Dead And Buried

‘Yes, I’m sure we remember that,’ said Hitchens.

‘In that case, he almost got away with it,’ pointed out Hurst. ‘If he hadn’t let the estate agent take his photograph when he bought the apartment in Panama, he might still be there. He didn’t realise they were going to use it in their advertising on the internet. But the Pearsons … they would have learned from what he did wrong.’

‘If that’s what they were planning.’

‘How did they get away from the area, then?’ asked Hurst. ‘Was there any evidence they actually did go back to the cottage that night? Or did they have another vehicle kept handy somewhere?’

‘We don’t know.’

‘I suppose they were smart enough to cover their tracks pretty well.’

Hitchens hesitated, and glanced at Mackenzie, who didn’t react.

‘This was only a theory,’ he said. ‘It was never established as a fact. The reality is, we don’t know what happened. We need that information first.’

‘Before we do what? Write them off as accidental deaths? Just another misadventure?’

‘That would be up to the coroner.’

Diane Fry hadn’t yet spoken. Cooper could see her sitting to one side, near the wall. Like Mackenzie, she had been slowly turning pages of the file. He knew Fry well enough to be aware that she had a terrific memory for details. The significant facts of the case would already be logged in her mind.

When she did speak, Fry chose her timing perfectly — not raising her voice, but inserting her question precisely into the momentary silence.

‘Two people went missing in bad weather, and there was no proper search?’

Hitchens looked surprised.

‘I wouldn’t say that. It just wasn’t feasible to mount a full search operation straight away, given the conditions. The helicopter couldn’t fly, and it was pointless trying to get boots on the ground. We would only have been putting more lives at risk.’

‘According to the incident log, it was five days before the search of the moor was completed.’

‘We did our best. Buxton Mountain Rescue went up there. They did a sweep of the immediate area as soon as the snow stopped and they had daylight hours to work in. Cave rescue checked out the disused mine shafts. No signs of the missing people. There was nothing. But, yes — it was five days before we were satisfied that we’d done a thorough search.’

Cooper thought of the expanse of Oxlow Moor, and the neighbouring areas. Old Moor, Bradwell Moor. That was a lot of ground to cover.

‘Did they check all the shafts?’ he said.

Hitchens held out his hands in a half-apologetic gesture. ‘Who even knows how many shafts exist out there? How can we say it was all?’

‘And why didn’t they get dogs in?’

‘Oh, the wrong kind of snow on the roads. The wrong kind of wheels on the snow. You know how it goes.’

‘Would you say the inquiry was ongoing?’ asked Fry.

‘Theoretically. It was never officially closed, but …’

‘But nobody has been putting any work into it, I suppose.’

‘Not for a long time. There have been no new leads. What do you expect?’

DCI Mackenzie stood up as a set of photographs was handed out. A head shot of Trisha Pearson, cropped from a group picture. She was dressed up, perhaps for a wedding, with her hair pulled tightly back. In the photo, it looked to be a deep chestnut red, but it could be misleading. He wouldn’t have said she was beautiful, but she was quite a striking woman, her face radiating health and confidence. She was laughing, and her eyes glittered as if life was just a bit of fun.

And then there was her husband, David Pearson. Clear blue eyes, and fair hair that was a bit longer than was fashionable these days. He reminded Cooper of a young Robert Redford from the 1970s. About the time of The Way We Were, perhaps.

‘As we all know, time is of the essence at the beginning of any investigation,’ said Mackenzie. ‘We have the golden hour, when there’s the best opportunity to make progress in an inquiry. Okay, we might push it further to the first twenty-four hours, or then the first forty-eight. But once you give up a crime scene, you start to lose things. Evidence becomes lost or tainted, and then it’s worthless. In this case, we lost control of the crime scene more than two years ago.’

He allowed a moment for that fact to sink in. Officers in the room shuffled their feet uncomfortably, as if they were already being told that this inquiry had failed.

‘So,’ said Mackenzie, ‘it looks as though our only hope of progress is to concentrate on the victims.’

‘Didn’t we do that last time?’ asked someone.

Mackenzie hesitated for a second. ‘Yes. But now we’re going to do it again.’