Dead in the Dark

by Stephen Booth

  He suddenly jerked upright and looked at his watch. It was time to put in the call he was dreading.

  He dialled his brother’s number at Bridge End Farm, and it seemed a long time before the phone was picked up.

  ‘Hello.’

  ‘It’s Ben. What did they say, Matt?’

  And Matt said just one word:

  ‘Malignant.’

  31

  Six days ago

  Frances Swann stared at Reece Bower as if he were a complete stranger. His face looked drawn and haggard, but there was a strange light in his eyes, as if he was getting a thrill from the story he was telling her.

  ‘I can’t believe my ears,’ she said. ‘Is this some kind of joke?’

  ‘No joke,’ he said. ‘It’s all true, Frances.’

  ‘So Lacey was right. You’ve lived a lie all these years. You’ve made us all live a lie.’

  Frances turn to look at Naomi. She was sitting back in an armchair as if it was a perfectly normal day, an afternoon with the family. Yet when Frances looked closer, she could see Naomi’s body was rigid. Her knuckles were pale, the tendons stood out on her neck, and a red flush was rising to her cheeks.

  Reece made a dismissive gesture, as if it was all a fuss over nothing.

  ‘Don’t make a big drama out of it,’ he said. ‘So Lacey has let the cat out of the bag. But we’ve all got to carry on as normal.’

  ‘Why? For you?’

  ‘Yes, Frances.’

  ‘And what about Annette?’

  Naomi spoke for the first time. Her voice was distant.

  ‘Reece, tell us exactly what happened.’

  ‘Okay, okay. Well, it was a quiet day. It was a Thursday, late in October. The schools were back and the holiday season was over. I remember it had been raining in the morning, but Annette fancied she could tell from the sky that it would clear up. She liked to think she could read the clouds. So we got in the car and set off to Lathkill Dale for a walk. Because it was so quiet we managed to get right down to one of the parking places just above the mill. That was lucky. Otherwise, it’s murder coming back up that steep hill to the car park.’

  He paused, licked his lips, as if reflecting on what he’d just said.

  ‘And she was right,’ he continued. ‘It had cleared up by the time we got out of the car. Annette was always right.’

  ‘Was no one else around in Lathkill Dale?’

  Bower shook his head. ‘The rain had kept everyone else away.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘Well, we walked some way up the dale, then Annette wanted to divert off the path to look at the old mine workings. But there must have been an unmarked shaft … She fell, just disappeared from view. I don’t know how far, but it was a long way down. I could hear her screams as her body bounced off the stone. And then there was a thud, far away. She was quiet after that. Very quiet. So quiet that I didn’t have any doubts … Yes, I called out to her, but there was nothing. I knew then.’

  ‘Knew what?’

  ‘That she was dead, of course. Dead, and completely out of sight where no one would find her. I couldn’t believe my luck.’

  ‘Your luck?’ shouted Frances.

  The blood was roaring in her ears now. Reece’s face seemed to swim in and out of her vision, as if she was drunk. But she was stone cold sober. It was fury bubbling up inside her that made her feel intoxicated with rage.

  Reece held up his hands placatingly.

  ‘It was the best way out. You’ve got to understand that. Our marriage was over. We were doing nothing but arguing, and she was getting violent. Annette had been on and on at me all the way to Lathkill Dale in the car, and all the way up the trail too. Do you know, we passed a walker coming the other way, and she smiled at him and said “hello”. Then, as soon as he was out of earshot, she started in on me again. It was intolerable. I couldn’t have stood any more, Frances. She was out of control. If it hadn’t been for this accident … well, it would have ended badly.’

  ‘Accident?’ hissed Frances. ‘You call that an accident?’

  ‘That’s what it was. I didn’t know the shaft was there. It should have been sealed up. It wasn’t my fault.’

  ‘She could have been saved,’ said Frances. ‘All you had to do was make a call.’

  Reece shook his head. ‘There was no signal.’

  ‘What a pathetic excuse. You deliberately left her there to die.’

  Now he’d begun to plead. ‘Frances, I might have made a wrong decision in the heat of the moment. It was an accident, really it was. But it seemed so … so neat, somehow. It was a solution to all our problems. Imagine if she’d been badly injured? She fell a long way. She might have been paralysed, brain damaged, left a cabbage in a wheelchair. It was much better that she was dead than that. So I had to leave her there.’

  Frances stared at him, wondering if he actually believed what he was saying. He was so self-centred that he probably did. It was all about his own convenience. Even the death of his wife had been a stroke of good luck to avoid a messy divorce, or worse.

  ‘And afterwards?’

  ‘I knew you were coming that afternoon, Frances. So I made up the story about her going for a run. I took Taffy out myself and left him on the trail. I knew he would find his way back home. But then things began to go wrong …’

  Frances sensed Lacey come up quietly to stand next to her. Lacey’s breathing was very shallow. She had that faint wheeze in her air passages that she suffered when she was stressed.

  ‘Oh, the murder charge must have been very inconvenient,’ said Frances.

  ‘I was terrified,’ said Reece, trying to make himself look small, like a helpless boy.

  Frances sneered. That sort of thing didn’t work with her.

  ‘But then Evan had that sighting of Annette in Buxton,’ he said.

  ‘I always thought you seized on Dad’s story a bit too eagerly.’

  ‘Wouldn’t you? It was my only chance. I didn’t think it would have reached that stage. Not a murder charge, without a body.’

  And then Reece smiled.

  That was the final straw.

  Naomi leaped up from her chair and ran at him, screaming. She raked her fingernails across his cheek and he lashed out with his fist, knocking her backwards. Frances ran forward to grab him, and Lacey was right there with her, pummelling at her father. In a second, Naomi jumped up again, blood spraying from a cut lip. Frances heard screaming that seemed to go on and on, but she could see nothing in the red haze that seemed to fill the room.

  It felt like a long time before the haze cleared. Naomi had collapsed and was hanging her head towards the carpet. Lacey was kneeling over her father, who lay prone and still in a shaft of sunlight from the French windows.

  When Lacey stood up, Frances saw a red stain spreading rapidly on his white shirt. And something else. A wooden handle protruding from his side, just below the ribs.

  ‘Is he …?’

  And Lacey said: ‘Yes, Auntie. He’s dead.’

  32

  It was market day in Shirebrook. But the market traders were already packing up to go home, loading their unsold goods into a small fleet of Transit vans, while council workers began to dismantle the stalls.

  DCI Alistair Mackenzie had bought himself a burger from a fast-food van. The smell of fried onions was turning Diane Fry’s stomach.

  ‘So that’s it,’ said Mackenzie through a mouth full of burger. ‘Job done.’

  ‘Krystian Zalewski was trying to prevent a street robbery,’ said Fry. ‘He came to the assistance of a woman who was struggling with two men. That was how he got stabbed.’

  ‘And the woman ran off when the attackers turned their attention to Zalewski.’

  ‘Nikki Frost, yes. She ran away as fast as she could and went home. I don’t suppose we can blame her for that. She had no idea what happened after she left. And she didn’t know Zalewski either. Even when she saw his photograph in the local paper, she didn’t recognise him. She
only made the connection when someone pointed out the spot where he’d been attacked. It was then she realised he was her rescuer, and he was dead. I feel very sorry for her.’

  Fry felt as though her last words were lost in the cacophony of diesel engines and steel tubes being thrown on to the back of a trailer. Mackenzie looked at her with an expression of dissatisfaction.

  ‘And how come Divisional CID got the suspects in custody before we did?’ he said.

  Fry took a deep breath. She’d been asking herself the same question.

  ‘They just had a lucky break,’ she said. ‘It happens, sir.’

  ‘A body-worn camera?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Technology.’

  ‘And luck,’ repeated Fry. ‘It was just a coincidence.’

  ‘A coincidence? More of an inconvenience.’

  ‘I appreciate that, sir.’

  ‘Did you have any suspicion that it would turn out this way, Diane?’

  ‘No. It was a complete surprise to me,’ said Fry. ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘No need to apologise. They were circumstances out of your control. Out of anyone’s control.’

  ‘We’re on it now. A murder charge takes precedence.’

  Mackenzie wiped his hands on a paper napkin and dropped it into a litter bin. A man on a mobility scooter buzzed past them, just missing Mackenzie’s toes. There seemed to be a lot of mobility scooters in Shirebrook. A lot of old people’s bungalows. A lot of England flags.

  ‘DS Fry …’ said Mackenzie.

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘Please try to make sure the next thing that happens is neither a coincidence, an inconvenience – or a surprise.’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘So are we finished in Shirebrook? We’ve got the suspects locked up, we’ve got the statements we need. It’s just a matter of doing the paperwork and putting our case together for the CPS.’

  ‘There’s just one more job I want to do here,’ said Fry.

  Mackenzie raised an eyebrow, but didn’t question her. ‘Do you need DC Callaghan?’

  ‘Not really.’

  ‘Well, keep him anyway, Diane. I’ll leave you to it. See you both back at St Ann’s.’

  Fry watched him head back to his car. The stalls were almost gone now, the Transit vans had left. The marketplace would be empty and deserted again soon, just the way it had been when she first arrived in Shirebrook. Had anything changed in these last few days? It wasn’t very likely.

  When Ben Cooper and Carol Villiers arrived back at the rendezvous point in Lathkill Dale, the DCRO controller came forward to meet him. The man took off his helmet and ran a hand through his hair. There were streaks of mud on his face like camouflage paint, and more stains in his beard.

  ‘We’ve looked in all the accessible places,’ he said. ‘There’s nothing there.’

  ‘Well, that just means we’ll have to look in all the inaccessible places,’ said Cooper impatiently.

  ‘Where do you mean?’

  Cooper hesitated. ‘I’m not sure. But that’s where we’ll have to look.’

  ‘Well, if you can show us, we’ll look. Otherwise—’

  He looked around the dale, with its steep slopes covered in trees and dense undergrowth, rising to limestone cliffs.

  ‘Where is the main mine building from here?’ asked Cooper.

  The man pointed. ‘Up the slope and towards the right. There’s no path from here though. You’ll have to hack your way through.’

  ‘I’ll manage.’

  ‘We,’ said Villiers. ‘I’ll come with you, Ben.’

  A few minutes later, Cooper was working his way up the hillside with difficulty. Villiers had moved ahead of him and was ten yards further up the slope, pushing aside the branches of an overgrown elder tree and tramping down a patch of nettles. She was stamping on the weeds as if she really hated them, which perhaps she did. Some people were prone to get a bad reaction to nettle stings.

  He looked down at his feet as he felt his toe catch on a root and had to stretch out his arms to keep his balance. He laughed at his awkwardness and wondered if Carol had seen him almost fall.

  But when he looked up again, Carol Villiers had gone.

  *

  With a cold feeling gripping her heart, Diane Fry pushed open the scuffed door and walked into Geoff Pollitt’s shop in Shirebrook marketplace.

  ‘Wait out there, Jamie,’ she called. ‘I just want to have a word with Mr Pollitt alone.’

  Callaghan hesitated. ‘Are you sure that’s a good idea, Diane?’

  ‘I won’t be long.’

  Pollitt straightened up from behind the counter when she entered. He didn’t look directly at Fry, but gazed past her to see who she’d brought with her. When he saw she was alone, he smirked.

  ‘Can I help you with something, Sergeant?’ he said.

  ‘Why, what exactly are you selling?’

  ‘Nothing that would interest you. Maybe you should try next door at the pet shop? They sell peanuts for monkeys.’

  ‘We raided a house down at the Model Village on Wednesday,’ said Fry.

  ‘I heard. Not one of mine.’

  ‘No, but we do know about yours, Mr Pollitt.’

  He went a little pale.

  ‘You can’t do. You’re just trying it on.’

  Fry ignored him. He was right, of course. She was trying it on. But sometimes you had to bluff a bit. She hoped she was making him uneasy. When people were unsettled, they made mistakes, perhaps blurted out the wrong thing. It was something to hope for.

  ‘It’s all over, isn’t it?’ said Pollitt. ‘They say you got two blokes for doing in the Pole upstairs.’

  ‘Yes, we did.’ Fry looked up at the ceiling. Yes, the bloodstain was still here. It looked darker now. That could be bacteria growing on the blood. It wouldn’t meet approval from a health and safety inspection. But then, what in this shop would?

  ‘We’re not leaving Shirebrook just yet,’ she said.

  ‘Why not?’ said Pollitt. ‘Are you starting to feel at home?’

  Fry gave a bag of cat litter an experimental kick. It gave way under the toe of her shoe and a slit let out a trickle of granules. The crunch felt very satisfying. But it wasn’t the only thing she wanted to kick.

  ‘We’ve been watching your shop,’ she said. ‘You get a lot of visitors, don’t you? People who don’t seem to buy very much.’ She looked around the bare shelves. ‘Not anything that you have on display anyway.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘So what are they doing here? Are you having meetings?’

  ‘Okay, yes. I get together with like-minded people sometimes. There’s no law against that, is there?’

  ‘Like-minded in what way?’

  ‘Do you need to ask? You know for yourself what the problems are. Everyone can see it. Quite a lot of us think we’re living in depraved and degenerate times. The EU has been a disaster for us in England. Brexit is our future. The Referendum vote gave us hope.’

  ‘Did it really?’

  Pollitt’s lip curled.

  ‘You sneering liberals,’ he said. ‘You don’t understand, do you? You don’t want to hear what ordinary people think, how immigration is destroying our communities and ruining our lives. You just put your hands over your ears and shout “racist”. Well, it doesn’t work any more. Things are going our way. You’ll see.’

  She studied Pollitt, feeling the anger growing inside her. He was a man of his time, a typical product of this moment in history. But that didn’t make him any less despicable in Fry’s eyes. It didn’t make him any less worthy of being stamped out of existence, like the cockroaches that no doubt were infesting his stock room.

  Fry took a step closer. Pollitt seemed to recognise the look in her eyes and he flinched as if she’d hit him. But she hadn’t. Not yet.

  A few minutes later Fry opened the door of the shop and stepped out into the daylight of Shirebrook marketplace.

  Jamie Callaghan had been w
aiting impatiently for her on the pavement. He looked as though he’d been expecting the worst. He stared in horror at Fry’s hand as she rubbed her knuckles with a tissue.

  ‘Is everything okay?’ he said.

  ‘Fine.’

  ‘Are you sure, Diane?’

  Fry shrugged. Callaghan went to the door and stuck his head into the shop.

  ‘Oh, God. What happened to him?’ he said.

  ‘I think he was visited by a group of local men who took reprisals.’

  ‘Polish men? East Europeans?’

  ‘I don’t know. They may just have been Shirebrook residents who took exception to outsiders attacking members of their community.’

  ‘He can tell us himself, can’t he?’

  Fry turned to look at Geoff Pollitt. He glowered back at her over the hand clutching his nose.

  ‘He doesn’t seem to be talking,’ she said. ‘Which has got to be a good thing.’

  In Lathkill Dale, Ben Cooper was lying on the ground and peering into an impenetrable darkness.

  ‘Carol! Carol!’ he called.

  He called again and again. There was no answer. Only a trickle of soil and stone sliding into the hole from the dangerously unstable edge.

  ‘I didn’t even hear her fall,’ he said desperately.

  ‘It’s the entrance to an old mineshaft. They must be all over this valley.’

  ‘How far down does it go?’

  ‘There’s no way of telling.’

  ‘We need lights.’

  ‘The DCRO team are coming. They’ll deal with it, don’t worry.’

  But Cooper was hardly listening. As his eyes adjusted to the lack of light, he’d spotted a ledge of rock jutting out of a hole a couple of feet down. He twisted his body round and eased himself over the edge.

  ‘No, wait. It’s not safe.’

  ‘She’s probably injured,’ he said.

  ‘Well, we don’t want two of you getting hurt.’

  Cooper hesitated only a second. One part of him knew that he was being given good advice, that it was foolhardy to risk his own safety, that he should wait for the rescue team with lights and proper equipment. But he was here, right now, and Carol was lying down there, hurt.

  His boots touched the ledge and his fingers scrabbled on the side of the hole. He could feel grooves and scratches and smooth surfaces, as if the rock had been attacked by hundreds of hammers and chisels. He got a grasp on a crevice and steadied himself then pulled out his torch and shone its beam down into the shaft.