Dead in the Dark

by Stephen Booth

  Across the road from the Opera House, geraniums gleamed in hanging baskets lining an arcade. A young man was half-heartedly asking passers-by for change. He was wearing a slouch beanie hat that made him look like an overgrown garden gnome.

  They’d decided to try the theatre menu at the Old Hall Hotel. Chloe had been tempted by the salmon terrine and the pan-fried sea bass with crushed new potatoes, samphire and lemon butter sauce. Cooper chose tian of crab and apple salad, followed by fillet of pork with black pudding mashed potato, creamed cabbage, and whole grain mustard sauce.

  According to the plaque on the wall outside, Mary Queen of Scots had stayed here between 1576 and 1578. Well, not exactly in this building, since the present hotel was built in 1670. It was likely that a lot of other events had happened here in the last three hundred and fifty years. Cooper was pretty sure he’d been to a wedding reception at the Old Hall some years ago. So it had played a part in his own life, in a way.

  He looked across the table at Chloe Young. She was eyeing him speculatively over a forkful of sea bass.

  ‘I suppose I seemed to have behaved a bit oddly in the opera house,’ he said.

  ‘I’m not sure. Isn’t that the way you normally behave?’

  ‘Only when I’ve got a bit too involved in an inquiry.’

  ‘And how often is that?’

  He laughed. ‘Quite often, to be honest.’

  ‘I thought that might be the case.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘No, don’t apologise. I like it. It means you’re dedicated. Passionate about your job. That’s a good thing, in my book.’

  ‘And you’re the same?’

  ‘Yes, I think I am,’ said Young. ‘Though I try not to embarrass myself in public too often.’

  Cooper laughed. ‘You didn’t get the murder victim from Shirebrook, did you?’

  ‘Not in my mortuary. It’s in a different area. But I heard about it. Sad case.’

  ‘Mmm.’

  He was conscious of Young watching him closely as he ate. Her eyes were keen. She didn’t miss very much, he was sure.

  ‘Is something else bothering you, Ben?’ she said.

  ‘Oh, just that it’s Friday tomorrow.’

  ‘The start of the weekend? People usually look happier about that.’

  ‘No, sorry. I mean – it’s my sister-in-law, my brother’s wife Kate. She has an appointment at the hospital.’

  ‘Nothing serious, I hope?’

  ‘It could be.’

  ‘I see. Well, she’ll be in good hands.’

  ‘I hope so.’

  ‘You care about her, don’t you?’

  Cooper was taken aback.

  ‘I care about them all – Matt, Kate, their two girls Amy and Josie. They’re my family.’

  ‘There’s no need to feel embarrassed about that. I like it.’

  There was more meaning in her gaze than he dared to acknowledge. Cooper felt a sudden rush of emotion, a feeling that he would like to spend the rest of his life with this woman. But it was too soon. He had to take it more slowly.

  He toyed with his mashed potato, seeking a way to change the subject. He let a few moments pass, hoping it would feel more natural.

  ‘So how are you liking being back working in Derbyshire?’ he asked.

  ‘I love it,’ she said. ‘It’s like coming home.’

  He felt himself relax. ‘I’m glad you feel that way.’

  ‘I’m starting to think that I’d like to live further out this way rather than in the suburbs of Sheffield. Totley is nice, and it’s close to the Peak District of course. But it isn’t quite the same.’

  ‘No. I can’t imagine ever living in a city now.’

  Young studied him as he ate his pork.

  ‘You know I have a brother?’ she said.

  ‘Yes, you’ve mentioned him. Martin?’

  ‘That’s right. He works near here, at the Nestlé bottling plant.’

  ‘Oh, the one at Waterswallows, where Buxton Mineral Water is bottled?’

  She nodded. ‘They claim that the whole process from rainfall to bottle takes five thousand years. The water fell on Derbyshire at the end of the last Ice Age, slowly filtered down through about a mile of limestone, then was naturally pumped up again.’

  ‘Is that true?’

  ‘Martin thinks it is.’

  ‘Five thousand years,’ said Cooper. ‘I thought the last Ice Age was longer ago than that.’

  ‘Me too. Though actually the scientists say we’re still in an Ice Age now.’

  ‘It feels like it sometimes.’

  ‘Well, that’s the way I think of Derbyshire,’ said Young. ‘A long, slow process of absorption, until you think what you’re looking for has long since vanished. Then up it comes again, out of the landscape.’

  ‘Ah, like my missing body. It might just pop up again, after ten years.’

  She smiled. ‘You never know.’

  ‘It would be nice. But I’m not depending on help from the Peak District landscape. It doesn’t always yield up what it’s absorbed.’

  They ordered dessert. Warm chocolate and vanilla ice cream, glazed lemon tart, coffee and chocolate truffles.

  ‘Nestlé relocated the Buxton Spring Water bottling plant a few years ago,’ he said. ‘It was right here in the centre of Buxton before that, on Station Road. It had been there for a hundred years or so.’

  ‘Yes, that’s right. The new factory is on the edge of the national park, so Martin says they clad it in recycled stone and gave it a wavy roof to fit in with the setting.’

  ‘But the water comes from right here, at St Ann’s Well,’ said Cooper. ‘Didn’t they have to build a pipeline from the old site to supply the new plant?’

  ‘Yes, more than two miles of it.’

  Cooper paused over his coffee, imagining water flowing two miles underground below Buxton. Then he pictured the water being pumped out of the flooded mine workings in Lathkill Dale. Miles of underground tunnels and soughs. Would they yield up what they had taken? Would they even give him a clue exactly where to look?

  He realised that Young was still gazing at him. In fact, she couldn’t seem to take her eyes off him.

  ‘I think you need to relax more,’ she said with a lift of an eyebrow.

  ‘How do you suggest I do that?’

  ‘I’m sure we could think of a few ways.’

  Cooper felt a warm glow that had nothing to do with the heat from his coffee.

  ‘That’s better,’ she said. ‘Your eyes look lovely when you smile.’

  29

  Day 5

  Evan Slaney sat uncomfortably in Interview Room One at West Street. In the harsh lights, without the shadows of his lamps, Slaney looked pale and vulnerable.

  Sitting across the table from him, Ben Cooper produced two photographs from the evidence log.

  ‘Do you recognise this, sir?’ he said, sliding the first one across.

  Slaney barely glanced at it. ‘Well, I can say with confidence it’s a mobile phone.’

  ‘Yes, it’s an Apple iPhone 7.’

  ‘Who does it belong to?’

  ‘It belonged to Reece Bower,’ said Cooper. ‘As does this wallet.’

  Now Slaney leaned across the table, touching the edges of the photograph with his large right hand.

  ‘Those marks. Is that … blood?’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ said Cooper. ‘That’s blood. In fact, it’s Mr Bower’s blood.’

  He withdrew his hand quickly with a frown of distaste.

  ‘That’s horrible.’

  ‘You might be interested to know that we’ve checked all the calls and messages on Mr Bower’s phone. Do you know who his last message was sent to?’

  ‘I have no idea.’

  ‘To you, Mr Slaney.’

  Slaney sat back in his chair. ‘To me? His last message was to me?’

  ‘It seems so. He texted you asking you to visit his house on Sunday morning.’

  ‘Yes, I rememb
er,’ said Slaney. ‘I was rather taken aback. We hadn’t spoken for a long time.’

  ‘He doesn’t say in the text what he wanted to see you about.’

  ‘And I have no idea what it was either.’

  ‘Did you go?’

  ‘Yes. Well, I nearly didn’t. I thought long and hard about it, but in the end I decided it might be something important. As I say, it was so unusual for him to contact me.’

  ‘Did it occur to you it might be about Annette?’

  ‘To be honest, yes. Only because it was pretty much the last thing we talked about. I couldn’t think of anything else that he would have to say to me.’

  ‘What time did you arrive at Aldern Way, sir?’

  ‘About ten a.m. It was Naomi who let me in. Reece was out in the garden at the back, mowing the lawn and burning some rubbish.’

  ‘How did he seem?’

  ‘I thought he was very stressed about something, really vague and absent-minded. He looked surprised to see me, even seemed to have forgotten that he’d invited me.’

  ‘So what did he want to tell you?’

  ‘Nothing, so far as I could tell. It was all very mysterious. I came away none the wiser. In fact, I wondered if there was something he was anxious to talk about, but he didn’t want to mention it while Naomi was there.’

  ‘You think Naomi shouldn’t have been there? He wanted to see you on your own?’

  ‘And it went wrong for some reason, yes. It was very odd. And of course that was the last time I saw him.’

  ‘He went missing later that same day,’ said Cooper.

  ‘That’s shocking. Awful.’

  ‘I need you to tell me the truth, Mr Slaney.’

  Slaney laid his hands on the table, as if to draw attention to them. Cooper couldn’t help looking, and noticed something odd straightaway. He could see that Slaney’s right hand was distinctly larger than his left. The knuckles were thicker, the fingers longer, the palm spread more widely on the surface of the table.

  He supposed some occupations might cause the development of one hand so much more than the other. He doubted accountancy was one of them, though. No matter how many years you spent tapping an electronic calculator, it wouldn’t give you a hand like that. It looked as though it could crush a rock.

  ‘Well, you’re right,’ said Slaney. ‘I haven’t been completely honest with you.’

  ‘I’m sorry if I don’t look completely surprised.’

  ‘You guessed?’

  ‘I can usually tell when a person is hiding something, though I may not always be able to tell what it is.’

  ‘Does that come from experience, Inspector?’

  ‘Yes, but often with the wrong sort of people.’

  ‘This may not be exactly what you want to hear, though.’

  ‘Try me.’

  ‘He made a fool of me, you know. He convinced me I’d seen Annette.’

  ‘Who did? Reece Bower.’

  ‘He’s a very clever man. Was a clever man, perhaps I should say. He fooled Annette for a long time too. She thought his affair with Madeleine Betts was over.’ He laughed bitterly. ‘She thought that was his only affair. Oh, yes. He was a charmer. Very persuasive. But they say that about psychopaths, don’t they? They can be charming. That’s what makes them such successful manipulators.’

  ‘How did he convince you that you’d seen Annette, sir?’

  ‘He was on at me about it constantly,’ said Slaney. ‘Showing me photographs of her, telling me over and over that we had to keep our eyes open, that one of us would see her walking down the street one day. We’d get a glimpse of her going into a shop or disappearing round a corner. And we’d know it was her from that momentary flash of recognition. Looking back now, he practically brainwashed me into expecting to see her at any moment. To be perfectly honest – and I didn’t say this to the officers who interviewed me at the time – but I thought I saw Annette twice before that last occasion.’

  ‘In Buxton?’

  ‘Yes. They were just as Reece said – momentary glimpses of a woman walking down the street. One time I thought I saw her turning a corner as I was driving through the traffic lights on Terrace Road. By the time I managed to stop the car, she’d vanished into Spring Gardens. I looked in the shops, walked through the shopping arcade, staring at strange women until I was in danger of getting myself arrested. I gave up in the end. And when I got back to my car, I’d got a ticket on my windscreen for illegal parking.’

  ‘But you were convinced you’d seen her,’ said Cooper.

  ‘I wasn’t sure that first time. I tried to be logical and kept telling myself I’d imagined a resemblance in a complete stranger. I tried to laugh it off. And then it happened again, and even a third time.’

  ‘Was it the same woman?’

  Slaney shrugged. ‘How can I know now? I spotted her once sitting in the window of a restaurant at The Quadrant with another woman, and then finally there was the incident outside Waitrose. By the third time, I was fully convinced it was Annette I’d seen.’

  ‘Because of the make of car she was driving and the coat she was wearing.’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘But you only reported the one sighting. That final one …’

  Slaney smiled sadly. ‘I didn’t want those police officers to think I was mad.’

  Cooper recalled his own feelings after he thought he recognised Annette Bower at the Opera House the previous night. Like Evan Slaney, he’d spent too long looking at photographs of Annette. And he hadn’t mentioned it to anyone, not even to Chloe Young. Now she probably did think he was mad.

  ‘As you can imagine, I was very angry,’ said Slaney. ‘Angry not only that he was probably responsible for my daughter’s death, but that he allowed me to believe she was still alive all these years. As far as I’m concerned, he killed Annette twice.’

  ‘So Reece Bower used you.’

  Slaney nodded. ‘Looking back now,’ he said, ‘I have a feeling the photographs that Reece showed me were all deliberately a bit vague or out of focus. There were no posed shots. They just caught my daughter from odd angles from which she was only just recognisable. The human memory is an odd thing, isn’t it? Given the right sort of prompting and manipulation, we can convince ourselves we remember anything.’

  ‘You must have felt very betrayed.’

  ‘Certainly.’

  Cooper leaned forward and watched him closely.

  ‘And was that why you killed him, Mr Slaney?’

  Evan Slaney’s face fell into an expression of incredulity. It looked so cartoonishly ludicrous that, despite himself, Cooper almost laughed at the sight of it.

  ‘Me?’ said Slaney. ‘No, you’ve got that completely wrong, Detective Inspector. I hated Reece for that. But I didn’t kill him. I could never conceive of doing such a thing.’

  Cooper sat back in surprise. For some reason, he felt he believed what Slaney was saying. But he couldn’t be wrong, could he? There was just some evidence missing.

  There was a knock on the door and Cooper was called out of the interview. Dev Sharma stood in the corridor.

  ‘What is it, Dev? It must be important.’

  ‘We haven’t completed the search of Mr Slaney’s house yet, but I thought you’d like to know about this straightaway, sir.’

  Cooper saw he was carrying a small plastic evidence bag.

  ‘What’s in the bag?’

  ‘A knife,’ said Sharma.

  Cooper looked more closely. ‘But not just any knife,’ he said. ‘If I’m not mistaken, it’s a woodcarver’s knife.’

  ‘The blade is about three and half inches long, with a birch wood handle. The make is Mora.’

  ‘Where was it found?’

  ‘In the hollow base of an antique lamp. A Chinese porcelain dragon.’

  Cooper put his foot down as he drove through Baslow towards Bakewell. He arrived at the house in Over Haddon just as Frances Swann pulled up in her white Citroën.

  �
�This is very inconvenient, Inspector,’ she said. ‘I’ve had to leave a class. I hope it’s as important as you suggested in your call.’

  ‘It could be.’

  ‘So what is it you want?’

  ‘To see your husband’s woodcarving tools.’

  Her face creased in bafflement. ‘The tools?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘But you’ve already seen them. I don’t know what else I can tell you about them.’

  ‘Perhaps I should call your husband to come out,’ said Cooper. ‘Would you prefer that?’

  ‘No, don’t do that. Come inside.’

  This time Cooper knew where Adrian Swann’s workshop was. The carved owl seemed to watch him as he entered and went to the cabinet where the tools were kept. Frances followed him as he unfurled the canvas roll.

  ‘Is there anything missing?’ asked Cooper. ‘Can you tell?’

  Frances peered at the tool set. She seemed reluctant to get too close to it, as if she wasn’t allowed to touch it. He could imagine that Adrian Swann might be very possessive about his tools. They gleamed as if they were polished and oiled regularly and a mislaid tool could be a disaster.

  ‘Yes, you’re right.’ Frances pointed. ‘There should be another knife. One with a straight blade. The curved-bladed knife is there, but not the straight blade.’

  ‘How big is the missing knife? Seven inches?’

  ‘About that, including the handle. The blade itself isn’t very long. Adrian uses the knives for the fine detail on the birds, you know. I don’t understand why it isn’t there, though. He’s very particular about his tools. He’ll be very upset if it’s missing.’

  Cooper drew out the knife with the curved blade and turned over the handle.

  ‘Mora,’ he said.

  ‘I told you,’ said Frances. ‘A Swedish make.’

  ‘Who has access to these tools?’

  ‘No one but Adrian or me. The only other person he would let in to handle his tools is my father.’

  ‘Mr Slaney?’

  ‘Adrian learned woodworking from him, years ago before we even married. Adrian has gone on to be much better. Dad was never really an artist. He preferred something primitive. He was never happier than when he was chopping wood. When he and Mum lived in the house at Rowsley, he kept their wood burners stocked with logs.’