winding down from the hectic first full day of a murder enquiry. Others were taking over for the evening, beginning their stint by getting up to date at the evening briefing.
O O
Ben Cooper and Diane Fry sat together, reluctant, despite themselves, to break the professional bond that had formed between them by being paired up as a team. Fry still looked alert, her eyes fixed on Tailby, her notebook open on her knee. Cooper was weary, almost dazed, as if things weren’t connecting for him properly. But he felt the tension within him increasing as the day came to a close. He couldn’t stop his mind drifting away from the job towards a clamouring swarm of formless anxieties about his mother — sudden, stabbing fears about the immediate future, mingled with piercingly clear little memories of how she had once been, before her illness, in the not so distant past. He knew he would have difficulty tonight in making the transition from work to home. Wasn’t the one supposed to be an escape from the other?
As Tailby began to speak, Cooper looked down at Fry’s pen, which was already starting to move across her notebook. He was surprised to see the page half covered in drawings of spiders with black, hairy bodies and long legs, their shapes etched deep into the paper with heavily scrawled ballpoint pen.
‘Make sure you all read the reports,’ Tailby was saying. ‘But I’ll sum up the main points. Late this afternoon a witness came forward. A gentleman by the name of Gary Edwards. Mr Edwards is a bird-watcher. On Saturday evening, he was positioned on the top of Raven’s Side on the north of the valley at Moorhay. He was, it seems, watching for pied flycatchers, which are a rare species known to breed in this area. Mr Edwards had travelled from Leicester purely on the chance of seeing a pied flycatcher,
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so that he could tick it off on a list of British species. I’m told this activity is called twitching.’
Cooper saw some of the officers smiling, but he knew Tailby wasn’t joking. It was very rare that he did. The DCI looked up at them over his reading glasses, then back down again at the
o o ‘ o
report in his hands.
‘Mr Edwards thought the oak and birch woodland near the stream was a likely site. At one stage, though, he says he was watching a pair of merlins nesting on the cliff face below him. While he was doing this, his attention was taken by a bird flying towards the woodland, which he felt might be the said pied flycatcher. He followed the flight of this bird with his binoculars.’
In Cooper’s hands was a summary of interviews conducted with Graham and Charlotte Vernon, and with Molly Sherratt, as well as with the bird-watcher. Some of the details were marked as new information, and would be followed up with actions the next dav. There were also reports of the attempts made by DI Hitchens’s team to trace Lee Sherratt, without success. From the tone of the summary, Cooper was left in no doubt that Sherratt was considered the obvious suspect. All they had to do, it was inferred, was to find Sherratt and let the forensic evidence establish his guilt. The rest was all for show.
‘It should be stated at this point,’ said Tailby, ‘that Mr Edwards was equipped with a pair of Zeiss roof-prism- type binoculars with a magnification of x 10 and a 45 mm diameter object lens. A powerful bit of kit. He says he trained these binoculars on the area of woodland into which the bird had disappeared, and he waited to see if there was any further movement. There was. But it wasn’t a bird.’
Tailby paused, like an actor savouring the effect, trying to get his timing just right.
‘Mr Edwards further states that he followed a movement in the undergrowth of something black, only to find the head of a dog appearing in his view. Due to the small field of vision of binoculars of that power, he took them away from his face and with unaided vision saw a man with a dog. We believe from Mr Edwards’s statement that this was near the
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spot where Laura Vernon was found. The time: approximately seven-riiteen.’
There was a little stir of excitement. The bird-watcher had been in position within an hour of the incident, on a good vantage point, with a powerful pair of binoculars. Who could ask for anvthin? better? What more had the twitcher seen?
J O
Cooper observed that Fry had been scribbling notes rapidly, turning over the page with the spiders and turning again. Now she was sitting bolt upright, alert and eager. He could see that she was getting ready to take the first opportunity to put in a question, to make sure she was noticed.
‘Unfortunately for us,’ said Tailby, ‘Mr Edwards then completely lost interest in the area of woodland. He reasoned that the human and canine presence would disturb the bird population. Particularly the pied flycatcher, which is of a somewhat secretive and sensitive nature, apparently. His attention returned to the merlins. Mr Edwards then remained on Raven’s Side until nine-thirty approximately, but he saw nothing further of interest to us.’
Fry stirred. ‘Over two hours, sir? What was he doing all that time?’
‘Yes. DC Fry, isn’t it? That is a question that was put to him, Fry. He states that he was waiting for dusk on the chance of observing little owls hunting.’
‘Tell him to get a life,’ said someone from the back.
O
‘I don’t need to point out that this could be an absolutely vital witness,’ said Tailby, ignoring the interruption.
Ben Cooper raised a hand. ‘The man with the dog, sir. Are we thinking it was Harry Dickinson? According to Dickinson’s statement, he walks in that area regularly.’
‘Unfortunately, Mr Edwards wasn’t able to give us a description. He was too far away, and did not study the man through his binoculars.’
There were general sighs of disappointment.
‘More interested in pied flycatchers than people,’ said the same voice.
‘However, Mr Dickinson will be spoken to again today,’ said Tailby. ‘In the initial interview he was not asked about Saturday
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evening. It may be that he was on the Baulk at that time and he saw something usciui. Mr Dickinson wiii he among the actions
