Dead And Buried

‘She talked to the family of the old landlord from the Light House,’ said Murfin, seeming equally ready to change the subject.

‘Mad Maurice Wharton?’

‘Not him, but the wife and daughter. And she made a right mess of it, too, by all accounts.’

‘Oh?’

There could only have been one source for that account, since Becky Hurst had been allocated to work with Fry. Cooper couldn’t resist a small smile of satisfaction at this evidence of how little loyalty Fry had earned for herself. Then he let the smile drop. It was an ungracious thought. He had no real reason to be jealous of Fry, did he? No, of course not.

‘The wife and daughter?’ he said. ‘What about Maurice Wharton himself?’

Murfin shook his head sadly. ‘He’s in a bad way, apparently. Cancer of the pancreas.’

‘Ouch.’

‘Ouch is right.’

‘You know, on the way here I was trying to recall what he looks like,’ said Cooper.

‘Are you kidding?’ said Murfin. ‘Did you never actually see that bloke? Once seen, never forgotten. If you wanted to describe him to someone, you’d have to invent a whole new word for ugly.’

‘I think I do recall him now, though. A big guy, long hair growing over his collar at the back, and a fine set of jowls?’

‘Two fine sets of jowls,’ said Murfin. ‘I always found him a bit scary, in fact. But in a good way, if you know what I mean. Like watching a horror film to give yourself a fright when the monster appears.’

Cooper looked at the files and found a photograph of Wharton. ‘Well I’m not sure he’s that bad.’

‘No, no — that doesn’t do him justice,’ said Murfin. ‘Trust me. You’ve got to see him in the flesh to get the full effect.’

Villiers and Irvine entered the office. Cooper reminded himself that Luke had been spending all his time ploughing through the case files, reading reports, going over old witness statements. He was starting to look a bit jaded already.

‘Are you okay, Luke?’ he asked.

‘Sure.’

Cooper looked around his team. Such as it was, they were all here.

‘So what do we really make of this theory that the Pearsons skipped the country?’

‘We?’ asked Irvine, as if surprised to be asked.

‘Well, give me an overview. What has everyone been saying over these past couple of years?’

‘Oh, pretty much everything you can imagine has been said at some time,’ said Irvine, warming up as he got the chance to share what he’d learned from all those reports. ‘In the early days, there were lots of crackpot rumours springing up, as always. People reported seeing the Pearsons in New Zealand, in Guatemala, in Florida. Someone started a Facebook page called “I’ve seen David Pearson”, with faked pictures using the shots of them issued for the press appeals. Basically, they treated David like some latter-day Lord Lucan, with Trisha as a female sidekick. Stories went round that the Pearsons had bought a villa in the Algarve, an apartment in Moscow, a council house in Inverness. David was even spotted busking on the London Underground. He’d apparently learned to play the guitar, grown a beard and gained three inches in height while he’d been missing.’

Hurst laughed, but Irvine’s face didn’t change. His expression said it was only what he would expect from some people, who were pathetic.

‘Did that go on for long?’ asked Villiers.

Irvine shook his head. ‘It was a one-month wonder. People soon got tired of it and moved on to the next craze. None of it helped us, of course. We didn’t have a hope of sifting through everything, so we just concentrated on a few of the more likely sightings. And I’m using “likely” in a very relative sense, to mean the least bizarre.’

‘There was nothing else? No credit card transactions, no cash withdrawals, no record of the Pearsons passing through customs or buying air tickets?’

‘No, none of those.’

‘Well, either that was a particularly good disappearing act,’ said Villiers. ‘Or they’ve been dead all this time.’

Irvine shrugged. ‘We all know it’s possible to drop off the grid completely, if you have enough money. And the Pearsons had the money. They could have bought forged passports, new identity documents, opened bank accounts in new names. It only needs one contact to fix the whole thing.’

Cooper flicked through the file for financial details. ‘They both left money in their bank accounts. Quite substantial amounts, too.’

‘The inquiry team were aware of that. They watched those accounts closely for any signs of activity, but there were no transactions other than a few standing orders and direct debits, which kept going out until the bank put a stop on them.’

‘So they didn’t have any money?’

‘On the contrary. From the evidence of fraud and embezzlement that we and HMRC uncovered in David Pearson’s business activities, there’s a large of cash unaccounted for somewhere.’

‘How much?’

‘The best part of two million pounds.’

Villiers gave the low whistle required whenever a large amount of money was mentioned.

‘Wow.’

‘Actually, it isn’t all that much,’ said Irvine.

‘A cool two mil? Not all that much? What do you mean? Your salary must be a lot higher than I thought, Luke.’