Stephen Booth - One Last Breath

‘Have you seen much of Simon recently, Alistair?’

‘No. I didn’t keep in touch with him very much after we left school, because I never really felt comfortable in his company. To be honest, I started to find him a bit scary.’

‘Why?’

Page was silent for a moment. Cooper could hear music playing in the background. It was a CD from Alistair’s collection: ‘I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For’. Very appropriate.

‘Ben,’ said Page, ‘if you want to know more about Simon Quinn, I think you’d better come to the house. Can you make it tonight?’

‘Yes, I think so. But not too early.’

‘That’s OK. At the moment, I’m doing a final security check at the cavern about nine o’clock each night, just before it goes dark. Come to my house after that.’

Dawn Cottrill hovered over Simon and Andrea Lowe like a mother. She had them both sitting alongside each other on the sofa in her lounge, looking out of a big picture window into the conservatory. Diane Fry and Gavin Murfin were ushered into armchairs opposite them, conscious of the light behind them and the sun on their backs of their necks.

Fry was struck again by the similarity between the brother and sister. They were both dark-haired, as Rebecca had been, though Simon was slightly lighter in colouring and a few inches taller. He hardly looked the dangerous type. Yet even before Fry spoke to him, she could see him undergoing those ominous dark flushes, as if waves of anger were surging through his veins.

‘How are you feeling now, sir?’ she said.

‘I’m fine. I had a headache for a couple of days, a few bruises, that’s all.’

Andrea patted his arm gently. ‘I don’t suppose you’re any nearer catching him?’ she said to Fry.

‘The person who attacked your brother? No. We think he used an edging stone from one of the graves in the churchyard, but we have no other leads, I’m afraid.’

‘Oh well, you’ll just have to write it off as an attempted mugging, I suppose,’ said Simon, flushing a deep red. ‘Some character spotted me in the pub and thought I looked worth robbing. It’s the obvious conclusion for our wonderful police force.’

‘Simon, don’t get stressed,’ said Andrea. ‘It won’t do any good.’

Fry waited calmly, observing how Simon reacted to his sister. Andrea was obviously the person he listened to. The closeness between them was palpable.

‘I’ve been talking to your grandmother, Mrs Quinn,’ said Fry, now addressing Simon without a pretence of including Andrea.

Neither of them reacted, but Dawn fussed along the back of the sofa behind them, then stopped and stared at Fry, as if she had just noticed something wrong with her.

‘I gather your father became concerned about whether you were his real son.’

‘Sorry?’ said Simon.

‘He seems to have had doubts about whether you were his son. Genetically speaking.’

‘Never mind “genetically speaking” — I know what you mean,’ said Simon, his face darkening again.

‘And do you have any idea why your father should have had doubts about your paternity?’

Simon sighed. ‘I suppose it was something I said in the heat of the moment. I didn’t mean it literally.’

‘You didn’t?’

‘No. This is a very strange line of conversation, Detective Sergeant. When you asked to see us, we were hoping you might have some news for us. Good news — the news we’ve been waiting for ever since our mother was murdered on Monday night. But apparently that isn’t what you’ve brought us.’

‘No. I’m sorry, sir.’

He nodded, with a tremor of agitation. ‘Well, I don’t know what it is you’re talking about, and I don’t see what possible relevance it can have to my mother’s death.’

‘You do believe Mansell Quinn is your father, then?’

‘Unfortunately, yes.’

‘So there wasn’t any need for you and your sister to change your surname?’

‘No.’

‘I understand why your mother would have wanted to change to your step-father’s name, but you didn’t have to. You were old enough to say no, and keep your own name.’

Simon leaned forward a little, as if to focus attention entirely on himself. As far as Fry was concerned, he didn’t need to do that. But she noticed Andrea exchange an anxious look with their aunt over her shoulder.

Fry didn’t know what she was expecting. Enid Quinn had told her that the DNA tests proved Simon really was Mansell’s son, so she had to come up with some other reason why Quinn should start to claim that he was innocent of Carol Proctor’s murder. The theory she had begun to form was in pieces.

If Mansell Quinn hadn’t committed murder in 1990, he must have had some idea in his mind who did. He surely hadn’t suspected Rebecca, who had been at work at the time with a dozen colleagues as witnesses. Yet she had become Quinn’s second victim on his release from prison.

And Simon? Had he, too, been an intended victim? Had Quinn been the one who attacked him outside the pub in Castleton on Tuesday night?

There was undoubtedly some missing factor that Fry couldn’t put her finger on. It was almost as if someone was absent from the equation — someone who provided the vital link.

‘Detective Sergeant,’ said Simon, growing impatient at her hesitation, ‘the fact is that we just didn’t want people to associate us with an unpleasant incident from the past. The name Quinn has connotations around here, a lot of history that goes with it. People still recognize it.’

‘I understand. But, from your father’s point of view, it must have looked like a betrayal.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I mean, the fact that his only son had disowned him.’

Simon raised his eyebrows. Then he surprised Fry by smiling, as if she’d said something funny again. In that moment, he reminded her of his grandmother, Enid Quinn. But she suspected she’d get even less out of Simon.

‘I wonder if I could ask you about the day Carol Proctor was murdered?’ she said.

‘What?’

‘I know it’s many years ago now, but I’m sure it must still be clear in your mind.’

Simon had gone very quiet, but the two women began to make protesting noises. Fry tried to override them.

‘You were at school that day, weren’t you, sir? Could you tell me what time you left school to go home?’

‘Detective Sergeant, please — ’ said Dawn Cottrill.

‘You were at Hope Valley College, as was your sister. Why did it take you longer than her to arrive home that day?’

Simon opened his mouth, but only one word came out.

‘I …’

‘I’m sure you must remember,’ said Fry. ‘We usually find trivial details like that are imprinted on people’s minds after a traumatic event.’

But Simon Lowe’s face had closed like a trap. His jaw clenched, and the veins throbbed in his temples as colour rushed to his neck and cheeks. In that second, he convinced Fry that he was a man possessed of a barely restrained temper, a man capable of violence.

‘I’m not answering any questions about that,’ he said. ‘It’s all in the past. Finished with. I won’t answer any more questions, and nor will my sister.’

Fry looked at Andrea, who nodded sharply.

‘Very well, sir. It’s your prerogative.’

Simon began to get up. ‘Now, if you don’t mind, Detective Sergeant, I have somewhere to go, and I don’t want to be late. If you do happen to have any news you think I’d want to hear, my sister will know where to find me.’

‘Not the sort of lad I’d want as my son,’ said Gavin Murfin on the way back to Edendale. ‘Not that we fathers get any choice in the matter.’

‘I grant you Simon Lowe isn’t very appealing,’ said Fry. ‘But, to be fair, he may not always have been that way.’