Текст книги "The Corpse Bridge"

Автор книги: Stephen Booth

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Текущая страница: 27 (всего у книги 39 страниц)

11

Diane Fry’s flat was in one of the large detached Victorian villas in Grosvenor Avenue, just off Castleton Road. Although the tree-lined street had once been prosperous, almost all the properties were in multiple occupancy now – one-bedroom flats, smaller bedsits and some houses where the tenants shared communal facilities.

Cooper knew this as a student area, mostly for young people studying at the High Peak College campus. He had no idea why Fry had chosen to live here when she came to Derbyshire. And he had even less understanding of her reasons for staying in Grosvenor Avenue when she could so easily have afforded somewhere better on her detective sergeant’s salary.

But that might have been because he’d never asked her about her reasons. Or he’d never asked her properly. There was a lot about Diane Fry he didn’t understand, but she only shared information about herself on a need-to-know basis. At least that meant he wasn’t the only person who didn’t understand her. Nobody at West Street did. The only person he’d ever met who might have a bit more insight was Diane’s sister, Angie. Cooper reassured himself with that fact.

A couple of the other tenants were just leaving the house as he parked outside the gate. They didn’t look like students, though. They were a bit too old and bundled up in old clothes as if off to a night shift at a job where they didn’t expect to stay clean. When he said hello to them, they answered readily enough, in accents that sounded East European. Of course, Grosvenor Avenue wasn’t just student territory any more. The High Peak College students were competing for cheap accommodation with migrant workers from countries in the European Union.

He remembered something Fry had said to him years ago, when he moved out of Bridge End Farm into his own little flat on Welbeck Street. ‘A cheap rent just means something really grotty that nobody else wants,’ she’d said. But number 8 Welbeck Street was a lot better than this.

Cooper rang the bell set among half a dozen others by the front door and it was opened almost immediately.

‘Hello, Diane.’

‘Hi. Come in.’

She left him to close the door and set off up the stairs. She was dressed in unfaded denim jeans and a sparkling white shirt, like someone who’d decided to dress casually but found she didn’t have any casual clothes. He’d rarely seen her when she wasn’t wearing black suit trousers, aiming for the smart professional look. Yet this look suited her. It somehow managed to soften her edges. Her fair hair had grown a little longer too, and it masked the hard lines of her face, which in the past she’d always seemed keen to emphasise. Whatever had caused the change in her appearance, he was glad of it. Though he knew better than to comment on it. Fry never took compliments well.

‘Aren’t you supposed to say “thank you for coming” or something like that?’ said Cooper, though he was speaking to Fry’s retreating back.

‘Oh, yes. Thanks, Ben.’

‘You’re welcome,’ he muttered as he followed her up the stairs. ‘Always a pleasure.’

Fry’s flat was on the first floor of the house. It consisted of a bedroom, a sitting room, a bathroom with a shower cubicle, and a tiny kitchen area. As soon as he entered, Cooper noticed that it had been redecorated since the last time he was here. He recalled striped wallpaper in a faded shade of brown and a carpet in washed-out blues, pinks and yellows, a pattern that looked as though it had been designed to hide substances spilled on it. The redecoration had done wonders. Fresh paintwork in cleaner, bright colours and a new carpet on the floor. Was Fry responsible for this? Or had the landlords insisted? That seemed much more likely. They would be looking to attract replacement tenants now.

Fry’s own possessions seemed to be scanty, judging by the cardboard boxes around the flat. They would barely fill the back of a small van. Surely there must be some books, music, a few prized objects she’d collected over the years. Okay, perhaps not souvenirs of the Peak District. But, well … something. He suspected these boxes contained clothes, bedding and not much else.

‘Have you moved some stuff already?’ he asked.

‘A bit,’ she said.

‘Do you want these boxes moving?’

‘No, I’m taking those myself. I can get three or four in the boot of my Peugeot each trip. It’s just this table and the bookshelves. Oh, and the TV is mine.’

Cooper nodded. ‘No problem.’

So there were bookshelves, but that didn’t mean there had been books. In fact, he couldn’t imagine what sort of books Diane Fry might read in her leisure time. Blackstone’s Police Manuals Volumes 1–4. That would be about the shape of it.

‘The shelves will have to be dismantled,’ he said.

‘Oh.’

‘It’s easy enough. Just a few screws to take out.’

Fry frowned and looked around her. ‘I don’t think I have a—’

‘I’ve got a set of screwdrivers in the Toyota,’ said Cooper.

‘Brilliant.’

He watched her for a moment as she folded towels into a plastic carrier, her slim hands working quickly and precisely, the sleeves of her shirt rolled up above wrists that looked too fragile to have any strength. A strand of hair had fallen over her face and she had a faint sheen of sweat on her temple. She gave the job of packing as much concentration as she did any other task and she didn’t seem to notice his observation. He’d ceased to exist again just in that moment.

It was so typical of this woman. For Fry, a person was either useful to her or just a nuisance. And she could switch them from one to another in the blink of an eye. Cooper wished he had the ability to tune people out the way she did. But he just couldn’t do it. Right now he was aware of almost nothing else but Diane’s presence so close to him in the cramped sitting room. Yet she seemed to have forgotten his existence for a moment. It was strange that he didn’t resent this more. Instead, it made him feel sorry for her.

‘I’ll put the TV in the car, then I’ll bring the tools back up with me, shall I?’

She looked up. ‘That’ll be great, Ben.’

So he unplugged the TV set and carried it downstairs. Luckily, Fry wasn’t the type to go for a massive sixty-five-inch widescreen. This one would fit in the back of the Toyota without difficulty. And he could carry it on his own too. Not that he had much choice.

He found the little toolbox, covered the TV set with a coat and locked the car carefully. When he returned to the flat, Fry was sitting down looking unnaturally relaxed. And she’d made him a coffee.

‘I thought we’d take a break,’ she said. ‘Have a seat.’

Cooper did as he was told, but with trepidation. Looking at Fry’s jeans and shirt, it struck him for the first time that she’d dressed specially for the occasion – and that wasn’t just for the packing. There was something else she’d planned.

Fry leaned forward. ‘So…’ she said.

‘So?’ Cooper repeated.

He had a sudden dread that Fry was going to start asking him personal questions. And not just any old questions, but the full cross-examination – all the same questions that people had asked him over and over again in the months after Liz was killed.

And he was right. But it was such an odd thing. Within a few minutes of Fry broaching the subject, he found himself telling her exactly what it had been like. He spilled it all out – the plans he and Liz had been making, what the wedding was going to be like, their dreams for the future, the possibility of having children very soon.

And then that afternoon at the Light House pub, when he and Carol Villiers had been examining the cellar while Liz searched for forensic evidence in one of the bedrooms upstairs. And there was the fire.

That was the most difficult part to talk about. He’d been through it many times for the subsequent inquiry, the inquest, the trial hearings. But it didn’t make the telling any easier, no matter how many times he ran over the events as if they’d happened to someone else. The stink of smoke, the roar of flames, the crash of shattering windows, the terror of being trapped in the burning building. The knowledge that his fiancée was two floors above him, alone, and unaware of the blazing stairs. And finally the moment when he realised that she was no longer behind him as he fought his way to safety. The moment he lost her to the flames.

Cooper felt himself drifting into his memories as he talked. His immediate surroundings faded away, the dismal first-floor flat receding into the distance. He saw only Diane Fry’s face in front of him, her eyes curiously compelling, as if this had been the opportunity he’d been awaiting for so long.

It was only when it came to talking about the aftermath of the fire that he faltered. The period when he was away from work on extended sick leave was the most difficult to explain. Liz’s death had been tragic and meaningless. But the things he did in the following few months were inexplicable. When he looked back now, they had no logic. He’d lost his senses and he couldn’t explain that to anyone.

‘After it happened,’ he said, ‘I mean, after the fire, there were months and months when I kept telling myself it was all a mistake and Liz wasn’t really dead at all. Some of the time I think I actually believed that.’

Fry nodded.

‘I understand,’ she said.

But Diane Fry wasn’t that good an actress. He didn’t believe she understood at all. She just knew it was something people said in the circumstances. And yet she’d taken in every word he’d told her. He had no doubt about that.

Cooper felt suspicion welling up again. Was all this concern genuine? Surely not. Fry had some ulterior motive. What it was, he had no idea. He supposed it would become evident one day. And whatever it was, it wouldn’t be to his benefit.

After a moment he managed to change the subject. ‘I suppose you’re looking forward to living in Nottingham,’ he said.

‘Well, what do you think?’

‘You can’t wait, I suppose.’

‘You got that right. Look at this place. Well, I know it’s where you’re from and all that, but really…’

‘Is there anybody here you’ll miss?’ asked Cooper tentatively.

‘Oh, yes,’ said Fry.

‘Really?’

‘Mr and Mrs Khan at the corner shop. They’ve always been very nice to me.’

The silence was broken when Cooper’s phone buzzed. At first he tried to ignore it. But Fry looked at him expectantly.

‘Perhaps you’d better answer that,’ she said. ‘It might be important. Some urgent development in your murder inquiry.’

She was right, of course. It might have been that. But the call was from the East Midlands Ambulance Service. They’d been given his name by a patient who’d just been admitted to the Accident and Emergency department at Edendale General Hospital.

He listened for a few moments while Fry watched him curiously, no doubt alerted by the sudden change in his manner.

‘What’s up?’ she said when he finished the call.

‘It’s my landlady, Dorothy Shelley. She’s been taken to hospital. It sounds as though she’s had a stroke.’

‘That’s a shame. You’ve grown quite close to her, haven’t you? I heard you look after her quite a bit.’

‘Yes.’

But Cooper felt a wave of guilt. He hadn’t been paying much attention to Mrs Shelley recently. The old girl had been very good to him, ever since he first turned up to look at the flat in Welbeck Street. She’d treated him pretty much as a grandson and he was sure his rent ought to have gone up substantially in the past few years, but for her indulgence. He should have returned the consideration by keeping a closer eye on her as she got increasingly frail and confused.

He certainly ought to have been there tonight when she needed him. She could have just banged on the wall and he would have gone straight round. He wondered if she’d been able to call the ambulance for herself or if someone else had come to her aid. He wondered how long she’d been obliged to wait for help.

‘She gave them my name,’ said Cooper, in a tone that expressed far more than the mere words conveyed. ‘I’m sorry. But I have to go.’

Diane Fry went to the window and watched for a few minutes as Cooper left the house and got into his car. He didn’t look back. He had someone else to worry about now.

Fry closed the curtains and turned back to the half-empty cardboard boxes littering the floor of her flat. She seemed to have spent a large part of her life watching Ben Cooper walking away.

12

13

Cooper had barely managed to get back to his desk in the CID room after the Nadens left, when Carol Villiers took a phone call.

‘Ben, someone else is coming in,’ she said. ‘Name of Jason Shaw.’

‘Another one in response to the appeals?’

‘It seems so.’

‘Amazing.’

Cooper had to admit he’d been wrong about the use of the official name by the press office for the location of the crime scene. At least three local people had recognised the name of Hollins Bridge, after all. And their response had been very prompt.

But it felt too good to be true. The Nadens’ account seemed unreliable at best. Their story wasn’t very convincing. He wondered if Mr Shaw would be the sort of person who put two and two together and got five.

But, in fact, Jason Shaw was very matter of fact about it. There was no messing around with imaginative leaps or hesitation about what he might or might not have seen near the Corpse Bridge that Thursday night.

‘There was somebody running through the trees in white. Somebody else chasing her. One of them, I don’t know which, shouted something, but I couldn’t make out any words. And that was it.’

Shaw looked at Villiers as she wrote it down. When she’d finished the last word, he seemed to be about to get up and leave the interview room.

‘Her?’ said Cooper.

‘You what?’

‘You said “her”. This figure in white was a woman, then?’

Shaw licked his lips as he considered how to answer. He was a different type to the Nadens certainly. He was one of those members of the public who thought they just had to make a statement, say what they wanted to say, and they would never be asked any questions.

‘Er … it could have been.’

‘You’re not sure?’

‘I’m not totally sure,’ he said. ‘It was just…’

‘An impression?’

‘Yes.’

Jason Shaw was about thirty years old, with a complexion darkened not by sunbathing but by a lot of time spent outdoors. He had a few days’ growth of dark stubble and a silver stud in his left ear. His eyes were a bright blue, which was always a striking combination in someone so dark-haired. Shaw was dressed in blue jeans and a well-worn Harrington jacket, which smelled of something earthy that Cooper couldn’t quite identify. Smells like that were always amplified in an interview room at West Street. It resulted from the fact that there was no air conditioning or ventilation, and no windows to open.

Over the years Cooper had experienced some interesting aromas from suspects during interviews. Often the individual himself didn’t seem to be aware of the odour, until it was bounced back at him from these claustrophobic walls. It could work as a perfectly good interview technique. It made a suspect feel uncomfortable about himself, without resorting to tactics that might breach the procedures of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act.

‘But you’re quite confident there were people in the trees,’ said Cooper.

‘Right. That’s it.’

‘What vehicle do you drive, sir?’

‘Why does that matter?’

‘In case someone saw it near the scene, then we can identify it as yours.’

Shaw nodded. ‘It’s a Land Rover Defender. Blue.’

‘Thank you. And you say that at the time you were walking your dog on the trackway.’

‘It’s a Border Collie,’ said Shaw. ‘His name is Patch.’

Cooper exchanged glances with Villiers. Unlike Diane Fry, Carol knew what he was thinking. She was always on the same wavelength.

‘Mr Shaw, did you see anyone else on the track? Any other walkers?’ asked Villiers.

‘Not a living soul.’

Cooper gazed into Shaw’s blue eyes while he answered Villiers, but he saw not a flicker of amusement or deceit.

‘Do you know some people called Naden?’ asked Villiers.

Cooper held his breath. That was a good question. He watched Shaw pause for a moment.

‘Naden? Naden … no, I don’t think so. Should I?’

‘Perhaps not.’

There had been a slight hesitation there, though it might mean nothing. A lot of people had trouble remembering names. If they saw each other, it might be different. Maybe Cooper should have arranged an accidental face-to-face encounter before the Nadens left the station, and observed the reactions. But it was too late now.

‘Well, thank you for coming forward, Mr Shaw,’ he said.

Shaw nodded. ‘I hope it was a help.’

Cooper saw him pause, as if he wanted to say more.

‘Is there any other detail you’d like to add, sir?’

‘No, but … I was wondering, has anyone else come in? After the appeals, I mean.’

‘We’ve had some other response,’ said Cooper.

‘Good.’

Shaw stood and Villiers got up to show him out.

‘By the way, sir,’ said Cooper before he reached the door. ‘Where do you work?’

‘Me?’ said Shaw. ‘I work at Knowle Abbey.’

The scene at the Corpse Bridge was much quieter today. There was a marked police car blocking the entrance to the trackway and a scene guard further down, with a crime-scene examiner still working in a tent erected over the stretch of riverbank where Sandra Blair had been found.

But Cooper didn’t want to go all the way down to the scene and nor did the Reverend Latham. The elderly clergyman was content to stop and rest on a bench halfway down the track, where they could see the river and the arch of the stone bridge below them, as well as the hills on the Staffordshire side of the Dove, and even a corner of Knowle Abbey behind a plantation of trees.

‘I think something was going on here,’ said Cooper. ‘More than just a simple murder, if there is such a thing.’

Latham murmured to himself, but said nothing. The old man was thinner than Cooper remembered him, his hands bony and shaking slightly. He supported himself on a stick, but his posture was still upright and his eyes were bright and inquisitive. His voice had lost some of its power – he would struggle to make himself heard in the pews at the back without the help of a microphone. And before he left his house near Edendale, he’d taken the time to wrap himself up warmly in an overcoat and a long scarf, with an incongruous red woollen hat that he said had been knitted by a parishioner.

‘This was what they call the coffin road,’ said Cooper. ‘It leads to the Corpse Bridge.’

‘Indeed,’ said Latham.

‘But am I right in thinking there was more than one coffin way?’

‘Yes, you’re right. There were several old coffin roads from these small settlements along the eastern banks of the Dove. They all converged on this bridge.’

‘Why, though?’

Latham shook his head sadly. ‘For many years coffin roads were the only practical means of transporting corpses from these communities to the graveyards that had burial rights. You see, when populations increased, more churches were built to serve new communities. But that encroached on the territory of existing parish churches and their clergy. It threatened their authority – and, of course, their revenue. They insisted that only a mother church could hold burials.’

‘Just burials?’

‘They were the most lucrative of the triple rites of birth, marriage and death,’ said Latham.

‘So it was all about money?’

‘Money and power,’ said the old clergyman sadly. ‘I’m afraid the established church was to blame for a lot of injustices in those days.’

‘Only in those days?’ said Cooper.

Latham looked at him sharply, but couldn’t resist a twinkle coming into his eyes.

‘No comment, officer.’

‘So where were they taking their dead?’ asked Cooper.

Latham pointed with his stick. ‘Over yonder.’

Cooper followed his gesture. ‘To Knowle Abbey?’

‘Almost. To the burial ground at Bowden. It’s within the abbey estate now, of course. In fact, it always belonged to the Manbys – or to the Vaudreys before them. It housed their workers, just as it does today. The church belonged to them as well. The earl appointed the minister and insisted that everyone attended church on a Sunday, on penalty of dismissal. In those days if they lost their jobs, they lost their homes as well. So people had to do what they were told. And that sort of control spread to other villages.’

‘People even had to bring him their dead.’

‘Indeed. For people living in these villages, bodies had to be transported long distances to reach the burial ground at Bowden, often over difficult terrain like this. And the corpse had to be carried, of course, unless the departed was a particularly wealthy individual. There weren’t many of those in this area.’

They were both silent for a while. Carol Villiers, who had walked down to the crime scene, looked up and began to climb slowly back towards them.

‘Where were the other coffin roads?’ asked Cooper after a few moments.

Latham waved his stick vaguely across the hillside on the Derbyshire side. ‘Oh, I believe there was one from the north, near Harpur Hill. Another came from a village that has long since disappeared under the quarrying operations. And the third was a little to the south, from the direction of Pilsbury. You’ll find only small sections of them now.’

‘Of course.’

‘You mentioned the coffin stone?’ said Latham, raising his head from a contemplation of his bony hands.

‘Yes, someone left an effigy on it. Laid out like a body.’

Latham nodded. ‘Coffin stones weren’t just there to let the bearers take a rest. They were designed to prevent the ground from becoming tainted by death or allowing the spirit of the deceased an opportunity to escape and haunt its place of death.’

Cooper turned and looked at him. ‘You know the stories too, then?’

‘Why wouldn’t I? People still told them in my day.’

‘And even now,’ said Cooper.

‘Really? Perhaps they’re a bit more circumspect when they’re talking to me, then.’ Latham laughed quietly. ‘But with coffin ways – well, what would you expect? I suppose it was inevitable that each one gathered a mass of folklore about phantoms and spirits. Wherever there are corpses, there must be ghosts.’

Cooper spread out his Ordnance Survey map. Many of the coffin roads must have long since disappeared, while the original purposes of those that had survived as footpaths were largely forgotten too.

But here there were two reminders. At the bottom of the hill on the eastern side of the river was the coffin stone, a flat lump of limestone on which the coffin had been placed while the bearers rested. And then there was the name of the bridge itself, still known locally as the Corpse Bridge, though it was clearly marked on the Ordnance Survey map with another name. When they heard it mentioned, many visitors to the area probably thought it was a quaint local corruption of some entirely different word. Glutton Bridge wasn’t named for its gluttons, or Chrome Hill because it was made of chrome.

On the brow of the hill, he could see that the path crossed Church Way Field. He supposed it might have been possible once to plot the course of a lost coffin road by the sequence of old field names, and perhaps from local legends and vanished features of the landscape marked on antiquated maps.

But all of those things were gradually disappearing themselves. Even farmers forgot the names of their own fields as traditions were lost from generation to generation. Now they were more likely to refer to a field by its size in acres or its position in relation to the farm. In time Church Way Field would become the Upper Forty. Its associated legends would vanish under the plough and a layer of chemical fertiliser.

‘That’s the way it always was,’ the Reverend Latham was saying. ‘The bearers and the funeral party making their way down the hill, resting the coffin, dividing and coming together again across the water.’

‘Yes, Bill,’ said Cooper.

But he wasn’t really listening to the old man now. The map had engaged his imagination. The coffin road to the graveyard at Bowden must have covered a distance of more than four miles and crossed two streams as well as the River Dove. It was so difficult to conceive of the hardship willingly undertaken by those mourners, struggling over the hills with their burden. And resting the coffin for a few minutes on the stone down there, in constant fear of the taint of death or a fugitive spirit.

Cooper was thinking of mentioning to the Reverend Latham his thought about the Devil manifesting himself at crossroads. Just to see what the clergyman said. Did the old man believe in the Devil? Or was that too Old Testament a concept for him?

But before he could speak Latham turned his head and looked up the trackway. He must have sharper hearing than he let on, because he’d noticed someone approaching before Cooper had himself.

‘Is this a colleague of yours?’ he said.

Cooper opened his mouth in astonishment. ‘In a way,’ he said.