Cooper held up a hand. ‘Slow down, please. Can you start from the beginning?’
‘Sorry. I get carried away.’ Oldfield took a breath. ‘I’m a bit of an amateur photographer. I was out taking photographs of the old mine workings. Margaret was with me, of course. I took quite a few photos of her too. I got them out to look at them yesterday. It brought back all these memories.’
‘The old mine workings...?’ prompted Cooper gently.
‘Yes. And while I was taking photos, a couple came past us. She said “hello”, but he just nodded. That’s the way it is sometimes. He looked a bit bad-tempered, so we let it pass. Had a bit of a giggle about actually, once they were out sight. And then the really funny thing...’
Cooper waited. He was sure there was a point to the story, if he was patient enough. And he felt Eric Oldfield was finally getting to it.
‘The funny thing, Mr Oldfield?’
‘It must have been about half an hour later, or perhaps a bit more. I was taking some shots of the viaduct buttresses. We’d walked off the trail a few yards, down towards the river, so I could get all the buttresses in one shot, looking towards the mine. And when I looked up from the viewfinder, there he was. The same man. The one who’d scowled at us when the woman said “hello”. Only this time, he was on his own.’
Now Cooper felt a surge of excitement. This was what he’d been waiting for. He touched the photograph of Annette in his pocket, picturing her smile, and the friendly expression. She could certainly have been the woman who said ‘hello’ to everyone she passed on a walk. Did she also fail to make the return trip?
‘Are you absolutely certain it was the same man?’ said Cooper.
‘Yes, certain. I even recognised the blue waterproof. He still looked bad-tempered too. He was walking very quickly, as if he wanted to get away. I had the impression he would have broken into a run if he could, but he didn’t want to draw attention to himself or look ridiculous. Do you know what I mean?’
‘I think I do,’ said Cooper.
‘And it was him. The man who they said had killed his wife, but hadn’t. The man who has gone missing now. I know it was ten years ago, but I remember it clearly, every detail. It was such a happy day. I treasure the memories.’
‘Why have you only come forward with this now?’
‘Well, it was all in the papers again, wasn’t it?’ said Oldfield. ‘And I read them now, more than I used to. There isn’t much else for me to do, you see. Not these days.’
His expression had changed. He looked almost tragic. Some of the memories weren’t quite so happy, clearly.
‘I think I know,’ said Cooper. ‘But just tell me — where exactly was this? Where did you and your wife see this man? Where were these mine workings?’
‘Oh, didn’t I say? It was in Lathkill Dale, of course.’
Jamie Callaghan was making calls as he and Diane Fry left the hairdresser’s in Shirebrook and drove down towards the Model Village.
‘Apparently, the media appeal was in connection with a series of small-scale armed robberies they’ve had in North Division over the past few weeks,’ he said. ‘Nikki Frost was right — the most recent one was at a corner shop in Edendale. Two men dressed in leathers and crash helmets, who made their escape on a motorcycle.’
‘This Asian detective she mentioned — is his name Sharma?’
‘Yes, DS Devdan Sharma. Do you know him?’
‘I’ve met him,’ said Fry.
‘It must be a coincidence,’ said Callaghan. ‘The red crash helmet, I mean.’
‘Possibly.’
Fry didn’t like coincidences, but she knew they happened. If this one involved Edendale divisional CID, it could be awkward. With luck, evidence would come to light that would rule out a connection.
Officers were still examining the house in the Model Village that had been raided the previous night. The presence of the police was no longer the spectacle for the residents that it had been a few hours ago, and when Fry found DCI Mackenzie inside he looked much more calm and relaxed.
‘Anything useful turned up here, sir?’ asked Fry.
‘You might say that,’ he said. ‘We found some documents in the pocket of one of the men’s jackets. One of them is some kind of agreement he signed for the rental of the house they were living in. It has the name of the owner-landlord. But there’s also the name of an agent mentioned. It might be a name you’ll recognise.’
‘Let me see.’
Fry studied the paper. It was written in Polish, but the names and signatures were perfectly clear.
‘Well, look at that,’ she said. ‘Our Mr Geoff Pollitt, no less.’
Dev Sharma looked pleased with himself today. When Cooper entered the CID room at West Street, Sharma was carefully carrying a large cardboard evidence box as if it contained the crown jewels.
‘What have you got, DS Sharma?’ asked Cooper.
Sharma smiled, a rare smile of genuine pride and pleasure in the job.
‘A motorcycle crash helmet, sir,’ he said.
Cooper hardly needed to look. ‘Red, with white stripes and black stars?’
‘Yes, how did you know?’
‘Just a guess.’
‘It’s a match for the one worn by a suspect in the TV footage of the robbery at the Singhs’ shop,’ said Sharma.
‘I thought it might be. Good work.’
‘Thank you, Inspector. We’ve also brought two suspects in for questioning.’
‘Even better,’ said Cooper. And he felt genuinely happy for Dev and the team that they’d done it without him.
‘They carried out one robbery too many. It was bound to happen. They all push their luck too far.’
‘Where did this happen, Dev?’
‘Down in the Matlock LPU. They robbed a small sub-post office and village store. Same MO — two men in crash helmets who got away on a motorcycle.’
Sharma explained the circumstances. This time the team had got a lucky break. They didn’t come very often, so they all felt suitably grateful. And it was all down to the introduction of new technology.
The police station had continued to change in many ways. A new feature downstairs was the docking station for the body cameras. There were more than seven hundred cameras issued to officers across Derbyshire now, partly paid for by a Home Office Police Innovation Fund.
In this case a response officer in the Matlock area had been equipped with a body-worn camera, a Reveal RS2-X2 with a front-facing screen, attached to his equipment vest with a Klickfast mount.
More importantly, the officer had decided to switch it on when he got out of his car. The camera had caught several good images of the suspects on its high-definition video footage before they climbed on to their motorbike and escaped down the A6.
‘A clear shot of the number plate,’ said Sharma. ‘The make of the bike, everything.’
‘And the helmet,’ said Cooper.
‘Exhibit number one. We went straight round to the registered address in Clay Cross, found the bike outside with the engine still warm — and two suspects inside sharing out their stash. The crash helmet was in the hall, the weapons were in one of the bedrooms, and the house was full of items from their robberies, though it will take us some time to sort through it. We’ve also picked up potential leads to at least two other suspects.’
‘Names?’ asked Cooper.
‘Two brothers. Wayne Crowley, aged twenty-six, and Earl Crowley, twenty-three. It will all be in my report.’