tried to listen for the echoes that identified the acoustics of the Orchestra Gallery. But the familiar cascade of water still caught him by surprise, and he was unable to turn his head away in time to avoid it. Roger Rain’s House.
In a flicker of Quinn’s torch, Cooper saw the moss around a fibre-optic light on the wall, growing from spores that had been carried into the cavern on visitors’ clothes, or that had drifted in on the air.
‘OK, stop,’ said Quinn a few minutes later.
Another second of light, and Cooper saw the yellowish white calcite sheets glistening on the walls, and tiny black hooks hanging from the roof. Then the torch turned away, and there was only darkness around him again. The surface was four hundred feet away now, through solid rock.
Cooper realized that his skin was tingling in the cool air.
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All his attempts to engage Quinn in conversation had failed so far. Maybe he could think of something that would force him to answer.
‘Sit down,’ said Quinn. He pointed with the torch. ‘On the floor.’
Quinn had the torch in his left hand, on his injured side. But the crossbow was gripped firmly in his right, his index finger curled close to the trigger. Cooper sat cross-legged on the floor, immediately feeling the chill of the damp rock through his trousers. He hadn’t come dressed for this. In fact, he hadn’t come equipped for it, either. Like the most foolhardy of amateur cave explorers, he had no equipment, no proper clothing, no food or water, and now no light of his own. And he hadn’t told anybody where he was going. What an idiot. Alistair Page was the only person who might think of looking for him in the cavern.
Quinn sat on a boulder across the chamber, at a safe distance and above Cooper’s level. He was taking no chances. But Cooper saw that Quinn hadn’t put his shirt back on. It would be difficult for him to do that now without losing control of the crossbow or the torch, or both. His body had dried, but he must be feeling the cold.
‘Why did you confess to killing Carol Proctor?’ said Cooper.
His voice jarred the silence. He’d never heard himself sound so small and tinny. As the cavern swallowed the sound of his words, he was overwhelmed with a sense of his own insignificance in the vastness of the cave system.
But at least it had worked.
‘Because I was guilty,’ said Quinn.
‘That’s not what you said at first.’
‘I changed my mind.’
‘Why?’
The torchlight flickered. Quinn put the torch down on the boulder next to him, flexed his left arm and gripped the shaft of the crossbow to steady it. Cooper saw that he was shivering.
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‘Why did you change your mind? Was it because your friends let you down, didn’t give you an alibi for the right time? Without that, your defence wouldn’t stand up, would it?’
Quinn didn’t answer. So Cooper tried again - he had to keep him talking.
‘Or was it because of what you remembered during the police interviews, Mr Quinn?’
‘What do you mean?’
Cooper leaned forward and talked a little more quickly and insistently, focusing Quinn’s attention on him.
‘I think it must have been very traumatic going into your own house and finding your lover dying on the floor. The shock would’ve driven everything else out of your mind. You couldn’t think properly, could you? I can see that’s how it must have been. But some things came back later, didn’t they? Details, impressions. They came back when the detectives asked you questions.’
Quinn stared at him. The don’t understand how you can know that. You weren’t there.’
‘I’ve read the transcripts, Mr Quinn. I think I could tell where it happened - where the memories came back to you.’
‘You can’t know something like that. You’re making it up.’
Quinn shifted the butt of the crossbow a little. It must be very uncomfortable, pressed against his naked shoulder like that.
Cooper leaned an inch or two closer. The torchlight was definitely failing now, but Quinn didn’t seem to notice. The gradual fading of light could be indiscernible, until it was too late. Until you realized it was already too dark to see.
‘What was it you saw that day?’ said Cooper. ‘You noticed something in the room, something that surprised you. It shouldn’t have been there. What did you remember seeing?’
Quinn’s eyes were drifting away, and he was losing concentration. The nose of the crossbow dipped a little. Cooper
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I
realized that Quinn must be exhausted. He’d been sleeping rough for the past few nights, and constantly on the move during the day, always looking over his shoulder for a police car or a CCTV camera. It was almost over for him now; he was drawing on his last reserves of energy.
‘The Coke bottle,’ said Quinn, as if talking in his sleep. ‘I smelled it first. There was a Coca Cola bottle on the table. It wasn’t quite empty.’
‘What was wrong with the Coke bottle being there?’
‘Carol didn’t drink Coke. She hated it. The bottle shouldn’t have been there.’
‘And what else?’
But Cooper couldn’t get out the next question before Quinn cut across him.
