‘I’m sorry, Ben,’ she said. ‘You’re right, of course. It’s just the way that everybody’s been talking about you recently, it got into my head. I suppose it might have made me sound a bit, well…’
‘Patronising,’ said Cooper.
She smiled. ‘Yes, patronising.’
‘It’s all right,’ he said.
And it genuinely was all right. He didn’t mind at all. The fact that she’d apologised straight away made Cooper feel warm towards her. He couldn’t imagine Diane Fry sitting there and saying sorry to him without hesitation … Not in a million years.
‘So. A flooded stream. And a dead victim called, let’s see … Glen Turner?’
Villiers laughed. ‘Are you taking notes?’
‘No.’ Cooper shook his head slowly. ‘Just listening to you, Carol.’
She took a drink of her coffee, reluctant to meet his eye for a moment. ‘He was lying dead on his back in the water. He’d been there for a number of hours before he was found by a council gully-emptying crew. His body was diverting the flow of water into the road.’
‘He drowned?’
‘Not sure. Cause of death so far unconfirmed.’
Cooper frowned. ‘There are several questions springing to mind.’
‘Well, I won’t say “good” – but I’ll admit that’s definitely what I like to hear.’
Thoughtfully, Cooper looked down at his empty coffee cup. Outside the window, the Kugel stone slowly turned and turned, driven by its jets of water. It was a testament to the power of even a small amount of water that it could lift a ton of granite so easily.
‘Was Mr Turner a big man?’ he said.
‘Yes. He formed a pretty good dam.’
‘And his clothes were found, I hope?’
‘Nearby in the woods. All present, including his wallet. Cash, credit cards, driving licence, mobile phone, the lot.’
He guessed from Villiers’ expectant expression that she was waiting for him to say something about robbery being discounted as a motive. But that was obvious enough.
‘Woods,’ he said. ‘Which woods?’
‘Oh. Sparrow Wood. The other side of Wirksworth, near Brassington.’
‘The Forestry Commission woodland?’
‘No, a privately owned section next to it.’
‘Car?’ said Cooper.
‘A Renault Mégane, but it was parked outside a pub about a mile away in Brassington.’
‘His shoes …?’ said Cooper.
‘Yes, mud on them.’
He nodded. ‘And there were no witnesses.’
‘Why do you say that, Ben?’
‘It’s a quiet road. Whatever happened took place at night, probably. And the weather has been bad. I suppose it was raining on the night he was killed. So there would be no one around to see anything. No witnesses.’
‘Only a couple who saw an unidentified man in a four-wheel drive near the woods.’
‘I see.’
Cooper gazed for a few moments at the expanse of water outside the window, where a boat was tacking across the little bay in the rain. Everything looked suddenly blurred and indistinct. Though he tried to concentrate on what had just been said, he found his mind drifting towards a nice pub that he knew, standing close to the western edge of the reservoir with views of the hills on the other side. The Knockerdown Inn. He was pretty sure it was open all day in the summer. There might be a log fire in the bar to dry out in front of. They served fish, chips and mushy peas with their own home-made batter.
Cooper’s eyes had settled on the four wind turbines that had recently been erected to the north on Carsington Pasture. The wind farm was just outside the boundary of the national park, but very close to the High Peak Trail. He remembered the National Park Authority objecting to the scheme because of the impact on the landscape of turbines three hundred and fifty feet high overlooking the reservoir.
Close by the new wind farm was the Dream Cave, where the remains of a woolly rhino had been found and Homo erectus had visited during the warm inter-glacial period. By the time the Romans arrived more than two thousand years ago, they’d found a thriving lead mining industry in this area. Now, they would find tourists living in EcoPods.
Human memory seemed such a fleeting, fragmentary thing in this landscape. Ephemeral and transitory. It flickered into the mind and out again so quickly that it meant nothing. Nothing at all.
He became aware that Villiers was looking at him with concern, her coffee going cold in front of her. In fact she seemed to have been speaking his name, and perhaps had been doing so for a minute or two.
‘Ben?’ she said. ‘Earth to Ben Cooper.’
‘Sorry,’ he said, shaking himself as if throwing off a heavy blanket.
‘I have to say this, Ben, but you’d really lost it there for a while.’
‘It’s nothing.’
But he could see she wasn’t convinced. He would have to work harder to pass muster, even with Carol Villiers.
‘Focus,’ she said. ‘You need to focus on something useful, a practical objective.’
‘You’ve told me that before.’
‘Because it’s the best advice I can give you.’
Cooper tried to smile. ‘I’ll remember.’
But Villiers was watching him closely. She didn’t miss much. In fact, she never had.
‘Well,’ she said, picking up her phone and checking the screen, about to get up and leave. ‘It’s been great, Ben, but—’
‘Don’t go, Carol. Not yet.’
He’d blurted the words out. But as soon as they left his mouth he knew they made him sound desperate and needy. That wasn’t the impression he’d been trying to give.
‘Sorry, Ben, I have to.’
What was he going to do? Carol Villiers was the person he could rely on. He knew he could trust her.
‘Where are you going now, Carol?’ he asked.
‘Into Wirksworth, then Carsington. I’ve got to see if this man in the four-wheel drive rings a bell for anyone connected to Glen Turner.’
‘Mind if I tag along?’
Her mouth fell open. Then after a moment she smiled. ‘It would be a pleasure.’
Chapter Twenty-One
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 o
f 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.
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