Dead And Buried (Cooper and Fry)

by Stephen Booth

  ‘I see. And is that all?’

  Villiers knew him too well. But Cooper didn’t want to share all his thoughts. As so often was the case, they didn’t come anywhere near to amounting to evidence.

  In fact, he’d also been thinking about what Fry had told him of Henry Pearson’s reaction to the discovery of the two bodies. The collapse of the pretence, the crumbling facade. Everyone had their public face, the image they presented to the world. Even Gavin Murfin had cultivated a persona, a role that he played up to, so that everyone would remember him, even if it was for all the wrong reasons. It didn’t reflect the real Murfin, the one behind the facade. And wasn’t that the same with Maurice Wharton? It was all about image.

  In the CID room today, the comments had been all about the Wharton of legend. The notorious Mad Maurice, the man who was known for his short temper and angry outbursts. He had a reputation for miles around as being irascible and unpredictable. Anyone with that idea in mind would have no difficulty picturing Wharton losing control, flying into a rage, and killing two people.

  A reputation, yes. But reputations were built up over time. And surely it had been mostly an act in Wharton’s case? He’d known perfectly well the appeal his eccentricity had for visitors to his pub. Many of them were drawn in to watch his performance. Of course, he had played up to the nickname. And so had everyone else. Even now, the whole of Edendale still called him Mad Maurice. Yet it was the way he wanted to be remembered. He’d said so himself, right there in the hospice.

  In a way, it was almost like the story of the Light House itself. A brightly lit exterior, distracting attention from the darker corners within.

  Yes, a reputation was very useful. A nickname created expectations in the people who heard it. Cooper wondered about his own response to that name. Had he been guilty of forming preconceptions about the way Mad Maurice Wharton would have behaved? Was he, like everyone else, being manipulated through his prejudices?

  ‘Still bothered by the memories?’ asked Villiers.

  Cooper laughed. ‘They haven’t done me much good so far. The general impressions are right, but the details always seem to be wrong.’

  ‘It’s not a joke,’ said Villiers. ‘No matter how good your memory is, you can’t recall every detail. So your mind fills in the gaps by using bits of other memories. You ask your inner eye to create a picture for you, but it can’t show you blanks where faces should be, so it uses whatever material it can find. If we could analyse the images in your brain, we’d find that the man at the bar looked a bit like the person you arrested yesterday, his clothes were those of someone you just passed in the street, and his face was reminiscent of Brad Pitt.’

  ‘Robert Redford,’ said Cooper.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘You get my point, though. One person’s memory is too unreliable as evidence. Recollections become polluted by imagination.’

  ‘So instead of imagination, what we need is a bit of illumination, some light to shine into those dark corners where we can’t see.’

  ‘Absolutely,’ she said.

  But as they crested the rise on Bradwell Moor, Cooper saw the smoke on the skyline. He remembered the devastating moorland fires, their flames rising twenty feet into the air as they swept across the landscape, scorching the earth bare to reveal what lay underneath. Those flames were illuminating places where perhaps there should have been no light.

  When Cooper had left with Villiers, Fry decided to let Nancy Wharton cool for a while. She was given a cup of tea, allowed to go to the bathroom, asked again if she wanted a solicitor to be present with her in the interview room.

  Nancy hadn’t been arrested, but she must realise there was a possibility she could be charged with perverting the course of justice, perhaps assisting an offender. It might even come to conspiracy to murder, which carried a potential life sentence. But that was all in the future.

  ‘What actual forensic evidence do we have?’ DCI Mackenzie asked when Fry briefed him.

  ‘The blood on David Pearson’s anorak isn’t his.’

  ‘Yes, I know that. But we don’t have a match.’

  ‘Could we get a DNA sample from Maurice Wharton?’ asked Fry.

  ‘A dying man? We’d need very good justification for a thing like that.’

  ‘It’s insensitive, I suppose.’

  ‘I’ll say.’

  ‘But if there was compelling evidence against him, it might be a different matter?’

  ‘It would never come to trial anyway. Not in his condition. Even if he survived long enough, the CPS wouldn’t put a dying man in the dock.’

  ‘No, I’m sure you’re right.’

  It pained Fry to say it, especially when she couldn’t help feeling that she was telling Ben Cooper the same thing.

  ‘What’s next then, Diane?’ asked Mackenzie.

  She looked at her watch. ‘I have to pay a visit to the mortuary.’

  Forensic pathologist Juliana van Doon had a long relationship with Diane Fry. For some reason, they had never got on. Fry had found herself at a disadvantage many times, put down by the pathologist without being able to take any retaliatory action.

  But today seemed to be different. Mrs van Doon was either too busy to bother patronising her, or she’d heard that Fry had transferred from E Division and was hoping it would be the last time they met. It wasn’t exactly a friendly greetings card with Sorry you’re leaving. But some of the tension had gone from their relationship.

  ‘The bodies aren’t decomposed enough,’ said the pathologist, brushing a stray hair back from her forehead.

  ‘The peat slowed decomposition?’ asked Fry.

  ‘Peat? No, these bodies weren’t actually buried in peat. From the photographs of the scene, it’s clear they were lying in a disused mine shaft. With a bog body, it’s the absence of air and damp, acidic conditions that slow decomposition.’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘In this case, the heavy plastic wrapping would have slowed the rate of decay on some areas of the bodies, but not others. Those parts were exposed to the air and moisture, as well as to insects and so forth. But they still don’t show anything like the rate of decomposition we’d normally expect. Not a rate that corresponds with a time of death more than two years ago.’

  ‘Only one possibility, then.’

  ‘Yes, I think someone must have done what we do in the mortuary – lowered the temperature sufficiently to stop the process of decomposition altogether. The bodies were frozen.’

  Fry wasn’t surprised by the news. ‘Would that have been at an early stage after they were killed?’

  ‘If you were going to get a human body into a chest freezer, it would have to be flexible,’ said Mrs van Doon. ‘Rigor mortis starts between three and six hours after death. That would catch most people out. Once rigor has set in, it becomes much more difficult to transport and dispose of a body. So I’d say they were frozen when they were still at the fresh stage, before the onset of rigor mortis. When they were unfrozen, decomposition would have restarted. Some of the exposed areas are just entering the advanced decay stage.’

  ‘Cause of death?’ said Fry hopefully.

  ‘Oh, the number one on the pathologist’s hit parade. Blunt force trauma.’

  ‘For both victims?’

  ‘Yes. Both suffered head injuries. The male victim has a number of other contusions and abrasions on various parts of his upper body, and notably on his hands. He also has some internal injuries, including a couple of broken ribs.’

  ‘Were there any signs of bite marks?’

  ‘Oh yes,’ said the pathologist. ‘At first I assumed some scavenger had got access to the bodies. A fox or something of the kind. But I’m not sure about that. The disrupted pattern of decomposition makes an assessment more difficult, but I’d say the bite marks seem to have been ante mortem. Before death.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Fry.

  Mrs van Doon looked at her slightly askance, as if she
wasn’t accustomed to being thanked for information like that.

  ‘As for the female,’ she said, ‘she shows fewer signs of injury, and those seem to be mostly post mortem, except for one major trauma at the base of the skull. It looks to me as though your male has been in a fight and come off worst. The female victim – well, from the nature and position of the fatal injury, it’s consistent with a fall.’

  ‘A fall?’

  ‘Yes. A fall backwards, with the head striking a solid object.’ The pathologist demonstrated with a slap of a hand to the back of her own neck. ‘Not the floor – a piece of furniture, perhaps, or a window ledge.’

  She paused, watching Fry’s reaction for a moment.

  ‘In fact, Sergeant, my opinion is that this woman might have survived the injury if she’d received prompt medical attention. Which, evidently, she didn’t.’

  29

  When Cooper and Villiers returned to the Light House, the scene seemed almost deserted. Cooper looked around for a scene guard, but saw no one. A forensics van was in the car park, and a marked Corsa stood at the corner of the building, with no driver in sight. The only sound was the crack and rustle of crime-scene tape, like the bones of the dead pub rattling in the silence of the moor.

  Cautiously he walked round the exterior of the building. Apart from the absence of a guard, something else felt wrong.

  But then he came across the pile of old furniture stacked against the back wall of the pub. Heavy tables with metal bases, wrought-iron chairs, a heap of torn parasols on steel posts. It was obvious now that they covered the trap doors for beer deliveries into the cellar. In an open space nearby, someone had burned rubbish, but only a patch of charcoal and pale grey ashes remained.

  Bending closer, Cooper pointed out one of the tables to Villiers.

  ‘This furniture has been moved at some time,’ he said. ‘Look, there’s thick mould on the bottom, while the upper surfaces are relatively clear. It must all have stood somewhere else, and it’s been piled up on the hatch.’

  ‘If they removed chest freezers from the cellar, they must have brought them out this way, rather than through the pub. Then they covered the hatch to keep it closed, or to prevent it from being seen.’

  Cooper straightened up. ‘Yes, that seems likely. A couple of men could have done it, with a suitable vehicle. If only we could find where they dumped the freezers.’

  Inside the pub, Liz Petty was still on her own, though she’d brought her gear back up from the cellar.

  ‘Liz, who’s supposed to be on scene watch?’ he said.

  ‘I can’t remember his name. He went off to have a brew with the firefighters. It’s dry work being up here for hours on end. I said it would be okay, since you and Carol were coming.’

  ‘All right, I suppose.’

  ‘Is something wrong, Ben?’

  ‘No, no. Everything’s fine.’

  ‘Sorry, this is a slow job on my own,’ she said. ‘I’m hoping to get some help later. I shouldn’t be single-handed, but you know what it’s like.’

  ‘Any results?’

  ‘Well, I can’t find any traces of blood in the cellar, so that’s not your primary crime scene, I’m afraid. Shoe marks and fingerprints all over the place. Sorry again. Unless you can turn up the actual freezers for me?’

  ‘No, but we need you upstairs, Liz. I think you’ll find your bloodstains up there, though there’s probably been a thorough clean-up.’

  ‘Not too thorough to beat me,’ said Liz cheerfully. ‘Not with my luminol and UV light. You’ll see me all lit up in a blue glow shortly. Which room in particular?’

  ‘One of the guest rooms on the first floor. Room One – they call it the Bakewell Room.’

  ‘No problem.’

  She hesitated before picking up her case, and looked round to see if Carol Villiers was within earshot.

  ‘By the way, the venue is booked. I thought it was best to go ahead and confirm with them. Is that okay?’

  ‘Oh, yes. Fine. It was the perfect place. I loved it.’

  ‘I’m so glad.’

  Her face lit up the way it always did when she was thinking about the wedding. The big day couldn’t come quick enough for Liz. He wondered how often she thought about it when she was at work. Was she figuring out the seating plan for the reception in her mind while she sprayed luminol in the cellar, looking for blood residue? Did bridesmaids’ dresses take priority in her consideration over the lives of the two murder victims?

  It was an unworthy speculation, and Cooper suppressed it. Of the two of them, Liz was the one who had her priorities right. While he was obsessing about details, and looking at the marks in the dust where an old freezer had once stood, she was thinking about their future together. Of course he knew which of them was right. It was why he wanted to spend the rest of his life with her. Liz would keep him grounded and sane. Without her, he would be lost. His future would have no shape or meaning. It didn’t bear thinking about.

  ‘And I looked at some menus,’ she said, speaking a little more quietly as she heard voices in the entrance. ‘I’ve got some ideas. We can talk about them tonight.’

  ‘All right. Over dinner somewhere?’

  She laughed. ‘Dinner? Are you trying to placate me for standing me up last night?’

  ‘Of course not. But if we’re going to be talking about food …’

  Liz touched his arm as footsteps approached the bar. ‘I’ll see you tonight. Are you going to book a table?’

  ‘I won’t forget.’

  Cooper thought he’d better make a note of it, before it slipped his mind. But a voice called to him from the doorway, as someone stood back to let Liz get past on her way to the stairs.

  ‘Hello!’

  ‘Hi. Is that Josh?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Come this way. Just stay clear of the taped-off areas.’

  ‘Your colleague outside gave me instructions,’ said Lane.

  ‘That would be DC Villiers.’

  Lane was casually dressed in denims and a grey sweatshirt. He must change into his working clothes when he got to the hotel. The casual gear didn’t suit him actually – he was a little too middle-aged to carry off the jeans. But his hair was already groomed, the discreet piercing in place, his smile affable. Despite his clothes, he was ready to be of service. If only everyone was so cooperative.

  It was odd seeing Josh here – it felt a bit like the way Cooper had failed to recognise Roddy when he was on the wrong side of the bar at the Hanging Gate.

  ‘What do you want me to look at?’ asked Lane.

  Cooper pointed at the open hatchway behind the bar. ‘I’d like you to show me around down here.’

  ‘In the cellar?’

  ‘You’re not afraid of cellars, are you?’ asked Cooper.

  ‘No, why?’

  ‘I thought you sounded a bit nervous.’

  ‘I’ve spent half my life in cellars.’

  A moment later, Lane stood with him at the bottom of the steps and looked around the cellar. He examined the tangle of beer lines, the equipment lying around, the row of empty kegs. He reached out a hand to pick up the wooden mallet, then changed his mind, perhaps remembering that it was a crime scene. He shook his head over the stainless-steel buckets, the hosepipe and the piles of filter funnels.

  ‘Most of this will have to come out,’ he said. ‘It’s been standing too long. The new owners will have to scrap it and do a major clear-out before they can reopen.’

  ‘We’ll need to spend quite a bit of time here before they can do anything with it, I’m afraid,’ said Cooper.

  Lane bent over a pile of beer taps, and made a disgusted expression at the smell.

  ‘Why?’ he said. ‘What is going on exactly? You didn’t explain anything to me before. I mean, I’m glad to help, if I can, but …?’

  ‘I can’t really tell you much at the moment,’ said Cooper.

  Lane shrugged. ‘Story of my life.’

  ‘I’m truly sorr
y. I know that sounds pompous, but we’re right in the middle of a major inquiry here.’

  ‘Is it about the tourist couple, the Pearsons? Can you tell me that, at least?’

  ‘Yes, I don’t suppose that’s much of a secret.’

  ‘Not around Edendale.’

  The lighting in the cellar consisted of fluorescent tubes. They cast a harsh light, and Cooper could hear a faint whine as if one of them was wearing out and getting close to needing replacement. It was a high-pitched noise, like a mosquito, and it would start to bother him if he had to spend much time down here.

  ‘Josh, can you remember what used to be down here?’ he said. ‘I mean, anything that isn’t here now?’

  ‘I don’t know. There was an awful lot of junk,’ said Lane. ‘Old Maurice got a bit slack in his last couple of years.’

  ‘Slack?’

  ‘He used to run a tight ship at one time, but gradually standards slipped. The cellar is a place you put things so they’re out of the way.’

  ‘A dumping ground,’ said Cooper, consciously echoing the phrase used by Roddy.

  ‘Exactly. A dumping ground.’

  Cooper indicated the clean area on the floor. It was surrounded now by Liz Petty’s evidence markers, the wall scattered with white dust.

  ‘For example, what used to stand here?’ he said.

  Lane stared at the markers, and seemed at a loss for an answer. Cooper was disappointed. But he couldn’t complain, really – he knew how unreliable memory could be, especially when the context was wrong.

  ‘A freezer, perhaps?’ he suggested.

  ‘A freezer? Yes – I think you’re right. A freezer.’

  ‘Just one?’

  Lane hesitated, still reluctant to commit himself. ‘Well, I think there might have been two. Old freezers. They weren’t used for the kitchen. There’s a full-sized commercial freezer upstairs.’

  ‘Do you happen to know when they were taken out?’

  ‘No idea.’

  ‘That’s all right.’

  Perhaps Lane wasn’t going to be as useful a witness as he’d hoped. Nevertheless, Cooper led him to the far end of the cellar.