05.One Last Breath Page 24

  ‘So you parted ways with your friends in Derby?’

  Thorpe hesitated. ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Was there some kind of problem?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘It would be understandable if they were unhappy with your decision. Did they go ahead on the shop idea without you?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Mr Thorpe, we do have the address you gave in Derby at the time, so we can always go and ask them.’

  Thorpe shook his head. ‘I left, that was all. I got on a bus and came back here. I knew there’d be plenty of places I could sleep and not be worried about people getting up close to me like they did in the city.’

  ‘OK. And then what?’

  ‘And then nothing,’ said Thorpe. ‘That’s pretty much my life. I’m just hanging around waiting for it to finish. I’ll be glad when it’s over, to be honest.’

  ‘Where were you sleeping rough before Raymond Proctor let you use one of his caravans?’

  ‘Bus shelters are a good place. No one uses them after the buses stop running at night. And around here, field barns. A lot of them are abandoned now.’

  ‘But you did decide to look up other old friends, didn’t you?’ said Fry.

  ‘What?’

  ‘I’m sure that’s what I would do, in the circumstances.’

  Now Thorpe had started to look uncomfortable. ‘What old friends?’

  ‘There must be some that you’d like to tell us about.’

  Thorpe could sense that they had reached dangerous ground. His eyes flickered to the door of the interview room.

  Fry didn’t need to look at her file for the next question.

  ‘For example,’ she said, ‘in April you visited your old friend Mansell Quinn. Twice.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘Now, that might be something that you would forget about, Mr Thorpe, given the exciting and varied life that you’ve led. But I imagine those two visits were very memorable indeed to your friend Quinn. After all, you were the first person to visit him in years.’

  ‘That’s what people do,’ said Thorpe. ‘Visit old friends. If you’re really nice to me, I’ll even visit you in prison, when you get sent down for harassing innocent citizens.’

  ‘That’s very kind of you. I’m sure it would make it all worthwhile. If I ever found an innocent citizen to harass.’

  ‘Ha, ha.’

  ‘Mansell Quinn,’ said Cooper, ‘what was the purpose of your visit to him in prison?’

  ‘To say “hi”. To see how he was keeping. To take him a birthday present. For God’s sake, I hadn’t seen the bloke for years.’

  ‘OK,’ said Fry. ‘You went the first time to say “hi”. You saw how he was. So what about the second visit? Was his birthday present the wrong size? Maybe he wanted you to change it for him?’

  ‘Get lost.’

  ‘You see, Mr Thorpe, we think that your friend Mansell Quinn asked you to do something for him.’

  Thorpe began to cough, and suddenly looked weaker.

  ‘And what if he did?’

  ‘We think that you gave him some addresses.’

  ‘There was no harm in that.’

  ‘No harm?’

  ‘Well, no.’

  Cooper looked at Fry, who raised her shoulders in a gesture that said: ‘He’s nuts’ or possibly, ‘Don’t ask me, I can’t make sense of this either.’

  Thorpe was watching their faces. He was starting to look puzzled, too.

  ‘It was only some addresses, so that Mansell could get ready for coming out. He said the prison and the probation wouldn’t give him any information.’

  ‘Mr Thorpe, where have you been living for the past few days?’

  ‘What’s that got to do with it?’

  He was even more confused now. Cautiously, Thorpe looked from Fry to Cooper, sensing that there was something he didn’t know. Something bad. The anxiety was plain on his face. And they could hear the wheezing in his chest as his breathing grew laboured.

  ‘I told him,’ he said. ‘I told Mansell that people who’ve made a new life should be left alone and allowed to get on with it.’

  ‘He didn’t take much notice, then.’

  ‘What’s happened?’ said Thorpe.

  Fry didn’t answer the question directly. ‘Mr Thorpe, did you give Mansell Quinn his wife’s new address?’

  ‘OK, I did.’

  ‘And are you telling us that you don’t know why Quinn wanted her address?’

  Thorpe stared at Fry, slowly trying to work out the implications. ‘Rebecca? What’s happened to her?’

  ‘Rebecca Lowe is dead, Mr Thorpe. She was killed.’

  Thorpe shook his head, denying the conclusion he’d come to.

  ‘Who killed her?’

  But no one answered that. And the question hung in the air of the interview room like the sound of William Thorpe’s breathing as he gasped to force oxygen into his damaged lungs. Several drunks had been brought into the custody suite an hour before. They were waiting for the doctor to examine them for any medical problems, or for injuries they might have sustained while being arrested. A pool of urine was running under the door of one of the cells into the passage. One of the drunks either couldn’t find the lavatory, or was doing it deliberately.

  ‘I’ll have to translate for the doctor when she arrives, too,’ said the custody sergeant.

  ‘Why? Are the drunks foreign?’

  ‘No, but the doctor we have on duty today is a bit middle-aged and middle class, if you know what I mean. If a prisoner is under twenty-five, she has no idea what they’re on about, even when they’re sober. Especially if they start telling her the street names for the drugs they’re on.’

  Cooper could hear the doctor now, talking to a prisoner. Her voice was loud enough to carry down the passage.

  ‘Are you injecting? Which part of your body are you using?’

  ‘Here.’

  ‘Your groin. That’s your groin you’re pointing at. Well, I can see why you’re not using your arms any more. There’s nothing left of them, is there?’

  The custody sergeant gave a despairing shrug that involved his whole body.

  ‘We haven’t been able to find any accommodation for your Mr Thorpe,’ he said. ‘There aren’t many places round here, as you know, and they’re all full.’

  ‘We can’t just turn him out on to the streets again,’ said Cooper.

  ‘We can’t keep him here either. Unless you’re thinking of charging him with something.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Well, we’re running out of options. I wanted to get the doctor to take a look at him, because he’s obviously ill. But Thorpe won’t have it, and I can’t force him. He knows perfectly well he’d end up in a hospital.’

  ‘Wait a minute,’ said Cooper. ‘I know someone who might take Mr Thorpe in for a while.’

  ‘Do you? He says his only relative is his father, who doesn’t want to know him.’

  ‘No, not his father. A friend who’s taken him in before.’

  ‘I’ll leave it with you for a bit, then,’ said the sergeant. ‘But he’ll have to be out of here before long, mind.’

  Cooper held the phone to his ear with one hand while he tried to sort out the paperwork on his desk with the other. He had a system of wire trays that were supposed to help him keep order. But he didn’t really need the ‘in’ and ‘out’ trays. Just one very large one marked ‘pending’ would have been enough.

  ‘No,’ said the voice at the other end of the line.

  ‘Mr Proctor, I hope you’ll reconsider,’ said Cooper. ‘You said you couldn’t let Will Thorpe stay there in the summer because the site fills up with paying customers, but those old caravans are just standing empty. What would be the problem in letting Mr Thorpe stay in one of those for a while longer?’

  ‘I don’t see why I should,’ said Proctor. ‘He’s not my responsibility.’

  ‘He has nowhere else to go. He’ll be out on the streets again very soon,
and he might be at risk.’

  ‘You know he caused trouble with my customers when he was here before?’

  ‘Yes, but this will only be for a night or two, until we can find somewhere more permanent.’

  Proctor was silent for a moment. ‘Does Will know about Mansell Quinn and all that?’

  ‘Yes, we’ve told him exactly what we told you.’

  ‘Are you sure there’s nowhere else he can go? There must be hostels.’

  ‘They’re full at the moment.’

  ‘Or there’s his father. He lives just over the pass, in Peak Forest.’

  ‘His father won’t have anything to do with him. Apparently, they haven’t spoken for years.’

  ‘The old man’s a miserable bugger. I met him once.’

  ‘So …?’

  Proctor sighed. ‘I suppose I’ll have to come and fetch him myself, too?’

  ‘We’ll be happy to deliver him to your door, sir.’

  ‘Well, that’s something.’

  ‘Thank you for your assistance, Mr Proctor. I’m sure Mr Thorpe will appreciate it.’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ said Proctor. ‘I’m sure he will.’

  Cooper waited with William Thorpe while a car was arranged to take him back to Wingate Lees. The death of Rebecca Lowe had clearly come as a shock to him. He, for one, hadn’t been reading the papers or catching the news on TV. Mansell Quinn might be relying on there being more people like Thorpe, who weren’t watching out for him in the Hope Valley.

  ‘Mr Thorpe, how well did you know Carol Proctor?’ asked Cooper.

  ‘Carol? Not as well as Mansell did.’

  ‘How would you describe her marriage to Raymond Proctor?’

  Thorpe coughed. ‘I think she found Ray a bit boring. She was much more adventurous than he was. If you ask me, it was one of those marriages where they only found out what a bad match they were when it was too late.’

  ‘Adventurous?’ said Cooper.

  ‘Yeah. From what people used to say about her, anyway. She had a reputation from being a teenager, and I don’t suppose she changed very much.’

  ‘Would you care to expand on that a bit?’

  ‘Let’s just say,’ said Thorpe, ‘that she didn’t care for the same diet all the time. She liked to try out spicier food now and then. If you know what I mean.’

  ‘Like Mansell Quinn?’

  ‘Mansell? I suppose you might call him spicy.’

  Thorpe laughed his rattling laugh, but soon became breathless.

  ‘Are you sure we can’t get a doctor to look at you while you’re here?’ said Cooper.

  ‘No,’ said Thorpe firmly. ‘Just bring this car and let me get away from here. That’s all I want to do.’

  Cooper went to the door to look for the car. He noticed the cement dust still on the knees of his trousers, and brushed it off. He thought about the curious relationship between the three men – Mansell Quinn, William Thorpe and Raymond Proctor. The army provided a link between Quinn and Thorpe, and that might go some way towards explaining their bond. For whatever reason, Thorpe had felt an obligation to Quinn and had done him a favour when he was approaching the end of his prison term.

  Of course, Raymond Proctor had felt some obligation to William Thorpe, in his turn. He’d put Thorpe up at his caravan park for a while when he needed somewhere to stay. And Proctor hadn’t been in the army, so it couldn’t have been due to comradeship among ex-soldiers. Did the origins of the obligation go back to the events of 1990, or beyond?

  Cooper turned to look at Thorpe. The most interesting fact in this three-cornered relationship was the absence of any similar bond between Quinn and Proctor. It was understandable in the circumstances, he supposed. Proctor believed that Quinn had killed his wife, after years of carrying on an affair with her.

  Curiously, it seemed that Will Thorpe had been the one to feel guilty. But guilt could make people act in strange ways. Thorpe had felt under some obligation to Quinn, certainly. But he feared him, too.

  A patrol car pulled up near the door at last, and he signalled to Thorpe. He watched the man get to his feet, looking thin and tired. Cooper knew that fear and anger were simple emotions, easy to understand. Guilt was far more difficult.

  25

  Somebody had managed to open one of the big sash windows in the CID room. No breeze came in, only waves of humidity. But at least when the phones stopped ringing for a while, they could hear the sound of children playing in the gardens on West Street, a snatch of music from somebody’s radio, and the tune of an ice-cream van. They were sounds that suggested normal people enjoying themselves, out there in the real world.

  Ben Cooper had so far failed to track down a copy of Death Underground. The library didn’t have it, and the local branch of Ottakar’s didn’t have it, but had offered to get one on special order within a few weeks. It was a shame that the only worthwhile secondhand bookshop in town had closed a few months ago when its owner died; the place had been a treasure trove of hard-to-find books on specialized subjects.

  Thinking about specialists, he decided to phone the company that ran Peak and Speedwell Caverns. They told him that Alistair Page was his best bet, and promised to give him a message. Within half an hour, Page rang back.

  ‘Yes, I’ve got a copy of that at home,’ he said. ‘It’s fairly old, though. I can suggest something much more up to date.’

  ‘No, that’s the one I want. Can I borrow it?’ said Cooper.

  ‘Of course. But it’ll be a day or two before I can get into Edendale.’

  ‘Don’t worry about that, I’ll pick it up. Will you be home tonight?’

  ‘Yes, that’s fine. You know where it is, don’t you? Rock Cottage.’

  Cooper put the phone down. At least that was something achieved today.

  ‘Ben, did Will Thorpe get away all right?’ called Diane Fry, without lifting her head from her desk.

  ‘Yes, Diane.’

  ‘It’s a pity we couldn’t keep him in custody.’

  ‘He hasn’t done anything,’ said Cooper.

  Fry looked sceptical. ‘I’m convinced he knows a lot more about Mansell Quinn than he’s telling. If that’s the case, we could have him on a charge of withholding information.’

  ‘That won’t worry Thorpe very much.’

  ‘Well, at least we know where he is now. We can have another go at him tomorrow – it’ll give us time to put a strategy together.’

  ‘A strategy?’

  ‘An interview strategy. We need something to use against him, some detail from his background that would make him open up.’

  A large red-and-black butterfly came in through the open window. It flapped madly across the office ceiling, found itself caught in the draught from Fry’s fan, and came down again suddenly. It fluttered so close to Cooper’s face that he could feel the waft of its wings and hear its quiet flapping. Then it left him and headed back to Fry’s desk, perhaps mistaking the movement of the fan for the outside air. Fry picked up a file and swatted at it, missing by a mile.

  ‘What are you doing?’ said Cooper. ‘It won’t harm you. It’s only a Red Admiral.’

  ‘It should get back to the sea, then,’ said Fry.

  Cooper got up from his desk and followed the butterfly around the room until it came within reach. He cupped his hands around it gently, feeling its wing-tips tickling his fingers for a moment before became still.

  ‘Hey up, Ben’s made an arrest,’ said Gavin Murfin. ‘Do you want the handcuffs, Ben?’

  ‘Have you nothing better to do?’ said Fry, without looking up.

  ‘It won’t take a minute.’

  ‘Ben doesn’t like killing anything,’ said Murfin. ‘This is the man who rescues wasps and puts them out of the window.’

  ‘You’re joking? Wasps are on pretty high on my extermination list.’

  ‘That’s quite a long list, I bet.’

  ‘Could be. Do you want to know where you come on there, Gavin?’

  ‘As long as i
t’s below wasps, I’m happy.’

  Fry didn’t say anything.

  ‘Or at least, not too many places above them,’ said Murfin.

  Before he could get to the window to release the butterfly, Cooper’s phone rang.

  ‘Damn.’

  ‘Don’t worry, I’ll get it,’ said Murfin. ‘You’re on prisoner duty.’

  Cooper nodded his thanks, and edged his way around the desks while Murfin reached over for his phone. He was careful not to bring his palms any closer together, for fear of wiping the golden dust from the insect’s wings. His grandfather had told him that wiping the dust off a butterfly’s wings prevented it from flying.

  As he arrived at the window, he was half-listening to Murfin’s voice and smiling at his colleague’s telephone manner, which Murfin claimed charmed the old ladies who rang up to complain.

  Cooper reached out of the window before opening his cupped hands. He watched the Red Admiral hesitate for a moment, resting on his palms. But then it unfolded its wings, flashed its red-and-black pattern in the sunlight, and fluttered away into the warm air.

  Satisfied, Cooper turned back to the office and became aware of the silence. Murfin was standing waiting for him, holding the phone out with his hand over the mouthpiece.

  ‘It’s Mr Thorpe,’ he said. ‘William Thorpe’s father.’

  Cooper took the phone. Fry went to the window and closed the sash with a thud that hurt his ears.

  To reach Rakelow House, Cooper had climbed the 1:4 gradient of Winnats Pass out of Castleton, crawling behind a couple of cars whose drivers didn’t know how to handle the gears on a steep hill.

  Like many Pennine farms, Rakelow lay sheltered just below the level of the road, with only its roof line visible to passing motorists. From the roadside, it would be possible to toss a stone down its chimney. A glass porch had been built some years ago to keep the weather from the back door, which of course was the entrance that everyone used. Inside the porch, Cooper could see a tabby cat lying on a shelf among a few pots of cactus.

  This was typical hill-farming land – poor, steep and half of it in shade except for a few months of the summer. A large wooden building next to the farmhouse might at one time have doubled as a barn and cattle shed, but it had been allowed to decay beyond repair. The roof was mostly gone, and fallen timbers lay in a heap under the back wall. Wooden buildings weren’t worth a lot. They needed too much maintenance, and no one was interested in converting them as long as there were stone barns left to be bought.