Dead in the Dark

by Stephen Booth

  ‘Which he eventually did’? That was interesting. Cooper had read a lot of witness statements, and the inclusion of a term like ‘eventually’ suggested that Mrs Swann had been very insistent on it.

  There were other statements, including one from Adrian Swann confirming his wife’s version of events, and one from Reece Bower’s manager who admitted that Bower had seemed stressed recently, though the standard of his work hadn’t suffered.

  And there was a final statement, dated well after the others, from Annette Bower’s father, Evan Slaney, claiming to have seen his daughter alive and well in Buxton long after her husband was supposed to have killed her.

  Cooper was frowning over the details of the sighting when he was interrupted.

  ‘How is it going?’

  He looked up. Carol Villiers stood over his desk gazing at the sheaf of reports. Cooper hadn’t heard her either knock on the door or come into the room.

  ‘It doesn’t look good,’ he said.

  ‘Reece Bower was never actually tried. So a review of the case might produce a different opinion from the CPS. Don’t you think so?’

  Cooper shook his head. ‘There would have to be some new evidence. They wouldn’t consider it otherwise.’

  ‘What if the credibility of the crucial witness statement was demolished?’

  ‘You mean her father, Mr Slaney.’

  ‘Yes, he’s the one who claims he saw Annette alive.’

  ‘You think we might be able to prove he’s lying?’

  ‘Or mistaken.’

  ‘He was very confident and consistent in his interview,’ said Cooper. ‘Who’s going to accept now that he was just mistaken?’

  ‘Lying then.’

  ‘For what reason? He had no motivation to lie, no reason to protect Reece Bower.’

  ‘Not that we know of.’

  ‘Okay,’ said Cooper dubiously. ‘So what do you think the strongest elements of the case were against Reece Bower?’

  ‘Well, for a start, the forensic examination found bloodstains on the floor of the Bowers’ kitchen,’ said Villiers. ‘Only tiny spots. Most of them were invisible to the human eye. It was one particular drop of blood that drew attention.’

  Cooper nodded. ‘That single speck started the whole thing. The entire case rested on it in a way.’

  ‘It was identified as Annette Bower’s blood, though. Her DNA wasn’t on record, but they got a sample from a hairbrush for comparison. It was definitely Annette’s blood.’

  ‘Reece Bower’s story was that she’d cut herself on a knife a few days previously, while she was chopping vegetables. That was never disproved.’

  ‘How could it be?’ said Villiers. ‘It was consistent with the pattern of the blood. And since Annette Bower was never found, alive or dead, she was wasn’t able to either corroborate or contradict that version of events.’

  ‘Entirely circumstantial, then,’ said Cooper. ‘Not real proof.’

  ‘Everyone who knew the Bowers confirmed that their marriage was going a rough patch. Their neighbours, Annette’s sister, her parents, even some of their colleagues at work. Everyone agreed that the couple had been having arguments.’

  ‘If all those people knew about their arguments, they were hardly a secret,’ Cooper pointed out.

  ‘I suppose not.’

  ‘Is there a member of the family we don’t have a statement from?’

  ‘Only the daughter, Lacey,’ said Villiers. ‘She would have been eight years old at the time of her mother’s disappearance, though.’

  ‘It’s very young, but not too young to remember something about it. Children of that age often notice more than adults realise, or expect. It’s possible she could recall some detail that was important.’

  ‘But there’s no statement on record.’

  ‘She wouldn’t have been questioned at the time, or only in a superficial way.’

  Cooper sensed a gap in the information. If she had been spoken to at all following the disappearance, an eight-year-old girl like Lacey would have been treated with kid gloves by the inquiry team. She would have been asked questions only in the presence of a responsible adult – in those circumstances, almost certainly her father. After Reece Bower was arrested and charged with murder, she went to her aunt’s to be looked after.

  ‘Annette Bower’s sister, Frances Swann …’ he said.

  Villiers checked the list. ‘She has an address at Over Haddon.’

  ‘Do we know anything else about her?’

  ‘She’s a teacher at Lady Manners School. I don’t know what subject. Her husband works for the Health and Safety Laboratory at Harpur Hill.’

  ‘Adrian Swann?’

  ‘Yes. Do you know him, Ben?’

  ‘I’ve come across him. He’s a specialist in high-velocity projectile delivery systems.’

  ‘Mmm, whatever they are,’ said Villiers. ‘Well, the Swanns have two children of their own. One of them would be about the same age as Lacey.’

  Cooper looked down at the sea of reports and statements.

  ‘What am I missing, Carol?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  They sat and stared at each other for a while. Then Villiers picked out a witness statement from the pile.

  ‘This man driving the red Nissan,’ she said. ‘He was never traced, it seems. There were public appeals, but no one came forward so he couldn’t be identified.’

  ‘If he ever actually existed.’

  ‘You think he was invented? But it wasn’t Reece Bower who reported seeing the Nissan, it was a member of the public who saw it behaving suspiciously near the Monsal Trail.’

  ‘What does “behaving suspiciously” mean? Someone sitting in a car might look suspicious to a wary passer-by with an active imagination.’ Cooper shook his head. ‘It sounds like a red herring to me.’

  ‘It worked in distracting the focus of the investigation for a while. It’s almost as if Bower had planted that bit of witness evidence himself.’

  ‘This man has an awful lot of luck,’ said Cooper.

  ‘Do you think his luck has finally run out?’

  ‘We can’t know,’ said Cooper, ‘until we find him.’

  ‘Well, we’ve run some checks on Reece Bower,’ said Villiers. ‘He’s not using his phone, or his credit cards. Or at least, he hasn’t since Sunday, when he disappeared. However, he did draw out four hundred pounds in cash on the Friday, two days before. I suppose he could have picked up a pay-as-you-go mobile somewhere.’

  ‘Even so, four hundred pounds wouldn’t last him long, unless he’s staying with someone.’

  ‘True. So where are you going to start, Ben?’

  ‘Mr Slaney is an obvious starting point. But I also want to talk to Naomi Heath again. I think it’s interesting that she still lives in the house that Annette disappeared from. She would have to believe in Reece Bower’s innocence to do that, wouldn’t she?’

  ‘Do you want me to come along?’

  Cooper hesitated. ‘I think DS Sharma needs you here, Carol.’

  ‘Okay. Is there anything I can do in the meantime?’

  ‘Have you started working your way through the address book?’

  ‘Yes, but there are a lot of names. Is it okay if I share some out to Luke and Becky? There are so many to check.’

  ‘Yes, of course. And you could find another address for me – Lacey Bower’s. She’s a student in Sheffield.’

  ‘The teenage daughter?’ said Villiers. ‘I’ll get on to it.’

  *

  Ben Cooper felt he could no longer justify taking Carol Villiers away from Dev Sharma’s team. They had too much else to do. But he needed some assistance and there was a compromise solution: Gavin Murfin.

  ‘How are you, Gavin?’ he asked when Murfin came into his office.

  ‘Top notch. What’s up, boss?’

  ‘Gavin, there was a forensic pathologist involved in the Bower case who I don’t know. His name was Felix Webber.’

  ‘Oh
, old Fingers Felix. We bumped heads a few times.’

  ‘What is he like?’

  ‘He’s a miserable bugger, the real life and soul of the funeral, if you know what I mean. I had to visit him a lot at one time. When he was there, a morgue was definitely a morgue, and not a place for chat. But he liked cops, had a bit of respect for the job, if you know what I mean.’

  ‘Not like Dr van Doon?’ said Cooper.

  ‘Well, aye.’

  ‘So where is he now?’

  ‘Felix Webber went independent, set up his own consultancy practice in Derby. He wrote a couple of books, did some media interviews, and got quite a name for himself. Then he became chair of one of the committees at the Royal College of Pathology.’

  ‘A high flier, then.’

  ‘I think he must be doing well. He’s gone right upmarket. Lives inside a Sunday supplement – white quartz worktops and a table made of fir planks.’

  ‘So you’ve kept in touch?’

  ‘Well, I’ve been to his house,’ said Murfin cautiously.

  ‘Through your job as a private investigator?’

  ‘I used to get information from Webber. I could phone him and talk him into giving me a few nuggets, a bit of independent advice, but I can’t get through to him now.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘He’s far too important these days. He doesn’t even chew his own food, let alone answer his own phone.’

  Cooper laughed. ‘You’re with me today, by the way.’

  ‘Just like old times,’ said Murfin.

  ‘First I want you in Chesterfield. You need to go to Reece Bower’s place of work, a steel fabrications company. Naomi Heath suggested one of his colleagues had made a comment to Reece that upset him and may have made him leave. If that’s so, I want to know who it was and what they said to him.’

  ‘Got it, boss.’

  ‘I don’t think it’s a huge outfit. It shouldn’t take you long to narrow it down to a specific individual.’

  ‘No problem.’

  ‘And there’s one other person I’d like you to track down and talk to,’ said Cooper.

  ‘Who’s that?’

  Cooper tapped the statement from Annette Bower’s sister.

  ‘This woman, Madeleine Betts. She works at Chesterfield Royal Hospital.’

  ‘And after that?’

  ‘You can come and join me in Bakewell. But phone me first to find out where I’ll be.’

  16

  In Bakewell town centre Ben Cooper could find only one CCTV camera, and that pointed at the entrance to a pub on Bridge Street, pretty useless for present purposes. Even if it had existed ten years ago, there was no way of tracking the movements of the Bowers’ vehicle. There weren’t even any speed cameras to catch sight of his blue Vauxhall, except for some on the A6 towards Buxton.

  This was Cooper’s second visit to Bakewell in two days. But at least he’d managed to avoid market day, which was Monday.

  There had been no answer to his calls to the number kept on file for Evan Slaney. Perhaps he was away, or just at work. Cooper didn’t have a business address for Slaney, so he had no option but to head first to Reece Bower’s house in Aldern Way.

  When Naomi Heath appeared at the door of the house in Aldern Way, her make-up couldn’t disguise the fact that she hadn’t been sleeping well. Her eyes were sunken and smudged with dark shadows.

  ‘Oh, Detective Inspector Cooper,’ she said. ‘On your own this time?’

  ‘I do have a few more questions,’ said Cooper.

  ‘Come in, then. What other information can I give you?’

  ‘I was hoping you could tell me how Mr Bower left,’ said Cooper. ‘It says in the initial reports that his car is still here.’

  ‘Yes, it’s in the garage.’

  ‘Can I have a look at it?’

  ‘I’ll get you the keys. They’re on the hook by the door.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  Reece Bower’s present car was a silver BMW. Not a new model, but about three years old. No doubt he’d got rid of the blue Vauxhall long ago. Cooper opened the boot and moved aside a bag of golf clubs to examine a blue Berghaus waterproof and a pair of Hi-Tec walking boots. The waterproof was dry, and the boots were so clean that they couldn’t have been used recently. He found nothing else – not even a spare wheel. Of course, BMWs had run-flat tyres.

  Inside the car, he checked the glove compartment, all the storage areas, and even under the seats. There was nothing of interest. Nothing to see at all, except a packet of tissues and some change for parking. Reece Bower was either a very tidy man, or the car had been cleared out deliberately. It hadn’t been valeted though. That was something at least. If necessary, he could get a forensic examination carried out.

  The garage itself contained all the usual stuff. Cooper knew many people with garages who used them for anything except parking their car in. They were more secure than a garden shed for storing your lawnmower and power tools, warmer and drier for stacking cardboard boxes, handier for plugging in a chest freezer. All of those things were here, but the garage was big enough to take the car as well. It probably took a bit of manoeuvring down that drive, but it did just about fit.

  ‘This is Mr Bower’s car,’ said Cooper, ‘so do you have a car of your own, Mrs Heath?’

  ‘Yes, a Mini. It’s on the other drive.’

  ‘Does Mr Bower drive that sometimes?’

  ‘Not unless he really has to. He doesn’t like it. He says it’s too small to be a proper car. But it suits me.’

  ‘So if he didn’t take his car, how did he leave?’

  ‘He set off walking down the hill towards Station Road.’

  ‘Did you hear him call for a taxi?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Well, he wouldn’t have got very far on foot. Could he have been meeting someone?’

  ‘Who would that be?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Cooper. ‘I was hoping you might know.’

  ‘I haven’t any idea.’

  Cooper found himself gazing out of the back window at the flourishing garden. He had to keep reminding himself that this was the same house that Annette Bower had disappeared from ten years ago. He had no sense of a sinister history to this property, the way he did in some houses. But then, the search had found nothing. If Annette was anywhere, she wasn’t here at the house in Aldern Way.

  ‘You mentioned yesterday that you thought Mr Bower had been getting hassle from some the employees where he works and that something one of them said may have upset him enough to make him want to get away for a while.’

  ‘Yes, I did say that.’

  ‘I think you may know what people were saying to him.’

  ‘Well, they make jokes about him,’ she said. ‘Usually behind his back, but some of them to his face. They don’t seem to have any respect for him. Being in middle management is an unenviable position, I suppose. You have the responsibility, but without the power or the authority. Sometimes it just gets a bit too much for Reece.’

  ‘What sort of jokes do they make?’ asked Cooper.

  She hesitated. ‘I’d rather not say.’

  Cooper studied her carefully. ‘Are they to do with the time he was charged with the murder of his wife?’

  Naomi lowered her eyes. ‘Yes, I believe so. I can’t tell you exactly what they say – Reece doesn’t go into the details. All I know is that they make him angry. I think, when they see Reece getting annoyed, it just makes them worse. They like to wind him up more if they get a reaction. It’s like kids in the playground, isn’t it? They pick on the sensitive child.’

  ‘So you’d say Mr Bower is sensitive?’

  ‘On that subject, yes. Wouldn’t you be? It was a very traumatic experience for him.’ Then she looked at Cooper more closely and seemed to recall who he was. ‘But you’re a police officer. Perhaps you don’t see it like that. Your people did their best to get him convicted.’

  Cooper walked down the hallway to the front door, then tu
rned to Naomi.

  ‘Are the boys at school?’ he said.

  ‘Yes, Daniel and Joshua attend schools here in Bakewell. You’re not going to drag them into this, are you? They have problems enough.’

  ‘No, that shouldn’t be necessary.’ He paused. ‘We’ll be speaking to Lacey, though.’

  Naomi frowned.

  ‘Good luck to you, then.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I don’t know what sense you’ll get out of her.’

  ‘Does she talk to you, Mrs Heath? Or to her father?’

  ‘It depends what you mean by “talk”. She’s a teenager. Teenagers lie to their parents all the time. It’s a miracle if they tell us the truth now and then. The only view we get of what’s going on in their heads is the impression we have from the outside. The truth can be something completely different. But I’m sure you know that.’

  At the top of the drive Cooper found a middle-aged woman in a red padded jacket standing near his car with a Yorkshire terrier dog on a lead. She didn’t seem to be walking the dog, just standing there as if waiting for it to do something. Or waiting for something else perhaps.

  ‘Hello,’ she brightly when he approached. ‘You’ve been to see Naomi.’

  It was a statement rather than a question. So she must have been watching him for a while.

  ‘You must be a neighbour,’ he said.

  ‘Yes, my house is there, across the road. Are you with the police?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘He’s gone off, hasn’t he? Reece, I mean.’

  ‘That’s right, Mrs …?’

  ‘Taylor. Evelyn.’

  ‘Do you know Mr Bower well?’

  ‘Not that well, I suppose. But they’re a very nice couple,’ she said. ‘He obviously dotes on her and can’t do enough for her. I wish all husbands were like that, actually. And they have that young boy.’

  ‘Daniel, their five-year-old?’

  ‘Yes, you see them together. Happy as any family I’ve ever seen.’

  Cooper nodded. ‘What about the other children? Naomi has a son a few years older.’

  ‘Oh, he’s fine. A bit quiet perhaps. The younger boy is very sweet.’

  Perhaps this was a woman who just liked small children. But he had to ask her about one more …