Branagh handed over to DI Walker, who had been at the scene. He was a young detective inspector, who’d risen quickly through the ranks, but who might yet be overtaken in his career by those fast-tracked graduates just starting their three-year programmes. Slim and blond-haired, Walker looked more like an actor auditioning for the role of a fictional aristocratic detective than a real police officer. It was said that he had public school and university education too – though surely that didn’t make any difference in today’s police service?
‘Our search of the scene is still ongoing,’ said Walker. ‘Given the statements from witnesses, we’ve extended the search area quite considerably.’
He indicated a large-scale map on the wall of the briefing room. Around the area of Hollins Bridge, the map was shaded in sectors to show the designated areas. As Walker said, the search teams were working their way steadily further from the bridge itself.
‘We’ve almost completed the area on our side of the river,’ the DI was saying. ‘We’re waiting for our colleagues in Staffordshire to do the same. They have some difficult terrain on their side, where it’s a bit steeper, so it’s taking longer. I’ll be liaising with them later today on that. Meanwhile, these are the items we’ve found so far.’
Photos were pinned up on a board next to the map, with indicators to show where each item had been found. The noose was there and so was the witch ball with its screwed-up bits of paper and the clay eagle’s head. Most distinctive of them was the effigy discovered lying on the coffin stone, which caused a lot of murmuring through the room.
‘It’s just a guy, isn’t it?’ said someone.
‘Yep, someone had it ready for Bonfire Night and lost it,’ added a second officer.
But a third shook his head. ‘I’ve never seen one like that. It’s too well made. Why would you go to all that trouble, just to burn it?’
DI Walker agreed. ‘That’s what we think, too. It may have been designed deliberately to look like someone. I think it would be fair to say that it isn’t our victim, anyway.’
There was a ripple of laughter again and Walker looked pleased. In that moment he seemed even more like a performer, gratified to get a reaction from his audience.
‘However, we have one suggestion put forward for the identity of the effigy,’ said Walker cheerfully. ‘DS Cooper has a theory.’
All eyes turned to Cooper and he stood up. Briefly, he explained his reasoning, from the eagle’s head to the emblem of the Manbys, then the situation at Knowle Abbey, with the anonymous letter, the mysterious intruder and the vandalism of the chapel.
‘So it’s possible this is part of a campaign by someone with a grudge against the Manby family,’ concluded Cooper.
‘And who’s the effigy of?’ asked a voice from behind him in the room. ‘Is it the earl? I have no idea what he looks like.’
Walker pinned a photograph on to the board next to the picture of the effigy. It was a blown-up detail from a formal occasion that had been featured in Derbyshire Life. The Right Honourable Walter, Earl Manby, was pictured in white tie and tails, beaming at the camera with his best air of bonhomie. He was clean shaven, with iron-grey hair neatly clipped and slicked down. His cheeks were full and his skin shone with a slightly florid glow, which might just have been a sign that he’d been enjoying a convivial evening. Apart from that, Cooper had to admit the photograph bore no similarity to the effigy at all.
‘The photo is a year or two old,’ said Becky Hurst, against a deafeningly dubious silence. ‘But it was all we could lay our hands on.’
‘Well, be that as it may,’ said DI Walker, ‘it’s something to bear in mind that there may be a connection with Knowle Abbey. The presence of the rope noose within a few yards of the effigy is worrying. It starts to look like a serious threat.’
Another murmur ran round the room. Walker waited for it to subside.
‘Although it also seems a possibility from the evidence at Sandra Blair’s house that the victim may have made the effigy herself,’ he said. ‘We’re waiting for confirmation of that.’
‘Why would she do that?’ asked someone.
‘We don’t know. In fact, a better question might be “Who did she make it for?”’
It was a good point, of course. Cooper had to admit that. He decided to sit back and listen to the rest of the briefing in dignified silence.
‘We’re still working our way through the diary and address book belonging to the victim, but the good news is that we’ve located Mrs Blair’s sister. Her name is Maureen Mackinnon and she’ll be arriving from Scotland in the morning.’
Cooper frowned. Why hadn’t he been able to locate a Dundee phone number in Sandra’s address book?
DI Walker might have seen his expression. He hesitated, looked down at his notes and said, ‘Mrs Mackinnon lives in Dunfermline, I believe.’
Oh, well. Dundee, Dunfermline. It was probably too easy to confuse them. It must have taken Luke Irvine a while to sort that one out.
‘There was the note in the diary about meeting “Grandfather”,’ said Cooper, forgetting his resolution to keep quiet.
‘According to Mrs Mackinnon, the victim doesn’t have a grandfather,’ said Walker with an air of finality. ‘Not a living one she could have been meeting.’
And Cooper wasn’t surprised to hear that.
‘Okay, thank you,’ said Superintendent Branagh. ‘Let me say at this point that we won’t be releasing any details to the public of what we found at the scene. Specifically, there will be no mention of the effigy or the noose. Understood? All right. What about forensics?’
The crime-scene manager, Wayne Abbott, took over the floor. He was a marked contrast to the DI, heavily built and shaven-headed like a football hooligan but totally on the ball when it came to the details of a crime scene.
‘Our scene is pretty messy,’ said Abbott. ‘Muddy, badly churned up, rained on and trampled. It couldn’t have been worse really. There’s no viable DNA to work with, for a start, and trace evidence is fragmentary. We’ve recovered some shoe marks close to where the body was found. They’ll be difficult to identify with any certainty, but we’re working on it.’
‘Fingerprints?’
‘We’ve retrieved a few partials from the victim’s clothing and from the effigy,’ said Abbott. ‘Many of them are the victim’s own, of course. The others we haven’t been able to identify. There’s no match from the database.’
‘That’s privatisation for you,’ said someone.
Cooper turned round to look, but couldn’t see who had spoken. It could have been Gavin Murfin, but he looked too innocent and his mouth was full anyway.
Creeping privatisation was a standing grievance among some officers. And fingerprint records had already been privatised during the past twelve months. There was no storage room left at the Regional Identification Bureau in Nottingham. So, like other East Midlands forces, Derbyshire had decided to digitise their records and move to an entirely electronic process. Half a million paper records were being destroyed after they were scanned and stored on a secure server.
‘That’s nothing to do with it,’ said Superintendent Branagh sharply. And no one seemed ready to argue with her.
Abbott looked across at where Cooper sat and met his eye.
‘The one thing we have established,’ he said, ‘is that the material used in making the effigy matches samples of fabric found in the victim’s home. There’s also a sketch that resembles the final design. So it seems we can confirm that the victim created the effigy herself.’
Cooper breathed a sigh of relief. At least he’d been right about something. He looked across the room and gasped in surprise. If he wasn’t mistaken, he’d almost caught Diane Fry smiling.
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