The Corpse Bridge (37 page)

There was no light in here, except for a few patches of greenish light from the fog-shrouded moon filtering through the skylights in the roof. Poppy Mellor stood on the edge of one of the rectangles of light, making the shadows around her seem so much darker.

‘Are the rest of the group here?' asked Cooper.

He looked round, but could see nothing in the darkness. It was another of the large storage areas. The low ceiling and heavy pillars seemed to press in on him and made him feel claustrophobic, though he knew the room must be extensive.

Poppy didn't answer him. It was as if she weren't really listening, but just wanted the opportunity to talk.

‘The group have been like a family to me,' she said. ‘Closer than my real parents or my brother. And just like a proper family, I didn't really choose them.'

Was she armed with something? Her right arm was pressed too close to her side for him to be sure. Cooper realised he would have to let her talk. He needed her to stay calm and relaxed, and then he might find out what was going on. He also needed time for his back-up to arrive.

Cooper glanced nervously around again. If back-up
was
going to arrive.

‘Yes. We just came together for this one purpose. It was almost random. We talked to each other all the time on those walks. We talked like I've never been able to talk to my dad.'

‘They were loyal too,' said Cooper.

‘You're right. They were. None of them gave away the fact that I was there at the bridge, did they?'

‘No. We accepted your story completely.'

‘Thank you.'

She spoke as if it were a genuine compliment.

‘So what did happen at the bridge?' asked Cooper.

‘It was bad luck. The fact is, Sandra was out of control that night. I don't know what she was on exactly, but she was totally out of her head. She began to run around in the woods like a crazy woman. Then she came after me and chased me towards the bridge. She scared me. I thought she was going to do me some harm. God knows what she was thinking, but I'm sure she was hallucinating. The others had no idea what was going on, though. We were supposed to be quiet and not draw any attention to ourselves. When they heard all the commotion they didn't know what to think.'

‘They imagined someone else must be there,' said Cooper.

‘Yes, exactly.'

‘And that would have ruined the plan.'

Cooper felt his phone buzz in his pocket. He reached for it slowly, but Poppy backed away again and he lost sight of her in the shadows.

‘Sandra caught me near the bridge,' said Poppy. ‘I seriously thought she was going to do something bad to me, she was so nuts. I think I must have screamed. Jason says he heard a scream anyway. I suppose that must have been me. Though Sandra was making plenty of noise too, crashing about in the trees. But then she seemed to start coughing or choking and she fell on the ground. I had no idea what to do. I thought she was still messing around.'

‘And no one came to help you?'

‘Yes, Jason did.' Poppy moved her head sideways so that he couldn't see her eyes. Was she looking towards someone who stood in the darkness? Or was the gesture merely theatrical?

Cooper moved too, trying to maintain eye contact. Perhaps he ought to arrest her right now. But what had she admitted to, really? Perverting the course of justice? Conspiracy? There wasn't much of a case against her. He needed to know more.

‘It was lucky I wasn't relying on Rob,' said Poppy. ‘He's not the bravest of people.'

‘What happened to Sandra?' persisted Cooper.

Poppy sighed. ‘She should never have come out with us on something like that. We didn't know she had a heart condition.'

‘I don't think she knew either.'

‘If she had a family history of heart disease, she ought to have gone to her GP for a review. I bet she was a prime candidate for heart disease. A bad diet, smoking, too little exercise, a family history…'

‘So. At some point on this particular evening she simply dropped down dead in front of you,' said Cooper.

‘Pretty much.'

‘And what did you do?'

‘I've got to admit, I had no idea what to do. I was about ready to panic, to be honest. But Jason said he'd done a bit of first-aid training. He tried CPR. You know, pressing on her chest, mouth-to-mouth, and all that.'

‘But no one called an ambulance, did they?'

‘No. Well … no, we didn't.'

Cooper was silent for a moment. ‘No matter how long Mr Shaw performed CPR, it was pretty useless without defibrillation, which is what actually restarts the heart.'

‘That's what I said to Jason. I mean, we both knew that Sandra was dead. It was so obvious. There was no way she was going to be brought back to life. Right in those first few seconds, she was dead. She was already a ghost.'

Cooper shivered at her choice of phrase. The factory had made him feel uneasy as soon as he'd entered it. If your imagination ran in that direction, you might think there were phantom presences here, the spirits of the former occupants imprinted in the walls. But his senses were warning him of whispers and movements in the darkness. He couldn't tell yet whether they were real or illusory.

‘We both panicked a bit, then,' said Poppy. ‘Jason had touched her hat and her torch, so he took those away with him, in case of fingerprints. Then we rolled her body off the bridge. Her head hit the rocks, which was a bit nasty. But she wasn't feeling any pain by then, was she?'

She was actually appealing to him for reassurance.

‘No, Poppy,' he said.

‘It was funny, but it was only when I got home that I thought about her mobile phone. But it must have been in the river, I suppose. I dropped my phone in water once. It didn't work too well after that.'

Cooper took a cautious step towards her, but she noticed and backed out of the light. That was worse. Now she was almost invisible and he was the one standing directly beneath the opening, bathed in the odd light. He could see the green tinge on the skin of his hands, like the discoloration of flesh after death.

‘Poor Jason was upset,' said Poppy. ‘He was quite keen on Sandra. He likes them a bit weird, I think.'

Cooper could have kicked himself as he listened to her story. He'd noticed all those people coming forward and telling him part of the truth, as if they'd been told to do that. The Nadens, Jason Shaw, even Brendan Kilner. But he'd never thought to himself: And what about Poppy Mellor? She'd come forward voluntarily and appeared to be a willing witness. But she'd only told part of the truth too.

Yes, she'd been clever in some ways. Yet she was so young, so inexperienced about life. And about people too.

‘And George Redfearn?' he said.

‘Unfortunate. But it was just like Sandra's death.'

‘No.' Cooper shook his head. ‘You can see a heart attack coming. It's there in the tests. It's in the blood. But this is different. You don't see a murder coming.'

‘Sometimes you can.'

‘But it wasn't you who killed George Redfearn, Poppy. That's something I can't believe.'

‘Can't you, really? But it's so easy, isn't it? To get someone up on a high place like that and shove them off. You don't need much strength.'

‘No, that's true.'

And he had to admit it
was
true. A quick push, a momentary loss of balance. He'd imagined it himself on the sharp ridge of Parkhouse Hill just yesterday.

But Poppy was still backing away from him as he crossed the walkway.

‘You are right, though,' she said.

‘Right?'

‘It wasn't me. I was back home by then. You can check with my dad, if you want. He'll be only too happy to talk to you.'

Cooper held his breath, listening for a sound, any sound, in the darkness. He was beginning to feel disorientated by the blackness all around him. His eyes couldn't adjust because of the light he was standing in. He felt like a character on a stage, pinned by the spotlights, and about to perform his big scene in front of an audience he couldn't see.

‘You're a different person from the one I met before, Poppy,' he said.

‘I was in character before.'

‘I'm sorry?'

‘I took a joint honours in drama studies at De Montfort,' she said. ‘I wasn't great. But good enough.'

Poppy was backing away steadily and Cooper had to follow to keep her in view.

‘And you coached the rest of your group, didn't you?' he said. ‘They all played their parts well. Congratulations.'

‘Thank you,' said Poppy again. Then she paused. ‘But the final act isn't over yet, I'm afraid.'

Cooper found himself at the foot of a flight of metal steps leading up on to an overhead walkway. It might once have passed over the cheese vats, but now there was nothing but a bare concrete floor below.

He thought he saw Poppy's pale figure above and ahead of him, and he mounted the steps on to the walkway.

‘Where are you?' he said.

But the voice came from behind him.

‘I'm here. Very close.'

Cooper stopped moving. He became certain that there was more than one other person in the factory with him. Someone had been here all the time. They'd been keeping very quiet in the darkness. But now he could hear their breathing and a footstep coming closer. So Jason Shaw had come after all. Or had he?

D
iane Fry slammed her foot down on the accelerator pedal as her Audi hurtled down the A515 towards the Hartington turn-off.

Ben Cooper wasn't answering his phone, which was typical. He'd probably got himself into a situation where he couldn't answer it or had no signal. Or perhaps he'd simply turned it off.

Fry cursed him under her breath. Did he really need her help, after all? Had his call been a test: request her help knowing she wouldn't come, just so he could point to a final betrayal? She couldn't let him have that satisfaction.

There was a marked car behind her, but the other had taken Jason Shaw back to the custody suite in Edendale, where Becky Hurst would process him. With Luke Irvine in the car with her, she hoped there would be enough manpower. There was no one else available at such short notice, unless she sounded the alarm. And she couldn't do that yet, without any clear idea about what was happening.

‘Turn here, Diane,' said Irvine, pointing at the junction to the left.

He seemed to be as worried as she was herself. But then, Irvine knew as well as anyone that his DS was capable of doing something rash.

‘Try Ben's phone again,' she said. ‘And keep trying.'

A
nother face appeared from the darkness, lit for a second by a bursting firework, a blue-and-white flash and crackle through the broken skylights high in the roof of the old cheese factory.

‘Are you on your own?' said a voice.

‘What do you think?' replied Cooper.

‘I think you might just have made a mistake.'

Cooper experienced another disorientating memory. The thickset, middle-aged man who'd been raking leaves in the churchyard at Hartington vigorously. He was wearing the same baseball cap, forcing those same untidy clumps of grey hair to stick out at the sides. Cooper remembered that grimly determined expression as he'd lashed out with his rake at the weeds. A deep anger in his expression, an intense physical concentration.

‘Hello, Mr Naden,' he said.

Naden didn't reply. Cooper looked from him to Poppy and back again. These two made an unnerving team.

‘It should have been obvious you were the leader,' said Cooper. ‘I could see it on that photo taken on the testing grounds at Harpur Hill. The one on the old coffin road. The photo that Poppy took, I imagine, since she wasn't in the shot herself.'

Naden glowered at Poppy Mellor, who shrank a little further into the shadows.

‘What about it?' he said.

‘We would have been able to identify all the members of the group from that photo anyway,' said Cooper. ‘I suppose you guessed that. And you were right at the front, Mr Naden. As if you were conducting a guided walk. The others were looking to you. Nothing could disguise that.'

‘I told Sandra to delete that photo from her phone,' said Naden grimly.

‘And she may have done. But she emailed it to herself first. She must have wanted a memento, I suppose. We found it on her laptop.'

‘Idiot woman. She was mad, you know.'

‘She
is
dead.'

‘Well, I didn't kill her.'

‘No. But I know who you
did
kill, Mr Naden.'

Naden had moved closer without him noticing. He didn't know which way to face now, which direction the threat might come from. The training manuals said you should make sure to have an escape route if you were likely to face a threat. But Cooper was aware only of the drop to the concrete beneath him, the low rail that wouldn't stop anyone going over.

‘That night, when you were supposed to be at the bridge with the others,' he said. ‘It didn't all go wrong by accident, did it? You had a different plan from everyone else.'

He could sense Poppy stiffen and draw in a sharp breath.

‘You said it was the wrong day,' said Cooper, ‘but your wife thought it was the right day. You knew who was actually wrong, didn't you?'

With a smug smile, Naden leaned closer to stare into Cooper's face. ‘She kept insisting it was the right day,' he said. ‘She didn't believe me, but kept on and on about it, even after we got home. That gave me the excuse to go out again later that evening, to check what was happening.'

‘But you went to meet George Redfearn instead.'

Naden nodded. ‘Well, he never suspected me. I looked too harmless, I suppose. But I've thought about it often enough over the years. Just not in relation to Redfearn.'

‘So how did you do it?'