assistant behind the counter look up and smile as a dark figure approached from the right of the camera. The time stamp showed that it had been 15.32. It must have been raining at the time, because Mansell Quinn was wearing a black slicker that glittered with drops of water in the grainy light. Cooper had seen plenty like it on sale in Out and About, but Quinn could have bought it in any one of a dozen places.
Cooper had no doubt that it was Quinn, even though they had only a profile view of him as he waited patiently for the assistant to run his purchases through the bar-code reader and ring up a sale on the till. Quinn had changed in appearance from the photographs they had of him, even the most recent. He was leaner and fitter, the planes of his face narrowing from his cheekbones to a strong jawline. He had short cropped hair, grey at the temples now.
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Even so, a side view of him on a poor-quality CCTV film might not have been enough for a positive ID. Cooper was waiting for the moment when Quinn paid with a couple of ten-pound notes, took his purchases and began to turn away from the counter. Then he paused fractionally and tilted his head in the direction of the camera. His eyes became visible then, just for a second. He wasn’t looking straight at the lens, but slightly to the side, like a man gazing into the distance at a view that had just caught his attention. Then Quinn walked to the door of the shop, and was gone.
‘Freeze that and print it,’ said DI Hitchens. ‘It’s him.’
‘No doubt about it,’ said Diane Fry. ‘The eyes are very distinctive.’
‘What did he buy, Cooper?’ said Hitchens. ‘Do we know?’
‘A self-inflating mattress in a stuff sack, and a bundle of light sticks.’
Hitchens stared at him. The DI wasn’t the outdoors type, and some of the technical details baffled him.
‘What does that mean?’ he said.
‘He’s planning on sleeping rough somewhere.’
‘No more nights at the Cheshire Cheese, then. Pity.’
‘No. But I wonder how well Mansell Quinn knows the outdoor equipment shops in Hathersage,’ said Cooper.
‘Why?’
‘Well, there are four or five of them. I’m wondering why he chose this one.’
‘It was probably just the nearest. Or the biggest and busiest, so that he’d be less likely to be remembered.’
‘But it was also one with a camera covering the till.’
‘He just didn’t notice the camera, that’s all,’ said Fry. ‘Most people don’t.’
Cooper froze the tape and played back the short section where Quinn took his purchases and turned away from the counter. There was that slight tilt of the head towards the screen, only a subtle gesture, almost unnoticeable. To
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Cooper, it seemed like the nod of an actor acknowledging his audience.
But that could have been just his imagination. It could have been because Cooper thought he’d seen Mansell Quinn before. Less than two days ago.
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22
At fifty, Raymond Proctor was older than either Quinn or Thorpe. And Ben Cooper found himself thinking of the caravan park owner as the most tired and demoralized of the three men. He wasn’t sure why this was - Proctor was happily married, and the big trauma in his life had happened fourteen years ago. He ought to have put it all behind him by now.
‘Mr Proctor, with your permission, we’d like to have a look inside some of your caravans,’ said Diane Fry when they found him in the office at Wingate Lees.
Proctor stood up, immediately aggressive.
‘You can’t do that,’ he said. ‘They’re occupied. I’ve got visitors in them. I can’t let the police go ferreting around in their property while they’re out. What do you think it would do to my business? And what are you looking for, anyway?’
‘We’re looking for your old friend William Thorpe,’ said Fry. ‘And we don’t want to look in the occupied units, just the old Vans down at the far end.’
‘Those? They’re empty.’
‘We’d like to check, if you don’t mind.’
Proctor sighed heavily, and made a great performance of opening and shutting drawers, then sorting out the right keys from the neat rows of hooks on the wall behind his desk.
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Till have to come with you.’
‘Fine.’
They followed him through the site, past the trees and the pond.
‘Do they look occupied?’ said Proctor, gesturing at the caravans.
‘No, they don’t. That’s the point.’
‘Oh, so you think it’s all a clever plot to fool you, do you? What do you reckon I’m doing - running an international drugs operation from a two-berth caravan?’
‘Stranger things have been known.’
‘Not in the Hope Valley, they haven’t.’
Proctor poked a key into the door of the first caravan, rattled it without any result, and had to try another one before he got the door open. He cursed continuously as he did it.
Fry and Cooper exchanged a glance. Proctor was making far more noise than necessary. Was it merely a gesture of irritation, a bit of reassurance for himself? Or a warning to someone?
