‘Well, I’ll leave the deductions to you, as usual. But what I can say is that the blow to the head was probably struck while the victim was standing. If you find the weapon, we’ll have a good chance of establishing that more definitely.’
‘But?’
‘But the injury to the arm was inflicted when the victim was already lying down. There’s bruising on the other side of the arm, where it was impacted on the ground. Again, if we had a weapon, we could do some angle tests. A heavy wooden stick of some kind. That’s what you should be looking for. Unfortunately, the weapon doesn’t seem to have splintered, as it hasn’t left any splinters in the wound that I can see. So unless the lab can find some traces, there’s no way of telling what kind of wood.’
‘Someone knocked him unconscious, then hit him again, breaking his arm?’
‘Perhaps. But remember that he struck his head when he fell.’
Fry looked up, dragging her eyes away from the protruding bone. ‘You mean he was already dead when his arm was broken?’
‘It wouldn’t have happened quite so quickly,’ said Mrs Van Boon. ‘But he was certainly dying.’
‘Neil had lived in Tintwistle for about nine months,’ said Philip Granger. ‘His house is right on the main road.’
‘Yes, we know. You went there with DC Cooper and some other officers yesterday,’ said DI Paul Kitchens patiently.
Granger nodded, but didn’t look at Ben Cooper, who was sitting next to the DI. Cooper gathered the impression that Philip Granger didn’t remember him. He’d already made a formal statement this afternoon about his brother, which had been pretty comprehensive. There were details in it that would be gone over again later, but not just now.
In the interview room at West Street, Granger looked as ill as he had the day before. Either he hadn’t shaved before he came out, or he had a bad case of five o’clock shadow. Cooper wanted to ask him if he was experiencing the survivor’s guilt that members of a victim’s family often suffered from - the irrational feeling that the wrong person had died. It should have been me, not him. And all those ‘if onlys’. Maybe it was even worse for an older brother.
181
‘Neil was forever complaining about the traffic jams in Tintwistle/ said Granger. They’ve been talking about a Longdendale bypass for years and years. He even went to some of the meetings of the campaign committee, but he didn’t like the other folk who were on it. He said they were pretentious gits with too much time on their hands.’
‘We’re continuing to examine your brother’s house, Mr Granger/ said Kitchens. ‘As next of kin, you have the right to be present, if you wish.’
‘Next of kin/ repeated Granger.
‘Do you understand what I’m saying, sir?’
‘It doesn’t matter. You’ve got Neil’s car, too, haven’t you? The Beetle.’
‘That’s right.’
‘Have you found anything yet?’
Kitchens perked up with sudden interest. ‘In the car? Why do you ask?’
‘I thought there might be some clues in it. I mean, Neil might have given someone a lift that night, mightn’t he? He had a habit of doing that. I wouldn’t pick anybody up myself, because you never know who they might be these days. But Neil didn’t always see sense like that.’
‘I understand.’
Granger looked at Cooper for the first time.
‘It was the vicar that phoned me, you know/ he said. ‘Mr Alton.’
‘Yes, you mentioned it in your statement/ said Cooper. ‘Mr Alton was expecting Neil to help him in the churchyard on Saturday morning.’
‘I went round to Neil’s house, but there was no sign of him/
‘Yes, sir.’
‘But I didn’t really think there was anything wrong. I didn’t think …’
Granger stopped. He seemed to feel the need to go over again some of the things he’d said in his statement. But only some of the things - those that affected himself. Perhaps they were the only facts he was sure of, and the rest of it he couldn’t believe.
‘The next-door neighbours couldn’t give a toss/ he said.
‘Did your brother not get on with them?’
‘I don’t think they liked the look of him any more than me. But they hated me coming to his house on my bike.’
‘You don’t live too far away yourself, do you?’
182
‘I share a place with some mates in Old Glossop.’
Hitchens glanced at Cooper.
‘Five or six miles, something like that? So you’re only a lew minutes away.’
‘It depends on the traffic.’
‘It must have been quite different for both of you, when you moved away from Withens/ said Cooper. ‘You had plenty of family living nearby when you were there.’
‘We lived at Waterloo Terrace, near our uncle and aunt. Number 7.’
