Free Already Dead by Stephen Booth Page B

back. Mrs Shelley had seemed far too eager to co-operate with the request. It was entirely contrary to the advice they were always giving to householders.
    ‘This is wrong,’ said Hurst.
    ‘Yes, I know. But…?’
    Fry was shocked. Entering Ben Cooper’s flat was like walking into the home of a psychopathic serial killer. Not that she’d ever done that – all the murderers she’d ever dealt with had been ordinary people who’d crossed a line. Everyone was capable of doing that, in the right circumstances. You didn’t have to be a psychopath.
    One wall of the kitchen was covered in cuttings, torn roughly from various newspapers. News reports of the arson at the Light House, and the shocking death of Derbyshire Constabulary civilian scenes of crime officer Elizabeth Petty. Coverage of the funeral, a tribute to the dead woman, a coffin carried by uniformed pall-bearers. Killed in the line of duty .
    And photos. Lots of photos. Many of them were actually the same shot, but printed in different sizes and different resolutions, cropped to a variety of shapes. Then there were items about the arrest, the suspects being charged. It had been major news in this area. Every detail had been covered.
    The media had managed to come up with mug shots of Eliot Wharton and Josh Lane too. Fry couldn’t remember whether the press office had released those. It was quite unusual until after the trial, unless a suspect was on the run and the public was being appealed to for help. But in this case it had probably been judged that the public interest was overwhelming.
    Towards the bottom of the collage was an obituary of Mad Maurice Wharton himself, the landlord of the Light House at the time it had been closed. The disappearance of the two tourists, David and Trisha Pearson, had been rehashed by the newspapers, of course. That was inevitable. In fact, the whole history of the events at the pub was here – the Whartons’ disastrous financial commitments, the debts they couldn’t pay back, Maurice’s drinking. Then the arrival of the Pearsons in that snowstorm and the fatal consequences, the moorland fires intended to draw attention away from the abandoned pub and the evidence in the cellar. Fry remembered Nancy Wharton complaining that it never came to end, the cleaning and covering over. The blood always seemed to be there .
    Free space had been left at the bottom of the collage. That would be for the eventual outcome. Verdict and sentence. The ultimate fate of the owners of those two faces, Eliot Wharton and Josh Lane, the men who had burned down the Light House and killed Liz Petty.
    ‘As you can see, he’s not here,’ said Mrs Shelley.
    Hurst turned to her. ‘Just ask him to call, would you?’ she said.
    ‘Have you got a…?’
    Automatically, Fry began to produce her card. But she caught a glance from Hurst. She was probably right. Fry put her card back in its holder and let Becky hand over a card instead. Mrs Shelley tucked it into a pocket of her cashmere cardigan.
    ‘Is he …?’ said Hurst tentatively.
    ‘What?’
    ‘Is he all right, do you think?’
    The dog began barking again inside the house next door. Mrs Shelley began to edge towards the door.
    ‘He told me he’s fine,’ she said. ‘Just fine.’
    Fry looked around at the cuttings again before she left the flat. No, you didn’t have to be a psychopath to commit a murder. But it did help.

8
    Ben Cooper’s Toyota surged through pools of standing water, spray cascading over his bonnet, headlights probing through the rain at a darkened landscape.
    For weeks now, he’d been driving around in the rain, with no idea where he was going, or where he’d been. He’d done this many times. Always driving at night, and always surprised when first light came that he was still so near home. It was as if he couldn’t escape this area. He was drawn like a moth to a flame, a creature seeking warmth from the sun, but finding only lethal fire.
    There was a film he saw once