Stephen Booth - One Last Breath

‘Yes,’ said Cooper. ‘And it’s only a short walk from here.’

‘It’s been too long to get any impressions from the track, Ben.’

‘And too wet. Shall we walk to the house?’

‘What about your leg? Are you sure you can manage?’

‘Well, that’s part of what we’re trying to find out.’

They followed the faint outline of the footpath, keeping a few yards to the side of it. And within ten minutes they’d reached the hedge of elm saplings.

‘Do we have to push our way through it?’ said Fry doubtfully, looking down at her clothes.

‘No need. There’s a little gate, look. I never knew that was here.’

‘It doesn’t appear to have been used much.’

Cooper eased open the gate in the hedge, wincing as it creaked on its hinges. ‘It needs oiling,’ he said.

‘OK, so we’re in the garden. What now, Ben?’

‘This way.’

Fry followed him as he walked round the side of the house. Cooper crossed one of the lawns, then stopped.

‘What are you looking at?’

‘The concrete heron,’ he said.

‘We came all this way to look at a concrete heron? Why? You don’t even have a garden of your own, Ben.’

‘No. I wonder if it was made out of cement from the Hope works, though.’

‘Does it matter?’

‘Not in the least.’

Cooper put on a pair of latex gloves and grasped the heron’s head. It took the indignity with a stony glare.

‘Ben, what are you doing?’

‘If I take the weight a bit — ’ he said. ‘Diane, I can’t bend too well at the moment. Could you …?’

Fry crouched to look.

‘The base is hollow,’ she said. ‘Wait a minute …’ She reached out a hand.

‘I shouldn’t touch it. Fingerprints, you know. But I take it there’s a key under there?’

‘Yes. It’s the back-door key, I suppose. But this means somebody could have used it to get into the house.’

‘Yes.’

Fry shook her head. ‘No, Ben.’

‘What do you mean, no?’

‘If somebody used the key to get in and kill Rebecca Lowe, why would they put it back?’

Cooper gently lowered the heron back into position and removed his gloves.

‘Habits die hard,’ he said. ‘If you’re used to handling keys all the time, it’s important to get into the habit of putting them back exactly where you got them from.’

Fry nodded. ‘All right. I’ll get someone up here to check for prints.’

‘I think the concrete is probably useless for prints, especially after all the rain.’

‘But the key is perfectly dry.’

Slowly, Fry walked back to the hedge and looked through it at the path they’d used to cross the field.

‘And you’re right,’ she called. ‘If he came under the railway bridge and parked where we have, it’s just a short walk.’

‘I had no trouble, despite my injured leg.’

‘No, you didn’t.’

‘So it would be easily manageable,’ said Cooper. ‘Even for a man with a touch of arthritis in his knee.’

Fry nodded again, and Cooper went to stand alongside her at the hedge. Below the embankment of the distant railway bridge, he could see a row of static caravans, and the rustic log walls of the nearest holiday lodge.

Then Cooper saw what he hoped for. He saw Diane Fry smile for the first time in days.

‘I think I’m going to enjoy this bit,’ she said.

And then, after all that, she sent him back to the office to put his feet up and rest his leg. He wasn’t even allowed to be present at the arrest or take part in the search. Ben Cooper had never taken inactivity well. Now he felt like an invalid who had to be kept out of the way. A liability.

Somebody had brought him a coffee, but he let it go cold on his desk while he sulked. He didn’t want to appear to be enjoying himself when they came back from the caravan park.

Then, when he finally saw Diane Fry coming through the door, Cooper threw his legs off the desk and couldn’t suppress a small gasp of pain.

‘Well, we found the knife,’ said Fry. ‘Do you want to guess where?’

‘In one of the old caravans,’ said Cooper, rubbing his leg. ‘Did he try to blame it on Iraqi refugees, by any chance?’

‘Not this time. But you’re right. Connie seems to have watched him like a hawk, so his options for disposing of it would have been limited and I suppose the old ’van seemed as good a place as any to hide it. Nobody else went there except him.’

‘And Will Thorpe, when he was staying at the site. And us, when we asked to see inside them.’

‘Poor Mr Proctor — he must have been sweating bricks for days. Well, it was obvious all along that he was frightened. But it wasn’t Mansell Quinn he was frightened of. He told us that himself, several times.’

‘I don’t know if you noticed,’ said Cooper, ‘but when we were in the office that day he made a bit of a fuss about finding the keys for the old ’vans.’

‘So he did.’

‘I thought it was odd, because the rest of the keys were all neatly organized and labelled on their hooks. But there was one key that he had to get out of a drawer. That’s why he made a performance of it.’

‘I thought he was just being awkward.’

‘Also, Proctor tried to pretend he didn’t know Quinn was coming out of prison last Monday. But he must have known — he’d spoken to Rebecca Lowe earlier in the day. I checked the phone records — it was the office number at Wingate Lees that Rebecca rang, not the Proctors’ home number. It would have been Ray she spoke to.’

‘It seems likely. Connie told us he kept her out of the office.’

‘And it wasn’t a short call. So I wondered what else they might have talked about.’

Fry took off her jacket. She looked warm, but not dissatisfied with the day’s work. ‘Sounds as if you’ve been doing a bit of thinking while we were out, Ben.’

‘There wasn’t much else to do.’

‘And?’

‘I think that when Rebecca Lowe phoned, she told Ray Proctor she knew about Alan, and that she was going to tell Quinn the truth, if he came back.’

‘Tell him that it was Alan who killed Carol? But Quinn had already figured that out for himself years ago, thanks to Simon.’

Cooper nodded. ‘Yes. But neither Rebecca nor Proctor knew that.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘How can I be? We’ll never know what was going through Will Thorpe’s mind, or how much he told Rebecca. This is total conjecture, Diane, but it’s the only way it makes sense.’

‘You mean Ray Proctor had no reason to shut Rebecca up? It achieved nothing?’

‘Nothing,’ said Cooper. ‘If only Will Thorpe had told her the whole truth, it could have saved both their lives.’

Fry sat down suddenly and stared at him. ‘But, instead, Rebecca’s threat must have upset Proctor badly.’

‘So badly that he needed a drink. We know Ray Proctor drank at the Cheshire Cheese. He always has done, and he’s never altered his habits. Some people never do. He was out drinking that Monday night — Connie mentioned it. She said he came back late.’

‘Yes, she did.’

‘The landlord confirms Proctor was in the Cheshire Cheese that night. Which means he’d have seen Quinn — remember, Quinn was in the bar from about ten o’clock.’

‘Well, perhaps he did see him,’ said Fry.

‘Yes, I think he did. Quinn checked in and went up to his room, then came back down to the bar later. I think Proctor saw Quinn come into the pub, and so he made a quick exit.’

‘And he went to Parson’s Croft?’

‘To see Rebecca Lowe,’ said Cooper. ‘He thought that’s where Quinn would go, so he wanted to get there first.’

‘You’ve got it all worked out.’ Fry looked at him. ‘It’s almost like the Carol Proctor case all over again, isn’t it?’