Scared to Live bcadf-7

by Stephen Booth

  In Matlock Bath, he crossed the Derwent and parked near the old railway station, with its little cowled chimneys, mock timbering and herringbone brickwork. Though the Derwent Valley line was still open to Derby, Matlock Bath’s ticket office and waiting room had been converted into a wildlife gift shop. From here, it was possible to walk across the track and follow a footpath to the cable car station.

  He passed a compound full of spare cable cars. Actually, half cars. They looked as though they’d been cut open to reveal their interiors. The hum of motors and the creak of cables over wheels increased to a rapid whir as a string of cars swung out of their station, dipping and bobbing as they rose. Two strings passed each other high over the village, half-hidden by the trees. In the roof of the station building, a huge steel wheel turned the cables. He saw with relief that all the cars were empty. There wasn’t much business for the Heights of Abraham at this time of year, with the kids back at school.

  Arriving at the Treetops Centre, he found a sign that said Where to go next. Good question. Near the High Falls shop were a woodland family, carved by someone with a chainsaw and power file. The elm girl, the daughter of the family, was a young sapling crowned by a giant squirrel clutching an acorn, waiting to chew her bones.

  A narrow doorway gave access to the base of the Prospect Tower. Halfway up the steps, there was no light from the opening at the top, just the faint glow of a bulkhead light on the wall below the handrail. The outer stones were worn smooth by the feet of thousands of visitors, but the inner steps still bore the mason’s tool marks, where they were too narrow to walk on.

  This tower had been built to take advantage of the views and provide work for the unemployed. But it also contained a rare thing — a true spiral staircase. There was no central column, and the steps tapered sharply, so they were only wide enough to walk on if you stayed close to the outside wall and clung to the rail.

  Finally, he stood at the top of the tower, with its three-hundred-and-sixty-degree view. It was so misty today that it was like a steady drizzle falling on him when he stood at the top of the tower. Spider’s webs in the hawthorn bushes had collected the moisture and shone like silver handkerchiefs draped between the branches.

  Lowther looked over the parapet. Matlock Bath was below him, with the A6 and the Derwent snaking their way from the north beneath the crags of High Tor. Masson Hill and High Tor had split apart at some time. A fissure in the tor was a continuation of the same mineral vein that formed Masson Cave, which now lay on the opposite side of the valley. He could hear the traffic on the road, the clank of machinery working somewhere, a flock of jackdaws on the hill. Then the cables whirred into life as another set of cars began their descent.

  The cable cars stopped automatically near the top of their climb, to allow visitors to admire the view and take photographs. He’d hung there himself on the way up, alone in his bubble high above the ground. Where to go next? The answer was too tempting. He’d imagined his cable car breaking loose and dropping towards the A6, the wind whistling through the sides as it fell, turning slowly in the air. The sound of the wind might drown out the voices. The impact with the ground might stop the world whirling round his head, scare away the colours and shapes that crept closer to the corners of his vision like spiders in his brain.

  Southwards, he was looking at the dome of the Pavilion and the Fishpond Hotel. At the south end of the village, high among the trees, was Gulliver’s Kingdom, with its towers and turrets and the screams of children riding the switchback. That was where most of the voices came from. The voices of children. They were difficult for him to ignore, and even harder to understand.

  If he put twenty pence in the telescope, he might be able to see right into the theme park. He might make out the pirate ship on Bourbon Street, or the singing frogs and a talking apple in the Palais Royale. Further away, there’d be the Rio Grande Train Ride chugging its way through fake cacti and replica Indians, and imitation vintage cars that ran on tracks, like trams. Kids didn’t need much to spark their imaginations, if they were young enough — if they hadn’t reached the age when they were taught to fear anything that wasn’t quite real.

  He didn’t go to Gulliver’s Kingdom any more. He hadn’t been there for over three months, not since that day in July. But he could still picture himself wandering away from the Music House, through the Millennium Maze and across the Stepping Stones to reach Lilliput Land Castle. There was a mirror room in the castle. He loved the distortions there, enjoyed knowing that this was one place in the world where everyone saw a distorted version of reality, and not just him. He would stand looking at the fragmented images for a while, not focusing on any one detail, but letting the shapes blur and tremble on the edge of his vision as he swayed gently from side to side. Then he would move on, past the giant chess set to Fantasy Terrace.

  They’d asked him to stop coming to Gulliver’s Kingdom. They said he frightened the children. But there was nothing to be frightened of, was there? His hallucinations were fully under control now. He could hold them in his hand and spin them, watching the light play on their colours, turning on their sound for as long as he wanted to listen, then turning them off again.

  It was good to give himself a little glimpse into that world, knowing he had the power to switch it off whenever he liked. It was as if he possessed the key to a door that allowed him a glimpse of a strange, enticing universe. It was far too tempting not to take a peek now and then, wasn’t it?

  Dr Sinclair had explained it was simply another way of seeing reality, and it was nothing to be frightened of. Well, as long as it was all under control, it was fine. And it was, right now. It was all under control.

  33

  By the station car park in Matlock Bath, a laurel hedge had dropped its big, black berries all over the path, where they’d been squashed by passing feet. No one picked these berries — well, not if they had any sense. Laurel berries looked very appealing, but they were poisonous.

  ‘We can go up on a cable car,’ said Cooper. ‘It’s a lot quicker.’

  The alpine-style cable cars had replaced the zigzag paths up the hillside as the easiest way to get to the Heights of Abraham estate. The tower was visible on the summit near the cable-car station, its flag fluttering in the wind.

  ‘Oh, I don’t think so.’

  Cooper laughed. He’d bumped into Kotsev on the way out of the office at West Street, and the Bulgarian had somehow tagged along, promising not to be in the way. Sergeant Fry had told him to make sure he behaved properly, he’d said.

  ‘It’s fine, Georgi. You’re not scared?’

  ‘No, no. It’s no problem.’

  They climbed into one of the cars. It was big enough to hold six people, but it was a quiet day. The doors closed, and the cars rotated slowly before suddenly swinging out of the station, into the light. They immediately began to climb steeply up the cable, soaring high over the river and the rapidly dwindling traffic on the A6. The sides of the car were clear perspex from ceiling to floor level, so it was possible to look straight down at the ground, already hundreds of feet below and getting further away by the second.

  ‘Dyavol da go vzeme. Oh, God.’ Kotsev covered his eyes and gripped the edge of the seat tightly.

  ‘Are you sure heights aren’t a problem for you?’

  ‘I’ll be OK. OK, OK.’ He risked a peep through his fingers. ‘Mamka mu!’

  By the time they had reached the highest point above the valley, Kotsev was sweating and breathing deeply to calm himself. This was the point on the journey where the cars slowed down and hung stationary for a minute or two, high above the valley floor.

  ‘Are we broken?’ said Kotsev nervously. ‘Do we need rescue?’

  But then the wheels whirred again, and the cars approached Masson Hill through an avenue of trees as the cable passed over the first gantry. From there, it was an easy coast in, past the base of the stone tower to the hilltop station.

  ‘You can look now,’ said Cooper.

/>   Kotsev took his hand away and opened his eyes. ‘Yes, OK. It was a little too high.’

  Fry found Jed Skinner in the garage at the distribution centre outside Edendale, where he worked as a mechanic. He was wearing disposable gloves like a scenes of crime officer as he worked on the engine of a large van. No more dirty rags and oily hands for car mechanics these days, then. Gavin Murfin had been exaggerating.

  ‘Do you happen to know where your friend Brian Mullen is right now?’ asked Fry when they’d taken him into the supervisor’s office.

  ‘He’s staying with his parents-in-law. They live at Darley Dale.’

  ‘He’s not there any more.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘When were you last in contact with him?’

  ‘Yesterday. They wouldn’t let me visit him while he was in hospital, but Brian rang me yesterday afternoon to say he was out. He was pretty fed up, so I went to see him in the evening.’

  ‘At Darley Dale?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Did he say anything to you about leaving to stay somewhere else?’

  ‘No, not a thing.’

  ‘You live at Lowbridge, don’t you, Mr Skinner?’

  ‘Yes, but you won’t find Brian there. He could have come and stayed with me, if he’d asked, because we’re mates. But he didn’t ask.’

  ‘All right.’

  ‘Phone my wife if you don’t believe me.’

  ‘We might do that,’ said Fry.

  Skinner gazed out of the window of the office at a truck being backed out, its reversing alarm echoing inside the garage.

  ‘Has Brian got the baby with him? Luanne?’ he said.

  ‘We believe so, sir.’

  ‘Shit. I hope you find them.’

  ‘So do we.’ Fry paused. ‘Speaking of Luanne, we know about the adoption. Mr Mullen’s father-in-law has explained to us that Brian and Lindsay couldn’t have any more children, because Brian was infertile after a bout of mumps.’

  ‘Mumps?’ said Skinner. ‘Is that what he told you?’

  ‘Certainly. He said the illness caused physical damage that made Brian become infertile.’

  ‘Well, it’s not what Brian told me at the time. Mumps had nothing to do with it.’

  ‘So what was it, then?’

  ‘STD.’

  ‘A sexually transmitted disease?’

  ‘That’s right. I can’t remember the exact name, though. Something with “clam” in it.’

  ‘Do you mean chlamydia?’

  ‘Yes, that’s what Brian had. And it wasn’t the first time, either. Chlamydia was what caused the damage. He told me all about it. If you get it too often, it causes scarring and blocks the — you know, the passage.’

  Fry stared at him, her mind adjusting to a series of new possibilities. ‘Not mumps?’

  ‘I wonder if mumps was what he told his in-laws,’ said Skinner. ‘I met Henry Lowther once. He’s the sort of bloke who likes everything to seem right and proper. Even his son-in-law — since he’s stuck with him.’

  ‘Does Brian not get on with the Lowthers?’

  ‘Well, you know what it’s like. He wasn’t really good enough for their daughter from the start. They’d have preferred Lindsay to marry someone loaded. A step up on the social scale, if you know what I mean. Not a few steps down, like Brian.’

  ‘Mr Skinner, were you aware of any problems in the Mullens’ marriage? Was there any trouble between Brian and Lindsay?’

  ‘Trouble? Why should there be?’

  ‘Well, for a start, I presume Lindsay knew about the chlamydia? That would make quite a difference to their relationship, I think.’

  The idea seemed to strike Skinner for the first time. ‘You think she might have blamed Brian for the fact that they couldn’t have another child naturally? Lindsay really, really wanted a daughter, you know.’

  ‘Yes, I know that.’

  Skinner nodded. ‘That would make her a bit upset with him, I suppose.’

  ‘Well, yes,’ said Fry. ‘And there are other things that might have upset her, too — like where her husband picked up an STD in the first place.’

  ‘Hey, you’re right. I imagine there were a few words exchanged.’

  ‘But Brian never mentioned anything like that to you?’

  ‘Do you know, there were times when he was a bit pissed off, and I reckoned he might have had problems at home. But he never explained why — we didn’t talk about things like that.’

  Fry cursed to herself as she left Jed Skinner and got back in the car. Male friends, what a waste of time. To learn anything about the state of the Mullens’ marriage, she needed to talk to Lindsay’s mother. But she didn’t give much for her chances of getting information out of Mrs Lowther right now.

  With a frown, Fry turned to her notes from the interviews with Brian Mullen, seeking the smallest clue. After a few minutes, she picked up the phone and called Cooper.

  When his phone rang, Cooper was standing by the lid of a shaft into the hillside that had been sealed by a steel grille. A bush rustled, showering drops of moisture, and a small, grey shape slipped along a branch, stopping to pull off the berries.

  ‘Ben, what are these illuminations that Brian Mullen mentioned?’

  ‘Illuminations?’

  ‘I’m sure he said they were in Matlock Bath. The only illuminations I know of are in Blackpool.’

  ‘Well, they’re not quite the same. In Matlock Bath, there are some lights along the promenade and across the river, but when people talk about the illuminations they mean the parade of boats.’

  ‘Boats?’

  ‘They create designs out of lights and mount them on rowing boats. Then they parade up the river — when it’s dark, of course. So what you see isn’t the boat but something like, say … an illuminated London bus floating on the water. There’s other stuff, too — fireworks, entertainment. You can see it all from the pleasure grounds in Derwent Gardens.’

  ‘OK. So when does this happen?’

  ‘September and October, but only at weekends. They call them Venetian Nights. I don’t know why, it must be something to do with the boats. But they always attract big crowds. Why, what are you thinking?’

  ‘Brian Mullen. When I interviewed him in hospital, he said that he and Lindsay had promised to take Luanne and the other children to see the illuminations in Matlock Bath. It was supposed to be a special treat.’

  ‘Yes, but surely he’d have more sense than to …’

  Cooper stopped speaking, and Fry laughed. ‘What was it you were saying earlier, Ben? About people acting in an irrational way?’

  ‘Emotions interfere with rational behaviour.’

  ‘That was it.’

  ‘Diane, why were you so sure about Mr Mullen being involved in the fire?’

  ‘He never seemed particularly grief stricken to me. Some of those people leaving flowers outside the house looked more upset than Brian Mullen did.’

  ‘He was probably in shock, Diane. Besides, a public show of emotion is unnatural for some people. He could well have been suppressing it while he was in hospital. Being discharged and coming home would be the time when the truth hit him hardest, don’t you think? I mean, finding just Luanne waiting for him, and knowing that he’d never see the rest of his family again. There must have been a moment when he couldn’t suppress the knowledge any longer. That would be when his world caved in, I imagine. If he talked to a counsellor at the hospital, he was probably warned about that.’ Cooper gazed down at the cap of the mine shaft thoughtfully. ‘Although I’m not sure when that moment would be — because Mr Mullen didn’t actually go home, did he? He went to his in-laws’ house when he left hospital.’

  ‘No, you’re wrong. He did go home,’ said Fry. ‘I took him there.’

  Cooper paused. ‘Oh. So you did.’

  ‘I wanted him to see the house after the fire.’

  He hesitated for a moment, wondering what the right thing was to say. ‘Well, it wasn’t your fault, Diane.
’

  She was silent for so long that Cooper thought her mind must have switched to a different subject altogether, the way it sometimes did. And when Fry did speak, he still wasn’t sure whether that was the case, or not.

  ‘Thanks a lot, Ben,’ she said at last.

  And then she was gone, and Cooper was listening to the faint hiss of his phone.

  A second later, Georgi Kotsev emerged from a summer house a few yards up the steep path. The building was made of tufa, with a thatched roof.

  ‘I don’t see him,’ said Kotsev. ‘What is this place anyway?’

  ‘A tourist attraction.’

  ‘OK, I believe you.’

  ‘When we’ve finished, we can walk back to the village, if you’re too scared of the cable car. All we have to do is press a button to release an automated gate near West Lodge.’

  ‘Let’s keep looking.’

  Cooper followed Kotsev up the path. Next summer, he ought to bring Liz up here. They could have a goat’s cheese panini or a tuna melt in the Hi Cafe, or sit on the terrace of the Summit Bar with a table among the flowers, overlooking Matlock Bath.

  That was assuming they were still together next summer, of course. He’d never gone out with anyone for as long as twelve months before.

  For a moment, Cooper turned to look back through the trees at the view down into the valley. He recalled that the white building near the tavern was Upper Towers, where beer had once been served to lead miners. Inside, it had round rooms, so they said.

  ‘Hey, here!’

  Cooper spun round and found Kotsev standing with a Heights of Abraham employee in a high-vis jacket.

  ‘Have you got something?’

  Kotsev pointed up the hill. ‘He’s at the tower.’

  The burnt-out Shogun was in the garage, covered in a tarpaulin. Wayne Abbott greeted Fry and Hitchens with a clipboard in his hand.

  ‘Yes, this is definitely the vehicle that was driven into the field at Foxlow. The tread pattern is an exact fit with the impressions we lifted. We matched soil from the tyres and the wheel arches. Luckily, the interior escaped the worst effects of the fire, and we found traces of gunshot residue on the seat covers. The fabric retains barium and antimony residue better than human skin.’