Текст книги "The Corpse Bridge"

Автор книги: Stephen Booth

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Текущая страница: 2 (всего у книги 39 страниц)

Friday 1 November

And yet there was so little blood.

Ben Cooper crouched and leaned forward to look more closely. For a moment he felt light-headed from tiredness and almost slipped in the mud on the bank of the river as his head swam. But he recovered himself in time, a hand poised in mid-air almost touching the body. He hoped no one had noticed.

There was certainly a lack of blood. Sometimes a corpse could surprise you like that. At first glance it didn’t seem possible that anyone could be dead, when they’d hardly bled at all. Here there were no more than a few drops on the corner of the stone, a narrow trickle that might just as easily have been a splash of muddy water or a leak from a damaged bottle. Not blood, but a spilled energy drink.

Cooper straightened up again, easing the discomfort in his back. Either way, the body had been drained of its vitality. The life force had departed hours ago.

An upper stretch of the River Dove was rushing under the bridge here. Though barely the width of a stream, the water was running fast as the earlier rain syphoned down off the hills on both sides. The body was trapped in the branches of a sycamore lying close to the surface. To Cooper’s weary eyes, those dark, wet boulders all around it could have been a dozen bodies lying half-submerged. The roaring of the water might have been their cries of pain, that gurgle under a rock a victim’s last, dying breath.

The north side of the bridge was green with mould and fungus. Uneven stone setts on the bridge were lined with dying brambles. Here the river had slippery edges, with no safe footing in the mud, and the body was only accessible on foot through the water. Divers had waded into the river and were now under the bridge attempting to recover the body. The victim had fallen into an awkward, tangled position, and the body was already partially rigid from the onset of rigor mortis.

The initial police response had accessed the bridge using four-wheel-drive vehicles from the Derbyshire side, right down to where a large lump of rock blocked the crossing. The water was shallow enough to have been a ford at one time, but the idea of driving across it had been effectively discouraged.

The bridge itself was much too narrow for vehicles. It was the type of structure generally described as a packhorse bridge, with low parapets and stone setts designed to provide a secure footing for horses. But this bridge had been known for a different function.

It was barely six in the morning when he’d arrived, and still dark by the river. Arc lights had been set up to illuminate the scene, but it might be a while before he got a proper look at the victim. Evidence would become more obvious in daylight. A story might start to emerge then. The story of how one more human being had encountered death.

One of his detective constables, Luke Irvine, had been here at the scene before him. That was the penalty of being on call-out. Irvine was a bit dishevelled and unshaven, which somehow made him seem even younger than he was.

Cooper tended to forget that the younger DCs had only a few years’ experience. They were impressively competent and self-confident – much more than he himself had been at the same age, he felt sure. The other youngster on his team, Becky Hurst, was destined for great things in his estimation. She had that air about her, a quiet determination and absolute focus on what she wanted. Luke was okay, but a little bit rebellious and unpredictable. Somebody would knock those edges off him one day. Or something.

‘Well, as you can see,’ said Irvine, ‘we’ve got a female, aged about thirty-five. Caucasian. She’s not been in the water very long, by the looks of it. There’s a clear head wound, but other than that—’

‘Found by?’

‘Finder’s name is Rob Beresford. Actually, his full name is Robson – as in Robson Green the actor, you know?’

‘Yes.’

‘He’s fairly local. Lives in Earl Sterndale. Mr Beresford says he was walking down here and saw the woman in the water. He had to go back up the trackway a hundred yards or so before he could dial 999 on his mobile.’

‘He was on his own?’ asked Cooper.

‘It seems so. But—’

‘What, Luke?’

Irvine shrugged. ‘Well, you’ll see for yourself when you talk to him, Ben. I know you like to form your own impressions.’

‘Okay.’

‘We’ve got him up the road there. Will you talk to him now?’

‘In a second.’

The River Dove was the boundary not only between two counties, but between the East Midlands and West Midlands. It was the border between limestone country and sandstone too. In daylight the view across the valley made the contrast obvious, with the hills on the Staffordshire side looking so much more gentle and unimpressive compared to the rugged limestone at his back. As far as Cooper was concerned, there was no doubt about it, whatever some Staffordshire people said. Derbyshire had the best hills.

In between, on the flatter and more fertile land in a loop of the river, stood one of Derbyshire’s historic houses, Knowle Abbey – a huge country mansion where the Earls of Manby had lived for generations, surrounded by acres of landscaped parkland. It had always seemed to Cooper like a sort of no man’s land, sitting in its own little world halfway between the two counties, but having little connection with either of them.

There was a Staffordshire Police presence here too, Cooper saw. Their vehicles carried a badge with the Staffordshire knot instead of the Derbyshire coat of arms. It was a strange choice of logo, he’d always thought. The triple loop of the Staffordshire knot was supposed to represent the solution devised by a hangman to execute three felons simultaneously. It didn’t really fit with the current public image the police tried to present. Looking round, Cooper identified a couple of uniformed constables, an officer from Staffordshire’s Major Investigation Department, and a Forensics Investigation van from their station at Leek.

The body of the victim had been tangled in the roots of a tree close to the Derbyshire side. But the River Dove was very narrow here and the county boundary ran right down the middle. He supposed it was possible that part of the body had been lying or floating in Staffordshire’s jurisdiction.

But this wasn’t a case of territorial dispute. Not yet, anyway. The two forces were cooperating. It was obvious to everyone that the victim or her attacker were just as likely to have approached the scene from the Staffordshire side as from Derbyshire. Boundaries were irrelevant, especially while the scene was being examined for forensic evidence. Footwear marks, DNA or trace evidence were left with complete disregard to jurisdictions.

Dawn was breaking, and the sun would rise by seven. A bird was singing over some abandoned buildings on the eastern bank of the river.

The young man who’d found the body was sitting in the passenger seat of a police car with the door open and his long legs stretched out in front of him. His head was down and he seemed to be gazing at his feet as if they could explain everything. He was no older than twenty, and he was dressed in denim jeans and a grey hooded jacket. The feet he was staring at were encased in white trainers with thick soles. At least, they’d been white once. The mud covering them now left barely a glimpse of the original colour. Perhaps that was why the young man looked at them so morosely. They were probably the most expensive thing he was wearing.

‘Mr Beresford?’ said Cooper. ‘Detective Sergeant Cooper, from Edendale Police.’

‘I suppose you want me to go over it all again,’ said the man sullenly. ‘I’ve seen this bit on the telly. Over and over again with the self-same questions that the other lot have asked already.’

‘Perhaps. But quite a few new questions too, I imagine,’ said Cooper.

‘Oh, great.’

Cooper settled himself against the stone wall and found a comfortable position, trying to bring himself closer to the young man’s level. It was less intimidating than standing over him, and it allowed Cooper to get a closer look at Rob Beresford’s face.

‘I do need to ask you again whether you saw anyone else in this area tonight. Now that you’ve had a bit of time to think about it. You can appreciate it’s very important.’

‘I didn’t see anyone,’ said Beresford without hesitation.

The answer came so quickly that it heightened Cooper’s attention to the man’s choice of words. Did he detect slightly too much emphasis on the word ‘see’?

‘Perhaps you heard someone?’ he said.

Beresford shook his head, still not meeting Cooper’s eye. The answer was noticeably slower in coming this time. ‘No. There was no one around.’

‘That’s a shame.’

He didn’t bother to explain why it was a shame. He could let the young man interpret that for himself. If there really was no one else around, that left only one person known to have been at the crime scene, apart from the dead woman herself. Beresford must have realised that, surely. If he’d seen this sort of thing on the telly, he’d know who the first suspect would be. Yet he made no effort to point his questioners in another direction.

For a moment Cooper watched Rob Beresford’s expression, which seemed to be set into a look of stubborn resignation. Then he glanced round at the bridge. ‘You told my colleagues you were out for a walk, sir.’

‘That’s right.’

‘An early morning walk. Very early. Do you own a dog, Mr Beresford?’

‘We have a Jack Russell terrier.’

‘So where is it?’

‘At home,’ said Beresford.

Cooper smiled at his tone. ‘It’s just that most early morning walks are accompanied by a dog in my experience. When someone is out before dawn for a walk, it suggests they have to start work early. That, or the dog has a bladder problem.’

Beresford didn’t respond. But that was fair enough – Cooper hadn’t asked him a question. The young man sat forward on the seat and stared down at his feet. His trainers were soaked.

‘What do you do for a living, sir?’ asked Cooper.

‘I’m a student.’

‘Really? Where?’

‘University of Derby. I’m studying.’

‘Buxton campus? The Dome?’

‘That’s right.’

‘So you don’t have far to go for lectures.’

‘My dad usually takes me into Buxton on his way to work.’

‘And what does he do?’

‘He’s a driver. He drives a van for a parcel delivery company.’

‘That can involve an early start, I imagine. He’ll have to get to the depot in plenty of time, so he can load up and get out on his route.’

‘Yes.’

‘Which company does your dad work for?’

‘ABC Despatch. They have a distribution centre just outside Buxton.’

‘I know it. On the industrial estate at Harpur Hill.’

‘That’s it.’

Cooper let a silence develop. Sometimes it was the best way to deal with someone like this. Beresford would be expecting the next question, the one he didn’t want to answer. But if he was left waiting long enough, he wouldn’t be able to stand the tension. Cooper was patient. Besides, he didn’t really have the energy at this time of the morning to try too hard.

The young man began to fidget, and bit his lip.

‘Well, the truth is, I needed to get away from the house for a bit,’ he said.

‘Ah.’

‘The parents. You know what it’s like.’

‘Yes.’

Cooper didn’t really. He’d never had the chance to reach that stage where you didn’t want to be in the house with each other a moment longer. But he’d heard people say it often enough, so he’d come to believe it must be true.

‘You had a row?’

‘That’s it. Nothing serious. But I had to get out, take in a bit of fresh air.’

‘Why did you come down here?’

‘I don’t know. It was just handy.’

Cooper consulted the notes he’d been given. ‘You live in Earl Sterndale, sir. You didn’t walk all this way. It must be a couple of miles at least.’

‘My bike is up the hill there.’

‘A motorbike or…’

‘Just an old pushbike. It’s all I can afford. Student loans, you know.’

‘I see.’

It was obvious that Rob Beresford wasn’t an experienced walker. No one with any sense wore expensive trainers to go hiking in. You needed a pair of boots or good stout shoes on terrain like this, or you risked breaking an ankle, not to mention ruining your footwear. And everyone knew you didn’t wear denims to walk in wet weather. They soon became sodden and heavy, and would take hours to dry out. The young man’s jeans were a much darker blue below the knee, where they’d got soaking wet from the damp undergrowth.

Beresford looked up. ‘There’s one question your mates didn’t ask. And you haven’t asked me either.’

Cooper stopped. ‘What’s that, sir?’

‘Whether I knew the dead woman.’

With a sinking heart, Cooper realised that he’d missed a vital point completely. He could only put it down to tiredness. But it was unacceptable that a witness should have to remind him of an important question he’d overlooked. He’d have to watch himself carefully, or someone else would be keeping an eye on him.

‘And did you, Mr Beresford?’ he asked.

Beresford nodded despondently.

‘Of course I did,’ he said. ‘Her name is Sandra Blair.’

4

Detective Sergeant Diane Fry didn’t do early mornings any more. Not if she could avoid it. Since she’d transferred to the Major Crime Unit of the East Midlands Special Operations Unit, her life seemed to be getting back on track. The nights were more peaceful, the days more fulfilling. Apart from a brief setback, when she’d been obliged to return to Derbyshire’s E Division to cover for sick leave, she was doing the job she’d always wanted to do. What’s more, it meant she was able to move back to a city.

When Fry first came to the Peak District, the culture shock had been pretty traumatic. Compared to her old stamping grounds in Birmingham and the Black Country, this had seemed like, well … not just the backwoods, but a barren wasteland. Those vast, bleak expanses of peat moor they called the Dark Peak were like the back of the moon to a city girl. The first day she drove past a road sign that said ‘Sheep for 10 miles’ she’d known she was no longer in civilisation.

Fry drank her coffee and bit into a piece of toast as she sat looking out of her window on to Grosvenor Avenue. She barely noticed the flat itself now. It already felt like a part of her past. She merely drifted in and out, boiled a kettle, ran a shower, lay down to sleep. It was no more her home than any hotel room in any dull town in some far-flung part of the country. She had no more roots in Edendale than the pot plant dying on her window ledge.

For a moment Fry stopped chewing and looked at the plant. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d watered it, so there was no wonder it was dying. She peered a bit more closely and poked at a brown leaf, which crumbled at her touch. More dead than dying, then. Somebody had given her the plant, but she couldn’t remember who. It hardly mattered now, did it?

She finally had a new place to move into, in a smart apartment building on the outskirts of Nottingham. Fry was looking forward to seeing traffic, theatres, a bit of nightlife. Proper street lights. And no sheep anywhere.

Proper crimes too. The Major Crime Unit investigated all the serious stuff in the region. There would be no dealing with vast amounts of low-level volume crime, the way they did on division.

Fry checked her phone. Reports were coming through this morning of a suspicious death in Derbyshire. Somewhere near Buxton, a few miles to the west of Edendale. If it was in Derbyshire, it was just within the remit of EMSOU.

She called her DCI, Alistair Mackenzie, to see what he wanted her to do.

‘We do need you back here, Diane.’

‘Of course.’

‘You’re not still hankering after the country life, are you?’

‘You are joking. Sir.’

Mackenzie laughed. ‘Perhaps.’

‘Can we let Divisional CID run with it for now, then?’

‘Yes, unless they encounter any problems. We’ll keep a watching brief.’

Fry ended the call, finished her coffee and got ready to leave. She studied the people moving in Grosvenor Avenue. There weren’t many – just a few students from the multi-occupancy Victorian houses like the one her flat was part of, and a Royal Mail van stopped a few doors up, the postman chatting to someone over a wall.

She turned away. That was enough watching for now. Perhaps for ever.

Yes, that would be the best thing. Very soon she would never have to think about Edendale again. Or any of the people in it.

Ben Cooper stood back and let the recovery team do their work. The victim had finally been removed from the water and placed on the Derbyshire bank of the river. Her hands had been bagged, in case evidence from her attacker was trapped under her fingernails. But the rest of her body was bundled up in heavy clothing, which was completely waterlogged, creating a limp, misshapen mound that hardly looked human. Dark hair spread in sodden strands around her face.

And the victim’s injuries were obvious now too, with blood still leaking from a head wound. Though the bleeding had seemed so little while she was in the river, now the red stain quickly began to spread across the sheeting and on to the ground. The water had kept the head wound open, while washing away the blood downstream.

As he watched officers manoeuvre the body and crime-scene examiners record every detail with their digital cameras, Cooper began to wonder whether the victim’s blood had reached both banks of the river or had drifted into Staffordshire on the current.

But it didn’t matter. The body was here, on the Derbyshire side. It was his responsibility for now. The chief constable had said recently that there was no greater privilege than this – the job of investigating the death of another human being.

Sandra Blair was the victim’s name, according to Rob Beresford. She lived nearby in the village of Crowdecote and worked in tea rooms in Hartington. As far as Beresford knew, she was unmarried. She was a friend of his mother’s, he said. They were in some organisation together. The Women’s Institute or the Mothers’ Union, or a local historical society. Perhaps all of them. He was vague on the details beyond that point.

‘Any confirmation of ID on the victim?’ asked Cooper as the crime-scene manager, Wayne Abbott, broke away from the activity round the body.

‘There are some house keys,’ said Abbott. ‘And a phone, but it’s been immersed in water, so—’

‘Forensics might be able to get something off it, do you think?’

‘Possibly. Other than that, she had nothing much on her. There’s no purse, just the odd bit of small change in the pockets. She was wearing a blue waterproof jacket, which must have weighed her down in the water. Walking boots too.’

‘But the water is so shallow. It wouldn’t have stopped her getting out, if she was still alive and conscious.’

Abbott shrugged. His scene suit was wet and streaked with mud. He looked cold too, and must have been very uncomfortable. But this was all part of the job. No one chose a crime scene with the comfort of the investigators in mind.

‘That’s not for me to comment on,’ he said.

The divers in their wetsuits were still in the water, carefully exploring the riverbed, feeling under rocks, sifting through mud. They were gradually making their way downstream from the location of the body, in case evidence had drifted away in the current and disappeared, following the streams of the victim’s blood.

‘No torch among her possessions?’ asked Cooper.

Abbott shook his head. ‘Not that we’ve found.’

‘There must have been one. She wouldn’t have come out in the pitch dark without a torch of some kind.’

‘Well, someone else must have been here, I suppose. Maybe they had it.’

‘Perhaps. But she seems to be dressed for the outing, at least.’

He was thinking about Rob Beresford, dressed in his unsuitable muddy trainers and sodden denims. The victim had come out here much better prepared, and presumably for quite a different purpose. What that purpose was, he had no idea. Not yet anyway. But Sandra Blair’s life was about to become the focus of a lot of attention.

‘And a hat,’ said Cooper, thinking of the head wound and the dark strands of wet hair.

‘Sorry?’

‘She was probably wearing a hat. What happened to it?’

‘No idea.’

Gradually, the entire team was gathering at the Corpse Bridge. The same old circus that any suspicious death attracted. Present at the scene now was Detective Inspector Dean Walker. Cooper knew him, but hadn’t worked directly with him until now. His old DI, Paul Hitchens, had moved on – and probably wouldn’t be back in E Division for any nostalgic reunions with his ex-colleagues, judging by his comments in the pub on his last day. Walker was only a temporary replacement, though. He was earmarked for better things, a job at headquarters in Ripley. There would still be a vacancy in E Division.

Walker was talking on the phone to a detective chief inspector, the only DCI they still had knocking around in this part of Derbyshire.

In the present circumstances everyone was expected to pick up the slack. The DCI and the DI were each doing two people’s jobs. Further down the ladder many of the senior DCs were taking on a sergeant’s role, while frontline uniformed PCs were acting as social workers, not to mention standing in for paramedics. Everyone had a story of taking an injured person to hospital in the back of a police car rather than wait for an ambulance that might never come because it was already waiting outside A&E with a previous patient.

Sometimes Cooper wondered who was actually doing the real police work. Community support officers, he supposed. The PCSOs – dressed up to look like police officers, but without any of the powers.

As a DS, he was right in the middle of this mess. He could probably use the freedom to show a bit of initiative, unless this became a major inquiry, in which case they would all lose control to EMSOU’s Major Crime Unit.

‘A quick resolution would be nice,’ he said, though to no one in particular.

‘Amen to that,’ said DC Luke Irvine, who happened to be standing closest. ‘You know I have all these other cases, Ben—’

‘So have we all.’

‘Fair enough, I suppose. What do you want me to do?’

Cooper looked at his watch. ‘You can get up to Earl Sterndale and visit Rob Beresford’s parents. Find out whatever they know about Sandra Blair. Obviously, we need an address for her, any family, the next of kin.’

‘Got it.’

‘Oh, and you can let them know their son is still with us, making a statement back at the station. He’s phoned them already, but they’re probably worried about him.’

‘I’m on my way.’

Cooper looked round. DC Carol Villiers would be at West Street to take Rob Beresford’s statement when he arrived. Becky Hurst had a rest day. That left just one member of his team.

DC Gavin Murfin was slouched against a stone wall, his body ballooning like the Michelin Man under several layers of clothing. Murfin looked detached, or at least semi-detached. But Cooper had known him to have the best insights at these moments, some nugget from more than thirty years of experience.

‘What are you thinking, Gavin?’ he asked.

Murfin shifted reluctantly from the wall. ‘In the old days I’d be thinking, I wonder how much overtime I can make from this one.’

‘No overtime now, Gavin.’

‘Exactly.’

Cooper watched him slump back again. So did that mean Murfin wasn’t thinking about anything at all? With Gavin, it was possible. Though there was also a likelihood that he was just contemplating food.

Another police Land Rover was working its way down the track, bumping over the ruts and splashing through a miniature lake of muddy water that had gathered on the bend before the final descent. Its white paintwork was already filthy and the wipers were struggling to keep an area of windscreen clear for the driver.

‘You had a review with Personnel, didn’t you?’ said Cooper. ‘What’s going to happen?’

Murfin groaned. ‘If I stay on any longer, it’s bad news.’

‘How do you mean?’

‘I mean they might send me to Glossop,’ said Murfin, with a note of despair.

‘It’s not the end of the world, Gavin.’

‘No. But you can see it from there.’

‘So, what? You’re chucking in the towel? Collecting your pension and waving goodbye?’

‘It seems so. Though I’ve got a different type of gesture in mind.’

The Land Rover had been forced to stop a hundred yards up the ancient, potholed trackway. There were already too many vehicles down here near the scene. No one was going to stand a chance of turning round when they came to leave. The back-up crew from the Land Rover had decided to take a shortcut across the field to reach the riverside.

Cooper watched them with interest, guessing they were from one of the bigger towns, Chesterfield or even Derby. One officer, climbing over a stock fence on to wet grass, took a couple of electric shocks. Perhaps, thought Cooper, he should have warned them to get the fencing turned off before they did that.

‘So what are you going to do with yourself, Gavin?’ he asked. ‘I don’t suppose Jean will want you getting under her feet all day long at home.’

‘How right you are. I don’t even have any hobbies that will get me out of the house. There’s no shed for me to hide in. If I took up gardening, she’d think I’d gone mad and get me certified. Besides, I’ve just laid a new patio over the flowerbed.’

‘A few cruises?’

Murfin sighed again. ‘Have you ever been on one of those? You get all the same daft biddies and boring old farts on every boat. It’s like Death on the Nile, but with fewer laughs. When we’re not actually on shore trailing round tacky souvenir shops in ninety-degree heat, I spend my time propping up the bar. And I can do that just as well at home, not to mention that the beer’s better round here.’

‘You have a couple of young grandchildren now, don’t you?’ said Cooper. ‘Surely you’re looking forward to spending more time with them?’

‘There is that,’ said Murfin, without any great enthusiasm.

Cooper felt sure there was something Murfin wasn’t telling him. What did he actually have planned for his years in retirement? Something he was embarrassed about, perhaps. Maybe Jean had it all mapped out for him and Gavin had no say in it at all. That would be possible. She might have decided her husband should go to adult education classes to learn Spanish or salsa dancing, or t’ai chi. Or even all three. That would keep him busy, all right.

But the leap of the imagination to picture Gavin Murfin as a Spanish-speaking salsa dancer and t’ai chi expert left Cooper feeling mentally exhausted. His brain wasn’t ready for such a shock.

Above the trees Cooper could see the upper slopes of the hills now. On the Derbyshire side there had been a series of disturbing incidents recently – increasingly frequent reports of animals being found slaughtered on the moors. Sheep with their eyes gouged out and their genitals mutilated, a cow with its ears slit, a horse with its tail amputated. People were talking about Satanists and ritual sacrifice. But it didn’t take much for Derbyshire people to start talking like that. In Peak District villages they didn’t seem to believe in religion very much these days. But they believed in everything else.

Cooper realised they were going to have to extend the search area considerably. Who knew what had been going on in these woods? He would have to speak to the DI to get that organised.

‘Still, you won’t miss me when you’ve got these bright kids,’ said Murfin. ‘Look at young Luke there. He’s the future. Happy as a pig in clover he is, with this sort of thing.’

‘Do you think so?’

‘He follows you about like a dog, Ben. He knows you’ll find him a nice juicy murder case.’

‘Could you actually get some work done, Gavin?’ said Cooper.

‘Like what?’

‘Get across the border and see if you can assist our colleagues from Staffordshire.’