Someone ought to suggest it to them. An incident like the drowning of Emily Nield could traumatize a boy of Alex’s age, and cause psychological problems months or years down the line. His behaviour could be seriously affected. Who knew what he might do at some future date, if his complex feelings were bottled up and never found a natural release?
Alex had started the slideshow again. Cooper watched more inanimate objects appear and slide by. Patterns, light and shade. Those were the things that interested Alex Nield. None of his images included people, not even his own family. Perhaps especially his own family.
Cooper looked at his watch.
‘Well, thanks a lot for your time, Alex. I’m going to have to get back to work now.’
‘Okay.’
‘I’ll see you another time, though.’
‘I guess.’
‘At least you’re easy to find here in Ashbourne. You used to live in Wetton, didn’t you?’
And Alex froze. Almost literally. His expression became a mask, all friendliness gone. His face had closed against the world, and particularly against Cooper.
All the time he’d been talking to the boy, Cooper had been aware that he might say the wrong thing at any moment. He’d felt as though he was skating on thin ice. And now he’d fallen through.
Back in the sitting room, he raised the subject of Alex with his parents. They agreed that they ought to consider Alex’s welfare and not let him sit alone in his room for hour after hour. ‘After the funeral,’ said Dawn, pronouncing the words as if she was saying After the end of the world. The inference seemed to be that nothing else mattered, or even existed, until that event had been faced up to.
‘And you haven’t any idea who might have sent the anonymous letter?’ said Cooper, looking at the line of framed photographs on the window ledge.
‘No, we haven’t.’
‘Or what the letter might have been referring to?’
‘No idea,’ said Nield, almost snapping the answer. ‘It’s just somebody with delusions.’
‘About Emily,’ said Cooper. ‘Could she be badly behaved sometimes? A troublesome child?’
‘No. What do you mean?’
‘Nothing, really.’
A school photograph of Alex was prominently displayed in the window. He was wearing his Queen Elizabeth’s uniform, a navy blue blazer and school tie. But Cooper was looking for photographs of Emily. He found a family group, with Robert and Dawn, Alex and Emily — and a teenage girl of about sixteen, with distinctive black eye make-up and a purple streak in her hair.
‘Who is the other girl in this photograph with you?’ he asked.
There was no answer from either of the Nields. Cooper became aware of one of those awkward silences that seemed to fill a room, as if he’d just broken wind. Was it the result of shock, embarrassment, shame?
He glanced up quickly to catch the expressions on the faces of the Nields. And he met only hostility.
Cooper’s return to Edendale had been delayed by a traffic accident. An HGV had toppled into a ditch on the A515 near Sudbury, causing traffic to back up all the way Ashbourne.
Back at his desk, he thought about his visits to the Nields’ home. While he’d been sitting in his car listening to traffic alerts about the HGV accident, a recollection had come to him of the Museum of Childhood, just a few miles away in Sudbury.
Among the exhibits at the museum was the Betty Cadbury Collection of Playthings Past. He remembered a three-storey doll’s house, made around the end of the nineteenth century. It had nine perfect miniature rooms, with the figure of a Victorian mother downstairs in the kitchen, and Father upstairs in the study with his pipe. There had been an odd excitement about being able to glimpse the whole life of a house in that way, to know what was going on in every room at the same time. But even then, he’d wondered where the children were, why the bedrooms on the top floor weren’t occupied, and the nursery with the toys laid out on the floor was empty. There was no one to play with the rocking horse or the building blocks, no one running in the garden or helping Mum in the kitchen.
He’d always been familiar with the expression ‘seen but not heard’ — his own grandfather had used it often enough. But children who were neither seen nor heard? That was a house where something was wrong.
‘The Nields have an older daughter,’ said Cooper when he got back to Edendale and found Gavin Murfin waiting for him. ‘Her name’s Lauren. It seems they don’t like to talk about her very much.’
‘Black sheep of the family?’
‘Well, let’s just say I don’t think she came up to Mum’s high standards. She looked the rebellious type, even in her photographs. I can imagine she might not have been able to tolerate life in that household.’
Murfin studied the photo. ‘A bit Goth, do you reckon?’
‘What makes you say that?’
‘Too much eye make-up. Black nail varnish. Miserable expression.’
‘All teenagers are miserable, aren’t they? Especially when they’re having their photo taken with Mum and Dad.’
‘Yeah, but there’s something different about the way a Goth looks miserable. They make it seem as though it’s some kind of artistic statement.’
‘Existential angst.’
‘If you say so.’
Cooper took the photo back. He could see what Murfin meant.
‘So how do you know about Goths, Gavin?’
‘One of our girls brings her friends home now and then. I asked her why some of them looked like rejects from a Hammer Horror film. She explained to me about Goths.’
‘There’s more to it than the look, though.’
‘Of course. They have a whole culture, if you get into it. They even have their own weekend at Whitby during the autumn.’
‘Whitby? Oh, Dracula.’
‘Right. But the look seems to be important. Mostly black, but maybe with a bit of red or purple.’
‘Lauren has purple streaks in her hair.’
‘There you go.’
‘It’s funny how things like this can make you feel old, Gavin.’
‘Imagine what it’s like being the parent of one.’
‘Is the Lowndes operation set up?’ asked Cooper.
‘All ready to go.’
As Diane Fry walked through the corridors of Lloyd House, she was sure that she could sense people turning to look at her. She was just being paranoid, she supposed — like Andy Kewley. She wasn’t used to being the centre of unwelcome attention, and she didn’t like it. The idea that people were talking about her in rooms somewhere made her skin crawl. Never mind what they said about your ears burning, this was an all over hot itch, as if she’d fallen naked into a bed of nettles. Her entire skin felt uncomfortable.
The sudden silences among members of the team were unnerving her. Blake confirmed the bad news later that morning.
‘What people don’t realize is that the conviction rate is even lower for crimes other than rape,’ he said. ‘Four per cent for burglaries, one per cent for criminal damage. The number of rape convictions has doubled in the past twenty-five years. But the number of allegations had increased dramatically. The definition of rape has been widened twice, and there’s been a push to get victims to report. Those are two good reasons why the number has increased, anyway.’
Fry noticed that Blake could hardly bear to look at her. He was avoiding the real subject.
‘The CPS used to insist on independent corroboration before they would take a case to court,’ he said. ‘But they’ve been under pressure, too. Now they don’t insist on it so much. But that means a case is more difficult to prosecute. A jury is less likely to convict when it’s a question of the complainant’s word against the defendant’s.’
‘But in this case, you have DNA,’ said Fry.
‘Right.’
