The Murder Road: A Cooper & Fry Mystery Read online

  Cooper understood Luke Irvine’s bafflement. Until you got right up to it, the turning was concealed by the corner of a converted barn. There were no road signs, none of the usual chevrons indicating a bend, which appeared on every other road in the Peak District that Cooper had travelled on, even where the bend was much less sharp than this one. Presumably, even the highways authority didn’t expect anyone to be driving past this point who didn’t already know about the bend. The wall of the property facing him gave the impression of a dead end. You would only take this turning if you knew where you were going. Otherwise it was a leap into the unknown and a risky one at that.

  Cooper stood on the bend and looked at the houses, wondering whether any of the residents were inside, looking back at him. He watched for the twitch of a curtain, or a shadow moving against the light behind a window. But he saw nothing. He could hear no sounds either, except the faint murmur of voices from the officers working down at the bridge. The hamlet itself was eerily silent, as if he’d already stepped into that unknown world. A breeze blew downhill and whistled round the corner, making him shiver suddenly.

  So this was Shawhead. Only one road in and one road out. And they really didn’t want you coming here in the first place.

  Cooper turned as he heard the distinctive sound of a helicopter approaching. He was relieved to see it was G-NMID, the air support unit from Ripley. They would sweep the area around the bridge and out into the fields around Shawhead. The helicopter represented his best hope of locating the missing driver quickly. But only if he was out there in the open.

  ‘We need to make sure no one has seen the driver, Malcolm Kelsey,’ said Cooper. ‘Ask the residents to check their property – all those outbuildings, look. We can’t do that ourselves. We don’t have the manpower.’

  ‘So we’re relying on the help of the public?’ said Sharma.

  ‘Don’t we always?’

  Sharma looked as though he might have a contradictory opinion, but he kept his mouth closed.

  ‘Don’t forget to ask if anyone heard bleeping noises,’ he said. ‘The reversing bleeper on the truck. If anyone heard it, that would indicate whether the driver tried to reverse out from under the bridge, or just stayed where he was when he got stuck.’

  ‘Okay,’ said Irvine.

  Cooper took a deep breath. He would have to put his new detective sergeant in charge of a team. He knew nothing about Sharma, but that was part of a DS’s job and he had to be trusted from the outset. Sharma must be sufficiently experienced to have reached his rank and he couldn’t be treated like a trainee.

  Instead Cooper decided to take Carol Villiers with him in Shawhead. He didn’t know what he was going to say to her, but he owed her an explanation of some kind.

  ‘DS Sharma, if you and DC Irvine could visit these properties. We’ll . . .’

  He looked at Villiers hesitantly.

  ‘What will we do?’ she said.

  ‘We’ll see what’s further up the road. We’ll go round the bend.’

  ‘I can’t wait.’

  ‘Oh, and the sheep,’ said Cooper as the team began to disperse. ‘Ask them about the sheep.’

  Left alone with Sharma, Luke Irvine studied his new DS, not sure how to proceed. A sergeant ought to be taking the lead, giving instructions. But Irvine felt as though he should make the first move.

  ‘Higher Fold Farm,’ he said, pointing at a sign on the wall.

  ‘Yes, I can see it,’ said Sharma.

  Irvine felt himself flush, wondering if he’d already started out on the wrong foot.

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘Luke, isn’t it? Would you like to do the talking?’

  Well, that sounded genuine enough.

  ‘Fine, if you like.’

  They were welcomed into the farmhouse by an elderly lady with white hair, who introduced herself as Mrs Swindells. Irvine assumed she must be the mother of the farmer who’d been glowering at them near the scene at the bridge. She was just as broad as he was, but not as tall. She was wrapped in a thick woollen cardigan over a padded body warmer, which made her look as though she was wearing a life jacket and was about to jump off a sinking ship.

  ‘Can I ask your first name, Mrs Swindells?’ said Irvine.

  To his surprise, she almost simpered at him as she replied. ‘Doris. And what about you, young man?’

  ‘Oh. Luke,’ he said.

  ‘That’s a nice name. Biblical, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes.’

  The old lady looked closely at Dev Sharma, narrowing her eyes slightly. Irvine wondered what she was thinking. He couldn’t read her expression, but he knew there was a good chance she might say something inappropriate at any moment. It was what old people did. They’d been brought up in a different era, when you could say those things and no one batted an eyelid.

  But she made no comment, instead ushering them into an old-fashioned sitting room and shuffling off into the kitchen. Irvine and Sharma sat awkwardly on an uncomfortable settee for a few minutes until she returned, bringing tea and a plate of cake. Irvine’s interest perked up. The cake looked home-made. Without Gavin Murfin here, he might get some to himself.

  ‘I see it all from here,’ said Mrs Swindells when she’d settled into a well-used armchair. ‘Not that there’s much to see in this place. I’d rather be living in New Mills. Or better still, somewhere nice in Manchester. Didsbury or Chorlton perhaps.’

  ‘Didn’t you grow up living in the country?’ asked Irvine.

  ‘Yes, of course I did. But there comes a point in your life when you want something different. It was all right when I was busy all the time, helping to keep the farm running. You don’t have time to stop and think about anything then. But now . . . well, I have nothing to do now, except die of boredom.’

  ‘Your son,’ said Irvine.

  ‘Grant. He has to do everything himself now, so I hardly see him. He comes in for a meal at night, then he falls asleep.’

  ‘Has he never married?’

  The old lady smiled a small, bitter smile. Suddenly, she didn’t look quite so benign and unthreatening to Irvine.

  ‘Oh, yes,’ she said. ‘He was married all right. A big wedding, it was too. Her parents weren’t around, so we ended up paying for most of it.’

  ‘We?’

  ‘Me and my husband Bill. He was alive then. He died of a heart attack eighteen months later. It was a blessing really. It would have broken his heart to see what happened.’

  Irvine glanced at Sharma, but they both knew it was the wrong moment to interrupt or ask any questions. The old lady was going to tell them anyway.

  ‘She divorced him,’ said Mrs Swindells. ‘Two years after they were married. Two years. What sort of marriage is that? She said she couldn’t cope with being a farmer’s wife. But she must have known what she was letting herself in for when she agreed to wed him. I reckon she just wanted the wedding, not the marriage. That’s the way girls are these days. They dream of being the centre of attention for a day, with the dress and the flowers, and the bridesmaids and all that. When it’s all over the rest is a big disappointment. They can’t deal with real life. Grant was devastated, of course. I don’t think he’s ever got over it. He probably never will.’

  She paused and Irvine allowed her a second or two of silence before he asked the next question.

  ‘And children?’

  Mrs Swindells shook her head. ‘Children would have been nice. But there was never any sign of her getting pregnant. And there’s no hope of that now. Have you seen him, my son? He’s hardly anyone’s idea of a catch any more.’

  ‘Well—’

  She ignored him as if he hadn’t spoken.

  ‘So I sit here,’ she said, ‘and I watch the empty road most of the day, hoping for something to happen. And when it goes dark, I turn on the telly and I watch repeats of Midsomer Murders.’

  Around the corner at Shaw Farm, Ben Cooper and Carol Villiers had disturbed a young man who was tinkering inside the en
gine of a John Deere tractor. He was wearing green overalls and a radio was playing in the workshop. He didn’t hear them coming until they were halfway across the yard.

  ‘Oh. Are you looking for someone?’ he said, wiping his hands on a rag.

  Cooper identified himself and the young man stared at his warrant card.

  ‘I’m Nick,’ he said.

  ‘You live here?’

  ‘Yes.’

  The young man looked a bit nervous, or hesitant.

  Cooper was about to ask him if his parents were home, but an older man was already coming round the side of the farmhouse. Perhaps he’d heard voices in the yard. Unfamiliar voices, which meant visitors. A rarity in Shawhead probably.

  ‘Jack Lawson. You’ve met Nick,’ he said when he found out who they were. ‘I’m glad you’re taking this business seriously. It could cause us a real headache if it goes on much longer.’

  Lawson was a tall, slender man with a full beard, greying to match his slightly unkempt hair. He had that angular look of a man who might have been bigger once but had lost weight dramatically. An illness perhaps. It must certainly have been something to do with his health. He didn’t look like a man who would be too concerned about his appearance. His eyes were green and had a tendency to stare as if he was short-sighted but couldn’t be bothered wearing glasses. When he walked, he showed signs of a slight limp.

  Cooper glanced round at the buildings, wondering what they produced here. Arable or livestock? It was difficult to tell.

  For a start the yard was full of vehicles. A Range Rover, a grey Fiat Panda, the tractor Nick had been working on. But there were several other vehicles, crammed in so tightly together that it would take hours to move them out. Not that most of them would be moving ever again. A couple of classic American cars had sunk on to their hubs, their rusted wings flaking into the grass. A white Transit van had been partially dismantled and its side panels removed. Its interior struts lay exposed like the skeleton of a beached whale.

  ‘How’s the farming business?’ he asked casually.

  ‘Difficult,’ said Lawson.

  He didn’t bother to expand. Cooper expected the usual complaints about feed prices and the weather, but they didn’t come. Jack Lawson was clearly a man of few words if he could resist the opportunity to grumble.

  ‘We’re into sheep mostly,’ he said when Cooper waited for more. ‘And a small suckler herd.’

  Cooper nodded. Lawson stood with his hands on his hips, his legs planted firmly in a pair of ill-fitting blue jeans. The denim was stained with oil and streaked with something bright green – raddle perhaps, or the dye used for marking sheep. It was obvious from his stance that they weren’t going to be invited in to the house. Any conversation would take place out here in the yard. It might not be deliberately rude and Cooper knew he shouldn’t take it personally. It probably came naturally to Mr Lawson, the way it did to a lot of other people in this area.

  Villiers took her cue from Cooper’s discreet nod. She had a print-out of the residents in Shawhead and their addresses, ready to be ticked off when they’d been spoken to.

  ‘When did you become aware of the lorry that got stuck under the bridge, Mr Lawson?’ she asked.

  ‘Only this morning,’ he said. ‘With all the activity down there. We’re a bit out of the way here, but I saw the flashing lights when I went out to feed the sheep early on. I could see something was up. Then I noticed the lorry under the bridge. Driver missing, is he? That’s a bit of a turn-up.’

  ‘Who told you he was missing?’ asked Villiers.

  Lawson jerked his head towards the lower part of Shawhead. ‘Grant Swindells, down there. Of course, he’d been nosing about and found out whatever he could. Making a nuisance of himself, I suppose?’

  ‘Have you spoken to anyone else here about it?’

  ‘We don’t really talk to people here much. I know it’s a really small place, but it’s not one of those tight-knit communities you hear about.’

  ‘What about your neighbours across the road?’ Villiers consulted her list. ‘The Durkins?’

  ‘The ones with the goats and pigs? They’re a bit hippy for us.’

  ‘Do you happen to know the driver of the lorry?’ asked Villiers.

  Lawson frowned. ‘Why would I?’

  ‘He was delivering animal feed.’

  ‘What firm?’

  ‘Windmill Feed Solutions.’

  ‘Never heard of them.’

  ‘The driver’s name is Malcolm Kelsey.’

  Lawson shook his head. ‘Sorry.’

  ‘And we’re asking everyone to check their outbuildings,’ said Cooper. ‘If you could please look in every nook and cranny where someone might be hiding.’

  ‘Hiding? Aren’t you looking for a lorry driver? Why should he be hiding somewhere?’

  Cooper didn’t know why he’d said ‘hiding’. It was just a word that had popped into his mouth, an image in his head of an injured man sheltering in a dark corner. He had no idea where it came from. It didn’t really make sense in the circumstances, did it?

  ‘Perhaps I should have said “might be sheltering”,’ he said.

  Lawson looked at him curiously. ‘Is there more to this than meets the eye?’ he asked.

  Cooper smiled, but didn’t answer. In his experience there was usually more to everything than met the eye.

  ‘I’ll mention it to Mum too,’ said Nick.

  Lawson nodded. ‘Yes, Sarah is the one who remembers things around here.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  They left a card and turned to leave. But Cooper stopped just before they reached the gate.

  ‘Oh, Nick,’ he said.

  The young man straightened up in surprise. ‘Yes?’

  ‘Can I ask how old you are?’

  ‘Eighteen. I’ll be nineteen in March. I left school last summer.’

  ‘Are you registered to vote?’

  Nick’s mouth fell open.

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘I haven’t bothered. Not yet anyway.’

  ‘Not interested in using your right to vote?’

  ‘It hardly seems worth the bother,’ said Nick. ‘Politics is such a turn-off.’

  A lot of young people seemed to feel like that. You had no real voice, your vote didn’t make any difference, politicians were all the same. It was a shame. If they all registered and voted, young people could actually make a difference together.

  ‘Why do you ask?’ said Nick.

  ‘Oh, I just noticed that you weren’t on the electoral register,’ said Cooper, waving his copy of the list Villiers had given him. ‘Do you know the electoral register? It lists the names of all the adults registered to vote and their addresses. I can see you’re not on it.’

  ‘Right.’ Nick wiped his hands on the rag again, though he hadn’t touched anything yet. ‘Well, I might get round to it one day.’

  ‘It’s up to you,’ said Cooper. ‘See you later.’

  He could feel Jack Lawson’s eyes on him as they walked back to the road. Lawson had tensed when he asked the question about the electoral register, which was interesting. His list was hardly a threatening document, on the face of it.

  ‘What was all that about registering to vote?’ asked Villiers when they were out of earshot.

  ‘Just an innocent question,’ said Cooper. ‘Don’t you agree that young people ought to be interested in voting when they reach eighteen.’

  ‘That wasn’t it. I know you, Ben – and you’re looking smug about something.’

  Cooper laughed. ‘You produced the list yourself, Carol. As you said, there are ten adults on it. One of them is Zoe Hibbert at Shawhead Cottages, who’s nineteen years old. She’s on the electoral register here in Shawhead, even though she’s away at university in Birmingham. I’m guessing her parents automatically entered her on the registration form when it came round. She could vote here if she’s home during an election, or she could register in Birmingham as well and vote there.’

  �
��So?’

  ‘Well, the rest is just counting,’ said Cooper. ‘Do the maths.’

  ‘Ten adults,’ said Villiers. ‘Three at the Hibberts, the two Schofields, Mr Swindells and his mother, the two Durkins, and—’

  ‘Just one at the Lawsons,’ said Cooper. ‘Jack Lawson is on the list on his own. The electoral register shows only one resident at Shaw Farm.’

  8

  Luke Irvine opened a gate and walked up a path through a neat garden to knock on the next front door. After a visit to the Hibberts at Shawhead Cottages, the remaining address in Shawhead was Top Barn and the people were called Schofield.

  He didn’t need to read the name to guess that it was a barn conversion. You could tell by the shape of the house. It was a long building and new windows had been inserted into the walls, which probably had no windows at all at one time, or just holes for ventilation.

  It puzzled Irvine that people were so keen to live in a property like this. It was the same in the village he lived in. There was always pressure for disused farm buildings to be converted into residential use. There were plenty of perfectly nice houses to live in available without creating something like this. It must be very expensive, and inconvenient.

  ‘A barn conversion,’ said Sharma.

  ‘Yes, I can see that.’

  Irvine rang the bell, then rapped on the imitation brass knocker. It was a stable-type front door. And that didn’t make any sense either, since it had been a barn, not a stable.

  ‘No one’s home,’ said Irvine.

  He peered through a window into an enormously long sitting room, which ran right into a dining area and a kitchen at the far end. Most of the light came from French windows looking southwards into the back garden.

  ‘If no one’s at home, we need to check their garden and outbuildings ourselves,’ said Sharma.

  ‘Fine.’

  Irvine and Sharma walked round outside of the house together. All the doors and windows were secure and there were no signs of a forced entry. Why anyone should have broken into Top Barn recently, Irvine couldn’t imagine, but Sharma seemed insistent on checking. Did his new DS think the missing lorry driver had decided to turn burglar while he was in Shawhead?