‘What was the deciding factor in the end?’

‘We got hold of a mobile number. Either from the property owner or the agency who handled their holiday lettings. It must have been on their booking details, I think. That was David Pearson’s phone. We kept trying it and trying it, but there was no answer. It was dead.’

‘That must have been the phone we found in the peat.’

‘I guess so. Well, we started to get properly worried then. The incident went up the chain of command. And suddenly I was just an extra body in a crowd. And I’ve got to tell you, no one liked being called out at Christmas time. But they all did their bit.’

Murfin looked up suddenly. Cooper sensed a presence at his shoulder and turned, just as a new voice broke in. A voice he recognised instantly. Diane Fry.

‘And meanwhile,’ she said, ‘they were all hoping they could knock off work and get home, or to the pub, as soon as possible. Because no one wanted to start making big decisions, did they? God forbid. Especially not you, I suppose.’

One thing Cooper had never got accustomed to was the way Fry could appear unexpectedly. She was able to move almost silently when she wanted to. Most disturbing was the fact that you didn’t know how long she’d been standing there, listening.

Murfin’s face changed as he looked at her. ‘Wouldn’t you want to get home? Oh, but you don’t have a family, I forgot. Nothing for you to go home for.’

Fry’s lips tightened, but Cooper stepped in before she could respond.

‘This sort of thing doesn’t help. Diane, you’re welcome to sit in, but we need to listen. Go on, Gavin.’

Murfin waited to see if Fry took a chair. But instead she paced restlessly between the desks, her thin shoulders hunched like a prowling cat.

‘Well, it was a while before we managed to trace their movements. The Pearsons hadn’t told anyone where they were going, and of course the people at the pub where they’d been for dinner earlier that evening had no idea the couple were missing. It was a double whammy, if you like. That’s what caused the delay. Well, mostly.’

‘It could have been what caused their deaths, too,’ said Fry.

She had remained standing in the middle of the room. Of course, she no longer had a desk in this department, but Cooper felt sure she did it deliberately, to make everyone else feel uncomfortable.

‘If they died,’ replied Murfin stubbornly.

Fry raised her eyebrow. ‘You’re on the “deliberate disappearance” side of the argument then, are you?’

‘Yes, they legged it, without a doubt,’ said Murfin. ‘It’s obvious. They were about to get pulled by the fraud squad in Surrey, so they did a bunk with the cash. I reckon David Pearson planned the best time to make a break for it, when they were away from home anyway. And they set up that delay for themselves so they had time to put some distance in before anyone noticed they were gone. They played us all for idiots, as if they knew exactly what we do.’

‘And … what? David Pearson deliberately left his wallet and phone behind?’

‘Of course he did. It makes no difference.’ Murfin leaned forward, directing his comments at Fry. ‘It’s what I would do myself, if I was going to change my identity. I wouldn’t carry proof of who I really was. The Pearsons wouldn’t care if their stuff was found, not once they’d got clear. In fact, you know what? I reckon they’ve been laughing at us all this time for not finding those things sooner.’

When the impromptu meeting broke up in preparation for the full briefing, Cooper took Fry to one side.

‘Gavin could be right, you know,’ he said.

‘When did that ever happen?’

‘He has experience,’ said Cooper. ‘More experience than you or me. Doesn’t that count for anything, Diane?’

‘The actions taken in the initial stages of the inquiry were flawed,’ said Fry impatiently. ‘And the first mistake was sending DC Gavin Murfin.’

Exasperated, Cooper watched her go, walking down the corridor to greet her DCI from the Major Crime Unit. He shook his head in despair. He seemed to have spent a huge part of his life watching Diane Fry walk away.

‘But hey,’ he called. ‘Diane – what about the victim you found at the Light House?’

Fry paused just for a moment, barely breaking her stride.

‘Oh,’ she said. ‘Don’t you worry about that, DS Cooper. The investigation is in good hands this time.’

Cooper nodded, reluctantly forced to accept her answer, and even the tone it had been delivered in.

But it was true what he’d said. There were very few murder cases that dragged on for months, let alone years. Usually the story was an obvious one. A body turned up, and a suspect presented himself on a plate. Charges were brought and the crime went down in the files as detected.

So there was a powerful temptation to use the logic in reverse. If a case like the Pearson inquiry had gone on for years, with no sign of a body, the chances were high that it wasn’t a murder. Experience alone suggested that conclusion, and statistics backed it up.

So Gavin Murfin was far from alone in the opinion he’d formed. He might just be the only one prepared to voice it so openly right now.

DCI Alistair Mackenzie had arrived to take charge as senior investigating officer. He was a big man, over six feet tall and wide across the shoulders. A bit top-heavy perhaps, carrying too much weight above the belt to be fast on his feet. He had a shrewd stare, and a habit of tilting his head on one side when he looked at you.

Fry had begun to get used to him. She liked to know who she was dealing with, particularly if they could be influential in her career. She’d weighed him up when they’d worked together briefly after he was drafted into E Division for the Bridge End Farm inquiry. She didn’t think he’d be difficult to handle, even though he’d once accused her of being a farm girl. That impression she could dispel pretty quickly.

‘Everything all right, Diane?’ asked Mackenzie.

‘Yes, sir. Fine.’

‘It’s a bit strange to be back among your old colleagues so soon, I suppose?’

‘It’s not a problem.’

‘That’s what I like to hear.’

Fry knew he liked to hear that. She’d heard him say it before. The DCI wanted to think his officers could cope with anything. Finding yourself back among your former colleagues, the ones you’d tried so hard to escape from, was definitely nothing to worry about. It was no problem. No problem at all.

In a back street in the north of Edendale, a white Mitsubishi L200 pickup was parked at the kerb outside a semi-detached council house. People on the street passed it without comment – barely noticing it, in fact, seeing just another workmen’s vehicle. Repairs were being carried out on some of the homes on the Devonshire Estate. Vans, pickups and builder’s skips had been a common sight in the street for months.

The paintwork of the Mitsubishi was spattered with tarry black specks, as if it had been parked under a sycamore tree. But that wasn’t unusual either. The clouds of smoke drifting over the moors had been depositing sooty debris far and wide, ever since the first moorland fire had started in the Peak District six weeks ago.

So when two men appeared from one of the houses, no one took any notice of them. After they’d driven away, not a single passer-by in the street could have said what the men looked like. No one could have had a guess at the make or registration number of the pickup. A few wouldn’t even have been sure that it was white.

But that was always the way with memories. There was almost nothing you could rely on as being completely accurate.

7

When Cooper entered the conference room, he found that his immediate boss, Detective Inspector Paul Hitchens, had been drafted in for the briefing to represent E Division. Hitchens had the unenviable task of summing up the efforts made in the original Pearson inquiry, and the sparseness of the ultimate results.