Dead in the Dark

by Stephen Booth

  ‘In that case, she would have been located years ago,’ said Cooper.

  ‘I know, but it would have made me feel easier in my own mind.’

  ‘And what do you think of your father’s conviction that he had a sighting of Annette in Buxton?’

  ‘Oh, that.’ She sighed. ‘It’s hard to know what to think, or who to believe. Of course, I’ve always wanted to believe that Annette is alive and just doesn’t want to come home – although I don’t understand why she wouldn’t have got in touch in all these years. On the other hand …’

  ‘You still suspect that Reece killed her.’

  ‘In my heart of hearts, yes. It’s ruined my relationship with my father, you know. He’s become very cut off. He talks to Adrian more than he does to me. I think Adrian trusts him. They’re men together with a shared interest. So I doubt they talk about things like this.’

  ‘Mrs Swann, I take it you don’t have any of the same suspicions about the disappearance of Mr Bower?’

  She laughed rather nervously. ‘Oh, no. Reece has gone somewhere. I have no idea where, and I don’t particularly want to know. There won’t be any good involved, I’m sure of that.’

  ‘I see. How close is your relationship with Naomi Heath?’

  ‘We don’t have a relationship,’ said Frances, suddenly cool.

  ‘And your husband?’

  ‘Adrian would tell you the same.’

  Through an open door, Cooper glimpsed what looked like a study or workshop in an adjoining annexe. On a table stood an amazing object that caught his eye immediately. It was a carved tawny owl, almost life-sized.

  ‘That’s beautiful,’ said Cooper.

  ‘Yes, Adrian is putting it in for the show this weekend,’ said Frances.

  ‘What show?’

  ‘The Festival of Bird Art in Bakewell. The National Bird Carving Championships are held there every year.’

  ‘So your husband is a bird carver.’

  ‘A very good one,’ she said.

  ‘So I see.’

  ‘Would you like a closer look at it?’

  ‘Very much so. Can I touch it?’

  ‘I don’t think he would mind. He likes people to appreciate his work. Adrian is a member of the British Decoy and Wildfowl Carvers Association. He’s entering the Advanced Class of their competition this year for the first time. The owl is his entry for the Bird of Prey category.’

  Gently, Cooper touched the perfectly carved feathers on the wings of the owl.

  ‘It’s wonderful.’

  ‘Decorative style is the most challenging. A carver is trying to recreate a lifelike depiction of the bird. A finished piece can be almost indistinguishable from the real thing. It’s very different from decoy carving, or the interpretive style.’

  Cooper wondered if she was repeating word for word what her husband had told her, if she was genuinely interested in his passion for bird carving.

  ‘Adrian says “Inside every piece of wood there’s a bird waiting to be released”,’ she added.

  That seemed to confirm it. Cooper looked around the workshop and saw a small wooden cabinet.

  ‘Are these his tools in the canvas roll?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes.’

  Two rows of carbon steel chisels and gouges lay neatly in their pockets, along with a fine-toothed rasp, a sharpening stone and a small mallet. Alongside was a set of seven-inch knives with long handles, some straight and some with curved blades.

  ‘Those are Mora,’ said Frances. ‘A Swedish make. They’re high quality woodworking tools.’

  ‘They look pretty lethal to me.’

  She laughed. ‘That’s not the way Adrian would see it. These knives are for creating, not destroying. Just look at the tawny owl. It’s a wonderful thing, isn’t it? He brought it to life using only his hands, and these tools.’

  Cooper dutifully admired the owl again.

  ‘Do you see much of your niece these days?’ he said.

  ‘Lacey?’

  ‘Yes, Lacey.’

  Frances sighed. ‘I’m afraid it’s a difficult relationship.’

  ‘But she stayed with you for a while, didn’t she?’

  ‘Well, we did our best for her after her mother went missing and her father was arrested. I suppose that’s always the way with teenagers. They don’t appreciate the efforts of people who are looking out for them. Perhaps, when she grows up properly, Lacey will see things differently. I do hope so.’

  ‘Do you have a current address for Lacey?’

  ‘Not an up-to-date one. She moves around a bit. Lacey has gone her own way, you see. She lives in a flat in Sheffield now.’

  ‘What is she doing in Sheffield?’ asked Cooper.

  ‘She’s at college, studying.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘We used to have a mobile phone number for her. Lacey doesn’t have a landline. In fact, she rarely makes phone calls. She usually communicates by text. But I think she must have changed her mobile, and we’ve heard nothing from her for a while. You could probably get her address from the college.’

  ‘Thank you anyway, Mrs Swann.’

  ‘Are you going to talk to her?’

  ‘I’m going to try.’

  Frances Swann showed him to the door. He had the feeling there was something else she wanted to say, but she didn’t manage to get it out until he was right on the threshold.

  ‘Do you know,’ she said. ‘Every time I hear about a body being discovered, I find myself praying that it will be someone else who is dead, not my sister. That’s a terrible thing, isn’t it, Detective Inspector Cooper? A terrible thing.’

  As he left the house, Cooper’s phone buzzed, and he saw a call from Gavin Murfin waiting. He rang Murfin back as soon as he got in his car.

  ‘I’m on my way into Bakewell now,’ said Murfin.

  ‘Good. Can you meet me at the address for Evan Slaney off Church Street?’

  ‘No problem.’

  ‘How did you get on with Madeleine Betts?’

  ‘She’s a bit of a frosty one,’ said Murfin. ‘She says she’s had no contact with Reece Bower and doesn’t have any idea where he is.’

  ‘Did you believe her?’

  Murfin hesitated. ‘Well, I don’t think she knows where he is. But my nose tells me she’s keeping something back.’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘I had no luck at the steel fabrications company by the way, boss.’

  ‘Nothing?’

  ‘No one admits to saying anything out of the ordinary to Reece Bower before he went missing. I talked to everyone who had contact with him in the last few days before his disappearance. I think they were genuine. They admitted pulling his leg a bit when he first went to work there, like. But he didn’t react to it, they said.’

  Cooper didn’t know whether he was disappointed, or if he’d subconsciously expected it. The story had sounded like an excuse, a means of passing off an obviously stressed state and deflecting questions.

  ‘That sort of stuff does get tired very quickly,’ he said. ‘People lose interest when it isn’t a novelty any more.’

  ‘Right. Actually, they all say Bower was pretty good at his job. They’re missing him, Ben. They wanted to know when he might be coming back to work.’

  ‘I can’t answer that,’ said Cooper. ‘It might be never.’

  18

  Jamie Callaghan was staring at the passing traffic on the motorway as Diane Fry drove towards Shirebrook from the Major Crime Unit’s base at St Ann’s in Nottingham.

  ‘They shouldn’t have to put up with that,’ said Callaghan. ‘No one should.’

  Fry had been reviewing the previous day’s interviews with him, the accounts of Tammy Beresford and the Polish couple Michal and Anna Wolak.

  ‘No, perhaps not,’ she said, not sure which of them he was referring to.

  Callaghan glanced at her. ‘Is that all you can say? I expected you to feel more strongly about it.’

  ‘Did you? Why?’


  Callaghan shrugged. ‘I don’t know. I just thought it would seem more like you. All those immigrants coming in, changing your whole town beyond recognition. And the trouble they cause … it’s not acceptable.’

  ‘Don’t you think,’ said Fry, ‘there are always two sides to a story?’

  ‘Well, more than two. When an incident occurs, every single witness has a different account of what happened.’

  ‘Exactly. So why are you taking Tammy Beresford’s version of events as gospel?’

  ‘Well—’

  They had reached the exit at Junction 29, and tucked into the side of an HGV as she cruised through the roundabout on to the A617 towards Mansfield.

  ‘You sympathised with her, didn’t you?’ she said.

  ‘She’s a victim,’ protested Callaghan.

  ‘Yes, but who’s to say whether the other side might be victims too, unless we talk to them?’

  Callaghan raised an eyebrow. ‘DS Fry, you sound like—’

  ‘What? Who?’

  He sank back in his seat. ‘Never mind. It was just something I’ve heard. Nothing important.’

  ‘It’s probably best to keep it to yourself then,’ said Fry.

  Callaghan laughed. ‘That does sound more like you.’

  Fry thought of all the times she’d observed the behaviour of victims and felt a twinge of contempt at their weakness. Often she’d wanted to tell them that it wasn’t so bad as all that, that they should have a bit of backbone and pull themselves together.

  She’d seen plenty of genuine victims, individuals whose lives had been destroyed by some horrible crime. But so many people were just self-obsessed narcissists who deliberately overdramatised their situation because they longed to be the centre of attention. They were the same people who dialled 999 because they’d broken a fingernail or to complain their kebab was cold.

  ‘I’m more interested in firm evidence,’ she said.

  ‘The attack on Krystian Zalewski has got to be a hate crime,’ said Callaghan.

  ‘Does it? Why?’

  ‘Because he’s Polish.’

  ‘That doesn’t make sense, Jamie.’

  ‘It’s what people will be saying, though.’

  Well, that was true. It was what DCI Mackenzie had been well aware of right from the beginning, from the moment the identity of the victim was confirmed. Mackenzie had been praying that Zalewski’s murder would be anything but a hate crime. Callaghan almost seemed to want it to be one, to confirm all his preconceptions.

  ‘Evidence,’ she said again.

  ‘Well, we’ve got the presence of the far right extremists in the area. That’s a fact. And we know Geoffrey Pollitt has right-wing sympathies, to say the least. So there’s a clear connection.’

  ‘Did you get the information Mr Mackenzie asked for?’ asked Fry.

  Callaghan tapped a folder.

  ‘It’s all here.’

  An EMSOU intelligence officer had compiled a report on right-wing activities in the south-east fringes of Derbyshire.

  ‘There’s an active BNP unit in the vicinity, you know,’ said Callaghan.

  ‘BNP? Seriously?’

  ‘They’re very small in numbers, but they’re still out there campaigning. The BNP leadership is trying to present an image of themselves as a legitimate political party, so most of the time they stay on the correct side of the law. But there are always a few loose cannons who go on a freelance mission.’

  ‘And they may have headed to Shirebrook?’

  ‘It’s an obvious target for them, given the cultural mix. In the past, many of their meetings have been held at a pub in Shirebrook.’

  ‘How many people attended these meetings?’

  Callaghan checked the reports.

  ‘Oh, forty or fifty. Not much more.’

  ‘Most pubs around here get twice as many as that for a quiz night,’ said Fry.

  They were turning off towards Shirebrook, passing a hand car wash under the canopy of an old petrol station, just like the one Krystian Zalewski had worked at. You could get a wash, wax and dry from £5. Fry noticed the car wash was open seven days a week. How many staff did they need for that? Or did these men work every single day?

  Frowning, Callaghan was still looking at her.

  ‘Obviously we can’t tolerate organisations like the BNP,’ she said. ‘But we have to be careful, Jamie. If you say anything publicly, you’re liable to be subject to a complaint under the Police Conduct Regulations or the Code of Ethics.’

  Callaghan sighed. ‘Always by the book. Okay, just between you and me then, the BNP were infiltrated by members of the Metropolitan Police’s undercover intelligence unit. They weren’t just there to observe, either. They worked actively to disrupt target organisations.’

  ‘With black propaganda?’

  ‘I imagine so.’

  Fry shrugged. ‘Well, that means we can’t necessarily believe what we hear. It may be misinformation.’

  ‘Sometimes it feels as though our hands are tied by rules and procedures,’ said Callaghan.

  ‘That always seems to be the way. But there’s a reason for it.’

  Callaghan paid no attention.

  ‘Look, there’s an incident logged here, not far from Shirebrook. A group of activists were brought in because they’d been handing out leaflets – there had been complaints from the public about them – which was considered to be inciting race hatred. The local cops sat them down and were nice to them, made them a cup of tea and all that. The trouble is, the legality of the wording on their leaflets was open to interpretation, so it had to be passed upstairs.’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Well, they couldn’t be detained while that process went on – we all know it can take for ever to get a legal decision. So they were asked to leave their remaining stock of leaflets at the station. They refused. In the end they went back to their pitch in the town centre and handed out a different leaflet. There was nothing anyone could do about it. And that’s typical, Diane.’

  ‘I know. But there are ways of dealing with organisations like that.’

  ‘Oh, yes, there’s a bit of management jargon shoved in here,’ said Callaghan. ‘Do you want to hear it?’

  ‘If you must?’

  ‘It says here: “We rely on communities to identify suspect individuals, and we work through multi-agency support systems to contain any potential threat.” In other words, we’re hoping someone else will do the job.’

  As they entered Shirebrook, Fry noticed flags flying from the lampposts on a business park. The red Cross of St George on a white background – England flags.

  She had switched off and was no longer listening to Callaghan as she drove. She had never told him about her experiences growing up in the Black Country. In fact, Fry had never told anyone about it.

  Being a foster child had been bad enough, moving from one place to another with Angie because foster parents found her too difficult to deal with. After Angie ran away and disappeared from their home in Warley, Diane had become close to a foster brother a couple of years younger than her. Vincent, a quiet boy born to an Irish mother and a Jamaican father, had been adopted by their foster parents, Jim and Alice Bowskill, and had stayed with them when Diane went off to do her degree and start a career in West Midlands Police.

  Life was tough for a mixed-race boy back then. At school, she’d done her best to defend him from the racist bullies. But the racism and bullying had pushed Vince in the direction many boys went. He’d made the wrong friends, been attracted to a way of life the Bowskills deplored. His life had fallen apart, despite their best efforts.

  Maybe there was no easy way for a boy like Vincent Bowskill to fit into society when everyone had to be put into a category. It had broken her heart when she lasted visit Vince in his dingy flat in a tower block in Perry Barr, with signs of drug use lying around his sitting room, including a crude crack pipe, converted from a Ventolin asthma inhaler.

  And Fry had not forgotten the rol
e played by the right-wing extremists. Then it had largely been the National Front, with its opposition to inter-racial marriages and their slogan known as The Fourteen Words: ‘We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children.’

  Since those days, there had been a multitude of spin-off organisations. There were new issues for them to campaign. Anti-Muslim, anti-immigration, anti-EU. Their continued existence created a deep anger in Diane Fry that she was fighting very hard to keep contained.

  ‘And what about the pre-planned operation?’ asked Callaghan as they drew into Shirebrook market square. ‘The raid is scheduled for tonight, isn’t it?’

  ‘We don’t say a word until after the raid,’ said Fry. ‘Not a mention of slave trafficking, or we could jeopardise the whole operation. The Czech gang are still under surveillance and we can’t risk alerting them.’

  ‘No, we wouldn’t want the Drenko family to escape.’

  ‘Not after all this time and effort.’

  Fry parked the Audi and switched off the engine. Slave trafficking. It had been a big and complex enough inquiry for the Major Crime Unit already, without the murder of Krystian Zalewski complicating the issue.

  She wondered what else could go wrong in Shirebrook that would make her job even more difficult.

  19

  Up the hill above All Saints Church in Bakewell was the Old House Museum. Wattle and daub walls, a vast open fireplace, and a Tudor toilet. And near the museum, on a narrow back street, was the address of Mr Evan Slaney.

  Ben Cooper sat and waited in the Toyota until he saw Gavin Murfin’s green Skoda pull into the road. Murfin had trouble finding somewhere to park and had to walk down from about a hundred yards up the hill.

  ‘Why are these towns always built on hills?’ complained Murfin when he reached Cooper.

  ‘It’s the Peak District,’ said Cooper. ‘Where else would you build them?’

  ‘I’m surprised people don’t grow up with one leg longer than the other. They must always be on a slope.’

  ‘Come on, Gavin. We’re going to talk to Mr Slaney. He’s Annette Bower’s father, okay?’