Cooper pictured the abandoned field barn. He wondered if there was a spot where Quinn might have stood and watched it before approaching. But the site had been too open for that. He would have had to strike in complete darkness, which made things as difficult for him as for his victim.
‘Well, we’ll be making sure of one thing from now on,’ said Fry. ‘No other potential victims will be taken by surprise to find Mansell Quinn on their doorstep.’
She had that look on her face - the one that told Cooper she had something else to tell him, some parting shot. But before she got it in, he needed to mention another subject that was on his mind.
364
‘Diane, did you read the Neil Moss story?’ he said.
‘I had a look at it,’ said Fry. ‘But it doesn’t seem to have any relevance.’
‘You don’t think so?’
‘No. It was a terrible tragedy, but it happened forty-five years ago, Ben. And there’s no connection between Moss and Quinn, is there?’
‘Well …’
‘They’re not related, and Quinn can’t possibly have known him. It was too long ago.’
‘That doesn’t mean there isn’t any connection between the two,’ said Cooper. ‘But it does mean the connection is a bit more … psychological.’
‘Oh, my God.’
Fry looked at him with that exasperated expression he’d grown used to. ‘Would you care to explain that, Ben?’
‘Look, you have a man serving a life sentence in prison for a crime he says he didn’t commit. As far as he’s concerned, he’s there because his friends betrayed him. And then his family stops visiting him. He’s completely isolated, right? Locked up in a cell for the rest of his life. Walled up.’
‘OK, I think I see where you’re heading.’
‘And he reads the story of Neil Moss, who really is walled up. Moss died in complete isolation because no one could reach him.’ Cooper spread his hands, inviting Fry to share his thinking process. ‘In prison, people develop obsessions. They start finding things that seem to have immense significance, things they think relate specifically to their own lives. God knows, it happens to enough people outside prison. It’s so easy to let that grip on perspective slip.’
‘Well …’ said Fry doubtfully.
‘Look, when you were a teenager, wasn’t there some song in the pop charts whose words seemed to sum up your emotional state at that moment? So much so that you were convinced the song was actually about you.’
365
‘Heaven is a Place on Earth,’ said Fry.
Cooper paused. ‘Really? Belinda Carlisle?’
‘Yes.’
Fry began to looked irritated again, and Cooper decided not to pursue it.
‘Well, I think it’s possible that Quinn saw the Neil Moss story as some sort of metaphor for his own life,’ he said. ‘A symbol, if you like. And all the more meaningful because Moss is still imprisoned there in that shaft in Peak Cavern. He never got the chance to return to the outside world. He died in isolation and darkness.’
He saw Fry shudder. But he wasn’t sure whether she was reacting to the thought of Neil Moss dying in his limestone tomb, or to the childhood memories he’d inadvertently stirred up. ‘Heaven is a Place on Earth’?
‘So,’ said Fry, poking half-heartedly among the papers on her desk, ‘Mansell Quinn loses touch with his family and friends. He’s starved of normal communication. Then he finds this book in the prison library and he responds to a dead man’s voice speaking to him across the space of forty-five years - is that it?’
‘Something like that.’
‘Well, to be honest, it’s a bit more cosmic than anything I’d have come up with.’
‘I know, Diane.’
‘But there’s one thing that might not have occurred to you.’
‘What’s that?’
‘As I understand the story of Neil Moss, he ended up trapped in that shaft as a result of his own voluntary actions. He was there because of something he did, a miscalculation or a combination of unlucky circumstances. But he walked into it with his eyes open. It was a risk that he was prepared to take for his own reasons.’
‘Yes, I think that would be right,’ said Cooper thoughtfully.
366
‘Anyway, enough of the philosophy. You can hand in your thesis later. I thought you might like to know what else the SOCOs found in the field barn where Will Thorpe was killed, apart from the blood …’
‘Oh, what?’
‘The floor was packed dirt. Dry dirt - or it would have been. Ironically, it seems Quimi brought the rain in with him and created a couple of wet patches.’
Cooper felt his heart sink. It was an illogical reaction, but he knew Fry was about to prove him wrong again.
‘Footprints,’ he said.
Fry nodded. They’re a bit trampled, but the SOCOs lifted a couple of good impressions from the sole of a right boot.’
‘And?’
