Secrets of Death Read online

  ‘You know, my mother always used to say it was caused by the weather,’ said Cooper as he and Villiers sat in his Toyota in the West Street car park.

  ‘What was?’

  ‘Suicide. It was an old belief, I think – that the cold and rain, and the long nights of winter, were what led people to get depressed and want to kill themselves. The weather of our souls reflects the weather of the skies.’

  ‘Is that what she said?’

  ‘It was something like that.’

  ‘She was quite a wise woman, your mother,’ said Villiers. ‘I think I remember her. Or I remember people talking about her anyway.’

  ‘Wise woman? You make her sound like the local witch.’

  ‘No, not that. But she was full of local lore, wasn’t she? Everyone used to quote her, just as you did now.’

  Cooper nodded. ‘You’re right, Carol. I don’t know where she got it all from. My granny probably. She was just the same.’

  ‘I can imagine.’

  They were silent for a moment, watching police officers and civilian staff passing in the car park.

  ‘It’s not true, though,’ said Cooper. ‘It’s nothing to do with the weather or even the long dark nights. Statistics show that the suicide rate falls in the winter and starts to increase again in the spring. I looked it up.’

  ‘Really? So the actual peak time …?’

  ‘Is about now, yes.’

  ‘I don’t understand why that would be. Look at it – the grass is growing, the flowers are out, the lambs are in the fields. And the air … well, you can feel it in the air, can’t you?’

  ‘Of course,’ said Cooper. ‘But that’s exactly the problem, don’t you think?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  He paused, trying to find the right words to explain himself properly. He hadn’t analysed it fully in his own head, but as he was speaking to Villiers he found his thoughts clarifying.

  ‘It’s seeing and feeling everything around you bursting into new life, while your own existence is still frozen in some desolate, permanent winter. It emphasises the chasm between you and everyone else. It makes you realise you don’t belong in the world. That your time is over, along with the winter.’

  Cooper knew he had finished the thought sounding too convincing for comfort. As he spoke the last sentence, he heard Villiers catch her breath. She seemed to be avoiding looking at him. An uncomfortable silence developed in the car, the kind of atmosphere he’d been used to with Diane Fry, but not with Carol. Slowly, Cooper began to realise that he might have gone too far, expressed too much.

  ‘Shall we move on?’ she said finally. And at least her voice sounded normal.

  ‘Yes, let’s do that,’ said Cooper, and started the car.

  7

  It took them almost an hour and a quarter to reach the Forest Fields area of Nottingham via Chesterfield and a trip down the M1. Traffic was already beginning to stream out of the city towards the suburbs, so at least they were heading in the right direction: going in.

  Roger Farrell’s address was in Berridge Road, a semi-detached property with a bay window and a small glazed porch, and a dormer window in the roof where an attic room had been converted. These properties weren’t big, and some of the houses a few doors down were in poor condition, with tiles missing and weeds sprouting from the guttering. Cars were parked tightly on both sides of the road. The space caused by the absence of Farrell’s blue BMW had already been claimed by the driver of a white Transit van.

  But the area was close to the city, seconds from the tram line and with schools within walking distance. Farrell’s street ran straight as an arrow downhill to the Forest recreation ground and the trees beyond the park-and-ride, so from here he seemed to be looking out into the countryside rather than towards Nottingham city centre.

  They were met in the house by Roger Farrell’s older sister. Fay Laws was a woman in her mid-fifties who looked as though she’d dressed in a hurry. Her hair was blonde with grey streaks, and strands of it had escaped in a random fashion.

  Mrs Laws had been visited by local uniformed officers earlier in the day and had travelled to the mortuary in Edendale to officially identify the body of her brother. As she unlocked the door of the house, Carol Villiers asked her how she was. She said she was fine, which was what people always said, even when they weren’t.

  She went on to tell Villiers that she lived on the other side of Nottingham, in West Bridgford, with her husband and two grown-up children, one of whom was still living at home, though he was in his twenties.

  Cooper didn’t know West Bridgford, but he thought it must be a different type of area from Forest Fields. Mrs Laws looked over her shoulder twice as she was unlocking the door. Even while she was talking to Villiers. She ushered them into the hallway, then checked outside again before locking up.

  ‘I’m sorry if the identification was distressing,’ said Villiers.

  ‘I don’t suppose it could be any other way.’ Mrs Laws stood hesitantly in the passage, gazing at three identical doors that led off it and looking up a flight of stairs.

  ‘How long had your brother lived here?’ asked Cooper.

  ‘About ten years. He moved here when Natalie died.’

  ‘Natalie?’

  ‘His wife. She was killed in a car accident. A multiple pile-up on the M1 in fog. Roger gave up the house in Arnold, said he couldn’t bear to live there any more. He changed his job too. He left the car dealership where he was making good money as a salesman and he came here to be nearer his new job. He said it would be convenient.’

  She said the word convenient in a tone of disbelief, as if it couldn’t be an important quality in a property you were considering.

  Cooper watched her as she continued to hesitate. He had the impression that she didn’t know which door to open.

  ‘Did you visit your brother here much?’ he said.

  ‘Not often, no.’

  Well, there was no hesitation about that. Maybe she had never been here at all – though she was in possession of a set of keys, so perhaps her brother had lived in hope.

  ‘Roger has a daughter, you know,’ said Mrs Laws. ‘Ella. She lives in Spain.’

  There was a definite emphasis there. She lives in Spain. The daughter had much more sense than to be here in Forest Fields.

  ‘I’m sure she’s been informed,’ said Villiers.

  ‘Yes, she knows what’s happened. She’s flying over tomorrow.’

  Cooper was surprised to see that Fay Laws was crying. Quietly, unobtrusively, but the tears were definitely creeping down her cheeks. She wiped them away with a damp-looking tissue.

  ‘It feels like a punishment,’ she said suddenly.

  ‘What does?’

  ‘Roger’s death. The way he died. As if he’s punishing those of us left behind. Punishing me, anyway.’

  Cooper and Villiers exchanged glances. They could both see what was happening. Mrs Laws hadn’t cared enough about her brother for the past ten years and now she was feeling the full, devastating impact of guilt.

  ‘Did your brother ever mention having suicidal thoughts?’ asked Villiers.

  ‘Once or twice he said that he wished it was all over, that he didn’t have to go on. It was only when he’d been having a particularly bad week. So I didn’t think he meant it. People say things they don’t mean all the time, don’t they?’

  ‘Yes, that’s true.’

  ‘Well, I suppose I should have taken more notice. I ought to have told him to get help, to speak to someone about the way he felt. But I never did. I was so sure he wasn’t serious. That means it’s partly my fault, doesn’t it? I let him down.’

  ‘There’s always a feeling of guilt in these cases,’ said Cooper. ‘People who commit suicide get rid of the pain by leaving it behind for everyone else.’

  She looked at him then, calmer on the surface but with something flickering uncertainly behind her eyes.

  ‘Well, he’s done that,’ she said. �
�He’s certainly done that with me.’

  Slowly, they went through the rooms. The place was untidy but in a lived-in sort of way. Newspapers had been left in a pile on the floor by an armchair. In the kitchen, dishes had been washed but left to dry. Only one bedroom had been in use, the duvet thrown back on the bed for the last time, a washing basket full of clothes that would never be washed.

  Cooper picked up a photograph. ‘Is this your brother’s wife?’

  ‘Was his wife,’ said Mrs Laws. ‘Yes, that’s Natalie.’

  ‘She’s been dead for ten years, you said?’

  ‘That’s right. I didn’t like her much, but she was good for him. She kept him on the straight and narrow.’

  ‘Really? You’re suggesting he went off the straight and narrow when she died?’

  Mrs Laws shook her head vigorously. ‘Roger changed, that’s all I mean. He lost touch with his family and friends.’

  Cooper wondered if that had been Farrell’s own choice. Or was it the other way round – his family and friends had gradually dropped all contact with him? It was probably academic, unless something in Farrell’s own behaviour had been the reason for the split.

  He put the photo back. He’d recognised Natalie Farrell from the picture her husband had with him in his car when he died. Two couples, one of them a younger Roger Farrell and this woman, no doubt taken in happier times. He might have lost contact with the rest of his family but he’d still remembered his dead wife. As he used his exit bag, had he been thinking about her death in that crash in fog on the motorway? There was no way of telling. No way of knowing what went through someone’s mind as they died.

  In the sitting room, Cooper automatically checked the mantelpiece over a blocked-up fireplace. It was the traditional place to leave a note. But there was nothing except a thin layer of dust.

  A thick folder and a laptop were on a table in the dining area. Cooper opened the laptop and switched it on. He saw it was password-protected. He would have to pass it on to the high-tech crime unit for examination if he wanted information on Farrell’s recent emails or online activity. The same with the small pile of USB memory sticks in the drawer of the table. He unfastened the folder and flicked through the papers. They seemed to be mostly household utility bills – council tax, bank statements, MoT certificates. So he bagged up the laptop and memory sticks, then turned to the next room.

  He was looking for a sign of some kind. Anything that might explain why Mr Farrell had killed himself, or what he’d been thinking. Even a hint of his intention. Whatever Cooper could find might be useful, could cast the faintest of lights on what was happening.

  In one of the neighbouring divisions, a teenage girl who committed suicide had been found with a semicolon drawn on her wrist in ballpoint pen, like a temporary tattoo. It had become a well-known symbol, indicating that the individual was suffering depression, anxiety or suicidal thoughts, or was self-harming. A semi-colon was said to represent a sentence that the author could have ended but chose not to; the author was you, and the sentence your life.

  Roger Farrell hadn’t left a note, though. He didn’t even say goodbye. Well, who did he have in his life to say goodbye to? They all seemed to have left him already.

  But wait. Here was what he’d been looking for. An envelope, pinned to a corkboard in the kitchen. One sign, such as it was, that Roger Farrell had planned ahead, had been thinking past the moment of death and that flood of endorphins. Inside the envelope was a reservation for a plot at a woodland burial site in the Golden Valley near Ripley, booked about three weeks ago.

  Cooper knew exactly where the site was, too. It lay barely a stone’s throw from Derbyshire Constabulary’s headquarters and was bounded on one side by a heritage railway line. Mr Farrell had booked himself a single grave there with a tree, costing him a little over £800. There were woodland burial sites around the Peak District too. Buxton, Hope, Thornsett. There, the dead helped to create new woodlands and provide habitats for wildlife.

  For a few moments, Cooper looked at the booking form and brochure, wondering what they really told him about Roger Farrell’s intentions. The location of the burial site stood out. The Golden Valley. It sounded exactly the sort of place you might expect to end up when you reached that distant white light.

  When they left, a man was leaning over the fence from the next house, watching them. He was black-haired and unshaven, and his arms were covered in tattoos.

  The man laughed as Mrs Laws ducked her head, turned away from him and scurried back to her car. He narrowed his eyes as he faced Cooper and Villiers.

  ‘You look like police,’ he said bluntly.

  ‘Yes, sir,’ said Villiers, showing her ID. In Edendale, it was usually considered a good thing to have neighbours keeping an eye on each other’s property.

  ‘What are you doing here, then?’ he said.

  ‘Making enquiries about your next-door neighbour, Mr Farrell.’

  ‘Oh, him. What’s happened to him?’

  Cooper waited while Villiers weighed up how much information to give out. It was hardly a secret, though. The fate of Roger Farrell would soon be in the local news.

  ‘We’ve found his body,’ she said.

  The man grinned as if she’d just told him he’d won the lottery.

  ‘Topped himself, did he? Not before time.’

  Villiers looked taken aback.

  ‘Do you have no concern at all that your next-door neighbour is dead?’ she said. ‘No curiosity about what might have made him do that?’

  ‘Oh, should I pretend to care?’

  ‘You could try, sir. But it would be a bit late now.’

  The man nodded smugly, as if he’d just won an argument. ‘There you go, then.’

  ‘Do you know your neighbour well, Mr …?’

  He didn’t fall for that one. He was somebody accustomed to police officers trying to get his details.

  ‘My name doesn’t matter,’ he said. ‘I dare say you can find it out if you want to. And I didn’t know him at all.’

  ‘You must have had some contact,’ put in Cooper. ‘Mr Farrell had lived here for ten years.’

  ‘Oh, I saw him. But that’s all. He meant nothing to me. Nothing.’

  A few minutes later, Cooper turned the Toyota on to Noel Street and followed the tram lines south to work his way through the Hyson Green shopping area towards Bobbers Mill and the M1.

  ‘I saw him, but he meant nothing to me?’ said Villiers as they stopped at lights on Radford Road opposite a store with a vast display of vegetables all along its frontage. ‘That’s really sad, isn’t it?’

  ‘I don’t think we can blame the neighbour,’ said Cooper.

  He was thinking of the initial reports about Roger Farrell brought in by Luke Irvine and Becky Hurst. The description of a man whom his work colleagues hardly knew, who had no interest in joining local organisations, or in going to the pub. The ghost in a suit and tie. His own sister had never visited him. So it was hardly surprising that even his next-door neighbour denied knowing anything about him.

  Yet Farrell couldn’t have been completely anonymous, could he? So what had he done with his time in that house in Forest Fields?

  ‘After all, who did Mr Farrell mean anything to?’ said Cooper as the lights turned green and he drew away.

  It was a question that troubled him all the way back from Nottingham to Edendale.

  Diane Fry had told lies to get out of her own apartment. She didn’t feel proud of it. But there was only so much she could take at short notice. She’d been entirely unprepared for the arrival of her sister and the child. It had come as a shock to her system.

  And it was one of her rest days, for heaven’s sake. She deserved a break. A break from, well … most things. There were a few exceptions.

  So she’d told Angie she had work to do. Angie had protested and scoffed at her dedication to the job. But she knew from experience that there was really no point in arguing. She’d got used to Diane being a pol
ice officer a long time ago.

  ‘Well, don’t worry. We’ll manage on our own for a while, won’t we?’

  Half the time, it wasn’t clear who Angie was talking to – her sister or the baby. When she was holding the child, she hardly ever looked up from him. So Diane had to work it out from what Angie was saying and the tone she said it in. The babyish voice was a clue. Though sometimes she forgot and spoke to Diane the same way, as if her sister were an overgrown toddler with minimal language skills.

  ‘You know where everything is,’ said Diane, hastily pulling on her jacket.

  ‘Have you got any beer?’ asked Angie.

  ‘There’s some white wine in the fridge. And half a bottle of vodka.’

  ‘That will do. Won’t it, little one?’

  Diane resigned herself to finding all her booze gone when she returned home. She should probably call at the Co-op on Wilford Green to stock up. They had an offer on Chardonnay, and she might be in for a siege.

  Jamie Callaghan was on a rest day too, after the job the previous evening. He was surprised to get a call from Fry. He was just finishing a session on the benches and cross trainers at a fitness centre in Chilwell.

  ‘Give me half an hour,’ he’d said.

  So Fry found herself in a beer garden overlooking the water at the Castle Marina, drinking cappuccino. The marina itself was packed with narrowboats and small pleasure craft. Every few minutes, one of them chugged slowly by near her table to pass under a footbridge into the Nottingham Canal.

  The last of the office workers from the Castle Meadow Business Park were just leaving to go back to their desks at Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs after their lunch break, so there were plenty of tables empty. No one would overhear their conversation.

  ‘I thought you’d be doing some shopping on your day off,’ said Callaghan, shading his eyes against the glare of sun off the water.

  ‘Shopping?’ said Fry.

  Callaghan laughed at her tone. ‘We’re next to a retail park, if you hadn’t noticed. Furniture Village, Home Sense, Mothercare …’

  ‘Oh, thanks. I’ll bear it in mind.’