The Murder Road: A Cooper & Fry Mystery

by Stephen Booth

  Murfin glanced around him surreptitiously before speaking again.

  ‘If you want any help some time – you know, with anything that I can do. I’d like to keep in touch with things.’

  Cooper raised an eyebrow. ‘What sort of help, Gavin?’

  ‘There are things,’ said Murfin. ‘I know there are. Things that I might be able to do that none of your lot can.’

  ‘Are you talking about something illegal?’

  ‘Of course not. Perish the thought. Just a bit of casual assistance.’

  ‘I don’t know, Gavin.’

  ‘Well, think about. Bear it in mind for the future. Now let’s have another drink.’

  ‘To old times?’ said Cooper.

  ‘And to the future.’

  Murfin gradually became the centre of a growing knot of laughing well-wishers. A steady stream of senior officers began to filter their way. After greeting Murfin with a few words and a hearty handshake, they moved on and tended to cluster together in little groups for safety.

  Before long Cooper found himself being drawn reluctantly into their orbit. He was a detective inspector now, after all. In this environment there was ‘us’ and ‘them’, but there was also ‘us’ and ‘not quite us’. Cooper didn’t feel that he’d quite moved from one to the other yet and didn’t know if he really wanted to.

  He was conscious of the eyes on him, watching for which way he moved. But when the inspectors and chief inspectors began to make their excuses and drift away into the night, Cooper stayed. There was such a thing as loyalty, after all.

  He looked around the slowly emptying room, seeking Gavin Murfin’s familiar figure, hoping he was still upright and not causing too much trouble. He located Murfin finally, sitting in a corner at a table covered with empty glasses and half-full bottles. He was deep in eager conversation with Devdan Sharma.

  Tyler Smith hated growing up in New Mills. Like everyone else, he would be off to Manchester as soon as he could escape. In fact, he liked only one thing about his home town. And that was the Millennium Walkway.

  Late that night he ran down the steps from Union Road between Lloyds Bank and the Masonic Hall, which led into the Torrs. They called this the ‘park under the town’. Two rivers came together under the Union Road bridge, and there were ruins of old mills and cottages scattered along their banks.

  Loads of people were down in the Torrs during the day. There were rock climbers, old folk walking their dogs or just sitting by the water; hikers who were on the trail that came right through the valley from the nature reserve just outside town.

  There was still one big mill, Torr Vale, standing across the river, towering over the weirs like a ruined castle. Part of it had been burned down a few years ago, but someone had bought it and was trying to restore bits of it. There were lights on in the windows of one of the upper floors and he could see a van parked in the yard with some workmen moving stuff around. But soon they would all go home and the mill would be empty.

  The walkway was amazing. It had been built for the celebration of the new millennium in 2000. He’d been very small then, but he remembered his parents bringing him to see it because it was such a big deal for New Mills.

  A steel rail and a few strands of wire cable formed the sides. Weeds sprouted out of the high wall of the railway embankment way above. And the walkway swung right out over the water where it cascaded over the weirs. You could stand on the curve of the walkway and be alone with the water, where no one could see you.

  A train passed overhead on the embankment as he stepped onto the walkway. He was planning to head up towards the old-fashioned signal box near the station. There would be some lads up there to hang out with. The ticket office was only open in the morning for people travelling to Manchester, so they just had to dodge the CCTV cameras on the gates.

  At the quietest end of the walkway, a footbridge crossed to the mill if they wanted to go and mess about in the woods.

  He broke into a trot, making the deck of the walkway vibrate underfoot. The roar of the weir drowned out everything else, even his own footsteps. Unless they were peering over the wall outside the heritage centre, no one could see him here. He was overlooked only by the broken windows and rusted girders of the mill.

  Tyler stumbled to a halt, his breathing suddenly harsher than it ought to be. Something was lying on the deck of the walkway a few yards ahead. A pile of clothes, maybe just a coat and a pair of shoes. There was an old dosser with long hair and a beard who slept in the Torrs sometimes. Tyler had seen him sheltering under the rock face below the back of the buildings in Union Road. Had something happened to him here?

  He found the idea strangely exciting. More slowly now, he moved forward, glancing over his shoulder to make sure no one else was around. When he looked more closely at the coat, he could see it didn’t belong to the homeless man. It was too clean and too new. Could a tourist just have taken it off and forgotten it? There might be something in it to take, then. A wallet or a phone. You never knew. People could be really stupid like that.

  But would someone have left their shoes too. Now that didn’t make sense at all.

  Tyler straightened up. It was only then that he noticed the rope tied to the steel rail. It was a thick nylon rope, the kind he’d seen some of the rock climbers using. So that was it. Some nutcase had lowered himself down to the river – though what for, he couldn’t imagine.

  The rope squeaked as it moved slightly on the rail. Some weight below was making it swing. Tyler leaned over the rail, expecting to see a face looking back up at him. They must have heard him, or seen him coming onto the walkway.

  But there was no face. He could see only the top of a head. Thin, wet hair plastered to the skull. A glimpse of purple, bloated skin. The body of a man, without a coat or shoes, just hanging from the rope. Not holding the rope in his hands, but hanging. Hanging by the neck.

  11

  Wednesday 11 February

  Next morning at West Street, Cooper walked into a subdued atmosphere. He could almost sense the headaches around the station from those who’d been at the leaving party last night. The officers who hadn’t attended because they were on duty walked around looking virtuous and laughing at their colleagues.

  In the CID room Gavin Murfin’s place was still empty. There was no replacement for him yet and might not be for some time. Murfin had left behind a few mementoes of his presence, though – just in case his former colleagues were missing him too much. There was a Derby County fixture list for last season, a plastic policeman’s helmet he’d worn at the Christmas party and which still had a dent in it where Becky Hurst had hit him with the matching plastic truncheon, and a drawer bursting with Snickers wrappers and empty doughnut boxes, every corner and crevice full of crumbs and glinting with powdered sugar.

  The state of Murfin’s desk could explain why the office had been infested with ants during the summer. Maintenance staff had been driven to distraction with complaints about them. Columns of ants seemed to turn up out of nowhere and crawl over computer keyboards, or creep inside a monitor and die in the middle of the screen.

  It could have been worse, though. They might have been overrun with mice instead. Cooper wondered if they could be there now, inside the walls, waiting patiently for Gavin Murfin to come back from the pie shop.

  He could see that Detective Sergeant Dev Sharma had settled at his new desk anyway. It was the one that had been Cooper’s own until recently. But now he had this cubby hole to work in, with a wall half made of glass so he could see into the CID room, and everyone in there could see him – at least if he stood up.

  It was an odd feeling being cut off from his old working environment yet still able to see what was happening. It was like watching a story taking place on a TV screen instead of being involved in it himself. Cooper suspected it would take him a while to get used to this.

  He sat in his new chair and swivelled backwards and forwards for a while, listening for a faint squeak he’d detected in
the wheels. He looked at the reports and messages in his in-tray, but he couldn’t concentrate on them. He felt too restless. His natural instinct was to be out there talking to people, not sitting in an office.

  That was one thing he hadn’t quite got used to yet about being a DI. He couldn’t interview everyone himself. He had to reply on feedback from members of his team and try to get an impression of the people he was dealing with at second hand. It made him feel oddly detached from the job. He really wanted to be out there seeing these people for himself, figuring out who everyone was and what their relationships were.

  But he knew he mustn’t try to do that. He’d probably already gone too far by visiting Shaw Farm and Cloughpit House with Villiers. He wondered if Dev Sharma had been watching him disapprovingly, comparing him with the last detective inspector he’d worked with back in Derby.

  He reminded himself of the job description he’d somehow met the criteria for. The ability to motivate others, delegate tasks and maintain a general overview of cases. Strong people skills and the ability to communicate with people at all levels are also crucial.

  He also recalled that warning that the role of a detective inspector might involve working longer than average hours. So not everything had changed.

  Cooper got up and went out into the CID room. Everyone stopped what they were doing and looked up, as if he was a visiting member of royalty. He perched on the edge of Murfin’s old desk, regardless of the crumbs.

  ‘I need to brief Superintendent Branagh this morning,’ he said. ‘So help me – who has any thoughts on where we stand with the Shawhead inquiry? What decent leads do we have? Anyone?’

  As he expected, Luke Irvine was the first to chip in. Always eager, that was Luke. Not necessarily right in his assessments, but keen.

  ‘If Gavin was here, he would have the old lady in the frame for something,’ said Irvine. ‘Mrs Swindells at Higher Fold Farm.’

  ‘Oh yes. She’s the mother of the farmer, Grant Swindells,’ said Cooper.

  ‘Right. She wanted to give us a cup of tea and a chocolate biscuit before we’d even got through the door. She talked non-stop, so we could hardly get away from the house. Bombarded us with questions, too. In fact, she was a bit too friendly, if you ask me.’

  ‘So you made another conquest, Luke,’ said Hurst.

  ‘She’s eighty if she’s a day,’ protested Irvine.

  ‘Just your type, then.’

  Dev Sharma had turned slowly to look at Irvine when he began to speak about the old lady. Cooper couldn’t read the expression on his face. Was he disapproving of Irvine’s levity?

  Irvine shook his head. ‘Well, I’m just saying. All those questions . . . What did we think had happened? Who were we going to talk to next? Had we spoken to the Durkins at Cloughpit House?’

  ‘She was just being inquisitive,’ said Cooper. ‘She’s probably lonely living out there, doesn’t get many visitors.’

  ‘Well, there’s no one else in the household. Just the old lady and her son.’

  ‘There you are, then. He’ll be out all day on the farm and Mrs Swindells doesn’t see a soul to talk to. Then a couple of nice policemen knock on the door.’

  Hurst laughed sarcastically. But Sharma turned back to Cooper.

  ‘Mrs Swindells did tell us some useful details,’ he said.

  ‘Oh?’

  Irvine frowned at his notebook, as if he’d just been accused of missing something. Which perhaps he had.

  ‘The old lady watches from her window. She sits in the same place most of the day. She calls it “the room”. It looks out onto the road and she can see two of her neighbours’ houses.’

  ‘Which ones, Dev?’

  ‘There’s Top Barn, where Mr and Mrs Schofield live. They only moved in recently. Mr Michael Schofield is a chemical engineer. Mrs Schofield runs some kind of internet business. She sells hand-made soap and candles, that sort of thing. She also teaches creative arts and crafts at a local adult education centre two days a week. And there’s Shawhead Cottages, owned by Mrs and Mrs Hibbert. Ian Hibbert travels into Manchester every day for his job at a marketing consultancy. His wife Amanda is a graphic designer and website developer, working mostly from home. They have three children. There’s a daughter Zoe, who is nineteen and away at university. She’s studying sociology in Birmingham. And there are two sons – the youngest, Adam, is eleven, while Leo is sixteen and attends New Mills School, which is a Business and Enterprise College. He’s in Year 12, studying for his A-levels. He’s a very polite and helpful young man.’

  ‘And how did you find all this out?’

  ‘From Mrs Swindells of course,’ said Sharma.

  It didn’t go unnoticed around the room that Sharma hadn’t referred to his notebook at all. Luke Irvine glowered at him. Hurst had a quiet smile to herself. Carol Villiers looked reluctantly impressed.

  ‘And seventy-five,’ added Sharma suddenly.

  ‘What is?’

  ‘Mrs Swindells. She isn’t eighty, she’s seventy-five years old.’

  ‘How do you know that?’ asked Irvine.

  ‘She told me as she was showing us out of her house. I stopped to say goodbye while you walked to the gate.’

  ‘You just went right in there and asked the old lady her age?’

  ‘It came out in conversation.’

  ‘Yeah, right.’

  Sharma shrugged. ‘Can I help it if people tell me things?’

  ‘Hold on – the Hibberts have two children of school age?’ said Cooper.

  ‘Leo, aged sixteen, and the youngest Adam—’ began Irvine.

  ‘I know, I know. They both attend New Mills School. But where are they? Did they get into school yesterday? If so, how?’

  ‘Oh, you’re kidding,’ said Villiers. ‘Two young boys found their way from Shawhead, while everyone else was telling us there was no way in our out?’

  But Dev Sharma was smiling as he listened to the conversation. He shook his head.

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘It’s half-term.’

  Cooper relaxed. ‘Of course it is.’

  He could almost kick himself for having reacted the way he did. And Villiers looked embarrassed too. It was one of the weaknesses of his team, he supposed. Neither he, nor any of his DCs, had children of their own. But he did have his two nieces, Matt’s daughters. They were teenagers, but they were still at school in Edendale. If he’d been keeping in touch with his family as much as he used to, he would have known perfectly well it was half-term. He used to take them for trips out on his rest days when it was school holidays. When had they drifted away from each other so much? Or was it just him who’d drifted?

  ‘How did you know that, Dev?’ he said.

  ‘I have older brothers and sisters,’ said Sharma. ‘We’re a close family.’

  ‘Oh, and the sheep,’ said Villiers. ‘You wanted to know about the sheep.’

  Cooper turned to her. ‘Yes? Whose were they?’

  ‘They belonged to Mr Swindells. It took him an hour to round them all up and get them back into their field.’

  ‘Did he manage it on his own? Sheep aren’t usually so cooperative.’

  ‘No, the Durkins came down to help him from Cloughpit House.’

  ‘Interesting.’

  ‘Mr Swindells claims that someone must have opened the gate and deliberately let his sheep out onto the road. But they always say that, don’t they?’

  Cooper nodded. ‘You’re right. But it might be true in this case.’

  Cooper had to brief Detective Superintendent Branagh. She was a good listener, always very attentive. She made brief notes and asked all the right questions. Well, sometimes they were the most difficult questions. But Cooper appreciated that. It made him think hard about the answers.

  After a few minutes Branagh put her pen down, with an air of finality. Cooper felt able to relax.

  ‘Did DC Murfin’s send-off go well?’ asked Branagh.

  Her tone suggested that she was really asking for
an assurance that he definitely wasn’t coming back again.

  ‘Yes, it was a lively occasion.’

  ‘Everyone was there, I imagine?’

  ‘Yes, pretty much everyone.’

  ‘Did Detective Sergeant Sharma come along? I suggested he might want to show his face.’

  ‘Yes, he was there, ma’am.’

  ‘Excellent. It’s good for him to fit in with the team straight away. You haven’t had much chance to get to know him yourself yet, have you?’

  Was that a hint of criticism? Cooper felt himself bridling with resentment.

  ‘Not with the inquiry we got under way yesterday at Shawhead.’

  Branagh nodded. ‘Of course, of course. But don’t leave it too long. Have a conversation. I’m hoping you two will work well together, Ben.’

  ‘Yes, ma’am. But you know there’s also a vacancy for another DC? Since Gavin Murfin’s retirement, we’re one short on the team.’

  ‘Ah, that’s a bit more difficult. For the time being you’ll have to cover the shortfall with extractions from other sections when necessary.’

  ‘But they’re short-staffed too,’ protested Cooper.

  His superintendent didn’t blink. ‘Aren’t we all?’ she said.

  When he returned to the CID room, Cooper called Dev Sharma into his office. There was one chair available for a visitor to sit on, though it was crammed in between the door and a filing cabinet.

  ‘I gather you’ve transferred from D Division,’ said Cooper. ‘Where were you stationed?’

  ‘Derby West. Peartree.’

  ‘Really?’

  Cooper had visited Peartree police station once. It was part of Derby South policing section, and he remembered it being sandwiched between the clinic and the library on Pear Tree Road, right in the heart of one of the most culturally mixed areas in the whole of the county.

  But Peartree was also well known around the force for a recent example of successful twenty-first-century policing – the rescue of a Slovakian man who had been forced to live in subhuman conditions by a slave labour gang. The man was a victim of human trafficking, shipped to the UK as a sixteen-year-old after being dumped by his own family on the doorstep of a children’s home, aged ten. He’d been forced into jobs like car washing and labouring on a chicken farm. His passport and wages were taken from him, he was forced to sleep in a room with ten other people and he’d been beaten up when he tried to escape from his captors. When the police first made contact with him, he’d been reduced to skin and bone after working up to twenty hours a day for food and cigarettes.