One Last Breath

39

Ben Cooper had intended to head straight home, but somehow he never quite made it into Edendale. It was almost as though the Toyota steered itself away from Hucklow towards the Hope Valley.

When he reached Castleton, he carefully negotiated the market place and passed the Saxon-style cross to reach Pindale Road. The streets were narrow, and there seemed to be cars parked everywhere — not to mention the groups of visitors ambling in the roadway, as if they didn’t expect to encounter traffic. Uniformed police officers stood in pairs on the corners, watching the crowds.

The former Quinn home stood near the top of the road, above Hope View House. When he’d lived here, Mansell Quinn had probably parked his Vauxhall estate at the roadside, as everyone else did. Castleton was one of the places where residents got seriously wound up when they couldn’t park near their own homes because of the number of visitors’ cars. The little town had been laid out many centuries before motor vehicles had been invented.

Pindale Road became narrower the further up the hill he went. It would be possible to get a good view of number 82 from the houses across the road, if you happened to be looking out of the right window.

Cooper had to go a long way past the house and almost to Siggate before he found a wide enough verge to turn round. He drove back down the hill and parked in the gateway of an empty house, then knocked at the door of number 84, where the Townsends had lived in 1990.

But the helpful neighbours of the Quinns were long gone from Pindale Road, and had left no forwarding address.

Cooper drove back down the A625 through Hope and turned up Win Hill to Aston. In rural areas like this, his street atlas was vague about what was a road or a farm track and what was merely a footpath or bridleway. He wanted to see if the track that ran parallel to Rebecca Lowe’s garden ended at the nearby farmhouse, as it seemed to on the map, or whether it diverged at any point towards Parson’s Croft.

Sure enough, he found it was possible to get a car off the farm road. The track was wide enough to drive along the back of Rebecca Lowe’s hedge. It would be too muddy in the winter perhaps, but at the moment the surface was fine. A car could be parked unseen, and there were gaps in the hedge where anyone could approach the back door of Parson’s Croft.

But who would have done that? It was all very well having a feeling that Mansell Quinn didn’t fit the crime, but who else was there? Diane Fry herself had asked him if he had another suspect in mind. And, of course, he didn’t.

Raymond Proctor drove a bright red Renault van with the caravan park’s logo emblazoned on the side. It wasn’t the sort of vehicle to go unnoticed in the lanes of Aston. William Thorpe might have made it up to the house on foot. But if the Newbolds’ sighting was genuine, he’d already been to see Rebecca two weeks previously. Why would he come again? And why wasn’t he seen a second time — a passing vagrant would be sure to attract attention in this sort of neighbourhood.

That left only one person who was close enough to Rebecca Lowe. In fact, the only person who would logically have a key to let himself into the house. Granted, there wasn’t a glimmer of a motive that Cooper could see. But motive often came later, and could be surprising.

He still remembered a case from several years ago, where a seventeen-year-old boy had murdered his mother. Friends of the family had said the two of them always had a good relationship. But on that particular night, the victim had refused to let her son borrow her car to go out with his friends. So he’d killed her. Sometimes, it was impossible to understand what was going on in other people’s minds.

Simon Lowe lived in Edendale. Could he have been in the Hope Valley area when his mother was killed? There had been sightings of cars reported by residents, but what sort of car did Simon drive? Perhaps the information was recorded in the incident room. He could get someone to do a check.

Thinking about Simon brought Cooper back to the events of 9 October 1990. The transcript of the police interview with Mansell Quinn had been very frustrating. All those silences from Quinn when he was asked to back up his claim that someone else had been there. On paper, his silence had implied an inability to substantiate a false version of events. But Cooper would give anything for a video tape of the interview, so that he could watch Quinn’s face during those silences. He wondered if he would have been looking at a suspect caught out in a lie — or a man suddenly realizing the implications of what he’d seen and heard that day.

Obviously, he needed to know more about Simon Quinn. But who else could he ask, apart from the family?

As if on cue, his mobile rang. It was Diane Fry.

‘Ben,’ she said. ‘This Alistair Page — what address did he live at in 1990?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘But he was somewhere in the Pindale Road area, wasn’t he? Do you have a house name?’

‘Sorry.’

‘He’s not on the list of statements from that time, you see.’

‘He’d have been too young at the time,’ said Cooper. ‘Fifteen, he said.’

‘I see. So how did you meet him?’

‘Well, he came to find me one day when I was on duty at West Street.’

‘When was this?’

‘Only a couple of weeks ago. I think one of my friends must have mentioned my name to him. I suppose they thought I might be interested in liaising with the cave rescue organization.’

‘I suppose so. It’s not as if you’re Mr Anonymous around here, is it?’

‘Well, no.’

‘What’s he like? Reliable? Do you think he’s worth talking to about the Quinns?’

‘The impression I get is that he was a bit traumatized by the whole business. He’s desperately keen to know what’s going on, but he shied away when I asked him directly about Simon.’

‘They might have known each other quite well, then?’

‘It’s possible.’

‘I might talk to him, in that case. An independent view would be useful.’

‘Diane, is this — ’

Fry was silent for a moment. ‘It’s relevant to the official enquiry,’ she said.

‘I see.’ But Cooper wasn’t sure what she meant. ‘You’ve been looking at Simon Lowe, then?’

Fry hesitated. ‘He seems a bit of an enigma, that’s all.’

‘I agree.’

‘He was supposed to be at school that afternoon, but as far as I can see he turned up at Pindale Road much later than he should have done if he’d come straight home. Nobody seems to have asked him where he’d been.’

‘And why would they, in the circumstances?’

‘Exactly.’

Cooper gazed out of his car window at the back door of Parson’s Croft, trying to picture another house at another time.

‘How about this?’ he said. ‘I know it’s speculation, but …’

‘Go on.’

‘Well, if Mansell Quinn had been having an affair with Carol Proctor, it would have been devastating for the family to find out, right?’

‘Of course.’

‘What if they did find out?’ said Cooper. ‘Or rather, one of them did.’

‘Rebecca? You think she knew?’

‘No, not Rebecca. I mean Simon.’

‘Simon?’

‘What if he bunked off school that day and went home, not expecting anybody to be in. But he found Carol Proctor there.’

‘You mean if he’d walked in and found her lying dead on the floor? But why didn’t he phone?’

‘No,’ said Cooper. ‘That wasn’t what I meant.’

Fry was silent for a moment. ‘Do you have Alistair Page’s number?’

‘Diane, let me talk to him myself.’

‘All right. But let me know how it goes. As soon as you can, Ben.’

Fry rang off. Cooper wasted no time. He had the number he needed in his mobile phone already.

‘Alistair,’ he said, ‘I’m sorry to bother you about this, but I don’t know who else to ask.’

‘What is it, Ben?’ said Page. ‘Still worrying about radon? Or scared of getting trapped in a flooded cave?’

‘Neither. I want to talk to you about Simon Lowe. The boy you knew as Simon Quinn.’

Page seemed to go away from the phone for a moment, or to put his hand over the mouthpiece. But it could just have been a fade in the signal on Cooper’s mobile.

‘Simon?’ Page said when he came back on the line. ‘You want to know about Simon? Well, what can I tell you? We hung around together a bit as teenagers.’

‘He seems rather quiet and intense. And secretive.’

‘Secretive?’

‘He’s been trying to keep quiet about the fact that Mansell Quinn is his father,’ said Cooper.

‘I think we’d all do that, in the circumstances. It’s not something I’d want everyone to know about — that my father was a murderer.’

‘It would give you a lot of street cred in some circles, Alistair. If you lived on the Devonshire Estate in Edendale, it would get you elected king.’

‘Not Simon. That’s not the sort of street cred he’d be interested in,’ said Page. ‘Actually, as a teenager he was unpredictable, and he had a bit of a temper. You could never be sure what he would do if you aggravated him. I suppose he got that from his father.’

‘Possibly.’

‘Alcohol was a problem for him too, I remember. A few drinks, and he could flare up in a moment. And we drank quite a bit as teenagers. We had no problem getting booze when we were fifteen or sixteen.’

‘Bunking off school at lunchtime?’

‘Yes, now and then.’

Cooper tried to picture Alistair Page in his little cottage. He didn’t know whether Page was in a relationship, or even if he had children somewhere. He’d never mentioned anything about himself, except that he’d lived near the Quinns when he was a youngster.

‘Have you seen much of Simon recently, Alistair?’

‘No. I didn’t keep in touch with him very much after we left school, because I never really felt comfortable in his company. To be honest, I started to find him a bit scary.’

‘Why?’

Page was silent for a moment. Cooper could hear music playing in the background. It was a CD from Alistair’s collection: ‘I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For’. Very appropriate.

‘Ben,’ said Page, ‘if you want to know more about Simon Quinn, I think you’d better come to the house. Can you make it tonight?’

‘Yes, I think so. But not too early.’

‘That’s OK. At the moment, I’m doing a final security check at the cavern about nine o’clock each night, just before it goes dark. Come to my house after that.’

Dawn Cottrill hovered over Simon and Andrea Lowe like a mother. She had them both sitting alongside each other on the sofa in her lounge, looking out of a big picture window into the conservatory. Diane Fry and Gavin Murfin were ushered into armchairs opposite them, conscious of the light behind them and the sun on their backs of their necks.

Fry was struck again by the similarity between the brother and sister. They were both dark-haired, as Rebecca had been, though Simon was slightly lighter in colouring and a few inches taller. He hardly looked the dangerous type. Yet even before Fry spoke to him, she could see him undergoing those ominous dark flushes, as if waves of anger were surging through his veins.

‘How are you feeling now, sir?’ she said.

‘I’m fine. I had a headache for a couple of days, a few bruises, that’s all.’

Andrea patted his arm gently. ‘I don’t suppose you’re any nearer catching him?’ she said to Fry.

‘The person who attacked your brother? No. We think he used an edging stone from one of the graves in the churchyard, but we have no other leads, I’m afraid.’

‘Oh well, you’ll just have to write it off as an attempted mugging, I suppose,’ said Simon, flushing a deep red. ‘Some character spotted me in the pub and thought I looked worth robbing. It’s the obvious conclusion for our wonderful police force.’

‘Simon, don’t get stressed,’ said Andrea. ‘It won’t do any good.’

Fry waited calmly, observing how Simon reacted to his sister. Andrea was obviously the person he listened to. The closeness between them was palpable.

‘I’ve been talking to your grandmother, Mrs Quinn,’ said Fry, now addressing Simon without a pretence of including Andrea.

Neither of them reacted, but Dawn fussed along the back of the sofa behind them, then stopped and stared at Fry, as if she had just noticed something wrong with her.

‘I gather your father became concerned about whether you were his real son.’

‘Sorry?’ said Simon.

‘He seems to have had doubts about whether you were his son. Genetically speaking.’

‘Never mind “genetically speaking” — I know what you mean,’ said Simon, his face darkening again.

‘And do you have any idea why your father should have had doubts about your paternity?’

Simon sighed. ‘I suppose it was something I said in the heat of the moment. I didn’t mean it literally.’

‘You didn’t?’

‘No. This is a very strange line of conversation, Detective Sergeant. When you asked to see us, we were hoping you might have some news for us. Good news — the news we’ve been waiting for ever since our mother was murdered on Monday night. But apparently that isn’t what you’ve brought us.’

‘No. I’m sorry, sir.’

He nodded, with a tremor of agitation. ‘Well, I don’t know what it is you’re talking about, and I don’t see what possible relevance it can have to my mother’s death.’

‘You do believe Mansell Quinn is your father, then?’

‘Unfortunately, yes.’

‘So there wasn’t any need for you and your sister to change your surname?’

‘No.’

‘I understand why your mother would have wanted to change to your step-father’s name, but you didn’t have to. You were old enough to say no, and keep your own name.’

Simon leaned forward a little, as if to focus attention entirely on himself. As far as Fry was concerned, he didn’t need to do that. But she noticed Andrea exchange an anxious look with their aunt over her shoulder.

Fry didn’t know what she was expecting. Enid Quinn had told her that the DNA tests proved Simon really was Mansell’s son, so she had to come up with some other reason why Quinn should start to claim that he was innocent of Carol Proctor’s murder. The theory she had begun to form was in pieces.

If Mansell Quinn hadn’t committed murder in 1990, he must have had some idea in his mind who did. He surely hadn’t suspected Rebecca, who had been at work at the time with a dozen colleagues as witnesses. Yet she had become Quinn’s second victim on his release from prison.

And Simon? Had he, too, been an intended victim? Had Quinn been the one who attacked him outside the pub in Castleton on Tuesday night?

There was undoubtedly some missing factor that Fry couldn’t put her finger on. It was almost as if someone was absent from the equation — someone who provided the vital link.

‘Detective Sergeant,’ said Simon, growing impatient at her hesitation, ‘the fact is that we just didn’t want people to associate us with an unpleasant incident from the past. The name Quinn has connotations around here, a lot of history that goes with it. People still recognize it.’

‘I understand. But, from your father’s point of view, it must have looked like a betrayal.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I mean, the fact that his only son had disowned him.’

Simon raised his eyebrows. Then he surprised Fry by smiling, as if she’d said something funny again. In that moment, he reminded her of his grandmother, Enid Quinn. But she suspected she’d get even less out of Simon.

‘I wonder if I could ask you about the day Carol Proctor was murdered?’ she said.

‘What?’

‘I know it’s many years ago now, but I’m sure it must still be clear in your mind.’

Simon had gone very quiet, but the two women began to make protesting noises. Fry tried to override them.

‘You were at school that day, weren’t you, sir? Could you tell me what time you left school to go home?’

‘Detective Sergeant, please — ’ said Dawn Cottrill.

‘You were at Hope Valley College, as was your sister. Why did it take you longer than her to arrive home that day?’

Simon opened his mouth, but only one word came out.

‘I …’

‘I’m sure you must remember,’ said Fry. ‘We usually find trivial details like that are imprinted on people’s minds after a traumatic event.’

But Simon Lowe’s face had closed like a trap. His jaw clenched, and the veins throbbed in his temples as colour rushed to his neck and cheeks. In that second, he convinced Fry that he was a man possessed of a barely restrained temper, a man capable of violence.

‘I’m not answering any questions about that,’ he said. ‘It’s all in the past. Finished with. I won’t answer any more questions, and nor will my sister.’

Fry looked at Andrea, who nodded sharply.

‘Very well, sir. It’s your prerogative.’

Simon began to get up. ‘Now, if you don’t mind, Detective Sergeant, I have somewhere to go, and I don’t want to be late. If you do happen to have any news you think I’d want to hear, my sister will know where to find me.’

‘Not the sort of lad I’d want as my son,’ said Gavin Murfin on the way back to Edendale. ‘Not that we fathers get any choice in the matter.’

‘I grant you Simon Lowe isn’t very appealing,’ said Fry. ‘But, to be fair, he may not always have been that way.’

‘We need someone who can tell us, don’t we?’

‘We’ve already got someone,’ said Fry. ‘Oh, damn.’ She poked at the buttons on her mobile.

‘What’s up?’

‘Ben Cooper never phoned. He was supposed to talk to an old schoolfriend of Simon’s, some bloke called Alistair Page. But there are no messages from him.’ She dialled Cooper’s number, and cursed. ‘And now he’s switched his mobile off. There’s no signal.’

Murfin laughed. ‘You know our Ben,’ he said. ‘He’s probably in a cave again.’