‘She stayed with him when the others went for help,’ said Villiers. ‘Liam Sharpe was alone with her all that time, while the rest of the group were wandering around the moor.’
‘Remind me what his statement says.’
Villiers sorted through the pile of witness statements.
‘Here it is. According to Mr Sharpe, Faith got worried that the others were taking too long to fetch help and she left him to see if she could find anyone. She told him she wouldn’t go far and she’d only be a few minutes.’
‘But she never came back,’ said Cooper.
‘Exactly. That’s the precise phrase he uses.’
Villiers passed the statement back to him, and he read it through again. It was simple, unadorned. No flights of the imagination from Mr Sharpe. And it was the shortest of the twelve too. As far as Liam Sharpe was concerned, his story ended with a painful slip on a wet rock. He lay there helpless as people panicked around him, while Faith Matthew came to sit with him, then disappeared recklessly into the fog. Left alone, he saw and heard nothing more until Dolly, the SARDA search dog, came nosing along the hillside following his scent and barked for her handler.
‘His ankle was definitely injured,’ said Villiers. ‘The MRT had to stretcher him down off Kinder because he couldn’t walk. The paramedics said it was bruised and swollen. He was transported to A and E, but he’s out of hospital now, of course.’
‘Have you ever sprained your ankle, Carol?’
‘Several times.’
‘Could you have walked on it?’
She hesitated. ‘It depends. The first time I did it, I was only a child. I tried to make out it was worse than it really was.’
‘Why?’
‘Because I wanted sympathy, I suppose. In fact, my dad carried me back to the car. That was probably what I really wanted.’
Cooper put Liam Sharpe’s statement back on the pile.
‘I’ll like you to interview Mr Sharpe again tomorrow. If he’s out of hospital, he’ll probably still be resting at home.’
‘Unless he’s gone back to work already. He’s a check-in supervisor at Manchester Airport. He could achieve some limited mobility on crutches.’
‘Make the trip to the airport if necessary. See if you can shake his story.’
Villiers raised an eyebrow. ‘Do you think I was too gentle with him the first time? Too sympathetic because of his injury?’
‘You can be sympathetic,’ said Cooper. ‘Sometimes.’
‘Thank you.’
‘But I’m thinking a second visit might take him by surprise, perhaps unsettle him enough to change his story.’
‘OK, I’ll try to be unsettling.’ Villiers made a note. ‘What did you make of the Warburtons, by the way?’
‘I can’t help but think they’re genuine. There’s no trace of a motive for them.’
‘And no evidence?’
‘The mark near Dead Woman’s Drop? Sam Warburton was right — it could have been the tip of anyone’s hiking pole that made that mark. It’s forensically impossible to match the mark to a specific pole. The shape of their tips is identical, and of course there would be traces of peat on the Warburtons’ poles. They were on Kinder for hours.’
‘Do they go back to the bottom of your list, then?’ asked Villiers.
‘They were never near the top, to be honest. I think I’m just clutching at straws until a clear motive emerges, or we get an analysis back on the threatening note.’
‘You’re not here tomorrow, are you?’
‘No, I’ve got a rest day due,’ said Cooper. ‘Make sure Dev Sharma knows where you are, though.’
Villiers was studying him curiously.
‘Is there something else, Ben?’ she asked.
‘What do you mean?’
‘Something bothering you. Only... we’ve been hearing something on the grapevine about Diane Fry. A disciplinary hearing.’
‘Oh, word’s gone round, has it?’
‘You know what it’s like.’
‘Only too well.’
Cooper checked that no one else was outside his office door or passing in the corridor. He knew Carol Villiers was someone he could trust. Besides, it was pointless trying to keep secrets from her. She’d known him too long.
‘I met up with her last night,’ he said quietly.
‘Diane?’
‘Yes. She’s asked me for help.’
‘Well, there’s a turn-up for the books.’
Cooper didn’t laugh. He gave Villiers a brief outline of what Fry had told him, and she looked at him with an anxious frown when he’d finished.
‘What are you going to do, Ben?’ she asked.
He didn’t answer for a moment. Not because he didn’t know the answer but because he wasn’t sure how Villiers would react. Her attitude to Diane Fry hadn’t always been positive. And she knew what proper procedure was, and exactly how he should respond — co-operate with the investigation, tell the truth and do whatever Professional Standards asked, if they wanted to speak to him.
Cooper shook his head at the thought.
‘I’ve got to help her, of course,’ he said finally.
She nodded. ‘That’s what I thought you’d say.’
28
Diane Fry had been doing her best to rerun that meeting with Andy Kewley in her mind. She was sure there was some detail that she ought to recall that would mean more to her now than it did at the time.
That day, she’d parked her Audi on the roof level of Birmingham’s Jewellery Quarter car park in Vyse Street, where she had a clear view up the street towards the exit from the Metro station.
A small trickle of people were spilling out of the station and heading off in different directions. Kewley was the last to come out, emerging onto the pavement near the old cast-iron street urinal. She recognised him even from that distance, even with the cap pulled over his eyes and a padded jacket to disguise his shape. There was something about the way people moved that made them recognisable whatever they wore.
Kewley had paused in the station entrance, looked all around him carefully, pretending to check his pockets for something. Andy was an old street cop. He’d learned to scan every doorway and corner before he made his move. It just never occurred to him to look up.
Fry looked at her watch. Kewley was bang on time for their meeting, of course. She, on the other hand, was going to be a bit late. And that was the way she liked it.
Finally, she walked down to street level and stepped through the entrance to Warstone Lane Cemetery. She remembered some kind of white blossom on the bushes filling the air with its aroma. When she breathed it in, she felt as though she’d been punched in the nose. A certain trigger for her hay fever.
‘Diane?’
Kewley had taken off the cap, revealing thinning hair streaked with grey. A warm breeze wandered through the plane trees, stirring a lock of his hair. When he raised a hand to push it back, she noticed that it wasn’t as steady a hand as it once had been. The cumulative effects of thirty years in the job? Or was Andy Kewley drinking too much, like so many others?
In the middle of the cemetery, they were standing at the top of a terrace of curved brick walls. Two of the walls had rows of small, sealed-up entrances built into them, like arched doorways. Catacombs. She was surrounded by the Victorian dead.
Fry imagined Kewley using this cemetery for years to meet his informants. But it wouldn’t be wise to keep coming here after he’d left the job. Too many people might remember. Too many of them might have a grievance to settle. Maybe it was just one of those eccentric fancies that overcame old coppers when they retired. Some had a hankering to run pubs, or to look for a quiet life in Northern Ireland. Others chose to hang around in Victorian graveyards.