‘One leader,’ said Irvine. ‘Well, leader or founder, I don’t know which – the other members of the group refer to him in both ways. A gentleman by the name of Darius Roth.’
‘Gentleman?’
‘That’s the impression he gives,’ said Irvine with a wry smile. ‘He describes himself as a property developer.’
‘I’ll look forward to meeting him.’
‘Mr Roth is aged thirty-five. I gather he’s pretty well-off. Apparently he inherited a business empire built up by his father in Manchester.’ Irvine checked his notebook. ‘Mr Roth was accompanied by his wife, Mrs Elsa Roth. They live here in Hayfield, where the walk started from. They call their house Trespass Lodge. I guess that’s also because of—’
‘The Mass Trespass, yes. And the rest of them?’
‘Also in the group were Sam and Pat Warburton, a retired couple from Manchester, and two brothers who run a garden centre near Chinley, Theo and Duncan Gould. The casualty is a Mr Liam Sharpe. He’s a check-in supervisor at Manchester Airport. There are two students from Manchester Metropolitan University, Millie Taylor and Karina Scott, both aged nineteen. There’s a Nick Haslam, an IT consultant who lives near New Mills, and his girlfriend, Sophie Pullen, a teacher in Buxton. She lives at Chapel-en-le-Frith. And that just leaves Jonathan Matthew, the dead woman’s brother.’
‘And Faith Matthew herself, of course.’
‘Of course.’
‘That’s a very disparate group,’ said Villiers. ‘What do you imagine members of this club have in common?’
‘Maybe the clue is in their name,’ said Cooper.
‘Well, as you know, they managed to get totally lost in the fog,’ said Irvine. ‘Then when Mr Sharpe was injured, they split up into three groups. They said they couldn’t get a phone signal to call for help, so that’s why they set off in different directions. Miss Matthew stayed with the casualty.’
Cooper frowned again. ‘Did she? Just her, on her own?’
‘It seems so.’
‘But if the injured walker was immobilised, how did she end up at Dead Woman’s Drop? She must have left him at some point.’
‘True.’
‘A couple of the walkers were suffering from a degree of shock after their experience,’ said Irvine. ‘The two youngest ones, Miss Taylor and Miss Scott.’
‘What about the injured man?’ asked Cooper.
‘Mr Sharpe is still in hospital for X-rays,’ said Irvine. ‘He has a suspected broken ankle, along with exhaustion and hypothermia.’
‘We need to talk to him as soon as possible. I don’t like a delay in being able to ask someone questions. It gives them too much time to make up a story. Carol, can you liaise with the hospital and get access to him as soon as possible?’
‘No problem.’
‘If his story is different from everyone else’s, we’ll know there’s something wrong,’ suggested Irvine.
‘Not necessarily,’ said Cooper. ‘They’ll already have talked about it between themselves. They had plenty of opportunity.’
‘You think there was some kind of conspiracy?’
‘I don’t know. It’s possible.’
‘They may be a very close-knit group,’ said Villiers, ‘no matter how disparate they appear on the surface.’
Cooper looked back towards Hayfield. The weather was completely different down in the valley, with small puffs of cloud drifting across a blue sky. As he gazed over the patchwork of fields, the sun broke through the clouds sporadically, highlighting one hillside and then another, changing the colours in the landscape as it went. It caught a white-painted farmhouse here, casting shadows from a copse of trees over there.
‘What next, Ben?’ asked Villiers.
‘I need to start by visiting the family,’ he said.
He didn’t need to specify whose family. Villiers would know perfectly well. A case like this always started with the victim.
Faith Matthew’s house was in the middle of a terraced row on Market Street, Hayfield, near the bottom of Fairy Bank Road. The street climbed northwards out of the village, with the tower of the parish church set against a background of moors across the valley.
Ben Cooper and Carol Villiers mounted a short flight of steps to reach the front door of the house. When they knocked, it was answered by a middle-aged woman with her hair dyed in grey streaks. She was still wearing an outdoor coat, as if she’d just arrived or was about to leave.
‘Mrs Matthew?’ said Cooper.
‘Yes, I’m Jennifer Matthew. You must be . . .’
Cooper held up his ID. ‘Detective Inspector Cooper, Edendale CID. This is Detective Constable Villiers.’
‘Come on in.’
‘I’m not holding you up?’ he asked.
‘No.’ She looked down at her coat and fingered the buttons. ‘Oh, I haven’t been here long. And it’s an odd thing, but I couldn’t take my coat off. It didn’t feel right without Faith being here. This was her house.’
‘I understand,’ said Cooper.
But he didn’t really. Why would she not feel able to take her coat off in her own daughter’s house? It wasn’t Cooper’s experience of family. When he was growing up at Bridge End, relatives walked in the back door without knocking, let alone worrying about taking their coats off, as if they were tradesmen. Mrs Matthew looked positively uncomfortable, as if she was a stranger here and had never been in Faith’s home before.
Just inside the front door, a small lobby was hung with Faith’s outdoor coats, scarves and hats. The sitting room was decorated in shades of red, with a magenta patterned rug in front of the fireplace.
‘How long has your daughter owned this house?’ asked Cooper as he followed Mrs Matthew through into the sitting room.
‘Oh, a couple of years,’ she said.
‘Did you visit her here often?’
‘Occasionally. Why do you ask that?’
‘I was wondering how well you knew some of her friends.’
‘I can’t say we knew them at all.’
Cooper listened, registering that there was no one else in the house.
‘Is Mr Matthew not here with you?’
‘Jack is in Buxton at the moment. There are lots of things to sort out, you know . . . at a time like this.’
‘Of course.’
At a time like this. That phrase coincided with the first crack in her exterior, a wobble of her voice. ‘A time like this’ meant the violent death of her daughter. Her reserve was very British.
‘There should be a family liaison officer on the way,’ said Villiers.
‘Oh, she’s been,’ said Mrs Matthew. ‘She’s very nice. I asked her to get me a few things, so she’s gone into the village.’
She looked vaguely around the house. What was she thinking? That the place wanted a good clean? The fridge needed emptying? Surely not that she had to start sifting through her daughter’s possessions already.
‘I just wanted to be able to make a cup of tea,’ said Mrs Matthew. ‘For people who come, you know. It seems so rude otherwise. And Faith doesn’t appear to have any fresh milk.’
‘I wouldn’t worry about it, Mrs Matthew.’
‘Well, sit down anyway,’ she said.
‘Thank you. There are some questions we need to ask you.’
‘I realise that. Though I’m not sure what Jack or I can tell you, Detective Inspector. As I said, we didn’t know Faith’s friends. And that’s who she was with, wasn’t it? Her group of “friends”.’
Cooper heard the intonation clearly. She definitely said ‘friends’ with inverted commas.
‘Your daughter mentioned the walking club to you, I suppose.’
‘Yes, she did. I can’t say I understood what it was all about myself.’
‘The Kinder Mass Trespass,’ said Cooper.
She frowned. ‘Sorry.’
‘It doesn’t matter.’
So the Matthews lived in Manchester but had no idea of the history of the movement that had starte
d there. It was odd, in a way, that the story was remembered so clearly here in Hayfield, where local people had come out to jeer and shout insults as six ramblers were arrested by the police on Kinder Road. The commemorative plaques were here, the plans for a visitor centre. Yet Manchester people had forgotten. Or at least, some of them.
‘You must know Faith’s boyfriend, though,’ said Cooper.
‘Greg,’ she said. ‘We’ve met him.’
Cooper exchanged glances with Villiers. Mrs Matthew had a definite knack for making her feelings clear in a simple phrase without saying out loud what she meant, or even changing her expression. It was evident to Cooper that Greg Barrett was disapproved of.
‘You don’t like him,’ he said.
‘I always thought Faith could have done better for herself.’
‘I understand he has a good trade and runs his own business.’
She turned her head away so that he couldn’t see her eyes. ‘It’s not important now, is it?’
‘We’ll need to speak to him all the same,’ said Cooper.
‘Was he with her?’ asked Mrs Matthew, suddenly interested. ‘Was he part of that group? We haven’t been told that.’
‘No. As far as we know, Mr Barrett wasn’t part of the group.’
‘Mmm.’
‘Faith was a nurse,’ said Villiers. ‘Working for an agency?’
‘Yes, recently.’
‘She must have worked for hospitals previously. Where did she train?’
‘In Manchester, at the Royal Infirmary. Then she worked at a private hospital for a while. Meadow Park. But she left there, which was a shame. I always thought a career in private medicine would have been better for her than the NHS. You can end up dealing with all kinds of people in an NHS hospital, can’t you?’
Cooper wasn’t surprised at that. He’d heard that kind of thing many times before. It was strange how often parents had that sort of snobbery on behalf of their children, when they would never have run their own lives along those lines, or with that kind of belief. They all wanted better for their sons and daughters, and for their grandchildren too. As if future generations could somehow avoid the unpleasant experiences, the disappointments, the crises, the contact with unsuitable people. Even if it was possible, would it be desirable? What sort of individuals would they become if they lived their lives wrapped in balls of cotton wool?
‘We deal with all kinds of people in the police too,’ said Cooper. ‘It’s unavoidable really. We can’t choose to work with only the most respectable criminals.’
Mrs Matthew looked at him suspiciously, as if she thought he was making fun of her. Cooper smiled, and she relaxed.
‘I need to know whether Faith mentioned any of the group members to you, Mrs Matthew. Do you recognise any of these names?’
Villiers passed her a copy of the list Luke Irvine had printed out for him, the names of the twelve remaining members of the New Trespassers Walking Club.
‘I believe she mentioned that first one,’ said Mrs Matthew. ‘Darius. I wouldn’t have known his last name was Roth, but she did refer to a Darius somebody. He was the leader, I think.’
‘That’s right.’
‘Oh . . .’
Mrs Matthew put a hand to her mouth as she stared at the list.
‘My son, Jonathan, is on the list. But surely he wasn’t a member of this club, was he?’
‘He was with them on the walk,’ said Cooper.
‘Well, yes. But he wouldn’t have joined a club. Jonathan doesn’t join things.’
‘Perhaps not. It isn’t really clear. We just know that he was there when this tragedy happened.’
‘Poor Jonathan,’ she said. ‘It’s affecting him badly. He adored his sister.’
‘Have you spoken to him since the incident?’
‘Jack has. We thought we should come straight here, but we’ll be seeing Jonathan later. It’s been such a shock for all of us, you know.’
‘I’m sorry.’
She made an unnecessary fuss of straightening some cushions on the sofa.
‘I’m afraid I don’t see much of my son these days,’ she said. ‘Jonathan has his own interests, which aren’t ours. Music is very important to him.’
‘Music?’ said Cooper.
‘Yes, he plays the guitar. He’s in a band. If you can call it that. A bunch of layabouts probably. They hang around at some old mill in Manchester. Ancoats, of all places. It’s hardly Didsbury.’
Cooper could almost see the phrase that was going through Mrs Matthew’s mind. Sex and drugs and rock ’n’ roll. The three went together, didn’t they? Especially for a young man who felt the need to rebel against his controlling parents.
‘In fact, Jonathan has been trying to get money off us for this band,’ she said. ‘Thousands of pounds he said he needed for equipment and promotion, and to make, I don’t know . . . a demonstration of some kind.’
‘A demo.’
‘That’s right.’
‘And you refused to give him what he asked for?’
‘Of course. It would have been money down the drain.’
Cooper thought about whether he would ever have asked his own parents for a large amount of money. Thousands of pounds? Almost certainly not, whatever it was for. And his relationship with his family had always been better than this one he was hearing about. Jonathan had drifted away. His parents disapproved of his musical ambitions. His mother complained they didn’t see much of him, even though he lived not far away. Jonathan would have had to be desperate to come to them for money for his band. What would he have done when help was refused?
‘Mrs Matthew,’ said Cooper, ‘do you think Jonathan might have been trying to get money from his sister?’
‘Well, I suppose he might have. He always turned to Faith rather than to us. She was his big sister and she always helped him out. Always. But I doubt he’d have much luck with that.’
‘Why not?’
‘Faith was a nurse. She was hardly rolling in cash.’ Mrs Matthew hesitated. ‘But he was very insistent about it. It seems to mean an awful lot to him, though I can’t understand why. He has a perfectly good job in Manchester.’
‘Do you know anyone else involved in this band? Any of his friends?’
‘Not friends as such. There’s a man he’s mentioned a few times – a musician, some kind of mentor, I think. He’s a Canadian. Jonathan has talked about him getting this band together in Manchester.’
‘Do you remember his name?’
‘As a matter of fact, yes. We made a note of it, in case anything happened. You understand what I mean?’
‘Yes.’
Mrs Matthew opened her handbag and poked about until she found a small diary. She pulled out a pair of reading glasses and turned to a back page.
‘Farnley,’ she said. ‘His name is Farnley. I imagine he knows more about my son than I do.’
Cooper suspected that the longer he stayed talking to this woman in this cramped sitting room, the more her emotions would begin to spill out. At the moment, it was only an occasional crack in her voice, a fleeting expression, a second when she couldn’t meet his eye. But soon she would fall apart, the way grieving family members did eventually. He wished the family liaison officer would get back from whatever errand she’d been sent on. This wasn’t the way it should be.
‘Could I go back to Darius Roth?’ he said. ‘What did Faith tell you about him, Mrs Matthew?’
‘Nothing really. Nothing at all. She just said that she was “going on Darius’s walk” or something like that. I can’t remember exactly how she put it.’
‘When was this? When did you last talk to her?’
‘About three days ago. Yes, it would be Friday. We spoke on the phone.’
‘Did she call you?’
‘No, I called Faith to see how she was. And to ask if she might be coming to visit us at the weekend. It was . . . Well, it’s not relevant.’
‘It was what, Mrs Matthew?’
She paused for a moment.
‘Well, it was my birthday yesterday,’ she said.
And then there were tears, trickling down her cheeks. She hardly seemed to notice them and made no attempt to wipe them away. Cooper bit his lip. These were the worst moments to deal with. He could cope with dead bodies, and with individuals who committed violent acts. But distraught loved ones – these he could never come to terms with.
11
Where the narrow River Sett flowed under the bridge at the Royal Hotel, empty beer kegs stood in front of the war memorial, painted blue and yellow. Cooper passed Millie’s tearooms and chocolatier on Church Street, and an old Co-op store on the corner of Fishers Bridge.
The Mass Trespass was quite a theme here. On New Mills Road, notices outside the Kinder Lodge Hotel said, HIKERS WELCOME, and even the pub sign had an illustration of ramblers setting off towards the mountain.
‘You were very interested in the brother, Jonathan,’ said Villiers as they moved to the next address on their list.
‘Of all the group, he seems to be the odd one out,’ said Cooper. ‘Or the oddest, at least. His presence looks incongruous.’
‘And he needed money badly.’
‘That might explain why he went on the Kinder Scout walk.’
‘Do you think he asked Faith for money yesterday and she refused him too? Would that have made him so angry that he would have reacted violently?’
‘I couldn’t hazard a guess until I’ve talked to him,’ said Cooper. ‘But in my experience, if someone is under enough pressure, it may only take a very trivial thing to make them cross that line. We’re going to have to talk to them all further and see if we can get a coherent account.’
Villiers sighed. ‘I wouldn’t hold out much hope,’ she said.
Greg Barrett lived with his parents in a modern semi on the Wood Gardens estate off Swallow House Lane, a development of stone cladding and bay windows, tiny patches of garden squeezed next to each drive. The Barretts’ house was half stone cladding and half white render, with a front garden open to the road and paved to make space for two vehicles to park. Greg’s van stood there, a white Renault Kangoo with his name and phone number on the side.
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