Stephen Booth - One Last Breath

Her brother seemed the most distressed. He clung to Andrea’s hand, looking almost like an older version of her, but slightly lighter in his colouring and several inches taller. At first, Fry thought he seemed to have no strength in him for the task of identifying his mother, yet it was Simon who spoke.

‘Yes, it’s her. That’s our mother.’

‘Thank you, sir.’

Simon’s voice was very low, and he hardly moved his mouth when he spoke, as if all the energy had been drained out of him. His sister said nothing, but leaned closer to the glass, as close as she could get. She dropped her brother’s hand and pressed her fingers against the window, like a small child peering into a toy shop. Her breath condensed on the glass, and she touched the patch of moisture with her forehead.

Through the window, the mortuary attendant hovered uncertainly, not sure if an identification had been made and he should now replace the sheet, or whether the bereaved relatives should be allowed a last, lingering look at the deceased.

‘Miss Lowe, are you all right?’ said Fry.

Andrea nodded, but Simon pulled her hand away from the glass and gripped it. Hitchens shuffled his feet and looked around for the family liaison officer, who was trained to deal with grieving relatives.

‘You know we’re looking for your father,’ said Hitchens. ‘He was released from prison yesterday.’

Then a strange thing happened. Simon Lowe changed colour. Fry had seen this happen to family members identifying their loved ones — but usually they turned white, or worse, an unnerving shade of green. But Simon had flushed a deep red, almost purple. Blood suffused his face and neck until he reminded Fry of the corpse of a strangulation victim who had lain on the same slab as Rebecca Lowe not many months ago.

‘If you mean Mansell Quinn,’ said Simon, ‘he’s not my father.’

‘Oh, but I thought — ’

Andrea turned away from the glass at last and threw her arms round her brother, becoming the little sister in a moment. Simon took a deep breath that shuddered through air passages swollen with emotion.

‘He was my father. But not any more. He hasn’t been my father for fourteen years.’

‘I see,’ said Hitchens.

‘Do you?’

‘I think I understand how you feel. So if you should happen to have any idea where your … I mean, where Mr Quinn is at the moment, you would be sure to let us know?’

‘Of course we would,’ said Simon.

‘And you, madam?’

Hitchens waited politely for Andrea to reply.

‘I spoke to Mum, you know. Not long before it happened. I spoke to her on the phone, and I told her to make sure she was safe. I didn’t think she was taking the situation seriously enough. But that was Mum — she preferred to enjoy life than to worry about things all the time.’

‘We’ll want a statement from you,’ said Hitchens. ‘If you feel up to it.’

‘I’ll do it today,’ she said.

‘In the meantime …’

‘We’ll tell you anything we can think of that might help, Inspector.’

Fry noticed that it was Simon who had taken over again. Rebecca Lowe’s children clung together as though they were inseparable.

The cattle market that used to stand on the main road in Hope had been demolished. Perhaps it had lost too much business during the foot and mouth outbreak in 2001, when all livestock markets had been closed for a year. Now the site had been redeveloped for housing.

‘Mansell Quinn was given a twenty-year sentence,’ said Ben Cooper. ‘If he was refused parole, his automatic release date must have been two-thirds of the way through his sentence. That’s, er …’

‘Thirteen years and four months.’

Diane Fry looked up briefly as Cooper slowed to avoid a squirrel that darted across the road. But, as usual, she showed little interest in the scenery.

‘Why do you think he changed his story about the Carol Proctor murder?’ said Cooper. ‘All it meant was that they refused him parole and he got knocked back.’

‘There are all kinds of factors the parole board would have taken into consideration,’ said Fry. ‘They’d want to know about his plans when he got out. And he had some issues to deal with — anger problems.’

‘Right.’

Hope village lay in the centre of the valley, dominated on one side by Lose Hill and Win Hill, and on the other by the cement works. Going up the valley, the chimney of the works had been visible from as far away as the Rising Sun Inn. Its curious tower-like structure resembled the ruins of a castle, with gaping holes like empty windows in a high battlement. Behind it was the long white scar of the quarries driven deep into Bradwell Moor.

Cooper had looked at Mansell Quinn’s mugshots earlier. For a long time in prison, Quinn must have been like a man holding his breath under water. Worse, he would have had no idea how long he needed to hold it for. There would have been a time when he hoped to get parole and be out of prison at the ten-year mark. But he’d been branded unsuitable for release. Many men might have given up then, stopped holding their breath and let the despair rush in. But Quinn had waited.

‘I suppose his home circumstances didn’t meet the requirements. Not suitable for assisting his rehabilitation.’

‘It’s not a sensible option to change your mind about whether you’re guilty,’ said Fry. ‘You’re branding yourself a liar. Most men who change their stories in prison do it the other way round, though. Remorse being more important than innocence, they express remorse and get their parole.’

Cooper had to drive more carefully through Hope, where a constant stream of lorries rumbled backwards and forwards over the bridge to reach the cement works.

He had seen men leaving prison after their release, setting off along the roadside in the direction of the nearest town, their entire belongings in one bag and only the vaguest idea where they were going. He’d often wondered whether they made it any further than the nearest pub, following the first sniff of freedom that drifted through a bar-room window.

‘If it were me, I’d do anything to get out, including lying through my teeth. I mean, if I was actually innocent, I’d know I was — even if no one else did. So it wouldn’t be on my conscience …’ Cooper paused. ‘Quinn won’t be planning to go back inside again, that’s for sure.’

‘That’s what I thought, too,’ said Fry.

A few minutes later, Cooper and Fry stood at the bottom of Rebecca Lowe’s garden at Parson’s Croft. A stiff breeze had sprung up, and Cooper watched it bustling through the trees on the slopes of Win Hill.

The SOCOs were still working on the house, and a group of officers were on their hands and knees searching the garden and driveway, seeking traces of the killer on his route to the house. Cooper noticed a garden ornament here, too — not a squirrel or a rabbit, but a concrete heron standing on one leg in the middle of the lawn, as if waiting for a pond to arrive.

‘They think he may have waited under the trees for a while before he approached the house,’ said Fry, who’d been speaking to the Crime Scene Manager. ‘Probably he wanted to be sure she was alone.’

‘Here?’ said Cooper.

‘A few yards along the fence. See the markers? He must have watched the place for a while before he entered. This is the best spot to remain unnoticed, yet have a clear view of the house.’

Cooper looked up at the tree above his head. Most of its leaves were dark green, with the distinctive pointed tip of the lime. But many of the branches had thinner, paler foliage. With a slight stretch he was able to reach up, take hold of a branch and give it a shake. A shower of water droplets fell from the surface of the leaves, followed by a small cloud of brown specks that landed in Fry’s hair and on her shoulders, and clung to the sleeves of Cooper’s shirt.