Стивен Бут - Dead in the Dark

‘In Buxton?’

‘Yes. They were just as Reece said — momentary glimpses of a woman walking down the street. One time I thought I saw her turning a corner as I was driving through the traffic lights on Terrace Road. By the time I managed to stop the car, she’d vanished into Spring Gardens. I looked in the shops, walked through the shopping arcade, staring at strange women until I was in danger of getting myself arrested. I gave up in the end. And when I got back to my car, I’d got a ticket on my windscreen for illegal parking.’

‘But you were convinced you’d seen her,’ said Cooper.

‘I wasn’t sure that first time. I tried to be logical and kept telling myself I’d imagined a resemblance in a complete stranger. I tried to laugh it off. And then it happened again, and even a third time.’

‘Was it the same woman?’

Slaney shrugged. ‘How can I know now? I spotted her once sitting in the window of a restaurant at The Quadrant with another woman, and then finally there was the incident outside Waitrose. By the third time, I was fully convinced it was Annette I’d seen.’

‘Because of the make of car she was driving and the coat she was wearing.’

‘That’s right.’

‘But you only reported the one sighting. That final one...’

Slaney smiled sadly. ‘I didn’t want those police officers to think I was mad.’

Cooper recalled his own feelings after he thought he recognised Annette Bower at the Opera House the previous night. Like Evan Slaney, he’d spent too long looking at photographs of Annette. And he hadn’t mentioned it to anyone, not even to Chloe Young. Now she probably did think he was mad.

‘As you can imagine, I was very angry,’ said Slaney. ‘Angry not only that he was probably responsible for my daughter’s death, but that he allowed me to believe she was still alive all these years. As far as I’m concerned, he killed Annette twice.’

‘So Reece Bower used you.’

Slaney nodded. ‘Looking back now,’ he said, ‘I have a feeling the photographs that Reece showed me were all deliberately a bit vague or out of focus. There were no posed shots. They just caught my daughter from odd angles from which she was only just recognisable. The human memory is an odd thing, isn’t it? Given the right sort of prompting and manipulation, we can convince ourselves we remember anything.’

‘You must have felt very betrayed.’

‘Certainly.’

Cooper leaned forward and watched him closely.

‘And was that why you killed him, Mr Slaney?’

Evan Slaney’s face fell into an expression of incredulity. It looked so cartoonishly ludicrous that, despite himself, Cooper almost laughed at the sight of it.

‘Me?’ said Slaney. ‘No, you’ve got that completely wrong, Detective Inspector. I hated Reece for that. But I didn’t kill him. I could never conceive of doing such a thing.’

Cooper sat back in surprise. For some reason, he felt he believed what Slaney was saying. But he couldn’t be wrong, could he? There was just some evidence missing.

There was a knock on the door and Cooper was called out of the interview. Dev Sharma stood in the corridor.

‘What is it, Dev? It must be important.’

‘We haven’t completed the search of Mr Slaney’s house yet, but I thought you’d like to know about this straightaway, sir.’

Cooper saw he was carrying a small plastic evidence bag.

‘What’s in the bag?’

‘A knife,’ said Sharma.

Cooper looked more closely. ‘But not just any knife,’ he said. ‘If I’m not mistaken, it’s a woodcarver’s knife.’

‘The blade is about three and half inches long, with a birch wood handle. The make is Mora.’

‘Where was it found?’

‘In the hollow base of an antique lamp. A Chinese porcelain dragon.’

Cooper put his foot down as he drove through Baslow towards Bakewell. He arrived at the house in Over Haddon just as Frances Swann pulled up in her white Citroën.

‘This is very inconvenient, Inspector,’ she said. ‘I’ve had to leave a class. I hope it’s as important as you suggested in your call.’

‘It could be.’

‘So what is it you want?’

‘To see your husband’s wood-carving tools.’

Her face creased in bafflement. ‘The tools?’

‘Yes.’

‘But you’ve already seen them. I don’t know what else I can tell you about them.’

‘Perhaps I should call your husband to come out,’ said Cooper. ‘Would you prefer that?’

‘No, don’t do that. Come inside.’

This time Cooper knew where Adrian Swann’s workshop was. The carved owl seemed to watch him as he entered and went to the cabinet where the tools were kept. Frances followed him as he unfurled the canvas roll.

‘Is there anything missing?’ asked Cooper. ‘Can you tell?’

Frances peered at the tool set. She seemed reluctant to get too close to it, as if she wasn’t allowed to touch it. He could imagine that Adrian Swann might be very possessive about his tools. They gleamed as if they were polished and oiled regularly and a mislaid tool could be a disaster.

‘Yes, you’re right.’ Frances pointed. ‘There should be another knife. One with a straight blade. The curved-bladed knife is there, but not the straight blade.’

‘How big is the missing knife? Seven inches?’

‘About that, including the handle. The blade itself isn’t very long. Adrian uses the knives for the fine detail on the birds, you know. I don’t understand why it isn’t there, though. He’s very particular about his tools. He’ll be very upset if it’s missing.’

Cooper drew out the knife with the curved blade and turned over the handle.

‘Mora,’ he said.

‘I told you,’ said Frances. ‘A Swedish make.’

‘Who has access to these tools?’

‘No one but Adrian or me. The only other person he would let in to handle his tools is my father.’

‘Mr Slaney?’

‘Adrian learned woodworking from him, years ago before we even married. Adrian has gone on to be much better. Dad was never really an artist. He preferred something primitive. He was never happier than when he was chopping wood. When he and Mum lived in the house at Rowsley, he kept their wood burners stocked with logs.’

‘What happened to your mother?’ asked Cooper.

‘She died. She was killed in a car crash eight years ago, about two years after Annette went missing. It broke my father up, as you can imagine.’

‘So she wasn’t around to support his sighting of Annette in Buxton?’

‘No. That was my father’s personal conviction.’

Cooper put down the tool.

‘I’m sorry, Mrs Swann,’ he said. ‘I’m afraid we’ll need your husband to come in some time anyway.’

When he returned to Edendale, Cooper had Evan Slaney brought back into the interview room. He showed Slaney a photograph of the knife in its evidence bag.

‘What about this, sir? Do you recognise it?’

‘Well, yes. I know what that is.’

‘Do you own a knife like this yourself?’ asked Cooper.

‘No. But my son-in-law uses them. I mean Adrian Swann. It’s a wood-carving knife.’

‘Do you know how it got into your house?’

‘In my house? No. Adrian has been there a few times, of course, but he would never have brought his tools. He keeps them in his workshop at Over Haddon. He’s very particular about who handles them.’

He met Cooper’s eye. In fact, his eye contact throughout the interview had been noticeable. Cooper was rapidly coming to the conclusion that this man was telling the truth now, in a way that he hadn’t done before.

‘Mr Slaney, did you have a surprise visitor recently?’ he asked.

Slaney stared at him. ‘Why, yes I did. Have you spoken to her? Did she tell you she’d been here?’