Secrets of Death (22 page)

‘Yes, a handful. Belgium, Holland, Luxembourg. Under their laws, a person’s life can be deliberately ended, but only by their doctor or a healthcare professional. Generally they use an overdose of muscle relaxants or sedatives, which causes coma and then death. But it is only legal if the individual makes a voluntary request to end their own life and has the mental capacity to make an informed decision. Oh, and they must be suffering unbearably and have no prospect for an improvement in their condition. The conditions are pretty tight.’

‘So what’s your point?’

‘Well, do you think assisted suicide is wrong?’ asked Cooper.

‘You just said yourself – in this country, assisted suicide is a crime.’

‘Yes. But is it
wrong
?’

Villiers hesitated. It was a question police officers weren’t used to being asked. In their world, things were either legal or not. An activity was either an offence or it wasn’t. The law was the only rule they could act by, an Act of Parliament their point of reference. If something was defined as a crime on the statute books, how could it
not
be wrong?

‘I don’t know,’ said Villiers. ‘I can’t judge.’

‘No, nor me.’

Well, how could anyone understand or judge those individuals who chose to go down that route, to take a trip abroad to end their lives? Otherwise, their future
rested on a decision between enduring the hell of their own suffering or attempting a high-risk suicide. Yet it was said that 80 per cent of those who got the green light for an assisted suicide didn’t go through with it in the end.

From the outside, the thought processes were impossible to understand. As Anson Tate had said: ‘
Don’t judge anyone’s choice. Not until you know what options they had to choose from
.’

‘And attempting to kill yourself isn’t a criminal act in itself,’ said Villiers. ‘It’s not like attempted murder.’

‘The motive for suicide is the same,’ said Cooper.

‘What?’

‘It’s the same reason some people end up committing murder. They reach a point in their lives when they start to get everything out of perspective or out of proportion, and they can’t see any other way out.’

‘Yes, I think you’re right.’

Cooper had always been fascinated by what led people to commit murder, the ordinary individuals who found themselves in circumstances where they could see no other way except the taking of someone else’s life. They were rarely evil. Everyone had the potential for good and bad, to be perpetrator or victim. There was often a very complicated prior relationship between the two in a murder inquiry. And, in a way, suicide was the ultimate example. In suicide, the killer and victim were the same person.

He recalled what Chloe Young had said. Men never had anyone to talk to. Not just the loners, but the married ones. Their chance of any meaningful
conversation vanished.
And that’s the way it is, until it’s too late
.

Cooper looked up from his paperwork. What if these men actually had found someone to talk to? Perhaps the only person they could ever talk to about the way they were feeling and explain their suicidal thoughts. And that person hadn’t steered them away from taking their own lives. Instead, they’d been guided towards death. But why?

He saw that Luke Irvine had come into the CID room and he went out to speak to him.

‘Well done, Luke. That must have been difficult.’

‘I couldn’t do anything to help him,’ said Irvine.

Gently, Cooper put a hand on his shoulder. ‘I know. It’s bad, isn’t it? You want to feel you can do something to help. Sometimes, it just isn’t possible. And you have to remember, it’s not your fault.’

Irvine nodded. ‘I know you’re right.’

‘Take some time, if you want,’ said Cooper.

‘No, I’m okay.’

‘Good.’

‘You know what made it worse?’ said Irvine, ‘The fact that he was so young. Younger than me.’ He shook his head in bafflement. ‘Why would you do that?’

Cooper became aware that DC Becky Hurst was standing in the doorway. She was clutching her notebook and he would normally have expected her to bear that eager expression when she had useful information. But not this time. She stood quietly, hesitating as she listened to what Luke Irvine was saying. Hurst
almost looked as though she was about to back out again. Cooper waved her forward.

‘What have you got, Becky?’

She stepped forward tentatively, glancing from him to Irvine and back again.

‘Well, I don’t know if this is good news or not,’ she said.

‘What do you mean?’

She gazed at a page of her notebook, but only to avoid meeting anyone else’s eye. She would know what it said by heart.

‘The deceased,’ she said. ‘Mr Christopher Yates. The man who drowned in Ladybower Reservoir.’

‘Yes?’

Irvine had turned to look at Hurst, and Cooper could see that he’d tensed up again.

‘The fact is,’ said Hurst, ‘he wasn’t a suicide. He decided to go for a dip because it was warm and got sucked to the bottom by the current. He died because his heart failed in the cold temperature.’

‘So that was an accident.’

‘Or misadventure. On the other hand …’

‘What?’

‘Well, it looks as though we might have missed one.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘A Nissan X-Trail has been at Surprise View for two days now. We ran the number-plate and it hasn’t been reported stolen. The owner is a lecturer at Eden Valley College by the name of Gordon Burgess.’

‘Local?’ said Cooper.

‘Yes, local.’

‘Are
you sure?’

‘He lives in Edendale. Why?’

‘He doesn’t fit the pattern, that’s all. He’s not a tourist.’

‘Well, pattern or not, he hasn’t turned up for work today. And no one knows where he is.’

Cooper looked down at the map. ‘It had to happen,’ he said.

‘What?’

‘That one of them wouldn’t stay with their car. We’ll find him on the Longshaw Estate or up on one of the hills. If we’re very unlucky, he’ll be somewhere on the moors. There’s no chance of finding a body out there at this time of year. Not on the ground anyway. The heather and bracken are too deep; there are too many dips and hollows.’

‘I’ll request the air support unit, shall I?’

Cooper nodded. ‘And mountain rescue. They’re the best resource on the ground in these circumstances.’

‘They’re all volunteers, though, aren’t they?’

‘They’ll come nevertheless,’ said Cooper. ‘They always do.’

From Surprise View, the panoramic vistas were dramatic, some of the most spectacular scenery in the whole of Derbyshire. To the north, a series of steep edges linked together to form a gritstone barrier dividing the higher moorland from the lower limestone dales.

When Cooper arrived, he could see several liveried police vehicles and a silver-grey four-wheel-drive
ambulance from the Buxton Mountain Rescue team halfway up the track towards Carl Wark.

‘Yes, we’ve located the gentleman,’ said a uniformed officer in a high-vis jacket. ‘Or at least the mountain rescue team did. And do you want the other good news?’

‘What’s that?’

‘He’s still alive. But only just. He seems to be in a coma. We’ve got a problem, though.’

‘A problem? Why isn’t he in hospital?’

‘He hasn’t even been examined yet. We can’t get near.’

‘What do you mean? Are you afraid of getting your feet wet?’

‘It’s not that. You’d better see for yourself.’

Cooper finished pulling on his boots and followed the officer up the rocky path until they crested a rise and looked out over the moor.

The stone ramparts of Carl Wark rose above him, guarding the boundary of the Dark Peak. Yards of tumbled rocks lay below the summit of the hill fort, boulders of weathered gritstone that might have been tossed there by an angry giant. This site had played a huge part in his imagination when he was growing up. Who knew what had lived out here among the bleak expanses of peat moor and the twisted rocky outcrops?

And Cooper could see the body straight away. It lay in a clear patch of grass between clumps of bracken, the start of a track that led across the moor, snaking between the boggiest parts. Gordon Burgess was
wearing a bright blue cagoule and denim jeans. The legs of the jeans were turning black where the dampness from the ground was soaking through.

Yet the man looked perfectly comfortable, lying flat on his back with his arms folded across his chest like the effigy of a dying saint. His face wasn’t visible, but the position of his head suggested he had simply lain down to gaze at the sky.

The reason the officers were standing cautiously back from the body was equally obvious. Two long-haired German Shepherds lay on either side of the body, pressed close to their owner as if trying to keep him warm. Their leads lay on the ground where they’d fallen from his hands as he died. When Cooper took a step closer, the two dogs bared their teeth and snarled.

‘That’s as far as they’ll let us get,’ said the officer. ‘They’re protecting him.’

‘So I see.’

‘We’ve asked for a marksman. We’re going to have to shoot them.’

‘What?’

‘We can’t get near. They’re too vicious.’

‘I don’t think they’re vicious,’ said Cooper. ‘They’re just protecting their owner. They’re doing their job.’

‘Even so—’

‘What would you do if that was a human being shouting at everyone and threatening you when you came close?’

‘We’d use a Taser,’ said the officer.

‘So why treat an animal differently?’

The dogs began to bark as an officer came too close
for their liking. The noise gathered resonance from the gritstone slabs around them and echoed across the site of the hill fort.

Diane Fry was sitting in a meeting with Detective Chief Inspector Alistair Mackenzie and other members of the Major Crime Unit at St Ann’s.

‘What about the other two?’ she said. ‘Simon Hull and Anwar Sharif.’

Mackenzie ran his fingers over his smooth, bald head to a fringe of hair at the back.

‘We can’t get to them without Farrell,’ he said.

‘Is there no way?’

‘Have you got any suggestions, Diane?’

Fry looked up at the board on the wall. Three faces stared back at her. One of them was Roger Farrell. The other two were men who had been seen at the same time in the same vicinity as Farrell, either following him or watching him, and just once in an altercation with him on the street in Mapperley. The relationship between them was unclear. Associates, accomplices?

That didn’t seem to be the case from the facts they’d gathered during the inquiry. Their presence had been more of a warning or a threat. Farrell had made deliberate efforts to keep away from them when they appeared.

‘We do know where to pick them up,’ said Fry. ‘We have home addresses for both of them. Anwar Sharif works on a business park near the motorway. And Simon Hull has the garage in Radford. We’ve always
considered the possibility that the garage provides a connection with Farrell, haven’t we?’

‘But we have no evidence against either of them,’ said Mackenzie. ‘At this stage, they’re potential witnesses, not suspects.’

‘Unless they were responsible for Farrell’s death,’ said Fry.

‘How could they be? He killed himself, didn’t he?’

‘Are we sure of that?’

‘Divisional CID in Derbyshire seem pretty sure.’

Fry shook her head. ‘I don’t think that’s enough.’

To her surprise, DC Jamie Callaghan backed her up.

‘DS Fry is right, boss,’ he said. ‘We could pick them up and get them in an interview room. One at a time, of course. Then see if we can get anything out of them. It will put them under a bit of pressure and we won’t have lost anything.’

Callaghan glanced at Fry and smiled. She wasn’t used to that kind of support. It was usually more grudging.

Finally, DCI Mackenzie nodded.

‘Let’s do it, then,’ he said. ‘You two can check out the lie of the land today, make sure Hull and Sharif haven’t skipped, and we’ll put an operation together tomorrow. How does that sound?’

‘Great,’ said Fry and Callaghan in unison.

Mackenzie smiled. ‘Meanwhile, we should make sure divisional CID in Derbyshire aren’t queering our pitch with their enquiries into Roger Farrell.’

No major roads ran through Forest Fields, so it was a place most people never visited. To Diane Fry, it seemed
to be shut away from the rest of the city. Only since the arrival of the tram route had Forest Fields become visible, as commuters travelled up and down Noel Street between the northern suburbs and the city centre. Yet it still carried an air of neglect.

Forest Fields, Hyson Green and Radford comprised the NG7 area of Nottingham. This district had some of the cheapest housing in the city, so it attracted people on low incomes or benefits. It was mostly street after street of small two-up, two-down terraced houses familiar from
Coronation Street
. Decades ago, the streets would have been cobbled and the toilets would have been outside in the backyard. There were some larger houses near the Forest recreation ground, originally built for the management classes but now divided into flats.

In the 1950s, immigration into Nottingham had been mainly from the Caribbean. But the 1960s had seen a new wave of immigrants, largely from Pakistan. Like other towns and cities, Nottingham had tended to divide itself along ethnic lines. Black Afro-Caribbeans lived in Radford, St Ann’s and the Meadows; Pakistani communities settled in Sneinton, Hyson Green and Forest Fields.

Gun crime had been a major problem in this city at one time, earning it the nickname of ‘Shottingham’. Fifteen years ago, when Fry was working for West Midlands Police in Birmingham, Nottingham had become the first city in the UK to have armed police officers on regular patrol, carrying Walther P990 pistols on their service belts, with Heckler and Koch semi-automatic carbines in their cars for back-up.

Things
were better now. The drug and gun culture that existed on some of the estates had been suppressed, though she was sure it still lingered here and there.

Jamie Callaghan sat alongside her in her black Audi as Fry drove through Forest Fields. As usual, he wanted to chat. Callaghan always seemed to be asking questions about her, as if it was important to find out as much about her as he could.