Scared to Live (46 page)

His torch dropped from his hand and plunged into the goyt with a loud splash. A second later, Cooper was following it. He plunged into the water, falling towards the light as it swirled and spun towards the muddy depths. It seemed a long time before the light stopped falling, its beam swinging through the water to dazzle him. Cooper closed his eyes against the shock and the roar of water in his ears. He panicked when he realized he couldn't tell which way was up, and he began to thrash his arms and legs. He seemed to hit something, or something hit him, he couldn't tell which. The cold was already striking through to his soaking skin. He opened his eyes again, and saw that the light was receding now, drawing away from him into the gloom. He seemed to be trapped by something, his clothes caught up on some heavy, rusty object under the water. He thought he must be sinking, and he thrashed harder. Just when he felt he couldn't hold his breath any longer, his head suddenly burst clear of the water and he gasped in a deep, ragged mouthful of air. Dazed, Cooper realized that the collar of his jacket was being gripped by someone, and he was being dragged vigorously towards the side of the channel. A deep voice laughed close to his ear. 'Bezopasno li e pluvaneto tuk? Are you sure it's safe to swim here?'

37

Sunday, 30 October

The following afternoon, Fry was sitting alone in the CID room at West Street. Everyone else who was on duty today had joined the search for Luanne Mullen. Most of them were expecting the divers of the underwater search team to have made a find by the time they'd finished dragging the channels of the mill goyt. Unless the child's body had been swept out into the river and was miles away from Matlock Bath by now. Fry was thinking of her conversation with Brian Mullen early that morning. Same hospital, different ward. A Mullen who looked sicker and paler than ever. 'I always thought the adoption in Bulgaria was the wrong thing,' Mullen had said to her. 'I mean, I love Luanne to bits, and I wouldn't have parted with her, once we'd got her. I couldn't have taken her away from Lindsay. But I never thought it was right. It felt dodgy to me. I knew there'd be trouble. But Henry kept pushing and pushing, and Lindsay always went along with what he said.' 'I see.' 'It was all illegal, wasn't it? False documents, and everything?'

'Yes, I'm afraid so.' Mullen had lain back, exhausted. 'I've never been involved in anything illegal before. Never. I knew they'd catch up with us.' 'Who?' 'I never knew who they'd be exactly, but I was sure someone would come one day, to take Luanne back. It was like we were living on borrowed time. And once that Rose Shepherd turned up again, that was the last straw. But no one else could see what I was afraid of. They told me I was being stupid.' 'Is that what you were having arguments with Lindsay about?' 'No, we never had arguments, I told you. We disagreed about some things. But I was right, wasn't I? They did come.' 'Possibly. But you have no idea who these people might be?' 'Somebody from Bulgaria, that's all I can guess at. They've got Luanne, haven't they? Have they taken her back there?' 'I really don't know, sir. I'm sorry. But we're doing our best to find her.' It hadn't sounded convincing, even to Fry herself. Mullen had just looked even more sick. 'Can I ask you about something else, Mr Mullen?' she'd said. 'What?' 'Your next-door neighbour, Mr Wade.' 'Keith Wade? He's a good neighbour. He's always kept an eye on our house. I know he can seem a bit rough, and his wife walked out on him, poor bloke. But Lindsay saw a lot of him during the day when he was on late shifts, and he always took an interest in the kids.' 'Mr Mullen, when you say Mr Wade kept an eye on your house, what exactly do you mean?' 'We gave him a spare key. So if we were away for the weekend, he could get in to deal with any emergencies.' 'Wait a minute - he has a key to your house?'

'Yes, of course.' Fry shook her head at the memory of her conversation with Mullen. As far as she was concerned, the question of who'd killed Lindsay Mullen and the two boys in the fire remained open. Despite his parents' protestations, it would be easy to blame John Lowther and leave it at that. But she was feeling guilty that she'd been so wrong about him. Her preconceptions had overruled her judgement. Bad mistake. She considered Brian Mullen again. He was one of only two people she could definitely place at the scene around the time of the fire. Mullen had a key to the house, so he wouldn't have needed to break in through the side window. Of course, the damage to the window might simply have been a blind, to make everyone think there had been a break-in. She wondered whether she ought to have seized Mullen's clothes for forensic examination at an early stage in the enquiry. But it would have been a pointless exercise, even immediately after the incident. Mullen had legitimate reasons for his clothes being impregnated with smoke, or even singed by the fire. He'd tried to get into the house to rescue his children, hadn't he? He had plenty of witnesses to that fact, including the two firefighters who'd physically dragged him back to the pavement. It took a bit of clever forward planning to contaminate forensic evidence like that. She couldn't believe Brian Mullen had it in him. But no, she shouldn't rule out it out completely. No more false assumptions. Gradually, Fry found her thoughts focusing on Keith Wade. The perfect neighbour, the assiduous member of Neighbourhood Watch. The keen amateur photographer. The only other person she knew to have been at the scene when the fire started. Fry paused and checked her email. Wade had promised to send her some of his photos, but they hadn't arrived yet. She doubted if they ever would. Then another thought struck her. Brian Mullen had an alibi

for the time of the fire - he'd been at the Broken Wheel with Jed Skinner until the early hours of the morning. In Wade's case, it was that very same fact that had made it possible for him to get into the Mullens' house. If Brian hadn't been out late that night, the front door of number 32 would have been bolted on the inside. But Lindsay had left the bolts off for her husband to come home. Wade could have known that quite easily, couldn't he? There was one person who wasn't out with the search teams. He wasn't on duty because he was at home, recovering from his unexpected dip in the trapped waters of the Derwent. Fry dialled his number. 'Ben,' she said, 'can I bounce something off you?' 'Yes, I'm fine. Thanks for asking, Diane.' 'Oh. Well, I can tell you're all right by the way you sound.' Cooper sighed. 'What did you want to bounce off me?' 'Brian Mullen. You know that he denied the arguments with his wife?' 'Yes.' 'Whose word do we have that those arguments ever took place?' Cooper considered the question for a moment. 'Well, the lady on one side of the Mullens heard the row about the carpet.' 'Which is the only one Brian admits to. And the rest?' 'We only have the other neighbour's word for those.' 'Keith Wade.' 'Yes, Wade. Why, Diane?' 'I'm thinking of getting Mr Wade in. Perhaps he wasn't such a good friend of the Mullens, after all.' 'But he seems to have been the perfect next-door neighbour.' 'Maybe.' 'Did the prints come back from the can of lighter fluid?'

'Yes, just today. I'm going to ask Mr Wade to give his prints for comparison.' 'He's lived next door to the Mullens for six years,' said Cooper. 'And they got on fine, by all accounts. Why would he decide to do them harm? What would have been his motive?' 'Motive?' 'Yes, motive. That's a bit of a problem all round, isn't it? Juries like a motive. They're never entirely happy if they don't get one, you know.' 'I'll be sure to let you know when I find out,' said Fry. Cooper paused. 'Do you want me to come in?' 'No, you're recuperating.' 'I don't suppose there's any news . . . ?' 'We're still working on the Rose Shepherd shooting.' 'That's not what I meant.' 'I know,' said Fry. 'No, there isn't any news of Luanne Mullen. Not yet.'

Cooper put the phone down thoughtfully. Neighbours had been a bit outside his experience until he moved to Welbeck Street. At Bridge End Farm, the nearest house had been several fields away. Even here in Edendale, there was only his landlady, Mrs Shelley, on one side, and a retired couple on the other, two former teachers who seemed to spend most of their time in Spain. 'Who was that, Ben?' 'It was Diane Fry.' Liz was in his kitchen. Cooper wasn't sure what she was doing, and it felt wrong somehow for her to be there. A few months of living on his own, and he was already feeling territorial about his space. He just hoped she wasn't tidying up. He couldn't do with that. Cooper put his head around the door and saw that Liz was talking to the cat, who'd taken to her straight away. So that was all right.

'They still haven't found the child,' he said. 'You know Luanne Mullen.' Liz looked up, her eyes suddenly full of concern at something she'd detected in his voice. Her dark hair was loose today, curled round her ears in the way that he liked. 'It wasn't your fault if the child was snatched, Ben.' 'I didn't say it was.' 'No, but you were thinking it.' Cooper raised his hands. 'It's a fair cop.' Liz gave the cat another stroke, rubbing him behind the ears, creating a deep buzz of pleasure. 'Just so long as you weren't planning on going in to work,' she said. 'This is a rest day. We don't get much chance to spend a whole day together.' 'No, of course,' said Cooper. 'I wasn't thinking that.' 'Mmm.' She stood up and came towards him. When she was close, he could feel her warmth. In another moment, he'd be distracted completely from what had really been on his mind. 'Diane says they're still working on the Rose Shepherd shooting,' he said. 'There's a suspect in custody, but it isn't going too well with him, from what I hear.' Liz looked up at him, instinctively sharing the desire to see a satisfactory conclusion in a tragic case like the death of Miss Shepherd. 'Did I tell you about the gun, by the way?' 'The gun?' said Cooper. 'The gun you asked about, Ben. The Romanian PSL. I did tell you about the gun, didn't I?'

A defendant was always advised by his lawyers to smarten himself up when he appeared in court. It made a better impression on a jury, and even on magistrates, who ought to know better. Have a shave, comb your hair, and borrow a suit, even if it didn't fit.

But Keith Wade had gone a step further - he'd smartened himself up for his interview at the police station. Not many people cared about looking good in an interview room. But at least he'd ditched the woolly Arbroath smoky, and Fry could risk breathing. 'Mr Wade, thank you for coming in earlier to give us your fingerprints.' 'For elimination purposes, you said. Is that right?' 'Well, that was the idea.' 'What do you mean?' 'First of all, I want to take you back to Sunday night again, when you first noticed the fire at your neighbour's house.' He looked irritated. 'I think I've told you everything. Twice, probably.' 'How did you get into the house?' 'I don't remember.' 'Surely you must do. You saw the smoke, went to make the 999 call, then . . . ?' 'I opened their front door.' 'You opened the front door of number 32? Do you mean you broke the door down?' 'No.' 'Surely it wasn't unlocked?' Wade decided not to answer that one. He began to look sulky. In a moment, she could be into 'no comment' territory. 'You've got a key, haven't you?' said Fry. 'Like I said, I knew Brian and Lindsay well. I keep an eye on their house when they're away.' 'They leave you a key. That's how you got in.' 'Yes.' 'You knew Brian was out that night, didn't you?' 'Well, yes. I always see him come and go.' 'Mr Wade, how did you get on with boys? Jack and Liam?' 'Oh, them ' 'They were nice lads, you said.'

'Little bastards, that's what they were.' 'One was seven years old, and the other four, Mr Wade.' He stared at her sullenly. 'I know that.' 'You're a smoker, aren't you, sir? It was obvious as soon as I walked through your door.' 'There's no law against it, is there?' 'Actually, yes. But not in the privacy of your own home.' 'So?' 'Unfortunately, you took your matches and lighter fluid out of your house. You took them to your next-door neighbour's, in fact.' 'Brian's a good bloke,' said Wade, leaning forward urgently. 'He says the same about you, funnily enough. But he couldn't be more wrong, could he?' 'He's my mate. I look out for him.' 'So why did you go into his house that night, pour lighter fluid in the sitting room and set fire to it? Why did you murder his wife and children?' 'What?' 'There's no point in denying it. We have your fingerprints from the can of lighter fluid that you used and left in a bin down the street.' Wade shook his head. 'Brian's better off without them. Look at me - I'm a lot better off without my wife. It was the best thing that ever happened to me when she went. I ought to have kicked her out a lot sooner. Once they start giving you trouble, the best thing is to get rid of them.' 'You mean you thought you were doing Brian Mullen a favour?' 'Well, you could put it like that. He was a brave bloke, but not that brave. I think that's why Brian went out so often, he couldn't face it. He needed a helping hand, like.' 'So you stepped in. Watching out for your neighbour, Mr Wade? That's just great. Thank God we don't all have neighbours like you.'

'I don't want to talk any more.' 'You've said enough.' Fry began to get up, then stopped. 'When you said Brian went out so often, what did you mean?' 'He'd been staying out really late.' 'Like Sunday night, you mean?' 'Yes, Sunday. And Saturday.' 'Saturday? Brian Mullen was out on Saturday night as well?' 'Oh yes, all night. Past three o'clock, as I recall.' 'Why didn't you mention this before?' 'You never asked.' She had a sudden memory of her conversation with Jed Skinner, Brian Mullen's friend, his alibi. Had Skinner just slipped up when he mentioned Saturday instead of Sunday, the night of the fire? But then, why should he have thought that Saturday was the night Brian needed an alibi for? Did he think he was covering for an affair? 'That'll do for now, Mr Wade,' said Fry. 'You'll be charged with the murder of Lindsay Mullen and her two children.' Wade looked at her with something like distaste. Surely it ought to be the other way round. But there was no accounting for what went on in people's minds, their rationalizations and self-justifications. 'You know, I thought Lindsay would welcome a bit of company, with Brian being out,' he said. 'A bit of male company, like. But she was a bitch, like all the others. Brian is a lot better off without her.'

Hitchens kept his chair still for once, instead of making it squeal on its swivel. Perhaps he was finally reading her thoughts, responding to the force of her unspoken will. Fry made a mental note to ask someone to come in and oil the thing when the DI was off duty. 'The SOCOs found Wade's digital camera,' he said. 'But