The Dead Place (13 page)

Something lives in that darkness. It's our greatest fear, and it's called the unknown. Everyone knows this fear, but few of us dare to think about it. We'd never be able to go on living our lives if we really saw the grinning presence that waits behind our shoulder. It's far better to pretend we don't see the beast. We turn away our eyes and convince ourselves it's just a shadow cast by the sun. It's only a draught from an open window, a rustle of dead leaves on the other side of the door.

It's the same fear for the child whose bedroom door has to stand open at night for a glimpse of light and for the old woman whose hand trembles as she draws back the bolts. In the end, we're all destined to fall into the claws of that darkness we glimpse in our dreams. The great snatcher of souls, the unseen lurker on the threshold. What threshold would he lurk on, if not on the threshold of death?

Do you see that shadow now? Do you feel the chill, and hear the rustling?

101 These days, my dreams are different. Sometimes, in my nightmares, I see bodies moving inside their coffins. Their mouths twist, their limbs writhe, their hands open and close like claws as they reach towards the light. I try to make them settle down, to lie still so they can be buried. But it never does any good. In my dreams, the dead just won't stop squirming.

102 Next morning, Diane Fry found two middle-aged DCs occupying desks in the CID room. They wore almost identical navy blue suits, and they were both a bit too meaty around the shoulders, so they hardly seemed to have any necks. One had a tie with blue stripes, and the other black-and-white checks. They could have been visiting sales executives from a pharmaceutical company.

'Who are those two?' asked Gavin Murfin.

'CID support,' said Fry.

'What?'

'They retired from D Division last year. But they've come back to help out for a bit, while we're short-staffed. Mr Hitchens says they're very experienced. They both put in their full thirty.'

'Yes, I can tell.'

At the morning briefing on the Sandra Birley enquiry, Ben Cooper was the first to raise a hand. Keen to get noticed, no doubt.

'Sir, do you think Mrs Birley's attacker might have watched her for some days beforehand and worked out her habits?'

'What habits?' said DI Hitchens.

103 'For a start, the location she chose to park her car. And her practice of not using the lift when it smelled.'

'What, and pissed in the lift to discourage her from using it?'

'It was just a thought.'

'It would be too good to be true, wouldn't it? A suspect who covered the floor of the lift with his DNA for us to find?' The DI considered it. 'No, it won't work, Ben. He couldn't possibly have known Sandra Birley would work late that night.'

'No? Well, not unless '

'Unless?'

'Unless he worked in the same office.'

'We have to look at all her colleagues, then,' said Hitchens. 'How many are there?'

'About forty people work at Peak Mutual,' said Fry. 'Male and female.'

'Male and female? Good point, DS Fry. We mustn't assume we're looking for a male offender at this stage.'

'The phone call, sir?' said somebody.

'The phone call may turn out to have nothing to do with the abduction.'

DCI Kessen was present at the briefing, but sitting to one side and letting DI Hitchens take the floor. Fry wasn't surprised to see the acting head of CID. If the Birley case became a murder enquiry, Kessen would be appointed Senior Investigating Officer. But for now, they had no body, no evidence that there had been a serious crime. The possibility that Sandra Birley had been abducted from the Clappergate car park was just that - a possibility.

'Are we going to get the husband to make an appeal, sir?' asked Cooper, raising his hand. Fry nodded reluctantly to herself. At least that was one tactic they could use without committing themselves to anything.

'We think it's too early yet,' said Hitchens. 'Besides, he

104 isn't in any condition at the moment. I spoke to the family liaison officer first thing this morning, and it seems Mr Birley's emotional state has deteriorated considerably since yesterday.'

Then it turned out that the two retired DCs had been working an early shift, too. They'd already been through the CCTV footage from the Clappergate multi-storey. That wasn't anybody's favourite job. Feelings in the room began to warm towards them.

'First of all, we've eliminated the owners of the other two vehicles that were left in the car park overnight,' said the one with the black-and-white tie. 'The first bloke had drunk too much in the pub and sensibly decided to get a taxi. He turned up to get his car next morning, so we got a statement from him. He didn't see anything. But how would he, when he was in the pub at the time?'

'OK,' said Hitchens. 'And the other one?'

'Even more innocent. He works in the IT department of a company with offices in Buxton Road. That afternoon, he dropped a computer monitor on his foot and broke two toes. He was in A & E at the relevant time. His girlfriend turned up to collect the car.'

'They never really looked like contenders anyway. Why would Sandra Birley's attacker leave his own vehicle in the car park as well as hers?'

'Exactly, sir. But we had to eliminate them. We've also been through every bit of tape from the functioning cameras, and we've managed to trace all the vehicles that left the car park later that night - in other words, after Mrs Birley was abducted. There were only four of them, because the place was practically empty. In fact, we've matched all but one of those vehicles to CCTV footage of the owners returning to their cars. Two were lone males, and there was one couple but older, in their early sixties. It's clear from the tape that the woman isn't Sandra Birley. She's the wrong age, wrong

105 height, wrong clothes, everything. All of these people have been spoken to, and they seem to be genuine.'

'And none of them saw anything suspicious?' asked Fry.

'That's right, Sergeant.'

Fry sighed. That was the trouble with law-abiding members of the public - they never saw anything. She'd lost count of the number of times she'd attended a serious incident, only to be met by members of the public with helpful smiles and short-term memories.

'If my maths are correct, there was one more vehicle.'

'Unfortunately, the fourth vehicle seems to have been parked on Level 2.'

'Where there's a non-functioning camera?'

'You've got it, Sarge. We do have footage of the vehicle exiting the car park at the barrier. It's a blue Saab. There appears to be a male driving, no one visible in the passenger seat.'

'And has the owner been interviewed?'

'He lives in Sheffield. There's a team on the way there now to talk to him.'

'So if the Sheffield driver is eliminated,' said Fry, 'the only other possibility is that our man didn't have a vehicle of his own in the car park.'

'Well, he had to have a vehicle somewhere close by,' put in the DC with the striped tie. 'He must have been parked on the street.'

'More CCTV footage, then. The town centre cameras?'

'Right.'

Fry turned back to the DI. 'And what are we doing about the phone messages, sir? The clues he left. . .?'

Hitchens had his map pinned up on the board - or at least, an adaptation of it, showing the whole six-mile circle around Wardlow, with labels marking a scatter of locations.

'We've passed on a list of potential locations for the uniforms to check out when practicable,' he said. 'By that, I

106 mean any locations that might possibly be referred to as "the dead place". Otherwise, unless his clues get any clearer, there's nothing concrete for us to act on. Meanwhile, if you've got any reasonable theories, let's hear them. If you haven't heard the tapes and you want to listen to them, speak to DS Fry.'

'When practicable? That could mean never,' said Cooper.

Hitchens shrugged. 'As you said yourself, DC Cooper, the possibilities are endless. We need something more substantial.' 'We're hoping he'll phone again?'

'Well, it would help, wouldn't it?'

DCI Kessen had been listening quietly to the discussion. When the meeting had finished, he stood up and put his hand on Hitchens' arm.

'Keep me in the loop, won't you, Paul?' he said. 'Regular updates.'

Ben Cooper was about to leave the briefing with everyone else, when the DI called him over. He thought at first he'd misheard, and Hitchens had to speak to him again - a bit louder this time, as if Cooper was daydreaming at the back of the class.

'Oh, Ben. Have you got a minute?'

'Yes, sir?'

Cooper left his jacket over the back of his chair and walked to the front of the room, moving against the flow of bodies and conscious of the glances he was getting. But perhaps he was being over-sensitive. He still felt ashamed of his outburst at the hospital last night, and this morning he couldn't seem to concentrate on anything for more than a few minutes. His thoughts kept drifting back to the image of his mother's pale, helpless body lying in that side room off the ward, amid the smells of disinfectant and the constant slapping of heels in the corridor outside the door, back and forth, back and forth, until he thought it would drive him mad. When he'd phoned

107 the ward first thing this morning, he'd been told that Mrs Cooper was 'satisfactory'.

'There's something for you, Ben,' said the DI, fiddling with some papers on his clipboard. 'It looks as though you've had a bit of early luck. A member of the public called in to say she recognized the facial reconstruction.'

'Already?'

'It was in the evening paper last night, and it got a couple of minutes on the local TV news, too.'

'Brilliant.'

Hitchens looked at him critically, as if detecting something not quite right. Cooper wondered if he'd forgotten to shave properly, or had his tie on crooked. Both were perfectly possible.

'The lady's name is Ellen Walker. She believes the deceased is her cousin, Audrey Steele. Here's the address, Ben.'

'I'm on my way, sir.'

Cooper grabbed his jacket from his chair and tried to straighten his tie. It was best to look professional when meeting law-abiding members of the public.

'One more thing, Ben . . .' Hitchens was holding out a sheet torn from a message pad. 'What's this?'

'Another bit of luck for you. This gentleman is a retired forensic anthropologist with a special interest in Thanatology. Apparently, we've consulted him now and then in the past, and he's been living in this area since his retirement. He's willing to do a little consultancy work for us at no cost.'

'At no cost? Who says?'

Hitchens smiled. 'The vice-chairman of the police committee, who's a member of the same Rotary Club as Professor Robertson.'

Cooper took the sheet of paper and looked at the contact details. 'Is he ACPO accredited?'

'Of course. Give him a try, Ben. He might be exactly the person you need.'

108 'Yes, I suppose he might.' And he thought: Especially since he's free. But he didn't say it out loud.

'OK then, Ben, that's it.'

Cooper was aware that the room had emptied round him, and the DI was impatient to get on. But his father had taught him he should never pretend to understand something when he didn't. It always led to disaster, he'd said.

'Er . . . just one thing, sir,' he said.

'Yes?'

'What on earth is Thanatology?'

Hitchens looked flustered for a moment, then snapped his clipboard shut and headed rapidly towards the door, as if he didn't have a second to spare for inane questions.

'For heaven's sake, Cooper - if you don't know, look it up.'

As he was getting ready to leave the office, Cooper noticed a book on Gavin Murfin's desk. Gavin never had books on his desk. Pies and cakes, yes. Chocolate, obviously. Anything edible, in fact. So unless this book was made of iced sponge, it was a historic first.

Murfin saw him looking. But before he could move the book, Cooper picked it up. Dozens of bits of paper protruded from it, marking specific pages.

'A Promotion Crammer for Sergeants, Part One. I thought there must be some reason why you were suddenly talking like a training manual. What's going on, Gavin?'

'I'm just trying to improve my performance, like,' said Murfin.

'Your what}'

'It's something we should all stop and think about now and then, in my view. If we're going to make any progress in our careers, that is.'

Cooper stared at him. 'But this is a crammer, Gavin - you're surely not thinking of going for promotion?'

109 'As a matter of fact, I am.'

'You're going to put in for your sergeant's exam? Are you serious?'

Murfin snatched his book back. 'Why shouldn't I? Nobody around here seems to appreciate the depth of my experience. I was in CID when you were still in short pants. I've seen it all, I have. So it's time I shared the benefit of my knowledge and expertise in a supervisory capacity.'

'You've been practising your answers for the interview,' said Cooper in amazement.

'Go ahead, take the piss. I don't care. One of the advantages of my years of experience is that I remain cool and unflappable, even in the face of extreme provocation.'

'Hold on,' said Cooper. 'How many years exactly?'

'What?'

'How many years' experience, Gavin? How long have you been in CID?'

Murfin didn't answer. He opened his crammer and pretended to be studying a page.

'Come on, Gavin - how many years?'

'Eleven,' said Murfin casually.

Cooper let out a long breath. 'Ah. Tenure. That explains everything. You've only got a year left, at most. And you don't want to go back into uniform. Gavin, you're getting desperate.'

'Do you find the idea of me being promoted to sergeant inconceivable?'

'Well, yes.'

'Thanks a lot.'

Cooper laughed, then instantly felt guilty - not for laughing at Gavin, but because it didn't seem right that he should have something to laugh about right now.

They both looked up as Diane Fry came into the room. Her face was dark with irritation.

'Hey up,' said Murfin quietly. 'Are we in for another go at boosting morale?'