‘How’s everything on the farm?’ he asked. ‘Are things picking up?’

‘Well, I’m hoping we might make a bit of money from the wool this year,’ said Matt. ‘At least a fleece will be worth more than the cost of shearing it, for once.’

‘That’s good.’

There was a brief silence.

‘Well,’ said Matt, with a laugh. ‘You didn’t phone me to talk about the wedding arrangements, and I don’t think you’re really all that interested in the price of wool. So …?’

‘You’re right. It’s do to with an inquiry that’s come up again.’

‘Ah, let me think. According to the news, they’re reopening the case of that couple from down south who went missing.’

‘That’s right. The Pearsons. That’s what I wanted to ask you about.’

Matt stopped clanging the spanner. ‘Me? What would I know about it? I read the papers and listen to the local news like everyone else, but that’s it.’

‘That Christmas, around the time the Pearsons disappeared. Do you know when I mean?’

‘Yes?’

‘There was a party of some kind at the Light House, wasn’t there?’

‘The Eden Valley Young Farmers Club. It was their Christmas piss-up. I mean, celebration.’

‘What night would that have been, Matt?’

‘Monday, I think. I haven’t been a member of the YFC for a good few years now, Ben. I’m too old. They don’t want you when you’re past twenty-six. We were only there that Christmas as guests. I judged the handling classes at the show for them earlier in the year.’

‘Yes, I remember,’ said Ben uncertainly.

In his mind were fragmentary flashbacks to the evening. A lot of sweating, laughing faces. Music, shouting, perhaps a bit of dancing. Christmas lights had been strung over the doors; a decorated tree stood in one of the windows.

‘It was always a good do at the Light House,’ said Matt. ‘It was held just before they closed the pub for Christmas. There wasn’t as much pressure to leave when eleven o’clock came round, if you know what I mean. The YFC lads took it as a challenge to drink the place dry.’

‘Yes, of course. I’d forgotten the Light House used to close for Christmas until old Thomas Pilkington mentioned it.’

‘The Whartons, who ran it, liked to have Christmas on their own, as a family. I can’t fault them for that.’

‘No.’

Ben was trying to picture the main bar area. Who had been there? He saw three middle-aged men sitting on a bench discussing the quality of the beer, two young couples laughing at a table full of vodka bottles, an elderly woman on her own in the corner with a glass of Guinness and a plastic carrier bag. Oh, and a noisy group standing at the bar. Not locals, surely.

‘I wonder what happened to the Whartons when they had to leave the pub,’ said Matt. ‘I never heard.’

‘I’ve no idea,’ said Ben. ‘I’ll have to find out.’

‘Anyway, you were quite a hit that night in the Light House.’

‘Was I? I usually try to keep a low profile. So many people know that I’m a police officer.’

‘Nobody would have taken too much notice of that, once you started singing.’

‘You’re kidding.’ Ben shook his head. ‘I don’t remember that.’

‘It’s no wonder you don’t remember.’ Matt laughed again. ‘You never could hold your drink that well, Ben. You were as pissed as a newt that night.’

11

Samantha Merritt would be in shock later. But Diane Fry knew the early stages could provide valuable information from bereaved relatives, details she might otherwise have to wait days for.

To some, her approach might seem cold and insensitive. Exploitative, even. She could practically hear it being said about her now, though behind her back, of course. But the family of a murder victim wanted the killer found, didn’t they? And for that to happen, she needed information about the victim – as much of it as possible

‘The funny thing is, Aidan called me and left a message,’ said Samantha. ‘He said he was on the moor near the fire. It can’t have been very long before he, you know …’

‘He was on Oxlow Moor? Near the pub where he was found?’

‘Yes, up there somewhere. I just thought he’d gone to watch the fires. A lot of people do that, don’t they?’

‘Yes, I’m afraid so.’

‘It’s a funny kind of spectator sport. But Aidan was interested in things like that. He wanted to be at any big event he thought was likely to be in the news. I suppose it made him feel he was seeing history take place.’

Fry studied the room as Mrs Merritt spoke. The house was neat and clean, but otherwise unremarkable. The furniture and decor ranged through beige to off-white. Everything she saw seemed bland, much like the victim’s widow herself. Samantha was a plain woman, with straight brown hair that seemed to have become instantly damp with her tears and hung raggedly round her face. She nervously tore tissues in half from a box at her elbow on the sofa.

‘What did he say to you when he called you?’ asked Fry.

‘Well, he was rambling, not making any sense at all. Something about the ninth circle of hell.’

‘The what?’

‘The ninth circle of hell.’

‘He must have been referring to the fires, I suppose.’

‘He could have been,’ said Samantha doubtfully. ‘It feels so strange, the fact that those were his last words to me. And yet I couldn’t understand what he was talking about. I wish he’d left me a different message.’

‘I’m sorry.’

Fry was silent for a moment, allowing Samantha Merritt the surge of emotion. It mustn’t overwhelm her, though. Not at this stage. Fry still needed her to focus.

‘We found your husband’s car, Mrs Merritt,’ she said. ‘A blue Ford Focus?’

‘Oh, yes. I didn’t think about the car. Where was it?’

‘It had been parked at the side of a road near Oxlow Moor. It seems Mr Merritt left it there and walked the rest of the way to the Light House across the moor. It’s possible he intended to get nearer, but was prevented by a road closure.’

‘Road closure?’

‘The fires.’

‘Of course.’

Fry could see that the woman was having difficulty. In these circumstances, the mind tended to go round in circles, unable to cope with the facts it was being presented with. Unless she was guided, Samantha would keep coming back over and over to the ninth circle of hell, which wasn’t helpful at all.

To concentrate Mrs Merritt’s attention, Fry leaned forward and clasped her hands tightly together until the knuckles turned white, forming a focus point they could both see. She waited for the woman’s eyes to settle on her hands.

‘Mrs Merritt, have you any idea why your husband would have gone to that pub? It had been closed for six months.’

‘The Light House, you mean? Aidan went there a lot.’

‘Yes, but there could have been no point this time. It was closed,’ insisted Fry, spelling out the words slowly and clearly. ‘He must have known that.’

‘Of course. Well … yes, I’m sure he did.’ Samantha stared vaguely at Fry. ‘I can’t imagine. I don’t know what he was thinking of.’

‘Didn’t he talk to you about it?’

‘Not about where he was going. He must have gone up there right after school. He sometimes had to stay behind for a meeting or to do some marking or something like that, so I didn’t expect him home straight away. He didn’t drink heavily, but now and then he went for a drink with a few of the other teachers. They like to get together and have a good moan, you know.’

She laughed. It was that short laugh with the slightly hysterical overtones that Fry had heard from relatives before. It could mark the beginnings of denial, an insistence that nothing as ludicrous as the story she’d just been told could possibly have happened. But I only spoke to him that afternoon, they’d say, as if the whole world had taken an unbelievable turn of events in the meantime.

‘He was a teacher at Edendale Community School,’ said Fry. ‘Is that right?’