Dead in the Dark

29 Day 5

Evan Slaney sat uncomfortably in Interview Room One at West Street. In the harsh lights, without the shadows of his lamps, Slaney looked pale and vulnerable.

Sitting across the table from him, Ben Cooper produced two photographs from the evidence log.

‘Do you recognise this, sir?’ he said, sliding the first one across.

Slaney barely glanced at it. ‘Well, I can say with confidence it’s a mobile phone.’

‘Yes, it’s an Apple iPhone 7.’

‘Who does it belong to?’

‘It belonged to Reece Bower,’ said Cooper. ‘As does this wallet.’

Now Slaney leaned across the table, touching the edges of the photograph with his large right hand.

‘Those marks. Is that... blood?’

‘Yes, sir,’ said Cooper. ‘That’s blood. In fact, it’s Mr Bower’s blood.’

He withdrew his hand quickly with a frown of distaste.

‘That’s horrible.’

‘You might be interested to know that we’ve checked all the calls and messages on Mr Bower’s phone. Do you know who his last message was sent to?’

‘I have no idea.’

‘To you, Mr Slaney.’

Slaney sat back in his chair. ‘To me? His last message was to me?’

‘It seems so. He texted you asking you to visit his house on Sunday morning.’

‘Yes, I remember,’ said Slaney. ‘I was rather taken aback. We hadn’t spoken for a long time.’

‘He doesn’t say in the text what he wanted to see you about.’

‘And I have no idea what it was either.’

‘Did you go?’

‘Yes. Well, I nearly didn’t. I thought long and hard about it, but in the end I decided it might be something important. As I say, it was so unusual for him to contact me.’

‘Did it occur to you it might be about Annette?’

‘To be honest, yes. Only because it was pretty much the last thing we talked about. I couldn’t think of anything else that he would have to say to me.’

‘What time did you arrive at Aldern Way, sir?’

‘About ten a.m. It was Naomi who let me in. Reece was out in the garden at the back, mowing the lawn and burning some rubbish.’

‘How did he seem?’

‘I thought he was very stressed about something, really vague and absent-minded. He looked surprised to see me, even seemed to have forgotten that he’d invited me.’

‘So what did he want to tell you?’

‘Nothing, so far as I could tell. It was all very mysterious. I came away none the wiser. In fact, I wondered if there was something he was anxious to talk about, but he didn’t want to mention it while Naomi was there.’

‘You think Naomi shouldn’t have been there? He wanted to see you on your own?’

‘And it went wrong for some reason, yes. It was very odd. And of course that was the last time I saw him.’

‘He went missing later that same day,’ said Cooper.

‘That’s shocking. Awful.’

‘I need you to tell me the truth, Mr Slaney.’

Slaney laid his hands on the table, as if to draw attention to them. Cooper couldn’t help looking, and noticed something odd straightaway. He could see that Slaney’s right hand was distinctly larger than his left. The knuckles were thicker, the fingers longer, the palm spread more widely on the surface of the table.

He supposed some occupations might cause the development of one hand so much more than the other. He doubted accountancy was one of them, though. No matter how many years you spent tapping an electronic calculator, it wouldn’t give you a hand like that. It looked as though it could crush a rock.

‘Well, you’re right,’ said Slaney. ‘I haven’t been completely honest with you.’

‘I’m sorry if I don’t look completely surprised.’

‘You guessed?’

‘I can usually tell when a person is hiding something, though I may not always be able to tell what it is.’

‘Does that come from experience, Inspector?’

‘Yes, but often with the wrong sort of people.’

‘This may not be exactly what you want to hear, though.’

‘Try me.’

‘He made a fool of me, you know. He convinced me I’d seen Annette.’

‘Who did? Reece Bower.’

‘He’s a very clever man. Was a clever man, perhaps I should say. He fooled Annette for a long time too. She thought his affair with Madeleine Betts was over.’ He laughed bitterly. ‘She thought that was his only affair. Oh, yes. He was a charmer. Very persuasive. But they say that about psychopaths, don’t they? They can be charming. That’s what makes them such successful manipulators.’

‘How did he convince you that you’d seen Annette, sir?’

‘He was on at me about it constantly,’ said Slaney. ‘Showing me photographs of her, telling me over and over that we had to keep our eyes open, that one of us would see her walking down the street one day. We’d get a glimpse of her going into a shop or disappearing round a corner. And we’d know it was her from that momentary flash of recognition. Looking back now, he practically brainwashed me into expecting to see her at any moment. To be perfectly honest — and I didn’t say this to the officers who interviewed me at the time — but I thought I saw Annette twice before that last occasion.’

‘In Buxton?’

‘Yes. They were just as Reece said — momentary glimpses of a woman walking down the street. One time I thought I saw her turning a corner as I was driving through the traffic lights on Terrace Road. By the time I managed to stop the car, she’d vanished into Spring Gardens. I looked in the shops, walked through the shopping arcade, staring at strange women until I was in danger of getting myself arrested. I gave up in the end. And when I got back to my car, I’d got a ticket on my windscreen for illegal parking.’

‘But you were convinced you’d seen her,’ said Cooper.

‘I wasn’t sure that first time. I tried to be logical and kept telling myself I’d imagined a resemblance in a complete stranger. I tried to laugh it off. And then it happened again, and even a third time.’

‘Was it the same woman?’

Slaney shrugged. ‘How can I know now? I spotted her once sitting in the window of a restaurant at The Quadrant with another woman, and then finally there was the incident outside Waitrose. By the third time, I was fully convinced it was Annette I’d seen.’

‘Because of the make of car she was driving and the coat she was wearing.’

‘That’s right.’

‘But you only reported the one sighting. That final one...’

Slaney smiled sadly. ‘I didn’t want those police officers to think I was mad.’

Cooper recalled his own feelings after he thought he recognised Annette Bower at the Opera House the previous night. Like Evan Slaney, he’d spent too long looking at photographs of Annette. And he hadn’t mentioned it to anyone, not even to Chloe Young. Now she probably did think he was mad.

‘As you can imagine, I was very angry,’ said Slaney. ‘Angry not only that he was probably responsible for my daughter’s death, but that he allowed me to believe she was still alive all these years. As far as I’m concerned, he killed Annette twice.’

‘So Reece Bower used you.’

Slaney nodded. ‘Looking back now,’ he said, ‘I have a feeling the photographs that Reece showed me were all deliberately a bit vague or out of focus. There were no posed shots. They just caught my daughter from odd angles from which she was only just recognisable. The human memory is an odd thing, isn’t it? Given the right sort of prompting and manipulation, we can convince ourselves we remember anything.’

‘You must have felt very betrayed.’

‘Certainly.’

Cooper leaned forward and watched him closely.

‘And was that why you killed him, Mr Slaney?’

Evan Slaney’s face fell into an expression of incredulity. It looked so cartoonishly ludicrous that, despite himself, Cooper almost laughed at the sight of it.

‘Me?’ said Slaney. ‘No, you’ve got that completely wrong, Detective Inspector. I hated Reece for that. But I didn’t kill him. I could never conceive of doing such a thing.’

Cooper sat back in surprise. For some reason, he felt he believed what Slaney was saying. But he couldn’t be wrong, could he? There was just some evidence missing.

There was a knock on the door and Cooper was called out of the interview. Dev Sharma stood in the corridor.

‘What is it, Dev? It must be important.’

‘We haven’t completed the search of Mr Slaney’s house yet, but I thought you’d like to know about this straightaway, sir.’

Cooper saw he was carrying a small plastic evidence bag.

‘What’s in the bag?’

‘A knife,’ said Sharma.

Cooper looked more closely. ‘But not just any knife,’ he said. ‘If I’m not mistaken, it’s a woodcarver’s knife.’

‘The blade is about three and half inches long, with a birch wood handle. The make is Mora.’

‘Where was it found?’

‘In the hollow base of an antique lamp. A Chinese porcelain dragon.’

Cooper put his foot down as he drove through Baslow towards Bakewell. He arrived at the house in Over Haddon just as Frances Swann pulled up in her white Citroën.

‘This is very inconvenient, Inspector,’ she said. ‘I’ve had to leave a class. I hope it’s as important as you suggested in your call.’

‘It could be.’

‘So what is it you want?’

‘To see your husband’s wood-carving tools.’

Her face creased in bafflement. ‘The tools?’

‘Yes.’

‘But you’ve already seen them. I don’t know what else I can tell you about them.’

‘Perhaps I should call your husband to come out,’ said Cooper. ‘Would you prefer that?’

‘No, don’t do that. Come inside.’

This time Cooper knew where Adrian Swann’s workshop was. The carved owl seemed to watch him as he entered and went to the cabinet where the tools were kept. Frances followed him as he unfurled the canvas roll.

‘Is there anything missing?’ asked Cooper. ‘Can you tell?’

Frances peered at the tool set. She seemed reluctant to get too close to it, as if she wasn’t allowed to touch it. He could imagine that Adrian Swann might be very possessive about his tools. They gleamed as if they were polished and oiled regularly and a mislaid tool could be a disaster.

‘Yes, you’re right.’ Frances pointed. ‘There should be another knife. One with a straight blade. The curved-bladed knife is there, but not the straight blade.’

‘How big is the missing knife? Seven inches?’

‘About that, including the handle. The blade itself isn’t very long. Adrian uses the knives for the fine detail on the birds, you know. I don’t understand why it isn’t there, though. He’s very particular about his tools. He’ll be very upset if it’s missing.’

Cooper drew out the knife with the curved blade and turned over the handle.

‘Mora,’ he said.

‘I told you,’ said Frances. ‘A Swedish make.’

‘Who has access to these tools?’

‘No one but Adrian or me. The only other person he would let in to handle his tools is my father.’

‘Mr Slaney?’

‘Adrian learned woodworking from him, years ago before we even married. Adrian has gone on to be much better. Dad was never really an artist. He preferred something primitive. He was never happier than when he was chopping wood. When he and Mum lived in the house at Rowsley, he kept their wood burners stocked with logs.’

‘What happened to your mother?’ asked Cooper.

‘She died. She was killed in a car crash eight years ago, about two years after Annette went missing. It broke my father up, as you can imagine.’

‘So she wasn’t around to support his sighting of Annette in Buxton?’

‘No. That was my father’s personal conviction.’

Cooper put down the tool.

‘I’m sorry, Mrs Swann,’ he said. ‘I’m afraid we’ll need your husband to come in some time anyway.’

When he returned to Edendale, Cooper had Evan Slaney brought back into the interview room. He showed Slaney a photograph of the knife in its evidence bag.

‘What about this, sir? Do you recognise it?’

‘Well, yes. I know what that is.’

‘Do you own a knife like this yourself?’ asked Cooper.

‘No. But my son-in-law uses them. I mean Adrian Swann. It’s a wood-carving knife.’

‘Do you know how it got into your house?’

‘In my house? No. Adrian has been there a few times, of course, but he would never have brought his tools. He keeps them in his workshop at Over Haddon. He’s very particular about who handles them.’

He met Cooper’s eye. In fact, his eye contact throughout the interview had been noticeable. Cooper was rapidly coming to the conclusion that this man was telling the truth now, in a way that he hadn’t done before.

‘Mr Slaney, did you have a surprise visitor recently?’ he asked.

Slaney stared at him. ‘Why, yes I did. Have you spoken to her? Did she tell you she’d been here?’

‘Who are you talking about, Mr Slaney?’

‘My granddaughter, of course.’

‘Lacey?’

‘Yes, Lacey Bower. She’s grown into a fine young woman. I’m pleased that she hasn’t forgotten her grandfather, but I was surprised. I hadn’t heard anything from her for a long time, not even a birthday or Christmas card. She has her own life to live, of course. I understand that. So it was quite a surprise when she turned up on my doorstep.’

‘Did she give any particular reason for her visit?’

‘Does she need one? But, no. We only exchanged small talk, very inconsequential chat. I asked her how her college course was going, but I didn’t really understand the details. I know Lacey is struggling financially as a student, but aren’t we all?’

‘Did you think she’d come to ask you for money?’ asked Cooper.

‘Well, she has done in the past. When Lacey first went to live in Sheffield, she asked me if I could help her with the deposit on a flat. I had to refuse, I’m afraid. Times are hard for everyone.’

‘But she didn’t ask on this latest visit?’

‘No, not at all. Lacey seemed a bit restless, to be honest. She didn’t want to stay very long. She probably had better things to do than spend time with her old granddad in his gloomy cottage.’

‘Did she stay long enough for you to make her a cup of tea?’

‘Coffee,’ said Slaney. ‘She asked for coffee. I also happened to have some of her favourite cake in. She likes Genoa.’

‘I see.’

Cooper recalled a discrepancy he’d noted in Lacey Bower’s statements. He hadn’t thought it was important at the time. On Wednesday, Lacey told him that she’d only ever mentioned her memory of visiting the cave to her grandfather. In fact, she’d specifically claimed never to have told her Aunt Frances when Cooper had asked her about it.

But yesterday, in Lathkill Dale, Lacey had let slip a different version of events. I was sure I could remember it, but when I asked Aunt Frances about it, she told me it wasn’t possible. That was what she’d said. And they couldn’t both be true, could they? So which should he believe?

Evan Slaney was staring at him across the table.

‘I don’t understand how this could be relevant, Inspector.’

‘But I think I do,’ said Cooper.

He stood up from the table.

‘Are you going to charge me?’ asked Slaney.

‘No, sir. I have a few more inquiries to make, then I expect we’ll be able to release you.’

‘Well, thank God.’

Cooper left the interview room and walked slowly back to his office. He needed to think carefully about what had just entered his mind. Could it be true? Someone had been leading him up the garden path. And it didn’t quite lead to the garden he expected.

He sat for a long time with a coffee going cold on his desk and letting his calls go to voicemail. Cooper was recalling his conversation with the neighbour in Aldern Way. The woman with the Yorkshire terrier called Henry. He’d forgotten her name now. But when he asked her about Lacey, hadn’t she said something important. She was here on Sunday, of course. But Naomi Heath claimed not to have seen Lacey for weeks, and the girl had said the same. Almost exactly the same, in fact.

And there was Frances Swann, who’d lost contact with Lacey and didn’t even know her address or phone number. Yet Lacey had let slip that she’d seen the carved owl sitting in Adrian Swann’s workshop, ready for the show this weekend. How had she seen that, unless she’d been to the Swanns’ house in Over Haddon recently?

Finally, Cooper thought about the knife, the nine-inch wood carving drawknife that was missing from Adrian’s desk. Frances Swann had told him the only other person who would have access to the tools was Evan Slaney. Why had she volunteered that information? Had she calculated that Slaney would be so angry about the knowledge that he’d been manipulated by Reece Bower that he would blindly draw suspicion on himself?

But how could Frances possibly have known that it would lead to the discovery of the knife at Slaney’s home?

How indeed. There was the crucial question. It ought to have been impossible for her to know that. She had claimed to be unaware of what had happened to the knife, just as she’d claimed ignorance of Lacey’s whereabouts.

And along the way Cooper had become more and more convinced that Evan Slaney was guilty of killing Reece Bower. Now it dawned him that he’d been wrong. And not only wrong — he’d been manipulated towards his conclusion. Naomi, Frances and Lacey, they had all played their part in leading him towards that destination. Up the garden path to what seemed an obvious outcome.

Cooper could have kicked himself. He’d been stupid. Worse, he’d been gullible. During these last few days, he’d been the instrument of a conspiracy between three clever women. Naomi, Frances and Lacey. Together they’d taken their revenge on one man, and set up another to be the suspect.

And yes, they’d used a third as their pawn. Detective Inspector Ben Cooper. He hadn’t believed everything they told him. But he’d believed far too much.