With the Vietnamese connection still elusive, and the Edendale youth admitting that his iPod had been taken from him by his own brother, Diane Fry found herself winding down the day by wading through the volume crime reports. They were all finished and signed off by the time her shift came to an end. If she had to do this job, no one would be able to say that she didn’t do it well.
Becky Hurst approached her as she was checking her latest emails. It was always wise to clear your inbox at the end of the day. Otherwise, it would just be twice as full in the morning, so you’d never catch up. And you never knew when you might have missed something that required a response yesterday.
‘Yes, Becky?’
‘Diane, we’re meeting up in the pub after shift tonight. The Wheatsheaf. It’s just off the Market Square, near the Town Hall.’
‘I know where it is,’ said Fry.
‘So, obviously, if you want—’
‘Yes, if I need you, I’ll know where to find you.’
‘Oh, yeah. But I didn’t mean that. We were thinking you might … well, unless you’ve got something better to do, of course?’
‘I probably have.’
‘Right.’ Hurst nodded curtly and turned away.
Fry began to relax again. The knots of tension had instantly begun to build up in her shoulders. She never quite knew how to deal with social situations. She’d never had any interest in drinking with the more junior ranks. It tended to make them think she was their friend, which was wrong. If she was going to drink, she’d rather do it on her own. At least she could relax then, instead of being constantly on edge and struggling to dredge up the right small talk without too many awkward silences. Although she was only in her thirties, the younger generation of officers like Hurst and Irvine made her feel like a dinosaur. Outside the job, she had no idea what they were talking about half the time.
She kept an eye on Hurst as Murfin joined her and they spoke quietly for a moment. Despite the difference in their sizes, Becky always looked as though she was the leader when she was with Murfin. She was like a diminutive sheepdog nipping at the heels of a lumbering bullock, steering him in the right direction.
But tonight, Fry had her suspicions about Murfin. He’d been plotting something against her all day, she was sure. He wasn’t going to be content any longer with sniping from the sidelines. It was best to know where the stab in the back would come from.
A few minutes later, Fry climbed into her Audi, drove through the barrier and headed down West Street. She was remembering the first time she’d set eyes on Ben Cooper. She had only just arrived in Derbyshire following her transfer from the West Midlands and was already suffering a form of culture shock at the transition from working in the vibrant urban sprawl of Birmingham to the rural wastelands of the Peak District.
Cooper had been on leave during her first two weeks in Edendale. She’d heard plenty about him, though – everybody’s favourite DC, the fount of all local knowledge. And when he finally appeared, walking into a room full of people, arriving late for a briefing at the start of a murder inquiry, she’d known straight away that he was no threat. Untidy, awkward, lacking in confidence, with a tendency to say and do all the wrong things. He was well meaning, but weak. She clearly remembered thinking that about him at the time, an instant assessment. She would have hated him otherwise.
Fry changed down gears at the bottom of the hill and slowed for the junction with Eyre Street. Cooper had changed since then, of course. The man she’d last seen, before the incident at the Light House pub, wasn’t the same person at all. Promotion, responsibility, a fiancée, and a few more years under his belt – they’d all made a difference. He’d been almost unrecognisable as the awkward inconvenience she’d first met. Very different. And now he seemed more of a threat.
It was funny how that could happen to people. It made her wonder whether she’d changed too, in other people’s eyes. Had she become a different person during these last few years, as a result of her time in Derbyshire and all the things that had happened here? She thought not. Oh, there might be a new scar, a few painful memories, and a lot more clutter in her life – not to mention a reunion with her missing sister, which seemed a century ago now.
But she was still the same person, wasn’t she? She felt too much in control of her own nature to let any of those circumstances change her. There was no being swept along by the tide for her. Self-determination, that was what she believed in. She was in charge of her destiny, and it was important to remember it. Others should remember it more too. Yes, of course. Diane Fry was the same person she’d always been.
In Grosvenor Road, the little flat she’d lived in for years was starting to feel too small and too dismal now, the students and migrant workers upstairs too annoying. She didn’t like the idea of sharing the house any more, got irritated every time she heard the front door slam. She’d got into an argument one day with a girl from Slovakia, and now no one spoke to her. They probably thought of her as a bad-tempered old witch. They certainly made her feel old anyway. She did have twelve or fifteen years on any one of them. And somehow, those years had aged her more than they should have done.
She looked in the fridge, and found nothing on the shelves that hadn’t been there yesterday, and probably the day before. Half a two-litre bottle of milk, some limp lettuce, a few ounces of Cheddar. There was a small bottle of something dark at the back. Possibly soy sauce.
‘Damn it,’ she said, slamming the door. ‘And nothing to drink anyway.’
Fry walked into the Wheatsheaf and paused in the doorway, surveying the bar. At a table in the far corner, under an enormous decorative mirror, she saw a huddled group, heads bent close together over a clutter of empty bottles and half-full glasses.
‘Interesting,’ she said to herself.
She saw DC Carol Villiers first. She was dressed off duty in jeans and a T-shirt, looking strong and fit, and full of vitality, like a woman who’d just come out of the gym – which she probably had. Luke Irvine was next to her, nursing a bottle of American beer. And Becky Hurst came into view across the table when Villiers leaned over to pick up a glass. An unholy trio, if ever she’d seen one. Up to no good, plotting in the pub behind her back. So where was—? Oh, yes – here he came. Gavin Murfin, lumbering back from the bar, a drink in each hand, four packets of McCoy’s ridge-cut crisps dangling from his clenched fingers like trophies.
Fry watched as Murfin distributed the crisps – a red packet of plain salted for Hurst, orange Mexican chilli for Irvine. Villiers left hers untouched on the table as Murfin sat down and ripped open a green packet for himself. Cheddar and onion. She could almost smell it from here.
She wondered who’d organised this little gathering. She knew the youngsters were restless. It was unsettling to have so much disruption in the early part of your CID career. Hurst in particular was ambitious, and wanted to move up the ladder quickly. Fry recognised it – she was the same herself at that age. Becky was careful to keep her nose clean, and tried to earn approval whenever she could. In fact, Ben Cooper really rated her – he’d often said that Hurst was the best of the new recruits to Edendale CID. But she’d be itching with impatience if she felt something was holding her back, if a lack of stability in the department was depriving her of opportunities.
Irvine was a different matter. To Fry’s eye, he looked like a potential troublemaker. He adopted that sardonic style, made too many satirical comments, had too jaundiced an outlook for someone so young. Irvine was far more impulsive than Hurst, too. He was likely to act first and consider the correct procedure later.
But Fry’s money was on DC Carol Villiers. She was older than Hurst or Irvine, and certainly no innocent. Villiers had been a corporal in the RAF Police before she left the forces and was recruited to Derbyshire Constabulary. She must have seen lots of servicemen go off the rails, heard plenty of mutinous barrack room talk in her time. She was capable of dealing with a developing situation like this, if she felt like it. But she could lead it too, if that was her inclination. She had the confidence, that elusive air of authority. And here she was in the pub with the rest of the team, when she was supposed to be on secondment assisting C Division until later in the week.
Fry’s mind went back to a day not long after Villiers had arrived in Edendale. She’d wanted to talk about Ben Cooper, and Villiers knew more about him than anybody. Fry had made the effort, tried to be nice, smiled and done all the small talk. But Villiers hadn’t been forthcoming. She’d been positively tight-lipped, in fact. Fry had felt vindicated in her belief that there was no point in trying to be friends with anyone. You could never rely on them.
Cooper would probably say she always saw the worst in people. And that might be true. But of course, she was usually right too.
Hurst was the first one to spot her across the bar. Not that Fry had been hiding or trying too hard to be inconspicuous. That would have been silly. She had just as much right to be here in the pub as anyone else. Let them react to her presence however they wanted. Let them all worry about her being there, and what she might have heard or suspected. It would make life interesting in the office tomorrow morning.
But Hurst was waving her over. Villiers was even calling her name. Fry shook her head, but automatically began to move towards the table. Some instinctive courtesy prevented her from just turning her back and walking away.
Irvine pulled over an extra chair for her, and the others shuffled aside to make room. But she remained standing, her shoulders stiff and awkward. She had never felt comfortable in unexpected social situations. She needed to be prepared for it. Well, if this was a social situation. Looking around the faces again, she realised they all seemed too solemn.
‘Sit down, Diane,’ said Villiers.
‘It’s okay. I’m just—’
But Murfin had been back to the bar, and now he thrust a glass into her hand. Fry looked at it and caught the aroma. Vodka. She didn’t drink it often, only when she thought she was going to need it to get through the next hour. How had Murfin known? She’d never drunk with him, that she could recall, except when she was on soft drinks, and had always avoided any suggestion of a boozing session. If he’d asked her at any other time she would have chosen a J2O apple and mango flavour. But he hadn’t asked.
With the glass in her hand, she couldn’t help but take the chair. Irvine had placed it at the head of the table, making her feel as if she was the lady of the manor surveying her dinner guests. For a few minutes they all sat quietly, watching her out of the corners of their eyes. Eventually, Fry realised it was being left up to her to break the silence.
‘So what were you all talking about when I came in?’ she said, with an effort at lightness. ‘It looked very serious.’
Glances were exchanged. Hurst fidgeted in her chair, Irvine began to tear a beer mat into pieces. Murfin developed a sudden interest in the barmaid.
‘We were talking about Ben,’ said Villiers.
‘Ben Cooper.’
‘Of course.’
‘I suppose it’s no surprise,’ said Fry.
She could no longer get the lightness into her voice. She had never courted popularity, but deep in her heart she wanted respect, hoped that her team would at least be willing to continue working under her without becoming quite so desperate to get their old DS back.
In that moment, the disappointment struck her harder than she would ever have imagined it could. It felt like a betrayal. They’d been sitting here discussing how they could get rid of her and replace her with Ben Cooper again. And yet they’d invited her to join them and had sat her down at the table with a drink. What a nerve. With an overriding sense of relief, she began to feel angry again instead of hurt.
‘So what have you decided?’ she said. ‘And is it a democratic decision, or have you elected a leader for the revolution?’
Fry glanced from one to the other. They looked puzzled, moody, uncomfortable. Gavin Murfin was calmly drinking a pint of Buxton Brewery’s Black Rocks IPA. She hoped someone else was driving him home tonight.
‘It’s not like that,’ said Hurst. ‘We’re really worried about Ben. He’s not answering his phone at home. He’s not picking up calls on his mobile either. Luke and I went and called at his flat the other day, but we couldn’t get any response. The curtains on the front window were closed, even during the day.’
‘If it was anyone else, his friends would be asking questions by now,’ said Irvine.
‘So, what? Do you want to file a missing persons report? He’s on extended leave, for heaven’s sake. He may have taken a holiday, gone away for a while. He might be doing all the things he’s never been able to do because of the job. In fact, he can do what the heck he likes. I should be so lucky.’
‘That’s just a load of old wazzer,’ said Murfin.
‘Gavin, you’ve known him longer than any of us,’ said Irvine.
Murfin put down his glass and bit into an enormous crisp, licking a salty crumb off his lips.
‘Actually no,’ he said.
‘But…?’
Murfin glanced across at Villiers. She nodded slowly, a little reluctantly.
‘Ben and I grew up in the same area. We were at school together. So I suppose you could say I’ve known him almost all his life. But that doesn’t mean I know him best. Gavin has worked with him longest. I was away from Derbyshire for years while I was in the forces. Just the occasional visit home on leave. You lose touch, miss out on things happening in your friends’ lives back home, no matter how close you once were.’
The others shifted uncomfortably when she said ‘no matter how close’. Fry could understand why. It sounded strangely possessive, as if Villiers felt she had a prior claim on her childhood friend but had diplomatically stayed out of the way in view of his engagement to Liz Petty. It seemed particularly insensitive to be referring to it now.
But perhaps she hadn’t meant it that way at all. People were awkward in these circumstances and said the wrong things all the time. Fry was deliberately keeping quiet. She knew she’d put her foot in it the same way herself. People would be shocked and look at her as if she was a heartless monster. It was best to know your own faults – in her case, it was difficult to deny them when so many others had pointed them out over the years.
The group around the table were looking at her now. Expectant expressions, a respectful silence. They were waiting for her to speak.
‘No,’ she said. ‘No, no. You can’t think that I know him better than any of you. Ben Cooper is a mystery to me. I have about as much in common with him as with that pork pie Gavin has in his pocket for later. You were at school with him, Carol. Gavin, you worked in the same division with him a long time before I came to Derbyshire. You’re both far better qualified than me.’
They said nothing, forcing her to keep on talking.
‘In any case,’ she said, ‘it should be something his line manager deals with.’
That got a response at least.
‘The DI? Paul Hitchens?’ Irvine laughed. ‘We’re not talking about filling in a form and booking a counselling session. It needs a bit of action outside the HR process.’
‘His family, then,’ said Fry. ‘He has an older brother. The one who runs Bridge End Farm. There’s a sister too. One of them, surely…’
They still watched her, letting her run out of ideas. Well, she’d met Matt Cooper herself, and knew he was hardly the ideal person to handle an issue sensitively.
‘The sister,’ she said again. ‘Does anyone know her?’
‘She’s called Claire,’ said Villiers. ‘She’s a bit odd, in a New Agey sort of way. Doesn’t really have her feet on the ground. I don’t think Ben is all that close to her anyway. Not the way he is with Matt.’
Fry sighed, starting to feel trapped. Those eyes fixed on her face were like the walls of the pub closing in around her.
‘Friends, then,’ she said. ‘He’s talked about a couple of mates he used to go on walking holidays with.’
‘Yes. Rakki went back to Mombasa, where he grew up before his family came to the UK. Oscar got married last year and moved to Bristol.’
‘All right. But … Ben must have been seeing a doctor.’
No one commented on the obvious fact that she was straying further and further away from practicalities. The people who could realistically do something about the situation were all sitting around a table in this grotty Edendale pub. The ability was here. But perhaps only some of them had the will.
‘Anyway,’ said Fry at last. ‘You can count me out. I’m the wrong person for this.’
‘But, Diane—’ began Hurst.
‘No,’ she said firmly. ‘It’s a definite, definite “no”.’
Diane Fry was driving as she and Becky Hurst turned the corner into Welbeck Street. She pulled the Audi in to the kerb and turned off the engine.
‘It’s number eight,’ said Hurst. ‘A bit further down the street. The blue door.’
‘I know.’
‘So why have we stopped?’
‘We can walk the rest of the way.’
‘We’ll get wet,’ pointed out Hurst. ‘And there’s space just outside the house. He has the ground-floor flat.’
‘Yes, I can see.’
Fry found it difficult to explain to Hurst why she didn’t want to park her car right outside Ben Cooper’s flat. She had a vague idea about not wanting to scare him off, as if he was a wild stag and she was the stalker, or he was a suspect under observation, and she was a surveillance officer. It was probably just professional instinct, then. Not some silly superstition at all.
In fact, she would have difficulty explaining to anyone why she was in Welbeck Street in the first place. Hadn’t she told them all plainly enough that she wouldn’t do it? But instead of arguing with her, they’d sat gazing at her with their cow eyes, all four of them, and they’d let her think about it herself, without any hassle. That was a dirty trick.
With the ignition turned off, her wipers had stopped. The blue door at number eight was gradually disappearing in the streaks of rain running down the glass. Fry could have sat there all evening. She could have waited until it grew dark and the street lights came on, and then just gone home. But Becky Hurst was a woman on a mission.
‘Okay, then,’ she said, pulling up her collar. ‘Let’s do it.’
But there was no answer to the bell of Flat One, or to their banging on the door. Fry tried dialling the landline number, and they could hear the phone ringing inside the flat, until the answering machine cut in.
Like many of these houses whose windows looked directly on to the pavement, this one had net curtains and a couple of plants on the window ledge to discourage passers-by from peering inside. It didn’t deter Hurst, who pushed her face close to the glass, shaded her eyes with a hand, and twisted herself into a position where she could squint into the sitting room.
She was quite still for a few moments, and Fry began to fidget impatiently, looking up and down the street anxiously, feeling like a potential burglar. Then Hurst started to tap on the window, as if trying to attract someone’s attention.
‘What is it?’ said Fry at last. ‘What can you see?’
Hurst straightened up. ‘Pretty much what I expected,’ she said. ‘A cat.’
‘That’s it, then. A washout.’
‘His landlady lives in the house next door.’
‘Oh. I think you’re right.’
Hurst strode boldly to the door of number six and rang the bell. They heard a dog barking inside. She rang again, and rapped the knocker.
‘I remember Ben saying she’s quite elderly. She’s probably a bit deaf.’
Eventually, a chain rattled and the door creaked open a few inches. An anxious face appeared in the narrow gap.
‘Can I help you?’
‘Oh, you must be Mrs Shelley?’
‘Yes, that’s right.’
Fry wondered how Hurst had memorised the name of Ben Cooper’s landlady. She couldn’t recall him ever mentioning it to her. Though Hurst had been here once or twice in the past, so perhaps it had cropped up.
‘We’re police officers.’ Hurst showed her warrant card. ‘I’m Detective Constable Hurst. This is Detective Sergeant Fry.’
Mrs Shelley didn’t even look at her ID. From the way she was squinting, she probably couldn’t have read it anyway. But she responded with a big smile.
‘Oh. You must be friends of Ben’s,’ she said, opening the door an inch or two more. She peered at Fry, as if she might actually remember her face.
‘Yes,’ said Hurst. ‘We’re his friends. Aren’t we, Diane?’
‘Of course. His colleagues.’
‘Do you know where he is, Mrs Shelley?’
‘No. Well, he went out a while ago. I couldn’t tell you where. At least … no, I don’t think he said where he was going. You could phone him.’
‘We’ve tried. He doesn’t answer,’ said Fry.
‘Do you want me to give him a message?’
‘We were just wondering,’ said Fry, speaking up clearly on the assumption that Mrs Shelley was also deaf. ‘Well, do you have a key to his flat?’
‘Of course I do.’
‘We’re a bit worried about him, you see.’
‘So am I.’
‘Could we perhaps…?’
Mrs Shelley hardly hesitated. ‘Oh, yes. I’ll fetch it, shall I?’
Fry and Hurst exchanged glances while they waited for her to come back. Mrs Shelley had seemed far too eager to co-operate with the request. It was entirely contrary to the advice they were always giving to householders.
‘This is wrong,’ said Hurst.
‘Yes, I know. But…?’
Fry was shocked. Entering Ben Cooper’s flat was like walking into the home of a psychopathic serial killer. Not that she’d ever done that – all the murderers she’d ever dealt with had been ordinary people who’d crossed a line. Everyone was capable of doing that, in the right circumstances. You didn’t have to be a psychopath.
One wall of the kitchen was covered in cuttings, torn roughly from various newspapers. News reports of the arson at the Light House, and the shocking death of Derbyshire Constabulary civilian scenes of crime officer Elizabeth Petty. Coverage of the funeral, a tribute to the dead woman, a coffin carried by uniformed pall-bearers. Killed in the line of duty.
And photos. Lots of photos. Many of them were actually the same shot, but printed in different sizes and different resolutions, cropped to a variety of shapes. Then there were items about the arrest, the suspects being charged. It had been major news in this area. Every detail had been covered.
The media had managed to come up with mug shots of Eliot Wharton and Josh Lane too. Fry couldn’t remember whether the press office had released those. It was quite unusual until after the trial, unless a suspect was on the run and the public was being appealed to for help. But in this case it had probably been judged that the public interest was overwhelming.
Towards the bottom of the collage was an obituary of Mad Maurice Wharton himself, the landlord of the Light House at the time it had been closed. The disappearance of the two tourists, David and Trisha Pearson, had been rehashed by the newspapers, of course. That was inevitable. In fact, the whole history of the events at the pub was here – the Whartons’ disastrous financial commitments, the debts they couldn’t pay back, Maurice’s drinking. Then the arrival of the Pearsons in that snowstorm and the fatal consequences, the moorland fires intended to draw attention away from the abandoned pub and the evidence in the cellar. Fry remembered Nancy Wharton complaining that it never came to end, the cleaning and covering over. The blood always seemed to be there.
Free space had been left at the bottom of the collage. That would be for the eventual outcome. Verdict and sentence. The ultimate fate of the owners of those two faces, Eliot Wharton and Josh Lane, the men who had burned down the Light House and killed Liz Petty.
‘As you can see, he’s not here,’ said Mrs Shelley.
Hurst turned to her. ‘Just ask him to call, would you?’ she said.
‘Have you got a…?’
Automatically, Fry began to produce her card. But she caught a glance from Hurst. She was probably right. Fry put her card back in its holder and let Becky hand over a card instead. Mrs Shelley tucked it into a pocket of her cashmere cardigan.
‘Is he …?’ said Hurst tentatively.
‘What?’
‘Is he all right, do you think?’
The dog began barking again inside the house next door. Mrs Shelley began to edge towards the door.
‘He told me he’s fine,’ she said. ‘Just fine.’
Fry looked around at the cuttings again before she left the flat. No, you didn’t have to be a psychopath to commit a murder. But it did help.