Dead And Buried (Cooper and Fry)

by Stephen Booth

  There was a disturbance among the firefighters and rangers further up the hill. Someone called down and waved a hand in an urgent gesture.

  ‘What’s going on now?’ asked Cooper.

  ‘Oh Lord. It looks like they’ve found something else.’

  ‘More archaeological remains?’

  ‘Chief,’ shouted one of the firemen, ‘you might want to take a look at this.’

  Out of curiosity, Cooper followed the watch manager up the hill through the remains of the burnt heather to where the firefighters had gathered. And within minutes he’d forgotten all about the breakin at the Light House.

  A couple of hours later, the scene of the find on Oxlow Moor had been taped off, but only by driving plastic stakes into the burned peat around it. The taping seemed a bit unnecessary in view of the nature of the surroundings, but at least procedure was being followed. E Division’s crime-scene manager Wayne Abbott was present, which indicated the seriousness with which someone had responded to the finds. Cooper had been joined by Carol Villiers, dispatched from West Street on his call.

  ‘What have we got, then?’ he asked.

  Abbott had been crouching in his white scene suit, but stood up and greeted Cooper. The knees of the paper suit were stained with brown from the churned-up peat.

  ‘The main item is a small rucksack,’ he said. ‘Nylon manufacture mostly, so it’s survived being buried. I couldn’t say how long it’s been here, but a few years certainly.’

  ‘You’re saying “buried”. It wasn’t just dropped and lost?’

  ‘No way. It was dug into the peat and covered over. It was only a few inches down, but a layer of peat and then the heather or whatever growing on top of it would have concealed it pretty well. In fact, by the shape of it and the position it was lying in, I’d say it had been deliberately flattened, possibly by somebody jumping up and down on it.’

  ‘They were hoping it wouldn’t be found, then?’

  ‘Not for a long while. In fact they might have been hoping it would rot down eventually, but, like I say, it’s nylon.’

  ‘Non-biodegradable.’

  ‘Yes.’ Abbott lifted off a fragment of charred bracken that had fallen into the hole. ‘If we’re really lucky, we might get a partial footwear impression,’ he said. ‘That looks like a boot print to me, near the shoulder strap there. Out here, the soles of anyone’s boots would be covered in muddy peat, just like ours. You couldn’t stamp on a clean surface like this without leaving a mark.’

  ‘Could the rucksack have been damaged in some way?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Is there a hole torn in the bottom? Are the shoulder straps intact? I’m thinking that someone might have decided it was too badly damaged to be useful any more, and they couldn’t be bothered taking it home with them, or even carrying it off the moor to dispose of.’

  Abbott narrowed his eyes as he looked into the hole. ‘I understand what you’re getting at. It looks perfectly sound to me, but we won’t know for certain until we get it back and examine it properly.’

  Cooper straightened up. ‘There’s more than the rucksack, though. It isn’t just some hiker who decided to dump a bit of old kit in the heather.’

  ‘No, certainly not. There are other items coming to light. We have a couple of anoraks – quite expensive garments from the labels, and stains on them that could be blood at first glance. We’ll need to confirm that. There’s a mobile phone. Dead as a dodo, of course. And look at this.’

  He was holding a partially decomposed lump in an evidence bag. On closer inspection, it turned out to be a leather wallet, probably also quite an expensive one when it was bought.

  ‘The peat has preserved this pretty well,’ said Abbott. ‘I can even make out a name on one of the credit cards.’

  ‘What? There are still credit cards in there?’

  ‘Yes. And some cash too, by the looks of it.’

  ‘We assumed the stuff must have been thrown away by some thief when they’d emptied out the valuables.’

  Abbott was silent for a moment. He gave Cooper a meaningful glance. ‘No, that’s not the situation we have here. It’s something quite different.’

  Cooper caught his breath. He knew only too well what Abbott meant. This discovery had been coming for the past two years. It had been inevitable ever since an incident one snowy night in December.

  ‘What’s the name on the card?’ he asked finally.

  ‘You could guess, I think. The name is David James Pearson.’

  A light dawned on Villiers’ face too, then. It wasn’t just E Division who remembered the case. Carol had been serving in the RAF Police at the time. She might even have been stationed overseas – it wouldn’t have made any difference. Cooper could see that the name rang a bell. The story had been in the news continuously for months.

  ‘And did you say there was blood on the clothing?’ he asked.

  ‘We think so. I’m about to do a presumptive test, but my instincts are bristling like an angry hedgehog.’

  An instinct wasn’t proof of anything, as Cooper had been reminded a few minutes ago. But this was different. In this instance, he trusted Abbott’s instinct. Because his own gut was telling him exactly the same thing.

  ‘You know what this means, Ben?’ asked Abbott.

  ‘Yes,’ said Cooper, with a deep sigh. ‘It means the Major Crime Unit.’

  4

  Detective Sergeant Diane Fry was in the outside lane of the M1 motorway when she got the call. Her black Audi was travelling at just over seventy miles an hour, passing a convoy of French lorries occupying the inside lanes. Her CD player was blasting out one of her favourite albums, Songs of Mass Destruction. She loved Annie Lennox’s voice, always full of soul, even when rocking on ‘Ghosts in My Machine’.

  Her fingers tapped on the steering wheel in a rare moment of relaxation. Her car was almost her only personal space, the last refuge where she could escape from the tension that ruled the rest of her life.

  Fry turned the CD off to take the call. While she listened to the message, she looked ahead, saw the overhead gantry signs for Junction 26, the Nottingham exit. She was pretty sure there was a link on to the A610, which would take her back into Derbyshire.

  ‘Yes, give me an hour or so.’

  ‘Understood.’

  She indicated to move into the inside lane and slowed for the exit. At the same time she began to reset the route on her sat nav.

  ‘Can you send me an outline of the original inquiry?’ she asked.

  There was a pause. ‘We’ll ask the locals to give you a copy.’

  ‘That’ll do.’

  She hit the roundabout and found herself stuck behind a car transporter as she filtered left towards the A610 for Ripley and Ilkeston.

  ‘Well, maybe a bit more than an hour,’ she muttered.

  Fry had been with the East Midlands Special Operations Unit – Major Crime for six months now, part of the Derbyshire contingent allocated to the new unit when the county’s own Major Crime Unit was wound up.

  The joint initiative was headed up by the former divisional commander from D Division in Derby. He was the man who’d expanded the city’s burglary and robbery squads and introduced Operation Diamond to deal with serious sexual and violent assaults. He was also behind Operation Redshank, set up to target gun and gang crime after a spate of shootings in Derby that had culminated in the death of fifteen-year-old Kadeem Blackwood in 2008.

  Just as importantly from Fry’s point of view, this chief superintendent had joined Derbyshire from the West Midlands, just as she had herself.

  It was funny to think now how frustrated she’d felt at being co-opted into discussions about inter-force cooperation last year. At the time it had seemed to have no relevance to her own career. She’d felt as though she was just waiting for an opportunity to move back to Birmingham, something that was beginning to look less and likely among all the cuts and restructuring.

  But then the regiona
l Major Crime Unit had become a reality, as all five forces in the East Midlands disbanded their own units in an effort to save cash. Its remit was to investigate all murders and other major crimes in the region, including kidnappings.

  Though murders were still few in number, they caused massive disruption to local forces, especially in the first week of an inquiry. The regional unit meant that officers from Derbyshire had to support their colleagues in neighbouring areas, even those as far away as Lincolnshire or Northamptonshire. She now had the chance to operate in towns and cities well away from the rural wastelands of the Peak District.

  The Northern Command of EMSOU – MC was based in the city of Nottingham, barely more than a forty-mile drive from Edendale, yet it might as well be a world away.

  Fry called her office back.

  ‘This turn-out. Who’s on the ground at the moment?’

  ‘Local CID officers. I don’t know exactly who. Do you want me to get a name to make contact with?’

  ‘No, it won’t make any difference,’ said Fry. ‘I’ll find out soon enough when I arrive.’

  Local CID. Oh well. At one time not too long ago, that could have meant her. But she knew it was always important to have local officers on scene, especially in the first days of a murder. Her new boss was very keen on the benefits of local knowledge. She’d read a newspaper interview in which he’d talked about his earlier career. He’d said that during one murder investigation he’d been approached at a crime scene by two burglars whose sentences he’d applied to have extended, but who wanted to give him information about the suspect. They’d done that just because they knew him. Personal contact created a strange kind of bond. It earned trust, even from someone you’d helped to put away for a spell.

  Fry knew there were plenty of officers in the northern part of Derbyshire who had that kind of local knowledge and experience, particularly the personal contacts that might prove invaluable.

  She was on the dual carriageway now, passing the old brewing town of Kimberley and the IKEA retail park.

  ‘Control?’ she said. ‘Is Oxlow Moor located in B or E Division?’

  ‘E, I think.’

  ‘Okay, thank you.’

  Fry sighed. Well, it would only be temporary. In the subsequent weeks of an inquiry, when more detailed forensic investigations were taking place, it wasn’t so vital to have local officers involved. Everyone was trained to the same standard and used identical systems, so it wasn’t necessary. A central capability resulted in a more sensible use of available resources.

  Of course, it was disloyal of her to think like this, in a way. She remained employed by Derbyshire Constabulary, though she had a new base away from the area she lived in. Her chief had said publicly that, despite his change of role, he would not be leaving Derby, which had been his family home for years.

  But that was where she parted company with him. She didn’t feel quite the same about Edendale.

  ‘One last thing …’ she said.

  ‘Yes, Sergeant?’

  ‘Have you got a postcode for this place I’m going to?’ she said. ‘My sat nav doesn’t seem to recognise it.’

  While he waited on Oxlow Moor, Cooper walked a few yards away from the smoke still drifting off the hill, and found himself looking down at the long drop into the valley.

  Below him the road was crossed by the Limestone Way, one of Derbyshire’s most popular trails, which ended a few miles to the north in Castleton. Its name was pretty accurate. From Mayfield, in the south of the county, the route passed through the rugged greyish-white limestone landscape of the White Peak.

  For centuries this had been the heart of England’s lead-mining industry, a rich ore field that had been mined continuously since Roman times. From the pigs of lead found with the official stamp and the abbreviation ‘Lut’, it was believed that Lutudarum, the Roman centre of lead mining, had been located somewhere in this area. Some sections of the Limestone Way used miners’ tracks, and even older pathways, a few of them dating back to the Bronze Age, when they’d linked prehistoric henges, hill forts and burial sites.

  The Romans had built their own roads across this area, of course. And even in the Peaks they were straight as an arrow, irrespective of the hills. The route he’d crossed, known as Batham Gate, ran from the town of Buxton to the Roman fort of Navio, near Brough. Much of it was no longer used, but a Roman road could always be recognised on the map – their artificial straightness was such a contrast to the winding lanes that had grown up organically over hundreds of years of human activity, following the natural inclination to take the least demanding route.

  The present Batham Gate was an oddity, though. Long stretches of it twisted and turned in a very un-Roman fashion, diverting to avoid the quarries and fluorspar workings that had sprung up alongside it. Curiously, the modern electricity pylons seemed to follow the route of the old Roman road, marching dead straight across the countryside in a way the road itself no longer did.

  ‘Parts of this area are quite dangerous,’ said the fire chief. ‘And I don’t mean because of the fires.’

  ‘Dangerous?’

  ‘The old mines. You have to be careful where you walk if you stray off the path.’

  ‘You’re right, of course.’

  Because of its history, the area was riddled with old mine workings, capped-off shafts and thousands of small grassy hillocks covered in wild flowers, most of them spoil heaps, which formed the only visible legacy of the lead-mining glory days of the eighteenth century. And then there were the limestone and fluorspar quarries – great white gashes blasted from the hillsides, many of them now abandoned in their turn, grown over or gradually filling up with water.

  With one hand Cooper swiped his mouth, realising that he could still taste smoke in his saliva when he swallowed. Unless the rain came in the next few days, this whole landscape could soon be reduced to ashes.

  Cooper recognised the black Audi has as soon as it turned on to the track approaching Oxlow Moor. There was something about the tinted strip across the windscreen blocking out the sun, and the way the car was driven, slowly and skittishly, as if it was only used to travelling on dual carriageways and expected those stone walls to move in from either side and crush it.

  Diane Fry looked thinner than ever, which hardly seemed possible. But he’d noticed something strange about her over the years. She’d always looked much more fragile outdoors, when she was out of her natural environment. Inside, in the office, she was quite a different person. She seemed to grow and become stronger. Her fair hair was longer than it used to be, which did at least soften her features.

  ‘Is there mud?’ called Fry when she got out of her car at the bottom of the track.

  ‘Not here.’

  Fry walked across the verge, but halted the moment she stepped off on to the moor in the direction of the crime-scene tent.

  ‘Damn. I thought you said there wasn’t any mud?’

  ‘It isn’t mud, Sergeant. It’s burned heather and ashes. It’s wet because the fire service have just finished extinguishing a fire.’

  ‘In my book that makes it mud,’ said Fry.

  She covered her mouth with her hand against the wisps of smoke still rising here and there from among the burnt heather.

  ‘We’ll have to get a supply of masks if we’re going to be out here any length of time,’ she said.

  Cooper nodded. ‘I’ll organise it.’

  So far she hadn’t greeted him, let alone acknowledged that she’d known him for years, had served with him, been his immediate supervisor before his promotion to detective sergeant. More than that, they’d been through a lot together, and no one could argue that they owed each other something. At least that was how Cooper felt.

  He was used to this taciturn way, of course. Most of his own family were like that. But in their case they didn’t need to speak because they understood each other’s thoughts without words. It was a silence born of ease and familiarity. With Fry, there was no question of eit
her. He felt neither easy nor familiar in her presence. If she didn’t speak, he had no idea what she was thinking.

  A few minutes later they stood together at the partially excavated site. Fry looked down at what Abbott had uncovered.

  ‘David Pearson,’ she said.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Any indication of, er …?’

  ‘Trisha. Yes, evidence of her too.’

  ‘There’s quite a story to the Pearson inquiry,’ said Fry.

  ‘It’s all in the file,’ said Cooper. ‘Not our greatest success.’

  ‘It was more than two years ago. But there were theories …’

  Abbott shook his head. ‘I’ve done a presumptive test for blood on the rucksack. It’s positive.’

  ‘Could it be animal blood? If there’s one thing I’ve learned from my time in the Peak District, it’s that these sheep are suicidal. They all have a death wish.’

  ‘They might be suicidal,’ said Cooper, ‘but they don’t dig shallow graves for themselves. When they die, they generally just lie about on the surface until the scavengers get to them.’

  ‘Grave?’ said Fry.

  ‘Well, it seems to be where the possessions of David and Trisha Pearson were buried. Whether the Pearsons are also dead and buried … I guess that’s what you’re here to find out.’

  ‘No bodies, then.’

  ‘No,’ said Cooper. ‘No bodies. Not yet.’

  Fry turned and pointed.

  ‘The building I passed a mile or two back,’ she said. ‘A pub, is it?’

  ‘It was.’

  The auctioneer’s sign on the wall of the Light House was legible from half a mile away, and visible from much further. Historic landmark inn. Cooper wondered how many more questions he would have to give obvious answers to.

  ‘It’s been empty for about six months,’ he said.

  ‘Looks a grim place.’

  ‘It wasn’t so grim when it was open.’

  ‘I’ll take your word for it.’

  ‘You don’t remember it, do you?’

  Fry frowned. On her face a frown looked more like a scowl, as if being forced to remember something made her really angry.

  ‘Have I been there?’ she said.