Dead in the Dark

by Stephen Booth

  ‘And you really haven’t heard from him since?’ asked Cooper. ‘No phone calls, not even a text message?’

  ‘No, nothing. That’s what worried me. I can understand him wanting to be on his own for a while, but he would have got in contact by now, I’m sure. I expected him to be back on Monday, to go to work. But it’s been two nights now, without a word. That’s just not right.’

  ‘Did he take a mobile phone with him?’

  ‘As far as I know. He always has his iPhone on him.’

  ‘We’ll need the number.’

  ‘Fine.’

  ‘Didn’t Mr Bower give you any hint at all about where he was going?’ put in Villiers.

  ‘No.’

  ‘But you must have some possibilities in mind.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Some idea of where he would go, if he wanted to disappear or be on his own for a while. People normally go to a location they know quite well. Somewhere their family or friends live, perhaps. Their old home town, or just a place they went on holiday once …’

  Naomi shook her head. ‘I don’t know. I can’t think where he would go.’

  Cooper sighed. They weren’t really getting anywhere with her.

  ‘We’ll need the addresses of all Mr Bower’s family, and any particular friends he might have gone to.’

  ‘All right, I’ll get them,’ she said.

  Cooper looked at Villiers as Naomi got up and left the room. Villiers nodded at a display of photographs on a corner table. Holiday snaps, Reece and Naomi smiling at the camera with a blue sea and sunlit rooftops in the background.

  ‘The Mediterranean,’ said Cooper. ‘That’s no good. He wouldn’t have risked crossing the border.’

  ‘There’s one on a caravan site,’ said Villiers. ‘Looks quite recent. Maybe they couldn’t afford a foreign holiday this year.’

  ‘Can you see—’ began Cooper.

  But Villiers was ahead of him. She’d already eased the photo out of the plastic pocket and turned it over.

  ‘Bridlington,’ she said, as she slipped it back.

  Naomi came back into the room with an address book. ‘I’ve marked the family members and his closest friends. There aren’t many of those, just a few golfing buddies.’

  ‘We’ll also need the number of his mobile phone so we can track it. His bank account details, particularly debit and credit cards. And please make a list of the clothes he was wearing and what he took with him in his overnight bag, if you can.’

  ‘I can do that.’

  Cooper paused. ‘Miss Heath,’ he said, ‘it’s impossible for us to assess Mr Bower’s state of mind. Since you were the last person to speak to him, do you think there’s a possibility he might have intended to harm himself?’

  ‘No, not at all—’ She’d begun to shake her head automatically, but stopped abruptly. ‘Well, I can’t deny it’s crossed my mind. Normally I wouldn’t say Reece was the type of man to do something like that. Even if he isn’t happy in his job, he has his family here. We have two children, for heaven’s sake. He has all that to live for. But who can say, really? There’s no way to see inside someone else’s head and tell what they’re thinking.’

  ‘No, that’s quite true.’

  And Cooper meant that sincerely. He’d often wished there was a way of seeing inside someone’s head and learning what they were thinking. He was wishing it now. He would love to know what Naomi Heath really thought about the disappearance of her partner. The only thing he was sure of was that she wasn’t telling him everything.

  ‘How long have you two been together?’ asked Villiers.

  ‘About four years.’

  ‘And you have children?’

  Naomi Heath smiled. ‘Yes, we’re one of those complicated families.’

  ‘Complicated?’

  ‘I have a son from a previous marriage. His name is Joshua. And Reece and I have a younger son together, Daniel. And of course Reece has a daughter from his marriage.’

  ‘That would be Lacey,’ said Cooper, recalling the detail from the files.

  ‘Yes, Lacey. So, you see – it’s complicated.’

  ‘Your previous marriage—’ began Villiers.

  ‘We were divorced,’ replied Naomi quickly. ‘It didn’t work out. We separated not long after Joshua was born. He’s nine now.’

  ‘There must be quite a difference in age between Lacey and Daniel.’

  ‘Thirteen years. Lacey is a young woman. She doesn’t live with us any more. She’s eighteen now, and she’s at college. She doesn’t really want to be bothered with small children.’

  Cooper nodded. He could see how the relationships in this family might be quite complicated. So Lacey didn’t want to be bothered with her step-and half-brothers? But how did she feel about her stepmother, the person who’d taken her own mother’s place and claimed her father’s affections? That could be one of the most difficult and complicated relationships of all.

  ‘Miss Heath,’ he said, ‘I have to ask you: I assume you know about what happened ten years ago – the disappearance of Mr Bower’s wife?’

  ‘Yes, of course I know. In fact, I already knew about it when I met Reece. It had been in all the papers. It was big news in this area. But Reece made a point of telling me about it anyway. He didn’t want there to be any secrets between us.’

  No secrets? Cooper thought that was unlikely. But it was the sort of thing that people said to each other, especially in the early days of a relationship.

  ‘Did he say what he thought had happened to his wife?’

  ‘He said he didn’t know, any more than anyone else did. He’s always felt that way.’

  ‘A witness claimed to have seen her alive,’ said Cooper.

  ‘I know. This must sound strange, Detective Inspector Cooper, but that was one of things that upset Reece the most. He’d begun to harden himself to the fact that Annette was probably dead. Then, to have the possibility raised that she was still alive, was hard for him to take. It means, of course, that she disappeared deliberately and has not been in touch for more than ten years. Reece has no idea what he did to deserve that treatment.’

  ‘On the other hand, it was that witness statement which resulted in the case against Mr Bower being dropped.’

  Naomi smiled coldly. ‘It’s a difficult one to understand, isn’t it? None of us can imagine how we would feel in those circumstances. I’m just telling you what I gathered from Reece. He’s always been conflicted about it, but I think that betrayal by his wife was harder to bear than the prospect of a conviction for a murder.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘By the way, I’m really Mrs Heath,’ she said. ‘I kept my husband’s name after the divorce. A lot of my friends thought I was mad, but I did it for Joshua’s sake. He was already at school by then. It didn’t seem fair to change his name or give myself a different surname from him. It would just have confused him more, and he was upset enough after the separation.’

  She turned to Cooper and gestured out of the front window at the other houses in Aldern Way.

  ‘I do get called Mrs Bower, though,’ she said. ‘Some of our neighbours have only moved into the area in the past few years, and they have no idea about what happened ten years ago.’

  ‘So they don’t know you aren’t married? And they don’t know about the court case?’

  ‘No. Life is complicated enough, isn’t it? I’d hate having to explain it to everyone I met in the street.’

  Cooper followed her gaze out of the window, the trimmed hedges and neat conifers, the well-mown lawns and integrated garages. So there were secrets, after all. That was no surprise.

  Then he turned the other way. The back garden of the Reece Bower’s house looked neat and bursting with colour. Beds of dahlias and carnations were in flower, a couple of apple trees were growing heavy with fruit, planters were filled with petunias and begonias.

  ‘Reece said the police dug this garden up ten years ago,’ said Naomi. ‘And th
ey didn’t find a thing.’

  ‘No signs of Annette, anyway.’

  Cooper was thinking about Lacey Bower, eighteen years old now. It was difficult enough handling a relationship with a stepmother. But what if she really wasn’t a stepmother at all? Not legally, anyway. It might be tempting for an embittered teenager to regard the interloper as temporary, someone who could be separated from her father at some point in the not too distant future. In Cooper’s experience, teenagers were capable of anything. They hadn’t learned to control some of the most powerful emotions – hatred and jealousy, the feeling of betrayal.

  ‘Is there anyone you can think of who might want to harm Mr Bower?’ asked Villiers.

  ‘No, no one.’

  It was a standard question, but the answer came too quickly. It always did. People thought they were so likeable that nobody could possibly hate them enough to harm them. It was rarely true.

  ‘And what about you?’ said Cooper.

  She frowned. ‘What about me?’

  ‘Is there anyone who would want to harm you, Mrs Heath?’

  ‘What sort of question is that, Inspector? It’s Reece who’s disappeared. No harm has come to me. I don’t understand.’

  ‘Losing your partner would seem to have caused you some harm,’ said Cooper calmly. ‘Don’t you think so?’

  She shook her head. ‘I don’t know what you’re suggesting. It doesn’t make sense.’

  ‘All right.’

  He could see she was beginning to get annoyed now. Her fingers fiddled with a spoon from the table, her knuckles whitening as if she was trying to bend it like Uri Geller.

  ‘I hope you’re doing something to find Reece,’ she said, ‘rather than just coming here asking me all these meaningless questions.’

  ‘Of course we are.’

  ‘I’m really very worried that something has happened to him. He wouldn’t just have gone off like this.’

  ‘Yes, you said that.’

  But she hadn’t quite said that, had she? A few minutes ago, she’d said ‘We’re all worried about Reece’. Now, when the same sentiment came out under pressure, it had become ‘I’m worried about Reece’. One sounded like the proper thing to say. The other sounded more like the truth.

  ‘He may get in touch,’ said Villiers.

  Naomi Heath turned to her, a sudden spark of something in her eyes. Hope? Excitement? A challenge?

  ‘Do you really think so?’ she said.

  ‘Yes. I can’t help thinking he’ll be in touch soon, when he’s got whatever it is out of his system.’

  ‘I hope you’re right,’ she said.

  ‘We’d better get back to the office now and see what progress is being made,’ said Cooper, hoping she didn’t recognise a lie. There would have been no progress, since there wasn’t really an inquiry.

  ‘Yes, perhaps you should.’

  Cooper followed Villiers back up the drive to the road. Of course Reece Bower couldn’t have married Naomi Heath if he’d wanted to. They could only marry if Annette was officially declared dead. And since the case against him was dropped because of evidence she was alive, how could that be? It was the possibility Annette was alive that was keeping him out of prison. And it was also preventing him from getting married again to the woman he now loved.

  A living, breathing first wife was both a salvation and a hindrance.

  12

  An hour later, Ben Cooper was in Detective Superintendent Branagh’s office, having fought his way through the traffic in Chesterfield just as everyone else seemed to be leaving town to go home. He’d been standing gridlocked at set after set of lights, always too close to the car in front, foot constantly on the brake.

  It reminded Cooper why driving on roads in the Peak District felt such a pleasure. Even if they were narrow and winding and covered in mud from the wheels of a tractor, they were much more pleasant than this. He hoped no one ever tried to transfer him to a city.

  Sitting across from Hazel Branagh, he realised how much he was missing those big shoulders, the intimidating but reassuring presence. She looked somehow crammed into her new office, even though it was actually bigger than her old one, and certainly airier and more modern, with large windows looking out over the Chesterfield. Cooper thought if he leaned a little to the side he might catch a glimpse of the famous twisted spire of St Mary and All Saints.

  ‘Let’s talk about the Annette Bower inquiry,’ said Branagh. ‘It’s much easier doing it face to face, don’t you think, Ben?’

  ‘Certainly.’

  ‘You’ve read up on the case, I suppose?’

  ‘Only the basic details. I haven’t had time to go through the case files yet.’

  ‘Do any questions spring to your mind?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well, ask away.’

  ‘I did wonder what stage the inquiry had reached when it was suspended,’ said Cooper.

  ‘Yes, good question. I was planning to switch the search area.’

  ‘Really? On what evidence?’

  Branagh was silent for a moment. ‘I hate to admit this. But I’m glad you’re asking me, Ben. It makes me reconsider my decisions – or the lack of them.’

  ‘I’m sure you made all the right calls,’ said Cooper.

  ‘Are you? I’m not so certain.’

  Cooper waited. He could sense that Hazel Branagh wanted to tell him something, but he couldn’t rush her. She wasn’t someone you could hurry. If interrupted, she would probably just clam up.

  ‘I suppose you would call it a hunch,’ she said at last. ‘I hope you won’t laugh.’

  ‘I wouldn’t dream of it, ma’am.’

  ‘No, you wouldn’t, would you?’ she said thoughtfully. ‘You have hunches yourself don’t you, DI Cooper? It doesn’t always appear in your reports, but your colleagues are aware of them. And they’ve learned to trust them too.’

  He wondered who Branagh had been talking to. She always seemed to know what was going on, right down to the most junior officers. Perhaps she just picked things up from the general atmosphere in the office. That was something else she wouldn’t be able to do, now she was based seventeen miles away.

  ‘The Bowers were already living in Bakewell then,’ said Branagh. ‘And they still do, of course.’

  ‘Well, Reece does – with his new partner and their children.’

  ‘Oh yes, the new partner. They’re not married, though.’

  ‘No. Annette is officially still alive.’

  ‘Mmm. Was the new partner involved in the original case, by any chance?’

  ‘Not that I know of,’ said Cooper. ‘I haven’t checked yet, though. Her name is Naomi Heath.’

  ‘It doesn’t ring a bell. There was an affair Bower was having with a colleague at work, but I don’t think that was the name.’

  ‘I’ll run a check on her. Heath isn’t her maiden name.’

  ‘What is she like? How is she reacting to Mr Bower’s disappearance?’

  ‘It’s hard to tell. She isn’t very forthcoming. I’ll speak to her again tomorrow.’

  ‘Good.’ Branagh paused. ‘What was I saying?’

  ‘The Bowers lived in Bakewell then.’

  ‘Oh, yes. They were both keen walkers in those days. There was a particular area they liked to go to, not far away from Bakewell. I was thinking of it when the report came in that Reece Bower was missing. We’d exhausted the search of their property and the neighbouring area by then. We’d dug up the garden too.’

  ‘Oh, yes. The garden.’

  ‘We thought the back garden was a likely burial spot. That was where we were pinning our hopes in the beginning, because of the signs of disturbed earth. Most of it wasn’t overlooked by any of the neighbouring properties. And as soon as we saw the freshly dug ground, well, it was inevitable we were going to focus our attention there. I suppose we were a bit too blinkered, and we just followed the most obvious possibilities. We should have been more open-minded. We wasted a lot of time on that garden.�
��

  ‘It’s looking good now,’ said Cooper. ‘The plants are thriving.’

  ‘I’m not surprised. We gave it a thorough turning over and pulled out a lot of rubbish left there by the builders – bricks, lumps of plasterboard, you know the sort of thing. We dug for days and turned up nothing of significance, apart from a dead cat that had been buried by the previous owners. It was disheartening. Then we extended the search area to include some woods at the rear of the property, and along the edge of the Monsal Trail. We searched some industrial units too, I recall. Two of them were empty at the time. They were considered strong possibilities for a while. But nothing. Nothing at all.’

  Cooper kept silent, listening to Branagh reliving the experience of running the Annette Bower inquiry. He understood how frustrating those circumstances could be, when every potential lead you came up with hit a dead end. As a DC, he’d been on an inquiry team assigned to interview neighbours in Aldern Way, and then employees at the industrial units. He was well aware of some of what Branagh was saying. But still, he didn’t interrupt.

  ‘There was this one other place,’ she said. ‘We would have gone there next – though, given the nature of the location, it would have been a massive undertaking. Hard enough to justify at the best of times.’

  ‘What location was that, ma’am?’

  ‘An entire valley. Lathkill Dale.’

  ‘Why Lathkill Dale?’ asked Cooper.

  ‘The Bowers originally met on a guided walk run by the Rangers. A shared interest in nature and industrial heritage, something like that. Lathkill Dale was one of their favourite areas apparently. They went there often, when they got the chance. Does that make sense to you, Ben – going for walk in the same place time after time? Personally, I’d want to go somewhere different, no matter how close by it was.’

  ‘Some people like it,’ said Cooper. ‘They form a special connection with a place and they enjoy the familiarity. They find it relaxing. I can imagine that they would want to keep going to Lathkill Dale, particularly if they’d met there. It would have a special meaning for them.’

  ‘Mmm. That sounds a bit overly romantic to me,’ said Branagh. ‘Reece Bower didn’t strike me as the romantic type.’

  ‘Perhaps Annette was, though. And he just went along with it. Lots of men do that.’