Part 39 (1/2)

'd.a.m.n it,' said Cooper. 'Why have I been so stupid?'

Then he sniffed. His sense of smell had been on the alert for days. Now his nostrils were sending an urgent message.

'Can you smell that?' he said.

Villiers looked up. 'Yes, it's smoke. You must have smelled it before, Ben. It's been burning all week out there.'

'No, this isn't burning heather. It's something different.'

Cooper went to the hatch and tried to push it open. It didn't budge.

'Stuck?'

'I don't know.'

He rattled the handle without success, tried putting his shoulder against the trapdoor, thumped it hard in growing frustration.

'I can't believe this.'

'What's the matter, Ben?'

Villiers came across the room to join him. She didn't sound worried yet, and he tried to keep his voice calm to hide his steadily increasing anxiety.

'Okay, it does seem to be jammed. Just a bit rusted up probably. I don't suppose it's been used much for a long while.'

'We had no trouble with it coming in,' said Villiers doubtfully.

Despite her apparent calm, he could hear the beginnings of anxiety in her voice. She tried so hard not to let it show when she was at work, but he knew her too well to be fooled. It was his job now to keep her calm and give her the rea.s.surance that he didn't actually feel.

'It'll just take me a moment.'

'That smoke, Ben ...'

'What?'

'It's coming through the trapdoor.'

Cooper looked up. She was right, of course. No wonder the smell was so strong. The fire was close. Very close. But there was no way the smoke from the blazing moorland could have reached this far and come right into the building, not through locked doors and boarded-up windows.

There was only one possibility. The pub itself was on fire.

31.

Fry remained silent a the best approach when someone like Mrs Wharton had decided to talk. All she needed was someone to listen. Let her thoughts run, and see where they took her. 'So then we decided on a fire further off, to get the firemen out of the way,' she said. 'And we chose Kinder. To be honest, I can't understand now how everything happened. When I think about it, I feel as though it was part of a nightmare. It all just got out of hand.'

Again Fry waited. But Nancy seemed to have dried up. She rocked slowly in her chair, suddenly resembling someone much younger. She was no longer the pub landlady with blonde streaks in her hair and a hard look in her eyes, but a young girl troubled by the terrible dreams she was trying to explain.

'After the pub was closed,' said Fry, 'someone broke into the Light House to get at the records of the Pearsons' stay.'

'Yes.'

'But Aidan Merritt had gone to do the same thing.'

'Had he? That can't be true, can it?'

'Yes, we think so.'

'No, you're wrong. Aidan was eaten up with guilt and was going to betray us. He'd said something to his wife, Sam, which she pa.s.sed on to us. She said he was rambling on the phone about betrayal and guilt.'

'You might have misunderstood.'

Nancy went white, and sat down, trembling. 'No, surely not.'

Fry leaned closer. 'Who killed Aidan Merritt, Nancy?'

'I can't tell you.'

Well, that would come later. There was plenty of time. When Nancy Wharton realised she wasn't going to be leaving here for another twenty-four hours at least, she might change her mind. Fry decided to backtrack a bit.

'You said earlier that you told the children everything,' she said. 'Did you mean everything?'

'You can't keep secrets from kids of that age,' said Nancy. 'They know something is wrong, and they can get hold of the wrong end of the stick and blow it out of proportion in their own minds. It's not fair to them, and it can cause a lot of problems. I know, because it happened to me when I was in my teens. My parents tried to keep me in the dark, never told me anything. They said they thought it was for my own good. But you know what? By the time they split up, I'd come to the conclusion it was all my fault. I worked out in my own mind that if they weren't talking to me, they must be talking about me. I know it doesn't make sense. But everything is so confusing and stressful at that age. Maurice and me, we agreed a long time ago that we wouldn't be like that with our two. So we were as open as we could be about the trouble that our business was in.'

'And about what happened that night?'

Nancy looked at her then, not understanding the question. Fry opened her mouth to ask it again, but changed her mind. Instead, she sat and gazed at Nancy Wharton, watching the expression on her face alter. It was as good as an admission. But it was one Fry hadn't been expecting.

'You didn't need to tell them,' said Fry. 'Because they were right there, weren't they? They were there when the Pearsons were killed.'

Nancy's mouth was shut like a trap, as if she was determined to prevent any words spilling out. But she couldn't control her expression. She hadn't learned to do that, not even after those two years of keeping her secret.

'Your son, Eliot,' said Fry. 'He'd been drinking, like his father. But he wasn't used to the alcohol, not the way Maurice was. A big lad, Eliot. And angry, too. But his father would do anything for him a anything, right down to taking the blame for the murder of two guests.'

'You'll never get the evidence,' said Nancy, with a bitter smile.

Fry stared at her, trying to a.n.a.lyse the meaning of what she was saying.

'But Nancy a I think we'll find the blood on David Pearson's clothing is Eliot's, won't we?'

Nancy shook her head a not in denial, but in confusion. She no longer knew what to say, or how she could protect her family. Her entire rationale was falling apart right there and then, and she couldn't cope with it.

'And where is he?' asked Fry finally. 'Nancy a where exactly is Eliot now?'

'I'm saying no more.'

With Mrs Wharton safely housed in a cell in the custody suite, Fry and Hurst drove to the house on the Devons.h.i.+re Estate Despite them hammering on the door and peering through windows, there was no sign of anyone being home.