‘All that doubt and suspicion,’ he said. ‘All that cynicism. I’ve found it quite shocking. Why does no one want to accept the truth? David and Patricia haven’t left the country and changed their identities. They would never do that. A horrible crime has been committed, and my son and his wife are the victims. I really wish you and your colleagues would regard them that way.’

‘You remain convinced of that?’

‘I’m as convinced of that as I have been of anything in my life.’

Fry was pretty sure she’d heard him use those exact same words on TV, when facing the cameras.

‘Despite the evidence?’ she asked.

She was being provocative, of course – angling for a response beyond the practised phrases. But Pearson seemed to know that too. His answer came with a suggestion of weary resignation in his voice.

‘Evidence? What evidence?’ he said. ‘Do you mean all those unconfirmed sightings, fake photos, forged emails, non-existent credit card purchases? Is that what passes for evidence these days? I think not.’

‘But something we do possess,’ said Fry, ‘is compelling evidence of your son’s illegal financial activities, prior to his disappearance.’

Pearson still regarded her calmly. ‘I’ve never tried to make any secret of that, Detective Sergeant. In fact you might be aware that it was my cooperation with the authorities that led to the information coming to light.’

‘Yes, you permitted the original inquiry team access to your son’s private papers, and his computer records. It was very helpful of you.’

‘I thought it would ultimately be in David’s best interests.’

‘Absolutely. Though it might be said that the embezzlement would have come to light anyway, in the course of inquiries. Then it might have cast a different light on subsequent events.’

‘I’m not sure what you mean,’ said Pearson.

‘I mean that it’s all about interpretation. Creating a consistent story.’

His jaw clenched then, his face set as if for an argument. She could see the amount of determination that was in him, the strength of purpose that had kept him going so long. For more than two years now, Mr Pearson had been campaigning to convince the world that his son and daughter-in-law were innocent victims who’d been caught up in some terrible fate.

Fry’s phone rang then, breaking the tension.

‘Excuse me,’ she said. ‘It might be important.’

‘Certainly.’

She could feel his intense gaze fixed on her as she took the call. When she grasped the information she was being given, she wished she’d stepped outside the office to answer it. She couldn’t help making eye contact with Pearson just once as she listened. Then she had to look away in embarrassment.

Fry ended the call and stared at her desk, knowing there was no way she could conceal her expression. The news had caught her off guard, with no opportunity to prepare for contact with the bereaved relative. This wasn’t the way it should be.

But at least she was about to tell Henry Pearson that he’d been right along. That was some kind of consolation, perhaps.

It was Pearson himself who finally shattered the silence.

‘What is it?’ he said. ‘There’s something. I can tell.’

Fry took a breath and lifted her eyes to face him. ‘Yes, that was my boss, DCI Mackenzie, in the incident room. We’ve had a call. It seems that some human remains have just been found in an old mine shaft on Oxlow Moor.’

‘Human …?’

‘I’m sorry,’ said Fry helplessly.

‘A body?’ said Pearson. ‘You mean a body. Just one? Well, it could be anybody.’

Fry shook her head. ‘Two bodies. We can’t be certain at this stage, but …’

She didn’t need to say any more. She looked at Henry Pearson, saw the sudden draining of colour from his face. The attitude and expression were all gone, ripped from him like a worn-out coat. He’d turned instantly into an old, old man, exhausted and desolate.

But surely it couldn’t have been such a shock? Hadn’t he been expecting this discovery for more than two years?

As she watched Pearson disintegrate in front of her eyes, Fry was horrified at the realisation that crept into her mind, a certainty that she had been the victim of a huge scam, just like everyone else.

‘You never thought they were dead at all,’ she said. ‘You’ve been playing your part all this time, waiting for the moment when they’d make contact again.’

Pearson hung his head and twisted his hands together. It was astonishing how a person could change so quickly. He looked smaller than he had a few minutes ago, more frail and crumpled, emptied of any strength or energy.

‘There really was a plan for them to disappear, wasn’t there?’ said Fry. ‘But it all went wrong.’

‘Yes, it’s true. I suppose there’s no point in pretending any more.’

So it had all been a facade. Henry Pearson had been playing a role. The effort of putting on the performance must have been what kept him going. The necessity of maintaining appearances had been the only thing that drove him on.

But this … well, the person now sitting in front of Fry was a different man. He was the real Henry Pearson, the face behind the mask. And the face was a pitiful one, broken and wretched. This was a man who’d had to wait more than two years for the moment when he was allowed to grieve for his son.

‘I didn’t know whether they’d gone or not,’ said Pearson. ‘All this time, I thought they might actually have got away, that they’d just left the country a bit sooner than they originally planned. I assumed that David didn’t get a chance to tell me or his mother what they were going to do. Or that … well, perhaps that he’d wanted to break all contact with us, too.’

‘So you kept on with the pretence that your son and his wife must have been attacked and murdered here in Derbyshire. That was your agreed role, a way of distracting attention from the real story, from David and Trisha’s actual whereabouts. The only trouble is, Mr Pearson – it wasn’t a pretence.’

‘In the end, we didn’t know what to think. It was part of the plan that there would be no communication for a while, until we judged it to be safe. That time should have come over a year ago, when the police inquiry was shelved and the publicity had died down. Surely then, we thought, it would be safe? But no word came from David.’

‘And you just kept on playing your part?’ asked Fry. ‘How could you do that?’

Pearson threw his hands out in a desperate appeal. ‘What else was there for me to do? Please, can you tell me that? What else?’

26

The two bodies had been tightly rolled in heavy-duty black bin liners. The plastic wrapping meant that some areas of flesh had been protected from exposure to the air. If there was any good news, that was it. The uneven pattern of decomposition would increase the chances of a positive identification.

Fry shuddered as she joined the small group of people gathered on the edge of the hole. For her, the blackened heather further up the hill heightened the nightmarish nature of the location on the shoulder of Oxlow Moor.

The sight of the yokels playing open-air charades with their sheep down in the fields below didn’t make things any better. It must be some kind of rural festival taking place. When she looked around, Fry felt as though she was trapped between two different kinds of hell.

‘Wasn’t this one of the mine shafts searched during the original missing persons inquiry?’ asked DCI Mackenzie.

‘It must have been. They all were.’

‘So how is it we have this?’

‘A secondary crime scene,’ said Fry.

Wayne Abbott looked up from where he was crouching in the shaft.

‘Well I can tell you one thing for certain,’ he said. ‘They haven’t been here for two and a half years. The condition of the plastic is too good. In fact, the bodies look generally too well preserved. The pathologist will be able to tell you a lot more. She should get plenty of information from the post-mortem, given the state of the remains.’