Scared to Live (12 page)

On a Monday night in October, Matlock Bath's Derwent Gardens were deserted. There was no one to be seen on the paths between the flower beds and the fountain, no one near the bandstand or the tufa grotto. The sycamores along the riverside were turning golden yellow. Their leaves drifted across the paths, undisturbed by passing feet. At the far end of the gardens, past a row of stalls under striped awnings, was a temporary fairground. An old-fashioned waltzer and a ferris wheel, a train ride, a set of dodgem cars, all silent and still. A figure approached from the direction of the Pavilion, a man in an overcoat, walking along the river bank, past the jetty where boats were tied up ready to take part in Saturday's parade. He wandered apparently aimlessly, kicking at tree roots, making the fresh, dry leaves crackle under his feet. He passed the waltzer and ferris wheel and found himself near a small hut that served as a ticket booth for the rides. By the door of the hut, he stopped. There was no one visible in the darkness inside. But still he kept his eyes turned away, gazing up at the tower on the Heights of Abraham, high above

the village. That was the place he'd rather be, surrounded by rushing air, with the wind loud in his ears. But the hilltop amusement parks had closed for the day. 'It's done, then? All over with.' He froze. The whisper might have come from the hut, or from the river bank behind him. Or it might have been inside his head. 'Yes, all over,' he said. Beyond the hut, he could see the dodgems lurking in the gloom of their wooden circuit, like a cluster of coloured beetles. There was a Rams windscreen sticker on a Leyland truck, backed up on the other side of the circuit. One of the operators of the fairground must be a Derby County fan. He wondered if the truck contained the generator that ran the cars, bringing life to the beetles, making them crackle and spark. 'You're evil, aren't you?' 'Am I?' he said. 'Really evil.' He was distracted by the sound of the fountain splashing. A spray of water caught by the breeze spattered on to the rose bushes. Tip-tap, like tiny footsteps. 'I'm not listening any more.' Laughter swirled in his mind, making him shiver. 'Too late.' John Lowther pulled his overcoat closer around his shoulders as he walked away, scuffing his feet in the leaves. He didn't know what he was supposed to do next. And he wasn't at all sure about the voice, that awful disembodied whisper. It had sounded like the voice of a child.

10

Tuesday, 25 October

An incident room had been opened up in Edendale for the Rose Shepherd enquiry. A fatal shooting was still rare enough in Derbyshire to make Miss Shepherd's murder a high-profile case, even if she hadn't been a respectable middle-class woman gunned down in her own home. Watching the staff arriving at E Division headquarters, Cooper deduced that the HOLMES system was being activated. He recognized an allocator he'd worked with on a previous enquiry. The others would be data inputters, a receiver, an analyst. With no obvious lines of enquiry that might lead to a quick conclusion, the HOLMES computer indexes would be vital in sniffing out correlations as information came in. One tiny detail could send the investigation in a new direction. Before the morning briefing started, Cooper joined a small crowd examining the display of crime-scene photographs from Bain House and the field behind it. Some of the interior shots showed the victim from different angles before her body was removed to the mortuary. On the lower part of her torso, where it was in contact with the floor, there was a large, bruise-like

discoloration that he hadn't noticed before. That was dependent lividity - the effect of gravity on blood that was no longer being pumped through the veins. At least it showed that no one had moved the victim after she was killed. 'The victim was killed with a semi-automatic weapon, at least three shots fired in rapid succession,' said DI Hitchens, opening the briefing. 'We know it wasn't a bolt-action rifle. Since even one of the shots would have put her down on the floor, the second shot has to have followed rapidly to strike the victim before she fell. Otherwise, she'd have been out of sight below the window sill, with no chance of a second shot hitting its target.' Officers around the room began to call out questions, their voices difficult to distinguish. 'What about the third shot?' asked someone. 'If we follow a rough trajectory from the impact to a point in the field where the suspect's vehicle was positioned, we see that the third shot passed through the window at about the same height and the same angle as the others. Exactly where the victim had been standing, in other words. So the third shot was probably fired after she'd already started to fall. That's why it missed.' 'Could that have been the first shot, rather than the third? I mean a miss, followed by two hits when the shooter got the range?' 'Possibly. But the other two shots were very accurate. A head shot, and one near the heart. Besides, if you heard a shot and felt a high-velocity bullet whizz past your head, your first instinct would be to dive for cover.' They all looked at the photographs of Rose Shepherd with a dark hole in her chest and another near her left eye. Her right eye remained open, staring in amazement at the ceiling. 'This lady did none of those things, so far as we can judge,' said Hitchens. 'It appears the bullets struck her before she could react. But we'll get the opinion of the pathologist, of course.'

The DI paused, but there were no questions, so he continued: 'We've got preliminary reports from the teams on house-to-house. We're looking for a blue Vauxhall Astra that was seen in Foxlow in the early hours of Sunday morning, about the time of the shooting.' 'Just one sighting?' 'No, two. The Astra was seen driving into the village about eleven thirty, and leaving at about three a.m. It's possible some of the neighbours heard shots between two a.m. and four, but we can't narrow down the time of the shooting any further than that right now. So I've asked for input from the intel unit. We need a list of possibles who fit the MO.' 'What about prison releases?' 'Yes. Any suggestions?' 'You know our intelligence feed from HQ is never up to date, sir.' 'We'll have to use the informal mechanisms, then,' said Hitchens. 'You mean "phone a friend"?' 'That's right.' There were a few ironic laughs around the room. Yes, sometimes the old ways were still the best, they seemed to say. Another hand went up. 'What about the gun, sir?' 'Well, we don't have the weapon yet,' said Hitchens. 'But we do have some bullets. Unfortunately, the heat generated by firing a gun destroys any DNA on the bullets. It's sometimes worth having a look at the casings, though.' 'But there aren't any casings.' 'Yes, there are. We just don't know where.' At one time, Cooper would have tried to stay at the back of the room during these briefings. If you sat at the front, you might be expected to contribute, and he'd never really had the confidence to do it in front of a crowd of people,

most of them more experienced than he was. When he did have ideas, he usually preferred to share them discreetly with his DS or the DI, in case he was scoffed at. But today, he found himself near the front, propped against the wall where Hitchens could see him. Cooper suspected the DI would pick him out at some point. He'd been a member of the force's competition shooting team for several years, and he knew a bit about guns. Just as he did about lamping - though he'd only ever taken part in the legal kind. Well, probably. Even better, he knew a few people who were obsessed with guns, including some Territorial Army members, the weekend soldiers who trained in their spare time for reserve duty in Bosnia or Iraq. Hitchens cocked an eye towards him. 'Anything you want to contribute at this stage, DC Cooper?' He straightened up, trying not to notice all the eyes suddenly turned towards him. 'If we're looking at the possibility of a professional hit, I can tell you that snipers are trained to pick up their brass,' he said. 'That would explain why there are no casings. They're also told not to leave other clues to their identity or their shooting location. A trained person reconnoitres the site and selects a place that gives him cover and an escape route. Then he takes his shot. But normally only one - the sniper's motto is "one shot, one kill".' 'But this suspect took three shots.' 'To me, that doesn't sound like a real professional.' 'There was no sign of any casings in the field, so we presume our suspect stayed long enough to pick them up.' 'Well . . .' began Cooper. 'Yes?' 'At night, in a ploughed field, that would be quite tricky. You'd be lucky to find one, let alone all three.' 'True,' agreed Hitchens, looking at him with interest. Cooper leaned back for a moment and pictured the scene.

He imagined himself sitting at the wheel of a car at night, in a ploughed field, with the driver's window open and three bullet casings lying on the ground somewhere outside the vehicle. 'Not just tricky,' he said. 'It would mean the suspect getting out of the car and leaving his footprints in the soil. He would pick up earth on his shoes and trail it back into the vehicle. That's three possibilities for trace evidence. But the scenario doesn't fit, does it? It's not consistent with the planning before and after the hit.' 'And there were no footprints in the area where the shots were fired from, just tyre marks,' pointed out Hitchens. 'Maybe the casings fell close enough to the car that the gunman was able to lean out of the door and pick them up without leaving the vehicle.' 'No, that won't work. It was a high-powered rifle. The casings would have been ejected at speed.' 'What, then?' 'The only possibility I can see is that the casings must have been ejected inside the car.' 'Is that possible? If he was firing a rifle from the driver's seat?' 'The car was facing northwards, up the field, wasn't it? With the back fence of Bain House on the driver's side?' 'Yes.' 'Then, no,' said Cooper. 'I don't think it is possible. Whoever fired the rifle would have had to be in the passenger seat.' There was a sudden buzz of interest. Cooper felt himself flushing - not with embarrassment, but excitement. He was sure he'd got this right. He could see it so clearly. 'We'll have to get this checked out properly,' said Hitchens. But Cooper mimed holding and pointing a rifle. 'Imagine it. With the window wound down, you'd want to rest the barrel of your weapon on the door for stability while you were aiming. It wasn't too distant a shot - a hundred yards is nothing. But

even so, you'd want to be sure. That means the stock and the chamber would be well inside the vehicle, so your casings would eject against the back of the seat.' 'He was shooting from the passenger seat?' 'No, it would have to be from the back seat,' said Cooper. 'Wait a minute. This would suggest two suspects, right?' 'One to drive and one to shoot. It's the only way.' 'Two suspects ... It makes sense,' said DCI Kessen, speaking for the first time. 'They went into the field, did the job and drove straight out again. No one would want to hang around climbing over seats or packing a weapon away. From their point of view, they were already taking a bigger risk than they might have cared for. Having a separate driver would cut down tremendously on the time they were exposed. Unfortunately, our witnesses say there was only one person in the Astra.' 'OK. That was useful, Ben. Thanks.' Hitchens looked at his file, indicating that he wanted to move on. A discussion could last all morning if they got stuck on one subject. Cooper glanced across at Fry, who was watching him closely. She nodded and almost smiled. That was high praise indeed, coming from her. 'The good news is that we've got some calls coming in from the public in response to photos of Rose Shepherd in the media this morning,' said Hitchens. 'So her passport photograph wasn't too out of date. Most interestingly, we've got a couple of potential sightings in Matlock Bath on Saturday afternoon. That would be between six and sixteen hours before she was killed - in fact, around twelve hours, if we put any reliance in the evidence of her neighbours.' The DI brought up a map of the area for everyone to see. 'Matlock Bath is no more than three miles from Foxlow - on the A6, just south of Matlock itself. It's a popular tourist spot, even at this time of year, so it would have been busy on Saturday afternoon. Maybe that's why she chose it - anonymity in crowds. But if these are positive sightings, it didn't work

out that way. She must have stood out somehow for members of the public to remember her.' 'There's no CCTV in Matlock Bath, is there?' 'No. This isn't Glossop we're talking about. They don't expect major crime on the street. There will be some limited CCTV systems on commercial premises, but nothing on the street.' 'There's a webcam,' said Cooper. 'A what?' 'A webcam. You can go on the internet and see a view of Matlock Bath promenade. I think they have it running pretty much every day.' 'Who operates this thing, Cooper?' asked Kessen, leaning forward in his chair. 'I think it's a photographic museum.' 'Time lapse, I suppose?' 'Yes, sir. But no worse than most CCTV systems.' 'It would be too good to be true if it caught Rose Shepherd. But let's check it out anyway.' Hitchens waited to see if the DCI had finished. 'Next thing,' he said. 'We've had the victim's phone records checked, and we now know that a call was made to Miss Shepherd's home number at three o'clock on Sunday morning. The call lasted only twelve seconds. As you might have guessed, the caller used an unregistered pay-as-you-go mobile. No account, no address. If our suspects knew what they were doing, they'd have bought a phone specifically for this one call, then dumped it. And it looks as though they knew exactly what they were doing.' 'Pay-as-you-go phones,' said someone gloomily. 'The biggest gift that was ever made to drug dealers.' 'And paedophiles. And terrorists. We need some legislation on this one, don't you think, sir?' 'That's way above our heads, I'm afraid.' 'Right. We're just the poor buggers who have to pick up the pieces.'

Hitchens sighed, and departed from his notes. 'Actually, true anonymity is hard to achieve these days. We might not be able to identify the purchaser of a prepaid mobile, but if the call credits are paid for by card or cheque, the payments can be traced back. Also, we can track the phone's physical location, provided it's switched on. But, in this case, assuming our suspects do still have the phone, it's been switched off since the call to Miss Shepherd.' 'Dumped it, like you said, sir.' 'Exactly. Now for the victim's background. You're probably aware that this is proving a real headache. Whatever her reasons, Rose Shepherd went to extraordinary lengths to protect her privacy. She left almost nothing of a personal nature to give us an angle on her life. However, we've had time since yesterday to go through her cheque books and bank statements.' 'Anything interesting?' 'To be honest, I've never seen such a boring credit card statement as hers. I was hoping for something a bit revealing - I don't know, a purchase of expensive wine, or a subscription to a porn website. But nothing out of the ordinary. Not a thing. Her bank statements show her Council Tax, electricity bill and water rates going out on direct debit. Her BT phone bill was paid online by credit card. There's nothing here that tells us anything about her. All the evidence we have points to Miss Shepherd being a model citizen, paying her bills on time, being no trouble to anyone.' 'Much too perfect to be true.' 'Absolutely. I think we can all agree on that.' 'Perfect citizens vote, don't they? Is she on the electoral register?' 'No. And she's not in the phone directory either,' said Hitchens. 'All we've got is her passport, plus her bank statements and utility bills. The other strange thing is that there are no obvious personal contacts. There is an odd entry on