Cooper wondered if she was repeating word for word what her husband had told her, if she was genuinely interested in his passion for bird carving.
‘Adrian says “Inside every piece of wood there’s a bird waiting to be released”,’ she added.
That seemed to confirm it. Cooper looked around the workshop and saw a small wooden cabinet.
‘Are these his tools in the canvas roll?’ he asked.
‘Yes.’
Two rows of carbon steel chisels and gouges lay neatly in their pockets, along with a fine-toothed rasp, a sharpening stone and a small mallet. Alongside was a set of seven-inch knives with long handles, some straight and some with curved blades.
‘Those are Mora,’ said Frances. ‘A Swedish make. They’re high quality woodworking tools.’
‘They look pretty lethal to me.’
She laughed. ‘That’s not the way Adrian would see it. These knives are for creating, not destroying. Just look at the tawny owl. It’s a wonderful thing, isn’t it? He brought it to life using only his hands, and these tools.’
Cooper dutifully admired the owl again.
‘Do you see much of your niece these days?’ he said.
‘Lacey?’
‘Yes, Lacey.’
Frances sighed. ‘I’m afraid it’s a difficult relationship.’
‘But she stayed with you for a while, didn’t she?’
‘Well, we did our best for her after her mother went missing and her father was arrested. I suppose that’s always the way with teenagers. They don’t appreciate the efforts of people who are looking out for them. Perhaps, when she grows up properly, Lacey will see things differently. I do hope so.’
‘Do you have a current address for Lacey?’
‘Not an up-to-date one. She moves around a bit. Lacey has gone her own way, you see. She lives in a flat in Sheffield now.’
‘What is she doing in Sheffield?’ asked Cooper.
‘She’s at college, studying.’
‘I see.’
‘We used to have a mobile phone number for her. Lacey doesn’t have a landline. In fact, she rarely makes phone calls. She usually communicates by text. But I think she must have changed her mobile, and we’ve heard nothing from her for a while. You could probably get her address from the college.’
‘Thank you anyway, Mrs Swann.’
‘Are you going to talk to her?’
‘I’m going to try.’
Frances Swann showed him to the door. He had the feeling there was something else she wanted to say, but she didn’t manage to get it out until he was right on the threshold.
‘Do you know,’ she said. ‘Every time I hear about a body being discovered, I find myself praying that it will be someone else who is dead, not my sister. That’s a terrible thing, isn’t it, Detective Inspector Cooper? A terrible thing.’
As he left the house, Cooper’s phone buzzed, and he saw a call from Gavin Murfin waiting. He rang Murfin back as soon as he got in his car.
‘I’m on my way into Bakewell now,’ said Murfin.
‘Good. Can you meet me at the address for Evan Slaney off Church Street?’
‘No problem.’
‘How did you get on with Madeleine Betts?’
‘She’s a bit of a frosty one,’ said Murfin. ‘She says she’s had no contact with Reece Bower and doesn’t have any idea where he is.’
‘Did you believe her?’
Murfin hesitated. ‘Well, I don’t think she knows where he is. But my nose tells me she’s keeping something back.’
‘Okay.’
‘I had no luck at the steel fabrications company by the way, boss.’
‘Nothing?’
‘No one admits to saying anything out of the ordinary to Reece Bower before he went missing. I talked to everyone who had contact with him in the last few days before his disappearance. I think they were genuine. They admitted pulling his leg a bit when he first went to work there, like. But he didn’t react to it, they said.’
Cooper didn’t know whether he was disappointed, or if he’d subconsciously expected it. The story had sounded like an excuse, a means of passing off an obviously stressed state and deflecting questions.
‘That sort of stuff does get tired very quickly,’ he said. ‘People lose interest when it isn’t a novelty any more.’
‘Right. Actually, they all say Bower was pretty good at his job. They’re missing him, Ben. They wanted to know when he might be coming back to work.’
‘I can’t answer that,’ said Cooper. ‘It might be never.’
18
Jamie Callaghan was staring at the passing traffic on the motorway as Diane Fry drove towards Shirebrook from the Major Crime Unit’s base at St Ann’s in Nottingham.
‘They shouldn’t have to put up with that,’ said Callaghan. ‘No one should.’
Fry had been reviewing the previous day’s interviews with him, the accounts of Tammy Beresford and the Polish couple Michal and Anna Wolak.
‘No, perhaps not,’ she said, not sure which of them he was referring to.
Callaghan glanced at her. ‘Is that all you can say? I expected you to feel more strongly about it.’
‘Did you? Why?’
Callaghan shrugged. ‘I don’t know. I just thought it would seem more like you. All those immigrants coming in, changing your whole town beyond recognition. And the trouble they cause... it’s not acceptable.’
‘Don’t you think,’ said Fry, ‘there are always two sides to a story?’
‘Well, more than two. When an incident occurs, every single witness has a different account of what happened.’
‘Exactly. So why are you taking Tammy Beresford’s version of events as gospel?’
‘Well—’
They had reached the exit at Junction 29, and tucked into the side of an HGV as she cruised through the roundabout on to the A617 towards Mansfield.
‘You sympathised with her, didn’t you?’ she said.
‘She’s a victim,’ protested Callaghan.
‘Yes, but who’s to say whether the other side might be victims too, unless we talk to them?’
Callaghan raised an eyebrow. ‘DS Fry, you sound like—’
‘What? Who?’
He sank back in his seat. ‘Never mind. It was just something I’ve heard. Nothing important.’
‘It’s probably best to keep it to yourself then,’ said Fry.
Callaghan laughed. ‘That does sound more like you.’
Fry thought of all the times she’d observed the behaviour of victims and felt a twinge of contempt at their weakness. Often she’d wanted to tell them that it wasn’t so bad as all that, that they should have a bit of backbone and pull themselves together.
She’d seen plenty of genuine victims, individuals whose lives had been destroyed by some horrible crime. But so many people were just self-obsessed narcissists who deliberately overdramatised their situation because they longed to be the centre of attention. They were the same people who dialled 999 because they’d broken a fingernail or to complain their kebab was cold.
‘I’m more interested in firm evidence,’ she said.
‘The attack on Krystian Zalewski has got to be a hate crime,’ said Callaghan.
‘Does it? Why?’
‘Because he’s Polish.’
‘That doesn’t make sense, Jamie.’
‘It’s what people will be saying, though.’
Well, that was true. It was what DCI Mackenzie had been well aware of right from the beginning, from the moment the identity of the victim was confirmed. Mackenzie had been praying that Zalewski’s murder would be anything but a hate crime. Callaghan almost seemed to want it to be one, to confirm all his preconceptions.
‘Evidence,’ she said again.
‘Well, we’ve got the presence of the far right extremists in the area. That’s a fact. And we know Geoffrey Pollitt has right-wing sympathies, to say the least. So there’s a clear connection.’