‘If only we could understand why Aidan Merritt had to die.’
‘Well, it’s simple. He must have had incriminating information. Someone needed to shut him up.’
‘But why leave it all this time? If he knew something about the fate of David and Trisha Pearson, the chances are he’d known it for the past couple of years. So why wait until now? Did they think he was about to start talking?’
His last question sounded rhetorical, even to himself. No one bothered answering it. Instead, Villiers moved quickly on to the next question.
‘And what made him agree to meet the person who killed him? Because that’s what must have happened, isn’t it? Merritt went to the Light House voluntarily. There could have been no other reason, except to meet someone. The pub had been closed for months. And in view of the fires spreading across the moors, it was a location you’d want to avoid unless you had a very pressing reason to be there.’
‘You wouldn’t meet a person you were about to incriminate, though, would you?’ said Fry. ‘That doesn’t make any sense. Aidan Merritt wasn’t stupid, after all. Do you think he’d agree to a meeting with the one individual who had a reason to get him out of the way? And on his own, in an isolated spot? No.’
‘He could have been lured to the pub by someone else,’ suggested Hurst. ‘Someone he trusted.’
‘Conspiracy now?’
‘Well, what else?’
‘Are we suggesting that Merritt was somehow implicated in the Pearson inquiry himself?’
‘Yes, I think so.’
‘We’ve found nothing in his circumstances to suggest that.’
‘The fact that you haven’t found anything doesn’t mean he was innocent. You can’t prove a negative. Not like that, anyway.’
‘He was there at the pub on the night before the Pearsons disappeared. We’ve established that much at least.’
‘But we don’t have a single witness to suggest he had any contact with them.’
‘Where does our chart put him?’
‘Down at the far end of the bar, at a table near the games room,’ said Irvine.
‘He was on his own, though?’
‘Sort of.’
‘Sort of? What does that mean?’
‘Well, he was a regular at the Light House. He knew a lot of people. You know what it’s like when you’re in your local.’
Irvine looked at Diane Fry, seemed to decide that she might not know what it was like at all.
‘Look, we interviewed a number of customers who spoke to Merritt during the evening. He chatted for a while to some old biddy called Betty Wheatcroft. She remembered discussing how badly behaved young people were these days.’
‘Old biddy?’
‘Yes. Every pub has one.’
‘All right.’
‘So … he chatted to Mrs Wheatcroft. At one point Merritt was asked to make up a foursome for a game of pool. They might not have called him a friend, and he certainly seems to have gone there by himself. But he had a lot of acquaintances. He was among people he knew. Some of them he’d known since childhood. That’s not the same as being on your own.’
The expression on Fry’s face suggested that it might be possible to be alone among any number of acquaintances, but she let it pass.
‘It still seems odd,’ she said. ‘I mean, no matter how many casual acquaintances he had, it’s a bit odd for a man to go the pub on his own just before Christmas and sit at a table by himself, surrounded by crowds of people celebrating, having parties, getting drunk.’
She glanced at Cooper briefly as she made the last remark. It was a very quick gesture, but everyone noticed it, he was sure. Fry didn’t always need to say anything to make her point.
‘We talked to his wife,’ pointed out Hurst. ‘She doesn’t like going to pubs. She does drink, but says she prefers to stay at home and get a bottle of wine, watch a DVD or something. But she accepted that Aidan liked the company in the bar. He didn’t drink heavily, she says. So it was perfectly normal, for him.’
‘He didn’t drink heavily?’
‘No.’
‘So he must have been relatively sober on that night. And from his seat near the games room, he would have had a clear view down the bar. Correct me if I’m wrong, but surely he would have been able to watch David and Trisha Pearson from there all evening, without any trouble.’
‘You’re wrong,’ said Irvine.
Fry raised a cool eyebrow at him. ‘Oh?’
‘Well, you’re forgetting something.’
‘What?’
‘The bar was absolutely packed. It was heaving. There must have been dozens of people between Merritt and the Pearsons, and most of them standing up too. He would have had trouble fighting his way to the bar to get served, let alone continually observing someone at the other end of the room, especially if he was sitting down. It’s just not feasible.’
‘That’s not to say …’
‘All right,’ admitted Irvine. ‘That’s not to say he didn’t see something. Like you said, we can’t prove a negative.
‘Not in that way,’ said Fry. ‘Not at all.’
‘The only thing we can do is make a start on interviewing everyone we know to have been in the bar, and try to cross-match from their accounts.’
‘There must have been people coming and going all night. It’s hopeless.’
‘We need to cover all the ground again,’ said Fry. ‘But we should also be looking for things that weren’t done at the time. If Aidan Merritt had some connection with the Pearsons, we need to find out what it was.’
‘How do we do that?’
‘Talk to people who knew him. There must have been some at the Light House.’
‘We’ve got the name of a full-time barman, Josh Lane,’ said Irvine. ‘And a few of the kitchen staff. Then there are the customers Merritt spent time with. It’s a short list, though. Vince Naylor, Ian Gullick … and that’s about it. The person Mr Merritt seems to have talked to most is Betty Wheatcroft.’
‘The old biddy?’
‘That’s the one. From her statement, she sounds to be as odd as Merritt. But I suspect as well educated.’
‘Kindred spirits, then.’
Cooper surveyed his mental image of the bar at the Light House, managed to locate someone like Betty Wheatcroft sitting in a corner with a glass of Guinness and a plastic carrier bag. As Irvine had said, every pub had one. He might just be filling in the details from a hundred other old biddies sitting in the corner of a bar, but the image seemed real enough.
‘What are you thinking?’ asked Villiers.
‘I’m thinking that I can see her already.’
‘Ben, there’s no need to start imagining things. Just stick to the facts. That was always your weakness, you know – you’re much too imaginative for a police officer.’
‘Thanks for the advice, DC Villiers. I’ll bear it in mind.’
Fry pulled on her jacket and turned to leave. Cooper caught up with her and stopped her with a touch on her arm.
‘Diane …’
‘Yes?’
‘Our tasks are overlapping now,’ pointed out Cooper. ‘There’s no way round it.’
‘I suppose so.’
‘I realise your DCI has other irons in the fire on the Merritt inquiry – forensic evidence must be producing some leads?’
‘Yes.’
‘But we could be turning up some equally useful information from our end.’
‘Just keep feeding it into the inquiry through me,’ said Fry. ‘And we’ll assess its value.’
Cooper knew he’d have to accept that. He’d tried his best to get further into the inquiry, but he’d failed. Fry was a brick wall. He’d have to find another way, that was all.
‘There’s one more thing,’ he said.
‘Spit it out, then. I’ve got plenty of things to do.’
‘I think you’re coming down too hard on Luke and Becky. They’re my team. You don’t have any right to talk to them the w
ay you do.’
Fry gritted her teeth before she spoke.
‘Have you any idea how frustrating this is for me?’
‘What is?’
‘To think that I’ve finally got away from this place – and then to find I have to come back, and it’s full of all these irritating little Ben Cooper clones that I’m supposed to work with.’
Cooper found himself breathing too quickly, the surge of anger coming so fast that it frightened him.
‘Luke and Becky? They’re good kids. I can’t believe you said that.’
‘Try taking a look at yourselves from the outside, that’s all.’
She began to turn away, which angered him even more.
‘You can’t—’
‘Yes I can,’ she said over her shoulder. ‘I can do anything I like now. And there’s no way you can hold me back any more.’
DI Hitchens had his office door open, and called Cooper in when he saw him passing in the corridor. The DI still looked tired. Perhaps even more than ever. He had the air of a man battling a long, slow war of attrition. And a man who also knew he was losing.
‘We have a visitor arriving in Edendale tomorrow,’ said Hitchens.
‘Who?’
‘Mr Henry Pearson. That’s David Pearson’s father.’
‘Oh, I see.’
‘He’s been campaigning for years to find out the truth about what happened to his son and daughter-in-law.’
‘Yes, I know,’ said Cooper. ‘He was in the papers every week for quite some time.’
‘And on TV, making appeals to the public. Until the media eventually lost interest.’
‘As they always do.’
‘It was worse than that, though,’ said Hitchens.
‘What do you mean?’
‘There was that theory about what had happened to the Pearsons. The deliberate disappearance, you know?’
‘That was total conjecture, wasn’t it?’
‘Yes, but it was picked up by the media with unholy enthusiasm. They don’t like stories where the outcome is just left hanging. Their readers get frustrated. So the suggestion that David and Trisha Pearson had planned their own disappearing act and were living abroad somewhere under false names was perfect fodder for them. They took it and ran with it for months. Even now, if you do an online search for their names, you’ll come up with page after page of stuff on the internet supporting that theory. Countries where they’re living have been suggested. People say they’ve seen evidence that they’re still alive – photos, emails, credit card purchases. You know the sort of thing.’
‘We must have pursued those leads at the time.’
Hitchens laughed. ‘Of course. Well, the ones that seemed to have any merit, anyway. You can’t just sit on your hands, no matter how much you think they’re rubbish. You’ve got to be seen to be doing something, especially these days. Otherwise you get bombarded with complaints about police inactivity and incompetence. turning a blind eye or looking the other way. Corruption even. So, yes – a lot of those reports were followed up, and none of them turned out to have any merit. It was all conspiracy theory stuff. People love it, don’t they?’
‘And Henry Pearson?’
‘He became a victim of the conspiracy theorists. Because he was so high profile, because he was so vociferous in his efforts to argue that David and Trisha had met some tragic end, he turned himself into a target. The accusations were that he was the cover-up man, that he was making as much fuss as possible to distract attention from what had actually happened. People said that all his emotional hand-wringing was just an act designed to influence the direction of the inquiry, to ensure that all our attention was focused on conducting a futile search for bodies.’
‘Did he do a lot of emotional hand-wringing?’ asked Cooper.
‘Actually, no,’ admitted Hitchens. ‘I always thought he was very calm and controlled. I was impressed with him. It seemed to me that he always put his points across powerfully, but very reasonably. There was a logic to his arguments. If you’ve had much experience of bereaved family members, you’ll appreciate how rare that is, Ben.’
‘Naturally. Very few people can keep emotion out of their reactions in a situation like that.’
Hitchens nodded. ‘Mind you, I’m not saying Mr Pearson was never emotional. He and his wife came up here when David and Trisha were first reported missing. They both went through the emotional stage. But Henry was the stronger of the two. He got himself under control pretty quickly. We found that very useful in the early days. He was able to give us all kinds of information that we asked for. In the end, though, that was one of the problems.’
‘Problems?’
‘In a sense. You see, the information Mr Pearson gave us actually supported the theory about a deliberate disappearance. Without Henry Pearson’s assistance, it would have taken us a lot longer to find out what his son had been up to.’
13
At the house in Manvers Street, on Edendale’s Devonshire Estate, the door was answered by a woman in her mid-forties, with hair in blonde streaks and a hint of hardness in her eyes. A lifetime spent in the pub business could leave some individuals jaundiced about humanity. In fact, any job where you dealt with the public all the time could do that to you, as Diane Fry knew only too well herself.
‘We’re looking for Maurice Wharton,’ said Fry.
The woman looked at him oddly, a stare with no perceivable emotion.
‘Well you’re too late,’ she said.
‘Why? Where has he gone?’
‘He’ll be up there in the cemetery soon.’
She jerked her head towards the slope that led up to Edendale’s new burial ground. Fry studied her more closely, seeking a clue to her emotional state. Grief was difficult to interpret sometimes. She might just have caught this woman at an early stage, before the shock had worn off and the barriers came down.
‘I’m very sorry. And you are Mrs Wharton?’
‘I suppose so. I still carry the name, don’t I?’
Fry glanced at Hurst, but she was too good at maintaining a neutral expression on her face to give anything away.
‘I apologise if it’s a bad time, Mrs Wharton,’ said Fry. ‘But we do need to speak to you. It’s about the Light House.’
Mrs Wharton shook her head wearily. ‘Oh, the Light House. I thought we’d buried that, too.’
She ushered Fry and Hurst into the house. A teenage girl stood in the hall, a thinner version of Nancy Wharton.
‘Are you the police?’ she said.
‘Yes.’
‘I’m Kirsten Wharton, this is my mother.’
‘We’re sorry to hear about your father.’
Kirsten shook her head. ‘He’s not actually dead.’
‘What? But I thought your mother just …?’
‘Mum gets like that sometimes. I think she’s trying to get used to the idea that Dad will be gone soon.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘He has pancreatic cancer. Terminal. That’s what they call it, isn’t it? When they’re trying to tell you someone is going to die, without actually spelling it out.’
‘I’m sorry,’ said Fry again.
The teenager shrugged. ‘It’s no skin off your nose, I suppose.’
They entered a cramped sitting room. The room wasn’t just small, it was stuffed with too much furniture. Fry had to squeeze past the arm of a large black leather sofa and a couple of armchairs to reach a cream rug laid in front of the fireplace. The rug covered the whole of the available floor space, except for a few glimpses of carpet in the gaps between display cabinets, standard lamps and occasional tables lining the walls. The mantelpiece and the shelves of the cabinets were packed with china and brass ornaments.
She turned and looked at the fireplace, but a large gas fire stood on the hearth in front of it. A real coal fire wouldn’t be possible here – its heat would scorch the furniture and roast the feet of anyone sitting so close to it.
Fry wou
ld have liked the chance to study the ornaments more closely, and to examine the bookshelves, if there were any. Those details could tell you a lot about the owner, more than any number of personal questions.
But that wasn’t possible here. Even if Mrs Wharton wasn’t standing looking at her expectantly, she couldn’t have reached a single display cabinet without moving the rest of the furniture out of the room first.
She recalled the deserted owner’s accommodation at the Light House. There had been far more space for the Whartons when they were living there. Two adults with two children? They could have spread themselves out as much as they wanted. Some of this furniture might even have been in the bar, or the dining area. But there was no way they could have brought everything with them to this council house in Edendale. Other items might be in storage somewhere, but a lot must have been left behind as fixtures and fittings, all part of the package for a potential buyer at the forthcoming auction.
‘About the Light House?’ said Mrs Wharton. ‘Go on, then.’
‘There’s been an incident.’
She looked unperturbed. ‘Yes, I heard there’d been a breakin.’
‘More than a breakin. One of your old regulars got himself killed there.’
Nancy looked up then, her face creased in puzzlement.
‘Killed?’
‘Haven’t you been following the news? Didn’t you know someone had been killed?’
‘No, I suppose I must have missed it.’
‘Mum has more than enough on her mind,’ put in Kirsten. ‘She doesn’t have time for worrying about what’s going on in the news.’
Fry turned to her. ‘Not even when it’s at the Light House? I thought someone would have mentioned it to you.’
‘We’ve lost touch since we moved into town. We never see anyone. Do we, Mum?’
Nancy was still looking at Fry intensely.
‘Who was it?’
‘Aidan Merritt. Do you remember him?’
‘Yes, I remember him. He drank at the pub a lot when it was open. But what was he doing there …?’
‘We don’t know. I was hoping you or Mr Wharton might be able to help.’
‘You were wrong there, then.’
‘But you must recall the Pearsons? David and Trisha?’
‘Oh, the tourists who went missing.’ Nancy sounded weary to the core now. ‘We know nothing about them. We knew nothing then, and we know nothing now. What’s the point of going over it?’
Dead And Buried (Cooper and Fry) Page 13
