06.The Dead Place Read online

  ‘Oh, Ben. Have you got a minute?’

  ‘Yes, sir?’

  Cooper left his jacket over the back of his chair and walked to the front of the room, moving against the flow of bodies and conscious of the glances he was getting. But perhaps he was being over-sensitive. He still felt ashamed of his outburst at the hospital last night, and this morning he couldn’t seem to concentrate on anything for more than a few minutes. His thoughts kept drifting back to the image of his mother’s pale, helpless body lying in that side room off the ward, amid the smells of disinfectant and the constant slapping of heels in the corridor outside the door, back and forth, back and forth, until he thought it would drive him mad. When he’d phoned the ward first thing this morning, he’d been told that Mrs Cooper was ‘satisfactory’.

  ‘There’s something for you, Ben,’ said the DI, fiddling with some papers on his clipboard. ‘It looks as though you’ve had a bit of early luck. A member of the public called in to say she recognized the facial reconstruction.’

  ‘Already?’

  ‘It was in the evening paper last night, and it got a couple of minutes on the local TV news, too.’

  ‘Brilliant.’

  Hitchens looked at him critically, as if detecting something not quite right. Cooper wondered if he’d forgotten to shave properly, or had his tie on crooked. Both were perfectly possible.

  ‘The lady’s name is Ellen Walker. She believes the deceased is her cousin, Audrey Steele. Here’s the address, Ben.’

  ‘I’m on my way, sir.’

  Cooper grabbed his jacket from his chair and tried to straighten his tie. It was best to look professional when meeting law-abiding members of the public.

  ‘One more thing, Ben …’ Hitchens was holding out a sheet torn from a message pad.

  ‘What’s this?’

  ‘Another bit of luck for you. This gentleman is a retired forensic anthropologist with a special interest in Thanatology. Apparently, we’ve consulted him now and then in the past, and he’s been living in this area since his retirement. He’s willing to do a little consultancy work for us at no cost.’

  ‘At no cost? Who says?’

  Hitchens smiled. ‘The vice-chairman of the police committee, who’s a member of the same Rotary Club as Professor Robertson.’

  Cooper took the sheet of paper and looked at the contact details. ‘Is he ACPO accredited?’

  ‘Of course. Give him a try, Ben. He might be exactly the person you need.’

  ‘Yes, I suppose he might.’ And he thought: Especially since he’s free. But he didn’t say it out loud.

  ‘OK then, Ben, that’s it.’

  Cooper was aware that the room had emptied round him, and the DI was impatient to get on. But his father had taught him he should never pretend to understand something when he didn’t. It always led to disaster, he’d said.

  ‘Er … just one thing, sir,’ he said.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘What on earth is Thanatology?’

  Hitchens looked flustered for a moment, then snapped his clipboard shut and headed rapidly towards the door, as if he didn’t have a second to spare for inane questions.

  ‘For heaven’s sake, Cooper – if you don’t know, look it up.’

  As he was getting ready to leave the office, Cooper noticed a book on Gavin Murfin’s desk. Gavin never had books on his desk. Pies and cakes, yes. Chocolate, obviously. Anything edible, in fact. So unless this book was made of iced sponge, it was a historic first.

  Murfin saw him looking. But before he could move the book, Cooper picked it up. Dozens of bits of paper protruded from it, marking specific pages.

  ‘A Promotion Crammer for Sergeants, Part One. I thought there must be some reason why you were suddenly talking like a training manual. What’s going on, Gavin?’

  ‘I’m just trying to improve my performance, like,’ said Murfin.

  ‘Your what?’

  ‘It’s something we should all stop and think about now and then, in my view. If we’re going to make any progress in our careers, that is.’

  Cooper stared at him. ‘But this is a crammer, Gavin – you’re surely not thinking of going for promotion?’

  ‘As a matter of fact, I am.’

  ‘You’re going to put in for your sergeant’s exam? Are you serious?’

  Murfin snatched his book back. ‘Why shouldn’t I? Nobody around here seems to appreciate the depth of my experience. I was in CID when you were still in short pants. I’ve seen it all, I have. So it’s time I shared the benefit of my knowledge and expertise in a supervisory capacity.’

  ‘You’ve been practising your answers for the interview,’ said Cooper in amazement.

  ‘Go ahead, take the piss. I don’t care. One of the advantages of my years of experience is that I remain cool and unflappable, even in the face of extreme provocation.’

  ‘Hold on,’ said Cooper. ‘How many years exactly?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘How many years’ experience, Gavin? How long have you been in CID?’

  Murfin didn’t answer. He opened his crammer and pretended to be studying a page.

  ‘Come on, Gavin – how many years?’

  ‘Eleven,’ said Murfin casually.

  Cooper let out a long breath. ‘Ah. Tenure. That explains everything. You’ve only got a year left, at most. And you don’t want to go back into uniform. Gavin, you’re getting desperate.’

  ‘Do you find the idea of me being promoted to sergeant inconceivable?’

  ‘Well, yes.’

  ‘Thanks a lot.’

  Cooper laughed, then instantly felt guilty – not for laughing at Gavin, but because it didn’t seem right that he should have something to laugh about right now.

  They both looked up as Diane Fry came into the room. Her face was dark with irritation.

  ‘Hey up,’ said Murfin quietly. ‘Are we in for another go at boosting morale?’

  ‘Shh. You’ll just wind up her again,’ said Cooper.

  ‘Well, these team-building exercises are wearing me down, Ben. I’m getting emotionally exhausted from all the love I feel for my colleagues.’

  Fry approached Cooper immediately. ‘Ben, the DI says he’s given you the name of some old professor to talk to.’

  ‘Yes. I’m hoping to see him this afternoon.’

  ‘When you get back, have a word with me, will you? I need to make a judgement on whether he might be of use in another enquiry. So I’ll be interested in your opinion of him.’

  ‘You’re not usually very keen on outside experts, Diane,’ said Cooper.

  ‘Personally, I wouldn’t touch him with a bargepole. But I need a reason to justify my decision not to use him. Follow?’

  ‘You want me to come back and tell you he’s useless, right?’

  ‘Frankly, I expect you to come back and tell me he’s some barmy retired academic who drinks too much and has long hair, a smelly dog and holes in his cardigan, but likes to be visited by nice young police officers. Anything like that will do.’

  As Fry walked off, Murfin pointed at a page in his sergeant’s crammer, marked with a yellow Post-it. ‘“A supervisory officer should always be prepared to justify any decision,”’ he said. ‘See – I could do that.’

  ‘Hey,’ said Cooper, ‘if you’ve been raiding the reference library, did you happen to see that big dictionary?’

  ‘It’s on the shelf over there.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  Cooper lifted the book down and flicked through the pages. There it was – Thanatology: The scientific study of death and the phenomena and practices relating to it. From the Greek Thanatos, meaning death.

  Lovely. His professor was the genuine Dr Death.

  Ellen Walker’s home was a double-fronted stone villa in the middle of a nineteenth-century terrace near the parish church. The very last house in the row had been converted into a shop at some time, but now the shutters were down and there was no sign of what had once been sold. By the look of the
lace curtains at the first-floor windows, somebody still lived in the flat above the shop. A retired greengrocer or ironmonger, perhaps, driven out of business by Tesco or the massive B&Q store on the outskirts of town.

  Through panes of frosted glass in the door of number 15, Cooper had a distorted glimpse into the hallway. All four windows at the front of the house had their blinds pulled down far enough to cover the upper sashes.

  ‘Mrs Walker?’ said Cooper when a middle-aged woman answered the door.

  ‘Are you from the police?’

  ‘Detective Constable Cooper, Mrs Walker.’

  ‘It’s Ellen.’

  ‘Thank you very much for calling us. You understand the circumstances? Why we had the facial reconstruction done?’

  ‘Well, I saw the photograph in the newspaper. My neighbour showed it to me. I didn’t really understand why it was there, but I was fairly sure …’

  ‘Let’s just take a look at it again first, shall we?’

  Cooper didn’t like the sound of ‘fairly sure’. It would be better to let the witness come to her conclusion more slowly.

  Ellen Walker seemed nervous at being visited by the police. It was so refreshing that Cooper forgot for a moment that it was so often a sign of guilt. He looked at the Victorian-style fireplace with its raised slate hearth. Disappointingly, it contained a coal-effect gas fire that had nothing Victorian about it. The windows faced on to the street, but through the kitchen he saw a conservatory leading on to a patio area enclosed by low gritstone walls.

  ‘The newspaper reproduction might not have been of very good quality. This is the original, Ellen. Take your time and have a good look at it. Bear in mind some of the details might not be exactly accurate. The hairstyle, for example.’

  Mrs Walker obediently studied the picture. ‘The hairstyle isn’t too far out, not really.’

  ‘You’re sure it’s your cousin?’

  ‘Fairly sure.’

  Cooper sighed. Fairly sure wasn’t much, but it would have to do for now.

  ‘The other details fit,’ said Mrs Walker. ‘Audrey was forty-two, and an inch or two taller than me.’

  ‘Was Audrey married?’

  ‘For a while. She met a bloke called Carl, who worked offshore on the oil rigs. He was all right, but they drifted apart after a bit. I think he went to Germany after the divorce went through.’

  ‘Would you have his address, if we needed it?’ asked Cooper.

  ‘I expect so.’ Mrs Walker frowned. ‘Audrey and I were always very close, you know. Her mother is Auntie Viv, my mum’s sister. Audrey was my chief bridesmaid when I got married.’

  ‘Excellent. So we could say that you knew her very well.’

  ‘That’s what I said.’

  ‘And when did Audrey Steele go missing?’ said Cooper.

  Ellen Walker stared at him. ‘Missing?’

  ‘When was she last seen? We don’t have her recorded as a missing person. But it seems she must have been missing since at least February or March last year.’

  ‘She isn’t missing. She died.’

  ‘Yes, we know she died,’ said Cooper patiently. ‘We know now that she died. But before anyone knew what had happened to her, she must have been missing.’

  ‘I don’t know what you mean,’ said Ellen Walker nervously. ‘Audrey died. She had a brain haemorrhage and died.’

  Now it was Cooper’s turn to stare. ‘How do you know what she died of?’

  ‘It was on the death certificate.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Her mother will have it put away somewhere, if you want to see it.’

  With an effort, Cooper tried to focus his thoughts and figure out what Mrs Walker was telling him. ‘We are talking about Audrey Steele?’

  ‘Yes, of course.’

  ‘Ellen, when did your cousin die exactly?’

  ‘The second week of March last year. She was cremated at Edendale. An awful day, it was, too. It sleeted all afternoon.’ Ellen Walker shivered at the memory. ‘There’s nothing worse than sleet, is there? It makes you feel cold and damp right through to the bones.’

  10

  Liz Petty was already waiting in the DI’s office when Fry entered. She looked cheerful, as though she might have good news to share. But Fry watched her uncertainly as she took a chair. SOCOs were civilians, and therefore unpredictable, in her view.

  ‘We’ve had an initial technical analysis of the two phone calls,’ said Petty. ‘I thought you’d be interested in what we’ve come up with.’

  DI Hitchens turned and raised an eyebrow at Fry. ‘Was there anything interesting in the background?’ ‘The background noise has been enhanced. Technical Support say they need a bit more time to work on it, but they’ve sent a few notes through, in case they’re any use.’

  ‘Anything might help us at this moment.’

  Petty tugged at her sweater and fiddled with her hair as she looked down at the papers she’d brought. Watching her closely, Fry was reminded of some of the suspects she’d interviewed over the years, who gave away their nervousness with little mannerisms. After all, Petty couldn’t really care all that much about how she looked at work. That navy blue sweater worn by scenes of crime officers wasn’t intended to be flattering – though it looked better on Liz Petty than on some of her middle-aged male colleagues.

  ‘I’ll try not to take up too much of your time,’ said Petty, and handed round copies of the analysis.

  Fry took the copy she was offered. She saw references to traffic noise, bird song, a barking dog. And there was a puzzling reference to a loud, echoey voice, like someone shouting in the background, but inside a building – and not really shouting as such.

  ‘Do the boys in Technical Support never go to church?’ she said.

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘The shouting they refer to would be the eulogy for the deceased councillor, delivered by the vicar from his pulpit. That means the funeral service had already started when the call was made.’

  ‘It has to give us a better chance of identifying him, if we decide to follow that route,’ said Hitchens.

  Fry sighed as she recognized one of the phrases the DI used to avoid commitment.

  ‘They’ve done well to bring out that amount of detail from the tape,’ she said. ‘I didn’t notice any of it. The quality of the recording is too poor.’

  ‘But how is he disguising his voice?’ asked Hitchens. ‘Don’t you need special electronic equipment to do that? How did he manage it in a public phone box?’

  ‘I’m coming to that,’ said Petty. ‘Technology makes it a lot easier these days. He used a telephone voice changer. Probably something like this –’

  She produced a tiny aluminium device no bigger than a pocket watch, with a couple of buttons on top. It looked almost like a miniature computer mouse.

  ‘This is a voice changer?’ asked Hitchens sceptically.

  ‘It has six voices to choose from. You select the one you want by using the button on the casing. Then you simply hold it over the telephone mouthpiece and speak into the microphone on the top. There are more sophisticated devices on the market, but for most ordinary purposes this is sufficient. You can pick one up for less than twenty pounds on the internet.’

  ‘It’s easily small enough to carry in a pocket,’ said Hitchens.

  ‘Certainly. There’s even a little chain, so you can attach it to a key-ring.’

  ‘And most people would take it for a garage door remote.’

  Petty laid two small handheld dictation machines on the table. ‘This one has a tape of the original phone call in it,’ she said, pressing a button. A familiar voice filled the silence, metallic and vibrating with artificial echoes.

  Soon there will be a killing. It might happen in the next few hours.

  ‘That’s enough, I think. Now listen to the second recording. I borrowed this from one of my colleagues.’

  She pressed the ‘play’ button on the second machine.

  Soon there will
be a killing. It might happen in the next few hours.

  ‘What do you think?’ she said, turning it off.

  ‘They sounded identical.’

  ‘If we’d recorded a longer piece, you would probably have noticed the difference. Actually, the second voice was mine.’

  ‘You’re kidding.’

  Petty held up the voice changer again. ‘It was pretty close, wasn’t it?’

  ‘Close? It was uncanny.’

  Petty passed the voice changer round.

  ‘How is it powered?’ said Fry.

  ‘An ordinary three-volt lithium button cell battery, exactly the same as you might use in an electronic keyfob or a watch. I can’t confirm the battery life yet, but the manufacturer says an hour. More than enough for the calls made so far, anyway.’

  ‘So we can’t even hope that he’s going to run out of batteries,’ said Hitchens.

  But Petty just smiled as she put away her dictation machines.

  ‘I think there was a particular reason you recorded the trial message yourself, Liz,’ said Fry. ‘You wanted to make the point that our caller could be a woman, didn’t you?’

  ‘I’m afraid so. We wouldn’t want to start out with closed minds, would we?’

  Ben Cooper leaned back on his desk, wondering when it would be reasonable to phone the hospital again. He’d only just come in, and was waiting for Fry to finish talking to the two support officers. It looked as though she was making sure they knew who was boss.

  ‘Well, keep trying, Ben,’ she said when he explained the outcome of his visit to Ellen Walker. ‘You’ll get a better result, given time.’

  ‘You think so, Diane?’

  ‘Mrs Walker was obviously misled by a superficial resemblance. These facial reconstructions are an art, not a science – no matter what the experts might try to tell you. It doesn’t matter whether they’re done by hand or on a computer. A lot of it is guesswork.’

  ‘Yes, as a matter of fact, that’s exactly what –’

  ‘So it’s hardly surprising that you’ll get a false hit now and then. Just put it down to experience. And, like I say, keep trying.’