One Last Breath

24

William Thorpe sat in one of the interview rooms at West Street with his elbows on the table and his head drooping, as if his neck didn’t have the strength to hold it up.

‘You’ve no reason to keep me here,’ he said.

‘We just want to ask you a few questions, sir.’

‘I’ve done nothing.’

Diane Fry consulted the file she had on William Edward Thorpe. She took a few moments over it, frowning a little, before she looked at Thorpe again. Watching her, Ben Cooper wondered if Fry had considered getting herself a pair of half-moon glasses, which would have completed the effect of a disapproving headmistress.

‘You’re here voluntarily, sir,’ said Fry. ‘You’re free to leave at any time. But if we don’t clear up a few things now, we may have to talk to you again in the near future. And if the matter becomes more urgent, we might not have time for all the courtesies.’

Thorpe was thinking about it. For a moment, Cooper thought he was going to get up and walk out. Fry wasn’t even watching him, but had dropped her head to read the papers in front of her, as if it was of no concern to her whether Thorpe stayed or left, since she had plenty of other things to do. But Thorpe had understood what she was saying. He was free to leave now because he was co-operating voluntarily. If they had to pick him up a second time, it might not be so voluntary.

‘I’m not sure what you want to know,’ he said.

Fry looked up, as if slightly surprised that Thorpe was still there. She smiled.

‘Well, let’s see what we can do about that, sir.’

Cooper thought that Thorpe’s eyes had the pale, watery look of someone who never slept enough. They were deep in their sockets, and looked even deeper because of the dark shadows that lay on his cheekbones and underneath his eyebrows. His cheeks were covered in grey stubble that accentuated their sunkenness.

‘Mr Thorpe, you were discharged from the Worcestershire and Sherwood Foresters Regiment nearly a year ago,’ said Fry.

‘That’s right.’

‘A medical problem, I gather.’

‘My time was almost up,’ said Thorpe.

‘Even so, you left the army before your discharge date.’

‘A few months, that’s all.’

‘They don’t tell us what the medical problem was,’ said Fry, raising her eyebrows and turning over a page as if to look for a medical report she knew wasn’t there.

Thorpe said nothing.

‘Nothing to be ashamed of it, is it?’ asked Fry.

‘I was diagnosed with emphysema.’

‘Oh, I’m sorry.’

‘My lungs are shit.’

‘So you left your regiment a few months early. And you went to live at an address in Derby, according to your regimental office.’

‘That’s right. With a friend.’

‘You didn’t come home to this area straight away?’

‘I had no reason to, did I?’ Thorpe shook his head. ‘I still don’t know what you want from me.’

‘Let’s come forward a bit, then. You left the address in Derby. After that, your life is something of a mystery. Your regiment has no further record of you. No one seems to know where you were …’

‘Well …’

‘Except,’ said Fry, ‘for a drunk and disorderly charge in Ashbourne in May this year.’

‘Oh, that.’

‘What were you doing in Ashbourne, sir?’

‘Getting pissed,’ said Thorpe. ‘Obviously.’

‘Do you have more friends in that area?’

‘I might have.’

‘Staying with them, were you? I mean, I know old friends look after each other — especially army mates. They’re the sort of people you can call on when you need help, aren’t they?’

‘Yes, they are.’

‘So, were you staying with a friend in Ashbourne?’

‘I’m not telling you about any of my friends.’

‘Well, if you were,’ said Fry, checking her file, ‘it’s odd that you were listed as “no fixed abode” when you appeared in the magistrates court there for your drunk and disorderly. Was that a lie?’

‘I’ve spent some time on the streets,’ said Thorpe. ‘I’m not ashamed of it. It just happened. Sometimes, your circumstances change, you know.’

‘What circumstances would those be?’

‘Look, I stayed with some mates in Derby when I came out of the army, you know that. The doctors had told me I was a mess. I felt really pissed off that I’d spent all that time to reach my discharge date, and then suddenly there was no future for me.’

‘Had you planned a future after the army? I presume you must have. You knew your discharge was approaching.’

‘I thought of setting up a little business,’ said Thorpe. ‘A shop.’

‘Anything in particular?’

‘Weapons. Only legal stuff, obviously. Air rifles, slingshots, crossbows, samurai swords. That sort of stuff.’

‘Samurai swords?’

‘There’s a lot of demand. And I know about weapons.’

‘Do you, indeed?’

‘It was my main interest,’ said Thorpe. ‘In the army, I mean.’

‘But according to your regiment, you spent most of your time as a mortar man.’

‘I was an infantryman in the beginning, same as everyone else. Then I got into a mortar unit. You have to know about weapons. I mean, that’s what it’s all about.’

‘I don’t know much about mortars,’ said Fry. ‘But I’ve a feeling they’re a bit different from Samurai swords. A bit more twenty-first century.’

‘I can learn. I knew blokes who collected stuff like that. Two of my friends in Derby were going to come into the business with me. We were going to use the money we’d saved to start up a shop.’

‘So what went wrong, Mr Thorpe?’

‘Like I told you, it was the illness. It knocked the stuffing out of me at first and I couldn’t see the future any more. There just didn’t seem any point in putting all that work into starting a business. I’d never have seen any of the profit. That’s the way it looked at the time.’

‘I understand.’

Thorpe sneered. ‘Do you?’

Cooper could see that Thorpe was gaining more confidence as he talked. But that wasn’t a bad thing — at least he was talking. It was a sign that he felt on safe ground.

‘So you parted ways with your friends in Derby?’

Thorpe hesitated. ‘Yeah.’

‘Was there some kind of problem?’

‘No.’

‘It would be understandable if they were unhappy with your decision. Did they go ahead on the shop idea without you?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Mr Thorpe, we do have the address you gave in Derby at the time, so we can always go and ask them.’

Thorpe shook his head. ‘I left, that was all. I got on a bus and came back here. I knew there’d be plenty of places I could sleep and not be worried about people getting up close to me like they did in the city.’

‘OK. And then what?’

‘And then nothing,’ said Thorpe. ‘That’s pretty much my life. I’m just hanging around waiting for it to finish. I’ll be glad when it’s over, to be honest.’

‘Where were you sleeping rough before Raymond Proctor let you use one of his caravans?’

‘Bus shelters are a good place. No one uses them after the buses stop running at night. And around here, field barns. A lot of them are abandoned now.’

‘But you did decide to look up other old friends, didn’t you?’ said Fry.

‘What?’

‘I’m sure that’s what I would do, in the circumstances.’

Now Thorpe had started to look uncomfortable. ‘What old friends?’

‘There must be some that you’d like to tell us about.’

Thorpe could sense that they had reached dangerous ground. His eyes flickered to the door of the interview room.

Fry didn’t need to look at her file for the next question.

‘For example,’ she said, ‘in April you visited your old friend Mansell Quinn. Twice.’

‘Oh.’

‘Now, that might be something that you would forget about, Mr Thorpe, given the exciting and varied life that you’ve led. But I imagine those two visits were very memorable indeed to your friend Quinn. After all, you were the first person to visit him in years.’

‘That’s what people do,’ said Thorpe. ‘Visit old friends. If you’re really nice to me, I’ll even visit you in prison, when you get sent down for harassing innocent citizens.’

‘That’s very kind of you. I’m sure it would make it all worthwhile. If I ever found an innocent citizen to harass.’

‘Ha, ha.’

‘Mansell Quinn,’ said Cooper, ‘what was the purpose of your visit to him in prison?’

‘To say “hi”. To see how he was keeping. To take him a birthday present. For God’s sake, I hadn’t seen the bloke for years.’

‘OK,’ said Fry. ‘You went the first time to say “hi”. You saw how he was. So what about the second visit? Was his birthday present the wrong size? Maybe he wanted you to change it for him?’

‘Get lost.’

‘You see, Mr Thorpe, we think that your friend Mansell Quinn asked you to do something for him.’

Thorpe began to cough, and suddenly looked weaker.

‘And what if he did?’

‘We think that you gave him some addresses.’

‘There was no harm in that.’

‘No harm?’

‘Well, no.’

Cooper looked at Fry, who raised her shoulders in a gesture that said: ‘He’s nuts’ or possibly, ‘Don’t ask me, I can’t make sense of this either.’

Thorpe was watching their faces. He was starting to look puzzled, too.

‘It was only some addresses, so that Mansell could get ready for coming out. He said the prison and the probation wouldn’t give him any information.’

‘Mr Thorpe, where have you been living for the past few days?’

‘What’s that got to do with it?’

He was even more confused now. Cautiously, Thorpe looked from Fry to Cooper, sensing that there was something he didn’t know. Something bad. The anxiety was plain on his face. And they could hear the wheezing in his chest as his breathing grew laboured.

‘I told him,’ he said. ‘I told Mansell that people who’ve made a new life should be left alone and allowed to get on with it.’

‘He didn’t take much notice, then.’

‘What’s happened?’ said Thorpe.

Fry didn’t answer the question directly. ‘Mr Thorpe, did you give Mansell Quinn his wife’s new address?’

‘OK, I did.’

‘And are you telling us that you don’t know why Quinn wanted her address?’

Thorpe stared at Fry, slowly trying to work out the implications. ‘Rebecca? What’s happened to her?’

‘Rebecca Lowe is dead, Mr Thorpe. She was killed.’

Thorpe shook his head, denying the conclusion he’d come to.

‘Who killed her?’

But no one answered that. And the question hung in the air of the interview room like the sound of William Thorpe’s breathing as he gasped to force oxygen into his damaged lungs. Several drunks had been brought into the custody suite an hour before. They were waiting for the doctor to examine them for any medical problems, or for injuries they might have sustained while being arrested. A pool of urine was running under the door of one of the cells into the passage. One of the drunks either couldn’t find the lavatory, or was doing it deliberately.

‘I’ll have to translate for the doctor when she arrives, too,’ said the custody sergeant.

‘Why? Are the drunks foreign?’

‘No, but the doctor we have on duty today is a bit middle-aged and middle class, if you know what I mean. If a prisoner is under twenty-five, she has no idea what they’re on about, even when they’re sober. Especially if they start telling her the street names for the drugs they’re on.’

Cooper could hear the doctor now, talking to a prisoner. Her voice was loud enough to carry down the passage.

‘Are you injecting? Which part of your body are you using?’

‘Here.’

‘Your groin. That’s your groin you’re pointing at. Well, I can see why you’re not using your arms any more. There’s nothing left of them, is there?’

The custody sergeant gave a despairing shrug that involved his whole body.

‘We haven’t been able to find any accommodation for your Mr Thorpe,’ he said. ‘There aren’t many places round here, as you know, and they’re all full.’

‘We can’t just turn him out on to the streets again,’ said Cooper.

‘We can’t keep him here either. Unless you’re thinking of charging him with something.’

‘No.’

‘Well, we’re running out of options. I wanted to get the doctor to take a look at him, because he’s obviously ill. But Thorpe won’t have it, and I can’t force him. He knows perfectly well he’d end up in a hospital.’

‘Wait a minute,’ said Cooper. ‘I know someone who might take Mr Thorpe in for a while.’

‘Do you? He says his only relative is his father, who doesn’t want to know him.’

‘No, not his father. A friend who’s taken him in before.’

‘I’ll leave it with you for a bit, then,’ said the sergeant. ‘But he’ll have to be out of here before long, mind.’

Cooper held the phone to his ear with one hand while he tried to sort out the paperwork on his desk with the other. He had a system of wire trays that were supposed to help him keep order. But he didn’t really need the ‘in’ and ‘out’ trays. Just one very large one marked ‘pending’ would have been enough.

‘No,’ said the voice at the other end of the line.

‘Mr Proctor, I hope you’ll reconsider,’ said Cooper. ‘You said you couldn’t let Will Thorpe stay there in the summer because the site fills up with paying customers, but those old caravans are just standing empty. What would be the problem in letting Mr Thorpe stay in one of those for a while longer?’

‘I don’t see why I should,’ said Proctor. ‘He’s not my responsibility.’

‘He has nowhere else to go. He’ll be out on the streets again very soon, and he might be at risk.’

‘You know he caused trouble with my customers when he was here before?’

‘Yes, but this will only be for a night or two, until we can find somewhere more permanent.’

Proctor was silent for a moment. ‘Does Will know about Mansell Quinn and all that?’

‘Yes, we’ve told him exactly what we told you.’

‘Are you sure there’s nowhere else he can go? There must be hostels.’

‘They’re full at the moment.’

‘Or there’s his father. He lives just over the pass, in Peak Forest.’

‘His father won’t have anything to do with him. Apparently, they haven’t spoken for years.’

‘The old man’s a miserable bugger. I met him once.’

‘So …?’

Proctor sighed. ‘I suppose I’ll have to come and fetch him myself, too?’

‘We’ll be happy to deliver him to your door, sir.’

‘Well, that’s something.’

‘Thank you for your assistance, Mr Proctor. I’m sure Mr Thorpe will appreciate it.’

‘Oh, yes,’ said Proctor. ‘I’m sure he will.’

Cooper waited with William Thorpe while a car was arranged to take him back to Wingate Lees. The death of Rebecca Lowe had clearly come as a shock to him. He, for one, hadn’t been reading the papers or catching the news on TV. Mansell Quinn might be relying on there being more people like Thorpe, who weren’t watching out for him in the Hope Valley.

‘Mr Thorpe, how well did you know Carol Proctor?’ asked Cooper.

‘Carol? Not as well as Mansell did.’

‘How would you describe her marriage to Raymond Proctor?’

Thorpe coughed. ‘I think she found Ray a bit boring. She was much more adventurous than he was. If you ask me, it was one of those marriages where they only found out what a bad match they were when it was too late.’

‘Adventurous?’ said Cooper.

‘Yeah. From what people used to say about her, anyway. She had a reputation from being a teenager, and I don’t suppose she changed very much.’

‘Would you care to expand on that a bit?’

‘Let’s just say,’ said Thorpe, ‘that she didn’t care for the same diet all the time. She liked to try out spicier food now and then. If you know what I mean.’

‘Like Mansell Quinn?’

‘Mansell? I suppose you might call him spicy.’

Thorpe laughed his rattling laugh, but soon became breathless.

‘Are you sure we can’t get a doctor to look at you while you’re here?’ said Cooper.

‘No,’ said Thorpe firmly. ‘Just bring this car and let me get away from here. That’s all I want to do.’

Cooper went to the door to look for the car. He noticed the cement dust still on the knees of his trousers, and brushed it off. He thought about the curious relationship between the three men — Mansell Quinn, William Thorpe and Raymond Proctor. The army provided a link between Quinn and Thorpe, and that might go some way towards explaining their bond. For whatever reason, Thorpe had felt an obligation to Quinn and had done him a favour when he was approaching the end of his prison term.

Of course, Raymond Proctor had felt some obligation to William Thorpe, in his turn. He’d put Thorpe up at his caravan park for a while when he needed somewhere to stay. And Proctor hadn’t been in the army, so it couldn’t have been due to comradeship among ex-soldiers. Did the origins of the obligation go back to the events of 1990, or beyond?

Cooper turned to look at Thorpe. The most interesting fact in this three-cornered relationship was the absence of any similar bond between Quinn and Proctor. It was understandable in the circumstances, he supposed. Proctor believed that Quinn had killed his wife, after years of carrying on an affair with her.

Curiously, it seemed that Will Thorpe had been the one to feel guilty. But guilt could make people act in strange ways. Thorpe had felt under some obligation to Quinn, certainly. But he feared him, too.

A patrol car pulled up near the door at last, and he signalled to Thorpe. He watched the man get to his feet, looking thin and tired. Cooper knew that fear and anger were simple emotions, easy to understand. Guilt was far more difficult.