with him on the call.’
‘What are you saying?’
Cooper was still standing by his car when the organ started
377
up in the crematorium chapel. Not ‘Abide With Me’, but something else that he couldn’t identify at first. The voices of the congregation coming in on the opening lines disguised the tune, rather than making it clearer.
‘It was a very late call,’ said Fry. ‘Three o’clock in the morning. I think Richard Slack wouldn’t have wanted to call out one of the casual staff. A family firm like that, I think he would have phoned his partner to do the job.’
‘Melvyn Hudson.’
‘Of course.’
‘Diane, even if your theory is correct, a passenger leaving the scene of an accident isn’t a major crime. If Hudson was in the van, he might have been injured himself. He might have been in shock or something.’
‘Like I said, this was a really late call. Early hours of the morning, in fact. There was no traffic around on that road at three a.m. The lady who found the crash was only on the road because she had to catch an early flight from East Midlands Airport and it was a shortcut from her home to the Ml. As the coroner said, the absence of traffic was unfortunate. Because Richard Slack wasn’t killed immediately. He died from loss of blood, and from choking on his own vomit, as a result of the position he was left in after the crash.’
‘Oh, God.’
‘Exactly. The medical reports said he would most likely have survived, if only somebody had been on hand to put him into the recovery position and phone for an ambulance. But nobody was. And so Richard Slack died.’
At last, Cooper recognized the hymn drifting from the chapel: ‘The Lord’s My Shepherd’. Two lines floated clearer than the others across the garden of remembrance. ‘Yea, though I walk in death’s dark vale, Yet will I fear no ill.’
A few minutes later, Cooper drove on to the Devonshire Estate. He went a few yards past Vivien Gill’s house, checking the
378
number of cars on the street, before he parked at the kerb and walked back to her front door.
‘I thought you’d finished with me,’ said Mrs Gill. ‘It’s all over and done with now, as far as I’m concerned.’
‘You’re not interested in finding out who stole your daughter’s body?’
‘That’s up to you. The general opinion is that you won’t get anywhere.’
‘The general opinion? Do you mean among your family?’
‘We talked about it after the funeral on Saturday, obviously.’ ‘I’ll bet you did,’ said Cooper. ‘A few drinks in the pub and the talk got a bit heated, I imagine?’
‘Some of my family were upset. I was upset, too. We can’t believe what happened, and you people aren’t likely to do anything about it, are you?’
‘I see. So you decided to take matters into your own hands.’
The?’
‘Oh, not you, Mrs Gill. But I’ve met some of your relatives, remember.’
‘I don’t want to hear you talk about my family like that.’
‘Are you related to Micky Ellis?’
‘Yes, but only by marriage through my eldest daughter. What of it?’
Cooper sighed with exasperation. ‘Mrs Gill…’
‘I think you’d better go now,’ she said.
‘I need to know ‘
‘You’re wasting your time. I’m not going to tell you anything about them. Not even their names or where they live.’
‘We’ll be able to find out, you know.’
‘Do it, then. Arrest me, and lock me up. I still won’t tell you anything. Nor will anyone else.’
Cooper nearly swore with exasperation. The woman gazed at him defiantly, her chin lifted, her mouth turned down in an expression of stubbornness, verging on contempt.
379
‘And if you’re not going to do that, I want you to go,’ she said. ‘If I ask you to leave my house, you have to, don’t you?’
He stood up, and turned angrily on his heel. ‘Mrs Gill, don’t you realize what they’ve done? They’ve destroyed the records that could have helped us to find out who stole Audrey’s body.’
Her expression slipped a little then, revealing a flicker of doubt. But in a moment her face closed again, and she walked to the door.
‘I’ll say goodbye,’ she said. ‘And that’s all I’ve got to say.’
DI Hitchens called Fry into his office and asked for an update. He listened with interest while she ran through the possible scenarios.
‘Have the media shown any interest in this enquiry yet?’ he asked.
‘They used the appeals we gave them with the facial reconstruction, and a bit of stuff on Sandra Birley. But nothing else seems to have leaked out.’
‘Good.’
‘It’s odd, really.’
‘Why?’
