One Last Breath

33

Despite the cattle grid that narrowed it to a single track, Winnats Pass was the main route from Castleton through to Chapel-en-le-Frith and the whole of the western side of the Peak District. It hadn’t always been the case, though. Just down the hill, Ben Cooper could see the remains of the old A625. A landslip from Mam Tor had swept it away after years of battling by the highways department to protect the tarmac from its unstable shale slopes.

Diane Fry looked tired. He wondered if she’d managed to sleep at all before the early morning call to the abandoned field barn above Pindale.

‘These hills are an odd shape,’ she said, as they drove up the steepest part of the pass.

‘It’s a coral reef,’ said Cooper. ‘Well, a limestone reef.’

‘Sorry?’

‘There was a tropical lagoon here. It stretched right down to Dovedale and Matlock, with a few volcanoes in the middle, and these reefs were the outer edge of it. The reefs were formed by algae and shells, the fossils of molluscs and corals. Fish teeth and scales, stuff like that.’

Fry said nothing. She sniffed and scratched her nose irritably.

‘Of course, that was when Britain lay south of the Equator,’ said Cooper.

Silently, Fry got a tissue out of her pocket and blew her nose.

‘You’re not impressed?’ said Cooper.

‘I’m waiting for you to start making sense again.’

‘But it’s true.’

‘Yeah, right.’

And it was true. The lagoon had existed here three hundred million years ago, and masses of shells had collected on the fore reef, where it shelved down towards the valley. It was one of the things Cooper had learned during his school project.

He could still remember his own incredulity when he read the description in the work pack. But the sight of the limestone reefs in Winnats Pass had convinced him — even before he found his first fossils, the perfectly preserved imprint of a spiral shell in a piece of limestone, and the outline of a tiny fish in the face of the cliff.

‘Your birthday is today, isn’t it?’ said Fry.

‘Yes, why?’

‘I was wondering if you’re old enough to be grown up yet.’

Carefully overtaking a cyclist who was going purple in the face on the climb, Cooper drove over the top of the pass. It had just occurred to him that Fry had taken the trouble to remember the date of his birthday — but he had absolutely no idea when hers was.

‘So it was too late, then?’ said Jim Thorpe. ‘He’ll never come home now.’

‘No, sir. I’m sorry.’

Mr Thorpe looked beyond morose today. Ben Cooper couldn’t even think of a comparison. The old man had been crying, and he looked as though he might begin again at any moment.

‘It wasn’t your fault, Mr Thorpe,’ said Cooper, shifting uneasily. Maybe he was undergoing an unnecessary guilt trip, but he had a sneaking suspicion that it had been partly his own fault.

‘I had to identify him,’ said Mr Thorpe. ‘I hardly recognized him at first. But it was William all right.’

‘He was staying at a caravan park near Hope, but he decided to leave. That was a mistake.’

‘A caravan park?’

‘Belonging to Raymond Proctor.’

‘Oh, yes. But why there?’

Cooper already felt guilty enough. ‘We agreed he’d be safer there, among other people. And I suppose he would have been safer, if he’d stayed.’

‘Why did he leave?’

‘I don’t know.’

The cat was sitting in the middle of the room, glaring at the visitors. Cooper sensed that it didn’t feel it was getting enough attention. It clawed at the carpet a bit, then clawed harder when nobody told it to stop. It came closer, and began to shred the table leg.

‘You never know what’s going to happen, do you?’ said Mr Thorpe. ‘It’s a bit like the weather in these parts. The sun might be shining one minute, but the next second you can be drowned by rain. Nobody can tell what’s going to come next.’

‘I’m sorry, sir,’ said Cooper.

Thorpe looked at him sadly. ‘You said you met my son, didn’t you?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘But you never answered my question.’

‘What was that?’

‘I asked you what you’d call him. A loner, an outcast, a tramp?’

‘No, sir. He was just a man who was lost without an institution to look after him.’

Cooper said it without having thought the idea through. But it sounded right. Leaving the army, Will Thorpe had been like a prisoner released after a long sentence, with his carrier bag full of clothes and no idea how much a bus fare home was. Thorpe and Quinn hadn’t been all that different.

As they left Rakelow House, Cooper noticed one more thing. The house stood on the western side of the hill. It meant that old Mr Thorpe would always be able to see the weather coming off the moor, if he took the trouble to look.

Gavin Murfin had been teamed up with a PC in plain clothes, and they had toured shops in Castleton with their photos of Mansell Quinn. Old-fashioned legwork, Murfin called it. He looked more exhausted than Ben Cooper had ever seen him, and he was stuffing a beef and mustard sandwich into his mouth with an air of desperation. Yet Murfin also seemed remarkably pleased with himself as he patted the PC on the arm like a friendly uncle and sent him to fetch the coffees.

The reason soon became obvious. Murfin had brought back another CCTV tape, and officers were gathering round the screen as he slotted it in.

‘This is from one of the craft shops in Castleton. It’s on the main street, near the car park.’

‘Near the bottom of the riverside walk to Peak Cavern?’

‘You got it. The staff recognized Quinn from the print we got off the camera at Hathersage. They remembered him coming in the shop on Thursday afternoon.’

Somebody leaned forward to press the button and run the tape, but Murfin wanted to do it himself.

‘Here we go.’

The view showed the interior of a small shop, crowded with shelves and display cases. The dark shapes glimpsed through the glass were objects made of Blue John, the spectacular mineral that was found only in one hill above Castleton. In the foreground, small items of jewellery glittered under a glass-topped counter. There were other kinds of stock, too: mugs and aprons, tea towels and postcards, the inevitable tourist stuff.

A group of girls were in the shop. They were jostling around the cabinets in a scrum of bare arms and white hips, with small rucksacks hanging from their backs. But after a moment or two, the crowd cleared, and a solitary figure was revealed behind them.

Murfin froze the picture. He approached the screen and pointed a finger at the figure.

‘Here — see?’

When he took his finger away from the screen, it left a greasy smudge of butter obscuring the very area he’d been trying to draw their attention to.

But Cooper had no doubt at all that he was looking at Mansell Quinn. The man was standing right at the back of the shop, completely still, so that the throng of girls seemed to break like a wave against a rock, passing on either side of him. Quinn was dressed only in shirt and jeans, his shirt open across his chest. Cooper thought he could see a scatter of thunder flies in the sweat on his throat and along his collar bones. Two straps could be seen under the folds of shirt, as if he were carrying the rucksack, too. Quinn wasn’t looking at the Blue John or other items displayed around him; he was staring straight ahead, as if his attention was fixed on something underneath the camera lens.

‘They’re only those tiny cameras,’ said Murfin. ‘You know the ones — like a little eyeball on a bracket? So the quality isn’t too good.’

There were a few mutters, but the conversation died down as Quinn’s gaze moved. He looked up slightly, and was staring directly at the screen. There was no doubt this time.

‘He’s a cocky bugger, isn’t he?’ said someone.

‘You can say that again,’ said Murfin. ‘Very sure of himself.’

Cooper saw a member of the shop staff move across in front of Quinn and pause for a moment. She must have spoken to him, because Quinn turned to look at her. She was probably asking him if she could help. Was there anything he was looking for in particular? He looked at her as if he didn’t understand, and shook his head. She spoke again. Perhaps she spoke more slowly and clearly this time, taking him for a foreign tourist. Quinn turned away from the assistant towards the door, and the rucksack became visible on his back.

Despite the grey, grainy nature of the image, Cooper felt he could read Quinn’s expression. Not cocky or sure of himself. Not that at all. Quinn looked like a man who was looking for something. But it was something he knew perfectly well he’d never find.

The moment DI Hitchens returned to his office, Cooper knocked on the door and asked to speak to him.

‘What is it, Cooper?’

‘The Carol Proctor case, sir.’

‘Look, I thought we agreed — ’

‘It’s only one thing. I just wondered — were there no other suspects considered?’

Hitchens sighed. ‘Well, the husband was looked at, obviously. Especially when some of the victim’s friends said there had been arguments between the couple.’

‘Arguments? What about?’

‘We don’t know. But all married couples have arguments at some time, don’t they?

‘I suppose so.’

‘Anyway, it wasn’t considered significant enough to follow up. If there had been any evidence against the husband, it might have been different.’

‘It might have been,’ said Cooper.

Hitchens looked at him closely. ‘I know, I know. It sounds as though we had our sights set on a likely suspect from the beginning. We were sure we’d get a conviction against him, and we didn’t find it necessary to look elsewhere. But the forensic evidence eliminated the husband. That’s why he dropped out of the frame.’

‘Sir, it seems to me there was precious little forensic evidence.’

Hitchens sighed. ‘I know. But that was then, and this is now.’

‘There’s one other thing, sir.’

‘Yes?’

‘The Quinns’ children, Simon and Andrea — where were they at the time?’

‘At school, of course. They were aged fifteen and twelve.’

‘They must have been due to arrive home about then.’

The DI had started to tap his fingers with impatience, but frowned at the question. ‘It’s a long time ago, but I’ve a feeling the girl went to her aunt’s house. The boy turned up later on, though. I remember that. Somebody intercepted him and took him to a neighbour’s.’

‘Much later? How soon after the murder happened?’

‘Well, it must have been pretty soon. He only had to come from the college at Hope.’

‘But, sir — ’

‘The case against Quinn was sound, Ben. He pleaded guilty in court.’

‘Yes, I know he did.’

‘Well, then. The fact that he confessed should put your mind at ease.’

‘Funnily enough,’ said Cooper, ‘that’s the one fact that worries me most of all.’

‘Two murders in a week,’ said Gavin Murfin. ‘It’s too much excitement for me, at my age.’

Diane Fry sat on the edge of her desk facing them. She’d just come back from a strategy meeting upstairs and was looking pleased with herself.

‘Just think yourself lucky, Gavin,’ she said. ‘You could have ended up working in Northern Ireland, where they have eighteen hundred unsolved murders on the books.’

‘If I was so stupid,’ said Murfin, ‘I’d have joined the army instead. At least I could have got shot at in a nice climate.’

Fry swung her legs impatiently. ‘Anyway, listen to this, guys. The pathologist confirms that William Thorpe died of strangulation. The blood came from someone else — a trail of it between the body and the doorway of the field barn, as well as the splatters we saw outside, in the nettles. So it definitely looks as though Quinn is injured.’

‘Maybe that’ll slow the bastard down, at least,’ said Murfin.

‘Alerts are going out, in case he seeks medical treatment of any kind.’

‘Did you hear that, Ben?’ called Murfin across the office. ‘Quinn was injured.’

Ben Cooper was opening a few birthday cards that had been left on his desk. One was from his colleagues in CID, another from Liz Petty in scenes of crime, signed ‘Hugs, Liz’. Somebody had tied a couple of silver helium balloons to his in-tray. They bumped gently against each other in the draught from Fry’s desk fan.

‘If that’s who it was that killed Thorpe,’ he said.

‘We have a sample of Quinn’s DNA now, Ben,’ said Fry.

‘No, we have someone’s DNA. We can’t say it’s Quinn’s until we find him and do a comparison.’

‘Yes, all right.’

Cooper looked up from his cards. ‘So how far did the trail of blood go?’

‘They couldn’t follow it beyond the gate. But if it is Quinn’s blood, it looks as though he’s made another mistake.’

‘Another?’

‘Being caught by two security cameras. Not to mention the trainspotter at Hope station.’

‘Yes, if Quinn went up there intending to kill Thorpe, he planned it very badly,’ said Cooper. ‘Getting angry and losing control of the situation, now that’s a different matter. I can believe that.’

‘This victim obviously fought back, anyway,’ said Fry. ‘That could be our breakthrough.’

‘Yes, Thorpe was the wrong person for Quinn to choose.’

Fry looked at him. ‘Still a bit doubtful, Ben?’

‘Thorpe wouldn’t have been any problem for Quinn, if he’d planned and executed his attack properly. The fact that Thorpe was able to fight back suggests bad planning. I’m surprised that Quinn even gave him the opportunity to resist.’

‘You make it sound like a spur-of-the-moment thing. But that isn’t possible. It’s not as if he came across Thorpe in the street. Quinn went to find him, just as he did Rebecca Lowe.’

‘Not quite the same. Unless Quinn had somehow got hold of a key, Rebecca must have let him in. There were no signs of a break-in, remember?’

Fry sighed. ‘Perhaps you’re right. But so what? What if Rebecca Lowe did let him in? Quinn might have tricked her into opening the door. Or she might have been taken by surprise to see him standing there on her doorstep. We can’t reconstruct the scenario clearly enough to know what happened immediately prior to the attack.’

Cooper pictured the abandoned field barn. He wondered if there was a spot where Quinn might have stood and watched it before approaching. But the site had been too open for that. He would have had to strike in complete darkness, which made things as difficult for him as for his victim.

‘Well, we’ll be making sure of one thing from now on,’ said Fry. ‘No other potential victims will be taken by surprise to find Mansell Quinn on their doorstep.’

She had that look on her face — the one that told Cooper she had something else to tell him, some parting shot. But before she got it in, he needed to mention another subject that was on his mind.

‘Diane, did you read the Neil Moss story?’ he said.

‘I had a look at it,’ said Fry. ‘But it doesn’t seem to have any relevance.’

‘You don’t think so?’

‘No. It was a terrible tragedy, but it happened forty-five years ago, Ben. And there’s no connection between Moss and Quinn, is there?’

‘Well …’

‘They’re not related, and Quinn can’t possibly have known him. It was too long ago.’

‘That doesn’t mean there isn’t any connection between the two,’ said Cooper. ‘But it does mean the connection is a bit more … psychological.’

‘Oh, my God.’

Fry looked at him with that exasperated expression he’d grown used to. ‘Would you care to explain that, Ben?’

‘Look, you have a man serving a life sentence in prison for a crime he says he didn’t commit. As far as he’s concerned, he’s there because his friends betrayed him. And then his family stops visiting him. He’s completely isolated, right? Locked up in a cell for the rest of his life. Walled up.’

‘OK, I think I see where you’re heading.’

‘And he reads the story of Neil Moss, who really is walled up. Moss died in complete isolation because no one could reach him.’ Cooper spread his hands, inviting Fry to share his thinking process. ‘In prison, people develop obsessions. They start finding things that seem to have immense significance, things they think relate specifically to their own lives. God knows, it happens to enough people outside prison. It’s so easy to let that grip on perspective slip.’

‘Well …’ said Fry doubtfully.

‘Look, when you were a teenager, wasn’t there some song in the pop charts whose words seemed to sum up your emotional state at that moment? So much so that you were convinced the song was actually about you.’

‘Heaven is a Place on Earth,’ said Fry.

Cooper paused. ‘Really? Belinda Carlisle?’

‘Yes.’

Fry began to looked irritated again, and Cooper decided not to pursue it.

‘Well, I think it’s possible that Quinn saw the Neil Moss story as some sort of metaphor for his own life,’ he said. ‘A symbol, if you like. And all the more meaningful because Moss is still imprisoned there in that shaft in Peak Cavern. He never got the chance to return to the outside world. He died in isolation and darkness.’

He saw Fry shudder. But he wasn’t sure whether she was reacting to the thought of Neil Moss dying in his limestone tomb, or to the childhood memories he’d inadvertently stirred up. ‘Heaven is a Place on Earth’?

‘So,’ said Fry, poking half-heartedly among the papers on her desk, ‘Mansell Quinn loses touch with his family and friends. He’s starved of normal communication. Then he finds this book in the prison library and he responds to a dead man’s voice speaking to him across the space of forty-five years — is that it?’

‘Something like that.’

‘Well, to be honest, it’s a bit more cosmic than anything I’d have come up with.’

‘I know, Diane.’

‘But there’s one thing that might not have occurred to you.’

‘What’s that?’

‘As I understand the story of Neil Moss, he ended up trapped in that shaft as a result of his own voluntary actions. He was there because of something he did, a miscalculation or a combination of unlucky circumstances. But he walked into it with his eyes open. It was a risk that he was prepared to take for his own reasons.’

‘Yes, I think that would be right,’ said Cooper thoughtfully.

‘Anyway, enough of the philosophy. You can hand in your thesis later. I thought you might like to know what else the SOCOs found in the field barn where Will Thorpe was killed, apart from the blood …’

‘Oh, what?’

‘The floor was packed dirt. Dry dirt — or it would have been. Ironically, it seems Quinn brought the rain in with him and created a couple of wet patches.’

Cooper felt his heart sink. It was an illogical reaction, but he knew Fry was about to prove him wrong again.

‘Footprints,’ he said.

Fry nodded. ‘They’re a bit trampled, but the SOCOs lifted a couple of good impressions from the sole of a right boot.’

‘And?’

‘They match the impressions from Rebecca Lowe’s garden.’

She handed him the report. A photograph of the dirt floor slid out, grainy and scattered with small stones, like the surface of the moon. He could make out the footprint clearly. The SOCOs must have been delighted. Even at a glance, Cooper could see they would have no trouble making a comparison.

‘What do you say now, Ben?’ said Fry.

Cooper blew out a long breath at the helium balloons. They bounced against each other, as if applauding quietly. ‘OK, what’s the next move?’

‘We’re hoping that he’s weakened by his injuries and the loss of blood. Quinn can’t have got far, so we’re going to hit all the places where he might be lying up.’

‘Such as?’

‘Peak Cavern, for one.’

When he came back to the place, the dead sheep had gone. Mansell Quinn quartered backwards and forwards across the area, but he was sure he had the right spot. His sense of direction was excellent. Above him he could see the limestone outcrop and the ledge where the sheep had been trapped. From below, he could hear the river, and he knew the path the women had walked on was near it, though he couldn’t see it. And here was the patch of leaf litter beneath the tree where the animal had fallen.

Clutching the wound on his side, Quinn crouched close to the ground. At least two pairs of boots had trampled the area since he’d left it, and there were signs of something heavy having been dragged down the slope.

He made his way downhill, stepping carefully to avoid tripping over rocks and tree roots. Suddenly he emerged into the open and found himself standing on a smooth surface made of compacted earth. The path here was wide enough for a small vehicle, perhaps an ATV of the kind that farmers used for getting around the furthest corners of their land.

Quinn grimaced. Because of the interruption, the sheep he’d killed had been found too soon. Anyone who took a close look at the carcass would be able to see that it hadn’t died by accident. Soon, the search parties would arrive in his dale.

Well, so be it. Quinn patted the crossbow in its bag across his shoulder. This meant the time was past for taking risks, for spreading fear among those who ought to be afraid. The time had arrived to finish the job.