The Murder Road: A Cooper & Fry Mystery

by Stephen Booth

  ‘That’s a shame,’ said Cooper.

  ‘Well, I’m not an information centre. But, as it happens, he was lucky. Two of my regulars were in and they told him the way. They took him outside and pointed out the directions. Then he came back in to finish his tea and they left.’

  Cooper heard the rumble of a powerful diesel engine nearby. He looked round the cafe, making sure it was still empty.

  ‘Who were these regulars, Sally?’ he said.

  Sally stopped wiping the counter. ‘I’m not getting anyone into trouble, am I? I’ve got my reputation to think about. If word goes round that I’m ratting to the police, it’ll affect my business. Not that anybody gets up to no good in here, like. But I don’t ask questions and that’s the way people like it.’

  By the time she’d finished talking, Cooper was starting to get tired of listening to her.

  ‘Sally,’ he said, ‘don’t you think it would do more harm to your reputation if you didn’t care about helping to find who killed one of your customers?’

  She thought about it for a moment or two, then began wiping again.

  ‘Are you eating, or not?’ she said. ‘Because if you are, I’ll need to get some burgers out. If not, I’ve got other things to do.’

  Though he rated members of his team highly, Cooper felt they didn’t challenge him enough now on the soundness of his ideas. He needed someone to do that.

  It was only when he was given a robust argument that he could properly formulate his thoughts. Sometimes being forced to think things through made him realise he was on the wrong track. But it could also cement his opinion and convince him he was right. Without someone to pick ruthless holes in his theories, he was troubled by a feeling of uncertainty.

  There was one person who could always do that. And fortunately, unlike Gavin Murfin, it was someone he could still talk to about the job.

  It was why Cooper found himself sitting that evening in a gastro pub in Nottingham, the Wilford Green.

  Looking out at the endless streets of suburban housing and the roads solid with traffic, it struck Cooper that his life was falling into some kind of pattern this week. He was moving backwards and forwards from the city to a medium-sized town like Edendale, then on to a smaller town and right out into the depths of the countryside to the smallest of small hamlets. Shawhead couldn’t be any more different from Nottingham if it tried. The two places were at such opposite ends of the spectrum that they might as well be on different planets, or at least in different countries, rather than just fifty or sixty miles apart.

  Cooper was eating a Derbyshire beef stew with dumplings. Diane Fry had ordered a butternut squash risotto sprinkled with grated cheese. When they came in he’d noticed that the bar had Deuchars IPA from the Caledonian Brewery in Edinburgh. But he couldn’t risk it. It was one of the disadvantages of travelling all the way down here to Nottingham by car that he couldn’t have a drink. It would be a disaster to get stopped and breathalysed on the way home to Edendale. Living near the centre of town did offer the benefit of a short walk home from the pub. He felt his Edendale local, the Hanging Gate, calling to him now. But he had to resist that too.

  Fry had started by talking about her own job. She was involved in a new multi-agency task force dealing with child sex abuse gangs. It wasn’t the sort of job that would have appealed to Cooper. For Fry, it seemed to be an exciting challenge. She was so engaged in describing the historical background and the parameters of the current task that she was in danger of letting her food go cold.

  ‘Once we’ve done all the groundwork, we’ll be putting together a major intelligence-led operation,’ she said.

  ‘In Derbyshire?’ asked Cooper.

  Fry looked at him, her eyes narrowing. It was the way she looked at a suspect. In fact, it was the way she looked at most people. She relaxed but only slightly. Cooper watched her shift uneasily.

  ‘You can’t tell me,’ he said. ‘I understand.’

  ‘When it happens, I’ve no doubt we’ll be targeting addresses throughout the area,’ said Fry. ‘But the cities tend to be the focus of most inquiries of this type. Nottingham and Derby.’

  ‘Have you met my new DS, by the way?’ asked Cooper, trying to change the subject.

  ‘Why? Is he a child abuser?’

  ‘No. Well . . . no, I’m pretty sure he isn’t.’

  ‘Why would I want to meet him, then?’

  Cooper laughed.

  ‘Diane . . .’ he said.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Eat your risotto.’

  Cooper had never really understood Diane Fry. Now he was finding that he hardly understood himself either. The way he was behaving made no sense to him. It wasn’t logical. But it must have meaning at some deeper level, because it felt right.

  For a long time Diane’s abrupt and dismissive attitude had been vaguely irritating to him, though he’d never found her as annoying as many of his colleagues did. Frustrating and difficult to predict, yes. Pig-headed and touchy, certainly. The Diane he knew was all of those things. But she was never boring. He’d seen the real woman below that prickly exterior. Very few people had that privilege.

  He could see Fry’s face change as she made a very obvious effort to show interest in someone else’s concerns.

  ‘Oh, are you going to buy that house?’ she said.

  ‘I’m not sure,’ said Cooper.

  ‘Not sure?’

  ‘Well, actually. Now that I think about it . . . yes, I am sure. I’m not going to buy it.’

  ‘You’ve made that decision just now.’

  ‘I think I’d made my mind up, but I wasn’t admitting it to myself.’

  ‘Yes, that sounds like you,’ said Fry.

  ‘It would be very odd, wouldn’t it? Buying a house next door to where I already live. Moving just the other side of the wall. Very strange.’

  ‘Why aren’t they offering the house you live in for sale, then?’

  ‘Number six? Guy Thomson wants to convert it back into one property before they sell it, rather than leaving it split into two separate flats. He thinks they’ll get more money for it that way. And he’s probably right. There’s a big market for terraced houses in Edendale – they can ask a premium just for the location. There isn’t the same demand from people wanting to get into the rental business. Tenants are too much trouble.’

  ‘I bet you’ve never been any trouble,’ said Fry.

  ‘No, but – they get students usually, you see. Or asylum seekers placed in a rented property by the local authority.’

  ‘And that would bring down the neighbourhood.’

  ‘Exactly. So I couldn’t stay living at number six for ever. The house won’t be flats any more.’

  ‘They can’t just throw you out on the street, though. You do have rights as a sitting tenant.’

  ‘I know, but . . .’

  Fry narrowed her eyes as she gazed at him. As usual Cooper felt uncomfortably transparent.

  ‘You don’t want to stay there either, do you?’ she said. ‘Even if you could.’

  Cooper threw up his hands. ‘Guilty. Yes, it’s true.’

  ‘Well, where do you want to live then, Ben?’

  ‘That’s the trouble – I just don’t know.’

  ‘You’ve always said what a wonderful place Edendale is to live in. And you’ve spent plenty of time looking at houses before.’

  ‘And yet I’ve actually no idea where I want to live,’ said Cooper. ‘Should I stay in town? Or should I move to a village, like Luke Irvine in Bamford? I have no opinion on the subject. There doesn’t seem to be any point in living anywhere in particular. Not any more.’

  That killed the conversation. They were both quiet for a few minutes. Cooper speared a dumpling. In the silence at their table he was aware of the background chatter in the pub, a burst of noise from the kitchen, even the normal life of the city carrying on outside. More than three hundred thousand people were out there going about their business. It made him feel suddenly
unimportant.

  Cooper couldn’t even try to explain to Diane Fry that all his previous house hunting had been at Liz’s instigation, all part of her plans for when they were married. She had known exactly what sort of house she wanted, where it had to be located, how near it should be to a good school. Without Liz alongside him, driving the search for a new home with her clear vision of the necessary criteria, he felt completely at a loss. None of the things that had mattered to her meant anything to him. Not now.

  Fry looked at him closely, but didn’t ask the question. She probably didn’t need to. The death of your fiancée wasn’t something you put behind you so easily. Especially when she’d died in a fire that you escaped from yourself. It was a knife plunged into his heart that could never be removed, a lethal wound that would never heal. Even Diane must understand, surely? Or did she just think that he was being weak and indecisive? Would she tell him to pull himself together and get over it?

  In the end she did neither.

  ‘If I can help . . .’ she said. ‘Well . . . you’ll let me know, won’t you?’

  Cooper swallowed, fighting a sudden lump in his throat.

  ‘Of course. And – thanks, Diane.’

  She nodded, took a drink, stared at the barman as if she’d just recognised him as a suspect she’d been trying to track down for months. Her face suggested he might have committed a serious crime. A murderer or rapist at least. She was going to nail him for it, anyway.

  Cooper smiled. Well, at least she wasn’t taking that feeling out on him for once. Innocent bystanders might become collateral damage, but he could live with that.

  ‘So you’ve got this murder case to deal with,’ she said awkwardly changing the conversation again. ‘The lorry driver?’

  ‘That’s right. His name is Mac Kelsey. Do you know the circumstances?’

  ‘I read some of the background.’

  ‘And there’s the suicide,’ said Cooper.

  ‘A man who hanged himself from the – what was it?’

  ‘The Millennium Walkway in New Mills.’

  Fry snorted. ‘I haven’t been there, but I can imagine it. I’ve got a clear picture of New Mills in my head.’

  ‘I bet you’re picturing it wrong,’ said Cooper.

  ‘I doubt it. So what are you saying? You think it’s all connected to a fatal collision on the A6 that happened eight years ago?’

  Cooper smiled as he heard the scepticism in her voice. No, not just scepticism – it was more than that. Incredulity. Derision, almost. It was the familiar tone he’d got used to when he presented his ideas. It was exactly what he’d wanted to hear from her.

  ‘It makes perfect sense when you put all the pieces together,’ he said.

  ‘Oh, of course it does. It always makes sense to you, though it never does to anyone else.’

  ‘That’s because it’s complicated. I find it difficult to explain to other people.’

  ‘Well, you’ve got Devdan Sharma, now,’ said Fry. ‘That should help.’

  Cooper looked at her, struck by her sarcastic tone. ‘What do you know about him, Diane?’

  ‘Oh, no more than anyone else.’

  He waited, willing her to say more, but reluctant to press her. It was a technique that worked when he was interviewing a member of the public, but it didn’t have any effect on Diane Fry. If she didn’t want to say any more on the subject, she wouldn’t do. Fry wasn’t the sort of woman to blurt something out just because you got her talking. She’d always had secrets and she didn’t like to share them.

  ‘Watch out for him,’ she said. ‘That’s all. When one person fails, they take others down with them. But you know that.’

  ‘Yes, I do.’

  Cooper sat for a few moments, just looking at her. Diane shouldn’t be the sort of woman he was attracted to. He remembered when he’d first met her, thinking that she was too lean, too angular, with her fair hair cut too straight and short. Yet she’d always had that suggestion of strength too – and, above all, a sense of unexplored depths that he couldn’t resist, a mystery that he was drawn to explore.

  He watched her turn her head, aware of his gaze but avoiding his eye. He caught a glint of light from the silver stud in her ear. He wondered what she was thinking. It was one of his most frequent questions and he wasn’t sure he always got the answer.

  Now every time he saw Fry he felt glad to see her. But it hadn’t always been like that. She’d been a thorn in his side for years. The closer he’d tried to get to her, the further she’d moved away and the worse she’d treated him. He’d never found her attitude entirely convincing and over time he thought he’d come to understand why she was that way. But Diane Fry had always been able to surprise him and prove him wrong. Their present relationship was down to her. It had all been at her instigation, hadn’t it?

  Cooper felt a frisson of doubt, a second of uncertainty over whether he was entirely in control of his own destiny. Or was he just going with the flow? It was so much easier to do that. But you never quite knew where the current would lead you. Sometimes you felt a need for reassurance. A moment of comfort.

  Cooper looked round the pub. It was much too public here, of course. But for a second their hands touched on the table. He felt that jolt of electricity, the sizzle of current that never failed to light up his nerve endings.

  She left her hand there, a faint flush on her face. The touch was deliberate on his part. He had needed that contact. As far as Cooper was concerned, Diane had come to him just at the right time, when he wanted her most.

  25

  Friday 13 February

  By the time his team arrived at West Street, Cooper had a map of the area pinned to the board in the CID room. He could see the curious looks he was getting as he attempted to continue where he’d left off the previous afternoon.

  ‘I still can’t locate Mr Bateman of Windmill Feed Solutions by the way,’ said Dev Sharma. ‘But I’ll keep trying.’

  ‘Okay, Dev.’

  Cooper sighed. Another one trying to keep his head down?

  It was a shame, but that left only Anne Kelsey to talk to. Questioning a grieving widow wasn’t his favourite job.

  ‘So,’ he said, ‘let’s go back to where we were up to.’

  ‘Until we were so rudely interrupted,’ said Villiers.

  Everyone laughed and even Cooper smiled. ‘Sorry about that. But we do have a clearer picture now.’

  They settled down and leaned forward to listen.

  ‘Okay. So on the day he was killed, Malcolm Kelsey had been delivering in the area near Dove Holes,’ he said. ‘A customer at a farm right here.’ He indicated a point on the map. ‘When he left there we believe he got straight onto the A6 and drove north.’

  ‘Towards New Mills,’ said Irvine.

  Cooper nodded. ‘He would have got onto the dual carriageway section at Hallsteads and driven past Chapel-en-le-Frith. Mr Kelsey had been working through his normal lunch break, because he’d decided to follow a recommendation from one of his colleagues and call in for a meal at a roadside cafe called Sally’s Snack Box. And that’s exactly what he did. The cafe is in this lay-by on the northbound carriageway of the A6.’

  Cooper indicated the position of the cafe. He’d even pinned up a photograph of the Snack Box that he’d taken on his phone from the opposite side of the carriageway. Unfortunately, it had seemed a bit blurred when he printed it out. It made the cafe look as though the shipping containers it was made from were still on the deck of a ship being tossed about at sea. The cab of a lorry was just visible entering the picture from the left. A split second later and all he would have seen was the side of a milk tanker.

  ‘Nice shot,’ said Irvine.

  ‘It’s the best we’ve got,’ said Cooper. ‘Anyway the owner of the cafe confirms that a man she hadn’t seen before, but who she now identifies as Malcolm Kelsey, came in at around 3 p.m. and ordered the all-day breakfast. A post-mortem examination of the victim’s stomach contents confirms that wa
s pretty much what he’d eaten an hour or two prior to his death. You probably don’t want the details, but they’re contained in the pathologist’s report.’

  ‘The condemned man’s last meal,’ said Irvine.

  ‘It’s not what I would have chosen,’ replied Hurst.

  ‘Is this case really going to revolve around the half-digested contents of the victim’s stomach?’ said Villiers. ‘It makes me nauseous just thinking about it.’

  ‘Think yourself lucky that you’re not a forensic pathologist,’ said Cooper.

  ‘Amen to that.’

  ‘When you went to the mortuary,’ said Irvine, ‘did Dr van Doon actually have the stomach contents in a bowl or something?’

  ‘Luke, don’t be disgusting,’ said Hurst with a frown of distaste.

  ‘It’s a reasonable question. One day I may have to do the mortuary visit myself. So might you.’

  ‘Maybe. But you’re just talking about it to be obnoxious. It’s pathetic.’

  ‘I think the stomach contents were probably frozen by then for storage,’ said Cooper, wondering how hard he should stamp on the squabble.

  ‘I’ll think about that next time I look in the freezer for some diced vegetables,’ said Irvine.

  ‘Oh, nice one,’ said Hurst.

  Cooper waited a moment for them to quieten down again.

  ‘Well, this is where things began to go wrong for Mr Kelsey,’ he said. ‘And it’s this stage of his journey that we need to concentrate on. We’re going to start with two unidentified males who were customers at Sally’s Snack Box and gave him directions to the farm where he was due to make his next delivery.’

  ‘So he did ask for directions,’ said Hurst.

  ‘Yes, he had to do that. Remember that Mr Kelsey was a stranger to the area – he didn’t normally deliver on this route. And he’d previously been in trouble with his employers for relying too much on his satnav. So he decided to play safe and ask for directions. It seems, though, that he may have chosen the wrong people to ask. In fact, these two individuals seem to have volunteered themselves to help, which I think is significant. They then left the cafe before Mr Kelsey.’