Dead in the Dark

by Stephen Booth

  Carol Villiers had said Sharma was ‘full of himself, thinks he’s God’s gift’. Was there a reason she resented him so much? On the other hand, Sharma had made a good impression on Gavin Murfin. A retired DC working as civilian support might be easily impressed, though – even if Sharma had been winding Gavin up. It was hard to tell whether he had that kind of sense of humour, or whether he had a sense of humour at all.

  Before that, Murfin had made a reference to Devdan Sharma ‘doing his diversity training’ by transferring to the rural territory of North Division. Was it really just part of the relentless drive to create a service that reflected the diverse population it served? Up here in the High Peak and Derbyshire Dales, ethnic minorities represented only two per cent of the population. Police officers recruited from the Asian community were in such short supply that they were most often deployed in areas where their presence might help community relations, as well improving the public perception of the police.

  Carol Villiers couldn’t wait to chip in.

  ‘Another farmer lost a barn full of hay last night,’ she said.

  ‘Arson?’ asked Cooper.

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘No animals killed this time? No vehicles burnt out?’

  ‘No,’ said Villiers. ‘But it’s still someone’s livelihood.’

  ‘Yes, yes. I know.’

  Cooper felt momentarily irritated that Villiers should feel it necessary to point that out to him. Was she suggesting that he’d forgotten his own history, abandoned his own background? He’d grown up on a farm, for heaven’s sake. His brother was still in farming. He could hardly escape it, or leave it behind. Yet it seemed as if Villiers thought he was becoming a townie, like Dev Sharma. But surely he wasn’t?

  Sharma was definitely a city boy, though. He had no idea what a barn full of hay was worth to the owner, and no idea how easily it could be destroyed in a fire. In a way, it was just like with Diane Fry all over again.

  Cooper sighed. The optimism he’d set off with from Foolow this morning seemed to have dissipated pretty quickly.

  Cooper fetched himself a cup of anonymous brown liquid from the vending machine, then went into his own office and began to check his emails.

  He was becoming far too familiar with the jargon used in the internal memos. He’d even fallen into the trap of using some of the phrases himself when he was writing a report. Re-prioritising resources. Due diligence. Overarching strategy to ensure best practice. They seemed to leap naturally from the keyboard to the screen. He imagined a superintendent or chief inspector at headquarters in Ripley nodding in approval when he read them. The words might not mean much, but they ticked all the boxes, rang all the right bells. So why did he feel so guilty about doing it?

  Within a few minutes there was a knock on his office door and Carol Villiers appeared.

  ‘Carol, come in.’

  ‘Have you got a few minutes, Ben?’

  ‘Of course,’ he said. ‘Sit down.’

  There was just enough room for a couple of chairs on the other side of the desk. Cooper had thought about asking for a move to more spacious accommodation, which now lay vacant on another floor. But he was nervous about the answer he might get. Someone was likely to tell him that his next office would be in the storage shed at the back of the yard.

  ‘Is everything okay?’

  ‘Yes, fine,’ she said.

  Cooper studied her expression, hoping it wasn’t too obvious that he didn’t believe her.

  The woman sitting across the desk from him was a different Carol Villiers from the one he remembered when he was growing up. When she returned to Edendale, she was older, leaner and more tanned. And there had been something else different, an air of self-assurance, a firm angle of the jaw. He still sometimes saw her as she was in her military photograph, the uniform with black-and-red flashes, her corporal’s stripes on her sleeve, an MP’s badge. And there was that extra dimension – a shadow in her eyes, a darkness behind the professional façade.

  Since he’d moved to Foolow, Cooper now lived only a few fields away from Carol Villiers. Her parents ran a bed and breakfast on Tideswell high street. But had it really brought him any closer to her?

  ‘You must be wondering when you’ll stand a chance of getting promotion,’ he said, forced to guess at the reason for her visit in the face of her silence.

  Villiers shook her head. ‘Not really. It’s not something worth worrying about. It’s probably never going to happen anyway.’

  ‘Oh, it will. There just isn’t a vacancy right now.’

  ‘I’m not waiting anxiously to push Dev Sharma out of the way.’

  ‘Do you like working with him?’

  ‘Of course,’ said Villiers. ‘He’s fine. He’s a good DS.’

  Cooper nodded. ‘You’re loyal. That’s one of your best qualities. I wouldn’t want to change it.’

  Villiers looked at him quizzically, but didn’t ask any more.

  ‘I bet you’re sorry you ever left the RAF Police to come here,’ said Cooper. ‘Derbyshire Constabulary has probably been a disappointment to you.’

  Villiers smiled. ‘Not at all. It was the right time for me to get out of the Snowdrops when Glenn was killed. And where else was I going to go?’

  Cooper wondered if it had been insensitive to remind Villiers of her husband’s death. They had both been serving with the RAF Police, whose white-topped caps gave them the nickname ‘Snowdrops’, when Glenn Villiers had died in an incident in Helmand Province. But as he watched Carol now, she seemed calm and unperturbed. Her eyes narrowed in the familiar way as she brushed back a strand of hair from her forehead. She still looked the tough, competent ex-servicewoman he’d seen that day at West Street when she joined E Division CID. Derbyshire hadn’t softened her in the meantime. Not too much, anyway.

  ‘I wanted to tell you about a report DS Sharma didn’t mention,’ said Villiers. ‘He doesn’t think it’s important, but …’

  Cooper was intrigued. ‘What is it, Carol?’

  ‘A misper.’

  He frowned. ‘A priority case? A child?’

  ‘No, an adult male in his early forties.’

  ‘So why are you bothering me with it? You know we won’t take any action on a missing adult unless they’re vulnerable or there’s a reason to suspect a crime.’

  ‘Well, true. But you might remember this one.’

  ‘Someone I know?’

  ‘Sort of.’

  ‘Who is it?’

  ‘A gentleman named Reece Bower. He has an address in Bakewell.’

  ‘Reece Bower …’

  The name was certainly familiar. Cooper felt sure it must be an old case he’d been involved with, but years ago. So many names passed in front of his eyes, written in reports that came across his desk or listed on his computer screen that he couldn’t possibly remember more than a fraction of them. Yet his team seemed to expect him to have an encyclopedic memory stacked with the details of every major case from the past twenty years.

  ‘Reece Bower,’ said Cooper again, reaching for his keyboard to search the database.

  ‘There’s no need for that,’ said Villiers. ‘I can tell you the basics. I looked up the case.’

  ‘Go ahead, then.’

  ‘Ten years ago Mr Reece Bower was the primary suspect for the death of his wife Annette, and was subsequently charged with her murder.’

  Ah, now that rang a bell.

  ‘I remember,’ said Cooper.

  ‘I thought you would.’

  ‘It was a very unusual case.’

  Villiers nodded. ‘It certainly was.’

  ‘But that case is more than a decade old,’ said Cooper. ‘Why are you telling me about it now?’

  ‘Because this time,’ said Villiers, ‘it’s Mr Bower himself who has disappeared.’

  3

  Ten years ago

  It started with a single drop of blood. There was almost nothing to see – a splash, a spatter, a fading stain on the lamin
ate flooring. When she first saw it, Frances Swann’s initial reaction was to reach for a handful of paper towels from the cupboard. A drop of washing-up liquid in water should do the trick. Or at least, it did on the carpets in her own house. Did it work on laminate?

  The thought made her pause, worrying that she might make the stain worse. She was in her sister’s home, after all. It was only then that she began to wonder where the blood had come from.

  Frances looked up. The dogs were out with Adrian and the children were at their granny’s. Reece was in the garage tinkering with the car, polishing up the chrome or something like that.

  Puzzled, she stared at her own hands, turning over the palms to examine them. Had she scratched herself on a nail, cut herself on a knife? But there was no visible mark. No trace of an injury on her skin. So the blood wasn’t hers.

  She crouched to look at the stain, as if it might tell her something. She felt like a forensic examiner who’d forgotten to bring her equipment today. If she looked closely enough, the blood might tell her whose it was. Was it even human, though? How could she possibly tell?

  From that moment, she had a strong impression that whatever she did next might be very important for someone’s life.

  Reece Bower pushed the curtain aside and gazed out of the window of his house at the empty road. He seemed to be watching for someone, but no one came. Frances Swann paced impatiently across the room. She was finding his reluctance infuriating.

  ‘We must do something, Reece,’ she said. ‘She’s been missing for hours now.’

  He turned back towards her, but she couldn’t read his expression. It was as if he expected something else to happen, and she was disappointing him.

  ‘Yes, all right,’ he said in the end. ‘But Annette won’t thank us for it when she gets back. You know how she hates a fuss.’

  ‘I’m sure something’s happened to her,’ said Frances.

  ‘And I’m sure it hasn’t. Everything will be fine. You’ll see.’

  ‘Well, I hope you’re right. Are you going to phone, or shall I?’

  Bower shook his head. ‘No, I’ll do it.’

  ‘You’d better tell them the truth,’ she said.

  He paused with his hand on the phone.

  ‘What do you mean? What truth?’

  ‘You two had a fight, didn’t you?’

  Bower withdrew his hand and held it up in a defensive gesture.

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘No, of course not. What on earth makes you think that, Frances?’

  ‘I saw the blood,’ she said. ‘Reece, there was blood on the floor.’

  ‘On what floor?’

  ‘In the kitchen.’

  He smiled. To Frances, it looked like relief. ‘Annette cut herself chopping vegetables. That’s all it was, an accident. She must have missed cleaning a few spots up.’

  She said nothing. She didn’t believe him, but wasn’t in a position to argue – not until they found out where Annette was, and what happened to her.

  ‘Is that all it was?’ said Bower. ‘Frances, really. I’m surprised at you.’

  He took a pace towards her. Frances tensed, but stood her ground. ‘This is why we need the truth, Reece.’

  ‘Okay. It’s fine. We’ll do it. Though I trust you’re prepared for the consequences.’

  Frances watched him dial and lift the phone to his ear.

  ‘Yes, I’m prepared,’ she said quietly. ‘I hope you are, Reece.’

  Within a few hours, a search team had been through the house. It was normal procedure, Frances had been told. It was common in these cases for the missing person to be discovered close to home, often right inside their own house.

  There had been a lot of questions for Reece to answer. A lot. There was an absolute bombardment from the detective in charge of the case. And Frances could see he was very unhappy about it. When had he last spoken to his wife? Had she said that she was going anywhere? Might she just have forgotten to tell him? What possessions did Annette have with her? A phone, a purse? How much money would she have on her? Cash? Credit cards? How was she dressed when she left the house? Had he checked the wardrobe to see if she’d taken any clothes with her, or personal items? Was there any reason she might have decided to leave? Had he noticed anything suspicious? Had he seen anyone hanging around the house?

  Reece had become exasperated very quickly. He couldn’t take questioning like that. It wasn’t in his character. He was used to being in control and he became offended within minutes at the detective’s questions. Frances couldn’t see, but she could imagine them glaring at each other with a growing hostility. Reece wasn’t doing himself any favours. But she wasn’t sorry to see that.

  And then came Frances’s turn to answer questions.

  ‘So Mrs Bower’s disappearance was reported by her husband,’ said the detective when he came to interview her.

  ‘Yes,’ she said. And then she added: ‘Eventually.’

  He’d looked interested then.

  ‘Did you think he should have reported it earlier, Mrs Swann?’

  ‘I do,’ she admitted.

  ‘And you had a disagreement about it?’

  She looked at the officer more closely. She hadn’t said that, but he’d read it in her manner. Frances realised that she had been underestimating him.

  ‘Detective …?’ she said. ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t take in your name. Everything has been so mad.’

  ‘Detective Inspector Hitchens,’ he said. ‘Paul Hitchens.’

  She smiled at him. Somehow knowing his name made him more human.

  ‘Yes, we did disagree,’ she said. ‘I urged him to phone earlier, but he kept saying he was sure Annette would come home soon. And she didn’t, of course.’

  ‘We do ask people to be certain a person is missing for no good reason before they make a report,’ said DI Hitchens gently. ‘We can waste a lot of time otherwise, if someone is just late, because they’ve got stuck in traffic or their car has broken down. Sometimes they don’t have a phone, or the battery has run down, or it isn’t possible to get a signal. There are all kinds of innocent reasons.’

  Frances shook her head. ‘It isn’t anything like that.’

  ‘Well, the other possibility is that Mrs Bower went away for a reason and is deliberately not making contact.’

  Frances felt a flood of relief. He’d seen exactly what she was thinking without her having to say it. She would have felt guilty volunteering her suspicion. Disloyal. Of course, her true loyalty was to her sister, not to Reece. Yet she felt as though she was interfering in their relationship, coming between them in a way her sister would object to. She was afraid of what Annette would say about it when she came back. But that was if she came back.

  ‘It’s all right to tell me what you’re thinking,’ said Hitchens. ‘I assure you it won’t go any further, Mrs Swann.’

  ‘Very well.’ She took a deep breath. ‘Reece and Annette have been going through a difficult patch in their marriage. My sister confides in me, you see. She told me they’ve been having arguments recently.’

  ‘What about?’

  Frances hesitated. It was getting personal now. ‘Oh, the usual things.’

  ‘I don’t really know what the usual things are,’ said Hitchens. ‘I’m not married.’

  ‘Well … I mean money, for a start. Annette likes to spend it. Reece is more cautious. He thinks she’s too extravagant.’

  ‘And that’s been causing arguments. Serious ones?’

  ‘Not violent, if that’s what you mean. Just an ongoing niggle and resentment.’

  Hitchens didn’t look impressed. ‘Anything else?’

  ‘Well, a few years ago Reece had an affair. Annette was very upset about it, as you can imagine.’

  ‘That I can understand.’

  ‘It was with a colleague of his at work. Her name was Madeleine Betts.’

  Hitchens consulted a notebook. ‘Mr Bower works at Chesterfield Royal Hospital, I believe.’

  ‘That
’s right. In the finance department. I’m not sure about the Betts woman, but he must have met her through the job.’

  ‘How long did the affair last?’

  ‘I can’t tell you. I don’t think Annette ever got the full truth out of Reece. But he told her it was over and the woman was being moved to another department.’

  ‘So that was it?’

  ‘It took them a long time to get over it and go back to normal. In fact, I’m not certain they ever did get back to normal. It’s not something you forget very easily, that kind of betrayal.’

  ‘But this was some time ago,’ said Hitchens.

  ‘Yes, it must be a couple of years now.’

  Hitchens narrowed his eyes, and she knew nothing was going to escape him. ‘But more recently, perhaps …?’ he said.

  Frances sighed again. ‘I think Reece has been doing the same thing again.’

  ‘He was having another affair?’

  ‘It seems like it. I gained the impression from a few things Annette said, small incidents she mentioned. She didn’t say straight out. I think she was ashamed.’

  ‘Ashamed? I don’t understand.’

  ‘It’s a bit hard to explain, but Annette made that decision two years ago to forgive him, and stick by her marriage. If she had to admit the same thing was happening again, it would mean she’d made a mistake. That she’d failed. I think she saw it as her fault. That was why she didn’t come straight out with it, I’m sure. She would normally have confided in me, but in recent weeks I could tell there was something she was holding back.’

  ‘It’s hardly evidence, I’m afraid,’ said Hitchens. ‘But if you could give me more details of what your sister said to you, we can follow it up and see if there’s any substance to your suspicions.’

  ‘I understand.’

  ‘I’ll get Detective Constable Murfin to come and take a full statement from you.’

  ‘Very well.’

  While she waited, Frances went into the kitchen. Her instinct was to make a cup of tea. Some of these police officers would probably like one. It wasn’t her house, but she felt it was her role. Something she could do, at least. Something other than answering questions.