‘Do you ever see anyone down here at the old chapel?’ Cooper asked him as he produced the key.
Sankey looked shocked at the question. ‘It’s not for me to report on what my clients do on their own property.’
‘So you do see people here?’
‘Once or twice. I think they come here at night now and then.’
‘And what are you doing here at night, Mr Sankey? Mowing the grass in the dark?’
Sankey smirked. ‘No, you’ve got the wrong end of the stick. Of course I’m not here at night. I come early in the morning to start work. I’ve got a lot of jobs on, so I’m busy as soon as it gets light. Once or twice when I’ve made an early start at the lodge, I’ve seen them leaving.’
‘Leaving?’
‘Coming from the old chapel, like you said. I’ve seen them leaving early in the morning. It’s pretty obvious they’ve spent the night in there.’
‘Who?’
‘Well, I can’t say who they are. I don’t know Mr Roth’s guests. I’m only the gardener.’
‘Would you recognise them if you saw them again?’
‘Some of them, maybe,’ said Sankey.
‘I might get someone to show you a few photographs. Would that be all right?’
‘I’m not sure Mr Roth would approve of that. You’ll have to ask him.’
‘OK.’
Sankey stood for a moment rattling his bunch of keys, choosing a large, old-fashioned key.
‘What do you think they’re up to, then?’ he said.
‘I don’t know, sir. Do you?’
Sankey shrugged. ‘A bit of funny business, I suppose. But my dad always told me not to ask too many questions. People don’t like it, do they?’
‘It depends what they have to hide,’ said Cooper.
Sankey opened the door of the chapel. It swung back on his hinges with a creak and a scrape of wood against stone flags.
Inside the chapel, the wooden benches were still in place, rows of them worn and shiny from decades of use. They couldn’t be called pews — they were too plain, with no ornamentation.
Cooper stepped over a pile of hymn books left on the floor. Some of them had lost their covers and pages were showing signs of mildew. They were well used in their day, but had been abandoned along with the chapel itself.
A plain wooden pulpit was raised above the body of the church, with a lectern where an enormous Bible would once have lain open. At some time, the congregation must have grown larger. A gallery had been built onto the rear wall, right over the furthest rows of benches. It was reached by a set of stairs through a trapdoor, and might have held another twenty or thirty people. Cooper wondered which of the worshippers had the privilege of looking down on the preacher from that height.
Sunlight crept in through the high windows, glittering off strands of ancient cobweb. The stonework was streaked with damp where water had come in through gaps in the roof tiles, and some of the flags in the aisle were sunken and uneven. Whatever had been Darius Roth’s intention when he bought this building, he had never completed the work.
Cooper reminded himself that not everything was the way it seemed. And certainly not how Darius Roth tried to present it. His original planning application for the old Methodist chapel could have been camouflage. The condition this building was in now might have been his real intention all along. Perhaps it had been designed as a stage for Darius’s ego, just as Kinder Scout was. Did he rehearse his dramas here, or invite members of his group into this sanctuary to work on them separately?
He turned back to the pulpit again. He had no trouble imagining who stood there when the club had meetings here. Darius Roth had the look of an evangelist, a man with a mission and a powerful belief in himself.
And then Cooper was struck by something odd where the altar had once stood. He strode down the aisle, past the pulpit, wondering whether he could believe what he was seeing.
‘Carol, look at this.’
‘What is it?’ asked Villiers, sensing the sudden shift of his attention.
‘See for yourself.’
Villiers came to join him. ‘Oh my God.’
‘Exactly.’
On a bare oak table against the far wall of the chapel, an ancient teddy bear had been duct-taped to a crude wooden cross in an imitation of a crucifixion. The detail that had stood out most from the far end of the aisle was a red bow tie the teddy bear was wearing. When Cooper bent to examine it, the bear’s glass eyes seemed to wink at him as they reflected the light from the high windows.
Villiers seemed to be about to reach out and touch the bear, perhaps to take it down from the cross. It was an instinctive reaction to what looked like an act of sacrilege.
‘Don’t touch it,’ said Cooper. ‘There might be latent prints on the duct tape.’
She flinched back. ‘Sorry.’
Cooper turned at the sound of footsteps on the flagstones. Darius Roth himself was standing in the aisle of the chapel, a horrified expression on his face as he stared at the teddy bear.
‘Who did this?’ he said.
‘Haven’t you seen it before, Mr Roth?’ asked Cooper.
‘Of course not. It’s horrible.’
‘Perhaps one of your group has a sense of humour that’s in bad taste.’
Roth looked at him, narrowing his eyes.
‘You don’t believe that, Detective Inspector Cooper. Just a bad joke? Really? This looks malicious to me.’
‘Is there a particular significance to the teddy bear, sir?’
Cooper waited patiently for the answer. Both he and Villiers had heard Elsa Roth use that affectionate nickname for him when he was upset, as if he was a child who needed placating.
‘Yes, my wife calls me that sometimes,’ said Roth, slightly embarrassed.
‘And who else would know that?’
‘I couldn’t say. Anyone who’s ever seen us together, I suppose.’
‘So all the members of your walking club, then.’
‘Well, yes.’
‘And what is this chapel used for now, Mr Roth?’
Roth dragged his gaze away from the teddy bear and narrowed his eyes as he looked at Cooper. Roth wasn’t stupid. He would have worked out by now that Cooper already had the information but was asking the question to see whether he got a denial.
‘We use it as a kind of clubhouse sometimes,’ said Roth, evidently recognising when there was no point in evasion.
‘Do you?’ said Cooper. ‘So who would have access to the building?’
‘When the club are meeting for a walk, the chapel is left open. Anyone can come in here for a quiet moment.’
‘But it was locked today,’ said Cooper.
‘Well, after what happened with Faith, you know... I didn’t think anyone would want to come down to the chapel. So I asked Will to lock it up.’
Cooper gestured at the bear. ‘And he didn’t mention this to you?’
‘I don’t suppose he looked round the interior.’
Cooper wondered if that was true. Sankey had left pretty quickly after unlocking the chapel for them. Did he really have so little curiosity about what was inside?
‘Mr Roth, do you keep records of your members?’ asked Cooper. ‘I’m thinking about previous members of the club who’ve since left.’
He shook his head. ‘We’re a very informal group. We keep a list of who we’re expecting on the walk, so we can make sure they’ve got transport or accommodation if they need it. We tick them off when they arrive, that’s all. Previous members? We tend to forget about them once they drop out and disappear. At least, I do.’
Cooper could see that last statement was likely to be true. Darius Roth would have no interest in anyone who turned their back on his group and escaped his influence. It made Cooper feel even more anxious to speak to a former member or two.