Part 20 (2/2)

'Can I contact you here?'

'I'll write my mobile number down for you.'

Lane scribbled the number on a sheet from an order pad and handed it to Cooper.

'Of course, you realise it was all show,' he said. 'I mean that ”mad Maurice” business. Maurice Wharton was a top landlord in his time. Good at his job, loyal to his customers. They were like a big family to him. If you showed that you were willing to fit in at the Light House, he'd do anything for you.'

'Anything?' said Cooper.

Lane hesitated. 'Well, yes a I think so.'

At West Street, Luke Irvine had been busy tracking down the information that Cooper had asked him for.

'Ian Gullick is a market trader. Forty-five years old, married with one grown-up child, a son. They live close by, in Lowtown. Nothing on him in the way of a criminal record. Vince Naylor is a couple of years younger, and has a house right here in Edendale. He seems to be a jack-of-all-trades. He's had all kinds of work, mostly driving jobs. But he got a twelve-month ban for a drink-driving offence, so he had to take labouring jobs on local construction sites for a while. Now he's set up his own business doing small-scale property maintenance a kitchens, bathrooms, driveways, patios. You know the sort of thing.'

'What kind of vehicle does he drive?'

Irvine looked up from his notes. 'I don't know. But I'll find out.'

'Gullick, too.'

'I'm on it.'

There was no escaping the fact that the night after the argument with Naylor, the Pearsons had left the George and were never seen again. Their behaviour up to that point had seemed perfectly normal. The original inquiry team had traced their movements over the previous couple of days before their evening in Castleton, hadn't they?

'Where else had the Pearsons been in this area, apart from the Light House?' asked Cooper.

'Earlier on the day they went missing, they'd stopped for petrol at the Sickleholme service station near Bamford,' said Irvine. 'They'd bought a hundred litres of unleaded, which was close to a full tank on a Ranger Rover III series.'

'Sickleholme service station?' said Cooper.

'You know it?'

'Oh yes.'

Everyone who drove up the Hope Valley towards Castleton knew the service station. It was located at the bottom of the road up to Bamford, right by the traffic lights on the A6187. But the name was particularly familiar to Cooper at the moment. The garage at Sickleholme had a fleet of wedding cars, including cla.s.sic Bentleys. They were on a list.

Irvine looked up, and Cooper nodded for him to continue.

'When the car was found at the cottage after the Pearsons were reported missing, it still had almost a full tank,' said Irvine. 'From the service station they visited the Riverside Herb Centre just across the road, where the credit card receipt showed they bought cheese, olives and some herbal tea. Only the tea was found in the cottage when it was entered two days later.'

He stopped speaking again, and Cooper realised that Irvine was looking at someone over his shoulder. There was only one person who could arrive so silently and immediately create such an air of tension around her.

Diane Fry stood in the doorway with her shoulders hunched as if she was cold.

'So where do you stand on this case, DS Cooper?' she said. 'What theory are you pursuing?'

Cooper could tell by her tone that she welcomed the opportunity to put him on the spot. And not just her tone either, but the use of his rank and surname. It was too formal, as if she was deferring to his position, respecting his opinion. But everyone in the room knew different.

'Would it surprise you if I said I was keeping an open mind?' he said mildly. 'We need more evidence one way or the other. At the moment, the bloodstained clothing is definitely leading towards the conclusion that foul play is involved in the disappearance of the Pearsons.' He saw Fry beginning to smile. 'But it's not enough without some confirmation.'

'You want a body?' she said.

'That would help.'

'What about these other visitors who spoke to the Pearsons the previous night?' asked Irvine tentatively. 'We haven't even made a start on trying to trace them.'

Fry shook her head. 'I think they're a red herring. Four red herrings, in fact. I mean, four unidentified strangers? It seems a bit like overkill to me.'

'You don't think they're important at all?'

'No, of course not. In my opinion, it's a deliberate effort to distract our attention. We could be chasing our tails for months trying to find those people.'

'But they could have information that would help,' said Irvine. 'One of the Pearsons might have let something slip about what they intended to do.'

'Seriously? If the Pearsons were plotting to do a bunk, I can't imagine they would have said anything to give the plan away. Especially not to complete strangers they met in the pub.'

'If they were strangers. We don't know that for sure. Whoever these people were, they might have been part of the plan.'

'How?'

'Well, I don't know. Their role could have been to pick David and Trisha up at a quiet spot where they wouldn't be seen, and whisk them away.'

But Fry was still shaking her head. 'It doesn't make any sense. Why let themselves be seen talking to the Pearsons at the Light House, then? If the plan was so good that two people were able to just vanish off the face of the earth without leaving a trace, that incident doesn't fit. It would be a major flaw in the planning.'

'Something could have gone wrong,' said Irvine uncertainly.

'I don't buy it.'

'Well that's a shame.'

Fry looked at him.

'So you're not even convinced by the bloodstains on the anorak found buried in the peat on Oxlow Moor?'

'It could be part of the plan.'

'Even if the blood is identified as David Pearson's?'

'It wouldn't be too difficult for Pearson to smear some of his own blood on his clothes and leave them for us to find.'

'But he didn't do that. They were buried.'

'Our hopes are resting on forensics, then,' put in Cooper. 'As always.'

'Not quite always. But still ...'

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