‘Yes.’
‘So someone removed Audrey Steele’s body and put another in its place. Dangerous Dave would approve of that.’
Fry stared at him. ‘What?’
‘If you’re going to take an item from a cache, you must leave something to replace it. Those are the rules of the game.’
‘The rules of the game. Right.’
Cooper thought of the mourners standing round the green burial site the day before to say farewell to the remains of Audrey Steele. Many of them had looked baffled to be attending another funeral for the same person, as if they’d just discovered that a human being could die twice over and everything could be even worse the second time round.
‘Some game, though,’ he said.
The Slacks lived in Miller’s Dale, among the winding loops of the River Wye. Cooper knew that these middle stretches of the Wye could be surprisingly remote. From Lees Bottom,
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the route of the main A6 swung away from the river for a few miles before the roads converged again near Topley Pike. In between, the limestone dales were accessible only by narrow back roads or by hiking through the woods on riverside paths.
A railway line had once skirted the valley sides, in the days when the mills had been working. Now, apart from some disused tunnels, all that was left of the line in Miller’s Dale was a double viaduct rising high above the road. It came as a surprise to Cooper every time he saw it. The bridge and its massive iron supports seemed to leap suddenly out of the trees cloaking the narrow valley.
A sharp turn opposite the church took him past the back of the Angler’s Rest and into a dark lane alongside the Wye. Cooper drove beneath limestone cliffs and negotiated a flooded stretch of road to reach the hamlet of Litton Mill, where he found Greenshaw Lodge. It had been an engine house once, part of the mill complex. But progressive demolition of the older mill buildings had left the house isolated on the lower slopes among the trees.
As Cooper pulled up in front of the Slacks’ house, he saw a man standing on the doorstep. He was in his seventies probably, tall and lean, with the same slightly ungainly look that Vernon had. The old man didn’t seem to be waiting for anybody, just standing looking at nothing in particular. When he heard the engine, he turned to stare at Cooper’s car with a bemused expression.
‘Mr Abraham Slack?’
‘Come in,’ said the old man without even asking who he was. Cooper thought of giving him some security advice about identifying visitors before he let them into the house, but decided it wasn’t the time.
One wall of the sitting room was exposed stonework. Two arches led to the dining room and a breakfast kitchen with Shaker-style wall units. Outside, three steps led to a gravel
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path which went all the way down the garden. A neatly mowed lawn was broken by recently clipped hedges.
‘I sold my own house and moved here to be with Vernon,’ said Abraham, putting the kettle on to make tea in the automatic way of local people. ‘He looks after me now.’
‘You have no other family left, sir?’
‘Oh, I have two daughters. Both married with families of their own. One lives in London, and the other in Canada. They both suggested that I might want to go and live with them, but I couldn’t face the idea of moving away from here at my age. This is where I’ve always been, and I’ll stay here until I die. I have my grave plot already paid for, of course.’
‘Well, of course - considering your profession.’
Abraham smiled. ‘Not that either of my daughters would actually welcome having me living with them, I’m sure. They have their own lives to lead. Looking after children is a full time job in itself, and nobody wants the responsibility of an old person as well, do they?’
Cooper looked away. But he wondered if the old man really was looked after by Vernon, or whether it was the other way round. Abraham looked healthy and sturdy enough not to need any nursing just yet.
‘You say that you sold your own home to come here, sir? So was this the house where your son lived?’
‘Yes, that’s right. Richard and Alison lived here all their married life. But it’s Vernon’s house now.’
‘He’s made a nice job of it.’
Cooper glanced around the room. The place was very neat. In fact, the lack of decoration had a rather minimalist feel. But finally he found what he’d been unconsciously looking for. Everyone had family mementos in the house, even Freddy Robertson. Here, a framed photograph stood on a shelf in an alcove.
‘Is this yours, sir?’
‘Yes, it’s my family. My wife and I, with our three children.
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Vernon grumbles about it, but he knows how much it means to me. Richard would have been about twelve at the time.’
‘He looks very solemn,’ said Cooper.
‘He was the eldest of the three, and he made it his job to look after his little sisters. Richard took the responsibility seriously.’ ‘What age was he when he was killed in the accident?’
‘Forty-six.’
Cooper did a quick mental calculation. The photograph must have been taken around 1970: the year that flower power died, the summer of love already a distant memory. You would never have known from this family group that the sixties had ever happened. The adolescent Richard had the suggestion of an unruly fringe to his blond hair, but no more than that. The whole family looked respectable and well dressed, as if they’d put on their Sunday clothes specially for the photograph. They were posed like a Victorian group, the dignified patriarch with his wife and children gathered around him.
‘You must have been proud of him, sir.’
