Dead And Buried (Cooper and Fry) (28 page)

Cooper looked for the Fire and Rescue Service’s Argo Centaur 9500, the 8x8 ATV with fat tyres and a fire fogging system that was normally here for Emergency Services Day. But the Argo was missing today.

Of course, like every other bit of available specialist equipment, it was in demand. It would already be in use out on the moors – not battling a snowstorm like David and Trisha Pearson, but helping to fight those out-of-control moorland fires.

‘He’s stopping again,’ said Villiers. ‘Yes, he’s getting out. Looks like he’s working on a job here. Property on the corner of Hulley Road and Bargate.’

‘I’m on my way,’ said Cooper. ‘Don’t do anything until I
get there, and we have backup. We don’t want another runner.’

‘No,’ said Villiers. ‘Especially as we don’t have Gavin here to make the arrest.’

The custody suite at Edendale wasn’t one of the newest in the county. If the station ever closed in a further round of rationalisation, the cells might have a sustainable future as a museum of post-war policing. Basic wasn’t the word for the facilities. But they weren’t designed to encourage a long-term stay.

A few months ago, Cooper and some of his colleagues from E Division had travelled into Staffordshire to view a brand-new custody suite. A main desk like the Starship
Enterprise,
a phone connection from each cell to the desk, cells steam-cleaned every five weeks. Washbasins, no graffiti. It encouraged personal hygiene, reduced work and minimised risks for staff. They could put legal calls through to the cells.

‘Gavin, we need to do the interview as soon as possible,’ said Cooper.

Murfin nodded. ‘Okay. I’ll have a word with Custard.’

Villiers watched him go. ‘I hesitate to ask, but … Custard?’

‘The custody sergeant.’

‘Oh, obviously.’

Vince Naylor had been drinking when he was pulled in. Stale beer seemed to leak out of his skin in place of sweat. He was a big man, bigger than Gullick, and it took three officers to escort him to the custody desk.

As soon as he was inside, he began to swear and shout. He became frustrated at the way the custody officers ignored him and went calmly about their job taking fingerprints and obtaining a DNA sample.

‘What
do I have to say to get a response out of you bastards?’ he shouted.

‘We’re trained not to react to insulting or abusive words and behaviour,’ said the custody sergeant calmly.

‘Well fuck you then!’

‘Cell Four.’

‘I know you,’ said Ian Gullick half an hour later, sitting across the table in Interview Room One. ‘Cooper, right? I know you. And your brother.’

‘That could be so.’

He laughed. ‘Yes, I know you all right.’

Gullick’s face was unnaturally flushed, and his eyes bulged slightly, as if he was permanently struggling under some intolerable pressure. He looked like a man unable to escape from the murderer’s hands round his throat.

Cooper exchanged a glance with Carol Villiers, who was sitting alongside him with the tapes running. He tried to put some reassurance into the glance.

‘We’re here to talk about Aidan Merritt,’ he said.

‘Oh, Aidan.’ Gullick sniffed. ‘He was always a bit too clever for his own good, Aidan. Read books and things. He thought it made him better than the rest of us. Look how that turned out.’

‘Mr Merritt is dead.’

‘Exactly.’

‘You knew him well, didn’t you?’

‘We were at school together. Didn’t have many interests in common, though. Aidan carried on into the sixth form, did his A levels and all that stuff. He even went to college, I think.’

‘So you went your separate ways.’

‘Sort of. But, you know, he never moved out of the area. We all thought
he’d head off for London. Get away from the rest of us soon as he could. Lots of folk have done it before him, when they got a bit of an education.’

‘But he didn’t do that?’

‘Not Aidan. I don’t know why, but he stayed. Got himself a job in Edendale and stuck around. So we bumped into each other quite a lot. You know what it’s like – you can’t exactly avoid people for long in a place like this, can you?’

‘He drank at the Light House, didn’t he?’ said Cooper.

‘Yeah, that’s right. Sometimes.’

‘You must have talked to him when you saw him in there.’

‘We passed the time of day. I mean, what do you think? We weren’t exactly bosom buddies, though. To be honest, he came over as being a bit weird.’

‘Because he read books?’

‘That and other stuff.’

‘He was a teacher, though. You might expect a teacher to be familiar with a few books. That’s what he was interested in, teaching English.’

‘Yeah, right. They do say it was something else he was interested in.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Well, what else do you get in schools other than books? Children.’

Cooper regarded him coolly. ‘There have never been any allegations against Mr Merritt that I’m aware of.’

Gullick shrugged. ‘I’m only telling you what people say.’

‘That sort of thing is just pub gossip,’ said Cooper. ‘Because he didn’t fit in with your group, he has to be some kind of pervert. What was the problem? He didn’t like playing pool? He didn’t want to get drunk like the rest of you?’

‘He was odd. That’s all I’m saying.’

Cooper took a breath, trying to resist the impulse to
defend someone he’d never even known. It would only take the interview in the wrong direction.

Villiers stepped in, picking up her cue from his pause.

‘What sort of relationship did Mr Merritt have with Maurice Wharton?’ she asked.

Gullick swivelled his eyes towards her. Cooper noted with interest that their suspect seemed much more wary of Carol Villiers than of Cooper himself. The threat of the unfamiliar?

‘Maurice had a go at him a couple of times for not drinking enough beer. Said Aidan wasn’t contributing to the profits.’

‘What?’

‘That was normal for Mad Maurice. But his heart wasn’t in it with Aidan. He counted as a regular, you see. So he was accepted.’

‘Why would Mr Merritt have been at the Light House on the day he was killed?’

‘I don’t know what Aidan was up to. He was a real dark horse, you know. A complete mystery to the rest of us. His brain worked differently somehow.’

‘What do you think happened to the Pearsons?’

‘Out on the moor, in the snow? Probably they just walked round in circles. That happens to people in bad weather. You can’t get a proper sense of direction. I don’t suppose they had a compass with them or anything like that. And don’t forget, they were strangers to the area.’ He shrugged. ‘Hikers … Well, you know – they do all kinds of stupid things on the hills.’

‘Yes, sometimes.’

‘It’s surprising no one heard them calling out for help. I mean, they must have shouted when they realised they were lost, mustn’t they? Anyone would do that.’

Cooper thought Gullick was talking too much. He wasn’t used to that in the interview room. Everyone had watched
TV and knew they were supposed to say ‘no comment’ all the time. But Gullick had even declined the presence of a duty solicitor. And now he seemed positively chatty. It didn’t ring true.

‘Mr Gullick, where were you at the time Aidan Merritt was killed?’

‘Working, of course. Monday, was it?’

‘Yes.’

‘I was at Bakewell Market, then. It’s Bakewell on Monday, Buxton on Tuesday, Derby Wednesday, Edendale Thursday, Matlock Friday and Chesterfield on Saturday. So I had the stall set up at Bakewell. I was there all day, from the crack of dawn to the bitter end. You can ask anyone – I’m not easy to miss.’

‘Can I take you back a few years?’ he said. ‘There was an incident at the Light House.’

‘What? Who …?’

Cooper glanced at his notes. Your friend Vince Naylor got into an argument with David Pearson.’

‘Oh, that. Old Vince, he’s a bit of a devil when he’s had a few drinks. He started chatting up the woman, and the bloke took objection. He had a bit of a temper on him, if you ask me. I mean, it was all in fun. No harm in it. And it came to nothing anyway.’

‘You left, didn’t you?’

‘Oh, yeah. Well, Maurice told us to. It was nearly closing time, so it was no hardship.’

‘Were you driving?’

Gullick looked shifty for once. ‘Er, well …’

‘I’m not interested in drink-driving right now,’ said Cooper.

‘Well, yes – we were in my van. We sat outside the pub for a bit to get some fresh air and sober up, then we went home.’

‘A bit
of fresh air wouldn’t sober you up enough to drive legally.’

‘I thought you said—’

‘Yes, all right. But I’m thinking that you must still have been outside when the Pearsons left.’

Gullick brooded for a while.

‘I wouldn’t know about that,’ he said. ‘I never saw them. It’s not my concern what happened to them later. And it’s years ago, surely? All water under the bridge by now.’

‘Were you aware that Maurice Wharton was a former police officer?’

‘Yes, I was. He didn’t talk about himself, but it was fairly well known. Among the regulars anyway. He got shafted by the top brass. Took the blame for some incident down south.’

‘Is that the way the story goes?’

‘That’s it.’

‘He seemed to get a bit of respect in the pub, though. He sorted the lads out, when needed. He sorted you and Mr Naylor out, didn’t he?’

Gullick held out his hands palm up, a gesture of innocence.

‘Look, you had to keep on the right side of Maurice. If he gave you the hard word, you took notice. We didn’t want to get ourselves banned. And, to be fair, we’d drunk quite a bit. Vince in particular. Oh, there was plenty of alcohol drunk.’

‘I’ve heard that Maurice was drinking heavily himself by then,’ said Cooper.

‘Yes, that’s true. And then there was Eliot.’

‘Eliot Wharton doesn’t drink. He told me so.’

Gullick laughed. ‘Well, not any more. He was totally wasted that night in the Light House. Someone had been giving him spirits, I think.’

‘He would
only have been fourteen or so.’

‘Kids start drinking early these days. You know that. But I reckon Eliot would have suffered for a few days. He wasn’t used to that amount of alcohol.’

Cooper regarded Gullick thoughtfully. He couldn’t make his mind up about him. Gullick was either very clever, or he’d failed to grasp the situation.

‘What do you do now, since the Light House closed?’ he asked.

‘We drink at the Badger, near Bradwell. But it’s not the same.’

‘What do you think?’ asked Villiers, when they’d let Gullick leave the interview room and go back to his cell.

‘Well I wouldn’t trust him. Would you?’

‘Not even to sell me a bag of carrots.’

‘We’re no closer to knowing what Aidan Merritt was up to.’

‘That only leaves one avenue then,’ said Cooper. ‘I’ll have to ask the first Mrs Rochester.’

When
Diane Fry heard about the arrests, she was furious. DCI Mackenzie didn’t seem quite so perturbed by developments, which made her even more angry.

‘Why does it bother you so much, Diane?’ he said. ‘I thought being back among your old colleagues wasn’t a problem for you?’

That made her pause. ‘No, it isn’t.’

She could leave the self-analysis until later, but right now she felt as though somebody had got one up on her, and she knew who it was.

‘Sir, what can we do to take control back in this inquiry?’ she said.

Mackenzie smiled. ‘That’s better. Have you got any ideas?’

‘We could interview Henry Pearson again. Make it more formal this time, rather than the kid-gloves approach he’s been getting so far.’

‘Yes, we could certainly do that.’

‘We need to give forensics a kick up the backside to get some results from the Pearsons’ clothing and possessions.’

‘You’ve got it.’

‘Also, I want a new search of those abandoned mine shafts.’

‘It was done before,’ said Mackenzie.

‘I know.’

‘So what’s your reasoning, Diane?’

‘My
reasoning? Well, where’s the best place to hide something so that it won’t be found?’

‘It depends on the circumstances, doesn’t it?’

‘In general terms.’

Mackenzie shook his head. ‘I still don’t know.’

‘The best place to hide something,’ said Fry, ‘is where it’s already been looked for.’

‘Okay. But how does all this progress the Aidan Merritt murder inquiry? Isn’t that what you’re supposed to be concentrating your efforts on?’

Fry had to acknowledge that was true. It was the way she’d wanted it from the beginning, the fresh case coming to the Major Crime Unit, the rehashing of the older Pearson inquiry being left to local CID.

But she felt differently now. For reasons she couldn’t quite articulate to herself, or would want to explain to Mackenzie, things had changed. She felt as though she’d been issued with a challenge, and she was going to meet it.

‘If we can get to the bottom of the Pearsons’ disappearance, then the reasons for the death of Aidan Merritt will resolve themselves,’ she said.

‘The two are so closely connected?’ said Mackenzie. ‘Is that what you believe?’

‘Yes, I do.’

‘You have my support, then. We’ll get a new search started straight away.’

Fry nodded. Her brain was immediately ticking over, planning where to go to get the next bit of information that she needed – and wondering whether she could get there before anyone else did.

With exaggerated caution, Betty Wheatcroft looked right and left before letting Cooper in to her house.

‘Is
there a problem?’ she whispered.

‘Just something I didn’t ask you before,’ said Cooper.

‘You’d better come in, then.’

She sat Cooper down in her sitting room and automatically began to make tea.

‘Yes, Aidan did used to come and see me,’ she said from the kitchen. ‘He called in after school sometimes, particularly if he’d had a bad day. I think there were a lot of bad days recently.’

‘Difficulties at home, in his private life?’

‘I don’t think so. At school, I’d say. Teachers get like that sometimes.’

‘Why did he become a teacher in the first place, then?’