‘Diane, why were you so sure about Mr Mullen being involved in the fire?’
‘He never seemed particularly grief stricken to me. Some of those people leaving flowers outside the house looked more upset than Brian Mullen did.’
‘He was probably in shock, Diane. Besides, a public show of emotion is unnatural for some people. He could well have been suppressing it while he was in hospital. Being discharged and coming home would be the time when the truth hit him hardest, don’t you think? I mean, finding just Luanne waiting for him, and knowing that he’d never see the rest of his family again. There must have been a moment when he couldn’t suppress the knowledge any longer. That would be when his world caved in, I imagine. If he talked to a counsellor at the hospital, he was probably warned about that.’ Cooper gazed down at the cap of the mine shaft thoughtfully. ‘Although I’m not sure when that moment would be — because Mr Mullen didn’t actually go home, did he? He went to his in-laws’ house when he left hospital.’
‘No, you’re wrong. He did go home,’ said Fry. ‘I took him there.’
Cooper paused. ‘Oh. So you did.’
‘I wanted him to see the house after the fire.’
He hesitated for a moment, wondering what the right thing was to say. ‘Well, it wasn’t your fault, Diane.’
She was silent for so long that Cooper thought her mind must have switched to a different subject altogether, the way it sometimes did. And when Fry did speak, he still wasn’t sure whether that was the case, or not.
‘Thanks a lot, Ben,’ she said at last.
And then she was gone, and Cooper was listening to the faint hiss of his phone.
A second later, Georgi Kotsev emerged from a summer house a few yards up the steep path. The building was made of tufa, with a thatched roof.
‘I don’t see him,’ said Kotsev. ‘What is this place anyway?’
‘A tourist attraction.’
‘OK, I believe you.’
‘When we’ve finished, we can walk back to the village, if you’re too scared of the cable car. All we have to do is press a button to release an automated gate near West Lodge.’
‘Let’s keep looking.’
Cooper followed Kotsev up the path. Next summer, he ought to bring Liz up here. They could have a goat’s cheese panini or a tuna melt in the Hi Cafe, or sit on the terrace of the Summit Bar with a table among the flowers, overlooking Matlock Bath.
That was assuming they were still together next summer, of course. He’d never gone out with anyone for as long as twelve months before.
For a moment, Cooper turned to look back through the trees at the view down into the valley. He recalled that the white building near the tavern was Upper Towers, where beer had once been served to lead miners. Inside, it had round rooms, so they said.
‘Hey, here!’
Cooper spun round and found Kotsev standing with a Heights of Abraham employee in a high-vis jacket.
‘Have you got something?’
Kotsev pointed up the hill. ‘He’s at the tower.’
The burnt-out Shogun was in the garage, covered in a tarpaulin. Wayne Abbott greeted Fry and Hitchens with a clipboard in his hand.
‘Yes, this is definitely the vehicle that was driven into the field at Foxlow. The tread pattern is an exact fit with the impressions we lifted. We matched soil from the tyres and the wheel arches. Luckily, the interior escaped the worst effects of the fire, and we found traces of gunshot residue on the seat covers. The fabric retains barium and antimony residue better than human skin.’
‘Well, that’s a positive development,’ said Hitchens. ‘We’ve got a definite lead at last.’
‘There’s more,’ said Abbott. ‘I didn’t expect this, but we got some prints off the underside of the dashboard, where it hadn’t been burned too badly. They’re in the system, too. Somebody’s been in this car who has previous form.’
Hitchens took the print-out. ‘Brilliant.’
Fry leaned closer to look. ‘Anyone we know?’
‘The name means nothing to me. Anthony Donnelly, aged thirty-seven, with an address in Swanwick.’
‘Never heard of him.’
‘He has several past convictions for theft from a vehicle and taking without consent, plus all the usual extras — no insurance, driving while disqualified, et cetera, et cetera.’
‘Just an average car thief,’ said Fry, feeling unreasonably disappointed.
‘Mmm, maybe. The most recent charge on his record was in connection with an organized lorry-jacking scheme. Truckloads of white goods diverted to new owners via a lay-by on the A1. I remember that case — five or six people went down for it. But it seems Donnelly was acquitted.’
‘So it could be that he’s gradually moving up in the world, getting involved with more serious operators.’
‘Driver for a professional hit man?’ said Hitchens. ‘Well, let’s go and ask him, Diane.’
‘If that information is from the PNC, then the first thing we have to hope for is that the address is accurate for once.’
The wheels and cables were still humming and rattling, but it no longer seemed to be merely the whir of machinery, the hiss of high-tension steel passing through the air. The noises formed words, murmuring and whispering, mumbling and chattering.
And then John Lowther looked down into the valley again. The fragile crystal of his mind had cracked. He could see the fragments lying on the ground, fading and turning brown, as if they were mere ordinary clay. Through the fracture in his consciousness, he heard the final voice. It was still faint, but he recognized it. Oh, he recognized it all right. In the past, this voice had forced him to do things that he had never wanted to do. And now the voice was back. He had no idea what it would make him do next.
‘
They would come for him soon. They would scent him out, sniffing the fear in his sweat. They would use dogs to listen for his voices when they became too loud. And they’d follow him when he left the house, track his movements wherever he went. And one day the searchlights would catch him on the corner of a street, and the lights would probe deep into his mind and see what was there. And the whole world would know his evil.
Cooper could see John Lowther on the platform at the top of the stone tower, leaning over the parapet. Even from this distance, he could tell that Lowther was trembling violently, as if he was no more than a leaf shaken by the wind blowing across the hillside. Strands of hair fell over his forehead, and his eyes were fixed on the horizon. He might have been listening for some distant call that would summon him away, an echo that would reach him from far in the south.
Lowther seemed completely oblivious to the knot of people beginning to cluster round the base of the tower. Their heads were tilted back to stare up at his silhouette, black against the sky. But not once did Lowther look down at the ground.
‘He’s been up there for some time now,’ said the staff member. ‘A visitor started to get uneasy about him. She said he was behaving oddly.’
‘All right. Thank you.’
‘Is there anything else I can do?’
Cooper looked at the concrete apron the tower stood on, and the rough boulders built into the base. ‘Right now, you could help us most by keeping everyone clear of the tower. Well clear — back as far as the play area.’
The man followed Cooper’s gaze, and turned pale. ‘You don’t think he might …?’
But Cooper put a hand on his shoulder. ‘If you could just move these people back, sir.’
‘Of course.’
Georgi Kotsev was examining the doorway to the tower. It was arched, like the entrance to a church, but so narrow that Kotsev looked as though he’d hardly be able to squeeze through it. Signs either side of the doorway warned visitors to take care on the steps. And they gave the building’s name — the Victoria Prospect Tower. Right now, it seemed ironic. Cooper wasn’t looking forward to the prospect at the top.
