‘It was something your mother said.’
‘Oh yeah, she would. Well, I did mention to Faith that I needed some cash. She had a big nest egg put aside, you know.’
‘But she said no?’
‘That’s right.’
‘How did that make you feel?’
He flushed. ‘What are you getting at? I was disappointed, that’s all.’
‘When did she tell you that she wouldn’t give you money? Was it the day of the walk?’
‘No, before that.’
‘When?’
‘The day before, if you must know. All right, I was a bit pissed off. I thought I could rely on her.’
‘But she let you down.’
‘Just this once. But she was my sister. She meant a lot to me.’
‘Is that why you went on the walk?’
‘Because she asked me to, yes.’
‘I have a feeling you weren’t impressed by Kinder Scout,’ said Cooper. ‘Or by the history of the Mass Trespass.’
Jonathan smiled. ‘The only thing I liked about it was the alien evacuation.’
‘The what?’
He put the metallic object down on a table. It was only a capo for the neck of his guitar.
‘Don’t you know the story?’ said Jonathan. ‘There was this guy back last century who said he’d been contacted by extraterrestrials. They told him the world was going to end, but they could rescue some members of the human race. He formed an organisation, the Aetherius Society, and they came up with a list of mountains around the world where the aliens would come and evacuate people at the right time. “Magic mountains”, they called them.’
‘And?’
‘And Kinder Scout was one of those mountains. There’s a rock up there with a cross painted on it and the guy’s initials. GK — his name was George King. That rock is the exact spot his society said the aliens would evacuate from.’
‘And when is this evacuation going to take place exactly?’ asked Villiers.
‘Well, they said it would be 2015.’
‘That’s a bit disappointing.’
‘It’s a good story, though.’
Jonathan went suddenly quiet, and his face darkened. He’d been enjoying himself for a moment, and now he was angry at his own apparent callousness. It was probably the words ‘a good story’ that had penetrated his exterior.
Cooper recognised that feeling. Sometimes you heard a phrase coming out of your mouth and it struck deep into your own heart while meaning nothing to anyone else who heard it.
Now Cooper regretted having led him down that path.
‘I’m really sorry about your sister,’ he said.
Jonathan looked away. ‘Thanks,’ he said. ‘But nothing will help with the guilt.’
‘You feel guilty for her death?’
‘Of course I feel guilty,’ said Jonathan. ‘I should have been there with her. She always looked after me when we were kids — you know, the big-sister thing. But I wasn’t there when she needed me. I lost sight of her in the fog and she died.’
‘It wasn’t your fault,’ said Cooper. ‘Everybody was disorientated. The group had split up. You were lost. You were all suffering from cold and exhaustion.’
Jonathan’s expression didn’t change.
‘It doesn’t matter what you say. You can make all the excuses for me you like. The fact is, I wasn’t there for her. I let Faith down. I’ll always feel guilty for that.’
Cooper nodded. Despite what he’d said to Jonathan Matthew, he fully understood those feelings of guilt. He’d suffered them himself, and was still experiencing them now, those sharp pangs of despair whenever he thought about what had happened to his fiancée Liz. He’d been there when the abandoned pub had been set on fire, trapping them both in the blazing building. He’d been unable to save her. He should have been able to bring Liz out alive, but he hadn’t.
That kind of guilt didn’t respond to logic. And he supposed it would never go away.
‘Do you have any idea who might have wanted to harm your sister?’ he asked after a moment.
‘Harm her? Are you saying she was deliberately killed? I thought it was an accident?’
‘We’re not sure yet. But I have to ask. Can you think of anyone—’
‘Nobody at all. Faith got on with everyone. Why would anyone want to do something like that?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Cooper. ‘That’s what we’d like to find out.’
What he could have said to Jonathan Matthew was that he’d lost count of the times he’d heard friends and family members say that a victim ‘got on with everyone’. Sometimes they were in denial. But often there was always a small, secretive corner of someone’s life that was unknown even to the people closest to them.
Jonathan stared miserably at Cooper.
‘You’ve got to be wrong,’ he said. ‘What happened to Faith — it must have been an accident.’
Cooper sighed. ‘I wish I could tell you that, sir. But I’m not sure it would be true.’
Chloe Young had been accompanied down to the body by a crime scene examiner and was wearing a safety harness provided by the Mountain Rescue team, in case she inadvertently went too close to the edge.
Ben Cooper stood on the overhang and watched her working. Mist still surged below Dead Woman’s Drop, masking the distant valley bottom and making the fall from here seem even further. He felt as though he’d be falling for ever through the cloud if he lost his footing.
Each stage of the process was photographed from every angle as Young inspected the body bit by bit, then gently began to turn it onto its side.
That was when Cooper caught his first glimpse of Faith Matthew’s face, shockingly pale against the red of her jacket. There was blood around her right temple where she’d hit the rock. Young examined Faith’s face and neck, then checked the limbs that had been hidden under the body.
Young turned and looked up, as if judging the distance of the fall. She caught Cooper’s eye and gave a small smile and a shake of the head. Cooper wasn’t sure what that meant.
‘In my opinion,’ said Young, when she’d returned to the top of the cliff and freed herself from the harness, ‘and it’s a provisional view, you understand...’
‘Yes?’
‘Well, the victim was already turning round when she fell.’
‘Turning?’
‘The position of the body and the location of the injuries would be consistent with that scenario.’ Young twisted her own body to demonstrate a half-turn, as if looking at something over her shoulder. ‘You see, one arm and leg were underneath her. She fell sideways.’
‘Which means she didn’t just step off the edge in the fog,’ said Cooper.
‘I think she would have fallen at an entirely different angle.’
‘Perhaps she was turning because she heard something behind her.’
‘Possibly.’
Cooper thought of the angled shoe mark he’d seen. If that was found to match one of Faith Matthew’s boots, it would support the idea that she was turning away from the drop.
‘I can see what you’re thinking, Ben,’ said Young. ‘Obviously I can’t offer an opinion on what happened up here.’
‘Of course not.’
But Cooper had the certainty that Chloe Young agreed with him. Faith Matthew hadn’t fallen from Dead Woman’s Drop. She was pushed.
12
The room at Ripley was much more pleasant than any interview room in a custody suite that Diane Fry had ever seen. It was as if she was sitting down for a budget meeting or a staff appraisal. She must be wary not to be lulled into any false sense of security by her surroundings.
Her interviewer introduced himself as Martin Jackson, an investigator with the Professional Standards Department. He was aged around forty, with sleek brown hair, a well-fitting suit and a pair of black-rimmed glasses.