The Kill Call

22

Cooper and Irvine were the first to arrive back in the area from their trip to Hawleys. They diverted off the A57 to Longstone Moor, where the body that had been spotted by a walker was being carefully recovered from Watersaw Rake. Mountain rescue had lowered a stretcher and rigged up the ropes to get it safely clear of the broken rocks.

‘We’ve identified him,’ said the officer in charge of the recovery team, as Cooper and Irvine reached the scene. ‘He was overdue to return to his B amp;B. Chap went for a walk right before the weather came down. Just bad timing.’

‘A tourist?’ said Cooper.

‘Yes, and a keen walker. Fit for his age, too. But he was walking on his own, and he seems to have stumbled into the rake in the fog.’

‘There’s a fence, though.’

‘He climbed over it – you can see his boot prints are right there. He must not have realized what was on the other side, poor sod.’

Cooper looked down at a damp blue object lying on the ground at the officer’s feet.

‘Is that his rucksack?’

‘Yes. He wasn’t heading far, but he came well equipped.’

‘Where was he staying?’

‘Middleton Dale. He told the owner of the B amp;B that he was going to walk up to Wardlow and back.’ The officer shook his head. ‘I know it was really foggy. But all he had to do was keep going in a straight line, and he would have reached the road, no problem.’

‘In fog, the loss of visual clues destroys your sense of direction,’ said Cooper. ‘In open ground like this, the tendency is to go round and round in circles. I reckon that’s what he must have done.’

‘At least the weather has kept most of the public away. No casual passers-by to disturb the scene. All you need with an incident like this is fifty members of the Healthy Life Rambling Club trampling through the scene with their fell boots and hiking sticks.’

‘But he was found by walkers?’

‘Three nosy retired bobbies.’

Cooper drew a damp wad of paper out of the pocket of the rucksack and carefully unfolded it on the ground.

‘What’s that?’ asked Irvine.

‘An Ordnance Survey map, Luke. Outdoor Leisure series, White Peak area.’

‘He should have been able to find his way with that, shouldn’t he? They’re incredibly detailed. Every slope and contour line is on them. Every field boundary.’

‘Yes, two and a half inches to the mile. You’d think it would have helped him, even in dense fog.’

When Cooper unfolded the wet mass, he discovered a cover picture of Dove Dale, one of the Peak District’s most popular limestone valleys, photographed in the summer, of course, with a few strollers by the riverside. And the cover of the map bore a price:? 2.95.

‘This is an old edition of the OS map,’ he said. ‘Yes, look – last revised in 1979. It’s thirty years out of date.’

‘Does that make a difference?’

‘Well, compare it to mine.’ Cooper drew his own map from a pocket of his coat. ‘I’ve got the most recent edition, reprinted in 2006. There’s Middleton Dale, just the same. And Black Harry Lane going up across the moor to Black Harry Gate. But then, see – in this big hollow -’

‘Blimey,’ said Irvine. ‘There’s a lake.’

‘A flash. Flooded quarry workings. On the old map it shows “Brandy Bottle Mine (Disused)”. But the mine has gone from the new map. The workings filled up with water, and the OS took it into account when they did their revisions.’

‘But our tourist wouldn’t have seen a stretch of water on his map. It wasn’t there, because his map was out of date.’

Cooper nodded. ‘When he reached water, he must have thought he was completely lost. He ended up disorientated, trying to work out where he was on the map.’

‘The poor bloke,’ said Irvine, looking at the map. ‘He was never more than a few hundred yards from a road.’

‘Which doesn’t help at all. Not if you’re walking round in circles.’

Cooper took a call from Diane Fry. She was still in her car somewhere, stuck in a bottleneck near Glossop.

‘This body,’ she said. ‘I suppose you’re at the scene, Ben?’

‘Looking at it right now.’

‘It isn’t Michael Clay, is it?’

‘Why would you think it’s him?’ asked Cooper.

‘Because he’s too elusive. I’m starting to think I’ll never get the chance to interview him. So please tell me this body isn’t Michael Clay.’

Cooper watched the body slowly being lifted to ground level, and an officer passing up something else that he’d found in the bottom of the rake. He leaned closer to take a look, and could see the manufacturer’s name and model quite clearly.

‘It isn’t Michael Clay, Diane.’

‘Thank God.’

‘But,’ said Cooper, ‘we do seem to have found Patrick Rawson’s phone.’

Fry drove back to West Street as fast as she could, bearing in mind the speed cameras on the approach to Edendale. But Sean Crabbe had already been processed through the custody suite by the time she arrived. His fingerprints had been taken in Live Scan, a sample of his DNA had been obtained on a buccal swab, and his personal possessions had been logged by the custody sergeant. Now he was waiting for the duty solicitor before being questioned.

DI Hitchens explained that a call had been put through after the young man’s mother had responded to the public appeal on the local TV news. She hadn’t called straight away, but had waited a couple of hours.

‘Otherwise, you would have been here for the arrest, Diane,’ he said. ‘It was just one of those things.’

‘It doesn’t matter,’ said Fry, though they both knew she was lying. ‘What made the connection for her?’

‘The mention of the old agricultural research centre. The TV people took some footage of it for background to the piece. You know – crime-scene tape, bobby fidgeting in front of the camera. She recognized the place. And she knew perfectly well that young Sean goes up there regularly when he bunks off from college. It turns out she’s been worried about him for a while, thinks he’s been going off the rails a bit.’

‘And he was up there on Tuesday morning?’

‘Mum didn’t know that for certain,’ said Hitchens. ‘But she remembers him coming home early that day and behaving oddly. She says he tried to make out he had ’flu, but she wasn’t fooled. Mothers rarely are, no matter what they tell us to our faces.’

‘If you say so.’

‘Anyway, young Sean is going to get a shock when he realizes his mum knew what he was up to all along.’

‘But why didn’t she call as soon as she saw the appeals?’ asked Fry.

‘Well, being of a suspicious nature but not wanting to think the worst of her beloved son without proof, she waited until he was out of the house and took a gander in his room. And she turned up the wallet in his underwear drawer.’

Fry looked at the plastic evidence bag. ‘Patrick Rawson’s wallet?’

‘Yes. And here are his credit and debit cards. Golf club membership. A pocket full of business cards – there might be some useful contacts there that we haven’t spoken to yet. Oh, and just under five hundred pounds in cash.’

‘Five hundred?’

‘For those last-minute cash deals, I suppose.’

‘I wonder if Crabbe spent any?’

‘Impossible to tell. We’ll have to ask him. We can’t find any record of him attempting to use the cards, so maybe he had the sense to hang on to the cash until things died down.’

‘If he had that amount of sense, why didn’t he get rid of the wallet?’ said Fry.

Hitchens shook his head. ‘No idea. We’ve seized the clothes Sean was wearing on Tuesday morning, and they’ve gone for forensics. Mum says he changed as soon as he came home that day, and showered. If we find Patrick Rawson’s blood on his clothes, it will look very bad for him.’

‘Does he have any previous?’

‘No, he’s clean. Not even a bit of juvenile on his record. Actually, he doesn’t seem the type from what I saw of him. Long hair, and a bit dreamy looking. I wouldn’t be surprised if he wrote poetry. You know the sort of kid.’

‘An emo?’

‘Is that what they call them?’

‘Emos are more likely to kill themselves than anybody else,’ said Fry. ‘Did Mrs Crabbe understand what she was implicating him in?’

‘She must have done, surely?’ said Hitchens. ‘Here’s his custody record anyway, Diane. The name is Sean Crabbe, aged twenty, student. He’s local, too – so his voice could well match the 999 call.’

Fry sat up straighter. ‘You want me to do the interview, sir?’

‘Well, why not?’

Sean Crabbe sat in Interview Room One, a desperately hangdog expression on his face. He was staring down at his hands, which gripped the edge of the table. His knuckles were white, a sign of the tension he was under.

If he’d been in any doubt about the seriousness of the charges he might face, he had been enlightened by his brief, who looked almost as anxious as Crabbe.

‘It wasn’t me who killed him,’ was the young man’s first sentence when Fry sat down opposite him and started the tapes.

‘Killed who, Sean?’ asked Fry, hoping this was going to be an easy one.

‘The man in the hut. The dead man.’

Fry reminded herself that the 999 call had reported a dead body in the abandoned hut. That was despite the fact that Patrick Rawson had clearly not been dead at the time, since he’d recovered sufficiently to run a few hundred yards across the adjoining fields. Of course, that didn’t preclude Sean Crabbe from being responsible for his death.

‘You’d better tell us about it, Sean. From the start.’

He glanced at his solicitor, and Fry could sense that they’d agreed what Sean would say – and perhaps what he wouldn’t. But she’d encountered this brief before, he was pretty straight. Besides, Sean Crabbe seemed more than ready to tell his story.

‘It was the sight of the phone, just lying there. That was what did it. I couldn’t resist picking it up. It was really smart, you see – a Sony Ericsson.’ He leaned forward and stared at Fry to see if she understood. ‘It happens all the time, people nicking phones. I’ve had two nicked in the last year. All my mates have, too. I thought it would be all right, just to – you know, take one back.’

‘Sean, I don’t think you’ve started from the beginning, like I asked you,’ said Fry.

‘What?’

‘Let’s begin with why you went up to the old agricultural research centre on Longstone Moor on Tuesday morning. I need to know what you were doing there in the first place.’

Sean hesitated. ‘The old huts are just somewhere I go, to be on my own. There was no other reason.’

‘Were you going there to meet someone?’

‘No. It was like I just said.’

‘But someone else was there,’ insisted Fry.

‘Just… well, just the dead man.’

‘His name is Patrick Rawson. And he was alive when you first saw him, Sean.’

‘He was dying, though. He was practically dead. And I wasn’t responsible for that.’

‘Oh, come on.’

‘I’m telling you the truth.’

Fry sat back in surprise. He almost looked as though he was going to cry. Twenty years old, and he was upset by somebody speaking to him a bit sharply. What was it the DI had said? He didn’t look the type. Sean Crabbe was the kind of boy who ought to be writing poetry somewhere. The kind who wanted to be on his own, and wouldn’t like an intrusion into his little hideaway. She decided to try a different tack.

‘You said the old huts are just somewhere you go, Sean. So you go up there often, do you?’

He ran a hand across his face, though there weren’t actually any tears that Fry could see.

‘Quite often. Whenever I get the chance.’

‘Because it’s somewhere you can be on your own?’

‘Yes.’

‘Don’t you ever meet anyone up there?’

‘No, never. No one goes there, except me.’

Fry nodded. ‘So you must have been annoyed when you saw Mr Rawson arrive.’

Sean looked confused. ‘I told you.’

‘No, you didn’t, Sean.’

‘I told you, I didn’t see him arrive. He was already nearly dead when I saw him.’

The duty solicitor was starting to get restless. The same question asked in a different way could often get a result. But not with Sean Crabbe.

‘Sean, you were in possession of Mr Rawson’s wallet. So we know you robbed him. Didn’t you also hit him over the head?’

Now he was really anxious.

‘No. I would never do that. He was just lying there in the hut. I never even heard anything. I didn’t know anyone else was around until I smelled something. And it was his aftershave. He was wearing a really strong aftershave. He was lying near the back door of the big hut, and he had blood coming from his head.’

‘And what did you do, Sean?’

‘I took his phone. It was on the floor, as if he’d been trying to use it.’ He glanced at the solicitor, who nodded. ‘And then I took his wallet.’

Sean looked so ashamed when he got out the last part of his admission that Fry didn’t know what to say for a moment.

‘Go on. What next?’

‘I got out of there, scarpered. I was scared of getting caught.’

‘Oh, were you? What did you do with the phone?’

His shoulders slumped with embarrassment. ‘I realized after a minute or two that it was stupid to have taken it. They can trace you by a phone, can’t they?’

‘Right. But you made a call on it, didn’t you. Sean?’

‘I dialled 999 and told them there was a body.’

‘Why did you do that?’ asked Fry. Despite the conclusion she was gradually arriving at, this was a question she really wanted to know the answer to.

Sean sighed. ‘I had this horrible thought. Like I said, no one else ever goes up there. Not ever. And I had this awful idea that the next time I went up to the huts, that man would still be there, lying dead on the floor. Rotting. Because no one had found him.’

‘And that would ruin your little sanctuary,’ said Fry.

He hung his head again. ‘And then I got rid of the phone.’

‘By throwing it into Watersaw Rake.’

‘Yes. It made it all seem so pointless, but I knew I had to do it, or I’d get caught.’

‘But you got caught anyway,’ said Fry, ‘thanks to your mother.’

‘Yeah.’

‘She seems to know everything you’ve been up to, Sean.’

‘It really pisses me off. Not having any privacy, no life of my own.’

Fry looked at him for a moment, considering the irony of what he’d just said. It was an irony that was lost on Sean Crabbe.

‘Sean,’ she said, ‘what made you think Mr Rawson was dead when you first found him?’

‘What made -? Oh, I get it. Well, I’ve seen a dead man before. There was an old homeless bloke who died there months ago, some down and out. I thought… well, I thought it would be the same this time. Except I got a new phone.’