‘Let’s try the cameras first,’ he said. ‘It isn’t often we get a chance to look at CCTV footage in this part of Derbyshire.’
‘By the way,’ said Villiers, ‘the Major Crime Unit are on their way from EMSOU. DCI Mackenzie will be senior investigating officer. It’s going to take them a while to get here yet, though.’
‘If they can find it at all.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘They’ll be trying to follow their satnavs,’ said Cooper. ‘I wish them luck with that. They’ll probably end up in Stockport.’
Trespass Lodge was well equipped with security lights and cameras, of course. A computer screen in a study showed live images from the front of the property.
Cooper was able to scroll back to the previous evening. Just before it went dark and the system switched to infrared, a camera trained on the drive had recorded footage of a vehicle approaching the lodge but stopping at the gates. It stood there for a while before turning round and leaving. It was too far away for the make of the car to be established. But its colour was — what? Teal or viridian, perhaps.
‘Carol, take Luke and bring in Jonathan Matthew for questioning,’ Cooper said. ‘Try his flat at Whalley Range, and if he’s not there, he might be back at work in Manchester.’
‘There’s no sign of Jonathan Matthew at his home or office. His employer says he’s still taking time off because of the death of his sister. So I phoned his mother. She says she spoke to Jonathan last night, and he told her he was in Manchester rehearsing with his band all evening.’
‘Have we got a number for Robert Farnley?’
‘Gavin should have one.’
Cooper got the number and called.
‘When did you last see Jonathan Matthew, Mr Farnley?’
‘He was here for rehearsals last night.’
‘Until what time?’
‘We worked late. There were a couple of songs we were having trouble with. We were still here at midnight.’
‘Midnight?’
‘Yes. Then we had to pack up and get our gear into the cars. I don’t suppose we actually left the mill before half past twelve.’
If that was true, there was no way Jonathan Matthew could have got to Hayfield by the time his car was shown on the CCTV camera at Trespass Lodge. If it was true.
‘Gavin, where was that place the band was rehearsing, where you talked to Robert Farnley?’ he called.
‘Brunswick Mill,’ said Murfin. ‘It’s in Ancoats. One of those big old mill buildings facing onto the Ashton Canal. You can’t miss it.’
Diane Fry was following DCI Alistair Mackenzie’s car towards Hayfield. DC Jamie Callaghan sat in the passenger seat of the Audi, quietly texting and checking messages.
‘Jamie, can you have a look at the map?’ she said. ‘I don’t think this is right.’
Callaghan looked up. ‘Where are we?’
‘That’s the point. I don’t know.’
Callaghan opened up an app on his phone. ‘It shows our present location as somewhere on the A6 near Whaley Bridge,’ he said.
‘I think we should have turned off at that last exit. We’re almost in Greater Manchester.’
‘But Mr Mackenzie—’
‘He’s wrong,’ said Fry. ‘I’m going to head back at this roundabout. Call him and tell him what we’re doing?’
‘Me?’ protested Callaghan.
‘I’m driving, in case you hadn’t noticed.’
Fry swung back southwards onto the A6 as she listened to Callaghan explain to their boss. She couldn’t hear what Mackenzie was saying, but she could imagine how irritable he would sound. He was probably looking at his watch too, calculating how much time they’d lost heading in the wrong direction.
They worked through Hayfield and finally found the road to Trespass Lodge. Several police vehicles were already parked in front of the house.
‘How did these guys find it?’ complained Mackenzie when he clambered out of his Mercedes.
‘Local knowledge?’ suggested Fry.
They were directed to the back of the house and across an expanse of grass until they reached the old chapel.
‘Is this the crime scene?’ said Mackenzie. ‘Give me a nice back alley in Nottingham anytime.’
Fry couldn’t argue with that. This was definitely the middle of nowhere. Ben Cooper country if ever she saw it. Murders happened here too.
But Ben Cooper himself wasn’t to be found. Instead, he’d left a message for the Major Crime Unit. He was following a line of inquiry and expected to apprehend a suspect soon.
‘It sounds as though we’re too late,’ said Mackenzie. ‘I think this might be your fault, DS Fry.’
The A6 from Buxton ran straight through Stockport before it headed in towards Manchester city centre. In Gorton, a junction on Hyde Road also marked the end of the A57 from Sheffield over the Snake Pass.
Inner-city areas like Gorton were where all those young working-class men had flocked from to join the Mass Trespass on Kinder in 1932. Since then, the streets of terraced houses had disappeared in Manchester’s slum clearances, entire communities moved to new estates in Wythenshawe and Hattersley.
Cooper recalled that in the early 1960s, the Moors Murderers, Ian Brady and Myra Hindley, had been inconspicuous clerks working in a Gorton chemical factory. In their case, they’d driven out of the city on summer evenings for the purpose of murdering children and disposing of their victims’ bodies on Saddleworth Moor.
Then the factories themselves had closed and Gorton itself had died. So now the descendants of those factory workers lived miles out of the city in Hayfield and Glossop.
Cooper turned off the A6 and went through Ardwick towards Ancoats, glimpsing the stands of the Etihad Stadium, where Manchester City played.
He recognised Brunswick Mill straight away from Gavin Murfin’s description. Ancoats had been described as the world’s first industrial suburb, one of the cradles of the Industrial Revolution — and Brunswick Mill was a huge relic of that industrial past. Boarded-up windows overlooked Bradford Road, where the mill’s seven storeys loomed over rows of modern townhouses.
But Gavin was wrong about one thing. The mill wasn’t ‘backing onto’ the Ashton Canal. The mill’s loading bays all faced the canal. That was where the raw materials had come in and the finished products had gone out.
He found Robert Farnley in one of the practice rooms, just as Murfin had said he would be. Farnley had two other musicians with him, but there was no sign of Jonathan Matthew.
‘He hasn’t turned up,’ said Farnley when Cooper asked. ‘It’s a real nuisance at this stage. And you can tell him that from me if you find him.’
‘Do you have any idea where he might be, Mr Farnley?’
‘He lives in Whalley Range.’
‘We’ve tried there.’
‘Or he might be at work. He has a job—’
‘We’ve tried there too. He told his mother he’d be here rehearsing.’
‘Well, we haven’t seen him today, have we?’
The other musicians muttered their agreement.
‘He’s missing,’ said Cooper.
‘I hope this isn’t going to affect the band,’ said Farnley. ‘We’ve got a gig coming up next week in Stockport.’
‘I’m afraid Jonathan Matthew won’t be playing with you, sir.’
‘That’s a real shame.’
‘I’m sure there are plenty of session guitarists hanging around Brunswick Mill.’
‘You don’t know much about music, do you? You can’t just turn up and do a gig without putting in some rehearsal time together. Jonno is an important part of the band. When will we get him back?’
Cooper smiled. ‘By the time you see him again, Mr Farnley, I’m afraid he’ll be long out of practice.’