Already Dead

by Stephen Booth

  And that was the difference between them, she thought. Cooper had assumed the job would come his way by right, as a sort of inheritance, the proverbial dead man’s shoes. Fry, on the other hand, had always been forced to work for these things, and she’d hungered for it. Someone like Superintendent Branagh would be able to recognise that. She was no fool.

  Branagh was watching her now.

  ‘You will think about it, won’t you?’ she said.

  ‘Yes, ma’am.’

  ‘Where are you headed now?’

  ‘Back to Wirksworth. There’s got to be something I can dig out about our victim, Glen Turner.’

  Glen Turner’s financial affairs had been examined, and his bank accounts looked unremarkable, as far as Diane Fry could see. The only regular incoming transactions were his monthly salary deposits. The largest payments were direct debits to Derbyshire Dales for council tax, E.ON for a quarterly electricity bill, BT for broadband services. In fact, it seemed he’d paid all the bills for his mother’s house in Wirksworth.

  A Visa card showed a service on his Renault Mégane at a local garage, an order for books from Amazon, a new suit from Marks & Spencers. There was nothing apparent in his bank or credit card statements that could have been a motive for murder.

  But what else could she gather about Glen Turner’s life? Fry had decided to pay another visit to Mrs Turner in her precariously leaning cottage in St John’s Street. Now that a family liaison officer had been allocated to her and appropriate support systems were in place, Mrs Turner seemed much more willing, and able, to talk about her son.

  ‘Glen? Yes, he was such a good son,’ she said. ‘Nobody ever had a bad word to say against him.’

  ‘Really?’ said Fry.

  She’d heard that said about people before, but it had never been true. How could it be? Yet in Glen Turner’s case it seemed to come close. Nothing bad, and yet nothing particularly good either.

  According to his mother, Glen had actually left home for a while in his twenties. He’d rented a two-bedroom town house further up St John’s Street for six hundred pounds a month, with a brick outbuilding for storage. But when his father died, he’d given up the lease and moved back to the cottage. In Fry’s view, that was hardly leaving home. Even when he was paying his own rent, Glen had never been more than a few hundred yards away from his mother’s apron strings.

  Ingrid Turner had proudly reported her son’s organic credentials. He was a member of the Wirksworth Community Growers, and had always bought bread from the Old Bake House in St Mary’s Gate. He was also a volunteer with the Ecclesbourne Valley Railway, which ran the restored line and railway museum at Wirksworth station, though the older blokes didn’t let him do much except issue tickets. Sometimes, Glen went to the quiz nights on Sundays at the Red Lion on Coldwell Street, and liked to drink the odd pint of a Cornish beer called Doom Bar, sitting out on the beer terrace during the summer. Occasionally, on a special occasion, he ate at the Digler’s Den restaurant. With his mother, of course.

  It was an unexceptional existence. Surely no one could have objected to anything that Glen Turner did in his private life, though they might have made fun of him for the lack of excitement, the absence of any meaningful relationships but one. So why did Fry feel so uneasy about it?

  ‘There’s a place just outside Wirksworth called the National Stone Centre,’ she said. ‘Did your son visit it, that you know of?’

  ‘Yes. He was quite interested in that sort of thing. History, geology.’

  ‘We found an item in his car. A fossil. It seems to have been bought at the National Stone Centre on Monday.’

  ‘Yes, they have a shop,’ said Mrs Turner. ‘Glen did take me there once. It wasn’t my sort of place, though. Oh, I suppose it’s all very fascinating in its way, being able to see the earth’s crust and all that. But it all looked so dead to me. Just rock and dust. Even the animals they talked about there had all been dead for millions of years. Like that fossil Glen bought, I suppose. Me, I prefer gardens. Living, growing things.’

  Fry nodded. ‘It’s odd that he should have gone there on Monday, isn’t it? Shouldn’t he have been at work?’

  ‘Oh, he said he wasn’t feeling well enough on Monday. He took a day off.’

  ‘That would have been because of the injuries he received at the paintballing over the weekend.’

  Clearly Mrs Turner was surprised by the turn of the conversation. ‘Oh, you know about that? I didn’t think—’

  ‘What?’

  But Mrs Turner had stopped. Her eyes glazed over for a moment. ‘Yes, poor Glen. He was a bit sore after his experience. Like I say, he decided not to go into the office on Monday.’

  ‘But he was well enough on Tuesday?’

  ‘Yes. Well, he went back to work. But then he never came home in the evening.’

  ‘I see.’

  So what had happened on Tuesday? It was remaining a blank day in a remarkably empty life. According to Nathan Baird, nothing out of the ordinary had taken place at the office that day, and Glen Turner had left at the usual time. But surely there must have been some banter about the team building weekend. A bit of sniggering behind Glen’s back, a few subtle cracks about his humiliation. Perhaps some not so subtle hilarity. And after work? Why had he gone to Brassington, and who had he met up with?

  Fry turned to Mrs Turner again and told her the scanty information about the stranger in the red rain jacket. She didn’t expect much. The description was so vague that no one would have recognised it. So she wasn’t surprised when Mrs Turner shook her head.

  ‘It means nothing to me, I’m afraid. Is it somebody Glen met?’

  ‘We don’t know. It’s possible. Did your son drink at a pub in Brassington?’

  ‘He didn’t drink much at all.’

  ‘Of course he didn’t,’ said Fry.

  ‘Well, the odd pint of beer. And he was always careful never to drink and drive. That’s why we went to the Red Lion, or the Hope and Anchor. They’re within walking distance of here.’

  Fry noticed that ‘we’, and felt uneasy again. When Glen Turner did go to the pub, he went with his mother? There was something wrong with that picture. She was more than ever convinced that Glen had a secret he’d been hiding, even if it was only a tendency to slope off to the pub on his own occasionally. And perhaps a friend or two that his mother wouldn’t have approved of?

  ‘I don’t suppose your son kept a diary?’ said Fry.

  ‘I don’t think so. At the office perhaps…?’

  ‘He kept a record of appointments on his phone.’

  She had been sitting on Ingrid Turner’s sofa as they talked. Now Fry stood, and found herself looking out of the back window. There was a surprisingly large garden. She would never have expected it from the front of the property. There didn’t seem to be any access to the rear of the cottage from St John’s Street, so there must be a back lane.

  A few minutes ago Mrs Turner had listed her son’s membership of Wirksworth Community Growers as one of his plus points. Fry had assumed there must be an allotment somewhere, perhaps shared with some old geezer who actually did all the work. But here was a burgeoning plot filled with vegetables, and a line of canes supporting fruit bushes. One side of the garden was taken up by an expanse of glass and gleaming aluminium.

  ‘You do have a nice garden,’ said Fry.

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Is that greenhouse new?’

  ‘Yes, Glen bought it for me. I’m the real enthusiast about gardening, I suppose. But Glen always took an interest. He was good that way.’

  Fry thought back to her examination of Turner’s bank and credit card statements. She couldn’t remember every detail, of course. But this was a large structure, surely twenty feet long. A couple of thousand pounds, perhaps?

  ‘It’s wonderful. Where did Glen get it?’

  ‘I couldn’t say. Two young men arrived one day and put it up.’

  ‘Do you have a receipt, by any chance?’ />
  ‘Not me. Glen dealt with all that sort of thing.’

  ‘There was no paperwork in his room. Hardly anything. Did he keep receipts and bills somewhere else?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Mrs Turner. ‘He never bothered me about bills. I just passed everything on to Glen. I suppose they must be somewhere. At the office, perhaps? In his briefcase?’

  Fry shook her head. ‘No, we found nothing like that.’

  ‘I can’t tell you, then. He did use the computer a lot. There was the one upstairs, and he had a laptop for work.’

  ‘We’ve got people examining those,’ said Fry. ‘But it takes time.’

  ‘I don’t know why it should be important, though.’

  ‘It probably isn’t. But we have to look at everything if we’re going to find out who caused your son’s death.’

  ‘I don’t know how it helps.’

  ‘Nor do I, Mrs Turner,’ admitted Fry. ‘Nor do I.’

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  The western part of Wirksworth was where the old lead miners and quarrymen used to live, a jumble of small cottages built mostly of random stone from the nearby quarries. In the area between the abandoned Dale and Middle Peak quarries, the cottages were linked by a maze of alleys and ginnels. There was no room for vehicle access, and the numbering of the houses seemed haphazard. It must be a nightmare for a new postman.

  Ben Cooper knew a bit about this town, thanks to Liz. When they were property hunting, they’d come here to look at a Grade II listed cottage on St John’s Street. It had gas central heating and a wonderful vaulted cellar that he could think of all kinds of uses for. As they passed through the town now, he saw from the estate agent’s sign that the cottage was still for sale.

  Liz had liked the idea of living right in the centre of Wirksworth. She’d loved the range of shops and businesses on St John’s Street. There was an old-fashioned chemist and druggist with bow-fronted windows and a double entrance door. Founded in 1756, according to the sign over the doorway. A veterinary surgery, a couple of antiques shops. The Blacks Head pub, tucked away in a corner near the market. There were glimpses of the surrounding hills from every street and alley in the town.

  After viewing the cottage, they’d stopped for lunch at a little bistro, Le Mistral. They’d eaten vegetarian soup, salmon fishcakes, Provençale vegetable and goat’s cheese salad, an olive and houmous platter. Every dish was imprinted on his memory. He could taste the fishcakes now.

  Cooper wondered why he’d starting thinking so much about food. Perhaps it was because he couldn’t remember anything he’d eaten during the last couple of months. Had he lost weight, he wondered? Perhaps he could ask Villiers. Or would it make him seem even odder if he revealed that he didn’t know?

  He left his Toyota in the Barmote Croft car park, where the ticket machine still wasn’t working, and climbed into Carol Villiers’ VW Golf. It was very tidy inside, no CDs or empty water bottles lying around, as there were in his own car. It even smelled of air freshener. Pine or meadow flowers, something of that kind.

  ‘You’re strictly not here,’ said Villiers. ‘If anyone asks.’

  ‘Of course. I’m just a member of the public getting a ride-along.’

  ‘I don’t know whether we’re insured for that. Did you sign a disclaimer?’

  ‘As long as you don’t crash, we’ll be fine.’

  Villiers drove out of the car park on to Coldwell Street. ‘I’ll do my best.’

  Even on a wet Friday, the centre of Wirksworth was busy. Liz had discovered the story of this little town from a few minutes at the heritage centre in Crown Yard. History said that it was Henry VIII who’d granted a charter to hold a miners’ court in the town, the Bar Moot. The present court building still contained a brass dish for measuring the levy due to the Crown. As recently as the twentieth century, a thief who stole from a lead mine would be punished by having his hand nailed to the winch marking the mineshaft. He then had the option of either ripping the nail through his hand or starving to death. Sessions were still held at the Moot Hall on Chapel Lane. It was the oldest industrial court in the world, with its own terminology, and regulations dating from Saxon times.

  As far as Cooper knew, there was no more nailing of thieves’ hands to winches. But you never knew in Derbyshire. Anything was possible.

  Ingrid Turner’s cottage on St John’s Street was the first port of call. Cooper loved the house as soon as he saw it. This was exactly the sort of place Liz would have wanted to live. He knew her tastes so well that he could almost see the furniture she would have bought for the sitting room, the colour schemes she would have devised for these walls. He could practically feel the carpet underfoot.

  ‘Someone else has just been here,’ said Mrs Turner when they went in. ‘The sergeant.’

  ‘DS Fry?’ said Villiers.

  Cooper looked over his shoulder. There had been no sign of Diane Fry or her car when they arrived. That had been a narrow escape.

  ‘Yes, that’s her.’

  ‘Well, we’ve got several lines of inquiry we’re following up,’ said Villiers. ‘So there are likely to be more questions yet.’

  ‘I know. I suppose it’ll never end.’

  Cooper turned back to her. ‘Oh, I’m sure it will,’ he said.

  Mrs Turner smiled at him. Then she frowned, as if puzzled by something that wasn’t quite right. He’d become used to that look. He expected it, because he knew himself that something wasn’t quite right. He was sure it must show on the outside too. It was why he felt so reluctant to meet people face to face, strangers and familiar acquaintances alike. Being with Villiers made it different, just as he’d hoped it would. In a way, he felt he’d be able to hide behind her, so that people would see her and not him. She was the only one who could have made that work.

  Cooper stayed silent while Villiers ran through her questions. He could tell from Mrs Turner’s reaction that she’d answered them all before. Had her son mentioned that he was planning to go anywhere or meet anyone on Tuesday evening? Had he been having any problems? Money troubles, a girlfriend? Could she suggest anyone else they might talk to about him?

  They were questions that were always worth asking a second time, or even a third. People recollected details that hadn’t occurred to them the first time round. Something popped into their head when they weren’t thinking about it, and they forgot it again until they were prompted. Sometimes it seemed heartless to be questioning a bereaved relative over and over. But there was no doubt it could achieve results, and that was the objective.

  ‘Thank you, Mrs Turner,’ said Villiers finally.

  ‘Anything I can do,’ she said.

  Back in the centre of Wirksworth, there were uneven stone setts on the narrow footways in front of some of the houses on Green Hill. Today they were acting like drainage channels for the water running downhill, which might have been their original purpose.

  ‘What next, Carol?’ asked Cooper.

  ‘Diane wants me to visit Ralph Edge,’ said Villiers.

  ‘And who is he?’

  ‘Glen Turner’s colleague at Prospectus Assurance. He’s the one who told us about the paintballing.’

  ‘Paintballing?’ said Cooper.

  ‘Oh, you don’t know.’

  ‘Not unless you tell me, Carol.’

  Cooper listened quietly while Villiers told him the story of the team building weekend and Glen Turner’s paintballing injuries.

  ‘Of course, I only picked this up myself today, since I came back from Chesterfield just this morning.’

  ‘You seem to be on top of things,’ said Cooper.

  ‘I try. It’s not easy sometimes.’

  ‘Oh, tell me about it.’

  ‘You’re feeling out of the loop, I suppose, Ben?’

  ‘Yes.’ Cooper hesitated. ‘Carol, can I ask you a favour?’

  ‘Of course. Well … what?’

  ‘I’d like you to keep me up to date with anything concerning Eliot Wharton
and Josh Lane. You know – dates of hearings, pleas, bail conditions.’

  ‘I suppose I could do that,’ said Villiers. ‘Though there are systems…’

  ‘They take forever.’

  ‘All right, then.’

  ‘And any new evidence that might turn up,’ said Cooper quickly.

  ‘I don’t know, Ben.’

  ‘Just do what you can. Okay?’

  She sucked in a breath, and he could see that she was torn. He shouldn’t push her loyalty too far.

  ‘And in the meantime can you keep me up to date with this murder inquiry?’ he said. ‘I’m really interested.’

  Villiers let out her breath in relief. ‘Well, that’s better,’ she said.

  Ralph Edge lived a few miles outside Wirksworth, in Carsington village. His house was just past the Miners Arms pub. The opening of the reservoir in the 1990s had transformed Carsington. A bypass had been built to take construction traffic, new homes had appeared, and some of the barns were converted to residential use. There were no farms left in the village now, and of course the post office had closed years ago. Yet some of the older cottages were said to be built right over mineshafts. One was supposed to have tunnels still underneath it.

  A tiny Gothic-style church was hidden among yew trees on the lower slopes of Carsington Pasture. It had neither tower nor spire, just a small bellcote on the western gable. Cooper was struck by the sight of a new grave standing ready in the churchyard, the hole covered by a couple of planks, and a heap of soil piled next to it.

  The Edges’ property was about twenty years old, built from local limestone with dressed stone quoins. Inside, the dining room was set out with a large pine table and eight dining chairs, as if the Edges held regular dinner parties. Garden furniture stood out in the rain, the chairs tilted forward against the table to allow the water to run off. He wondered if the Edges had a dinner party planned this week. If so, it would certainly be held indoors.

  ‘No, it means nothing to me,’ said Edge, when Villiers described the stranger seen by Charlie Dean and Sheena Sullivan. ‘I mean, that could be absolutely anybody.’