Dead And Buried Part 14

Fry gritted her teeth before she spoke.

'Have you any idea how frustrating this is for me?'

'What is?'

'To think that I've finally got away from this place a and then to find I have to come back, and it's full of all these irritating little Ben Cooper clones that I'm supposed to work with.'

Cooper found himself breathing too quickly, the surge of anger coming so fast that it frightened him.

'Luke and Becky? They're good kids. I can't believe you said that.'

'Try taking a look at yourselves from the outside, that's all.'

She began to turn away, which angered him even more.

'You can't-'

'Yes I can,' she said over her shoulder. 'I can do anything I like now. And there's no way you can hold me back any more.'

DI Hitchens had his office door open, and called Cooper in when he saw him pa.s.sing in the corridor. The DI still looked tired. Perhaps even more than ever. He had the air of a man battling a long, slow war of attrition. And a man who also knew he was losing.

'We have a visitor arriving in Edendale tomorrow,' said Hitchens.

'Who?'

'Mr Henry Pearson. That's David Pearson's father.'

'Oh, I see.'

'He's been campaigning for years to find out the truth about what happened to his son and daughter-in-law.'

'Yes, I know,' said Cooper. 'He was in the papers every week for quite some time.'

'And on TV, making appeals to the public. Until the media eventually lost interest.'

'As they always do.'

'It was worse than that, though,' said Hitchens.

'What do you mean?'

'There was that theory about what had happened to the Pearsons. The deliberate disappearance, you know?'

'That was total conjecture, wasn't it?'

'Yes, but it was picked up by the media with unholy enthusiasm. They don't like stories where the outcome is just left hanging. Their readers get frustrated. So the suggestion that David and Trisha Pearson had planned their own disappearing act and were living abroad somewhere under false names was perfect fodder for them. They took it and ran with it for months. Even now, if you do an online search for their names, you'll come up with page after page of stuff on the internet supporting that theory. Countries where they're living have been suggested. People say they've seen evidence that they're still alive a photos, emails, credit card purchases. You know the sort of thing.'

'We must have pursued those leads at the time.'

Hitchens laughed. 'Of course. Well, the ones that seemed to have any merit, anyway. You can't just sit on your hands, no matter how much you think they're rubbish. You've got to be seen to be doing something, especially these days. Otherwise you get bombarded with complaints about police inactivity and incompetence. turning a blind eye or looking the other way. Corruption even. So, yes a a lot of those reports were followed up, and none of them turned out to have any merit. It was all conspiracy theory stuff. People love it, don't they?'

'And Henry Pearson?'

'He became a victim of the conspiracy theorists. Because he was so high profile, because he was so vociferous in his efforts to argue that David and Trisha had met some tragic end, he turned himself into a target. The accusations were that he was the cover-up man, that he was making as much fuss as possible to distract attention from what had actually happened. People said that all his emotional hand-wringing was just an act designed to influence the direction of the inquiry, to ensure that all our attention was focused on conducting a futile search for bodies.'

'Did he do a lot of emotional hand-wringing?' asked Cooper.

'Actually, no,' admitted Hitchens. 'I always thought he was very calm and controlled. I was impressed with him. It seemed to me that he always put his points across powerfully, but very reasonably. There was a logic to his arguments. If you've had much experience of bereaved family members, you'll appreciate how rare that is, Ben.'

'Naturally. Very few people can keep emotion out of their reactions in a situation like that.'

Hitchens nodded. 'Mind you, I'm not saying Mr Pearson was never emotional. He and his wife came up here when David and Trisha were first reported missing. They both went through the emotional stage. But Henry was the stronger of the two. He got himself under control pretty quickly. We found that very useful in the early days. He was able to give us all kinds of information that we asked for. In the end, though, that was one of the problems.'

'Problems?'

'In a sense. You see, the information Mr Pearson gave us actually supported the theory about a deliberate disappearance. Without Henry Pearson's a.s.sistance, it would have taken us a lot longer to find out what his son had been up to.'

13.

At the house in Manvers Street, on Edendale's Devons.h.i.+re Estate, the door was answered by a woman in her mid-forties, with hair in blonde streaks and a hint of hardness in her eyes. A lifetime spent in the pub business could leave some individuals jaundiced about humanity. In fact, any job where you dealt with the public all the time could do that to you, as Diane Fry knew only too well herself.

'We're looking for Maurice Wharton,' said Fry.

The woman looked at him oddly, a stare with no perceivable emotion.

'Well you're too late,' she said.

'Why? Where has he gone?'

'He'll be up there in the cemetery soon.'

She jerked her head towards the slope that led up to Edendale's new burial ground. Fry studied her more closely, seeking a clue to her emotional state. Grief was difficult to interpret sometimes. She might just have caught this woman at an early stage, before the shock had worn off and the barriers came down.

'I'm very sorry. And you are Mrs Wharton?'

'I suppose so. I still carry the name, don't I?'

Fry glanced at Hurst, but she was too good at maintaining a neutral expression on her face to give anything away.

'I apologise if it's a bad time, Mrs Wharton,' said Fry. 'But we do need to speak to you. It's about the Light House.'

Mrs Wharton shook her head wearily. 'Oh, the Light House. I thought we'd buried that, too.'

She ushered Fry and Hurst into the house. A teenage girl stood in the hall, a thinner version of Nancy Wharton.

'Are you the police?' she said.

'Yes.'

'I'm Kirsten Wharton, this is my mother.'

'We're sorry to hear about your father.'

Kirsten shook her head. 'He's not actually dead.'

'What? But I thought your mother just ...?'

'Mum gets like that sometimes. I think she's trying to get used to the idea that Dad will be gone soon.'

'I don't understand.'

'He has pancreatic cancer. Terminal. That's what they call it, isn't it? When they're trying to tell you someone is going to die, without actually spelling it out.'

'I'm sorry,' said Fry again.

The teenager shrugged. 'It's no skin off your nose, I suppose.'

They entered a cramped sitting room. The room wasn't just small, it was stuffed with too much furniture. Fry had to squeeze past the arm of a large black leather sofa and a couple of armchairs to reach a cream rug laid in front of the fireplace. The rug covered the whole of the available floor s.p.a.ce, except for a few glimpses of carpet in the gaps between display cabinets, standard lamps and occasional tables lining the walls. The mantelpiece and the shelves of the cabinets were packed with china and bra.s.s ornaments.

She turned and looked at the fireplace, but a large gas fire stood on the hearth in front of it. A real coal fire wouldn't be possible here a its heat would scorch the furniture and roast the feet of anyone sitting so close to it.

Fry would have liked the chance to study the ornaments more closely, and to examine the bookshelves, if there were any. Those details could tell you a lot about the owner, more than any number of personal questions.

But that wasn't possible here. Even if Mrs Wharton wasn't standing looking at her expectantly, she couldn't have reached a single display cabinet without moving the rest of the furniture out of the room first.

She recalled the deserted owner's accommodation at the Light House. There had been far more s.p.a.ce for the Whartons when they were living there. Two adults with two children? They could have spread themselves out as much as they wanted. Some of this furniture might even have been in the bar, or the dining area. But there was no way they could have brought everything with them to this council house in Edendale. Other items might be in storage somewhere, but a lot must have been left behind as fixtures and fittings, all part of the package for a potential buyer at the forthcoming auction.

'About the Light House?' said Mrs Wharton. 'Go on, then.'

'There's been an incident.'

She looked unperturbed. 'Yes, I heard there'd been a break-in.'

'More than a break-in. One of your old regulars got himself killed there.'

Nancy looked up then, her face creased in puzzlement.

'Killed?'

'Haven't you been following the news? Didn't you know someone had been killed?'

'No, I suppose I must have missed it.'

'Mum has more than enough on her mind,' put in Kirsten. 'She doesn't have time for worrying about what's going on in the news.'

Fry turned to her. 'Not even when it's at the Light House? I thought someone would have mentioned it to you.'

'We've lost touch since we moved into town. We never see anyone. Do we, Mum?'

Nancy was still looking at Fry intensely.

'Who was it?'

'Aidan Merritt. Do you remember him?'

'Yes, I remember him. He drank at the pub a lot when it was open. But what was he doing there ...?'

'We don't know. I was hoping you or Mr Wharton might be able to help.'

'You were wrong there, then.'

'But you must recall the Pearsons? David and Trisha?'

'Oh, the tourists who went missing.' Nancy sounded weary to the core now. 'We know nothing about them. We knew nothing then, and we know nothing now. What's the point of going over it?'

'Is your husband well enough for us to speak to?' asked Fry.

'I told you, he's dying.'

In fact she'd said that he was already dead, but Fry let it pa.s.s. She looked at Kirsten instead. She was what? Fifteen or sixteen? But she seemed very mature for her age, the way some teenagers were these days.

'Dad is in the hospice,' said Kirsten. 'St Luke's, here in Edendale. He won't be coming out again now.'

'I'm sorry.'

'Yes, you said. We didn't believe you the first time.'

Nancy stood up. 'There's no way I would let you talk to Maurice, even if he was well enough. I'll phone the hospice right now and tell them not to let you through the door. If you try to hara.s.s him, I'll make your life h.e.l.l. Give the man a bit of peace in his final days.'

It was clearly a waste of time. On her way out, Fry looked at Nancy Wharton again, noting that hint of hardness in her eyes. The result of a lifetime in the pub trade? Perhaps.

But Fry reminded herself that Nancy had gone through particular troubles of her own in the last couple of years. She'd lost the Light House after a fruitless struggle against financial difficulties, and now she had to deal with the husband's terminal illness, which was likely to be another long, futile battle.

Betty Wheatcroft lived in an old cottage right on the outskirts of Edendale. It must have been in a village once, but the town had swallowed it up decades ago. Now the cottage, and a few others like it, was sandwiched between the clubhouse of Edendale Golf Club and a small industrial estate whose units housed an MOT test centre and a signmaker's.

When he got out of the car, Cooper inhaled the air, detecting an all too familiar smell. Even on the edge of Edendale, a hint of acrid smoke was on the wind. He looked at the roof of a car parked outside the nearest house. Black flecks speckled the surface like the first spots of a dark, soot-filled rain.

As soon as he knocked, a woman's face appeared round the edge of the door and scrutinised his ID.

'Detective Sergeant Cooper, Edendale CID,' he said. 'Are you Mrs Wheatcroft?'