Part 22 (1/2)

'But you can't believe that your brother might be involved in a violent incident,' she said. And she paused. 'Oh, wait ...'

He turned to look at her then, and watched the realisation dawn on her face, the memory of an incident, all too recent, when Matt Cooper had shot and injured an intruder at Bridge End Farm. Matt had been lucky to escape prosecution, a decision by the Crown Prosecution Service that had reflected the public mood of the time. But despite the relief among the family at the outcome, everyone knew now. Everyone was aware that Matt Cooper had the potential for violence.

That knowledge, and that knowledge alone, changed everything.

Henry Pearson had been brought to the scene as a gesture towards good relations with the family. but who had tipped off the media, no one seemed to know. Photographers from two local newspapers snapped Mr Pearson as he got out of his car and spoke to DCI Mackenzie. A crew from a regional TV station had set up near the outer cordon, and a reporter was doing a piece to camera, with the moor and the crime-scene tent in the background.

Mackenzie didn't look happy about it, but he had to appear concerned and cooperative in front of the cameras. Possibly Mr Pearson had orchestrated all this himself. During the past two and a half years, he must have learned the best ways of handling the media. This was an opportunity for him to revitalise the interest in his campaign.

'No one has mentioned what forensic evidence you've obtained from the items that were dug out of the peat,' he said.

'Sir?'

Pearson looked at Mackenzie directly. 'For example, was there blood?'

It was impossible to refuse such a straightforward request for information from a member of the family.

'Yes, sir. There was.'

'And?'

Mackenzie held out his hands apologetically. 'I can't tell you any more at the moment.'

Diane Fry was waiting to speak to the DCI, holding back until he was free from the attention of the cameras.

'We've got some preliminary results back from forensics,' she told Cooper.

'Finally,' he said. 'And?'

'Those stains on David's anorak. Well, they're confirmed as human blood.'

'Pretty much as expected.'

'Yes.' She looked towards Henry Pearson, to make sure he was out of earshot. 'The trouble is, Ben a the blood isn't David Pearson's, or even Trisha's.'

Before he could digest the information, Cooper's phone rang. He looked at the display, but it was a mobile number he didn't recognise.

'Who is this?' he said.

'It's Nancy Wharton. I wanted to let you know that Maurice has agreed to talk to you.'

'When?'

'Now,' she said. 'It has to be this afternoon. Today is one of his good days.'

Maurice Wharton was a shadow of the man Cooper remembered. The meaty elbows that he used to rest on the bar at the Light House were bony now, and hung with pale, shrivelled flesh. There was a curious yellow tinge to his skin and in the whites of his eyes. His hands jerked spasmodically on the cover of his bed in the hospice room, and he lay back on the pillow as if already exhausted before the visit had even begun.

'Mr Wharton? Detective Sergeant Cooper, Edendale Police. Your wife said you'd agreed to talk to me.'

Cooper wondered if he was speaking too loudly. It was always a tendency when talking to the old and sick.

Wharton seemed to wink at him, one eye closing involuntarily.

'I know you, don't I?'

Cooper sighed. 'Probably.'

'You've been in the pub at some time. I remember faces. Even now, I still have my memory for faces.'

'Yes, you're right.'

'I don't get many visitors here. I don't want to, really. But Nancy says you're all right.'

'I hate to trouble you,' said Cooper. 'But we're conducting a murder investigation. Aidan Merritt. I expect you heard.'

'Yes, even in here.' Wharton nodded at the TV screen across the room. 'I keep up to date. I wouldn't want to die without knowing how Derby County were getting on.'

Cooper smiled, glad that Maurice Wharton still had his wits about him. Pancreatic cancer might not affect the brain, but he bet the drugs did. The chemotherapy, the increasingly powerful painkillers. What did that combination really do to the memory?

'I do get confused now and then,' said Wharton, as if reading his mind. 'There are bad dreams, and I'm not always sure when I wake up whether they're real or not.'

'Mr Merritt's murder is real. He was clubbed to death at the Light House earlier this week.'

'The pub is closed up,' said Wharton.

'Someone broke in.'

'Why would they do that?'

'We have no idea,' said Cooper. 'We don't know what Mr Merritt's reason was for being there. We don't know why the person who attacked him was there either. We're looking for any possibilities. So if you can help us at all ...'

Wharton was quiet for a moment, breathing very shallowly, as if it used up a lot of his energy just to keep air moving in and out of his lungs.

'Aidan Merritt. He was one of my regulars. Funny, that.'

'What is?'

'That my regulars should die off before me. I didn't think it would be that way.'

'But Aidan in particular ...?'

'The last person I would have expected to be getting himself into bother. He wasn't my type a too quiet, a bit studious. Not a big spender. But trouble? No, he was as quiet as a mouse. What was he doing at the pub?'

'That's what I'm trying to find out,' said Cooper.

'Beats me.'

Wharton began to cough, and Cooper waited while he cleared his chest and spat into a tissue. He wondered if he should offer to do anything, fetch a drink of water or whatever. It was always difficult knowing how to behave when visiting the sickbed.

'You were asking Nancy about an incident with that couple, the Pearsons,' said Wharton when he'd recovered.