Kill Call (24 page)

‘No young horses?’

‘Well, foal is OK up to fifteen months, but it’s a specialized market. Italy likes white meat from very young horses, but the French prefer red. We think the UK market will favour red meat, too.’

Through a window, Fry could see into the packing room, where women dressed head to toe in white plastic aprons, hats and hair nets, were processing the meat. The steaks she could see going through the line were enormous – big slabs of purplish-black meat, thickly marbled with fat.

Gains had followed her gaze. ‘The taste is a bit sweet, compared to beef,’ he admitted. ‘Traditionally, it was thought that it would never suit the British palate, even if we didn’t have a cultural problem to overcome. But the taste can easily be improved with seasoning and spices. Like lamb, it goes rather well with herbs such as rosemary or sage. You really should try it.’

Fry wished there was some way she could shake Maurice Gains’ complacency, make that hand stop stroking the smooth wood of his desk, just for a moment.

‘Mr Gains, an outbreak of trichinosis from eating infected horse meat isn’t very good news for you, is it?’ she said.

‘No connection with us,’ snapped Gains, losing his composure for just a moment. ‘I made a call this morning, and I’m told the suspect meat came from Poland. Brought in by some Polish workers living in a multi-occupancy property in Birmingham. That’s up to the Polish authorities to deal with, if they’re the country of origin.’

‘But, Mr Gains, don’t you think you might have something more serious to deal with than a PR challenge?’ she said.

‘We’ll take all the steps that are necessary to protect our brand.’

‘“Protect your brand”? That wasn’t what I meant.’

‘I don’t know what you do mean, then.’

‘I mean animal rights activists,’ said Fry. ‘Some of the protest groups out there can be pretty extreme in their actions. You must have taken that into account?’

‘We considered it, naturally,’ said Gains. ‘It was a factor that our business partners raised at the planning stage.’

‘Business partners?’

‘Our financial backers. Banks, I mean. They don’t play any active role in the business, but we needed finance to meet our start-up costs. So we had to put together a business proposal for them, and the public reaction was factored into that. But we’re not dealing with live animals here, you see. Currently, all our meat comes from Italy. It’s boned, cut and packaged in a plant near Turin, then shipped back to the UK in refrigerated lorries. You won’t find any ponies gambolling around in paddocks waiting to go on to the slaughter line. Not here. There’s nothing for the animal rights fanatics to get steamed up about.’

‘You think not?’

‘Look, we’re only distributing to specialist shops at the moment, and a few restaurants where the owners are willing to be innovative. But wait until we get our products into Tesco and Waitrose. Then public acceptance will soon follow.’

‘I’m glad you’re so confident.’

‘I suppose it might just be me, Sergeant, but I don’t understand where these animal lovers are coming from,’ said Gains. ‘Why do people who eat cows and sheep get so upset at the idea of eating a horse?’

‘They think of them as companions, not food.’

‘That’s the way most of us think about dogs, isn’t it? Yet the Chinese and Koreans eat dog meat, even consider it a delicacy. One man’s pet is another man’s protein.’ Gains smiled. ‘Isn’t that right, Sergeant?’

Fry was relieved to get out of the R & G distribution centre. Though the smell had been clean, and maybe even overly hygienic, there had been a strange contradiction in the sight of those purple slabs of meat being handled and shipped out. By the time she got back to her car, she was very glad that Gavin Murfin wasn’t with her. She couldn’t have stood it if he’d produced something to eat right at this moment.

A message from Murfin was waiting on her phone. There must have been no signal while she was inside R & G Enterprises.

‘Thought you might like to know,’ said Murfin when she called him back. ‘SOCOs lifted some latent prints from that gate on Longstone Moor. They’ve visited the farmer and printed him for comparison, but some of the latents don’t match. Could be you were right, Diane.’

‘Well, actually, Ben Cooper was right.’

‘I’ll tell him that.’

Fry sighed. ‘Yes, do.’

‘Are you OK, Diane?’

‘Yes, I’m fine. I’ve just escaped from a vision of the future – R & G Enterprises.’

She told Murfin about her visit, not leaving out the slabs of meat.

‘I know you said Patrick Rawson had a finger in a lot of pies,’ said Murfin when she’d finished, ‘but I didn’t realize some of the pies were made of horse meat.’

Fry winced. ‘Don’t, Gavin.’

‘Oh, got to go,’ said Murfin. ‘There’s something happening.’

‘What?’

But he’d gone. And Fry had to sit tapping her fingers on the steering wheel while she waited for him to phone back.

‘What’s going on?’

‘We’re just picking up a suspect,’ said Murfin breathlessly. ‘The DI’s taking the lead, and we’re on the way there now.’

‘Who, Gavin? Who is it?’

‘It seems we’ve got information on some youth who has Patrick Rawson’s wallet and credit cards in his possession. His mum saw the appeals on TV and shopped him. Good news, eh?’

Fry looked at the frontage of R & G Enterprises, with its smoked glass and its designer logo. Had she just wasted a precious hour of her life being patronized by Maurice Gains while all the action was happening elsewhere? And on her case, too?

‘Yeah. That’s great news, Gavin.’

‘Oh, yes,’ said Murfin. ‘And one more thing: we’ve got another body.’

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&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&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.