The transcript showed that Quinn had failed to substantiate his assertion. Cooper could almost hear the satisfaction in the voices of the detectives asking the questions. And Quinn must have realized himself that his position was hopeless. From that moment, he’d accepted his guilt.
The Proctors’ house at Wingate Lees was the sort of home where the television was never switched off. Ben Cooper saw
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a second TV mounted on the wall in the kitchen, and he imagined the children would have their own sets in their rooms.
‘So where is he, Mr Proctor?’ said Diane Fry angrily.
Raymond Proctor shook his head. ‘I don’t know. When I went out this morning, he’d gone. That’s all I can tell you. I couldn’t keep him here against his will, could I? What did you expect me to do, lock him in the caravan? If you wanted him locked up, you should have kept him in a cell.’
‘Do you know why he went?’
‘No. Who knows what goes on his mind? Will’s a sick man.1
‘What time did you see him last, sir?’ asked Cooper.
‘I spoke to him about ten o’clock, to see if he needed anything. Those ‘vans aren’t exactly luxurious, but he said he was OK. He told me he was tired and he was going to sleep.’
‘And nobody saw him go?’
‘Not so far as I know.’
‘Damn it, he could be miles away by now,’ said Fry.
‘Will doesn’t move all that fast,’ said Proctor. ‘If it helps.’
Cooper turned his back on the TV screen, finding the picture too distracting.
‘Did you talk to Mr Thorpe yesterday?’ he asked.
‘A bit.’
‘What about?’
‘Why do you want to know that?’
‘It might help us to understand why he left.’
A faint crack could be heard behind the Proctors’ house, then a slithering somewhere above their heads, like claws sliding down the tiles of the roof. With a small thump, a wood pigeon hit the guttering and flopped over the edge. It hung upside down for a moment, its head rolling drunkenly as if it were trying to see down into the house. Then its weight carried it forward, and it fell past the window
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with its beak hanging open, the pinion feathers of its wings fluttering.
Proctor seemed glad of the interruption. ‘I see Jason got another one,’ he said.
‘Jason?’ said Fry.
‘My stepson.’
‘Is he shooting them?’
‘Aye. They’re buggers, those pigeons. They wake us up at three o’clock every bloody morning. They feed on the fields, then they roost up here on our roof. Dirty, they are. Look at the birdshit on the caravans up at this end of the site. It gets on the customers’ cars, too, and they don’t like it. Pigeons! The only way to get rid of them is to shoot ‘em.’
‘They’re not a protected species, then?’
‘Protected?’ said Proctor.
Fry put on her most officious voice. ‘Well, they’re wood pigeons, aren’t they? Wild birds, not captive bred. I believe it’s an offence under the Wildlife and Countryside Act to intentionally kill or injure any wild bird. Unless you have a licence, sir.’
‘Licence?’ said Proctor. ‘They’re bloody pigeons - flying vermin. You don’t need a licence to shoot vermin. I’ve never heard such rubbish.’
But he didn’t sound certain. Cooper was pretty sure that Fry didn’t know whether you needed a licence to shoot wood pigeons, not without looking it up in her copy of the Police Training Manual. But he wasn’t going to say anything.
Fry patted her pockets as if searching for a notebook and stared thoughtfully at the roof for a while longer, until Proctor snorted in disgust. He stamped down the passage to the back yard, and they heard him shouting to somebody. A brief altercation followed, punctuated by swear words on both sides and the word ‘police’. Then Proctor slammed a gate and strode back.
After a moment, a youth carrying an air rifle appeared
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outside the window. He stared in at Fry as a visitor to a zoo might stare into a cage containing a two-headed buffalo. He looked as if he didn’t quite believe that such a creature could exist, and was transfixed by a sort of horrified fascination. In the hand that wasn’t holding the air rifle, he dangled two dead wood pigeons. The colours of their plumage were still bright. Cooper could see the pink patches on their breasts and the white under their open wings.
‘So,’ said Fry, ‘why did Mr Thorpe leave?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Proctor.
‘What did you say to him?’
‘Nothing.’
During a pause they became aware of Connie Proctor standing in the doorway.
‘I know what happened,’ she said.
