In the absence of any evidence, he had to make a choice. So who should he take first? It had to be Darius Roth, he supposed. He could almost hear Villiers saying that Darius would expect it. OK, then.
Darius Roth
Mr Roth is aged thirty-five, born in Manchester from a Jewish family, though the last two generations have been non-practising. His great-grandfather originally came from Lithuania and settled in Manchester with his family. He’s chairman of Roth Developments, though seems to be fairly hands-off and leaves the day-to-day running to a management team. There’s a large portfolio of properties in Manchester and throughout the North-West, mostly business units and office conversions. The company has invested a lot of money buying up derelict mills and factory premises.
Mr Roth’s father died a few years ago, but his mother is still around, living in a retirement village in Cheshire. There was an older brother, Magnus, who was killed in a climbing accident in the Alps.
Darius’s interests seem to be fancy cars and golf — he’s a member at New Mills and Disley golf clubs. He married Elsa eight years ago. They moved into their property in Hayfield and changed the name to Trespass Lodge. Darius’s obsession is with the Kinder Mass Trespass of 1932, in which his grandfather took part.
‘Mmm.’ Cooper nodded to himself. There must be a lot of people descended from the mass trespassers, like the number of Americans descended from the Pilgrim Fathers. Most of them didn’t make a big fuss about it.
He turned to the next sheet.
Elsa Roth
Mrs Roth is aged twenty-seven. Her maiden name is Montgomery. Elsa’s family are from Connah’s Quay in North Wales, but she came to Manchester when she was eighteen to attend college. She holds a Level 2 Diploma in animal care from Coleg Cambria in Northop. Her ambition was to study for a degree in veterinary medicine at Manchester Metropolitan University, but she never completed her training. She met Darius Roth at a corporate event while she was working part-time as a waitress to earn some extra money to support herself in her studies. They married fairly soon afterwards, and they’ve been together now for eight years.
Mrs Roth is an animal lover and owns a Maine Coone cat and two pedigree French bulldogs called Buddy and Barkley.
Cooper was struck by the contrast between Darius and Elsa, even in those brief summaries. Wealth and success seemed to have come to Darius without much effort on his part, while Elsa had never achieved her ambitions. Buddy and Barkley were the last traces of her hopes of being a vet — not forgetting the Maine Coone, who didn’t seem to have a name. Nor had the cat been evident on Cooper’s visit to Trespass Lodge.
Jonathan Matthew
Jonathan is aged twenty-six and is a graphic designer. He works for a large advertising agency based at the Digital World Centre in Salford Quays. He was born in Stockport and educated at Kingsway School and Stockport College. His parents live in Stockport. His father, Jack Matthew, is a partner in a local firm of solicitors, and his mother, Jennifer Matthew, is a charity co-ordinator.
Jonathan rents a flat in Whalley Range, Manchester. He drives a Subaru Impreza but commutes to work in Salford Quays by bus and Metrolink tram.
He’s the younger brother by four years of the victim, Faith Matthew. He was close to his sister, but not his parents.
Jonathan plays bass guitar with a band recently set up, and he hopes to be a full-time musician, an ambition his parents disapprove of.
Cooper read through Jonathan Matthew’s summary again. There was something about Jonathan that didn’t ring true for him, but he couldn’t put his finger on it. Perhaps it was his feeling from these first three summaries that everyone was living behind a façade, or aspiring to be something else.
But here was one he could be sure was different.
Sophie Pullen
Miss Pullen is aged twenty-eight, a teacher at St Anselm’s Primary School in Buxton. She teaches year five, preparing pupils for Key Stage 2. She only started teaching there this term. Before that, she worked at a school in Stockport.
Sophie was married briefly when she was twenty-one, but divorced and reverted to her maiden name. After the divorce, she became eligible for a shared-ownership scheme with a housing association and now occupies a two-bedroom semi on a new development off Manchester Road in Chapel-en-le-Frith.
She’s local, born in Buxton, where her parents still live. There are two sisters, one older and one younger, both married with families and living in the area. Her mother is also a teacher and works at Lady Manners School in Bakewell. Her father is a GP. Sophie is a volunteer at the Chapel-en-le-Frith Playhouse.
Cooper was surprised that Sophie Pullen had been married previously. But he moved straight on to the next summary.
Nick Haslam
Mr Haslam is aged twenty-nine. He works as an IT consultant with a company based on a business park off the M60 near Manchester. He helps businesses set up IT networks, so he frequently travels around the area. He lives in New Mills, where he shares a house with two other young professionals.
Mr Haslam met Sophie Pullen at a mutual friend’s birthday party in Buxton, and they’ve been in a relationship for about two years. He faced a drink-drive charge a couple of years ago but escaped a disqualification.
So Nick Haslam was the first one of the group who had a criminal record. He didn’t come across as the most responsible of people. What did Sophie Pullen see in him?
Well, that was the eternal puzzle, wasn’t it? No one could analyse the mysteries of mutual attraction. Often couples seemed to be complete opposites of each other. There was no point trying to figure that out.
The next two had been grouped together.
Sam and Pat Warburton
Mr and Mrs Warburton are both retired, aged sixty-seven and sixty-four respectively. Sam was a firefighter with Greater Manchester Fire and Rescue, and retired as a station officer, while Pat was a care worker for many years in nursing homes. They’re from Manchester and live in the quiet suburb of Didsbury.
They spend their time cruising, touring with their caravan and visiting grandchildren. They particularly like Scandinavian cruises — the Norwegian fjords, Icelandic glaciers, etc. They have a son and a daughter. One lives in London, and the other emigrated to Australia. There are several grandchildren. Mr and Mrs Warburton are planning to fly to Australia next year to see the daughter’s family. They’re keen walkers, but Sam has a history of heart problems. After the incident on Kinder Scout, he was diagnosed with low blood sugar.
Was a connection emerging? Darius Roth and the Warburtons were from Manchester, Elsa had moved there for college, and Jonathan Matthew lived there. But it was hardly significant. Manchester was the nearest big city to that side of the Peak District, a huge urban sprawl. Half of the people who lived in the Hayfield area would have a link to Manchester in one way or another. It was statistically irrelevant.
Theo and Duncan Gould
The Gould brothers are Derbyshire people from a farming family. They run a small-scale plant nursery just outside Chinley. Neither of them has ever married and they have no immediate family. They share an old farmhouse next to the nursery. It’s a bit run-down, left to them by their parents, who were farmers. Most of the land was sold off when their father died and their mother went into a nursing home. They kept the land and the buildings they needed to establish the business. They also do a bit of landscape gardening on the side. But it’s seasonal work, as is the nursery.