Fall Down Dead

34

Diane Fry walked into the police station at West Street. She’d almost forgotten what a dump it was. It was hard to think that she’d worked here for years and had put up with these conditions. She hoped she never had to come here again.

She went straight to Ben Cooper’s office and walked in with a perfunctory tap on the door.

Cooper looked up.

‘Diane?’ he said. ‘What is it?’

‘DCI Mackenzie wants to know what’s happening with the Darius Roth murder inquiry. He thinks you might be taking matters into your own hands.’

‘Tell Mr Mackenzie it’s all under control. We already have a suspect in custody.’

‘I know that. Have you interviewed him yet?’

‘We’re just about to. Do you want to sit in?’

Fry hesitated. ‘No. But keep us informed.’

‘Of course.’

Without waiting for an invitation, she sat down on a chair in front of his desk, suddenly feeling weary.

‘And have you sorted out the problem with the Atherton case?’ she asked.

Cooper raised an eyebrow. ‘What do you know about that?’

‘A conflict in a witness statement from the neighbour, isn’t there? The timing of a phone call.’

‘Yes, but—’

‘It’s probably quite simple,’ she said.

‘It may look simple to you, Diane, but it isn’t so easy when you’ve got a witness to interview who might be mistaken about what happened.’

‘I don’t think she’s mistaken,’ said Fry. ‘I think you are.’

‘What?’

‘You’ve been trusting Gary Atherton to tell the truth.’

‘He’s confessed to killing his wife. He was still there holding the murder weapon when the FOSAs arrived. He says he made the call when he realised what he’d done.’

‘According to the files, there’s a teenage son,’ said Fry.

‘So?’

‘Why don’t you ask him if he made the call?’

‘And his father is covering for him? It’s a hell of a risk for Gary Atherton. He’ll get a life sentence if he’s convicted.’

‘But he won’t if there’s a flaw in your evidence,’ said Fry. ‘The timing of that 999 call. I spotted it myself.’

‘It was you who kicked the file back?’

‘I took it to Mr Mackenzie anyway. I’m sorry if it reflected badly on you.’

Cooper thought of poor old Dev Sharma’s disappointment that a hole had been poked in his case so easily. But of course he could never mention Sharma’s role. Cooper was the DI in this department. It was his team. It was part of the job to take the responsibility when things went wrong.

‘Sometimes it just needs a fresh pair of eyes to see where someone has made an assumption or accepted a statement on trust,’ said Fry. ‘That’s often where it all goes off the rails, isn’t it? Trusting the wrong person.’

‘Yes,’ said Cooper. ‘You’re right again.’

They had Jonathan Matthew waiting in Interview Room 1. He’d been treated for his injuries and released into custody. The fact that he hadn’t suffered any broken bones or internal injuries was down to a combination of seat belt, air bag and a lot of good luck. His ancient Subaru was a write-off, of course.

‘Jonathan, why did you try to run?’ asked Ben Cooper.

‘I’ve never trusted the cops,’ he said. ‘Once you fix on someone as a suspect, you never change your minds. You’ll have me in court without any proper evidence and there’ll be nothing I can do about it.’

‘Evidence of what?’

‘Of—’ Jonathan stopped and scowled suspiciously. ‘Of whatever you’re arresting me for.’

Cooper couldn’t help but laugh. He’d never heard it put quite like that before.

‘You’re here for questioning in connection with the murder of Mr Darius Roth,’ he said.

Jonathan lowered his head. Was this as far as he’d planned? An attempted escape with his guitar in the back of the Subaru, like a hippy on a road trip? But he hadn’t even worked that out properly. He’d left his guitar behind at his flat in his haste to get away.

‘Faith was behaving oddly. It was so obvious,’ said Jonathan.

‘What was?’

‘Her relationship with Darius.’

‘Are you sure about that?’ said Cooper.

‘Of course.’

‘Did Greg suspect?’

‘She’d finished with Greg Barrett.’

‘Mr Barrett doesn’t seem to be aware of that.’

‘Well, I’m sure she was intending to finish it. She’d developed other interests.’

‘With Darius?’

‘Yes.’

‘Did Elsa know?’

‘I think she knew everything about Darius that she wanted to,’ said Jonathan. ‘Anything she didn’t want to know she just ignored, pretended it didn’t exist or that it never happened. She lives in her own world, that one. And it’s partly a fantasy.’

Cooper remembered his earlier conversation with Elsa Roth. Elsa herself had said, It’s like a fantasy. And perhaps it was, even more than she understood.

‘Well, what would you have done?’ said Jonathan.

His question and his suddenly penetrating stare caught Cooper off guard. He remembered Jonathan talking about the feeling of guilt at not being able to protect Faith. He’d empathised with that feeling. He’d felt the guilt himself, wondered what he might do if he got the opportunity for revenge on the person responsible. What would he have done?

‘You took the teddy bear from Faith’s house on Monday evening, didn’t you?’ said Cooper. ‘So it must have been sometime during that day, after you’d heard she was dead. You spoke to somebody then.’

‘Teddy Bear,’ said Jonathan. ‘That’s what Elsa called him. I hope he got the message.’

But Cooper wasn’t sure Darius did get the message. If his relationship with Faith had been as close as Jonathan suggested, he might have recognised the teddy bear by its red bow tie.

‘Jonathan, who told you Darius Roth killed your sister?’

‘It doesn’t matter.’

‘I think it does.’

Jonathan’s face set into a stubborn mask. He had a cut below his eye and his cheekbone was bruised. It would be difficult to tell now which injuries he’d sustained in the crash and which were inflicted by Darius Roth as he defended himself from attack on that gallery in the old chapel.

‘Did you actually see Darius push your sister off that rock?’ asked Cooper.

‘He was there,’ repeated Jonathan. ‘Who else could it have been?’

Cooper sat back. There was nothing he could say to that.

‘The perfect murder,’ said Jonathan. ‘That’s what Darius would have called it. But he made a mistake. There was a witness.’

‘Who?’

‘I can’t say. But I couldn’t let him get away with it, could I?’

‘A lot of people who commit murder think they’re doing the right thing,’ said Cooper. ‘But almost all of them are mistaken.’

Jonathan continued to look stubborn. ‘Still, there was a witness.’

‘Not really,’ said Cooper. ‘Unfortunately.’

An hour or two hitting the phones got Ben Cooper the answers he needed. When you were able to ask exactly the right question, people were much more likely to tell you the truth.

‘We’ve spoken to all the members of the New Trespassers now,’ said Villiers. ‘It’s the same with almost every one of them.’

And there was the connection. Darius Roth had a financial hold on all of them — he’d bailed out the Goulds’ nursery when their lease ran out, bought their land and leased it back to them. He was subsidising the two students through college so they didn’t have to get jobs working in bars in the evenings. He’d rescued the Warburtons when they had a pension disaster. He’d set Liam up in a nice apartment near Manchester Airport so he could move in with the Hungarian chef.

And what about Nick Haslam? He’d been facing a drink-driving charge and was likely to get banned. Roth had paid for good lawyers to save his licence. And of course he was paying for the promotion of Jonathan Matthew’s band.

Then there was Elsa herself. She was much younger than Darius, but she wasn’t the typical trophy wife. He’d married a waitress, not a catwalk model. Cooper suspected a large part of Elsa’s appeal had been her submissiveness. Men like Darius Roth seemed to like that. Cooper had never been able to see the attraction of it himself. In his opinion, if you wanted slavish devotion, you’d be better off getting a dog.

‘You’d think people would be grateful for being financially supported. But often they’re not. They hate the feeling of being dependent and they become resentful about it. Patronage, it’s called. Artists used to thrive on it. Now they’re too independent. That’s why Jonathan came to hate Darius. He longed to bite the hand that fed him. He’d become a bit unstable anyway. Darius had told him to stay off the drugs if he wanted the money to keep coming in. And he was trying. But when Jonathan felt really bad, who do you think he focused the blame on for his torment?’

‘Darius.’

‘But somebody used Jonathan, didn’t they? They made him suspect that Darius had killed Faith. They channelled his anger.’

Cooper was still thinking about Darius Roth. Many psychopaths were very charming and adept at manipulating people around them. They could pass as perfectly normal in society, even appear convincingly successful and affluent. But it was all a façade. Underneath, there was a seriously disturbed personality.

‘None of the walking-club members ever thought to question his façade as a wealthy property developer. Why should they? And Elsa certainly didn’t care. She had no curiosity about his business dealings as long as the money was coming in to support their lifestyle. She knew he went off to meetings and had business calls in his office at home, but she never inquired what they were about.’

‘I’m sure he would have discouraged her from inquiring if she ever showed an interest. The one thing Elsa Roth was good at — doing what Darius wanted. She would have avoided anything that might annoy him.’

‘She must have felt in a very precarious position, I suppose.’

‘But she was his wife. Even if he divorced her, she would have been in line for a handsome settlement.’

‘I think it was more than just financial self-preservation. I believe she was very afraid of him. She must have sensed something in Darius that the others didn’t.’

‘What a pity she didn’t tell us before it was too late.’

So there were only two people in that group Darius didn’t have a financial hold over. Faith Matthew and Sophie Pullen. One of them was dead. And perhaps he’d been right to trust what the other was saying.

‘Any one of them might have killed Faith to protect Darius. I wonder what story he told them in the clubhouse that night.’

‘Whatever it was, I’m sure he was very convincing.’

So Darius had bought their loyalty. He’d paid for their friendship. And with Elsa it was more than just friendship. Perhaps it was with the students too. Which one of them had been willing to go even further for him and commit murder?

What about previous members? Had they angered him in some way and had their financial support withdrawn? Or did they just have enough? They’d been forced to pander to his obsessions. Yet they were all just part of his façade, an elaborate role play that must have gone some way to satisfy his ego.

‘What about Faith, though?’ said Cooper.

‘There’s no financial connection with Darius Roth that we can see.’

Cooper considered that for a moment.

‘Carol, I need you to go to that hospital where Faith Matthew worked,’ he said.

‘Meadow Park?’

‘Yes. See if you can find out why she left. We know Darius was a patient there. I want to establish if there’s a previous connection between them. If so, it might have begun at the hospital.’

‘I’ll get straight on to it in the morning.’

‘It was all about to come to an end anyway,’ said Irvine.

‘What do you mean?’

‘Look at the figures.’

Cooper’s ability to read spreadsheets was a recently acquired skill. Some of it meant little to him, but he recognised a downward trend, knew what figures meant when they were printed in red or placed in brackets.

Irvine’s inquiries into his company showed it to be on the verge of collapse. Darius had been syphoning off the profits and selling assets until the business was on its knees. The money was about to run out. Within months he would be bankrupt. Liam Sharpe’s rent wouldn’t be paid, the Goulds’ land would be sold off, and the students’ allowances stopped.

Did Jonathan Matthew find out there was no money? Did he confront Darius Roth, furious to find himself indebted to his sister’s killer? Maybe Roth had lorded it over him, as just another beneficiary of his patronage. But if so, he’d chosen the wrong person to patronise. The life of Jonathan’s sister had meant more to him than money or music.

But someone else had used Jonathan Matthew to target Darius. Was it another member of the group who got wind of the problem? Had their funding failed? It was interesting to speculate what might have happened next time the walking group met in that clubhouse in the old chapel.

‘You see, Darius inherited control of the businesses when his brother died six years ago,’ said Irvine. ‘In October.’

‘And the date of the Kinder walk was changed to mark the anniversary of Magnus’s death.’

‘Yes.’

‘So it’s some kind of memorial to his brother,’ said Villiers. ‘Perhaps they were very close.’

‘I think there’s more to it than that,’ said Irvine. ‘It was Magnus who quickly built up the business. As the older son, he took it over when their father died. By all accounts, he made a big success of it. That was when the money really started to roll in.’

‘But when Magnus was killed—’

‘Darius inherited.’

‘Yes, but it seems Darius wasn’t as good a businessman as his brother. He’s drained the companies of profit. There’s a massive mortgage on Trespass Lodge too, which he would have been defaulting on very soon.’

Cooper nodded. That made sense. Darius had failed to live up to his brother. And he lost all the money trying. The company he inherited had declined rapidly under Darius’s leadership. He’d made bad decisions, poor investments, trusted the wrong people, all while spending extravagantly on vanity projects.

He’d ruined the business Magnus and their father had built up, wrecked the Roth empire. He must have been glad that Magnus wasn’t around to see it.

Diane Fry called that afternoon. Ben Cooper wasn’t as surprised as he might have been at any other time. She’d wanted something from him, after all.

‘They’ve called off the disciplinary hearing,’ she said without any preamble or small talk.

Cooper breathed a sigh of relief. It had been weighing on his mind ever since his visit to Ripley.

‘Good,’ he said. ‘I’m pleased to hear it.’

‘They must have found out something that undermined the case they thought they had against me.’

‘Yes, I’m pretty sure that’s what happened,’ said Cooper.

‘I know you did something. But maybe I shouldn’t ask what it was.’

He laughed. ‘Well, whatever it was, I’m glad it helped.’

‘You know, I think they were watching me,’ said Fry. ‘They had me under surveillance. Can you believe it?’

‘How do you know that?’

‘I’ve seen them,’ she said. ‘Sitting in a black BMW watching for me to use my InPost locker at the service station by Clifton Bridge. They must know I use that terminal regularly to receive packages.’

‘Do you think they sent something to your locker and were waiting for you to pick it up?’

‘Yes. Something incriminating, I imagine. I bet they planned to catch me opening the locker and taking delivery.’

‘But you never went to your locker?’

‘No.’

‘Why not?’

‘Angie warned me not to.’

‘I guess she was the one who saved your bacon, then.’

‘Maybe.’

‘You said you receive regular packages at the InPost terminal,’ said Cooper. ‘Were they...?’ He left the question hanging.

Then it was Fry’s turn to begin laughing.

‘I order Whole Earth organic no-caffeine coffee alternative and vegetarian tofu ragout from Holland and Barrett,’ she said. ‘And occasionally some moringa powder and cacao nibs.’

Cooper laughed too. And it wasn’t just relief. It seemed so out of character with the Diane Fry he knew.

‘Well, I just never get time to go into Nottingham to visit their store,’ she said defensively.

‘I thought you were more of a chocolate and wine woman. What’s with all the healthy foodstuffs?’

‘They give me energy. That’s better than cocaine any day, Ben.’

Cooper was trying to readjust his mental image of Diane Fry to some kind of health-food fanatic. It wasn’t really working.

‘So nothing suspicious,’ he said.

‘People can see anything as suspicious,’ said Fry. ‘It depends on your perspective. It depends what you want to believe — or what you want others to believe.’

There was another important question on Ben Cooper’s mind. He called his brother as soon as he got home that night. He had just had one question to ask him after the previous evening.

‘So what do you reckon, Matt?’ he said.

Matt breathed noisily down the line for a moment. Ben pictured him looking round at Kate, seeking her approval or agreement. There was no doubt they would have discussed the subject at length after Ben and Chloe had left Bridge End Farm last night.

‘All right, we reckon,’ said Matt finally.

Ben breathed a sigh of relief. ‘Good.’

There was another pause, longer this time, then a deep breath from Matt.

‘And I think Mum would have approved too.’