Dead And Buried

‘What about Patricia?’ said Pearson, still without moving.

‘We can do the identification from DNA,’ said Fry.

Henry Pearson turned to look at her then. ‘But why …?’

‘I’m sorry, sir. Decomposition. They were wrapped differently. So her face …’

Pearson swallowed, and rested a hand lightly on the glass to support himself.

‘If I could get hold of the person who did this, I’d kill him and bury him myself. Then I’d dig him up and kill him again.’

The attendant drew the cover back over David’s head. When they’d gone, the body would be returned to the drawer where it was being stored. David Pearson would go back into the freezer.

When Fry had escorted Pearson from the mortuary and seen him leave, she knew it was time to talk to Nancy Wharton again.

It was only a short drive from the hospital to West Street. Fry spent the time working out what she needed from Mrs Wharton. Names, of course. She had to break down any sense of loyalty and solidarity with her accomplices. Loyalty had no place in the interview room.

To help her think, Fry turned on the CD player. Annie Lennox was still there, waiting for her, the one person she could trust in an unreliable world. Lennox’s voice came in over the first chords to an acoustic version of ‘Dark Road’. She was singing about emotions she wasn’t feeling, a meaning she wasn’t listening to. Fry nodded her head to the song. She knew that particular dark road.

Between the two distractions, she managed not to notice much of Edendale until she was turning off Greaves Road into West Street. She reported to DCI Mackenzie, then called in to the CID room and collected Becky Hurst to sit in with her when she reopened the interview with Nancy Wharton.

‘Poor Maurice,’ said Nancy, her arms still wrapped tightly round her body. ‘It was horrible. But he was out of control. He wasn’t responsible for his actions. That’s what I’ll say, you know. That’s what we’ll all say.’

‘But it isn’t as simple as that,’ said Fry. ‘There was only one person who was capable of organising the clean-up. It needed a level head, clear thinking. Only one person was in any condition. And you don’t drink, do you, Nancy?’

‘I did that night,’ she said. ‘But not until much later.’

Nancy continued to tell the story. She no longer needed much prompting. Now that she was halfway there, she wasn’t going to stop.

‘Afterwards … well, some of the lads rallied round, and we all agreed on a story.’

‘The lads?’

Her jaw was set in a hard line. ‘I wouldn’t tell you their names. Not for anything.’

Fry recognised a dead end when she saw one. But there were ways round it. More routes than one to the truth.

‘Go on, then,’ she said.

‘At one time, Maurice only really felt at home in one place. Where the heart of the Light House was — in the cellar. So that’s where we chose. We knew we’d have to move them, but it was the best place for the time being. The mine shafts were searched at the time, but the pub wasn’t.’

Nancy nodded slowly. ‘Well, it was strange, but it was only when we saw the fires on the moor and started to worry about the pub getting damaged that it suddenly occurred to us that there would be new owners going in. They would be sorting everything out, looking through the records. We’d put the old filing cabinets down in the cellar and forgotten all about them. It was the place we always put things we didn’t want.’

‘And when the inquiry ground to a halt …?’

‘We thought it was all dead and buried.’

‘Dead and buried? Not really. It must always have been in your mind.’

She shrugged hopelessly. ‘Well, you’re right. It was always in my mind. I was always wondering when something might happen, whether someone would talk. I knew it would only take a slip of the tongue, a careless remark.’

Fry couldn’t imagine what it must be like to live with that sort of fear, the terror of a secret slipping out. No matter what Nancy Wharton said, it must fill every minute of your day, until you suffered from an unremitting paranoia about every little thing.

‘Later on, we moved everything,’ said Nancy. ‘They buried the anoraks and stuff, but the bodies … well, have you ever tried shifting a body? It took a couple of quad bikes to get them well away from the pub on to the moor. Then a few fires were started to draw attention away. That nearly went wrong. The wind changed direction, and the fires moved towards the pub instead of away. My God, watching that smoke coming nearer and nearer, we panicked. We had to get the freezers out of the cellar. We knew there’d be evidence — blood, and so on. We’d already cleaned up in the bedroom, scrubbed the floor with bleach, replaced the carpet and the bedding, even stripped off all the wallpaper and redecorated. It never came to an end, the clearing up and covering over. The blood always seemed to be there.’

‘Talking to yourself again, Ben?’

Cooper turned and found Villiers watching him. He had been so absorbed that he hadn’t heard her coming down the steps into the cellar.

‘No one else will listen to me,’ he said.