Already Dead (24 page)

Villiers put her hand on Cooper’s arm, and he let her steer him towards the door.

‘Just one more thing, sir,’ said Cooper. ‘What do you know about A.J. Morton and Sons?’

Edge opened his mouth as if he was about to answer, then hesitated and frowned.

‘A.J…?’

‘Morton. They’re based near here. A quarry supplies company.’

Ralph Edge shook his head vigorously. ‘Never heard of them. What do they have to do with anything?’

‘Nothing, sir, I’m sure,’ said Villiers hastily. ‘Thank you for your time.’

When they were outside, Villiers looked at him oddly. ‘Ben,’ she said. ‘Focus.’

‘That’s what I’m doing.’

‘A.J. Morton and Sons? I don’t know who they are, but it‘s nothing to do with Mr Edge.’

‘So he said.’

Cooper felt sure Edge had been lying, but he didn’t know why.
But then, who knew why people told lies? There could be all kinds of reasons. Sometimes they just wanted to present themselves in a better light, and that was all. Some individuals felt a desperate need to be seen as braver, cleverer or more successful than they really were. And the further they strayed from the truth, the more they had to carry on lying. So dishonesty became a part of their daily camouflage, a central theme in the narrative of their lives. Cooper had met people who hardly seemed to be aware that they were lying. For them, deception took less effort than telling the truth.

‘I think I’d better take you back to your car,’ said Villiers.

‘Just drop me in the Market Place.’

She drove back down into the centre of Wirksworth. Cooper expected her to be angry with him, or demand to know why he’d asked those questions. But she drove in silence for a while.

‘So, Ralph Edge and Glen Turner,’ said Villiers finally. ‘Two loners together there?’

‘And that’s the trouble,’ said Cooper.

‘What do you mean?’

‘Well, they were both loners. Oh, they might have had a few things in common, but a loner is still a loner. I bet they hardly knew anything about each other. Edge didn’t even know exactly where Turner lived. He wasn’t really interested, either. That’s hardly what you’d call a friend.’

‘No, you’re right.’

‘I usually am,’ said Cooper confidently, as he got out of the car. ‘About other people, anyway.’

A few yards away, Diane Fry stopped abruptly on the pavement in St John’s Street. A figure was moving ahead of her towards the corner by the town hall.

She stared at the figure, her hand in her pocket reaching for her radio and cuffs, even as she was overcome with the feeling of familiarity. For some reason, that feeling churned her stomach with dread. She felt like a ghost hunter finally facing the moment she’d dreamed of, yet afraid to look the phantom in the face. She was terrified of what she’d see. Yet she couldn’t hold back from looking.

‘Ben?’ she said.

The shoulders of the figure stiffened. It might, or might not, be him. Even as she told herself this, she was moving forward in complete certainty, her physical instincts sure of what her mind still doubted. It was that stiffening of the shoulders to the sound of her voice. She’d seen the reaction before, so many times. Too often to mistake it.

‘Ben?’ she said again. ‘It’s Diane. Diane Fry.’

At last he answered. ‘Oh. Hi.’

He sounded distracted and vague, as if he wasn’t quite sure who she was at first. Fry had to repeat her name.

‘It’s a bit of a surprise seeing you here,’ she said.

‘Why here?’

‘Well … anywhere, I suppose.’

Cooper just looked at her. Fry began to feel uncomfortable. She felt like a child, finding herself unexpectedly thrust into a social situation with an adult, and having no idea what she was supposed to say. None of the conventional small talk seemed appropriate.

‘You know, we’ve all been worried about you, Ben,’ she said.

He raised an eyebrow, the first sign of animation in his face.

‘Have you? All of you?’

Fry bit her lip, tried not to look guilty. ‘Everyone in the office has been asking how you are. But we haven’t been able to make contact with you. Why do you never answer your phone?’

She realised she was already starting to sound accusatory. Hearing her voice rising an octave towards shrillness, she fought to control it.

‘Well, I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I just wanted a bit of time on my own, without having to explain myself over and over again. I know everyone means well. But it gets too much. You can’t imagine what it’s like.’

Having delivered these words, he gave her a kind of curt nod. Fry thought he was about to walk off, and she couldn’t help blurting out the first thing that came into her head.

‘I do understand, you know,’ she said.

‘What?’

‘I know all about it. Of course I do.’

‘Knowing about it and understanding are two totally different things,’ said Cooper. ‘Did you never grasp that? You have to experience something to understand it properly.’

‘Okay, okay. Explain it to me, then.’

‘Explain it?’

‘Yes.’

‘You want me to
explain
it.’

He looked as if she was asking him to do the impossible. Well, perhaps she was. She had no idea, really.

‘It’s like … it’s like having a huge build-up of pressure inside you,’ said Cooper. ‘Talking about it achieves nothing. But you know that one day the dam is going to burst, that the whole massive weight will explode and take you with it. Isn’t it better to do something about it before that happens?’

‘You can’t do that,’ said Fry.

‘Do what?’

‘Whatever it is you’re planning, Ben.’

Cooper shrugged. ‘I’m not planning anything. I’m just coping day by day, you know.’

Fry was unconvinced. She gazed at him, wishing she could see into his mind. She used to be able to guess his thoughts more or less accurately but now he was too distant, too detached. It was as if he’d severed the connection between them, cut the line and drifted away. He’d got caught up in an unpredictable current that might lead him anywhere. Danger could lurk downstream when you allowed yourself to drift like that.

‘Ben, I don’t know what’s on your mind,’ she admitted.

‘Well, then. Maybe there really isn’t anything on my mind at all.’

But something about the way he spoke made Fry’s creeping feeling of unease return. She’d heard a similar tone too often from people she knew were lying but who needed to keep up a facade, an official assertion of innocence for the records. Fry reminded herself that she couldn’t know what it was like to be in Cooper’s position. She had no inkling of how his mind might be working right now, what emotions would be flooding through him, potent and uncontrollable. Her insights were lacking, just at the moment she needed them most.

Yes, she was ignorant, and incapable of guessing his real intentions. But still she couldn’t resist her conviction – that something dark and bad was in his heart.

Cooper broke eye contact and pulled his old waxed coat round his shoulders as he began to move away.

‘Ben,’ she blurted, ‘remember, won’t you…?’

‘What?’

‘Remember – whatever happens, we’re still the good guys.’

Cooper stared at her, his mouth twisted oddly as if he was about to break into a laugh.

‘No, Diane,’ he said. ‘You’re wrong. I don’t think we were ever that.’

‘But what are you going to do, Ben? Surely there’s nothing you
can
do.’

But Cooper didn’t reply. He turned and walked away without another word.

And, in the end, that was what bothered Fry most of all.

After the unexpected meeting with Diane Fry, Cooper walked for a while in the rain, until he was so wet that he felt washed clean. It was lucky he knew how to pull himself together and make an effort when he encountered other people. He didn’t want anyone thinking he’d gone completely off the rails. He could always make sure he was properly dressed, clean shaven, attentive and capable of making intelligent conversation.

It was important to keep up the facade, though he wasn’t sure why. He just knew that if he’d started to doubt the reasons for it he would have given up entirely by now, and that he couldn’t do.

So he’d made sure Diane Fry (and Carol Villiers) saw him just as he’d always been, a Ben Cooper no different for the experience he’d gone through, just someone recovering slowly from a physical injury, dealing day by day with grief, the trauma of loss. They had to believe that he was getting over it. He’d be back to normal soon.

When Cooper had gone, Fry looked round and saw Carol Villiers. Fry didn’t want to be the one to speak first, so she waited, wondering whether Villiers could bring herself to be disloyal to her old friend and DS. It was a difficult judgement to make, but there could only be one conclusion, even if you didn’t admit it out loud.

Finally, Villiers shook her head. ‘Poor Ben,’ she said. ‘He’s lost it.’

‘I’ve never seen him like that before,’ said Fry, relieved.

‘Nor me. What can we do?’

‘Perhaps he just needs time.’

‘Perhaps.’

‘Well, he’s had the counselling, the medical attention,’ said Fry. ‘He’s on extended leave. Some people just take longer to get over these things.’

There was a small silence, which stretched out just long enough for Fry to start feeling uncomfortable.

‘Perhaps,’ said Villiers again.

As she left St John’s Street, Fry noticed there was a call on her phone, and saw from the display that it was Becky Hurst. She opened her car door and got in out of the rain before she answered it.

‘I went to check out the paintballing centre,’ said Hurst. ‘They remembered Glen Turner pretty well.’

‘Why?’ asked Fry. ‘Because of his injuries?’

‘Well, sort of. His injuries were where it all started. But they remember him most of all because he was planning to sue them.’

23

Becky Hurst had brought back a copy of the solicitor’s letter the paintballing centre had received. It carried the heading of a well-known legal practice in Edendale, Richmond Jones. Fry had dealt with them often enough, but only the partners specialising in criminal law. They were a favourite choice for defendants in local magistrates’ courts, because they had a reputation for being able to get you off a minor charge, no matter how guilty you were. Many police officers had returned angry and frustrated from court proceedings after listening to a Richmond Jones solicitor arguing the innocence of some notorious lowlife.

But this was a civil case, the threat of private action for personal injury compensation. That would be a different partner. The letter was signed simply with the company name ‘Richmond Jones’, which surely wasn’t actually a signature at all, since it wasn’t the identity of an individual. But at the top, under the heading, was a phone number and the information that the partner dealing with the case was Mr K. Chadburn.

Most of the solicitors in Edendale had offices in or around the Market Square. Diane Fry even knew why this was. Ben Cooper had once explained to her that it dated to the time when people from the surrounding area came into town only once a week, on market day. It was a major journey for them, and they wanted to do all their business in one trip – buy their vegetables, go to the butcher’s, stock up with paint and nails at the ironmonger’s, and visit the solicitor’s to sort out their wills.

Whether that was true or not Fry wasn’t sure. Cooper had tried to explain lots of things to her during the years she’d been in Edendale, and she was still convinced that he’d made some of them up. They sounded too bizarre, even for Derbyshire.

But it was true that the solicitors’ offices were all in old buildings and prominently located, probably some of the most valuable properties in the town.

The premises of Richmond Jones looked as if it might once have been the home of a wealthy merchant. Through an archway like the entrance to a coaching inn she glimpsed half a dozen expensive cars parked in a cobbled yard. The signs outside were discreet, and the front door was a heavy affair, with a bell that rang when she opened it to step inside.

Kenneth Chadburn was expecting her. He was exactly what she would have expected for a provincial solicitor. Middle aged, grey haired, wearing glasses and a faded pinstriped suit that was getting a little too tight for him. When she walked into his office, he seemed to be sweating. But that might have been because of the enormous radiator on the wall behind his desk. It was an ancient iron affair that would have been more suited to a hospital ward or a cavernous classroom in a Victorian school. She could feel the heat it was throwing out the moment she stepped through the door.

‘Yes, yes. Ah, yes.’

Chadburn was nodding agreement before Fry had even asked him a question. He shuffled through a set of files on his desk until he found the right one. It was fastened with a strip of ribbon, an archaic touch that contrasted sharply with the computer monitor displaying a familiar landscape screensaver.

For a moment, Fry wondered why lawyers insisted on retaining these ancient trappings and traditions when they had so much modern technology at their disposal. But then she remembered she was a police officer. Some of her colleagues flew in helicopters full of high tech equipment but others still wore headgear designed in the 1860s and modelled on Prussian army helmets. Solicitors weren’t alone in clinging to tradition.

‘Mr Turner. Yes, that’s very sad.’ Chadburn looked up at her over his glasses. ‘Do we know what happened?’

‘No, I’m sorry,’ said Fry.

‘Yes, of course. Confidential information.’

‘No, sir. We just don’t know what happened.’

‘Ah, well. Criminal law isn’t my area, I’m afraid.’

‘I thought I hadn’t seen you in court, sir. But I’m familiar with some of your colleagues.’

Chadburn cleared his throat and wiped his forehead with a handkerchief.

‘Of course, confidentiality is our watchword here. And normally I wouldn’t be able to share any information with you about our client’s affairs. I’m sure you understand that, Detective Sergeant.’

‘But since he’s dead…?’

‘Yes, that does make a difference. And naturally we want to be of help to the police in discovering who perpetrated the crime. I, er … take it Mr Turner’s death
was
the result of a crime?’