One last breath bcadf-5

by Stephen Booth

  ‘Is there any evidenced said Murfin. ‘I mean, have they done the DNA?’

  Among the newer graves to the west of the church, they could see a figure in a red T-shirt, with short blonde hair. She was wearing yellow rubber gloves, and she was dusting a headstone with what looked like a hearth brush. She bent occasionally to pull at a few weeds.

  ‘You definitely think that’s her?’ said Murfin.

  ‘There’s no one else here. And she answers the description the neighbour gave.’

  ‘OK, let’s talk to her then.’

  ‘No, we ought to wait until she’s finished,’ said Cooper.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘She’s tending her husband’s grave, Gavin.’

  ‘Right. And you don’t want to interrupt her while she’s enjoying herself. I suppose she’ll start singing in a minute, and do a little dance.’

  ‘Gavin …’

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘Are you having trouble with your marriage, by any chance?’

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  ‘Trouble? No, everything’s going according to plan. I’ll be dead in a year or two, and Jean and the kids will get the insurance money. Then everybody will be happy.’

  The woman in the red T-shirt straightened up, brushed off her hands and began to walk back through the rows of gravestones. From the front, she looked more her age, which must have been approaching seventy.

  ‘Who’s going to take the lead?’ said Murfin.

  ‘I suppose I’d better. She might need to be handled sensitively.’

  ‘That’s what I thought, too.’

  As the woman came nearer, she looked across at the two detectives, probably aware that they’d been watching her. She was only a few paces away, clutching a plastic bag with her gloves and brush in it, when Cooper raised a hand to stop her.

  ‘Excuse me - Mrs Enid Quinn?’

  ‘Can I help you?’

  Cooper showed his warrant card. ‘Detective Constable Cooper and Detective Constable Murfin, Edendale CID. We really need to talk to you, Mrs Quinn. You haven’t been answering your phone.’

  She was a slim woman with pale skin like lined parchment. Liver spots freckled her bare arms and thin hands. She looked up at Cooper with a faint smile, ironic and resigned.

  ‘Police? Well, I wonder what you could possibly want to talk to me about,’ she said.

  Enid Quinn took Ben Cooper and Diane Fry into her sitting room. Inside the house, her red T-shirt made her look even paler. She settled on a sofa and sat very primly, her hands folded on her knees, as she listened to Murfin and the two PCs trampling up her stairs.

  ‘Do I have to tell you anything?’ she said.

  ‘We’re hoping for your co-operation, Mrs Quinn,’ said Fry.

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  The woman looked at Cooper’s notebook. ‘My son isn’t here.’

  ‘Where is he, then?’

  ‘I can’t tell you. Sorry.’

  ‘When you say you can’t tell us … ?’ said Fry.

  ‘I mean I can’t. I don’t know where Mansell is.’

  ‘Has he been here?’

  Mrs Quinn unfolded her hands and folded them again in the opposite direction. She gazed back at Fry steadily. ‘When?’

  ‘In the past twenty-four hours, perhaps?’

  ‘No.’ ‘He hasn’t visited you? Or phoned you?’

  ‘No. I don’t know where he is.’

  ‘Nevertheless, we hope you might have some suggestions about where he could be heading. What friends does he have in the area? Is there somewhere he might think of going to stay - a place where he’d feel safe?’

  ‘I don’t think there’s anywhere safe for him,’ said the woman calmly.

  Cooper realized that Mrs Quinn had a slight Welsh accent. It wasn’t so much the way she pronounced the words as the intonation, the unfamiliar pattern of emphasis in a sentence.

  ‘Do you have any other sons or daughters?’ asked Fry.

  ‘No, Mansell is my only child.’

  ‘Any other relatives in the area?’

  She shook her head. ‘We’re not from Derbyshire originally. Both my family and my husband’s are from Mid Wales.’

  ‘We know of two friends of your son’s,’ said Fry. ‘Raymond Proctor and William Thorpe.’

  ‘I’m aware of the names,’ said Mrs Quinn. ‘That’s all.’

  ‘Can you name any other friends of his?’

  ‘No. I don’t believe he has any remaining friends. Not in this area. I don’t know what acquaintances he might have made in prison, of course.’

  Cooper wasn’t writing very much in his notebook. He

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  looked at the old lady with her dyed-blonde hair, and thought she seemed out of place. Despite the trellises and patios and dormer windows of the estate outside, Mrs Quinn had a sort of poise that suggested she’d be more at home sitting in a grand drawing room at Chatsworth House or one of the county’s other stately homes.

  ‘You were visiting your husband’s grave at the church earlier?’ he said.

  ‘Certainly. He died many years ago.’

  ‘Before your son went to prison?’

  ‘Yes, thank God. The trial would have killed him.’

  Cooper was so thrown by the unconscious irony that he forgot the next question that he’d been planning to ask. But Fry either didn’t notice or didn’t care about such things, because she stepped in with exactly the right question, as if they’d been thinking along the same lines for once.

  ‘Did you visit your son in prison very often, Mrs Quinn?’

  The hands moved again. They stayed unfolded this time, and instead tugged at the hem of her T-shirt. Her neck was slightly red from her exposure to the sun on the hill above the village.

  ‘He got them to send me a visiting order sometimes,’ she said. ‘I didn’t always use it.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘I don’t think that’s any of your business.’

  ‘And what about his wife?’ asked Fry.

  ‘Rebecca? What about her?’

  ‘Did she make a good prison visitor?’

  ‘She visited him a few times, but she went less and less often, and eventually stopped going altogether.’

  ‘Why do you think she stopped, Mrs Quinn?’

  ‘At first, Rebecca said it was too difficult getting there by public transport, and she couldn’t afford taxi fares and a hotel overnight. But then she gave another version. She said she couldn’t keep up the pretence any more once Mansell was inside.’

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  Cooper looked up and saw Gavin Murfin go past the front window. He waved, shrugged, and signalled that he was going round to the back of the house.

  ‘Pretence? What pretence?’ said Fry.

  Mrs Quinn shrugged very slightly, as if merely settling her T-shirt more comfortably around her shoulders. ‘Well, marriage,’ she said. ‘You know.’

  ‘I don’t think I understand what you mean, Mrs Quinn.’

  ‘I mean that she couldn’t be bothered making the effort to keep their marriage together.’

  ‘Ah. Not if it meant putting herself out to visit her husband in the nick?’

  That’s right.’

  ‘And then they divorced.’

  ‘She couldn’t wait, I imagine. That’s the way things go these days. Couples don’t stand by each other, not like we used to do in my day. When we made our marriage vows, they counted for something. Now, they’re planning the divorce before they’ve swept up the confetti. It’s utter hypocrisy, in my view.’

  ‘You don’t think much of your former daughter-in-law?’ ‘It’s not obligatory, is it?’

  ‘Well, no …’

  ‘I didn’t think she was bringing the children up very well, if you want the truth.’

  ‘That’s not an unusual view for grandparents to take,’ said Fry.

  ‘That’s as may be. But I was convinced it was the reason Simon went off the rails the way he did when the murder happened. If he’d been a more stable, discip
lined child, like his sister, it might have been different. But he’d already been allowed to get into bad ways by the time he was fifteen. He was mixing with the wrong company, missing lessons at school. Drinking alcohol, even.’

  ‘None of that was your son’s fault, I suppose? He was Simon’s father, after all.’

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  ‘I have my own views,’ said Enid Quinn firmly. ‘I know where I put the blame.’

  Fry paused. Out of the corner of his eye, Cooper saw her give him a slight nod.

  ‘Mrs Quinn, your son’s former wife, Rebecca Lowe, was attacked and killed last night at her home in Aston,’ he said.

  Enid Quinn could no longer keep her hands still. Unsteadily, she felt in her pocket for a handkerchief, but didn’t use it except to twist it in her fingers.

  ‘I know,’ she said. ‘Andrea called me this morning. That’s my granddaughter. She still keeps in touch. But Mansell can’t have done that to Rebecca. He wouldn’t.’

  ‘Why not?’

  She didn’t answer, and Fry began to get impatient.

  ‘You realize we have to take this very seriously, Mrs Quinn,’ she said. ‘It’s no use protesting that your son is innocent. He was convicted by a court and served his sentence. And now we think he’s a danger to more people. We need to find him.’

  Mrs Quinn seemed to gain a little more dignity.

  ‘I was not going to protest Mansell’s innocence,’ she said. ‘On the contrary, I’m quite sure that he was guilty of murdering Carol Proctor.’

  ‘You are?’

  ‘Yes. But you see, whatever I think, it won’t stop my son from seeking what he wants.’

  ‘And what’s that, Mrs Quinn?’ said Fry.

  ‘Retribution.’

  Adopting his best manner with grieving members of the public, DI Hitchens turned to the Lowes. ‘Are you ready?’

  Simon Lowe nodded. From Andrea, there was no visible response. But they seemed to take a step closer together, and then began to move towards the viewing window.

  Andrea Lowe wore blue denims and a pearl-grey sweatshirt, with her dark hair tied back in a ponytail. She seemed very calm and self-contained. But Diane Fry had seen her almost step out into the traffic as she crossed the car park to get to the mortuary.

  Her brother seemed the most distressed. He clung to Andrea’s hand, looking almost like an older version of her, but slightly lighter in his colouring and several inches taller. At first, Fry thought he seemed to have no strength in him for the task of identifying his mother, yet it was Simon who spoke.

  ‘Yes, it’s her. That’s our mother.’

  ‘Thank you, sir.’

  Simon’s voice was very low, and he hardly moved his mouth when he spoke, as if all the energy had been drained out of him. His sister said nothing, but leaned closer to the glass, as close as she could get. She dropped her brother’s hand and

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  pressed her fingers against the window, like a small child peering into a toy shop. Her breath condensed on the glass, and she touched the patch of moisture with her forehead.

  Through the window, the mortuary attendant hovered uncertainly, not sure if an identification had been made and he should now replace the sheet, or whether the bereaved relatives should be allowed a last, lingering look at the deceased.

  ‘Miss Lowe, are you all right?’ said Fry.

  Andrea nodded, but Simon pulled her hand away from the glass and gripped it. Hitchens shuffled his feet and looked around for the family liaison officer, who was trained to deal with grieving relatives.

  ‘You know we’re looking for your father,1 said Hitchens. ‘He was released from prison yesterday.’

  Then a strange thing happened. Simon Lowe changed colour. Fry had seen this happen to family members identifying their loved ones - but usually they turned white, or worse, an unnerving shade of green. But Simon had flushed a deep red, almost purple. Blood suffused his face and neck until he reminded Fry of the corpse of a strangulation victim who had lain on the same slab as Rebecca Lowe not many months ago.

  ‘If you mean Mansell Quinn,’ said Simon, ‘he’s not my father.’

  ‘Oh, but I thought -‘

  Andrea turned away from the glass at last and threw her arms round her brother, becoming the little sister in a moment. Simon took a deep breath that shuddered through air passages swollen with emotion.

  ‘He was my father. But not any more. He hasn’t been my father for fourteen years.’

  ‘I see,’ said Hitchens.

  ‘Do you?’

  ‘I think I understand how you feel. So if you should

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  happen to have any idea where your … I mean, where Mr Quinn is at the moment, you would be sure to let us know?’

  ‘Of course we would,’ said Simon.

  ‘And you, madam?’

  Hitchens waited politely for Andrea to reply.

  ‘I spoke to Mum, you know. Not long before it happened. I spoke to her on the phone, and I told her to make sure she was safe. I didn’t think she was taking the situation seriously enough. But that was Mum - she preferred to enjoy life than to worry about things all the time.’

  ‘We’ll want a statement from you,’ said Hitchens. ‘If you feel up to it.’

  Till do it today,’ she said.

  ‘In the meantime

  ‘We’ll tell you anything we can think of that might help, Inspector.’

  Fry noticed that it was Simon who had taken over again. Rebecca Lowe’s children clung together as though they were inseparable.

  The cattle market that used to stand on the main road in Hope had been demolished. Perhaps it had lost too much business during the foot and mouth outbreak in 2001, when all livestock markets had been closed for a year. Now the site had been re-developed for housing.

  ‘Mansell Quinn was given a twenty-year sentence,’ said Ben Cooper. ‘If he was refused parole, his automatic release date must have been two-thirds of the way through his sentence. That’s, er …’

  ‘Thirteen years and four months.’

  Diane Fry looked up briefly as Cooper slowed to avoid a squirrel that darted across the road. But, as usual, she showed little interest in the scenery.

  ‘Why do you think he changed his story about the Carol

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  Proctor murder?’ said Cooper. ‘All it meant was that they refused him parole and he got knocked back.’

  ‘There are all kinds of factors the parole board would have taken into consideration,’ said Fry. ‘They’d want to know about his plans when he got out. And he had some issues to deal with - anger problems.’

  ‘Right.’

  Hope village lay in the centre of the valley, dominated on one side by Lose Hill and Win Hill, and on the other by the cement works. Going up the valley, the chimney of the works had been visible from as far away as the Rising Sun Inn. Its curious tower-like structure resembled the ruins of a castle, with gaping holes like empty windows in a high battlement. Behind it was the long white scar of the quarries driven deep into Bradwell Moor.

  Cooper had looked at Mansell Quinn’s mugshots earlier. For a long time in prison, Quinn must have been like a man holding his breath under water. Worse, he would have had no idea how long he needed to hold it for. There would have been a time when he hoped to get parole and be out of prison at the ten-year mark. But he’d been branded unsuitable for release. Many men might have given up then, stopped holding their breath and let the despair rush in. But Quinn had waited.

  ‘I suppose his home circumstances didn’t meet the requirements. Not suitable for assisting his rehabilitation.’

  ‘It’s not a sensible option to change your mind about whether you’re guilty,’ said Fry. ‘You’re branding yourself a liar. Most men who change their stories in prison do it the other way round, though. Remorse being more important than innocence, they express remorse and get their parole.’

  Cooper had to drive more carefully through Hope, where a constant stream of lorries rumbled b
ackwards and forwards over the bridge to reach the cement works.

  He had seen men leaving prison after their release, setting off along the roadside in the direction of the nearest town,

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  their entire belongings in one bag and only the vaguest idea where they were going. He’d often wondered whether they made it any further than the nearest pub, following the first sniff of freedom that drifted through a bar-room window.

  ‘If it were me, I’d do anything to get out, including lying through my teeth. I mean, if I was actually innocent, I’d know I was - even if no one else did. So it wouldn’t be on my conscience …’ Cooper paused. ‘Quinn won’t be planning to go back inside again, that’s for sure.’

  ‘That’s what I thought, too,’ said Fry.

  A few minutes later, Cooper and Fry stood at the bottom of Rebecca Lowe’s garden at Parson’s Croft. A stiff breeze had sprung up, and Cooper watched it bustling through the trees on the slopes of Win Hill.

  The SOCOs were still working on the house, and a group of officers were on their hands and knees searching the garden and driveway, seeking traces of the killer on his route to the house. Cooper noticed a garden ornament here, too - not a squirrel or a rabbit, but a concrete heron standing on one leg in the middle of the lawn, as if waiting for a pond to arrive.

  ‘They think he may have waited under the trees for a while before he approached the house,’ said Fry, who’d been speaking to the crime scene manger. ‘Probably he wanted to be sure she was alone.’

  ‘Here?’ said Cooper.

  ‘A few yards along the fence. See the markers? He must have watched the place for a while before he entered. This is the best spot to remain unnoticed, yet have a clear view of the house.’

  Cooper looked up at the tree above his head. Most of its leaves were dark green, with the distinctive pointed tip of the lime. But many of the branches had thinner, paler foliage. With a slight stretch he was able to reach up, take hold of