Scared to Live

10

Tuesday, 25 October

An incident room had been opened up in Edendale for the Rose Shepherd enquiry. A fatal shooting was still rare enough in Derbyshire to make Miss Shepherd’s murder a high-profile case, even if she hadn’t been a respectable middle-class woman gunned down in her own home.

Watching the staff arriving at E Division headquarters, Cooper deduced that the HOLMES system was being activated. He recognized an allocator he’d worked with on a previous enquiry. The others would be data inputters, a receiver, an analyst.

With no obvious lines of enquiry that might lead to a quick conclusion, the HOLMES computer indexes would be vital in sniffing out correlations as information came in. One tiny detail could send the investigation in a new direction.

Before the morning briefing started, Cooper joined a small crowd examining the display of crime-scene photographs from Bain House and the field behind it. Some of the interior shots showed the victim from different angles before her body was removed to the mortuary. On the lower part of her torso, where it was in contact with the floor, there was a large, bruise-like discoloration that he hadn’t noticed before. That was dependent lividity — the effect of gravity on blood that was no longer being pumped through the veins. At least it showed that no one had moved the victim after she was killed.

‘The victim was killed with a semi-automatic weapon, at least three shots fired in rapid succession,’ said DI Hitchens, opening the briefing. ‘We know it wasn’t a bolt-action rifle. Since even one of the shots would have put her down on the floor, the second shot has to have followed rapidly to strike the victim before she fell. Otherwise, she’d have been out of sight below the window sill, with no chance of a second shot hitting its target.’

Officers around the room began to call out questions, their voices difficult to distinguish.

‘What about the third shot?’ asked someone.

‘If we follow a rough trajectory from the impact to a point in the field where the suspect’s vehicle was positioned, we see that the third shot passed through the window at about the same height and the same angle as the others. Exactly where the victim had been standing, in other words. So the third shot was probably fired after she’d already started to fall. That’s why it missed.’

‘Could that have been the first shot, rather than the third? I mean a miss, followed by two hits when the shooter got the range?’

‘Possibly. But the other two shots were very accurate. A head shot, and one near the heart. Besides, if you heard a shot and felt a high-velocity bullet whizz past your head, your first instinct would be to dive for cover.’

They all looked at the photographs of Rose Shepherd with a dark hole in her chest and another near her left eye. Her right eye remained open, staring in amazement at the ceiling.

‘This lady did none of those things, so far as we can judge,’ said Hitchens. ‘It appears the bullets struck her before she could react. But we’ll get the opinion of the pathologist, of course.’

The DI paused, but there were no questions, so he continued: ‘We’ve got preliminary reports from the teams on house-to-house. We’re looking for a blue Vauxhall Astra that was seen in Foxlow in the early hours of Sunday morning, about the time of the shooting.’

‘Just one sighting?’

‘No, two. The Astra was seen driving into the village about eleven thirty, and leaving at about three a.m. It’s possible some of the neighbours heard shots between two a.m. and four, but we can’t narrow down the time of the shooting any further than that right now. So I’ve asked for input from the intel unit. We need a list of pos sibles who fit the MO.’

‘What about prison releases?’

‘Yes. Any suggestions?’

‘You know our intelligence feed from HQ is never up to date, sir.’

‘We’ll have to use the informal mechanisms, then,’ said Hitchens.

‘You mean “phone a friend”?’

‘That’s right.’

There were a few ironic laughs around the room. Yes, sometimes the old ways were still the best, they seemed to say.

Another hand went up. ‘What about the gun, sir?’

‘Well, we don’t have the weapon yet,’ said Hitchens. ‘But we do have some bullets. Unfortunately, the heat generated by firing a gun destroys any DNA on the bullets. It’s sometimes worth having a look at the casings, though.’

‘But there aren’t any casings.’

‘Yes, there are. We just don’t know where.’

At one time, Cooper would have tried to stay at the back of the room during these briefings. If you sat at the front, you might be expected to contribute, and he’d never really had the confidence to do it in front of a crowd of people, most of them more experienced than he was. When he did have ideas, he usually preferred to share them discreetly with his DS or the DI, in case he was scoffed at.

But today, he found himself near the front, propped against the wall where Hitchens could see him. Cooper suspected the DI would pick him out at some point. He’d been a member of the force’s competition shooting team for several years, and he knew a bit about guns. Just as he did about lamping — though he’d only ever taken part in the legal kind. Well, probably. Even better, he knew a few people who were obsessed with guns, including some Territorial Army members, the weekend soldiers who trained in their spare time for reserve duty in Bosnia or Iraq.

Hitchens cocked an eye towards him. ‘Anything you want to contribute at this stage, DC Cooper?’

He straightened up, trying not to notice all the eyes suddenly turned towards him.

‘If we’re looking at the possibility of a professional hit, I can tell you that snipers are trained to pick up their brass,’ he said. ‘That would explain why there are no casings. They’re also told not to leave other clues to their identity or their shooting location. A trained person reconnoitres the site and selects a place that gives him cover and an escape route. Then he takes his shot. But normally only one — the sniper’s motto is “one shot, one kill”.’

‘But this suspect took three shots.’

‘To me, that doesn’t sound like a real professional.’ ‘There was no sign of any casings in the field, so we presume our suspect stayed long enough to pick them up.’

‘Well …’ began Cooper.

‘Yes?’

‘At night, in a ploughed field, that would be quite tricky. You’d be lucky to find one, let alone all three.’

‘True,’ agreed Hitchens, looking at him with interest.

Cooper leaned back for a moment and pictured the scene. He imagined himself sitting at the wheel of a car at night, in a ploughed field, with the driver’s window open and three bullet casings lying on the ground somewhere outside the vehicle.

‘Not just tricky,’ he said. ‘It would mean the suspect getting out of the car and leaving his footprints in the soil. He would pick up earth on his shoes and trail it back into the vehicle. That’s three possibilities for trace evidence. But the scenario doesn’t fit, does it? It’s not consistent with the planning before and after the hit.’

‘And there were no footprints in the area where the shots were fired from, just tyre marks,’ pointed out Hitchens. ‘Maybe the casings fell close enough to the car that the gunman was able to lean out of the door and pick them up without leaving the vehicle.’

‘No, that won’t work. It was a high-powered rifle. The casings would have been ejected at speed.’

‘What, then?’

‘The only possibility I can see is that the casings must have been ejected inside the car.’

‘Is that possible? If he was firing a rifle from the driver’s seat?’

‘The car was facing northwards, up the field, wasn’t it? With the back fence of Bain House on the driver’s side?’

‘Yes.’

‘Then, no,’ said Cooper. ‘I don’t think it is possible. Whoever fired the rifle would have had to be in the passenger seat.’

There was a sudden buzz of interest. Cooper felt himself flushing — not with embarrassment, but excitement. He was sure he’d got this right. He could see it so clearly.

‘We’ll have to get this checked out properly,’ said Hitchens.

But Cooper mimed holding and pointing a rifle. ‘Imagine it. With the window wound down, you’d want to rest the barrel of your weapon on the door for stability while you were aiming. It wasn’t too distant a shot — a hundred yards is nothing. But even so, you’d want to be sure. That means the stock and the chamber would be well inside the vehicle, so your casings would eject against the back of the seat.’

‘He was shooting from the passenger seat?’

‘No, it would have to be from the back seat,’ said Cooper.

‘Wait a minute. This would suggest two suspects, right?’

‘One to drive and one to shoot. It’s the only way.’

‘Two suspects … It makes sense,’ said DCI Kessen, speaking for the first time. ‘They went into the field, did the job and drove straight out again. No one would want to hang around climbing over seats or packing a weapon away. From their point of view, they were already taking a bigger risk than they might have cared for. Having a separate driver would cut down tremendously on the time they were exposed. Unfortunately, our witnesses say there was only one person in the Astra.’

‘OK. That was useful, Ben. Thanks.’ Hitchens looked at his file, indicating that he wanted to move on. A discussion could last all morning if they got stuck on one subject.

Cooper glanced across at Fry, who was watching him closely. She nodded and almost smiled. That was high praise indeed, coming from her.

‘The good news is that we’ve got some calls coming in from the public in response to photos of Rose Shepherd in the media this morning,’ said Hitchens. ‘So her passport photograph wasn’t too out of date. Most interestingly, we’ve got a couple of potential sightings in Matlock Bath on Saturday afternoon. That would be between six and sixteen hours before she was killed — in fact, around twelve hours, if we put any reliance in the evidence of her neighbours.’

The DI brought up a map of the area for everyone to see. ‘Matlock Bath is no more than three miles from Foxlow — on the A6, just south of Matlock itself. It’s a popular tourist spot, even at this time of year, so it would have been busy on Saturday afternoon. Maybe that’s why she chose it — anonymity in crowds. But if these are positive sightings, it didn’t work out that way. She must have stood out somehow for members of the public to remember her.’

‘There’s no CCTV in Matlock Bath, is there?’

‘No. This isn’t Glossop we’re talking about. They don’t expect major crime on the street. There will be some limited CCTV systems on commercial premises, but nothing on the street.’

‘There’s a webcam,’ said Cooper.

‘A what?’

‘A webcam. You can go on the internet and see a view of Matlock Bath promenade. I think they have it running pretty much every day.’

‘Who operates this thing, Cooper?’ asked Kessen, leaning forward in his chair.

‘I think it’s a photographic museum.’

‘Time lapse, I suppose?’

‘Yes, sir. But no worse than most CCTV systems.’

‘It would be too good to be true if it caught Rose Shepherd. But let’s check it out anyway.’

Hitchens waited to see if the DCI had finished. ‘Next thing,’ he said. ‘We’ve had the victim’s phone records checked, and we now know that a call was made to Miss Shepherd’s home number at three o’clock on Sunday morning. The call lasted only twelve seconds. As you might have guessed, the caller used an unregistered pay-as-you-go mobile. No account, no address. If our suspects knew what they were doing, they’d have bought a phone specifically for this one call, then dumped it. And it looks as though they knew exactly what they were doing.’

‘Pay-as-you-go phones,’ said someone gloomily. ‘The biggest gift that was ever made to drug dealers.’

‘And paedophiles. And terrorists. We need some legislation on this one, don’t you think, sir?’

‘That’s way above our heads, I’m afraid.’

‘Right. We’re just the poor buggers who have to pick up the pieces.’

Hitchens sighed, and departed from his notes. ‘Actually, true anonymity is hard to achieve these days. We might not be able to identify the purchaser of a prepaid mobile, but if the call credits are paid for by card or cheque, the payments can be traced back. Also, we can track the phone’s physical location, provided it’s switched on. But, in this case, assuming our suspects do still have the phone, it’s been switched off since the call to Miss Shepherd.’

‘Dumped it, like you said, sir.’

‘Exactly. Now for the victim’s background. You’re probably aware that this is proving a real headache. Whatever her reasons, Rose Shepherd went to extraordinary lengths to protect her privacy. She left almost nothing of a personal nature to give us an angle on her life. However, we’ve had time since yesterday to go through her cheque books and bank statements.’

‘Anything interesting?’

‘To be honest, I’ve never seen such a boring credit card statement as hers. I was hoping for something a bit revealing — I don’t know, a purchase of expensive wine, or a subscription to a porn website. But nothing out of the ordinary. Not a thing. Her bank statements show her Council Tax, electricity bill and water rates going out on direct debit. Her BT phone bill was paid online by credit card. There’s nothing here that tells us anything about her. All the evidence we have points to Miss Shepherd being a model citizen, paying her bills on time, being no trouble to anyone.’

‘Much too perfect to be true.’

‘Absolutely. I think we can all agree on that.’

‘Perfect citizens vote, don’t they? Is she on the electoral register?’

‘No. And she’s not in the phone directory either,’ said Hitchens. ‘All we’ve got is her passport, plus her bank statements and utility bills. The other strange thing is that there are no obvious personal contacts. There is an odd entry on a blank page in her address book, though. It’s just three digits: 359.’

‘A dialling code, perhaps,’ offered Kessen.

‘Well, we checked it out. The Highbury area of London comes closest — 0207 359.’

‘Inner London?’

‘Yes, London N1.’

‘What about the 0359 code? Where’s that?’

‘Nowhere. It’s a BT code all right, but it’s allocated for future network expansion.’

‘Could it be a country code?’ said Cooper. ‘Is there a directory somewhere?’

‘On the shelf.’

He picked up the directory and leafed through the pages towards the back. ‘They don’t list international codes by number, but by country, in alphabetical order. Hold on … well, that didn’t take long. It says here 359 is the code for Bulgaria.’

‘Oh, great. There’s a job for someone to follow up. Any volunteers?’

There was a ripple of laughter round the room as the atmosphere eased and officers recognized the end of the briefing approaching.

‘I know it’s going to be a pain in the neck for Scientific Support, but we should get someone to go over the whole house for fingerprints,’ said Kessen. ‘The fact that the victim didn’t spend too much time dusting should work in our favour.’

‘Meanwhile, the IT team are giving the laptop a going-over,’ said Hitchens. ‘If Rose Shepherd had information stored somewhere, it might be online. There are plenty of sites offering free web storage space.’

‘Protected by a password, of course. So we just have to hope we strike lucky.’

‘Basically, the victim’s story seems to be this: she kept herself hidden away in Bain House for the best part of a year, then for some reason decided to go for an afternoon out in Matlock Bath. That same night she was murdered by person or persons unknown.’

‘It’s as if she was hiding from someone. Do you think she was frightened of being recognized if she went out?’

‘Yes, she thought she was in danger. And it looks as though she exposed herself to that danger on Saturday. But we don’t know why. We’re working on the theory that the victim was seen in Matlock Bath by someone who followed her home to find out where she lived. Somehow, they also obtained her ex-directory phone number. Then they wasted no time in eliminating her.’

‘She must really have upset someone in the past.’

‘Absolutely. If we can establish why Rose Shepherd was in hiding, it should give us a lead on her killer. At the moment, she’s still something of an enigma. But that was all her own doing. In making it difficult for anyone to find her, Miss Shepherd also made it harder for us to identify her murderer.’

After the meeting, Cooper collected the actions he’d been allocated on the enquiry, then went straight to his computer. He Googled the Matlock Bath webcam and soon found the site. Life in a Lens, that was the name of the photography museum. The camera seemed to be mounted on the roof.

According to the caption, the webcam picture was updated every sixty seconds on weekdays, but it seemed to be more like thirty seconds when it began to reload. The picture was pretty grainy, of course. They’d have a hard time identifying anyone, unless there was detailed information available about what they were wearing at the time.

Matlock Bath was a bit like a seaside resort, but without the sea. Beyond the railings to the right there was just the shallow water of the River Derwent. The camera covered only a section of the road and the river beyond it. This was North Parade, looking northwards to Jubilee Bridge. But the picture showed almost nothing of the shops and cafes on the promenade, except for a glimpse of some buildings in the background.

It was a grey, damp day in Matlock Bath. The river was brown and choppy, and Cooper could see mist hanging on the slopes of the narrow valley. Cars and people were reflected in the wet tarmac of North Parade.

Fry stopped to look over his shoulder. ‘Is that Matlock Bath?’

‘Yes.’

‘It looks pretty miserable.’

‘It’s one of those places that changes completely at weekends, or in the summer. On a busy bank holiday, you wouldn’t recognize it.’

‘I’ll take your word for it.’

Cooper looked up at her. ‘Diane, do you think the internet is how Rose Shepherd created a social life for herself?’

‘It’s beginning to look that way, isn’t it? Why?’

‘I always find that a bit sad. I don’t think the internet was ever intended to replace social contact, only to make communication easier for people who were isolated from each other.’

‘As far as we can tell, Miss Shepherd was isolated,’ said Fry. ‘It’s just that she’d cut herself off deliberately.’

‘I can’t even begin to imagine living like that,’ said Cooper. ‘I’d get desperate very quickly.’

Fry reached for her phone as it rang. ‘It looks as though Miss Shepherd must have been a pretty strong-willed, self-sufficient woman, don’t you think?’

Cooper couldn’t answer her, because she began to talk into the phone. He thought about it for a moment, though. No matter how strong-willed and self-sufficient Rose Shepherd had been, she’d still got desperate in the end. So desperate that she’d made a bad mistake.

Then he noticed the webcam picture reloading on his screen. Within the space of thirty seconds, the stretch of promenade he was looking at had become deserted. The people had run for cover, the cars had moved on. Now there was no one at all to be seen in his grey, misty glimpse of Matlock Bath.

In response to a summons, Fry had joined Hitchens in the DCI’s office. Kessen didn’t look happy, despite his attempt to strike a positive note for the enquiry team when he wound up the briefing.

‘Sir, Rose Shepherd wasn’t on someone’s witness protection programme, was she?’ asked Hitchens.

Kessen shook his head. ‘I’ve already asked the question, Paul. But where’s her panic button? Where’s her minder? There’s no sign of anyone ever being in the house with her.’

‘It’s still possible, though.’

‘If she was an individual our intelligence is aware of, we’ll hear back soon enough. If not, one of the phone numbers in her book ought to turn something up. And if that still doesn’t bring anyone running, let’s hope the media coverage does.’

‘It’s like you said yesterday, there must be someone somewhere who’s going to miss her. But there doesn’t seem to be any family, no one to give us the background on her relationships.’

A family liaison officer had been assigned to Brian Mullen and the Lowthers. But in Rose Shepherd’s case, there was no grieving family, no one for an officer to be assigned to.

‘I wonder if I could borrow DC Cooper some time?’ asked Fry. ‘I could use a bit of help on the triple-death fire for a while.’

‘You can have him — once he’s completed his actions on the Shepherd enquiry. He and DC Murfin are going to check the sightings in Matlock Bath.’

‘Perhaps first thing tomorrow morning?’

‘I suppose so, Diane. All being well.’

When Cooper put his jacket on, he noticed some sheets of paper sticking out of his pocket. He pulled them out and unfolded them.

‘Damn you, Matt.’

They were the pages his brother had printed out the previous evening. He must have slipped them into Ben’s pocket when he wasn’t looking.

Cooper threw them down on his desk, intending to put them in the bin later. He walked to the door and opened it. Then he turned, went back to his desk, and picked up the papers. He felt tugged by some sense of obligation, but he wasn’t sure who to. His brother? His mother? Or perhaps to himself, or some unborn generation.Researchers are studying genes that may beinvolved in schizophrenia and looking for ways todirect treatment according to genetic make-up.Brain imaging has identified differences in thebrain for people at risk. Many studies have foundevidence of abnormal brain structure and functionin unaffected siblings. The advice is to talk with a psychiatrist face-to-face about what you’re experiencing, even if itis only occasional forgetfulness or a feeling thatyou’re ‘losing it’. What you’re experiencing maybe related to stress, and not to schizophrenia.

Cooper shuddered. Everyone thought they might be losing it at some time in their lives, didn’t they? It didn’t necessarily indicate a deeper problem.

But occasionally, such ideas did rise from the depths of his mind to settle on the surface, like a scum of decomposing leaves. It was best not to disturb them. They were black and slimy with putrescence. Leave them alone, and they’d sink to the bottom again, vanish in a bubble of gas. That was the best way. He wished Matt would understand it.