Dead and Buried

16

At the council house on the Devonshire Estate, Nancy Wharton was on her own. She examined Cooper critically for a moment on the doorstep. He knew she would be weighing him up, placing him for what he was, but hopefully remembering him too.

She glanced then at Gavin Murfin. It had been a difficult decision whether to bring Murfin along. In many ways, Carol Villiers would have been a better choice. But Gavin had been well known at the Light House. Mrs Wharton should recognise him, even if she didn’t know Cooper himself.

‘Old faces,’ she said. ‘I suppose you want to come in.’

‘Please, Mrs Wharton.’

Every house had a unique smell. Cooper never got tired of walking into someone else’s home and trying to identify the aromas. Sometimes it was a mix of artificial scents — air fresheners, perfumes, furniture polish. At other times it could only be called a stench. Substances too noxious to mention oozed out of the furniture, and the carpet stuck to his feet as he crossed a room.

Here, the Whartons seemed to have brought subtle hints of the Light House with them on to the Devonshire Estate. He couldn’t quite put a name to the smells, but they were creating those momentary flashes of memory, the way scents sometimes could, being so much more evocative than the other senses.

It might be the type of furniture polish used, or the mingling of old beer and smoke that you might get used to if you’d lived with it for years. But if he closed his eyes, he could almost imagine himself sitting in the snug at the Light House. He could practically taste the beer, hear the buzz of conversation around him.

One smell in particular was teasing him. When he caught a fleeting whiff of it, Matt’s face loomed up in his mind, red and sweating, with the suggestion of a snatch of conversation that he couldn’t quite grasp. It was like the elusive memory of a dream that he knew was still there in his mind when he’d woken up, but which slipped away whenever he thought about it.

As a result of the sensations Cooper was experiencing in the Whartons’ sitting room, Murfin was the first to speak.

‘You might remember us, Nancy. We both knew Mad … er, Mr Wharton. Sorry.’

Nancy noticed Murfin’s moment of embarrassment, and her face slipped into a bitter smile.

‘Oh don’t worry,’ she said. ‘I’ve heard it all before. Don’t you think I know what people used to call him? Imagine what it was like being “Mrs Mad Maurice” for all those years.’

‘I’m sorry,’ said Murfin again, though it wasn’t necessary and was obviously too late.

Cooper gave him a warning glance. If Gavin was going to mess up with the public, it was a different thing altogether from what went on in the office. That couldn’t be tolerated.

He knew he had to tread carefully with the Whartons if he was going to get any more out of them than Diane Fry had. Questions about Maurice’s tendency to alcoholism were probably out, then.

‘It was such a shame about the pub closing,’ he said. ‘You and Mr Wharton must have been devastated.’

Mrs Wharton shrugged. ‘We could see it was inevitable for a long time. We had a balance sheet like Journey to the Centre of the Earth. It looked as though we were tunnelling to Australia. You can only fall so far before you hit rock bottom.’

‘But how did it happen?’ asked Cooper.

‘How? Well, it started with the crackdown on drinking and driving. Nobody gets up there any other way, do they? Then there was the smoking ban in 2007. We did our best, but who wants to sit outside in this environment? Customers were getting blown away by the wind in the winter, and eaten by midges off the moor in the summer. Then the recession came along. We actually thought that might help us for a while. People staying at home for their holidays instead of going abroad, you know. What do they call that?’

‘A staycation?’

‘Yeah. What a load of crap. Oh, more folk came to the Peak District, I suppose, but they weren’t spending any money. Not in our pub.’

‘The Light House used to have a very good reputation.’

‘Oh yes. At one time Maurice Wharton was known far and wide. My husband was respected for the quality of the beer he served. Traditional ales, you know. We used to serve Hardy and Hanson, William Clarke, Marston’s Pedigree. We had guest beers on draught, rotated on a monthly basis.’

‘Greene King,’ said Murfin.

‘Timothy Taylor’s Landlord,’ said Cooper.

Nancy smiled again, just a little. ‘All those. And we had a selection of over twenty malt whiskies. Irish and Welsh, as well as Scotch. Sales of beer declined by another ten per cent in our last year, in spite of a warm spring and a royal wedding, and all the things we thought might bring people out to the pub. The budget put duty up to nearly eight times what it is in France, and over twelve times the duty in Germany or Italy. And that’s not to mention an escalator, so duty goes up two per cent more than inflation every year. It was crippling.’

For a moment Cooper had a sense of déjà vu, as if he was listening to the familiar litany of complaints from farmers like his brother. Things were always bad in the farming industry. Prices were never right, costs were always too high, the weather was either too dry or too wet. Small farmers were going bust for much the same reasons that Nancy Wharton was giving him. In a nutshell, they couldn’t make their businesses pay any more.

‘We’re not alone,’ said Nancy. ‘Not by a long way. Jobs are being lost throughout the industry. The pub trade is being decimated.’

‘My colleague Detective Sergeant Fry came to talk to you about Aidan Merritt,’ said Cooper tentatively.

‘I can’t tell you any more than I told her.’

‘I’d particularly like to know about any contact Mr Merritt had with other customers.’

‘You know what? Aidan kept himself pretty much to himself.’

‘Could there have been anyone who had a grudge against him?’

‘A grudge? Like who?’

‘Ian Gullick is a name that’s been mentioned.’

Nancy looked away, no longer willing to meet Cooper’s eye. It was a perfectly natural reticence, he supposed. Who would want to criticise their own customers? It was a kind of loyalty — and Cooper understood loyalty.

‘I wouldn’t know anything about it,’ said Nancy finally. ‘I’m sorry, really I am. It’s horrible what happened to him, but what else can I say?’

Cooper nodded. A roadblock, then. Move on.

‘I understand.’

She looked at him steadily. ‘And I suppose you’re going to ask me about those tourists, too — like the woman did?’

‘Yes, I’m afraid so. The Pearsons. They were in the Light House the night before they disappeared.’

‘Yes. We went through it all with the police when it happened. They spoke to everyone who might have had any contact with them, including me. It seems I served them at the bar.’

‘Yes, I’ve seen your statement.’

‘Well, then. I don’t know what earthly use it could have been. Those two people were certainly alive and well when they left the pub. What good does it do going over every minute and every second of what they did in the days before they skipped off?’

‘In case someone noticed anything about them, or the Pearsons gave away a clue of some kind about what they were going to do.’

Nancy picked up a woollen sweater and pulled it around her shoulders, as if she was cold.

‘Well, there was nothing. Nothing at all. For heaven’s sake, I didn’t have a clue who they were. They came in the pub, and they were just some tourists, that’s all. We used to get hundreds of them every week. Thousands in the summer. I had no idea they were going to be in the least bit different to any other tourists. When they came to the Light House, we didn’t even know their names.’

‘And then there was the previous night,’ said Cooper.

‘What do you mean?’

‘The night no one ever talked about.’

‘I’m sorry, I don’t understand you.’

‘The night before,’ repeated Cooper. ‘It was the night of the Young Farmers’ Christmas party.’

‘Party? Oh yes, that. Of course it was. But no one ever mentioned the Pearson people being there.’

‘Did you not see them?’

‘Why would I? The place was packed. It was just before we closed for Christmas. On a night like that, you never really noticed anybody. It was head down over the bar, trying to remember what drinks to ring up on the till.’

‘You have two children, don’t you?’ said Cooper.

‘Yes, Eliot and Kirsten. They’re seventeen and fifteen. I don’t know what I’d do without them. Kirsten is at Hope Valley College. She’ll be doing her GCSEs this summer. She doesn’t want to stay on after that, though. She’s interested in becoming a beautician or a hairdresser.’

Cooper thought she sounded vaguely disappointed.

‘Nothing wrong with that, Mrs Wharton.’

‘No, no. Of course not, Well, Eliot is the clever one, anyway. He’s in the sixth form at Lady Manners in Bakewell.’

‘I wonder if we could speak to them?’

‘They’re not here.’

‘Pity.’

Just then, they both heard a key turn in the front door, and a male voice calling through the house.

‘Mum?’

Eliot Wharton was a tall young man, with short fair hair, flushed cheeks and large hands that dangled by his sides. Cooper wondered if he was a rugby player.

He looked at his mother, and then at Cooper and Murfin with the beginnings of hostility.

‘Who’s this?’ he said.

‘The police, love.’

‘Oh. Again.’

‘Is Kirsten with you?’ asked Nancy.

‘Yes, I’m here,’ said Kirsten from the hall.

Cooper realised that there was hardly any room for anyone else in the lounge since Eliot had entered. They seemed to be uncomfortably close together, too close for anyone who might have problems over their personal space.

Nancy explained to her children what Cooper was asking. They both began shaking their heads simultaneously.

‘That night, the night before the people went missing,’ said Eliot. ‘They were in the pub then, weren’t they? The police asked us questions. But other than that …’

Cooper turned to Eliot’s sister. ‘Kirsten?

She shrugged. ‘How would I know? I wasn’t even old enough to be in the bar, was I?’

He wasn’t sure about that. Too young to drink alcohol, or serve it to customers, yes. But not too young to be in the bar. Children under sixteen could go anywhere in a pub as long as they were supervised by an adult.

‘I know your husband is very ill,’ said Cooper. ‘And there’s nothing I can say that will help.’

‘Maurice has good days and bad days,’ said Nancy. ‘Of course the bad days can be very bad indeed. The drugs control the pain, but they have a lot of side effects.’

‘I understand.’

She studied Cooper closely for a few moments, pursing her lips and frowning, as if trying to make a difficult decision.

‘Your colleague who came here asked if she could talk to Maurice,’ she said at last.

‘I’m sure she did, but if it’s impossible …’

‘I could ask him, if you like,’ said Nancy. ‘He might like to see someone who knew the Light House. It would only be for a few minutes. He gets terribly tired.’

Cooper realised that he must have achieved some kind of honorary status as a pub regular. He wasn’t sure what he’d done to earn that honour, whether it was his own infrequent visits to the Light House, his presence at the YFC booze-up with Matt, or maybe even the fact that he’d chosen Gavin Murfin to accompany him to the Whartons’.

Whichever it was, he felt grateful for the results.

‘That would be very kind of you,’ he said.

‘I’ll see.’

He looked round, and saw both Eliot and Kirsten watching disapprovingly. He wondered if there would be a family argument after he’d gone. They clearly didn’t trust him the way their mother had decided to.

‘The Light House was a good pub,’ said Cooper. ‘I remember when I was a teenager, the beer there was a revelation.’

‘Greene King,’ said Murfin.

Cooper looked at Eliot Wharton for confirmation, forgetting the young man’s age because of the size and maturity of him.

‘Eliot doesn’t drink,’ said Nancy.

‘Because you’re not old enough?’ he asked in surprise.

‘No, I’m just not interested,’ said Eliot.

‘It must have been tough growing up in a pub, then. Or perhaps that’s why you don’t drink?’

Eliot shrugged. ‘I can do without it. I see plenty of people who drink a lot making idiots of themselves all the time. What’s the point of it?’

Then Cooper remembered what Niall Maclennan had told him, and realised that this young man would have seen his own father deteriorating through alcohol consumption. It was a bit too close to home when it was within the family. He decided it was probably best not to ask any more questions on the subject.

‘Still, you must all have found it very difficult moving from the Light House,’ he said, as he got ready to leave.

Mrs Wharton winced, as if at a sudden pain. ‘It was awful. We knew we’d never be able to find anywhere else that would suit us. And this is where we ended up. Look at it. I know the town isn’t so bad, but this estate …’

‘Not so bad?’ said Eliot, a sudden anger in his voice. ‘I never wanted to live in Edendale. It’s a place where people come to die.’

Cooper looked up sharply at the expression. He’d heard it often before. He knew it as a reference to the number of retired people who moved into the area when they wanted a bit of peace and quiet in their declining years. But said out loud, it sounded odd, as if Eliot was referring to something else entirely.

Before he left the Whartons, Cooper paused in the doorway and turned.

‘I was in the pub earlier that week, Mrs Wharton,’ he said. ‘The night the Young Farmers’ party was held.’

‘Oh, I know you were,’ said Nancy. ‘I remember you very well. I almost had to get Maurice to throw you out. You were, well … how should I put it?’

He held up a hand. ‘Yes, I know. I’m sorry.’

She shrugged. ‘Well, there’s no point in apologising now, is there? It’s all water under the bridge. All just history.’

‘Was I …?’

‘Yes?’

‘Was I very obnoxious? When I had too much to drink, I mean.’

Nancy smiled sadly. ‘Don’t worry. You could never be as an obnoxious as some. There are people born into the world just to be a pain in the arse. You soon learn that in the pub trade.’

As he left the house and walked the short length of scrubby garden to the gate, Cooper looked at the street packed with old council houses. Both sides of the road were lined solidly with cars for which there were no garages or off-road parking spaces.

For a moment he was overwhelmed by the difference between this and the setting of the Light House — the wild open landscape, the sense of absolute isolation. Nature was right on the doorstep as you left the pub. All he saw here were clusters of wheelie bins, and motorbikes shrouded in multicoloured polyester covers.

From Oxlow Moor, the views stretched for miles in every direction, to the glowering presence of Kinder Scout in the distance. Here, he saw no further than an identical house twenty yards away across the street.

DI Hitchens tapped Cooper on the shoulder as he arrived back in the CID room at West Street.

‘Ben, don’t forget Henry Pearson is due to arrive with us this morning.’

‘I hadn’t forgotten,’ said Cooper. ‘Is Mrs Pearson coming too?’

‘No, I understand it’s just her husband. I’m sure he will have planned it that way.’

‘To minimise the emotional complications, I suppose.’

‘Yes.’

‘What have we told Mr Pearson?’

‘Just that some items have been found that we believe belonged to his son and daughter-in-law, which we’d like him to help us identify. He didn’t question that; he hasn’t even asked what items we found. But he seems to have dropped everything to come straight up from Surrey.’

‘He’ll want to know more when he arrives.’

‘Yes, I’m sure he will. But we need to be a bit discreet, Ben.’

‘Discreet? You mean we’re going to hold back some information?’

‘Yes. Until we’re, you know … sure.’

‘Sure about the identification of the items? Or sure that Mr Pearson hasn’t been involved in some kind of conspiracy over these last couple of years?’

‘It never does any harm to be certain,’ said Hitchens.

Cooper felt a spasm of discomfort. That was going to be an awkward encounter. Relatives of victims often wanted to be told everything. It put a police officer in a difficult position to know far more than he was able to share.