Fall Down Dead

by Stephen Booth

  Then Dev Sharma knocked on his office door. He didn’t look happy.

  ‘Ben, we’ve got a problem with the Atherton inquiry,’ said Sharma. ‘The files have been flagged up with a query.’

  Cooper looked at him in surprise. ‘A query from the CPS or from EMSOU?’

  ‘Major Crime Unit have kicked some of the statements back to us. They say they’re contradictory.’

  ‘What’s wrong? I thought it was an open-and-shut case.’

  ‘Apparently not.’

  ‘Show me what you’ve got again, Dev.’

  ‘Well, the statement that causes the problem is from the next-door neighbour. She says she saw Gary Atherton arriving home at ten thirty-eight a.m. She was sure of the time because she was waiting for a taxi to take her for a hospital appointment and it was due at ten thirty-five. She heard Mr Atherton’s car pull up and thought it was the taxi, so she looked at her watch. It was ten thirty-eight.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘The 999 call was recorded at ten thirty-two.’

  ‘From a mobile phone.’

  ‘Yes. But its location was shown as the Athertons’ address. The call was made from that house. And it was Mrs Atherton’s phone, not her husband’s. His own phone was still in his pocket when he was detained.’

  ‘You’re telling me someone else made the call, claiming to be Gary Atherton?’

  ‘That appears to be what the evidence suggests. The CPS would say it’s enough to weaken the prosecution case.’

  ‘Who took the statement from the neighbour?’ asked Cooper.

  ‘Luke Irvine.’

  ‘Send Becky Hurst to talk to her again. No pressure. Just let her explain it all again. She must have got something wrong.’

  Sharma looked dubious. ‘We could extend our door-to-door inquiries. Talk to more neighbours. They might have a different account.’

  ‘Yes, you’re right, Dev. Do that too.’

  ‘All right.’

  ‘And can you send DC Villiers in, please?’

  Sharma disappeared, and Carol Villiers came in a few moments later.

  ‘Dev is panicking a bit,’ she said.

  ‘He’ll be OK. He just needs to get through this. He thought he had it all tied up, but something always catches you out. DS Sharma will be able to deal with it.’

  ‘Isn’t it a bit of a risk giving him so much responsibility?’ said Villiers.

  Cooper shook his head. ‘It’s what he’s here for. Trust me.’

  ‘So what have you got for me?’

  ‘Here’s a nugget from Darius Roth’s past history,’ said Cooper. ‘According to his wife, he suffered appendicitis eight years ago. He was admitted to a private hospital, presumably for an appendectomy.’

  ‘Was he in Meadow Park Hospital, by any chance?’

  ‘Right. Can you find out if Faith Matthew was employed there at the time? And whether she worked on the same ward? I’m looking for alternative connections between these people.’

  ‘I’ll try, Ben, but you know—’

  ‘Yes. Medical practitioners are notoriously difficult to get information out of, and not just about their patients.’

  Villiers placed an interview report on his desk.

  ‘What’s this?’

  ‘I talked to Jonathan Matthew again first thing this morning and went over his statement in detail,’ she said. ‘He’s no clearer about where he was on Kinder Scout – except lost. He’s insistent that he never saw his sister after the party split up. He says he kept his distance from both groups because he thought they were being foolhardy.’

  ‘He had a point,’ said Cooper. ‘But he’s managed to draw suspicion on himself nevertheless.’

  Cooper had decided to talk to Sam and Pat Warburton together. He saw no reason to separate them. They didn’t feature high on his list of potential suspects, and if they’d wanted to come up with a consistent story together, they’d already been given plenty of time to do it.

  Their caravan was still parked up at the Hayfield campsite. The site was quiet in October and Cooper soon found the Warburtons’ pitch. They had a brand-new Swift Conqueror 630, with four berths and a toilet and shower room at the end. It was nearly eight metres long, and inside it was furnished better than many homes he’d been into in Edendale. Parked alongside it was a Nissan X-Trail in vivid yellow.

  ‘I’m surprised to find you still here,’ said Cooper when he was sitting in the caravan with a mug of tea. ‘I thought you might have gone back to Manchester.’

  ‘The pitch was booked for a week, and paid for,’ said Sam Warburton. ‘So we thought we might as well make use of it. There are lots of things to do around here, and places for us to go. We like living in Didsbury, but the Peak District is special to us.’

  ‘And life doesn’t stop, does it?’ said Pat. ‘The rest of us have to carry on.’

  The couple were still dressed as if they were about to go for a walk at any moment. Cooper could see their boots and hiking poles standing in an open cupboard, along with their waterproofs.

  ‘When did you arrive in Hayfield?’ he asked.

  ‘On Saturday morning,’ said Sam. ‘The day before the walk.’

  So the Warburtons had been there for the whole weekend. Was that a detail missed in the initial statements?

  ‘What did you do on Saturday?’ he asked.

  ‘We visited Castleton.’

  ‘After lunch at the No Car Café at Rushup,’ added Pat.

  ‘I know it,’ said Cooper.

  Pat Warburton explained that they liked it at the No Car Café because you couldn’t get to it by road, though there were facilities for washing your bike or tying up your horse. Drivers had to park in the layby on Sheffield Road and walk five hundred metres down to the café. It created the feeling of remoteness they liked.

  Cooper nodded. ‘So you weren’t in Hayfield at all?’

  ‘Not during the day,’ said Sam. ‘We got the caravan on site, then unhitched the car and went off for lunch.’

  ‘What about in the evening? I imagine you might have met up with some of the other walking-club members?’

  Sam Warburton glanced at his wife. It seemed this was a subject they didn’t like talking about quite so much. Pat fiddled with her glasses, as if they were uncomfortable on her face.

  ‘We called on Darius and Elsa,’ she said in the end. ‘We had a bit of supper with them at their house.’

  ‘Was anyone else there?’

  ‘The two girls, Millie and Karina. They were staying at Trespass Lodge.’

  ‘And there was Jonathan,’ said Sam. ‘Faith’s brother.’

  ‘A strange young man,’ said Pat with pursed lips.

  ‘Was he staying there too?’

  ‘Apparently. It was very good of Darius to put him up at the lodge. None of us know him very well.’

  ‘And he was very quiet,’ said Sam. ‘Hardly said a word all through supper. The girls didn’t like him. They thought he was a bit creepy.’

  ‘Did they tell you that?’

  ‘They told me,’ said Pat. ‘They mentioned it as we were leaving.’

  ‘But it was just because he was so quiet,’ said Sam. ‘He came over as rather sullen.’

  ‘And no one else was there?’ asked Cooper.

  ‘No. We met the rest next morning.’

  At least that was consistent with the statements made by Millie Taylor and Karina Scott, as well as Jonathan Matthew. A cosy gathering at the Roths’ house the night before the walk. Jonathan seemed like the odd one out, though. Was it really just a generous gesture of Darius Roth’s to offer him accommodation at Trespass Lodge?

  ‘There was nothing very exciting about the conversation,’ said Pat, as if anticipating Cooper’s next question. ‘It was just small talk, catching up on what people had been doing. You know the sort of thing. Millie and Karina talked a lot about their courses at MMU. They’re studying tourism management. Millie mentioned a subject called “Tomorrow’s Tourist”.’

 
; ‘And Darius?’

  ‘Darius? He’s a very good listener.’

  ‘And that was all you did, just ate supper?’

  ‘And had a few drinks,’ said Sam. ‘Since no one was driving, you understand.’

  ‘We were very restrained,’ said Pat.

  ‘I thought there might have been some kind of meeting of the club that night,’ said Cooper.

  ‘What, like an AGM?’ said Sam with a laugh. ‘It’s not that kind of club. We don’t elect officials and vote on resolutions. It’s all very informal.’

  ‘I see.’

  Cooper switched the subject and asked the Warburtons how they’d become part of the New Trespassers Walking Club, and when they’d met the other members of the group.

  ‘We just latched on somehow,’ said Pat Warburton. ‘They seemed like a nice bunch. How was it we met them, Sam?’

  ‘It was on an official guided walk with the Peak Park rangers,’ said her husband.

  ‘Oh, that’s right.’

  ‘We did the walk on the anniversary of the Mass Trespass one year. Mind you, it wasn’t this group we met.’

  ‘It wasn’t this group?’ repeated Cooper, puzzled. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘It was quite a different set-up back then. The Roths were there from the beginning, of course. Darius and Elsa. But the rest of the group has changed. Faith and her brother weren’t part of the club at that time, for a start. Nor Sophie and Nick, or the students.’

  ‘Or the young man who works at the airport,’ said Pat.

  ‘Liam. No, he wasn’t there either.’

  ‘How long ago was this exactly?’ asked Cooper.

  ‘When we joined up with the group? About six years, I suppose. Is that right, Sam?’

  ‘I reckon so. It was a different time of year too, though. April, because it was on the anniversary of the Trespass.’

  ‘So members of the club come and go,’ said Cooper. ‘I thought it was a more stable group than that.’

  Sam Warburton laughed suddenly, and Cooper looked at him more closely. What had caused that reaction? Was it the word ‘stable’?

  ‘No, almost all of the present members came along after us,’ said Pat, frowning at her husband.

  Cooper mentally ran through the list of names in his head.

  ‘So, apart from the Roths themselves, the only people who were part of the group then and still are now would be . . . ?’

  ‘The Gould brothers,’ said Pat. ‘Theo and Duncan.’

  Her husband smiled. ‘Very interested in the natural landscape, they are. There’s more to Kinder than just the Mass Trespass, you know.’

  ‘Have you kept in touch with any of those previous members? Do you know how we could get hold of any of them?’

  The couple looked at each other.

  ‘Why, of course not,’ said Pat. ‘What use would that be to you? They weren’t there with us on Kinder.’

  ‘We’re just trying to cover all the angles,’ said Cooper. ‘If you think of anything that would help us get in contact with them, please let us know. Such as where they lived or where they worked, for example. Anything you remember might be useful.’

  ‘All right. But people come and go, like you say. We don’t always know very much about them.’

  ‘I understand.’

  ‘We’ll be dropping out ourselves soon,’ said Sam Warburton. ‘Even without this tragedy, it would have been time.’

  ‘Oh? Why?’

  ‘We’re getting a bit old for it.’

  ‘Well, he is,’ put in Pat, pointing at her husband.

  ‘Getting up onto Kinder,’ he continued, ‘that’s a young people’s game, isn’t it? It’s a long haul from the car park at Bowden Bridge. Some of the going gets a bit rough, and the track is steep. Even that first bit up White Brow nearly kills me now. It’s the knees, you know.’

  ‘He’s all right once we’re up the plateau,’ said Pat. ‘But getting him up there is a different matter. I told him we’d have to get a helicopter to winch him up next time. They could drop him in with the sacks of seed at the restoration project.’

  Sam smiled. ‘There comes a point,’ he said, ‘when you just can’t do it any more and there’s no use pretending any longer. You stop putting on a front and admit it. You have to throw in the towel. So this would have been our last trip anyway, I think.’

  ‘Things haven’t always gone smoothly for us, to be honest,’ said Pat. ‘We had some problems with pension funds. We withdrew a large lump sum and invested it unwisely.’

  ‘I’m sorry to hear that.’

  ‘We got over it.’

  ‘You get over everything, one way or another,’ said Sam.

  Cooper stood up to leave. Pat was fiddling with her glasses again, sliding them back on her nose, as if to help her see more clearly.

  ‘Previous members,’ she said suddenly. ‘There’s only one I remember.’

  Sam stared at her. ‘Really?’

  Cooper noted the look exchanged between them. A hint of rebellion in Pat Warburton’s eyes? Sam might have preferred her not to speak, but she was taking no notice.

  ‘What was their name?’ asked Cooper quickly.

  ‘Eavis. That was it. Julie Eavis. I think she spelled her name with an “a” in the middle.’

  ‘Yes, she did,’ agreed Sam.

  He knew when he’d lost at least. Sam must be able to see the same stubbornness on his wife’s face that Cooper could.

  ‘Do you have any idea how I can get hold of her?’

  ‘Not really.’

  ‘Where does she live?’

  They looked at each other again, an unspoken agreement this time.

  ‘Buxton,’ said Sam. ‘That’s all we know. But it’s quite an unusual name. She shouldn’t be too difficult for you to find.’

  ‘I hope not,’ said Cooper. ‘But it rarely works out that way.’

  As he left the site, Cooper looked back at the caravan. When he got to his car, he pulled out his phone and googled the price of a Swift Conqueror 630. Around thirty thousand pounds. With the value of the Nissan X-Trail added in, the Warburtons had around fifty grand worth of assets sitting on that campsite. You could buy a house for that in parts of Derbyshire. Though perhaps not in Didsbury.

  Back in Edendale, Ben Cooper sat in his office quietly for a while after visiting the Warburtons. His impressions of the New Trespassers Walking Club were changing with every conversation. People came and people left much more often than he’d imagined. So perhaps Darius Roth didn’t have that much influence over them after all. They could take their leave of the club whenever they pleased.

  Or at least, most of them could.

  He did a search of the phone directory. As it turned out, there were only three addresses in Buxton with the name of Eavis. Cooper hit the right one on the third attempt.

  ‘Hello. I’m trying to contact Julie Eavis,’ he said when a man’s voice answered.

  ‘Who is this?’

  ‘Detective Inspector Cooper, Derbyshire Constabulary.’

  ‘You’re a bit late.’

  ‘What do you mean, sir?’

  ‘She died last year.’

  ‘I’m sorry. Can I ask . . . ?’

  ‘It was a car accident. Last winter. She went off the road in the snow. They say she was driving too fast for the conditions.’

  There was a hint of resentment in his words. Cooper had heard it often before. When a tragedy happened, the death of a loved one, the instinct was to find someone to blame. When no one else was involved, it became the mysterious ‘they’. In this case, unfortunately, ‘they’ was probably the police.

  ‘Am I speaking to Mr Eavis?’

  ‘Yes, that’s me.’

  ‘I apologise for intruding, Mr Eavis, but I wonder if you recall your wife being a member of a walking group called the New Trespassers.’

  ‘Yes, I remember. She was a bit of a local history enthusiast and she seemed to think it was important. She dropped out of it after a whi
le.’

  ‘Did she say why?’

  ‘I don’t think she hit it off with some of the other members. She didn’t say much about it, but that’s the impression I got. Reading between the lines, like. She just dropped it one day and never went back.’

  ‘No one specific you can recall her mentioning?’ asked Cooper. ‘Or a particular incident?’

  ‘Not really. There was some meeting at the clubhouse that seemed to upset her.’

  ‘Clubhouse?’ said Cooper.

  Eavis sounded unsure now. ‘I think that was it.’

  ‘You don’t mean at someone’s house? Trespass Lodge in Hayfield, perhaps?’

  ‘Mmm. No. She definitely mentioned a clubhouse. I don’t know any more than that. Sorry.’

  ‘Thank you for your help, sir.’

  Cooper rang through to the CID room. ‘Carol, could you see if we can fix a time to speak to Theo and Duncan Gould, please?’

  ‘The landscape gardeners? As soon as possible, I suppose?’

  ‘You got it. Thanks. And send Luke Irvine in, will you?’

  Irvine appeared almost straight away with his notebook.

  ‘Yes, boss?’

  ‘Can you do a bit of research for me, please, Luke?’

  ‘Of course. Is it connected with the Faith Matthew inquiry?’

  ‘I think so,’ said Cooper. ‘The Kinder Mass Trespass in April 1932.’

  ‘Oh, that. What about it?’

  ‘I think there were six men arrested and tried at Derby Assizes after a confrontation with gamekeepers. Can you find out who they were? Their names at least.’

  ‘No problem,’ said Irvine.

  ‘Thanks.’

  Irvine looked at Cooper with a hint of surprise at his tone. Cooper realised he probably sounded less than businesslike. That was because he wasn’t entirely sure the information was relevant to the investigation. It might just be to satisfy his own curiosity.

  ‘Also, find out if there are any derelict or abandoned buildings in that area, near Hayfield,’ said Cooper. ‘And check on any properties Darius Roth owns in addition to his home at Trespass Lodge.’