‘Don’t let it take up too much of your time. And report back, Ben.’
‘Of course. Oh, Diane, I got a copy of the book.’
‘What book?’
‘The one that Quinn was reading in prison - Death Underground.’
‘Oh, that.’
‘There’s a story about a young caver who died in Peak Cavern back in 1959. And you won’t believe this, but -‘
‘Ben - 1959?’ Fry raised an eyebrow. ‘First it’s 1990, now 1959. You’re burying yourself in the past.’
‘But that’s exactly what I mean. Let me tell you ‘
‘No, Ben. You’re getting distracted again. You’re going to stop this, aren’t you?’
‘Yes, OK. Sorry.’
As she walked away, Cooper thought of the bloody footprints in the Carol Proctor crime scene photographs. Mansell Quinn would have seen those prints, too - if not as he stood over the body, then later on, in the files of evidence disclosed to the defence before his trial. His own footprints, clearly marked out in Carol Proctor’s blood.
Cooper looked at the forensics reports from Parson’s Croft. The impressions in the soil in Rebecca Lowe’s garden were now pegged out and covered, photographed and cast in plaster. But the SOCOs had failed to establish a route from the lime trees to the house. If Quinn had approached from that direction, he’d been very careful not to leave traces.
He turned to the evidence from inside the house, looking for a mention of seeds in the carpet or on the kitchen tiles. But there had been none. So perhaps Quinn had removed the black waterproof and packed it away in his rucksack, then brushed himself down and combed his hair before
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approaching the house like a ghost, leaving no trace of his passing. Perhaps.
And then had he slipped as quietly in through the back door? Or had Rebecca opened the door herself and let him in?
Cooper remembering entering Rebecca Lowe’s house. Inside, everything had been very quiet. The carpets had been deep enough to muffle footsteps, and heavy curtains had smothered sounds from outside. All the doors had closed quietly, and even the hands of the clock moved silently. In these last few months, Mrs Lowe seemed to have lived in a cocoon, sheltered from the outside world. That was why the atmosphere in the house had made Cooper feel uncomfortable.
Parson’s Croft was the sort of home where radon could be a problem, if it was built on limestone. Central heating and insulation could make a building act like a big chimney, the warm air sucking radon out of the soil and into the house through every crack. Like the carbon dioxide that had killed Neil Moss, radon was colourless, odourless and tasteless. Some people had insulated themselves so carefully that they’d increased the risk to themselves.
It would be easy to convince yourself you were safe in a house like Rebecca Lowe’s, where the world never seemed to penetrate. But it would be a false illusion. The outside world had a way of getting into your life in ways that you didn’t expect. It crept through the tiniest cracks in the foundations. It rose out of the ground, and it seeped into the water. It was as insidious as radon gas. And just as deadly.
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29
‘The net is closing in,’ said DCI Oliver Kessen. ‘But we’re asking everyone in the area to be vigilant and report any possible sightings of this man.’
Kessen looked sombre. He gazed directly at the camera for a few moments with a determined expression until he was faded out and the newsreader came back on to give the phone number. Watching the performance, Ben Cooper wondered if the DCI had been on a media course recently. He’d got the direct gaze off quite well.
‘Well, that was a result,’ said DI Hitchens. ‘A few tears, a bit of emotion. That should get us on the one o’clock news. They couldn’t have done it any better.’
The take it you mean the Lowes, rather than Mr Kessen,’ said Chief Superintendent Colin Jepson. The divisional commander had joined the enquiry team for half an hour to watch the broadcast. He sat stiffly on a chair among the detectives, trying for an air of informality.
‘Well, quite, sir,’ said Hitchens.
But Cooper wasn’t sure about that. He looked around the room for the reaction of the rest of the team. For him, Andrea Lowe had performed well at the press conference. She’d been articulate and compelling, her manner suggesting strong
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emotion barely restrained. But her brother, Simon? There had been little from him throughout. This time, he’d left Andrea to do all the talking as he sat, tense and uncomfortable, uttering only monosyllables of agreement.
Cooper found himself wondering about the nature of Simon’s relationship with his father. He’d been fifteen years old at the time of Carol Proctor’s murder, and the trauma must have gone pretty deep. Cooper knew how difficult it could be to deal with conflicting emotions about a parent. In Simon Lowe, he was looking at someone who was almost a mirror image of himself.
‘You know we’re going to get every busybody in Derbyshire phoning in, don’t you?’ said the Chief Superintendent, as Hitchens killed the TV picture with the remote. ‘Everybody will want to think they’ve seen Mansell Quinn. Within twenty four hours, you’ll be nobody around here unless you’ve had Quinn lurking in your back garden. You won’t be able to hold your head up with the neighbours if you haven’t stood next to him in the queue at the chippy at least once.’
‘We are rather relying on the public, sir,’ said Hitchens. ‘We don’t have any other options at the moment.’
‘All we can rely on the public to do is to tie up all my resources.’
‘It will use a lot of resources manning the phones and checking out the sightings,’ said Hitchens. ‘But we need the help of the public. We’ve got to catch this man before he strikes again.’
‘Strikes again?’ said Jepson. ‘Are you writing headlines for the newspapers these days, Hitchens? Have you taken a subeditor’s course at the Derbyshire Times’? Are you going to start talking in words of one syllable?’
