‘I don’t know her,’ said Lacey over her shoulder.
‘You might not have met her. Though I gather you saw Detective Inspector Hitchens and some other officers, including my colleague here, who was a detective constable on the case.’
‘What’s your point?’
‘You weren’t asked any questions at the time, Lacey, because you were so young. So we were wondering whether you had any memories from the time your mother disappeared.’
Lacey looked over her shoulder at him. If there had been a tear in her eye when they spoke about her mother, she’d surreptitiously wiped it away.
‘Memories?’
‘Anything, even if it doesn’t seem significant.’
She hesitated, as if deciding whether she could trust him.
‘I do remember a cave,’ she said.
‘A cave? What cave, Lacey?’
The repetition of the word ‘cave’ seemed to be having an effect. Lacey’s shoulders drooped and she hugged her arms to her body. She looked suddenly smaller, as if she’d somehow shrunk to that eight-year-old in her own mind.
‘It might have been nothing,’ she said.
‘Can you tell us about it? Is it still clear in your mind?’
‘Not really. I haven’t thought about it for a while.’
‘What exactly do you remember?’
‘Well, just this cave,’ said Lacey. ‘Water was pouring out of it.’
‘Yes...?’
‘That’s it, I’m afraid. I just remember standing with my dad, looking at the water.’
‘And that’s all?’
‘Yes. I’m sorry.’
‘Well, we might have a location in mind,’ said Cooper. ‘Would you be willing to go there with us to have a look, to see if it jogs your memory? It would be very helpful if you could identify the cave.’
‘I suppose that will be all right.’ She glanced at her laptop. ‘I do have work to do just now.’
‘It won’t be today. I’ll let you know when we need you.’
‘Okay then. But it’s only a vague memory, you know. I’m not sure it will help.’
‘Why do you associate that particular recollection with your mother?’ asked Cooper.
Lacey shrugged. ‘I can’t say. It must have been about that time. The two things are imprinted on my mind together. My mum going missing, and the cave. I don’t know what it means. I never have done.’
‘Have you never asked your father about it?’
‘No. No, I couldn’t do that.’
‘Why not?’
‘We never talked,’ she said. ‘At least, we never talked about what might have happened to Mum. It was all unspoken. I suppose we dealt with it in our ways. Me, running through fantasies in my mind, fantasies where Mum came back home to us. And Dad, well... Dad getting on with life in his own way. Meeting Naomi Heath, moving her in to the house, taking on her child, having another one with her. You know, all that stuff. Mum became something that happened in the past as far as he was concerned. But she wasn’t for me. That’s why we couldn’t talk about it. You can’t communicate with someone who’s on an entirely different plane of existence.’
Cooper listened with interest. Wasn’t that what Lacey had been trying to do with her psychic investigations? Communicate with people on a different plane? She wanted to make contact with the dead. Yet she couldn’t talk to her own father about what troubled her most.
That had also been Lacey’s longest speech so far, and her most vehement.
‘Do you think you actually know what happened to your mother, Lacey?’ he asked.
‘No,’ she said.
But she didn’t look certain. Not at all.
‘And have you ever told anyone else about your memory of the cave?’
‘It was a secret,’ she said. ‘I didn’t know if it was true, or something I’d imagined. So I haven’t mentioned it to anyone.’
‘Not anyone?’
‘Well, hardly...’
She paused. Murfin made a small movement, but Cooper shook his head and he relaxed.
‘Who did you tell, Lacey?’ said Cooper gently.
‘Just one person. There is only one person I’ve ever been able to talk to about anything to do with my mother.’
‘Your Aunt Frances?’
‘No, not her. I can’t stand her.’
‘Who, then?’
She scowled down at her hands, apparently deciding how much she should tell him. Cooper knew not to press her at this moment. People had to be allowed to make their own decisions when it was so important to them.
‘Like I said, there’s only one person,’ said Lacey. ‘My grandfather. And he let us all down.’
When they left Lacey Bower, Murfin paused in the corridor outside the flat. The music had already started up again behind the door. It was louder than ever. Cooper thought they should probably get out of here before the neighbours came round to complain.
‘I don’t supposed they’ve got the lifts mended while we’ve been in there,’ said Murfin.
‘No chance.’
‘Okay. Let’s do it.’
Murfin was panting and sweating by the time they reached the ground floor and got out into the fresh air.
‘So is seven still your lucky number?’ asked Cooper.
‘I’m seriously rethinking it.’
‘Can you rethink a superstition?’
‘In this case, definitely.’
Murfin was looking anxiously around the street as he waited for Cooper to unlock the Toyota.
‘No pie shops, Gavin,’ said Cooper.
‘What? There must be millions of them in Sheffield.’
‘Just get in the car.’
Cooper began to work his way through the streets of Sheffield, heading for those Derbyshire hills he’d seen from the seventh floor of the tower block. He wondered what it would be like to live up there permanently, to be able to glimpse the Peak District in the distance but not to be in it. He wasn’t sure he could bear it for very long — even if the lifts were working.
‘Gavin, first thing in the morning, I’d like you to check out some industrial units in Bakewell, near Reece Bower’s home,’ he said. ‘See if anyone who was working at the units when Annette Bower disappeared is still there.’
‘What am I looking for?’
‘The owner of a red Nissan. I’ll leave the details on your desk.’
‘It was ten years ago, Ben.’
‘I know,’ said Cooper. ‘It’s a long shot. But it’s a lead that doesn’t seem to have been followed up properly at the time.’
Murfin sniffed and fiddled uncomfortably with his seat belt.
‘Is there a problem, Gavin?’ asked Cooper.
‘No, boss.’
They drove in silence for a few minutes. Murfin had left his car in Bakewell, so they had to make a fifteen-mile detour.
‘What about this ghost-hunting thing?’ said Murfin after a while. ‘That’s a load of rubbish, if ever I heard it.’
‘Some people believe in it, Gavin.’
‘That’s true. My missus for one.’
‘Does she go to psychic investigations?’
‘Not likely. She does her own haunting. But sometimes it seems as though everyone else goes.’
Cooper wasn’t surprised. Derbyshire was full of ghost sightings, and it had been for centuries. Some people called it ‘the dead centre of England’. That might be because of its geographical position in the middle of the country. Or it might not.
‘You don’t think young Lacey is hoping to see her mother’s ghost? To make contact, like?’
‘I hadn’t thought of that,’ admitted Cooper.
‘She’d be better going to a medium in that case. They can produce anyone you like from beyond the grave. Or so they say. People fall for it all the time.’
‘I don’t think Lacey Bower is so gullible,’ said Cooper.