Part 35 (2/2)

Why? Cooper had retraced their exact steps himself earlier in the week. He'd pictured very clearly David and Trisha Pearson choosing to take a route back to their cottage via The Stones and Goose Hill, leaving the street lamps of Castleton behind and climbing Hurd Low, hoping to follow the path that linked up with the Limestone Way. He'd imagined the light flurries of sleet turning to snow by the time they left the town. He saw them, within minutes, struggling through a blizzard, their torches useless in zero visibility, their track disappearing under drifting snow. He'd almost been able to feel the cold, to hear that wind moaning and whining like an animal.

Zero visibility? When Cooper had been up on Oxlow Moor this week, the prominent landmark he'd once known had been missing. The Light House had been dark and abandoned, windowless and dead. Though its roof line was still there, its characteristic presence was missing from the skyline.

But when the Pearsons had set off to walk from the George to their cottage at Brecks Farm, the Light House had still been occupied. The Whartons were at home, getting ready to celebrate Christmas with their family. All the windows would have been lit up, the decorations glittering, the Christmas tree sparkling like a beacon in the darkness.

Freezing cold and disorientated, they must have seen those lights in the distance and decided to seek sanctuary.

'They were frozen stiff and white all over, like a couple of snowmen,' said Nancy. 'If they hadn't been wearing warm clothes, I don't think they would have made it. When you live up that way, you have more sense. The road was covered in no time, and the car park was drifting over. The wind drives the snow over the moor, you see, and the Light House is the first place it finds to dump it on. We were ready for it, though. We were well stocked up with food, and we'd got everything in for our own celebrations. Only fools or tourists would have been out on the moor in that weather.'

'But the Pearsons were never completely lost, were they?' said Cooper.

'I don't know what you mean. Why not?'

'Because,' said Cooper, 'they were never out sight of the Light House.'

Yes, it was true that no one lost on the moors would stand a chance unless they found shelter. But that was the point, wasn't it? Unless they found shelter.

'Well, there we were with these two people on the doorstep,' said Nancy. 'No one had a hope of getting through that night. There wasn't much point in calling a taxi. What else could we do? Besides, there was an obligation on us. It came with being licensees of a place like the Light House. Those hundreds of years serving as an inn for travellers. All that history.'

'The unwritten law,' said Cooper. 'The ancient code of hospitality.'

'Yes, if you like.'

And right in the middle, h.e.l.l wasn't fiery. The sinners were frozen up to their necks in a lake of ice.

'Which room did the Pearsons stay in?' asked Fry.

'Room One. We called it the Bakewell Room. It was the only one we could get ready quickly for guests.'

'So what went wrong?'

'Maurice looked at the register after they'd signed in. Then he checked the credit card transaction. A few minutes later I heard him go down into the cellar, where we kept the old records. There are a couple of filing cabinets down there.'

'Yes, I've seen them.'

'I followed him down, but he was in a bit of a state by then. He couldn't believe what he was seeing. And I can't say I blamed him. You can imagine how Maurice felt about finding them under his roof as guests a even as paying guests. And he'd let them stay himself, gone out of his way to make a room available for them.'

'Well, how did he feel?'

'He thought he'd invited vampires in. He'd always called them ”the bloodsuckers”. And there they were, under his own roof.'

Cooper nodded. It was odd that he'd been thinking about Count Dracula earlier in the day, when he'd opened the hatch into the cellar at the Light House. According to vampire legends, undead creatures like Dracula could only enter your house if they were invited in. He recollected fanged actors in horror films trying all kinds of tricks to fool a victim into issuing an invitation. But the Pearsons hadn't needed to trick Maurice Wharton, had they? Maurice had met with disaster because of his own moment of weakness, his uncharacteristic gesture of generosity.

It had been Christmas, after all. In the end, not even Mad Maurice Wharton wanted to be the man who said 'no room at the inn'.

'He sat in his own bar, drinking whisky,' said Nancy. 'Poor Maurice. He was consumed by bitterness. The hunger for revenge. Eventually, it, and the whisky, got too strong for him. Maurice took the baseball bat that he kept behind the bar. And then he let the dogs in.'

28.

Fry gave Cooper a meaningful look, and he nodded. She switched off the tapes, and they took a break. It was time to let Nancy Wharton think about things for a while.

In the corridor outside the interview room, Carol Villiers took the chance to catch Cooper with a message.

'Ben, there's been a call for you. You're expected up at the Light House. You arranged to meet someone there?'

'Oh d.a.m.n, I'd forgotten that. It's Josh Lane.' He looked at Fry. 'I really ought to go. In the circ.u.mstances, I think this might be extremely useful to us.'

'You think you can produce some evidence that relates to Mrs Wharton's story?'

'One way or another, yes.'

'Then go for it. We'll manage here.'

She was too eager for him to leave, of course. But it couldn't be helped. Cooper felt he had to leave some reminders with her before he went.

'You'll have to question Mrs Wharton about who was involved with the cover-up, who moved the bodies, who broke into the Light House. The Whartons had accomplices who were responsible for all that. And Aidan Merritt ...'

'Yes, I do realise,' said Fry.

'So ... why do you think Aidan Merritt got himself killed?'

Fry shrugged. 'Maybe the Whartons thought he was going to betray them. He must have realised the whole thing was going to come out. Perhaps he decided to get in first with his confession. But someone else had their own plan. It was pretty desperate, and they couldn't allow Merritt to throw a spanner in the works. They were never going to let him start talking, not to anyone.'

'He looked like a weak link, I suppose,' said Cooper.

'Yes. So they got him to the Light House on some pretext, and made sure he didn't talk. The question is, who betrayed whom?'

Cooper shook his head sadly. 'That's the wrong question. In the end, they all betrayed themselves.'

Fry looked at him. 'You were lucky,' she said. 'Lucky that you survived the attack on Wednesday night. Or perhaps they just wanted to put you in hospital and stop you asking the wrong questions.'

'You mean the right questions.'

'I suppose.'

Fry turned away.

'Feel like picking up Ian Gullick and Vince Naylor again?' called Cooper as she left, but she didn't respond.

Even as he said it, he wondered whether he was in danger of rubbing it in too much. His decision to arrest and question Gullick and Naylor had been correct, though not perhaps for the right reasons.

Cooper went to collect his jacket and car keys from his desk in the CID room. He found Gavin Murfin filling a waste-paper bin with the contents of his drawers, and Becky Hurst looking at him expectantly, waiting for news of progress.

<script>