The Murder Road: A Cooper & Fry Mystery

by Stephen Booth

  Cooper sighed. He’d been so conscious of the continuous hum and swish of traffic in the background that he’d made the mistake of thinking it would be obvious to everyone. When you’d grown up in a place where that sort of noise was an alien intrusion, you couldn’t help but be aware of its presence, like the buzz of a fly intruding on the silence of your bedroom.

  But it was different for those like Devdan Sharma and Diane Fry, who’d spent their formative years in cities, brought up in the heart of the urban sprawl. For them the dull roar of traffic became the soundtrack to their lives, so familiar that it was below the level of awareness. It was their equivalent of birdsong. They heard it growling and thundering in the morning as rush hour grew to a dawn chorus. They heard it swelling again at the end of the day. In between they were never completely without that swish and murmur. It was so familiar that it must become a kind of reassurance to them, in the end.

  Cooper had seen townies panicking at the sound of proper silence in the countryside, the way that tourists did in the show caves beneath Castleton when they encountered true darkness for the first time. It was so alien to them that it was terrifying. It made him feel very sad that the natural world had become so unfamiliar to so many people. It was a great loss.

  But that was the way society was heading. More and more people lived in towns and cities, and fewer in the countryside. Eighty per cent of the population was urban now and they spent most of their time staring at concrete and brick. Driving on urban roads, they could easily get into the idea that the ribbon of grey tarmac they saw reflected the landscape for miles around. It was only when they looked out of a plane window as they came in to land at Heathrow or Manchester airport from a Mediterranean holiday that they realised how green the British countryside was.

  Cooper recalled an early science fiction story by E. M. Forster, ‘The Machine Stops’. He described a future in which people lived out their lives inside a giant machine with no idea there even was an outside. Not until the machine stopped.

  He turned to look at Sharma.

  ‘If you’re going to work in this area,’ he said, ‘you need to learn how to listen. What you hear can tell you a lot.’

  ‘I couldn’t have known the traffic noise was the A6,’ protested Sharma.

  ‘But you would have asked,’ said Cooper, ‘if you’d noticed.’

  Sharma nodded. Cooper was pleased to see that he took the advice on board, instead of reacting defensively, as he might have done. As some other individuals certainly would have done.

  Sharma pointed to the north, where traffic was slowing for a junction.

  ‘And is that . . . ?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Cooper. ‘That’s Bridgemont Roundabout.’

  As they scrambled back down the banking, Cooper reflected that Sharma was right in a way. Despite its proximity to the A6, Shawhead felt very isolated. It was part of the atmosphere here, a feeling that you’d taken a step outside the everyday world that was passing close by. A dead end in more than just the usual sense.

  One road in and one road out? Well, if that was true, he would have a very limited field of suspects. Just the residents of Shawhead, in fact. But it wasn’t true, was it?

  So why had Amanda Hibbert tried to plant the idea in their minds that there was no other way out than the blocked road? Was she trying to cast suspicion on one of her Shawhead neighbours by suggesting that no one could have got away after killing Mac Kelsey? It was very subtle, if so. It had soon become obvious that it wasn’t true, from a quick glance at the surrounding landscape. But she might have taken Cooper and his team for a bunch of city cops who wouldn’t know any better. She’d almost been right.

  And then there was the fact that Mrs Hibbert had been at the scene herself. In murder cases many detectives made it a firm rule to suspect the person who reported finding the body. Anyone with the least bit of forensic knowledge, even if it was gained from reading crime novels or watching TV, would know that it created an explanation for the presence of their fingerprints, a trace of their DNA, or a smear of the victim’s blood on their clothes. It was those who claimed to have been nowhere near the scene of the crime who were faced with difficulty in explaining the evidence away. But Amanda Hibbert herself had described how she’d opened the door of the cab, picked up the delivery dockets, reacted in shock at a trickle of blood.

  Yet what connection could there be between Mrs Hibbert and Mac Kelsey? None that he knew of. Or none that he’d discovered yet.

  Cooper looked around at his team. Dev Sharma, Carol Villiers and Luke Irvine. This was all he had to follow up the immediate lines of enquiry.

  ‘We need to know where everyone from Shawhead was at the time of this incident,’ he said. ‘Let’s see what we can dig up. Even if they weren’t involved, how could they not have seen or heard something? Dev, what about your old lady, Mrs Swindells? Everyone must pass her window.’

  ‘She could see comings and goings, but only on the road,’ said Sharma.

  ‘Get her to be specific then, pin her down on details. I don’t care how long you spend talking to her, or how many cups of tea you have to drink. She could be a good source of information. And Luke . . .’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘I want you to check on Amanda Hibbert’s story. Was she really working backstage at the theatre? We’ll start with those two, then move on to the rest of the residents until we get a clear picture of their exact movements.’

  ‘Do you think the answers we need are here in Shawhead?’ asked Sharma.

  ‘I hope so,’ said Cooper. ‘Otherwise the answers may have died on the Millennium Walkway with Scott Brooks.’

  16

  Becky Hurst had certainly been busy. Her ability to gather information made everyone else look as though they’d taken the day off.

  From what she had to tell Cooper on the way into New Mills, it seemed as though Scott Brooks had planned his afternoon very carefully. At about eleven o’clock he’d left his house in Peak Road and driven into the centre of the town, where he found a parking space on Rock Mill Lane, just behind the bus terminus. His Vauxhall was still there when it was located by the police next day.

  There was free parking on Rock Mill Lane, but only half a dozen spaces, so he was lucky to have found an empty spot. But parking was limited to thirty minutes until 6 p.m. At three twenty-four he’d been issued with a parking ticket for overstaying the specified period.

  It was the one thing he’d failed to plan properly. He hadn’t managed to time his actions to avoid a parking fine, which someone would have to deal with.

  From Rock Mill Lane, Brooks had called first at the heritage centre, which was only a few yards away. The staff had noticed him particularly, because he’d spent a long time browsing the local history books and nostalgic scenes of New Mills, but had left without buying anything. He’d walked through the exhibition and out onto the viewing platform, with its vertiginous outlook onto the gorge and Torr Vale Mill, and the Millennium Walkway directly below.

  Then he went for lunch. He’d eaten a hot roast beef and onion barm at the Pride of the Peaks on the corner of Market Street, followed by a Jammie Dodger cheesecake. Then he’d washed it down with a bottle of Guinness. The condemned man’s last meal. He’d stopped at one drink, though. Unlike so many suicides, he’d wanted to be sober for what he did next.

  And what was it he did next? He crossed the road to Barton’s hardware shop, where he bought a length of rope.

  Cooper met Hurst outside the heritage centre overlooking the Torrs gorge.

  ‘There must be a gap in that time line,’ he said. ‘People would have been on the walkway or down in the Torrs, at least until dusk fell. That would be around five o’clock, I suppose. Where did Mr Brooks spend his time between visiting the hardware shop and his final moments on the walkway?’

  ‘What about here at the heritage centre?’ said Hurst. ‘That’s the best vantage point.’

  ‘It closes at four o’clock in winter.’

 
Cooper looked over the wall into the gorge. From this viewpoint he had a dramatic view of Torr Vale Mill and the water foaming over the weir below the walkway. Inexplicably, visitors standing here had dumped their rubbish over the iron railing.

  On the slope below, he saw a shower of drinks cans. Emerge, Rubicon, Strongbow. There was also a faint smell of urine. Probably not your average tourist then. Perhaps this was a spot for the homeless to hang out, or for youths to congregate at night. Every town had those, even Edendale. It was one of those essential modern facilities, like a bus station and a Tesco.

  A couple of High Peak buses were drawn up at the terminus. Cooper stopped for a moment to look at some strange sculptures on the wall. They appeared to be the imprints of feet, painted blue.

  It must be satisfying to be an artist, to know that you could leave a mark on the world that people would want to look at for decades to come. Some individuals didn’t have that option and could see no value in their presence.

  Scott Brooks was one of those. When he stood on that walkway, he’d decided to leave no mark on the world at all.

  Scott Brooks’ older sister was called Pat Turner. Becky Hurst had come up with her address. She lived not far away, off Godward Road on the northern outskirts of New Mills. Cooper took Hurst with him to break the bad news.

  Housing developments had spread up the hillsides to the north and west of New Mills during the last few decades. Executive estates sprouted off both sides of Eaves Knoll Road towards a golf course just outside town. Of course, there were no ‘streets’ on these developments, only crescents, drives, ways and views. Anything to suggest they weren’t part of an urban environment. There was even a Heather Falls, which didn’t seem to mean anything at all.

  They found the Turners’ address on the furthest edge of the current housing line. It was a new build of pale brick, one of a cluster of modern detached properties at the end of a cul-de-sac lined with semis. All the houses here had panoramic views over the town towards Brown Knoll, with probably a glimpse of Kinder Scout itself on a good day. No doubt the view added a few thousand pounds to the property prices.

  A little Ford Ka and a two-year-old Subaru stood on a paved driveway in front of the Turners’ house. The woman who answered the door was cold-eyed, middle-aged and suspicious. She gave Cooper and Hurst that stare with raised eyebrows that many members of the public adopted when they found the police on their doorstep. Wild conjectures would be going through her head. What had she done wrong? Who was in trouble? Or who had died?

  At least she looked like a woman who was strong enough to bear most things. And Cooper had the impression that the suicide of her brother wasn’t the biggest shock she’d ever had in her life. But it was a few minutes before they were able to sit her down and ask some questions.

  ‘Do you know of any reason why your brother would want to kill himself, Mrs Turner?’ he said.

  ‘No, of course I don’t. It’s unimaginable. Scott would never do something like that to himself.’

  It was the usual first response. Suicide was still regarded as something shameful, a sin not to be acknowledged within the family, like bankruptcy or incest. Coroners often recorded open verdicts to avoid writing ‘took his own life’ on the inquest report. Like unlawful killing, a verdict of suicide required proof beyond reasonable doubt. It was more than just a question of the balance of probabilities that coroners weighed up in other verdicts.

  ‘There must be some mistake,’ she said, a pleading tone entering her voice. ‘It was an accident, wasn’t it?’

  ‘We’re fairly sure it wasn’t,’ said Cooper.

  She started to ask how he knew that, but she seemed to read the expression on his face, and her voice faded away. Cooper was glad of that. He would much rather avoid having to explain the details just at the moment. He particularly didn’t want to mention the rope.

  ‘There was a note,’ he said instead.

  ‘Oh? Was there?’

  Becky Hurst showed her a copy of the note Scott Brooks had left. She looked at it for a long time, though it was very short.

  ‘Ashley?’ said Hurst. ‘His wife, wasn’t she?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And you still can’t think of any reason your brother might have killed himself?’ asked Cooper.

  She sobbed suddenly and pulled out a tissue to wipe a tear from each eye.

  ‘It broke him when Ashley was killed,’ she said. ‘Broke him completely. He doted on that girl, you know. But if you ask me, she was never good enough for him. A bad family.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘It was eight years ago. She was killed in a road accident. It was very sad. Very shocking. The car was completely crushed by a lorry.’

  ‘Was your brother with her in the car at the time?’

  ‘No, she was on her own. That made it worse, I think. Scott once said that he wished they’d been together and died at the same time. So they’d still be together.’

  ‘For Ever,’ said Cooper.

  She looked at him curiously. ‘Well, yes. Why do you say that?’

  ‘We went to his house,’ said Cooper. ‘There were messages everywhere. Notes he’d left.’

  ‘Oh, that,’ said Mrs Turner. ‘It was one of his odd ways. Scott would probably have called himself an eccentric. We tried to persuade him to get some sort of psychiatric help, but he wouldn’t hear of it. So everybody thought he was a bit strange. His neighbours wouldn’t have anything to do with him. The kids on that estate used to shout things at him in the street sometimes.’

  ‘We noticed a bit of graffiti too,’ said Cooper.

  ‘Nasty stuff, I suppose.’ She gave a deep sigh. ‘Scott grew to hate living in New Mills, you know. He only moved here for Ashley’s sake. It was different for us – when we came, the town had changed. There are lots of nice houses to choose from now and it’s only half an hour or so into Manchester on the train, so it’s convenient for John. It’s a good place to live for us. But not for Scott. After Ashley died he could have gone somewhere else, but he said there was no point. Everywhere would be just as bad. And at least he was still close to her here, in a way.’

  ‘So he blamed himself for Ashley’s death?’

  ‘I suppose he did. He felt responsible because he wasn’t there. And the lorry driver was to blame too, of course. But he went to prison. He was punished for it. I think that was the difference for Scott.’

  ‘What was he charged with? Causing death by dangerous driving?’

  ‘That was it. The police said he was texting on his phone when his lorry drifted off the road and hit Ashley’s car. He got sent down for eight years. It hardly seems enough for taking a life, does it?’

  ‘That would mean he’s out of prison now,’ said Cooper.

  Mrs Turner shook her head. ‘I don’t know. We’ve tried to forget about that time in our lives. Talking about it seemed to make Scott worse, so we didn’t mention it at all, if we could avoid it.’

  ‘Your brother might have known when the driver was due out, though.’

  ‘Possibly. If he did, he kept it to himself. He became very secretive in the last few years.’

  Cooper wasn’t surprised at that. If even your family made it clear they didn’t want to hear about the subject closest to your heart, you were bound to start keeping it to yourself.

  ‘Does the name Malcolm or Mac Kelsey mean anything to you?’ he asked.

  Pat Turner looked at him blankly. ‘Not a thing.’

  ‘Nothing in connection with Ashley’s death?’

  ‘I’m sorry, no. I can’t remember any of the names now. It’s all in the past as far as I’m concerned, and I’m happy for it to stay that way. You can look up all the details of the crash for yourself, if you want to. But I can’t see how it’s relevant.’ She sighed deeply. ‘Scott was just a very unhappy man, I suppose. That’s obvious now, isn’t it?’

  Cooper held up the note again.

  ‘So who did he mean when he wrote “Don’t blame them”?’
he said.

  ‘I have absolutely no idea,’ said Mrs Turner.

  She was starting to become edgy and defensive now. That was another stage of reaction after a suicide. It was perfectly normal.

  ‘What did Scott do for a job?’ asked Hurst, instinctively taking a different approach.

  ‘Nothing. He was living on benefits.’

  ‘Really?’ said Cooper. ‘He seems to have been quite an educated man.’

  ‘Unemployment can happen to anyone these days,’ she said sharply.

  ‘True.’

  Then Mrs Turner looked at Cooper and made a decision.

  ‘Oh, well. You’ll find out soon enough. Scott used to be a teacher, but he lost his job. I wouldn’t want to drag all that up again. It was a very long time ago and it was all rather painful.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘Well, after that he held down a few manual jobs for a while. Work that was below the level of his abilities, of course. He was always intending to find something more suitable. And he probably would have done, except for what happened to Ashley. In the end he wasn’t in any condition to make any employer interested in taking him on.’

  She’d recovered herself now. The tears had come at the memory of the road accident, the death of Scott’s wife. That had been a more traumatic event in her life, perhaps. A more sudden and unexpected one anyway.

  Cooper remembered the two cars parked outside on the drive.

  ‘Is your husband home, Mrs Turner?’ he asked

  ‘John? No, he’s at work.’

  She explained that her husband commuted into Manchester every day, taking the train from New Mills Central. Cooper thought that was probably true of many of the neighbours in these housing developments on the edge of New Mills. He could imagine them sharing a carriage on the way to the office, and when they came home again at night, then never seeing each other for the rest of the time, even though they might live next door.

  ‘I drove him to the station this morning,’ said Mrs Turner. ‘It’s better if we can do it that way. There isn’t much room for parking down there.’