It was too soon to expect any results from a forensic examination of the threatening note received by Faith Matthew. But the crime scene examiners had preliminary reports from two other scenes.
Wayne Abbott was the senior forensic manager for North Division. He looked more like a rugby forward with his shaven head and squashed nose, but Cooper knew how capable he was at his job.
‘There are no useful prints from the teddy bear in the chapel,’ Abbott told him. ‘That artificial fabric is the wrong kind of surface for us to take viable prints from. And the duct tape looks as though it was either wiped or handled by someone wearing gloves.’
‘OK.’
‘We might be able to obtain some DNA, with a bit of luck. It would take time, and it would cost you.’
‘It doesn’t matter,’ said Cooper. ‘I think I know where the teddy bear came from, and whose DNA you would find.’
Abbott looked at him in surprise but nodded without questioning him. They’d worked together before and understood each other pretty well.
‘You’ve already got that figured out, then,’ said Abbott. ‘Sometimes I think you don’t need us.’
‘I would never say that. It’s just luck.’
Cooper still had a memory stick with all the photos from Faith’s phone, a Samsung Galaxy. It wasn’t the poor-quality photos taken in the fog on Kinder Scout that he was interested in. He was scrolling further back, through some random pictures of people and places he didn’t recognise, to some of Faith with Greg, and then... Yes, there it was. A selfie taken in the bedroom of Faith Matthew’s house in Hayfield a few weeks ago. A selfie with a chair full of soft toys photobombing her in the background.
Most prominent among the toys was an ancient brown teddy bear wearing a red bow tie. Its glass eyes seemed to twinkle in the light from the bedside lamp. Cooper remembered that lamp from the day before, when he and Villiers had searched Faith’s house for the threatening note. He recalled seeing the pile of soft toys too. But that golden teddy bear with the red bow tie? It hadn’t been among them. Someone had taken it from Faith’s house. And then it had turned up in that mock crucifixion at the old Methodist chapel.
‘What about the scene on Kinder Scout?’ he asked Abbott. ‘Did you find any marks around the spot where Faith Matthew went over the edge?’
‘A lot of unidentifiable shoe marks. It’s a rocky surface, so it doesn’t hold many usable impressions.’
Cooper grimaced impatiently. He was hearing excuses, not results. But you couldn’t have it all your own way. Forensic science wasn’t magic.
‘There was one shoe mark you wanted us to look at in particular,’ said Abbott. ‘Is that right?’
‘The one facing in a different direction?’
‘Yes. It’s oriented to about ninety degrees to the other marks. But it’s only one, not a pair of impressions.’
‘As if someone was turning.’
‘Perhaps. I’m not sure how helpful it is. The tread on the sole is quite worn, and, as I say, the nature of the surface means it’s only taken a partial impression. But we identified it as a woman’s size-five walking boot, probably a Scarpa or a Garmont.’
‘And?’
‘That’s consistent with the victim’s footwear. We removed a pair of Scarpa Cyrus from the body.’
‘Very good. Anything else?’
Abbott produced a set of photographic prints.
‘There was just this... a fresh hole in the peat, no more than half an inch across, with a tapered point. I don’t know what that would be.’
‘It looks to me,’ said Cooper, ‘like the tip of a hiking pole.’
The Warburtons’ caravan had gone from the campsite at Hayfield. Cooper supposed he should have checked first. But didn’t Sam Warburton say the pitch was booked and paid for a week? They hadn’t been in Hayfield that long.
He rang the Warburtons’ number and found the couple were at home in Didsbury. He left a message to let his office know where he would be and turned the Toyota northwards.
A lot of Manchester people no longer lived in the cobbled back streets of areas like Gorton with their terraced slums but in the leafy avenues of fashionable Chorlton and Didsbury. The Warburtons’ address was a pre-war detached house with mock black and white timbers, located in a cul-de-sac that ended in a turning circle against the wrought-iron fence of Didsbury Sports Ground. Cooper glimpsed the glint of the River Mersey snaking through the convoluted greens of a golf course.
The caravan was drawn onto the drive, and Pat was still unpacking some of the contents.
Sam Warburton stared at him when Cooper explained his reason for being there.
‘Nonsense,’ said Sam. ‘A lot of people carry hiking poles.’
‘The marks from the tip don’t usually last very long, especially in wet weather. They get filled in, washed away or trampled on and they’re no longer visible. This mark was recent.’
‘Even so, it could have been anybody.’
‘Including you,’ said Cooper. ‘If one of us was near that spot, it wasn’t when Faith fell,’ said Sam. ‘We were lost, remember. We could have passed the place earlier without knowing it.’
‘If it was right by the drop,’ added Pat, ‘we could have been in danger ourselves.’
Sam began to shake his head. ‘I don’t think it was one of our poles. It’s too much of a stretch. Detective Inspector Cooper is clutching at straws.’
‘As far as we can tell, there was no one else nearby,’ said Cooper.
‘Apart from Liam, of course,’ said Sam. ‘What?’
‘Liam Sharpe. He was there, obviously.’
‘What do you know about Mr Sharpe?’
‘More than you might think. He had quite a temper, you know.’
‘Did he?’
Sam Warburton looked smug now that he sensed he had Cooper’s attention.
‘And Liam was... well, he was the only one there with Faith, after the rest of us went to get help,’ he said. ‘It seems fairly obvious to me, so I assume you started with him?’
Cooper didn’t reply.
Sam smiled. ‘After all,’ he said, ‘Liam Sharpe would have been the last person to see her alive.’
27
When Diane Fry had finished her interviews for the afternoon, she jumped into her car to drive to Birmingham.
She’d finally bitten the bullet and called her sister. Angie’s phone was busy, so she left a brief message. Half an hour later, Angie called her back. It was always an odd sensation whenever they reconnected. It felt as though she was meeting a new person every time.
‘Sis?’ said Angie cautiously. ‘Anything wrong?’
‘Yes, I think there is.’
‘And?’
‘I’m coming down. I need to talk to you about it.’
‘Me?’
‘Yes, you. Don’t try to sound so innocent.’
‘It’s a long while since you were so keen to talk to me about anything.’
It was true. Diane had worshipped her sister at one time. But the scales had fallen from her eyes that time in Birmingham when Angie had revealed unexpected contacts and abilities.
Diane remembered the sensation of leafing through case files, the astonishment to find herself fighting a feeling of guilt at the knowledge she was handling confidential information that she should never have had access to.
The case summary, witness statements, records of interview. And on all of the pages was the familiar black bar — RESTRICTED WHEN COMPLETE. It went against the grain even to handle something like that, when she knew it had been obtained illegitimately.
And she recalled her sister’s response: ‘Oh, you have got to be kidding. What — you’re suddenly going to go all upright and honourable again? You don’t want to put a foot wrong in case you upset your bosses? That’s the old Diane. Things have changed, sis. Haven’t you noticed? We’re not playing this game by the rules any more. And that was your decision. Don’t forget that.’