Already Dead (16 page)

There were a few personal items in the drawers of the dresser. An electric shaver, a small Kodak digital camera, an iPod, an Xbox 360. She wasn’t surprised that Turner was the type to be playing on a games console well into adulthood. There were a surprising number of adults using Nintendos and Game Boys. Mostly men, of course. It was a sign of the failure to grow up properly.

She switched on the camera, hoping the battery was charged up. There had been a higher specification camera in his briefcase, which presumably he’d needed for his work. This must have been for personal use. When the display came up, she pressed
REVIEW
on the menu and scrolled through the images stored on the memory card. Fry sighed when she saw them. Glen Turner was becoming so predictable. All she saw were pictures of stately homes and show gardens – among them, she thought she recognised Chatsworth House and Haddon Hall, two of the best-known attractions in the Peak District. Some of the shots were general views of an elegant facade or a colourful flower bed. But many of them included Glen’s mother, Ingrid Turner, smiling for his camera as she posed against a picturesque backdrop. So that was how the two of them had spent their weekends in the summer.

‘There are a few statements and receipts in a box file here,’ said Hurst. ‘Nothing out of the ordinary. They’re household bills, mostly – he seems to have kept about five years’ worth. Very organised of him. And it looks as though the majority are printouts from the internet, Diane.’

Fry nodded. ‘So he did most things online. We’ll need to look at his emails.’

‘What are we looking for?’ asked Hurst.

‘Any indication of who he’s been in touch with recently, and why. He must have had some contacts, apart from work and domestic affairs. He had dealings with someone who met him in those woods. And if there’s no obvious sign of them, Mr Turner must have had a reason for hiding the traces.’

16

Tonight, Ben Cooper was driving in the south of the area, in the district known as the Derbyshire Dales. And he was there for a good reason.

This was where Josh Lane lived. The former barman at the Light House had moved into a park home located a few hundred yards off the A6 near Cromford, just east of the river Derwent.

Lane’s home had a small conservatory and an area of decking which reached into the surrounding woodland. From the months he’d spent looking at estate agents websites trying to find an affordable property, Cooper knew that some of these park homes sold for around ninety thousand pounds. From what he’d heard, there was one park nearby where the rules excluded children. That was probably a big attraction for some people. Though how anybody could object to children, he didn’t understand. It was part of the life he and Liz had been planning for themselves.

For a moment, he thought he was going to faint. The sky whirled around him, and his feet stumbled on the tarmac. He stopped for a few minutes at the entrance to the park, taking deep breaths until his head stopped swimming. This happened sometimes. He wasn’t sure whether it was his body letting him down, or his mind. No matter how often he told himself to think only about safe subjects, to steer his thoughts away from dangerous territory, it still happened. It struck him out of the blue, like lightning from a clear sky. This would go on for ever, he knew. He could never be entirely confident that the lightning wouldn’t strike at any moment, when he was least expecting it. He could understand why people gave up the struggle, if they believed it would be like that every day of the rest of their lives.

He looked up at a St George’s flag flying over the entrance to the park. Two rows of mobile homes and small bungalows curved away from him into a wooded dell formed from the site of a small disused quarry. He could hear traffic passing on the A6 between Cromford and Ripley, but he guessed it would be quieter once he entered the park, the trees and quarry walls providing insulation against the noise.

And there he was, stepping out of his door and looking up at the sky, smoking a cigarette. Lane looked the way he always had, since Cooper first met him at the Grand Hotel in Edendale. He was thirty-seven years old, a little overweight, with that discreet piercing in one ear, and his hair still gelled into short, blond spikes. From his appearance, you might think that nothing much had happened in his life during the last few months, except for a trip to the chemist’s to buy a new tube of hair gel.

He was dressed in much the same way Cooper had last seen him too, denims and a sweatshirt. The casual gear had never suited him – he was a little too close to middle age to carry off the jeans. But his hair was still as neatly groomed, the discreet piercing in place, his smile permanently affable. He still looked like the member of staff he’d met at the hotel, ready to be of service, more than willing to help with Cooper’s questions about his time at the Light House. The co-operative Josh Lane.

He no longer had the bar job at the Grand, though. Now he was living on benefits, and staying in this mobile home park, which looked much more downmarket than the one across the river that Cooper was familiar with, the park where they didn’t even allow children. There were plenty of kids here, some of the younger ones running about between the pitches, jumping over fences where there were any, making the dogs bark in excitement.

It was no surprise that the hotel had dispensed with his services. Lane had a criminal record. A couple of convictions under the Misuse of Drugs Act, when he was fined for possession of Class B drugs. Cannabis and amphetamines. There were indications from intelligence that he’d also been involved in a small-scale Ecstasy trade at the Light House after it began to attract a younger clientele. He’d been investigated for supply, but never brought to court.

Lane had been lucky there. Courts could impose a maximum sentence of fourteen years for dealing, even Class B. If only someone had made a decision to put more resources into investigating those allegations more closely, Josh Lane might have been part-way through serving that fourteen-year prison sentence right now. At least the Whartons would have had to look elsewhere for assistance. Cooper knew it might not have saved Liz’s life – but at least he wouldn’t be looking at a situation where justice blatantly hadn’t been done.

He shook his head quietly. There were far too many ‘if onlys’. No matter how many of them you piled up in your imagination, they were never going to amount to anything useful.

Whenever there was a gap in the traffic on the A6, Cooper could hear the river. The Derwent was in spate, many thousands of gallons of water added to its flow by the rainfall running off the surrounding hillsides and crashing downstream from Matlock towards the mills in Cromford and Belper.

Today, news reports said that there were flood alerts in place right across the region, the last stage before a full-scale flood warning, when people were advised to take immediate action against the threat of flooding. Monitoring sensors located in the rivers at key points measured changes in the water levels. Data was recorded at fifteen-minute intervals, so the flood alerts were usually pretty accurate.

But high levels in the rivers weren’t the only problem. Cooper knew how difficult it was to predict the exact location of flooding from groundwater, which was often related to local geology. No one could say for sure which properties were at risk of groundwater flooding. Add the complication of blocked culverts and drains, and thousands of acres of land already sodden from weeks of heavy rain, and flash floods could happen anywhere.

All of this stretch of the River Derwent was at risk. Just downstream was the Wigwell Viaduct carrying the Cromford Canal over the river, close to High Peak Junction. The low-lying fields on either side of the Derwent had flooded regularly in the past, and no doubt they would again. Millions of pounds had been spent on flood defences in the region, but only for the cities.

Cooper waited until it was dark, then turned the Toyota on the verge and spun his tyres deliberately in the mud as he accelerated away from Derwent Park. He crossed the river at Whatstandwell and let the car take its own direction through the network of roads around Wirksworth.

The rain began to come down harder, and cars became fewer and further apart. Very soon, he was driving too fast for the conditions. Water sluiced across his windscreen in torrents, the rain obscuring his view much faster than his wipers could clear it. The road was wet, with pools of standing water that appeared suddenly in the flash of his headlights and disappeared again a second before he hit them. Poor visibility and a dangerous road surface. It was a lethal combination that drivers were warned about constantly.

He had no idea where the figure came from. One second, he could see nothing but an empty road through the streaked glass, a bend a hundred yards ahead and overhanging trees cascading sheets of water on the muddy verges. In the next instant there was something moving in front of him, a shape slithering down the bank on his right and running into the roadway. It wasn’t a dog or a fox, or even a deer. It was upright on two legs, arms thrashing wildly in the air as it ran, light reflecting off wet clothes, spray flying from the tarmac as its feet hit the surface.

‘What the—!’

Cooper’s foot hit the brake pedal and the car began to slide, the tyres pushing up a surge of water that hit the stone wall like a tidal wave.
Steer into a skid
. He swung the steering wheel, aware of his headlights swaying crazily from side to side, illuminating the trees, and then the road, and then a figure standing on the white line, a white face turned towards him in astonishment, not knowing which way to run. As he fought to get the car under control, he lost sight of the figure again. When he finally slithered to a halt, cursing loudly at the windscreen, the runner had gone.

Cooper sat for a long time, gripping the wheel tightly, staring out at the rain pouring down on his car out of the darkness. The engine had stalled, but the wipers were still thrashing backwards and forwards, their insistent rhythm the only sound in the night. His heart was thumping as fast as the wipers, and his eyes strained to see anything that might be lying in the road. He twisted in his seat to look behind the car, but there was nothing.

After a while, his heart began to slow, the adrenalin surge subsided, and he realised the Toyota was sitting diagonally across the narrow road, blocking both carriageways. Lucky that there was no traffic tonight. Only a solitary person, who’d been running somewhere in the rain.

Cooper started the engine. His headlights flickered and brightened. The angle of the stationary car meant the lights on full beam were pointing at the woods on the far side of the road. They fell directly on a white painted sign, which leaped out of the night like a barn owl opening its wings for flight, the brightness startling and uncanny in the surrounding darkness. What did that sign say? He couldn’t make out the words from here.

He put the car in gear and pulled it into the side of the road under the trees, where it was out of the way of traffic. Then he dug his Maglite out of the glove compartment, opened the door and walked across to the sign. Oblivious to the rain soaking his hair and clothes, Cooper pointed his torch at the board and read the words written carefully in black paint.

A.J. MORTON & SONS, NEXT TURNING ON THE RIGHT
.

Where had he seen that before?
A.J. Morton & Sons
. It was strange how memories suddenly swam out of the darkness, appearing as half-seen shapes from a cloud of mist or smoke. It felt as though his mind was trying to suppress the memory of more recent events by tossing up random fragments of recollection to distract him, like the metallic chaff discharged by military aircraft to confuse a guided missile.

Cooper shook his head in bewilderment, scattering raindrops into the night.
A.J. Morton & Sons
. It came from way back.

He flinched in pain as something dripped on to his face. It was hot and scalding, like melted wax. He brushed the blob from his cheek and saw a smear of green, molten plastic on his fingers. Shielding his eyes, he looked up at the ceiling. The light fittings were melting. They had once been shaped like candles, but now they were drooping, slowly dissolving into liquid that spattered his scene suit and landed in his hair.

He pulled his jacket over his head, conscious as he did it how futile a gesture it was. His protection wouldn’t last long once the flames touched him. He had to keep moving.

Cooper turned back towards the bar. Glowing embers faced him. Before he could move, a shelf bearing a line of optics tore away from the ceiling with a shriek and crashed to the floor. Glass flew in all directions, shattering into fragments, glittering in the flames like a shower of meteorites.

He pulled open the blackened door, keeping his body behind it in case of a back blast caused by a rush of air. The door handle was almost too hot to touch. Cooper looked at his hands, and saw that his fingers were red and blistering. The pain hadn’t hit him yet, but it would.

He glimpsed something red on the wall by the door. A fire extinguisher. He grabbed it from its bracket, thumped the handle and sprayed foam towards the heart of the blaze. It subsided a little, and he kept spraying until the extinguisher was empty. Immediately, the fire flickered and sprang back to life.

‘Liz! Where are you?’

17

Friday

The smell of disinfectant, the gleam of polished steel, an echo of footsteps off the cold tiles. Nothing spoke more clearly of death. The sensations of the mortuary had become so familiar to Diane Fry that she knew she’d experience them all over again one day, in her own dying moments. She was convinced she’d smell that odour on her deathbed, hear the echo of approaching footsteps as she breathed her last. The glint from a steel table, the flash of light on a scalpel – they were the last images she would see as her eyes closed in death.

Yes, and probably the person who’d be waiting for her on the other side would be the Edendale pathologist, Dr Juliana van Doon. The angel of death in a green apron and a medical mask. Then she would know whether she was in heaven or hell.