desire. That was the wrong word. It had been an expectation.
And that was the difference between them, she thought. Cooper had assumed the job would come his way by right, as a sort of inheritance, the proverbial dead man’s shoes. Fry, on the other hand, had always been forced to work for these things, and she’d hungered for it. Someone like Superintendent Branagh would be able to recognise that. She was no fool.
Branagh was watching her now.
‘You will think about it, won’t you?’ she said.
‘Yes, ma’am.’
‘Where are you headed now?’
‘Back to Wirksworth. There’s got to be something I can dig out about our victim, Glen Turner.’
Glen Turner’s financial affairs had been examined, and his bank accounts looked unremarkable, as far as Diane Fry could see. The only regular incoming transactions were his monthly salary deposits. The largest payments were direct debits to Derbyshire Dales for council tax, E.ON for a quarterly electricity bill, BT for broadband services. In fact, it seemed he’d paid all the bills for his mother’s house in Wirksworth.
A Visa card showed a service on his Renault Mégane at a local garage, an order for books from Amazon, a new suit from Marks & Spencers. There was nothing apparent in his bank or credit card statements that could have been a motive for murder.
But what else could she gather about Glen Turner’s life? Fry had decided to pay another visit to Mrs Turner in her precariously leaning cottage in St John’s Street. Now that a family liaison officer had been allocated to her and appropriate support systems were in place, Mrs Turner seemed much more willing, and able, to talk about her son.
‘Glen? Yes, he was such a good son,’ she said. ‘Nobody ever had a bad word to say against him.’
‘Really?’ said Fry.
She’d heard that said about people before, but it had never been true. How could it be? Yet in Glen Turner’s case it seemed to come close. Nothing bad, and yet nothing particularly good either.
According to his mother, Glen had actually left home for a while in his twenties. He’d rented a two-bedroom town house further up St John’s Street for six hundred pounds a month, with a brick outbuilding for storage. But when his father died, he’d given up the lease and moved back to the cottage. In Fry’s view, that was hardly leaving home. Even when he was paying his own rent, Glen had never been more than a few hundred yards away from his mother’s apron strings.
Ingrid Turner had proudly reported her son’s organic credentials. He was a member of the Wirksworth Community Growers, and had always bought bread from the Old Bake House in St Mary’s Gate. He was also a volunteer with the Ecclesbourne Valley Railway, which ran the restored line and railway museum at Wirksworth station, though the older blokes didn’t let him do much except issue tickets. Sometimes, Glen went to the quiz nights on Sundays at the Red Lion on Coldwell Street, and liked to drink the odd pint of a Cornish beer called Doom Bar, sitting out on the beer terrace during the summer. Occasionally, on a special occasion, he ate at the Digler’s Den restaurant. With his mother, of course.
It was an unexceptional existence. Surely no one could have objected to anything that Glen Turner did in his private life, though they might have made fun of him for the lack of excitement, the absence of any meaningful relationships but one. So why did Fry feel so uneasy about it?
‘There’s a place just outside Wirksworth called the National Stone Centre,’ she said. ‘Did your son visit it, that you know of?’
‘Yes. He was quite interested in that sort of thing. History, geology.’
‘We found an item in his car. A fossil. It seems to have been bought at the National Stone Centre on Monday.’
‘Yes, they have a shop,’ said Mrs Turner. ‘Glen did take me there once. It wasn’t my sort of place, though. Oh, I suppose it’s all very fascinating in its way, being able to see the earth’s crust and all that. But it all looked so dead to me. Just rock and dust. Even the animals they talked about there had all been dead for millions of years. Like that fossil Glen bought, I suppose. Me, I prefer gardens. Living, growing things.’
Fry nodded. ‘It’s odd that he should have gone there on Monday, isn’t it? Shouldn’t he have been at work?’
‘Oh, he said he wasn’t feeling well enough on Monday. He took a day off.’
‘That would have been because of the injuries he received at the paintballing over the weekend.’
Clearly Mrs Turner was surprised by the turn of the conversation. ‘Oh, you know about that? I didn’t think—’
‘What?’
But Mrs Turner had stopped. Her eyes glazed over for a moment. ‘Yes, poor Glen. He was a bit sore after his experience. Like I say, he decided not to go into the office on Monday.’
‘But he was well enough on Tuesday?’
‘Yes. Well, he went back to work. But then he never came home in the evening.’
‘I see.’
So what had happened on Tuesday? It was remaining a blank day in a remarkably empty life. According to Nathan Baird, nothing out of the ordinary had taken place at the office that day, and Glen Turner had left at the usual time. But surely there must have been some banter about the team building weekend. A bit of sniggering behind Glen’s back, a few subtle cracks about his humiliation. Perhaps some not so subtle hilarity. And after work? Why had he gone to Brassington, and who had he met up with?
Fry turned to Mrs Turner again and told her the scanty information about the stranger in the red rain jacket. She didn’t expect much. The description was so vague that no one would have recognised it. So she wasn’t surprised when Mrs Turner shook her head.
‘It means nothing to me, I’m afraid. Is it somebody Glen met?’
‘We don’t know. It’s possible. Did your son drink at a pub in Brassington?’
‘He didn’t drink much at all.’
‘Of course he didn’t,’ said Fry.
‘Well, the odd pint of beer. And he was always careful never to drink and drive. That’s why we went to the Red Lion, or the Hope and Anchor. They’re within walking distance of here.’
Fry noticed that ‘we’, and felt uneasy again. When Glen Turner did go to the pub, he went with his mother? There was something wrong with that picture. She was more than ever convinced that Glen had a secret he’d been hiding, even if it was only a tendency to slope off to the pub on his own occasionally. And perhaps a friend or two that his mother wouldn’t have approved of?
‘I don’t suppose your son kept a diary?’ said Fry.
‘I don’t think so. At the office perhaps…?’
‘He kept a record of appointments on his phone.’
She had been sitting on Ingrid Turner’s sofa as they talked. Now Fry stood, and found herself looking out of the back window. There was a surprisingly large garden. She would never have expected it from the front of the property. There didn’t seem to be any access to the rear of the cottage from St John’s Street, so there must be a back lane.
A few minutes ago Mrs Turner had listed her son’s membership of Wirksworth Community Growers as one of his plus points. Fry had assumed there must be an allotment somewhere, perhaps shared with some old geezer who actually did all the work. But here was a burgeoning plot filled with vegetables, and a line of canes supporting fruit bushes. One side of the garden was taken up by an expanse of glass and gleaming aluminium.
‘You do have a nice garden,’ said Fry.
‘Thank you.’
‘Is that greenhouse new?’
‘Yes, Glen bought it for me. I’m the real enthusiast about gardening, I suppose. But Glen always took an interest. He was good that way.’
Fry thought back to her examination of Turner’s bank and credit card statements. She couldn’t remember every detail, of course. But this was a large structure, surely twenty feet long. A couple of thousand pounds, perhaps?
‘It’s wonderful. Where did Glen get it?’
‘I couldn’t say. Two young men arrived one day and put it up.’
‘Do you have a receipt, by any chance?’
‘Not me. Glen dealt with all that sort of thing.’
‘There was no paperwork in his room. Hardly anything. Did he keep receipts and bills somewhere else?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Mrs Turner. ‘He never bothered me about bills. I just passed everything on to Glen. I suppose they must be somewhere. At the office, perhaps? In his briefcase?’
Fry shook her head. ‘No, we found nothing like that.’
‘I can’t tell you, then. He did use the computer a lot. There was the one upstairs, and he had a laptop for work.’
‘We’ve got people examining those,’ said Fry. ‘But it takes time.’
‘I don’t know why it should be important, though.’
‘It probably isn’t. But we have to look at everything if we’re going to find out who caused your son’s death.’
‘I don’t know how it helps.’
‘Nor do I, Mrs Turner,’ admitted Fry. ‘Nor do I.’