‘It says here the females can have a wingspan of more than six feet,’ said Elsa. ‘That’s impressive.’
‘Very.’
By unspoken agreement, they began to walk along the bottom path past a series of animal enclosures. Cooper turned to look at Elsa a bit more closely.
‘You weren’t always a waitress, were you?’ he said.
She smiled. ‘I was doing the waitressing to earn a bit of money. I wanted to study veterinary science. But it’s a five-year course, and it’s far too expensive. I was never going to achieve that, no matter how many tips I got from customers.’
‘So you married Darius instead.’
‘It seemed the best option. I put that ambition behind me.’
Cooper could tell from the distant look in her eyes that she hadn’t put it all that far behind her. What a pity that it was an ambition Darius hadn’t been willing to finance. He could certainly have afforded it, even if Elsa couldn’t.
‘Darius and I got married eight years ago,’ she said. ‘It was funny, actually. We had to postpone the wedding for six months because Darius suffered a burst appendix and was admitted for surgery.’
‘Six months? That seems a long time. What hospital was he in?’
‘Hospital? Oh, not on the NHS. He has private medical insurance. He went to Meadow Park in Manchester. It was his choice to go there. Treatment at a private hospital was covered by his insurance, and it’s the nearest private hospital to where we live.’
Cooper waited for Elsa to get round to the subject of their meeting, but she seemed content to be quiet, a role she’d probably practised during her time with Darius Roth.
‘What exactly did you want to talk to me about, Mrs Roth?’ he asked eventually.
‘Well, I’m not sure if it’s important,’ she said. ‘But I know Darius was concerned about the make-up of the group on this last walk.’
‘Oh? Was there something in particular he was concerned about?’
‘Well, he hates the idea of illegal drugs.’
Cooper stopped in mid-stride near an aviary containing barn owls. ‘Drugs? What do you mean?’
‘Faith’s brother, Jonathan, is an addict of some kind.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘The signs are all there. And Faith was a nurse.’
‘What does that have to do with it?’
‘She’s worked as a staff nurse in a surgical ward. She knows how to treat wounds, to deal with infections, to control pain. That means she must have had access to prescription medications. Strong painkillers like morphine. Even in the best regulated of hospitals there can be opportunities.’
Cooper was astonished. It was an accusation completely out of the blue. What had prompted Elsa Roth to come forward with this? The quiet woman who preferred to stay in the background and hardly spoke — yet she’d called him here to blurt this out.
‘Do you have any evidence for what you’re saying?’
‘No, none at all.’
‘Then it’s baseless speculation.’
Elsa brushed back a strand of hair. ‘You’re right. I’m sorry.’ She turned to walk away from the aviary. ‘It’s just something that’s been bothering Darius. He’s very sensitive, you know.’
‘Really?’
She smiled. ‘I know it doesn’t always show, but I understand him very well.’
‘I’m sure you do, Mrs Roth. You seem extremely close.’
‘Oh, we are. So I’m very aware that Darius has a horror of blood and disease. You know, Faith Matthew once told us that among all the patients with gallstones and appendixes and bladder infections on her surgical ward there was one man suffering from necrotising fasciitis. Darius was almost ill when she described it.’
‘The so-called flesh-eating disease. It causes the death of the body’s soft tissues. Horrible.’
They crossed a series of wooden bridges over a stream. A keeper in a green sweater passed them, riding a vehicle like a converted golf buggy.
‘And now Mr Roth seems to be obsessed with the Kinder Mass Trespass,’ said Cooper.
‘It might seem odd to an outsider,’ she said. ‘But there are worse things to have as an obsession. It was a significant historical event.’
‘Nick Haslam says that the ramblers who took part in the Mass Trespass were all Communists.’
‘Oh yes. He never stops telling us that. He knows it infuriates Darius.’
‘I don’t understand why it would anger your husband.’
‘Darius is quite conservative on the quiet. He worships tradition, you know. His grandfather and all those other men who took part in the Mass Trespass have become heroes in his mind. The embodiment of British-bulldog spirit, like the Charge of the Light Brigade or the Welsh Guards at Rorke’s Drift.’
Cooper smiled, faintly puzzled. Both of those episodes from British history had been disastrous defeats, surely? Brave perhaps, but ultimately a lost cause.
He wondered if Elsa was mocking her husband’s beliefs. If so, did she do that to his face? Was it only Nick Haslam who’d infuriated Darius Roth with his contemptuous references to the original trespassers?
With a sigh, Cooper turned back towards the exit. Supposedly, Elsa Roth had called him because she wanted to talk. But she hadn’t told him anything so far, had she? Nothing useful anyway. Apart from the wild allegation against the Matthews, all she’d talked about was her husband. It seemed nothing else mattered to her except Darius.
‘I talked to Faith on the Saturday, you know,’ said Elsa suddenly. ‘The day before the walk.’
‘How was she then?’
‘She was upset by the note.’
‘Note?’
‘Didn’t you know? She’d had a note a few days before the walk. Some crank letter.’
Again she’d taken him by surprise, made him look at her differently. Was she doing this deliberately? It was as if she was playing a game, toying with him like an otter with a fish.
‘What did the note say?’
‘Oh, I can’t remember exactly,’ she said. ‘Some kind of threat, I think.’
Cooper bit his lip. A threat? Why was he only finding out about it now? Hadn’t Faith’s mother known about this, or her brother? It was bizarre that it had been left to Elsa Roth to volunteer information that could be vital to his inquiry.
‘Did Faith tell you anything else?’
‘That’s all I can remember. I hope I’ve helped.’
He sighed. ‘It could be very important.’
‘I’m glad.’
Was she really? Cooper couldn’t be sure. He hadn’t been able to figure out her motive yet. It might be a deliberate distraction, not an effort to help at all.
Cooper said goodbye to Elsa Roth in the car park. She’d arrived in a Mini convertible in metallic electric blue. Cooper felt sure there was probably a whole selection of other vehicles available for her to use in the range of garages at Trespass Lodge.
When Elsa had gone, he called Carol Villiers and asked her to collect the key for Faith Matthew’s house from her mother and meet him there.
‘What are we looking for?’ she said.
‘A threatening note of some kind.’
‘Seriously?’
‘I think so.’
Cooper could smell hot soup and jacket potatoes from the Chestnut Centre café. He peered through the window of the gift shop at the books and cuddly-toy otters.
As he was about to leave the centre, he heard a noise. A wild creature calling to him from a distance. Cooper turned and looked back but saw only the orange eyes of the eagle owl in the distance. It was staring back at him, totally unblinking.
An hour later, Ben Cooper stood looking around the sitting room of Faith Matthew’s house in Hayfield with Carol Villiers. There were no open fires here — not even a log burner, as there might have been in many homes in the Peak District. There was only central heating. Nowhere to dispose of a threatening note by the traditional method of burning it.