Fall Down Dead

by Stephen Booth

  Diane had immediately experienced the sinking feeling in her stomach that her sister was uniquely able to provoke.

  ‘Whatever it is, it doesn’t matter.’

  But Angie had shaken her head firmly. ‘You have to listen, sis. It’s too late to do any harm now.’

  ‘Are you sure about that?’

  She’d been convinced her sister was about to tell her some shady truths about her previous boyfriend Craig, the father of Zack. But that wasn’t what Angie had in mind.

  ‘It goes back a long way,’ she’d said, ‘to when you first found me – or rather, when your friend Ben first found me.’

  ‘What?’

  That had been a painful part of their history. It had changed Diane’s life, and not always in a good way.

  ‘You don’t need to remind me of that.’

  ‘In all this time, you’ve never asked me what I was doing in Sheffield,’ said Angie. ‘I know you wanted to skate over all that and go back to the way things were in Warley. But that just wasn’t possible, sis. Not after everything that had happened to me in the meantime. Didn’t you ever wonder?’

  Of course she’d wondered. Yet Angie was right – it was an aspect of her sister’s life that she’d pushed determinedly to the back of her mind. She’d tried to pretend that Angie was the same person she’d lost sight of years ago, even though the truth was staring her in the face.

  ‘It didn’t seem important,’ she said.

  Angie had laughed then. ‘Liar. You just didn’t want to know, in case it compromised your principles. I kept quiet then, but it had to come out. And there are reasons I have to tell you now.’

  The chicken had lost its flavour by that point in the evening. Diane had felt trapped in her own apartment, with no means of escaping whatever her sister was about to inflict on her.

  ‘The fact is,’ said Angie, ‘I fell in with some very bad people in Sheffield. The worst kind you can imagine. I was an idiot, of course. I was at risk all the time. But then I did something even more dangerous – I got recruited as an informer. That was when Ben Cooper traced me. It almost caused disaster for a major operation the NCA were planning.’

  ‘The NCA?’

  ‘As in the National Crime Agency.’

  ‘I know who they are. Angie—’

  But her sister had held up a hand to stop her interrupting. ‘I’ve got to tell you now, Di. Because there’s a good chance I’m going to need your help.’

  Fry sighed at the memory. Angie was almost her only family, and a police officer’s family connections were scrutinised closely. The PSD probably knew all about her.

  Jackson hadn’t asked about her biological parents, though. Her mother was long since dead, or so she’d been told. Her biological father . . . now he was a different matter. If Martin Jackson didn’t know about him, it was significant.

  What it signified, Fry couldn’t quite work out for now. She would have to puzzle it over later.

  20

  Cooper brought Carol Villiers, Luke Irvine and Gavin Murfin into his office. There wasn’t really enough room for the four of them, and Luke had to bring in an extra chair from the CID room. The room would soon get stuffy. But it was one of those times when Cooper needed to escape all the other distractions and get a clear focus.

  ‘All right, let’s examine who we’ve got in this group,’ he said when everyone was settled.

  ‘Well, there are twelve of them,’ said Irvine. ‘All potential suspects.’

  ‘It’s too many. Let’s try to whittle them down. Who had the opportunity? What were their movements at the time Faith was killed? And what motives can we dig up?’

  ‘There’s the threatening note someone sent to her house,’ said Villiers.

  ‘It’s gone to the lab to be examined for fingerprints. Not much chance of getting any results back yet.’

  ‘A note, though,’ said Irvine. ‘Who sends handwritten notes these days? You’re much more likely to get trolled on Twitter.’

  ‘It’s low-tech,’ said Cooper. ‘There’s a lot to be said for that. There’s no email address, no ISP, no phone number to trace a text back to. Just someone with a black marker pen and a sheet of printer paper. Much harder to trace.’

  ‘A suspect, then?’ said Villiers.

  ‘A partner or boyfriend is always the most obvious suspect,’ said Irvine.

  ‘But Faith’s boyfriend wasn’t even there on the walk. Do any of the group know him?’ There were blank looks from the team. ‘Well, let’s find out, then.’

  Villiers made a note. ‘He’s told us he has no interest in the Mass Trespass,’ she said. ‘Or in Kinder Scout, or even in walking as an activity. That’s why he didn’t join in with the group. Faith went with her brother instead.’

  ‘We can count the brother out, surely?’ said Irvine. ‘What motive could Jonathan Matthew have for killing his sister?’

  ‘He’d promised Robert Farnley he could find the money to promote the band. But his parents had turned him down, and when he asked Faith for it, she said no too. That was disastrous for him, likely to destroy all his dreams. Though she might not have realised it at the time. He could have been angry enough.’

  ‘There are always other possibilities too. Things go on in families that we can’t imagine from the outside.’

  ‘Jonathan Matthew’s statement is with the others,’ said Villiers. ‘He’s no more helpful as a witness than any of the others. As far as we can tell, he seems to have wandered about aimlessly on the moor. It isn’t clear that he attached himself to either group when the party split up. No one else’s statement refers to him being there after the point when they decided to get help. They all seem to have assumed he was with the other group. But he was brought down by the MRT at the same time, so he must have been in the area.’

  Villiers shook her head. ‘Not quite. I spoke to Dolly’s handler.’

  ‘Dolly?’

  ‘The search and rescue dog. She’s a German Shepherd. You’d love her.’

  ‘What did the handler say?’

  ‘That his dog located one walker separately and brought him to the rest of the group. From his description, that was Jonathan Matthew.’

  ‘So Jonathan was alone, and he had the opportunity?’

  ‘It seems so.’

  ‘Bring him in and go over his statement again, Carol,’ said Cooper. ‘See if you can pin him down on his whereabouts.’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘Well, even if Jonathan did decide to kill his sister, why would he choose to do it so publicly when he must have had plenty of other opportunities?’ argued Irvine.

  ‘Perhaps it wasn’t what you’d call a choice. It might have been in the heat of the moment.’

  But that didn’t sound right to Cooper, even as he was saying it. It wasn’t a heat-of-the-moment crime, an impulsive lashing-out by someone blinded with anger. It wasn’t like the Danielle Atherton case. Someone had seen an opportunity in the fog and had taken it. They’d planned on having no witnesses.

  Cooper turned to Murfin. ‘You talked to Jonathan Matthew, Gavin. I expect you’ve formed your own impressions.’

  ‘He looks like a student to me,’ said Murfin. ‘Acts like one too.’

  ‘You’ve never had much time for students, have you, Gavin?’

  ‘I never saw the need to go to university myself. And look how well I did.’

  Cooper smiled. It was one thing he had in common with Murfin. Sometimes he thought he might be the last of the non-graduates in the police service. But in Gavin Murfin’s day it was the norm. A couple of A levels was all you needed back then. In his years with Derbyshire Constabulary, Gavin had seen dozens of younger recruits arrive, waving their degree certificates as they overtook him on the promotion ladder.

  ‘Why would you say Jonathan Matthew was on that Kinder Scout walk? What was his interest? Why was he a member of the New Trespassers Walking Club?’

  ‘He’s definitely not the type,’ said Murfin. ‘According to the reports f
rom the Mountain Rescue guys, he wasn’t even dressed right for a hike on the moors. They said he was in the early stages of hypothermia. If Jonathan had been forced to spend the night on Kinder, it’s possible he would have been dead too. I don’t think he has any interest in the Mass Trespass stuff.’

  ‘So why was he there?’

  ‘Because of his sister,’ said Murfin simply. ‘He worshipped her. Jonathan didn’t talk much about his parents. But Big Sis was really important to him.’

  ‘So he went to please her?’

  ‘Or because he just wanted to spend time with her. Or . . .’

  When he hesitated, Cooper looked at him more closely. He’d known Murfin a long time. Despite the flippant exterior, Gavin was always capable of surprising him. His experience could produce insights he might never get from anyone else.

  ‘Yes? Or what, Gavin?’

  ‘Or perhaps because he wanted to protect her,’ said Murfin.

  ‘Interesting.’

  Murfin shrugged apologetically. ‘I don’t know why I said that really. It’s just an impression, like.’

  ‘No, that’s great. Thanks, Gavin. Is there any point in me asking the obvious question, though?’

  ‘Who he wanted to protect his sister from? No. Sorry, Ben, that I couldn’t tell you.’

  ‘We can’t discount him,’ said Cooper. ‘So we keep him on the list for now.’

  ‘We can count out the boyfriend,’ said Murfin. He glanced at Villiers. ‘Sorry.’

  ‘I know. He wasn’t with the walking group,’ she said.

  ‘Nowhere even near Kinder. He was doing a job.’

  ‘On a Sunday?’

  ‘He had an emergency call-out at a care home in New Mills. A broken circuit. He couldn’t leave them without lighting, could he? Not a reputable tradesman like Mr Barrett. And I checked with the care home. He was there for nearly three hours. They gave him a cup of tea and a piece of cake when he’d done the job.’

  ‘When did he find out about what happened to Faith?’ asked Cooper.

  ‘Monday morning. He couldn’t get any answer from her phone, so he called at her house and found her brother there.’

  ‘Jonathan was at Faith’s house in Hayfield?’

  ‘Apparently.’

  ‘Greg Barrett and Jonathan Matthew,’ said Cooper. ‘Do those two get on, Gavin?’

  ‘Now that,’ said Murfin, ‘is something I’m quite sure about. The answer is no.’

  Impatiently, Villiers tapped a form on the pile on Cooper’s desk.

  ‘It’s hard to see what Darius Roth would gain from this either,’ she said. ‘He’s very possessive of the walking group, talks about them as if they’re his family and he’s responsible for all of them.’

  ‘I thought you didn’t like him, Carol,’ said Cooper.

  ‘I don’t. He’s creepy. But Faith Matthew’s death is entirely against his interests, as far as I can see. It’s likely to break up the group, and therefore frustrate his obsession with recreating this walk every year.’

  ‘True. So who else is there?’

  ‘Nick Haslam, Sophie Pullen’s partner,’ she said. ‘He’s the disruptive one in the group. He has no interest in the history of it, and he tries to turn everything into a joke. That gets up people’s noses.’

  ‘But what was his relationship with Faith?’

  ‘We don’t know that.’

  Cooper sighed. There was going to be a lot of ‘Don’t know.’ There were still a great many questions to ask.

  ‘Dead Woman’s Drop,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘Do you think one of this crowd has a really warped sense of humour?’

  ‘Well, some of them know the area well enough,’ said Villiers. ‘I bet at least one or two are familiar with the names of the rock formations.’

  ‘Which of them was it who had an OS map in his pocket?’

  ‘Actually two of them. Nick Haslam and Liam Sharpe. But they don’t seem to have used them much.’

  ‘And Mr Sharpe was already incapacitated after his fall,’ said Villiers.

  ‘There’s the older couple, the Warburtons. They’re keen walkers.’

  ‘Sam Warburton has a history of heart problems,’ said Irvine. ‘At the scene, he was diagnosed with low blood sugar. Once glucose was administered, he recovered well. One of the Mountain Rescue team’s mobile units took him to hospital later as a precaution, because there were no more ambulances available. But they didn’t keep him in. He’s back in Hayfield now.’

  ‘In Hayfield? Don’t the Warburtons live in Manchester?’

  ‘Yes, but their caravan is still on the campsite outside Hayfield.’

  ‘On the walk, they seem to have been trailing at the back,’ pointed out Villiers. ‘Besides, they were always together. Practically inseparable. It’s hard to imagine one of them creeping up on Faith Matthew from behind.’

  ‘I agree.’

  ‘So that just leaves us with the women.’

  Cooper nodded. ‘So it does.’

  ‘Elsa Roth and the two students, Millie Taylor and Karina Scott.’ She glanced up at Cooper. ‘And not forgetting Sophie Pullen.’

  ‘Miss Pullen has been by far our best witness to date,’ said Cooper. ‘She’s very observant. She noticed what everyone was doing – as much as she could, in the circumstances. All the other witness statements look vague and confused compared to hers.’

  Villiers looked stubborn. ‘But she still can’t tell us who killed Faith Matthew,’ she said. ‘Her statement is useful, but there’s no evidence in it that helps us to identify a specific suspect.’

  ‘All right, all right. She stays on the list too.’

  ‘Millie Taylor and Karina Scott seem harmless,’ said Irvine. ‘They were the most distressed by their experience, and in a state of exhaustion when they were rescued. They don’t look capable of planning something like this, let alone carrying it out and covering up their guilt.’

  ‘So if we put the students aside, who’s top of our list?’ he asked.

  He could already work out the answer. It was a process of elimination, as someone else had once said. There seemed to be just one name left.

  ‘Elsa Roth,’ said Villiers. ‘The quiet ones are often the most dangerous.’

  ‘But wasn’t it Elsa who wanted to call the walk off when she saw the fog coming down?’ asked Irvine.

  ‘Yes, but she didn’t tell us that detail, did she?’ pointed out Villiers. ‘It’s in the statements from a couple of the others. I bet she knew no one would take any notice of her but would carry on with the walk. And she also figured that some of the others would mention it when they were questioned. She had her fellow walkers summed up accurately.’

  Villiers turned to Cooper. ‘And us too, perhaps,’ she said.

  Cooper smiled. It was always good to see Carol Villiers thinking in the same direction, even if it was for different reasons. Elsa Roth was the only one on the list who hadn’t connected through the walk but had already been with Darius when the others came along one by one. What had she thought as she watched those relationships fostered by her husband, apparent evidence of his need for more approbation, and more loyalty? More love, perhaps.

  And Villiers was right. That buttoned-up individual standing in the background was often the one you needed to watch out for.

  21

  Ben Cooper had asked both the Roths and Sophie Pullen to come into Edendale to make their formal statements. He was particularly interested in talking to Darius and Elsa Roth out of their normal environment. Being in a police station often made people think differently, or decide to tell an alternative story. It was as if the mere suggestion of being a suspect persuaded them to play a different role.

  ‘Elsa Roth’s background checks out,’ said Carol Villiers as they waited to speak to the Roths.

  ‘So why did she try to cast suspicion on Jonathan? I wonder,’ said Cooper.

  ‘And implicate Faith too.’

  ‘Yes. I don’t like that, Carol. It smells of victim-blam
ing.’

  The Roths were shown into Cooper’s office. Darius perched uncomfortably on a chair as if he found it too small. He gazed around the room, and his eyes seemed to focus on the damp patch in a corner of the ceiling that Cooper had reported weeks ago. Villiers hovered by the door, paying most of her attention to Elsa.

  ‘No, I know nothing about a note,’ said Roth when Cooper asked him. ‘A threatening note sent to Faith? It’s bizarre.’

  Cooper didn’t find him convincing. Everything about Roth was bizarre, yet when he said the word himself, it seemed to mean nothing.

  ‘We found it at her house,’ he said. ‘Do you have any idea who might have sent it?’

  ‘None.’

  ‘Or who might have had a reason to threaten her?’

  ‘No again.’

  Cooper thought about asking him if he’d met Faith Matthew during his stay at Meadow Park Hospital, but he changed his mind. It would be revealing that Elsa had spoken to him privately.

  ‘How dare anyone do this to one of my group?’ said Roth.

  ‘Your group?’ said Cooper. ‘You know, I still don’t quite grasp what unites you as a group.’

  ‘What unites us? We’re united by an attraction to the moors, specifically to Kinder Scout. It has a magic that gets into people’s souls.’

  Cooper could understand that. He’d felt the magic himself. Kinder was a place like no other, a different universe, a world away from life in the city. But that didn’t explain what kept the group together, when there was so much to be gained by experiencing the moors alone.

  ‘It’s so much safer in a group,’ said Roth as if anticipating his question. ‘You can easily come to grief on your own, or even with just two of you. Safety in numbers, that’s what we always say. Enjoying the experience as a family.’

  Cooper nodded. But it hadn’t been safe, had it? And the New Trespassers Walking Club were one of the most dysfunctional families he’d ever encountered.

  ‘What you don’t understand is that we’re not just recreating the Mass Trespass of 1932. We’re perpetuating it, moving the principles behind the trespass forward into the future. It’s about the rights of the people against the will of a small, powerful minority who rule our lives. That’s still happening now, as much as it was in my grandfather’s time.’