Cooper remembered his earlier conversation with Elsa Roth. Elsa herself had said, It’s like a fantasy. And perhaps it was, even more than she understood.
‘Well, what would you have done?’ said Jonathan.
His question and his suddenly penetrating stare caught Cooper off guard. He remembered Jonathan talking about the feeling of guilt at not being able to protect Faith. He’d empathised with that feeling. He’d felt the guilt himself, wondered what he might do if he got the opportunity for revenge on the person responsible. What would he have done?
‘You took the teddy bear from Faith’s house on Monday evening, didn’t you?’ said Cooper. ‘So it must have been sometime during that day, after you’d heard she was dead. You spoke to somebody then.’
‘Teddy Bear,’ said Jonathan. ‘That’s what Elsa called him. I hope he got the message.’
But Cooper wasn’t sure Darius did get the message. If his relationship with Faith had been as close as Jonathan suggested, he might have recognised the teddy bear by its red bow tie.
‘Jonathan, who told you Darius Roth killed your sister?’
‘It doesn’t matter.’
‘I think it does.’
Jonathan’s face set into a stubborn mask. He had a cut below his eye and his cheekbone was bruised. It would be difficult to tell now which injuries he’d sustained in the crash and which were inflicted by Darius Roth as he defended himself from attack on that gallery in the old chapel.
‘Did you actually see Darius push your sister off that rock?’ asked Cooper.
‘He was there,’ repeated Jonathan. ‘Who else could it have been?’
Cooper sat back. There was nothing he could say to that.
‘The perfect murder,’ said Jonathan. ‘That’s what Darius would have called it. But he made a mistake. There was a witness.’
‘Who?’
‘I can’t say. But I couldn’t let him get away with it, could I?’
‘A lot of people who commit murder think they’re doing the right thing,’ said Cooper. ‘But almost all of them are mistaken.’
Jonathan continued to look stubborn. ‘Still, there was a witness.’
‘Not really,’ said Cooper. ‘Unfortunately.’
An hour or two hitting the phones got Ben Cooper the answers he needed. When you were able to ask exactly the right question, people were much more likely to tell you the truth.
‘We’ve spoken to all the members of the New Trespassers now,’ said Villiers. ‘It’s the same with almost every one of them.’
And there was the connection. Darius Roth had a financial hold on all of them — he’d bailed out the Goulds’ nursery when their lease ran out, bought their land and leased it back to them. He was subsidising the two students through college so they didn’t have to get jobs working in bars in the evenings. He’d rescued the Warburtons when they had a pension disaster. He’d set Liam up in a nice apartment near Manchester Airport so he could move in with the Hungarian chef.
And what about Nick Haslam? He’d been facing a drink-driving charge and was likely to get banned. Roth had paid for good lawyers to save his licence. And of course he was paying for the promotion of Jonathan Matthew’s band.
Then there was Elsa herself. She was much younger than Darius, but she wasn’t the typical trophy wife. He’d married a waitress, not a catwalk model. Cooper suspected a large part of Elsa’s appeal had been her submissiveness. Men like Darius Roth seemed to like that. Cooper had never been able to see the attraction of it himself. In his opinion, if you wanted slavish devotion, you’d be better off getting a dog.
‘You’d think people would be grateful for being financially supported. But often they’re not. They hate the feeling of being dependent and they become resentful about it. Patronage, it’s called. Artists used to thrive on it. Now they’re too independent. That’s why Jonathan came to hate Darius. He longed to bite the hand that fed him. He’d become a bit unstable anyway. Darius had told him to stay off the drugs if he wanted the money to keep coming in. And he was trying. But when Jonathan felt really bad, who do you think he focused the blame on for his torment?’
‘Darius.’
‘But somebody used Jonathan, didn’t they? They made him suspect that Darius had killed Faith. They channelled his anger.’
Cooper was still thinking about Darius Roth. Many psychopaths were very charming and adept at manipulating people around them. They could pass as perfectly normal in society, even appear convincingly successful and affluent. But it was all a façade. Underneath, there was a seriously disturbed personality.
‘None of the walking-club members ever thought to question his façade as a wealthy property developer. Why should they? And Elsa certainly didn’t care. She had no curiosity about his business dealings as long as the money was coming in to support their lifestyle. She knew he went off to meetings and had business calls in his office at home, but she never inquired what they were about.’
‘I’m sure he would have discouraged her from inquiring if she ever showed an interest. The one thing Elsa Roth was good at — doing what Darius wanted. She would have avoided anything that might annoy him.’
‘She must have felt in a very precarious position, I suppose.’
‘But she was his wife. Even if he divorced her, she would have been in line for a handsome settlement.’
‘I think it was more than just financial self-preservation. I believe she was very afraid of him. She must have sensed something in Darius that the others didn’t.’
‘What a pity she didn’t tell us before it was too late.’
So there were only two people in that group Darius didn’t have a financial hold over. Faith Matthew and Sophie Pullen. One of them was dead. And perhaps he’d been right to trust what the other was saying.
‘Any one of them might have killed Faith to protect Darius. I wonder what story he told them in the clubhouse that night.’
‘Whatever it was, I’m sure he was very convincing.’
So Darius had bought their loyalty. He’d paid for their friendship. And with Elsa it was more than just friendship. Perhaps it was with the students too. Which one of them had been willing to go even further for him and commit murder?
What about previous members? Had they angered him in some way and had their financial support withdrawn? Or did they just have enough? They’d been forced to pander to his obsessions. Yet they were all just part of his façade, an elaborate role play that must have gone some way to satisfy his ego.
‘What about Faith, though?’ said Cooper.
‘There’s no financial connection with Darius Roth that we can see.’
Cooper considered that for a moment.
‘Carol, I need you to go to that hospital where Faith Matthew worked,’ he said.
‘Meadow Park?’
‘Yes. See if you can find out why she left. We know Darius was a patient there. I want to establish if there’s a previous connection between them. If so, it might have begun at the hospital.’
‘I’ll get straight on to it in the morning.’
‘It was all about to come to an end anyway,’ said Irvine.
‘What do you mean?’
‘Look at the figures.’
Cooper’s ability to read spreadsheets was a recently acquired skill. Some of it meant little to him, but he recognised a downward trend, knew what figures meant when they were printed in red or placed in brackets.
Irvine’s inquiries into his company showed it to be on the verge of collapse. Darius had been syphoning off the profits and selling assets until the business was on its knees. The money was about to run out. Within months he would be bankrupt. Liam Sharpe’s rent wouldn’t be paid, the Goulds’ land would be sold off, and the students’ allowances stopped.