There were other statements, including one from Adrian Swann confirming his wife’s version of events, and one from Reece Bower’s manager who admitted that Bower had seemed stressed recently, though the standard of his work hadn’t suffered.
And there was a final statement, dated well after the others, from Annette Bower’s father, Evan Slaney, claiming to have seen his daughter alive and well in Buxton long after her husband was supposed to have killed her.
Cooper was frowning over the details of the sighting when he was interrupted.
‘How is it going?’
He looked up. Carol Villiers stood over his desk gazing at the sheaf of reports. Cooper hadn’t heard her either knock on the door or come into the room.
‘It doesn’t look good,’ he said.
‘Reece Bower was never actually tried. So a review of the case might produce a different opinion from the CPS. Don’t you think so?’
Cooper shook his head. ‘There would have to be some new evidence. They wouldn’t consider it otherwise.’
‘What if the credibility of the crucial witness statement was demolished?’
‘You mean her father, Mr Slaney.’
‘Yes, he’s the one who claims he saw Annette alive.’
‘You think we might be able to prove he’s lying?’
‘Or mistaken.’
‘He was very confident and consistent in his interview,’ said Cooper. ‘Who’s going to accept now that he was just mistaken?’
‘Lying then.’
‘For what reason? He had no motivation to lie, no reason to protect Reece Bower.’
‘Not that we know of.’
‘Okay,’ said Cooper dubiously. ‘So what do you think the strongest elements of the case were against Reece Bower?’
‘Well, for a start, the forensic examination found bloodstains on the floor of the Bowers’ kitchen,’ said Villiers. ‘Only tiny spots. Most of them were invisible to the human eye. It was one particular drop of blood that drew attention.’
Cooper nodded. ‘That single speck started the whole thing. The entire case rested on it in a way.’
‘It was identified as Annette Bower’s blood, though. Her DNA wasn’t on record, but they got a sample from a hairbrush for comparison. It was definitely Annette’s blood.’
‘Reece Bower’s story was that she’d cut herself on a knife a few days previously, while she was chopping vegetables. That was never disproved.’
‘How could it be?’ said Villiers. ‘It was consistent with the pattern of the blood. And since Annette Bower was never found, alive or dead, she was wasn’t able to either corroborate or contradict that version of events.’
‘Entirely circumstantial, then,’ said Cooper. ‘Not real proof.’
‘Everyone who knew the Bowers confirmed that their marriage was going a rough patch. Their neighbours, Annette’s sister, her parents, even some of their colleagues at work. Everyone agreed that the couple had been having arguments.’
‘If all those people knew about their arguments, they were hardly a secret,’ Cooper pointed out.
‘I suppose not.’
‘Is there a member of the family we don’t have a statement from?’
‘Only the daughter, Lacey,’ said Villiers. ‘She would have been eight years old at the time of her mother’s disappearance, though.’
‘It’s very young, but not too young to remember something about it. Children of that age often notice more than adults realise, or expect. It’s possible she could recall some detail that was important.’
‘But there’s no statement on record.’
‘She wouldn’t have been questioned at the time, or only in a superficial way.’
Cooper sensed a gap in the information. If she had been spoken to at all following the disappearance, an eight-year-old girl like Lacey would have been treated with kid gloves by the inquiry team. She would have been asked questions only in the presence of a responsible adult — in those circumstances, almost certainly her father. After Reece Bower was arrested and charged with murder, she went to her aunt’s to be looked after.
‘Annette Bower’s sister, Frances Swann...’ he said.
Villiers checked the list. ‘She has an address at Over Haddon.’
‘Do we know anything else about her?’
‘She’s a teacher at Lady Manners School. I don’t know what subject. Her husband works for the Health and Safety Laboratory at Harpur Hill.’
‘Adrian Swann?’
‘Yes. Do you know him, Ben?’
‘I’ve come across him. He’s a specialist in high-velocity projectile delivery systems.’
‘Mmm, whatever they are,’ said Villiers. ‘Well, the Swanns have two children of their own. One of them would be about the same age as Lacey.’
Cooper looked down at the sea of reports and statements.
‘What am I missing, Carol?’
‘I don’t know.’
They sat and stared at each other for a while. Then Villiers picked out a witness statement from the pile.
‘This man driving the red Nissan,’ she said. ‘He was never traced, it seems. There were public appeals, but no one came forward so he couldn’t be identified.’
‘If he ever actually existed.’
‘You think he was invented? But it wasn’t Reece Bower who reported seeing the Nissan, it was a member of the public who saw it behaving suspiciously near the Monsal Trail.’
‘What does “behaving suspiciously” mean? Someone sitting in a car might look suspicious to a wary passer-by with an active imagination.’ Cooper shook his head. ‘It sounds like a red herring to me.’
‘It worked in distracting the focus of the investigation for a while. It’s almost as if Bower had planted that bit of witness evidence himself.’
‘This man has an awful lot of luck,’ said Cooper.
‘Do you think his luck has finally run out?’
‘We can’t know,’ said Cooper, ‘until we find him.’
‘Well, we’ve run some checks on Reece Bower,’ said Villiers. ‘He’s not using his phone, or his credit cards. Or at least, he hasn’t since Sunday, when he disappeared. However, he did draw out four hundred pounds in cash on the Friday, two days before. I suppose he could have picked up a pay-as-you-go mobile somewhere.’
‘Even so, four hundred pounds wouldn’t last him long, unless he’s staying with someone.’
‘True. So where are you going to start, Ben?’
‘Mr Slaney is an obvious starting point. But I also want to talk to Naomi Heath again. I think it’s interesting that she still lives in the house that Annette disappeared from. She would have to believe in Reece Bower’s innocence to do that, wouldn’t she?’
‘Do you want me to come along?’
Cooper hesitated. ‘I think DS Sharma needs you here, Carol.’
‘Okay. Is there anything I can do in the meantime?’
‘Have you started working your way through the address book?’
‘Yes, but there are a lot of names. Is it okay if I share some out to Luke and Becky? There are so many to check.’
‘Yes, of course. And you could find another address for me — Lacey Bower’s. She’s a student in Sheffield.’
‘The teenage daughter?’ said Villiers. ‘I’ll get on to it.’
Ben Cooper felt he could no longer justify taking Carol Villiers away from Dev Sharma’s team. They had too much else to do. But he needed some assistance and there was a compromise solution: Gavin Murfin.
‘How are you, Gavin?’ he asked when Murfin came into his office.
‘Top notch. What’s up, boss?’
‘Gavin, there was a forensic pathologist involved in the Bower case who I don’t know. His name was Felix Webber.’
‘Oh, old Fingers Felix. We bumped heads a few times.’