35

Saturday, 29 October

When the Lowthers arrived at West Street next day, Fry showed them into the DI’s office, where they sat in an uncomfortable silence. Hitchens swivelled his chair once, then stopped when he heard the squeal and looked embarrassed.

Fry found a seat to one side, out of the Lowthers’ immediate view. But it was her that Moira Lowther was looking at when she spoke. ‘You weren’t listening, were you? I told you John wasn’t a danger to anyone but himself. He was psychotic, not a psychopath. I told you, but you didn’t listen.’

Fry didn’t know how to answer her. According to Cooper, Dr Sinclair had said the same thing. And it seemed they had both been right.

‘Our officers did their best to save your son’s life,’ said Hitchens with a placatory gesture. ‘It was a very difficult situation.’

‘You were pursuing him.’

‘No, Mrs Lowther.’

‘She was.’

The jerk of the head was insulting, but Fry stayed calm.

‘DS Fry wasn’t even at the scene when the incident happened,’ said Hitchens.

‘What about the officers who were there? Why can’t we speak to them?’

‘There’ll be a full enquiry into the circumstances, I assure you.’

Fry and Hitchens exchanged glances. The enquiry wouldn’t be comfortable, and these things often left a sour taste – personal grievances, doubts about where loyalties lay, and whether officers could depend on the support of their chiefs. But it all had to be done properly and above board.

‘We’ll keep you to that promise,’ said Mrs Lowther.

‘Of course.’

Fry could still feel herself being glared at. ‘We questioned John as part of the investigation into your daughter’s death,’ she said. ‘We were trying to cover every possibility, that’s all.’

‘It’s ridiculous. John would never do anything like that. They were so close. As close as a brother and sister could be.’ Mrs Lowther choked on the last word. ‘And now we’ve lost both of them.’

Cringing at the onset of tears and the threat of full-blown hysterics lurking below the surface, Fry looked at Hitchens for support. In a storm, you clutched at any straw.

‘Mr and Mrs Lowther, I can’t tell you how sorry we are,’ he said. ‘Believe me, if there’s anything at all we can do –’

Henry Lowther had been sitting rigid and furious, his tension showing only in the trembling of his hands and the throbbing of a small vein in his temple.

‘Anything you can do?’ he said, his voice an ominous whisper. ‘Don’t you think you’ve done enough to us already?’

Cooper couldn’t help looking for the Lowthers’ Rover in the visitors’ car park that morning. Sure enough, they’d already arrived. He could see their car in front of the main entrance as he pulled up to the gates of the compound.

It was impossible to imagine how Henry and Moira Lowther would be feeling now. Cooper wondered if he ought to offer to talk to them, and whether it would do any good.

As he locked up the Toyota and walked towards the building, he tried to analyse his own feeling, too. That was difficult enough, God knew. One part of him wanted to talk to the Lowthers in the hope that it might make some sense of their son’s death. But another part of him was afraid – afraid of what too much emotion could do. That was the shallower side of his character, he supposed; the scared and defensive side.

In the CID room, he found Gavin Murfin already at his desk. That was unusual in itself. Gavin never arrived at work before him, especially on a Saturday.

‘You know that the what’s-their-names are here?’ said Murfin when he saw Cooper. ‘The Lowthers.’

‘Yes, I do.’

‘They’re in with Diane and the DI.’

‘There haven’t been any messages then?’

‘Not yet. If I were you, Ben, I’d find a reason to get out of the office as soon as possible. The DI can deal with it.’

‘Maybe.’

But Cooper took off his jacket and sat at his desk to see what he had to catch up with. There was nothing from Scenes of Crime, so no new information on the gun. But there was a copy of the full post-mortem report on Simon Nichols, alias Simcho Nikolov, complete with a set of photographs. He hadn’t really looked at Nichols too closely before, but guessed that he hadn’t been much prettier in life than he was in death. Not for the past few years, anyway. The marks left by the man’s lifestyle were etched deep into his face, just as surely as they’d ruined the interior of the caravan. Too much alcohol and not enough food. Too many cigarettes and not enough attention to hygiene.

Yet, when he studied Nichols’ face, Cooper could see that there was still a vestige of the man he’d once been. The bone structure was still there, broad and well-proportioned. A Bulgarian face, of course. He was Nikolov, not Nichols.

Cooper remembered the red phone box on the roadside in Bonsall Dale. It seemed likely that Nikolov had phoned Rose Shepherd from there. And then there had been that final phone call, made from an assassin’s mobile to lead her into his sights. So, in a way, John Lowther wasn’t the only one who’d heard voices. Miss Shepherd had been hearing them, too – voices that had led her to her death.

Suddenly aware of someone standing at his desk, Cooper gave a start and looked up guiltily, not knowing who to expect. But it was Gavin Murfin.

‘I brought you a cup of coffee,’ he said. ‘Since you’re obviously not going to take my advice.’

‘Thanks, Gavin.’

‘No worries. You look as though you could use it.’

At the sound of voices and footsteps, they both turned towards the door. But the voices went further away, down the corridor somewhere. After a minute or two, footsteps returned and the DI’s door closed again.

‘I think they’ve gone,’ said Murfin.

Cooper nodded. ‘But Diane is still in there.’

‘Looks like it. I suppose we’ll find out what’s going on eventually.’ Then Murfin sighed deeply. ‘Or maybe not.’

The squeak of the chair in the DI’s office was really starting to get on Fry’s nerves now. Yet the noise seemed to give Hitchens some perverse pleasure, especially as he’d physically prevented a maintenance man from oiling the thing when she’d suggested it.

‘So do you have any evidence that Luanne Mullen is in imminent danger, Diane?’ he asked when she put her proposal to him after the departure of the Lowthers.

‘Well, no.’

‘Has she ever been mistreated by her father? Has he ever threatened to harm her?’

‘Not that we know of.’

‘What about Brian Mullen himself? A few days ago, you were convinced he was responsible for the fire that killed his family. Have you managed to substantiate a case against him?’

‘No.’

‘So we’ve no cause to arrest him, have we?’

‘No.’

‘And we don’t actually have the slightest bit of proof that he’s done anything wrong.’

‘No. But we should also consider Georgi Kotsev’s theory that Luanne Mullen’s natural father is trying to get her back’

‘Yes, we’d have to take that seriously, if there was evidence,’ said Hitchens. ‘Is there evidence, Diane?’

‘I can’t produce any right now.’

‘You see the problem. No evidence. It’s all supposition.’

‘That might be true, sir. But the fact that Brian Mullen has gone AWOL with the surviving child looks very suspicious to me.’

‘Sadly, he’s not legally obliged to keep us informed of his whereabouts. If he’s taken the child for a trip somewhere, then there’s nothing we can do about it. Nothing at all.’

‘But the Lowthers are being equally secretive. I’m sure they know where Brian is.’

‘Have you asked them?’

‘Of course.’

‘And what do they say?’

‘They say their son-in-law is distressed and needs some time away from being hassled by us.’

Hitchens smiled. ‘I suppose that could be true, too, couldn’t it?’