The Dead Place

31

Later that morning, Cooper finally got a chance to catch up on the files filling his pending tray, refreshing his memory of them in case there was anything important he’d forgotten. He didn’t achieve much. But handling the files made him feel a bit better, as if touching them might keep an enquiry alive.

He looked up to make sure he could get Diane Fry’s attention.

‘I think some of Audrey Steele’s family were responsible for that arson attack,’ he said. ‘Revenge on Audrey’s behalf.’

‘Revenge for what? We don’t know what happened to her yet.’

‘It would be an emotional response, not a logical one. But they were understandably upset, and they had to find someone to blame. I think they heard all they really wanted to hear last time I visited Mrs Gill.’

‘I saw some of the family at the woodland burial,’ said Fry. ‘I bet a few of them are known to us. One of them was Micky Ellis’s brother, for a start. Let’s see if we can find any violent offences on their records.’

‘This is the Devonshire Estate we’re talking about,’ said Cooper. ‘If they didn’t carry out the arson attack themselves, they’re bound to know people who’d do it for a few quid.’

‘You’re right. But we need to put some effort into it. I’d like to feel sure in my own mind that Audrey Steele’s family were responsible. Otherwise, I might start suspecting that someone at Hudson and Slack did it.’

Cooper nodded. ‘It could turn out to be very convenient for somebody that the personnel files were burned.’

‘Exactly. I’ve asked Forensics to recover as much as they can. But the fire and the firemen’s hoses did a pretty good job between them, from what I saw.’

‘That’s an odd thing, actually,’ said Cooper. ‘Those filing cabinets were steel. They’re designed to be fire resistant, as long as you keep the drawers closed.’

‘Those drawers looked as though they were open when the fire started.’

‘Yes, I think they must have been, for the contents to burn like that.’

Fry looked at him. ‘No, it means nothing. The arsonists probably opened the drawers and threw the files on the floor to get a better blaze going, that’s all.’

‘Confidential files? The cabinets should have been locked, surely?’

‘We need to ask the office staff.’

Cooper looked at his watch and began to put on his jacket. ‘Well, let me know if there’s anything you want me to do, Diane.’

‘Where are you off to?’

‘I want to speak to Vernon Slack again. He’s frightened of something, and I’m going to find out what. And then I might tackle Billy McGowan.’

‘McGowan? Not on your own, you don’t. Do you hear me?’

‘OK.’

‘And, Ben — what about the dog?’

‘I talked to one of the officers working with Poacher Watch. According to local intelligence, lampers often operate on parts of the Alder Hall estate, but there have never been any complaints from the owners.’

Fry smiled. ‘How strange. What do you bet that Mr Casey is making a bit of money on the side by giving them access?’

‘Taking a cut from poaching gangs? It’s possible.’

‘It would explain why he wants to keep the place to himself.’

‘Maybe that ex-employee would have something to tell us.’

‘Maurice Goodwin, yes.’

‘The thing is,’ said Cooper, ‘I reckon it was probably lampers who shot Tom Jarvis’s dog. They could have mistaken it for a fox, or a small deer. But Jarvis doesn’t seem to want to believe that. He’s assuming someone did it deliberately. In fact, I suspect he might even have a name or two in mind, but he’s not saying who they are.’

‘You’ll have to find a way of getting him to open up, Ben.’

‘I’ll try.’

‘By the way,’ said Fry, ‘David Mead called. You remember the rambling fireman?’

‘Of course.’

‘Well, Mr Mead has done a good job for us. He’s tracked down the people who left items in the Petrus Two cache — all except one. There’s just a single item on the list that no one is owning up to.’

Cooper studied her face, detecting the frustration she was trying to restrain.

‘Just one?’ he said. ‘Let me guess — the glow-in-the-dark skeleton key-ring? The classic symbol of death, a clever reminder from our caller.’

‘Actually,’ said Fry, ‘the key-ring was left by a twelve-year-old girl from Hathersage who goes out walking with her grandmother every Sunday. She bought the thing as a souvenir in Whitby.’

‘The Dracula Experience?’

‘Probably.’ Fry sighed. ‘As a matter of fact, the one unidentified item from the Petrus Two cache is the bloody Beatrix Potter book.’

Cooper sat watching his windscreen wipers as he waited for the funeral cortege to pass. Then he turned the Toyota round. He eased out into the road, cutting in front of a delivery van and raising his hand in a conciliatory gesture when the driver glared at him. He soon caught up with the last mourners’ car and stayed close behind it as the cortege wound its way through the wet streets. The limousines were so distinctive that he’d spotted them coming towards him before he got within three hundred yards of Hudson and Slack. There wasn’t much chance around here of staying unnoticed in a Daimler with personalized number plates, even without the oak veneer coffin in the back.

When Cooper arrived at the crematorium, Melvyn Hudson was already standing in the porte-cochere talking to Christopher Lloyd. Hudson seemed to recognize the Toyota. He lost interest in what Lloyd was saying to him as he watched Cooper park behind the mourners’ cars.

But Cooper didn’t approach Hudson directly. Let him worry for a few minutes. It was a good tactic, and he intended to exploit it. So he walked through the car park, past the floral tributes and the metal stakes with the day’s name cards on them. Many of the people cremated here were commemorated by rose bushes in the garden of remembrance. There were long, circular beds of them, separated by neatly mown grass. Cooper recalled Madeleine Chadwick’s enthusiasm for roses. The triumph of good over evil. The scented bloom and the eternal thorns.

The garden wasn’t as peaceful as he’d expected. Traffic on the ring road created a constant background to the sound of birdsong. The traces of mercury emitted from the crematorium chimney would be battling against exhaust fumes in the pollution stakes.

After the funeral party had gone into the chapel, Cooper looked around for the Hudson and Slack bearers. Having taken in the coffin, the bearers had left the chapel and were taking the chance to have a break until the service was over. They were standing in their black suits in the shelter of a wall near the cars, smoking cigarettes and chatting.

‘Mr McGowan? Could I have a word?’

‘Melvyn won’t like you turning up at funerals like this,’ said McGowan, watching Cooper with a thin smile. ‘It might be bad for business.’

He had a cocky waggle of the head when he spoke. Cooper had seen it before, usually in people who had experience with the police and thought they knew their rights.

‘Where’s Vernon today?’ he asked.

‘He called in sick.’

‘What’s wrong with him?’

‘No idea.’

‘Had he mentioned that he wasn’t feeling well?’

‘Not to me. Come to think of it, he’s not usually the type to be sick, or skiving either. Vernon’s the most reliable bloke we’ve got, in his way.’

‘Perhaps he had a hard night,’ said Cooper. ‘I don’t suppose it’s the best thing in the world to turn up at a funeral with a hangover.’

‘Well, I don’t know,’ said McGowan. ‘A few pale faces and sunken eyes would probably suit the occasion. A touch of the undead, if you get what I mean? As long as you don’t actually throw up in the hearse.’

Cooper smiled politely. He’d heard worse comments at scenes of violent crime — the ghoulish humour of people who had to laugh in the face of death, because they met it every day.

‘Anyway,’ said McGowan, ‘Vernon doesn’t drink.’

Ironically, it was something Vernon Slack had said that was bothering Cooper. And that puzzled him. After all, it wasn’t as if Vernon had actually told him anything — certainly nothing he didn’t already know. But he did see Melvyn Hudson and Christopher Lloyd and the others on a day-to-day basis, when they were off guard. Perhaps they weren’t too careful about what they said when Vernon was nearby with his head under a bonnet. In a way, Vernon might be the very person to see through the façades and know the truth.

Cooper went back over his conversations with Vernon. They’d been limited and brief. Awkward and unhelpful, in fact. He shook his head. There was nothing jumping out at him. So maybe it wasn’t anything Vernon had said, but the way that he’d said it. If he hadn’t registered it at the time, he’d probably never recall it now.

‘There isn’t any need for it, you see,’ Vernon hadsaid. ‘We do the job and look after the grievers, andthen we go home. Sometimes, you don’t even know thedetails of a call until you turn up at the house to do aremoval. The boss sees to everything else.’

Cooper’s pace slowed a little as the memory came to him. He could hear Vernon saying it now, word for word, yet he hadn’t taken any notice of it at the time. It was probably nothing, of course. But it was something to mention, when the moment was right.

Gavin Murfin collapsed into his chair with a sigh, threw a paper bag into the bin and ripped open a plastic sandwich box.

‘Getting these names was like pulling teeth,’ he said.

Fry looked up. Was this an early lunch or a late breakfast? She could never tell with Gavin.

‘What names?’ she said.

‘The staff who worked at Hudson and Slack eighteen months ago.’

‘The what?’

Startled by her tone, Murfin stopped with a sandwich halfway to his mouth. ‘What’s up?’

‘Did you say you had a list of staff who worked at Hudson and Slack?’

‘Yeah. You asked me to get the background on Richard Slack’s RTA. Well, some clever bugger at the time thought it was a bit funny that Slack was doing a call-out on his own. What with that and the woman who thought she saw someone running off, this DC decided to check with everyone at the firm, in case Slack had contacted them before the accident. A waste of time, as it happens, but you’ve got to admit it’s thorough.’

‘Gavin, you’re wonderful.’

Murfin bit into his sandwich with satisfaction.

‘Cheers. Do you want to phone my missus and tell her that? She’d appreciate it.’

‘We lost Hudson and Slack’s personnel records in the fire last night,’ said Fry. ‘Very convenient for Mr Hudson, it seems. He tried to make out his records weren’t comprehensive, because some of his staff were casual workers.’

‘Presumably he must have known who they were, though. He had to pay them, after all.’

‘Well, I suppose that might have been the problem. Cash with no questions asked.’

‘And nothing going to the tax man, like?’

‘Well done anyway, Gavin. Is there anyone we know on the list?’

‘Not that jumps out at me. But I’ll get them run through the PNC and do an intelligence check.’

‘Let me see.’

Murfin passed across the list. Fry was glad to have it in her hand before any more crumbs landed on it. She glanced quickly down it, noting a few familiar names, but several that were new to her. Eighteen months wasn’t all that long ago, but there seemed to have been quite a turnover, particularly among the bearers and drivers.

‘Oh, wow,’ she said.

‘What’s up now?’

‘That’s one name I didn’t expect. Thomas Edward Jarvis, Litton Foot. This is the man with the dogs, isn’t it, Gavin?’

‘You’re right,’ said Murfin. ‘Didn’t one get shot?’

Fry put down the list. ‘Who would have guessed that Mr Jarvis once worked for Hudson and Slack? Not his friend Ben Cooper, I bet.’

‘Are you going to tell him, Sarge?’

But Fry only stared at him again as he finished off his sandwich.

‘Gavin,’ she said, ‘what do you mean “the woman who thought she saw someone running off”?’

This morning, the bereaved had opted for traditional music. Cooper could hear the sound of an electronic organ playing the first mournful notes. He was watching the previous party of mourners file past the flowers in the rain when his mobile rang, and he recognized Fry’s number on the caller display.

‘Yes, Diane?’

‘Thomas Jarvis. Did you know he worked at Hudson and Slack eighteen months ago?’

‘No, I had no idea,’ said Cooper.

‘He’s never mentioned that when you talked to him?’

‘No. Well, there’s no reason why he should have done — the subject of Hudson and Slack never came up. But you’re sure he worked there? Eighteen months ago?’

‘He was listed as an employee during the enquiry into Richard Slack’s crash.’

‘It’s certainly an odd coincidence, isn’t it?’

‘Coincidence? Ben, you do like to give people the benefit of the doubt, don’t you?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘We wondered why none of Jarvis’s dogs detected the presence of a decomposing corpse while it was lying in the woods close to his property,’ she said. ‘Remember?’

‘Yes, but there was a possible explanation for that. Somebody might have returned to the site and exposed the remains fairly recently, after they’d already become skeletonized and the odour had dissipated.’

‘But there’s no evidence to support that theory, is there?’

‘Well, no.’

‘So we should consider an alternative scenario.’

Cooper didn’t like the sound of that. In Fry’s vocabulary, an alternative scenario usually meant bad news for somebody.

‘You have a scenario in mind, do you, Diane?’

‘Of course. What’s more likely than that one of Jarvis’s dogs did detect the decomposing corpse? Maybe all his dogs knew the corpse was there and made a fuss about it — barked or pointed at it with their noses, or whatever dogs do.’

Cooper laughed. ‘And don’t you think Tom Jarvis would have realized?’

‘Yes.’

There was silence on the other end of the phone as Fry waited expectantly. Cooper knew he was supposed to reach the same conclusion that she had, without having to be prompted. In this case, there was a conclusion he didn’t want to come to. But she’d lose patience if she had to wait too long.

‘For God’s sake, Ben,’ she said. ‘What if Jarvis didn’t take any notice of the dogs’ behaviour for one very simple reason — he already knew perfectly well that the body was there.’

Cooper began to pace up and down, aware of some of the mourners for the next funeral watching him.

‘Yes, I understand what you’re saying, Diane.’

‘You’ve got to make Jarvis talk. I know what you’re like when you get together with one of your rural soul mates, Ben. You communicate in manly grunts and meaningful silences. But make sure you ask him some tough questions.’

‘I’ll do it today. But I have one other visit to make first.’

‘OK. And there’s another thing you need to know …’

Cooper had already started heading back to his car. He swapped the phone to his other hand to reach the pocket with his keys in.

‘What’s that?’

‘Do you remember that Mr Slack was on his own when he died in the car crash?’

‘Yes?’

‘Well, I wondered about that. How likely is it that a funeral director would go out to a call on his own? There’s no way one person can shift a dead body easily, unless it’s a small child’s.’

‘Maybe someone was going to meet him there?’ said Cooper.

‘Well, it’s possible. But Gavin had a look at the inquest report.’

‘And?’

‘There was some question over the testimony of a witness — a female motorist who was first at the accident scene and called 999. She told the traffic officers she’d seen someone about half a mile back, before she came on the crash site, which was just around a bend. She saw somebody jogging near the side of the road. It was pitch dark, of course. Unfortunately, she had no reason to take notice at the time — it was before she knew there was a crash. She was just struck by the fact that the individual was running. And, most importantly, he wasn’t running along the verge but up the banking, as if he was heading across the fields away from the road. She had the impression he’d done that because he heard her car coming.’

‘Definitely a man?’

‘She was fairly confident about that.’

‘It’s very vague, Diane.’

‘That’s what the coroner thought. There was no convincing evidence that anyone was in the van with Richard Slack. The staff at the firm were interviewed, but they all said the same thing — Richard hadn’t asked them to go with him on the call.’

‘What are you saying?’

Cooper was still standing by his car when the organ started up in the crematorium chapel. Not ‘Abide With Me’, but something else that he couldn’t identify at first. The voices of the congregation coming in on the opening lines disguised the tune, rather than making it clearer.

‘It was a very late call,’ said Fry. ‘Three o’clock in the morning. I think Richard Slack wouldn’t have wanted to call out one of the casual staff. A family firm like that, I think he would have phoned his partner to do the job.’

‘Melvyn Hudson.’

‘Of course.’

‘Diane, even if your theory is correct, a passenger leaving the scene of an accident isn’t a major crime. If Hudson was in the van, he might have been injured himself. He might have been in shock or something.’

‘Like I said, this was a really late call. Early hours of the morning, in fact. There was no traffic around on that road at three a.m. The lady who found the crash was only on the road because she had to catch an early flight from East Midlands Airport and it was a shortcut from her home to the M1. As the coroner said, the absence of traffic was unfortunate. Because Richard Slack wasn’t killed immediately. He died from loss of blood, and from choking on his own vomit, as a result of the position he was left in after the crash.’

‘Oh, God.’

‘Exactly. The medical reports said he would most likely have survived, if only somebody had been on hand to put him into the recovery position and phone for an ambulance. But nobody was. And so Richard Slack died.’

At last, Cooper recognized the hymn drifting from the chapel: ‘The Lord’s My Shepherd’. Two lines floated clearer than the others across the garden of remembrance. ‘Yea, though I walk in death’s dark vale, Yet will I fear no ill.’

A few minutes later, Cooper drove on to the Devonshire Estate. He went a few yards past Vivien Gill’s house, checking the number of cars on the street, before he parked at the kerb and walked back to her front door.

‘I thought you’d finished with me,’ said Mrs Gill. ‘It’s all over and done with now, as far as I’m concerned.’

‘You’re not interested in finding out who stole your daughter’s body?’

‘That’s up to you. The general opinion is that you won’t get anywhere.’

‘The general opinion? Do you mean among your family?’

‘We talked about it after the funeral on Saturday, obviously.’

‘I’ll bet you did,’ said Cooper. ‘A few drinks in the pub and the talk got a bit heated, I imagine?’

‘Some of my family were upset. I was upset, too. We can’t believe what happened, and you people aren’t likely to do anything about it, are you?’

‘I see. So you decided to take matters into your own hands.’

‘Me?’

‘Oh, not you, Mrs Gill. But I’ve met some of your relatives, remember.’

‘I don’t want to hear you talk about my family like that.’

‘Are you related to Micky Ellis?’

‘Yes, but only by marriage through my eldest daughter. What of it?’

Cooper sighed with exasperation. ‘Mrs Gill …’

‘I think you’d better go now,’ she said.

‘I need to know — ’

‘You’re wasting your time. I’m not going to tell you anything about them. Not even their names or where they live.’

‘We’ll be able to find out, you know.’

‘Do it, then. Arrest me, and lock me up. I still won’t tell you anything. Nor will anyone else.’

Cooper nearly swore with exasperation. The woman gazed at him defiantly, her chin lifted, her mouth turned down in an expression of stubbornness, verging on contempt.

‘And if you’re not going to do that, I want you to go,’ she said. ‘If I ask you to leave my house, you have to, don’t you?’

He stood up, and turned angrily on his heel. ‘Mrs Gill, don’t you realize what they’ve done? They’ve destroyed the records that could have helped us to find out who stole Audrey’s body.’

Her expression slipped a little then, revealing a flicker of doubt. But in a moment her face closed again, and she walked to the door.

‘I’ll say goodbye,’ she said. ‘And that’s all I’ve got to say.’

DI Hitchens called Fry into his office and asked for an update. He listened with interest while she ran through the possible scenarios.

‘Have the media shown any interest in this enquiry yet?’ he asked.

‘They used the appeals we gave them with the facial reconstruction, and a bit of stuff on Sandra Birley. But nothing else seems to have leaked out.’

‘Good.’

‘It’s odd, really.’

‘Why?’

‘Well, I’d have put our man down as the type who badly wants publicity. Needs it, even. He must have realized by now that we aren’t going to share what we have with the press. Wouldn’t you expect him to do something to get the attention of the media? A call to a journalist or something.’

‘Wouldn’t it be a bit risky?’

‘Not as risky as his calls to us. He obviously doesn’t mind taking a bit of a risk.’

‘You’re right, Diane. Let’s think about that for a minute. It might give us a lead on him. What sort of person would take the risk of communicating directly with the police, but avoid the press?’

‘Sir, we don’t know that he has avoided the press,’ said Fry. ‘What if he’s phoned one of the newspapers or the local radio station, and they’ve done nothing about it or haven’t taken him seriously?’

‘He wouldn’t be very happy about that.’

‘No.’

‘Is there any way we can enquire discreetly of our media contacts whether they’ve had a call?’

‘Discreetly? No, there isn’t. No matter how we approached it, they’d sniff out a story. We’d be defeating our own object, unless we can put pressure on them to keep it to themselves.’

‘OK. Maybe it’s not worthwhile. But make sure the press office is briefed on how to deal with the issue if the media do get a call from him.’

‘With discretion?’

‘Exactly.’

‘From our point of view, it’s possible that a lack of response from the media is the best thing that could happen. If he is a publicity seeker, it will infuriate him not to be taken seriously. Then he’s likely to go to greater lengths to attract attention. That’s when he’ll make a mistake.’

‘We hope.’

Hitchens nodded. ‘Thank God we only have the locals to deal with. The last thing we want is to bring the nationals down around our ears.’

‘Amen to that.’

Diane Fry’s phone rang. ‘It’s Pat Jamieson.’

‘Oh, Dr Jamieson. Thanks for getting back to me.’

‘No problem. I’ve dug out the records you were interested in — the Alder Hall bone collection.’

‘Excellent.’

‘But I think I can do better than that. I’ve asked around, and it turns out my predecessor who did the inventory is still in the area, though he’s long since retired. I’ve even got a phone number for you. You can talk to him directly about it.’

‘That’s great,’ said Fry, though the feeling in her stomach prevented her putting the right enthusiasm into the words.

Dr Jamieson sounded disappointed at her restraint. ‘Oh, well, here’s the number, if it’s any use to you,’ he said.

Fry wrote down the phone number that was dictated to her. Then she disappointed Dr Jamieson even more by not bothering to ask him for the name of his retired colleague. She already knew who it was.

‘And what about the remains from Litton Foot?’ she said instead.

Jamieson coughed and muttered for a few moments, and Fry thought she’d probably offended him. Then he began to prevaricate, like a defendant in the dock when asked a particularly probing question.

‘We don’t want to make a mistake with this one, Sergeant, so we’re not going to jump to any conclusions. There was no skull present, as you know. And in the absence of the skull, it’s much more difficult to provide a definite identification of human bones. Some of these remains are fragmentary, so … Well, we propose to carry out precipitin tests.’

‘Precipitin tests?’

‘It’s the only way to determine species.’

Fry could hear her own voice getting louder as she lost patience. ‘What exactly are you telling me, Doctor?’

‘I’m telling you that I can’t tell you anything until we’re absolutely certain,’ snapped back Jamieson.

It wasn’t clear which of them slammed the phone down first. When the door of the CID room opened, Fry looked up angrily, ready to take out her irritation on the first person she saw.

But it was DI Hitchens. He walked slowly into the room, like a man suffering a living nightmare.

‘Diane,’ he said, ‘we’ve got another body. And this time it’s a fresh one.’