Scared to Live bcadf-7

by Stephen Booth

‘Did you even know her name, Tony?’

  ‘No comment.’

  Fry could see Hitchens gathering his thoughts before the next question. Like her, he’d seen the expression that had briefly passed across Donnelly’s face when Lindsay Mullen’s name had been mentioned. Surprise, incomprehension. A lack of recognition. Just for a moment, before he’d trotted out the standard response.

  ‘You saw Lindsay Mullen meet Rose Shepherd at the Riber Tea Rooms in Matlock Bath, didn’t you?’ said Hitchens.

  ‘No comment.’

  But the answer came more quickly this time, more confidently. Donnelly knew who they were talking about again. It seemed to Fry that he hadn’t known Lindsay Mullen’s name until then. Somehow, that made her killing worse. It appeared even more cold and merciless. She had been an anonymous woman eliminated without a second thought. And the two children? What about them? They’d just been in the wrong place at the wrong time.

  ‘There’s one thing that really puzzles me,’ said Hitchens. ‘How did you know who Lindsay Mullen was?’

  Donnelly smiled. ‘No comment.’

  ‘I mean, did you have advance information about the meeting taking place? Did you have a description of Mrs Mullen that enabled you to identify her? Or did you listen in to their conversation somehow?’

  A shake of the head. ‘No comment.’

  ‘Whichever it was, the organization seems to have been exceptionally good, very well planned.’

  Donnelly gazed down at the table, but Fry could see the smile on his face. If his eyes had been visible, she guessed that she’d see in them that he was laughing — laughing inwardly at the stupidity of the police.

  ‘Or was it only luck, Tony?’

  His head came up then, and his eyes narrowed at Hitchens. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

  ‘It was Rose Shepherd you were looking for, wasn’t it? And you stumbled on Lindsay Mullen at the same time. That must have been very convenient for you. It made the job a lot easier, I imagine. What would you have done otherwise? Were you planning on breaking into Miss Shepherd’s house and interrogating her until she gave you the information you wanted?’

  Donnelly glared at his solicitor. ‘What’s this shit?’ he said.

  ‘Detective Inspector Hitchens, could you clarify what my client is accused of? We don’t understand this line of questioning.’

  ‘We’re conducting enquiries into the murder of Miss Rose Shepherd, who was shot and killed in Foxlow in the early hours of Sunday morning. We’re also investigating the deaths of Mrs Lindsay Mullen and her two children, who died in a fire at their home in Edendale on the following night. And we’d like to know from your client the names of his associates in these offences.’

  There was quite a long silence after Hitchens’ statement. When Donnelly responded, it was with a smirk that would have got him a punch in the mouth at one time, before interview rooms were equipped with tape recorders and video cameras.

  ‘No comment,’ he said.

  Fry fetched two coffees into the DI’s office. It was something she wouldn’t normally let herself be caught doing. But they both needed some caffeine. Even so, she took care to avoid the door of the CID room, in case anyone saw her.

  ‘Thanks, Diane,’ said Hitchens.

  He was spinning his swivel chair from side to side, making it squeal at the end of each turn. It was a habit he had when he was angry or stressed.

  ‘What’s the plan, sir?’

  ‘I’ll let Donnelly stew for a while, then I’ll have another go at him later.’

  ‘He’d never heard Lindsay Mullen’s name before,’ said Fry. ‘I could tell from his face when you asked him about her.’

  ‘Do you think so, Diane?’

  ‘Yes, I do.’

  Hitchens stared out of the window as he took a sip of coffee and put the cup down quickly. It was too hot, as usual.

  ‘I’m inclined to agree with you. It was almost the only time we got a genuine reaction out of him. He was surprised. And then he thought it was funny. It makes things more difficult for us, doesn’t it? It suggests there were more people involved than we first thought.’

  Fry sat down, balancing her own cup on her knee. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘If Donnelly doesn’t know anything about Lindsay Mullen, it means the Darwin Street job must have been given to someone else.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Well, it’s good practice. Separate teams, with no contact between them. Neither team knowing what job the other is doing. There’d be much less chance of them implicating each other that way. That would explain why Tony Donnelly doesn’t even know Lindsay Mullen’s name. He probably only read about her in the papers, like everyone else.’

  ‘I suppose it could also be the reason why the arson seemed so much less professionally executed. There were always too many differences in approach for them to fit together comfortably. So we have a second suspect, you think?’

  ‘At least.’

  ‘Nikolov?’

  ‘I don’t see how. There’s no indication that he left the farm during the last couple of days before he died. More likely, he picked up a newspaper, or turned on the radio, and heard about Rose Shepherd’s killing. Then he drank himself to death.’

  ‘He followed her to Derbyshire, then followed her into death?’

  Hitchens blinked a little. ‘Well, Nikolov was no hit man.’

  ‘Who, then? I wonder if that could have been someone recruited at short notice. They can’t have expected to identify the Mullens so quickly after finding Rose Shepherd. There’d have to be a last-minute change to their plans.’

  ‘A local villain, dragged off the street for a one-off job, cash in the pocket?’ said Hitchens, brightening noticeably.

  ‘He’d be easier to find, wouldn’t he?’

  ‘Easier to find? If he’d left us some DNA, we’d have him banged up already.’

  ‘But, as it stands, we have no evidence to charge Tony Donnelly in connection with the Mullen killings.’

  ‘No, none at all. But he’s not going anywhere, since we have his prints from the Shogun. So we can worry about that later.’

  Fry stood up, abandoning her untouched coffee on a corner of the DI’s desk. No matter how hot it seemed at first, coffee from the machine always turned cold and undrinkable with unnatural speed.

  ‘But the case against him for Rose Shepherd will be tight enough, won’t it?’

  ‘If forensics come through,’ said Hitchens. ‘With luck, we’ll get a DNA match from the car, gunshot residue from his clothes, footwear impressions from the track where the Shogun was abandoned. There’ll be something, don’t worry. We’ll build a tight enough case. In fact, it’ll be a headline grabber when it comes to trial.’

  Fry still hesitated. ‘I wouldn’t want the Mullens to get forgotten in all the excitement. In a way, the arson was a far worse crime.’

  The DI nodded. ‘They won’t get forgotten, Diane, I promise you. Why don’t you get on with that line of enquiry now, and start sifting out some possibles from intelligence? The IU ought to be able to suggest a few names you’d go to if you wanted a nice house fire in a hurry.’

  There was one other subject they weren’t mentioning. It had all been gone through already, and no doubt it would be thrashed out again before long.

  ‘And the Lowthers?’

  ‘They’re coming in tomorrow,’ said Hitchens. ‘And I’m not looking forward to it one bit.’

  ‘Ben Cooper has gone home, by the way,’ said Fry, though the DI hadn’t asked her.

  Hitchens looked hurt, as if she’d accused him of not caring about his officers. ‘Yes, I know. But he seemed OK, don’t you think?’

  ‘As far as I could tell. He gave a clear enough statement, but that’s just training. It was a hell of a thing to happen. Ben was right there, and he did his best. John Lowther was always going to do it, one way or another.’

  ‘But knowing Ben …’ said Hitchens.

  ‘He
’ll be blaming himself. Right.’

  At home that night, Cooper was going automatically through his routine — feeding the cat, taking a shower, checking the fridge, remembering he had no food in the flat. That was the great thing about routines — you didn’t need to think. You could switch off the brain and freewheel.

  Then he switched on his PC and opened Outlook. The evening’s crop of email included a series of George W. Bush jokes, sent by his friend Rakki from his office address. It looked as though he’d forwarded them to everyone he knew, so the jokes would be doing the rounds for a while yet. In fact, Cooper was sure he’d seen most of them already.

  He read them anyway. Not because he was interested, but because it stopped him thinking about anything else. It stopped him re-running the images and sounds from a couple of hours before — the terrified expression on a face falling through air, a sickening crunch, and a voice suddenly cut off, stopped short as if someone had turned the ‘off’ switch of a radio. And the awful silence that followed. Worse — the singing of the birds and the whirring of cables, as life carried on as normal, undisturbed by the moment of death. It was as if they were mocking him for his failure.

  Oh, wait. That was the stuff he wasn’t going to think about.

  Cooper surprised the cat by picking him up and rubbing the fur behind his ears. Randy gave him a hostile look. This wasn’t in the routine. There was still food to be eaten.

  ‘OK, OK. It’s not your problem, I know.’

  But it had done the trick, and broken his train of thought. He put the cat down again and turned back to his email. How many is a brazillion? That was a good one.

  Of course, there was more to think about yet. It was Friday, the day of Matt’s appointment with Dr Joyce, their GP. Matt knew his brother would be home at this time of the evening, but he’d have no idea what Ben had been through during the day.

  As if their minds were already making a connection, the phone rang. Ben had no doubt who it was. He could picture Matt in the office at Bridge End Farm, and he could imagine his expression changing with each unanswered ring. He could just decide to ignore the call, of course. Would Matt give up and go away, and never mention the subject again? No, he wouldn’t.

  ‘Hi, Matt.’

  There was a second of silence. ‘How did you know it was me?’

  ‘It figured.’

  ‘I keep forgetting. You’re a detective.’

  Matt sounded calmer than when they’d spoken last night. Was that a good sign, or not?

  ‘You had the appointment today, right?’

  ‘Yes, I did.’

  ‘Was it any use?’ asked Ben.

  ‘Well, actually — yes.’

  ‘What did he tell you?’

  ‘Nothing. He just listened.’

  ‘Right. So …?’

  ‘He’s a smart bloke, that doctor,’ said Matt. ‘That’s all I needed, really — somebody to listen. I felt a lot better afterwards.’

  ‘Well, that’s good.’

  Ben reflected that it was perhaps what he’d refused to do himself, to listen. He hadn’t wanted to hear what Matt was saying.

  ‘Do you know what I reckon?’ said Matt. ‘I think I was getting worked up about this business over Mum’s problem so that I didn’t have to worry about the real stuff.’

  So they were back to the euphemisms. Back to the family collusion, the maintenance of the pretence. That was quite normal.

  ‘Anyway, I thought you’d want to know. Was I right to call?’

  ‘Yes, you were right, Matt. Thanks. I’ll see you at the weekend, probably.’

  A moment of silence again. The sound of Matt thinking. ‘Are you OK, Ben?’

  ‘Yes, I’m fine.’

  Finishing the call, Ben went back to his PC. There was an offer of fake Rolex watches that hadn’t been caught by his junk-mail filter, and an advert for the latest bargains at an online CD shop he’d used once. And there was an email from Liz. It was only a short one, but it meant a lot more than all the others put together. It finished with a little smiley face formed by a colon, a dash and a bracket.

  It was odd to think that this might have been Rose Shepherd’s means of communicating with the world. Emails were a deceptive form of communication at the best of times. Without hearing the intonation in someone’s voice, or getting clues from their facial expression or body language, it was easy to misinterpret the meaning of their words. Irony could be taken literally, a joke could be read as an insult, and ferocious arguments could develop for no reason. Conversation was transmitted through a filter that got half of it wrong, like some unfinished translation program.

  But at least it was communication, of a kind. Cooper remembered his mother’s attitude after she’d begun to get really ill and almost never left the house. Lying in her bed at Bridge End Farm, she had once said to him in a lucid moment that she wasn’t sure the world existed any more. When he asked her why, she explained that she had no evidence it was really out there still. Other people talked about it sometimes, but she never actually saw it for herself.

  It had been pointless for him to argue with her. Of course, her family and friends often sent her postcards from the places they visited. Cheerful, colourful pictures of sandy beaches and historic buildings. France, Italy, Florida, Skorpios. Bulgaria, even. But Isabel Cooper didn’t believe in those places, any more than she believed in the people she saw on TV. For her, the outside world had become a series of images on a screen, and a set of postcards in a box. Just another illusion.

  Maybe she had come to believe, like Bishop Berkeley, that nothing existed unless she perceived it for herself. Cooper didn’t know much about philosophy, only what he’d learned in a sort of slogan form during General Studies lessons at Edendale High School — esse est percipi, the principle of existence through perception. So he wasn’t sure what else Berkeley’s theory said. Was the opposite true? If you perceived something, did that mean it existed? Or could perception be an illusion, too?

  35

  Saturday, 29 October

  When the Lowthers arrived at West Street next day, Fry showed them into the DI’s office, where they sat in an uncomfortable silence. Hitchens swivelled his chair once, then stopped when he heard the squeal and looked embarrassed.

  Fry found a seat to one side, out of the Lowthers’ immediate view. But it was her that Moira Lowther was looking at when she spoke. ‘You weren’t listening, were you? I told you John wasn’t a danger to anyone but himself. He was psychotic, not a psychopath. I told you, but you didn’t listen.’

  Fry didn’t know how to answer her. According to Cooper, Dr Sinclair had said the same thing. And it seemed they had both been right.

  ‘Our officers did their best to save your son’s life,’ said Hitchens with a placatory gesture. ‘It was a very difficult situation.’

  ‘You were pursuing him.’

  ‘No, Mrs Lowther.’

  ‘She was.’

  The jerk of the head was insulting, but Fry stayed calm.

  ‘DS Fry wasn’t even at the scene when the incident happened,’ said Hitchens.

  ‘What about the officers who were there? Why can’t we speak to them?’

  ‘There’ll be a full enquiry into the circumstances, I assure you.’

  Fry and Hitchens exchanged glances. The enquiry wouldn’t be comfortable, and these things often left a sour taste — personal grievances, doubts about where loyalties lay, and whether officers could depend on the support of their chiefs. But it all had to be done properly and above board.

  ‘We’ll keep you to that promise,’ said Mrs Lowther.

  ‘Of course.’

  Fry could still feel herself being glared at. ‘We questioned John as part of the investigation into your daughter’s death,’ she said. ‘We were trying to cover every possibility, that’s all.’

  ‘It’s ridiculous. John would never do anything like that. They were so close. As close as a brother and sister could be.’ Mrs Lowther choked on the last word. �
��And now we’ve lost both of them.’

  Cringing at the onset of tears and the threat of full-blown hysterics lurking below the surface, Fry looked at Hitchens for support. In a storm, you clutched at any straw.

  ‘Mr and Mrs Lowther, I can’t tell you how sorry we are,’ he said. ‘Believe me, if there’s anything at all we can do — ’

  Henry Lowther had been sitting rigid and furious, his tension showing only in the trembling of his hands and the throbbing of a small vein in his temple.

  ‘Anything you can do?’ he said, his voice an ominous whisper. ‘Don’t you think you’ve done enough to us already?’

  Cooper couldn’t help looking for the Lowthers’ Rover in the visitors’ car park that morning. Sure enough, they’d already arrived. He could see their car in front of the main entrance as he pulled up to the gates of the compound.

  It was impossible to imagine how Henry and Moira Lowther would be feeling now. Cooper wondered if he ought to offer to talk to them, and whether it would do any good.

  As he locked up the Toyota and walked towards the building, he tried to analyse his own feeling, too. That was difficult enough, God knew. One part of him wanted to talk to the Lowthers in the hope that it might make some sense of their son’s death. But another part of him was afraid — afraid of what too much emotion could do. That was the shallower side of his character, he supposed; the scared and defensive side.

  In the CID room, he found Gavin Murfin already at his desk. That was unusual in itself. Gavin never arrived at work before him, especially on a Saturday.

  ‘You know that the what’s-their-names are here?’ said Murfin when he saw Cooper. ‘The Lowthers.’

  ‘Yes, I do.’

  ‘They’re in with Diane and the DI.’

  ‘There haven’t been any messages then?’

  ‘Not yet. If I were you, Ben, I’d find a reason to get out of the office as soon as possible. The DI can deal with it.’

  ‘Maybe.’

  But Cooper took off his jacket and sat at his desk to see what he had to catch up with. There was nothing from Scenes of Crime, so no new information on the gun. But there was a copy of the full post-mortem report on Simon Nichols, alias Simcho Nikolov, complete with a set of photographs. He hadn’t really looked at Nichols too closely before, but guessed that he hadn’t been much prettier in life than he was in death. Not for the past few years, anyway. The marks left by the man’s lifestyle were etched deep into his face, just as surely as they’d ruined the interior of the caravan. Too much alcohol and not enough food. Too many cigarettes and not enough attention to hygiene.