Fall Down Dead

by Stephen Booth

  ‘His ankle was definitely injured,’ said Villiers. ‘The MRT had to stretcher him down off Kinder because he couldn’t walk. The paramedics said it was bruised and swollen. He was transported to A and E, but he’s out of hospital now, of course.’

  ‘Have you ever sprained your ankle, Carol?’

  ‘Several times.’

  ‘Could you have walked on it?’

  She hesitated. ‘It depends. The first time I did it, I was only a child. I tried to make out it was worse than it really was.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because I wanted sympathy, I suppose. In fact, my dad carried me back to the car. That was probably what I really wanted.’

  Cooper put Liam Sharpe’s statement back on the pile.

  ‘I’ll like you to interview Mr Sharpe again tomorrow. If he’s out of hospital, he’ll probably still be resting at home.’

  ‘Unless he’s gone back to work already. He’s a check-in supervisor at Manchester Airport. He could achieve some limited mobility on crutches.’

  ‘Make the trip to the airport if necessary. See if you can shake his story.’

  Villiers raised an eyebrow. ‘Do you think I was too gentle with him the first time? Too sympathetic because of his injury?’

  ‘You can be sympathetic,’ said Cooper. ‘Sometimes.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘But I’m thinking a second visit might take him by surprise, perhaps unsettle him enough to change his story.’

  ‘OK, I’ll try to be unsettling.’ Villiers made a note. ‘What did you make of the Warburtons, by the way?’

  ‘I can’t help but think they’re genuine. There’s no trace of a motive for them.’

  ‘And no evidence?’

  ‘The mark near Dead Woman’s Drop? Sam Warburton was right – it could have been the tip of anyone’s hiking pole that made that mark. It’s forensically impossible to match the mark to a specific pole. The shape of their tips is identical, and of course there would be traces of peat on the Warburtons’ poles. They were on Kinder for hours.’

  ‘Do they go back to the bottom of your list, then?’ asked Villiers.

  ‘They were never near the top, to be honest. I think I’m just clutching at straws until a clear motive emerges, or we get an analysis back on the threatening note.’

  ‘You’re not here tomorrow, are you?’

  ‘No, I’ve got a rest day due,’ said Cooper. ‘Make sure Dev Sharma knows where you are, though.’

  Villiers was studying him curiously.

  ‘Is there something else, Ben?’ she asked.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Something bothering you. Only . . . we’ve been hearing something on the grapevine about Diane Fry. A disciplinary hearing.’

  ‘Oh, word’s gone round, has it?’

  ‘You know what it’s like.’

  ‘Only too well.’

  Cooper checked that no one else was outside his office door or passing in the corridor. He knew Carol Villiers was someone he could trust. Besides, it was pointless trying to keep secrets from her. She’d known him too long.

  ‘I met up with her last night,’ he said quietly.

  ‘Diane?’

  ‘Yes. She’s asked me for help.’

  ‘Well, there’s a turn-up for the books.’

  Cooper didn’t laugh. He gave Villiers a brief outline of what Fry had told him, and she looked at him with an anxious frown when he’d finished.

  ‘What are you going to do, Ben?’ she asked.

  He didn’t answer for a moment. Not because he didn’t know the answer but because he wasn’t sure how Villiers would react. Her attitude to Diane Fry hadn’t always been positive. And she knew what proper procedure was, and exactly how he should respond – co-operate with the investigation, tell the truth and do whatever Professional Standards asked, if they wanted to speak to him.

  Cooper shook his head at the thought.

  ‘I’ve got to help her, of course,’ he said finally.

  She nodded. ‘That’s what I thought you’d say.’

  28

  Diane Fry had been doing her best to rerun that meeting with Andy Kewley in her mind. She was sure there was some detail that she ought to recall that would mean more to her now than it did at the time.

  That day, she’d parked her Audi on the roof level of Birmingham’s Jewellery Quarter car park in Vyse Street, where she had a clear view up the street towards the exit from the Metro station.

  A small trickle of people were spilling out of the station and heading off in different directions. Kewley was the last to come out, emerging onto the pavement near the old cast-iron street urinal. She recognised him even from that distance, even with the cap pulled over his eyes and a padded jacket to disguise his shape. There was something about the way people moved that made them recognisable whatever they wore.

  Kewley had paused in the station entrance, looked all around him carefully, pretending to check his pockets for something. Andy was an old street cop. He’d learned to scan every doorway and corner before he made his move. It just never occurred to him to look up.

  Fry looked at her watch. Kewley was bang on time for their meeting, of course. She, on the other hand, was going to be a bit late. And that was the way she liked it.

  Finally, she walked down to street level and stepped through the entrance to Warstone Lane Cemetery. She remembered some kind of white blossom on the bushes filling the air with its aroma. When she breathed it in, she felt as though she’d been punched in the nose. A certain trigger for her hay fever.

  ‘Diane?’

  Kewley had taken off the cap, revealing thinning hair streaked with grey. A warm breeze wandered through the plane trees, stirring a lock of his hair. When he raised a hand to push it back, she noticed that it wasn’t as steady a hand as it once had been. The cumulative effects of thirty years in the job? Or was Andy Kewley drinking too much, like so many others?

  In the middle of the cemetery, they were standing at the top of a terrace of curved brick walls. Two of the walls had rows of small, sealed-up entrances built into them, like arched doorways. Catacombs. She was surrounded by the Victorian dead.

  Fry imagined Kewley using this cemetery for years to meet his informants. But it wouldn’t be wise to keep coming here after he’d left the job. Too many people might remember. Too many of them might have a grievance to settle. Maybe it was just one of those eccentric fancies that overcame old coppers when they retired. Some had a hankering to run pubs, or to look for a quiet life in Northern Ireland. Others chose to hang around in Victorian graveyards.

  ‘I thought I might be able to help you,’ he’d said.

  ‘How?’

  ‘Did you know there was an arrest after your assault? I was responsible for that.’

  ‘You produced a suspect?’

  ‘Let’s say I provided intelligence. It was good intelligence too, as it turned out. This wasn’t one of the primary suspects, but he knew who was involved all right, and he helped to cover it up. A real piece of work. He was as guilty as anyone I’ve ever met.’

  ‘So what did you do?’

  Kewley shrugged. ‘We needed information, and we didn’t want to spend days dragging it out of him bit by bit, with a brief at his elbow telling him to do the “no comment” stuff. So we fast-tracked the interview.’

  ‘Fast-tracked . . . ?’

  Kewley looked at her, gave her no more than a conspiratorial glance. But she understood.

  ‘I don’t want to know any more,’ she said.

  ‘No, of course you don’t. You wouldn’t want to be contaminated.’

  Andy Kewley’s career could best be described as chequered. In his early days in CID, before she’d teamed up with him at Aston, Kewley had spent some time in the West Midlands Serious Crime Squad. The squad had been disbanded, more than two decades ago now, following accusations that its members had fabricated evidence, tortured suspects and written false confessions.

  For years, lawy
ers had been demanding fresh inquiries into the scale of corruption, claiming that dozens of innocent people had served time in jail. One had been quoted as saying that the Serious Crime Squad had operated as if they were in the Wild West: They were out of control.

  ‘But you got what you wanted to know?’ she said.

  ‘Not entirely. We never got the names out of him.’ Kewley smiled. ‘But if we had . . . what do you reckon, Diane? Would the ends have justified the means or not?’

  ‘What was he charged with?’

  ‘Attempting to pervert the course of justice.’

  ‘And what happened?’

  ‘He got a “get out of jail free” card and a few quid in his pocket and off he went.’

  ‘It’s hardly the first time, Andy.’

  ‘And now you’re here in Birmingham again because they told you they’d opened a cold-case rape inquiry,’ said Kewley. ‘But they’ve lost a crucial witness, right?’

  ‘You’re well informed. How do you manage that?’

  He ignored the question. ‘The witness pulled out of the case, decided she didn’t want to testify after all. The old story, eh? Someone got to her, Diane.’

  ‘One of the suspects?’

  ‘Or maybe their friends.’ Kewley shrugged. ‘Who knows?’

  ‘She was supposed to be on witness protection,’ said Fry. ‘How would they have found her?’

  ‘Information. It’s easy to get hold of, if you know the right people.’

  ‘Who?’

  Again Kewley seemed to ignore the question. Fry remembered this habit of his, recalled how it had often infuriated her. He always wanted to go around the houses before he responded. But later he would drop the answer in casually, as if he’d never been asked.

  She looked at the Victorian graves all around her. According to their memorials, many of them hadn’t actually died but had merely ‘fallen asleep’. If they woke up now, they’d get a shock. And over there was another one. Not lost but gone before.

  ‘Euphemisms,’ said Fry. ‘Don’t you hate them?’

  Kewley looked as though he didn’t agree.

  And then he mentioned a name that would come to haunt Fry. It was a name she’d never heard until that moment, but a connection that was to become much too personal.

  ‘Have you heard of William Leeson?’ he said.

  Fry’s ears had pricked up. This was the way it worked with Kewley. He distracted you with something irrelevant. Then the important information was dropped into the conversation like an afterthought. You had to be paying attention or you missed it.

  ‘Leeson? No. Who is he?’

  ‘A dodgy lawyer from Smethwick who used to practise here in the city. I thought you might have come across him.’

  ‘I could have done,’ said Fry. ‘But hundreds of defence briefs come and go through interview rooms. I don’t remember all their names.’

  ‘You might want to remember this one,’ said Kewley.

  ‘Why?’

  Kewley seemed to be getting more nervous now and jumped when a motorcycle with an unsilenced exhaust roared by on the Middleway.

  Recalling that moment, Fry could have laughed at her own naivety. The idea that she wouldn’t remember William Leeson’s name for ever afterwards seemed ludicrous now.

  ‘Leeson first came onto the scene in a big way during all that bother with the Serious Crime Squad,’ said Kewley. ‘He loved getting the attention, calling for public inquiries and Appeal Court hearings. “Miscarriage of justice” was practically tattooed on his forehead, he said it so often.’

  ‘Was he the one who said you were operating like the Wild West?’ asked Fry.

  ‘No. But he would have said it, if he’d thought of it. He was always small-scale, though – and he got pushed out by the smarter, more expensive briefs who elbowed their way in when they saw a lucrative bandwagon rolling. Leeson got really pissed off about it. That was why he turned.’

  ‘Turned?’

  ‘He got involved in criminal activities himself. Other than as a legal representative, I mean. His money doesn’t all come from legal fees.’

  ‘I see.’

  Kewley pulled his cap lower over his eyes and wiped the palms of his hands on his jacket.

  ‘I shouldn’t be telling you any of this.’

  ‘Who says? You’re retired, out of the force. You’re a civilian now, Andy – as free as a bird. Get used to it.’

  ‘I could still get myself into deep shit. You don’t understand.’

  Fry noticed that the memorials nearest to her had names like John Eachus and Walter Peyton Chance. Strange how names like that seemed to have died along with the Victorians themselves. She saw defaced angels, tombs blackened with soot. A statue lay broken and beheaded, an empty vodka bottle on the ground at its feet.

  And there was that sickly smell again. She knew she would have to get away from the cemetery soon. It was starting to smell like the scent of death.

  ‘I’m just telling you, Diane. There are things you need to know. You could ask someone else, but whether you’ll get the truth or not . . .’

  ‘OK, OK.’

  ‘I just want you to know there are political considerations at play right now. Much bigger issues than a successful conviction in any cold case – and I mean any case, no matter who the victim is. You understand me?’

  ‘I’m not sure I do, Andy.’

  ‘Damn it, I can’t make it any clearer,’ he said irritably. ‘Look – anybody can get tossed aside, if it suits them. Justice is a slippery concept these days.’

  Fry stared at him, wondering whether he’d gone completely off the rails since he retired. Leaving the job took people in different ways. It seemed as though Kewley might have developed a conspiracy obsession, or paranoid delusion. Probably he couldn’t cope with the fact that he was no longer on the inside, not a member of the tribe any more. It was that primal instinct again. A desperation to belong. A craving to be part of the game.

  Kewley took a breath, looked anxious at his own outburst.

  ‘By the way,’ he said, ‘who’s dealing with your case now?’

  ‘Gareth Blake.’

  ‘Blake? I remember him when he was a young DC, fresh behind the ears. Pain in the neck he was then. I don’t suppose he’s changed much?’

  ‘I couldn’t say. We worked together for a while, but that was years ago.’

  ‘Gareth Blake . . . A DI now, isn’t he? In fact, I hear he’s well on his way to making DCI in the not-too-distant future. Yes, he’s definitely got his foot on the ladder, that one. He wouldn’t want anything to muck up his pristine record at this point, would he?’

  Fry looked at him. ‘What are you saying? Has Blake got something to hide?’

  Kewley touched the side of his nose – a conspiratorial gesture that he somehow managed to make look obscene.

  ‘You know what they say – the higher a monkey climbs up the tree, the more you see of his arse.’

  He laughed and turned away. It was a signal that she wouldn’t get any more out of him on that subject. Not right now, anyway. She might need some kind of pressure she could bring to bear. But that was for another day.

  Angie Fry hadn’t liked the idea of involving Andy Kewley, and she told her sister so after that first meeting in the cemetery.

  ‘I didn’t say I liked it either,’ Diane had said. ‘But he’s useful. And he was my old partner. There ought to be some loyalty there still.’

  When she thought back to her meeting with Kewley, Fry wondered if he’d been right, after all. Had she been sacrificed for some purpose she wasn’t even aware of? I mean any case, no matter who the victim is . . . Anybody can get tossed aside, if it suits them. Yes, justice was a slippery concept indeed.

  ‘I don’t trust him,’ Angie had said. ‘I think he’s dirty. I think he probably always was dirty.’

  ‘Maybe. It doesn’t matter.’

  ‘Like hell it doesn’t. I know this sort of character. He’s playing both sides. If you do
n’t watch him, he’ll lead you into a trap, sis.’

  ‘But who do we trust? Who is there we can trust?’

  Angie had laughed. It was a short, bitter laugh that seemed to sum up decades of hard experience.

  ‘No one,’ she said. ‘There’s no one we can trust. That’s the best advice your big sister can give you.’

  ‘Thanks a lot. I’ll treasure it.’

  It was Andy Kewley who’d been late for his second meeting with Diane Fry. That was unlike him. She’d been waiting among the tiers of catacombs in Warstone Lane Cemetery, with tombs blackened with soot and that powerful, sickly sweet smell still strong on the night air.

  It was very dark away from the street lights and Fry pulled a small torch from her pocket. She looked down from the top tier of the catacombs to the grass circle below, the centre of the amphitheatre.

  For a moment, Fry thought the vandals had struck again since her last visit to the cemetery, that another memorial angel had been toppled to the ground. In the light of her torch, she saw blank eyes pressed into the grass, a face mottled with damp.

  But when she looked again, she knew this was no angel. The face was pale, but it wasn’t stone. The eyes were blank, but they were human. The mottled dampness was much too dark, as dark as clotted blood. Death had caught up with Andy Kewley.

  29

  Chloe Young had pitched it just right for the evening. Jeans and a white silk top that set off her dark hair, now tied up in what she described as a double-knotted pony. She looked smart, but not overdressed. Ben had emphasised that they were visiting a farm, after all. They’d be lucky if they found Matt Cooper wearing a clean pair of jeans and a shirt that wasn’t ripped.

  When he and Chloe entered Bridge End Farm, Ben felt ridiculously nervous, as if he were a teenager bringing his first girlfriend home to meet his parents. There was no reason to feel like that, of course. He wasn’t a kid any more. He’d passed that stage a long time ago. He’d been engaged, for heaven’s sake – and almost married too. If his marriage with Liz had gone ahead, he might have been a father himself by now. So his nervousness was ridiculous.