Dead and Buried

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 would 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 break-in.’

‘More than a break-in. 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?’

‘Is your husband well enough for us to speak to?’ asked Fry.

‘I told you, he’s dying.’

In fact she’d said that he was already dead, but Fry let it pass. She looked at Kirsten instead. She was what? Fifteen or sixteen? But she seemed very mature for her age, the way some teenagers were these days.

‘Dad is in the hospice,’ said Kirsten. ‘St Luke’s, here in Edendale. He won’t be coming out again now.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘Yes, you said. We didn’t believe you the first time.’

Nancy stood up. ‘There’s no way I would let you talk to Maurice, even if he was well enough. I’ll phone the hospice right now and tell them not to let you through the door. If you try to harass him, I’ll make your life hell. Give the man a bit of peace in his final days.’

It was clearly a waste of time. On her way out, Fry looked at Nancy Wharton again, noting that hint of hardness in her eyes. The result of a lifetime in the pub trade? Perhaps.

But Fry reminded herself that Nancy had gone through particular troubles of her own in the last couple of years. She’d lost the Light House after a fruitless struggle against financial difficulties, and now she had to deal with the husband’s terminal illness, which was likely to be another long, futile battle.

Betty Wheatcroft lived in an old cottage right on the outskirts of Edendale. It must have been in a village once, but the town had swallowed it up decades ago. Now the cottage, and a few others like it, was sandwiched between the clubhouse of Edendale Golf Club and a small industrial estate whose units housed an MOT test centre and a signmaker’s.

When he got out of the car, Cooper inhaled the air, detecting an all too familiar smell. Even on the edge of Edendale, a hint of acrid smoke was on the wind. He looked at the roof of a car parked outside the nearest house. Black flecks speckled the surface like the first spots of a dark, soot-filled rain.

As soon as he knocked, a woman’s face appeared round the edge of the door and scrutinised his ID.

‘Detective Sergeant Cooper, Edendale CID,’ he said. ‘Are you Mrs Wheatcroft?’

‘Come in, come in,’ said the woman. ‘Don’t stand outside. Our neighbours are like the CIA — they’ll have the binoculars and microphones trained on you already.’

Cooper thought she was joking, but she took hold of his sleeve and almost dragged him into the hall.

Betty Wheatcroft had wild grey hair, and her eyes showed a faintly manic gleam. If there had been any weapons in the room, a kitchen knife lying on the table maybe, he wouldn’t have felt entirely safe. As it was, he found himself checking his route to the door, in case he needed to make a hasty retreat. Strange, how that fixed stare could be so unsettling. He supposed it was an instinctive fear of insanity, a primal distrust of the unpredictable.

‘It’s very distressing,’ she said. ‘I haven’t been able to eat since I heard. I haven’t been out of the house.’

‘There’s no need to be afraid, Mrs Wheatcroft,’ said Cooper.

‘Are you sure?’

She looked towards the window, as if fearing a murderer stalking her street. But what threat could there be to her from the golf club or the MOT test centre?

‘Aidan,’ she said. ‘Yes, I knew poor Aidan. Shocking business. Shocking. But that’s the sort of thing that happens these days, isn’t it? It goes on all over the place. None of us is safe. We’re not safe even in this street. That’s why the so-called Neighbourhood Watch knock on my door all the time.’

‘Aidan Merritt,’ said Cooper, realising straight away that his main task would be to keep Mrs Wheatcroft on track. He was very accustomed to these visits to old people living on their own. They were often lonely, and didn’t get many visitors. The result was that they seized eagerly on any human company and the chance of a bit of conversation. It was one of the things that made them so vulnerable to distraction thefts, and attractive as prey for the smooth-talking conmen who pretended to be from the electricity company. Many elderly people had lost hundreds of pounds just because they wanted someone to talk to.

But this was his last job of the day, and he hoped the visit wouldn’t stretch out too long. Liz had plans for the evening. She’d lined up a viewing of her preferred wedding venue, and his presence there was essential.

‘I felt sorry for him, trying to teach children these days,’ said Mrs Wheatcroft. ‘It must be a thankless task. Schools are all about targets and test results. You don’t really get a chance to teach them anything. Well, that’s what I told him. And he seemed to agree with me.’

Cooper smiled as he looked round the interior of the cottage. Plenty of books and papers in haphazard piles, framed photographs of a younger Mrs Wheatcroft with groups of small children, a home-made farewell card covered in scrawled signatures.

‘Were you a teacher yourself, Mrs Wheatcroft?’ he asked.

‘Yes, how did you know?’

‘It was just a guess.’

‘I worked in local schools for thirty-five years,’ she said. ‘I’ve seen some changes, I can tell you.’

‘Aidan Merritt,’ said Cooper. ‘Who else did he talk to at the Light House?’

‘Oh, well … I suppose there was that Ian Gullick. Horrible man.’

‘Gullick?’

‘He’s a van driver, delivers motor parts to garages or something.’ She chuckled. ‘At least he does when he’s got his driving licence.’

‘Meaning?’

‘He got banned from driving.’

Mrs Wheatcroft’s look of satisfaction was unsettling. The smile was a little too smug — the contentment of a trick or spell that had worked successfully.

‘What happened?’ asked Cooper.

‘He had too much to drink at the Light House one night. Not that that was unusual. But he’d made himself particularly obnoxious that evening. Someone called the police and reported him for drink-driving. But he’d never actually tried to drive away. He was arrested while he was sleeping in his van in the pub car park. The police found the keys in his pocket, and charged him with being drunk in charge of a vehicle. Banned for twelve months.’

‘So who reported him? Who made the call?’

‘How should I know?’

Cooper was starting to get a bit irritated by the way people answered his questions with another question. Especially that one. How should I know? It was always employed to sound like a denial, but it was actually just another evasion.

‘There were a few others,’ said Mrs Wheatcroft. ‘Vince Naylor. Mmm … not many, though. Aidan was a bit of a loner, actually. You might say he was quite odd, in a way.’

Interesting. Those names had already been mentioned earlier, in the office. Ian Gullick, yes. And Vince Naylor. Cooper made a discreet note.

‘The night before the Pearsons disappeared,’ he said, ‘there was another group of visitors in the pub. They were seen talking to the Pearsons.’

‘Not local?’

‘No. Visitors.’

She ran a hand through her hair, disarranging it even more.

‘I think I remember. They were from down south somewhere.’

‘They were staying in a holiday cottage nearby too, were they?’

‘Rented, yes. Most visitors are only around for a week or two.’

Cooper gazed out of the window, and saw that the edge of the moor was just visible beyond the green at the ninth hole of the golf club.

‘If you can remember the name of those people, or where they came from in the south, that would be a big help,’ he said.

Mrs Wheatcroft looked at him with a sudden flash of inspiration. ‘Watford,’ she said. ‘They came from Watford. I can see them now, sitting in that corner near the window. I can see their matching cagoules and woollen sweaters. And I can hear him talking about the football club. They came from Watford.’

‘You went to the Light House often, didn’t you?’

‘Not that often,’ she said cautiously. ‘Not on my pension. Besides, I don’t have a car. I needed a lift to get up there. Either that or a taxi, which is too expensive for a pensioner like me.’

‘And that night?’

‘I went with my daughter. She’s divorced.’

‘And was Aidan Merritt there?’

‘Yes, of course.’ She leaned closer, with a conspiratorial half-wink. ‘But there was one night the previous week when his wife was there on her own.’

‘Mrs Merritt?’ said Cooper in surprise.

‘Samantha, that’s her name. Plain-looking girl. She ought to put in a bit more effort. But I had a bit of a joke with her.’

‘Did you, Mrs Wheatcroft?’

‘I told her that if she sat on her own in that place, she’d be pestered by men all night. But she didn’t seem to care.’

Cooper frowned. ‘Do you think Samantha might actually have been there with the intention of picking up a man?’

Mrs Wheatcroft gave a short laugh, then shook her head again. ‘No, that’s wrong. I shouldn’t laugh. We don’t know anything about other people’s lives, do we? She might have been doing that, for all I know.’

‘Did you see her talking to anyone?’

‘No, I don’t think so. There were people around her, at other tables. But she didn’t seem to be speaking to anyone.’

‘You’re sure?’

‘Yes. Well … pretty sure.’

Mmm. Perhaps a hint of a memory there that might surface later?

‘If you do remember anything later, Mrs Wheatcroft, please give me a call. It could be important.’

‘Yes, I see that.’

‘And it was definitely Watford, was it?’ asked Cooper. ‘The town those visitors came from?’

She looked surprised. ‘Watford? No, no. Coventry — that was the place.’

Mrs Wheatcroft beamed at him, her face lighting up with a smile that suggested pride in an achievement. Cooper recognised that look. He’d seen it often in his own mother as she grew older — that delight in plucking a name from the air that had almost managed to elude her. After a while, every accurate recollection became a minor triumph.

Then she frowned.

‘Or it might have been Northampton,’ she said.

Cooper sighed. When he looked at Mrs Wheatcroft again, he realised that she was just like his mental image of the typical madwoman in the attic — the first Mrs Rochester perhaps, prone to alcoholism and fits of violence.

The impression was so strong that Cooper found himself expecting an insane laugh to follow him as he left her cottage and walked back towards the gate.