‘We’ll need to speak to him all the same,’ said Cooper.
‘Was he with her?’ asked Mrs Matthew, suddenly interested. ‘Was he part of that group? We haven’t been told that.’
‘No. As far as we know, Mr Barrett wasn’t part of the group.’
‘Mmm.’
‘Faith was a nurse,’ said Villiers. ‘Working for an agency?’
‘Yes, recently.’
‘She must have worked for hospitals previously. Where did she train?’
‘In Manchester, at the Royal Infirmary. Then she worked at a private hospital for a while. Meadow Park. But she left there, which was a shame. I always thought a career in private medicine would have been better for her than the NHS. You can end up dealing with all kinds of people in an NHS hospital, can’t you?’
Cooper wasn’t surprised at that. He’d heard that kind of thing many times before. It was strange how often parents had that sort of snobbery on behalf of their children, when they would never have run their own lives along those lines, or with that kind of belief. They all wanted better for their sons and daughters, and for their grandchildren too. As if future generations could somehow avoid the unpleasant experiences, the disappointments, the crises, the contact with unsuitable people. Even if it was possible, would it be desirable? What sort of individuals would they become if they lived their lives wrapped in balls of cotton wool?
‘We deal with all kinds of people in the police too,’ said Cooper. ‘It’s unavoidable really. We can’t choose to work with only the most respectable criminals.’
Mrs Matthew looked at him suspiciously, as if she thought he was making fun of her. Cooper smiled, and she relaxed.
‘I need to know whether Faith mentioned any of the group members to you, Mrs Matthew. Do you recognise any of these names?’
Villiers passed her a copy of the list Luke Irvine had printed out for him, the names of the twelve remaining members of the New Trespassers Walking Club.
‘I believe she mentioned that first one,’ said Mrs Matthew. ‘Darius. I wouldn’t have known his last name was Roth, but she did refer to a Darius somebody. He was the leader, I think.’
‘That’s right.’
‘Oh...’
Mrs Matthew put a hand to her mouth as she stared at the list.
‘My son, Jonathan, is on the list. But surely he wasn’t a member of this club, was he?’
‘He was with them on the walk,’ said Cooper.
‘Well, yes. But he wouldn’t have joined a club. Jonathan doesn’t join things.’
‘Perhaps not. It isn’t really clear. We just know that he was there when this tragedy happened.’
‘Poor Jonathan,’ she said. ‘It’s affecting him badly. He adored his sister.’
‘Have you spoken to him since the incident?’
‘Jack has. We thought we should come straight here, but we’ll be seeing Jonathan later. It’s been such a shock for all of us, you know.’
‘I’m sorry.’
She made an unnecessary fuss of straightening some cushions on the sofa.
‘I’m afraid I don’t see much of my son these days,’ she said. ‘Jonathan has his own interests, which aren’t ours. Music is very important to him.’
‘Music?’ said Cooper.
‘Yes, he plays the guitar. He’s in a band. If you can call it that. A bunch of layabouts probably. They hang around at some old mill in Manchester. Ancoats, of all places. It’s hardly Didsbury.’
Cooper could almost see the phrase that was going through Mrs Matthew’s mind. Sex and drugs and rock ’n’ roll. The three went together, didn’t they? Especially for a young man who felt the need to rebel against his controlling parents.
‘In fact, Jonathan has been trying to get money off us for this band,’ she said. ‘Thousands of pounds he said he needed for equipment and promotion, and to make, I don’t know... a demonstration of some kind.’
‘A demo.’
‘That’s right.’
‘And you refused to give him what he asked for?’
‘Of course. It would have been money down the drain.’
Cooper thought about whether he would ever have asked his own parents for a large amount of money. Thousands of pounds? Almost certainly not, whatever it was for. And his relationship with his family had always been better than this one he was hearing about. Jonathan had drifted away. His parents disapproved of his musical ambitions. His mother complained they didn’t see much of him, even though he lived not far away. Jonathan would have had to be desperate to come to them for money for his band. What would he have done when help was refused?
‘Mrs Matthew,’ said Cooper, ‘do you think Jonathan might have been trying to get money from his sister?’
‘Well, I suppose he might have. He always turned to Faith rather than to us. She was his big sister and she always helped him out. Always. But I doubt he’d have much luck with that.’
‘Why not?’
‘Faith was a nurse. She was hardly rolling in cash.’ Mrs Matthew hesitated. ‘But he was very insistent about it. It seems to mean an awful lot to him, though I can’t understand why. He has a perfectly good job in Manchester.’
‘Do you know anyone else involved in this band? Any of his friends?’
‘Not friends as such. There’s a man he’s mentioned a few times — a musician, some kind of mentor, I think. He’s a Canadian. Jonathan has talked about him getting this band together in Manchester.’
‘Do you remember his name?’
‘As a matter of fact, yes. We made a note of it, in case anything happened. You understand what I mean?’
‘Yes.’
Mrs Matthew opened her handbag and poked about until she found a small diary. She pulled out a pair of reading glasses and turned to a back page.
‘Farnley,’ she said. ‘His name is Farnley. I imagine he knows more about my son than I do.’
Cooper suspected that the longer he stayed talking to this woman in this cramped sitting room, the more her emotions would begin to spill out. At the moment, it was only an occasional crack in her voice, a fleeting expression, a second when she couldn’t meet his eye. But soon she would fall apart, the way grieving family members did eventually. He wished the family liaison officer would get back from whatever errand she’d been sent on. This wasn’t the way it should be.
‘Could I go back to Darius Roth?’ he said. ‘What did Faith tell you about him, Mrs Matthew?’
‘Nothing really. Nothing at all. She just said that she was “going on Darius’s walk” or something like that. I can’t remember exactly how she put it.’
‘When was this? When did you last talk to her?’
‘About three days ago. Yes, it would be Friday. We spoke on the phone.’
‘Did she call you?’
‘No, I called Faith to see how she was. And to ask if she might be coming to visit us at the weekend. It was... Well, it’s not relevant.’
‘It was what, Mrs Matthew?’
She paused for a moment.
‘Well, it was my birthday yesterday,’ she said.
And then there were tears, trickling down her cheeks. She hardly seemed to notice them and made no attempt to wipe them away. Cooper bit his lip. These were the worst moments to deal with. He could cope with dead bodies, and with individuals who committed violent acts. But distraught loved ones — these he could never come to terms with.
11
Where the narrow River Sett flowed under the bridge at the Royal Hotel, empty beer kegs stood in front of the war memorial, painted blue and yellow. Cooper passed Millie’s tearooms and chocolatier on Church Street, and an old Co-op store on the corner of Fishers Bridge.
The Mass Trespass was quite a theme here. On New Mills Road, notices outside the Kinder Lodge Hotel said, HIKERS WELCOME, and even the pub sign had an illustration of ramblers setting off towards the mountain.