Cooper pulled out the file of Quinn photographs collected by the enquiry teams. In addition to the old mugshot and a print-out from the security camera at Hathersage, he had an army file picture of Quinn as a young man, some family snaps, and even a wedding photo of him with a smiling Rebecca. Cooper put the new picture alongside the others.
‘What do you think, Gavin?’ said Cooper.
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‘A bit of a chameleon, isn’t he?’
The photographs Cooper had in his hands could have been of three or four different individuals. Just a few years difference in age seem to produce a different man - the hair slightly longer, or shorter, even a dark moustache in the shot of him in uniform. Quinn’s hair colour seemed to change, too, and the even the shade of his skin. But that could be the quality of the photography.
According to his file, Quinn had looked after himself in prison, and had emerged from his sentence strong and fit. It was his friends William Thorpe and Raymond Proctor who had deteriorated over those thirteen years. Ihorpe had been eaten away by disease, while Proctor had allowed himself to become overweight, balding and unfit. And Cooper suspected he was also worn down by despair. In a way, Mansell Quinn was already the winner.
‘You’re sure that’s him?’
Diane Fry took the photo from Cooper and examined it.
‘Yes, yes, I’m sure. He’s wearing the same black waterproof that he had on in Hathersage. It’s lucky it had stopped raining by the time this was taken, so he has the hood back.’
‘He’s carrying a small rucksack, too. Wouldn’t you give your eye teeth to know what’s in it?’
T’m betting he has a self-inflating mattress in a stuff sack, and a packet of light sticks,’ said Cooper. ‘That’s what he bought in the Out and About shop at Hathersage before he caught the train.’
The was more concerned about any weapons he might be carrying.’
‘Of course. Diane, isn’t there a problem over the time of Mrs Lowe’s death?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Mrs van Door estimated that she was killed within an hour or two of her sister finding the body at eleven thirty.’
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‘You know we can’t expect anything more accurate.’
‘No - but we have the trainspotter’s photo of Quinn, which shows him at Hope station around seven forty. It doesn’t take more than twenty minutes to walk up to Parson’s Croft, so he’d be there by eight, in daylight. That doesn’t square with Mrs Lowe being killed by somebody bursting into the house two hours later.’
‘We have the footprints from the garden,’ said Fry. ‘So we know he waited under the trees.’ ‘For nearly two hours? In daylight?’
‘It was getting dusk. You said so yourself.’
‘No, not until nine thirty. Besides, Quinn could have had no idea of the lay-out of the house or garden - the place wasn’t even built last time he was in the Hope Valley.’
‘Ben, you’re just trying to pick holes for the sake of it, and it doesn’t work. Physically, the times fit just fine. Quinn was there on Monday night.’
‘We don’t even know the footprints are his,’ said Cooper.
‘Well, we’ll see, won’t we?’ Fry looked at the picture again. ‘I suppose there’s a lot of open country around the Hope Valley for Quinn to vanish into,’ she said.
Cooper laughed. So she’d noticed the hills where the railway line disappeared into the distance - the bulk of Mam Tor, and the twin heights of Win Hill and Lose Hill.
‘It’s almost all open country,’ he said. ‘Take a look at the map. Unless we get really lucky, the only chance we’re going to have of catching him is if he decides to go after another victim. Then we have to hope that he makes a mistake, or that someone recognizes him from the TV or newspapers.’
‘It comes back to the same question, then,’ said Fry. ‘Who else might Quinn be going after? Who might he have a grudge against?’
‘It would have to be a pretty personal animosity, wouldn’t it?’
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Fry looked at him curiously for a moment. ‘What are you thinking, Ben?’
‘Well … what about Proctor?’
‘If it weren’t for his family, I wouldn’t be worrying about that one at all.’
‘I think Will Thorpe knows a lot more than he’s telling. Quinn must have asked him about specific people. We need to find some way of persuading him to talk to us.’
Fry sighed. ‘If we pull him in again, he’ll just clam up.’
‘Yes, you’re right. But now he’s at Wingate Lees … it might be interesting to talk to him and Raymond Proctor together.’
Fry handed him the photograph back. ‘That’s not a bad idea.’
‘There’s one other thing,’ said Cooper. ‘It was something old Mr Thorpe said that made me think of it. You remember Mrs Lowe’s neighbours, the Newbolds?’
‘The croquet set.’
‘That’s them. Well, they reported seeing a tramp on the road near Mrs Lowe’s house a couple of weeks before she was killed.’
‘You think it might have been William Thorpe?’ said Fry.
‘He’d fit the bill, wouldn’t he? But what would he be doing, visiting Rebecca Lowe?’
