People in his community had spent months raising the money to buy their village pub. They formed a cooperative society to take ownership of the building, with hundreds of residents buying shares. They successfully applied to get the pub registered as an ‘asset of community value’ under the government’s new Localism Act. They drew up a business plan, outlining a scheme for a community hub with a café and shop, and accommodation for visitors. Their village post office was due to close too and they negotiated to move counter services into the pub. They appeared in the local media, manned stalls at shows and fêtes, and enough money came in to make the dream possible.
For a while it had all seemed to be going well. With the financial targets hit, solicitors were instructed to begin the conveyancing process. But on the same day the company that owned the pub announced it was exchanging contracts with a third party — a developer who would make the deal pay by building houses on the car park.
Irvine remembered calling into the pub one night for a drink when the news had just broken. The mood was disturbing. Everyone he spoke to was frustrated and angry, convinced they had been betrayed by big business and exploited for a quick profit.
One of his neighbours, who’d had a couple of drinks too many, buttonholed him at the bar while he was ordering a bottle of Thornbridge Sour Brown. Like a doctor, Irvine found he could never escape the fact that he was a police officer, even when he was off duty. In fact, it had been worse since he joined CID and became a detective. Everyone wanted to hear gory details of cases, tell him their theories, or ask him for clandestine forms of assistance that would undoubtedly lose him his job.
That night, though, there was only one topic of conversation. The last-minute betrayal over the sale of the pub had turned people’s minds to committing crime rather than solving it.
‘This could definitely be a motive for murder,’ this same neighbour had said, leaning close to him at the bar. ‘With a hundred and eighty-five potential suspects at the last count. They might all commit the crime together, like the plot of an Agatha Christie story.’
‘By far the least believable Christie plot,’ said Irvine, who had watched Poirot on TV.
The man tapped the side of his nose and almost winked. ‘Where there’s a motive, people will find a means.’
But a week or two later the public outcry against the decision had changed the minds of both the pub’s owners and the potential buyer. The project went ahead and Bamford owned its community hub. When he went into the Angler’s Rest now for a Sour Brown, people again asked for gory details or the kind of assistance that would lose him his job.
‘I suppose you’re involved in that case over near Buxton,’ said the man now, with an inquisitive lift of the eyebrows.
‘Maybe so.’
But as Irvine looked at his neighbour, he recalled that earlier conversation. An Agatha Christie plot? He wondered if he should phone Ben Cooper right now with the interesting idea that had just come into his head.
But of course not. Unlike Cooper, he had a life after all.
‘Do you fancy another drink, mate?’ he said.
21
Sunday 3 November
Carol Villiers had produced a list of names and it was waiting for Cooper on his desk when he arrived in the CID room on Sunday morning. He wasn’t supposed to be on duty, but there was nothing for him to do at home. It was a choice between being here and painting shelves in the shop. No contest. He loved his brother, but the thought of spending all day working with Matt filled him with dread.
The list Villiers had drawn up contained the names of all the residents of Bowden, plus Sandra Blair and her husband Gary, who were former residents, and those of Jason Shaw and the Nadens.
After a moment’s thought, Cooper added Rob Beresford and his parents to the list. Was there anyone else he should consider? No, that seemed to be about it.
Cooper glanced through the list again. There were quite a few familiar surnames on it. That was inevitable, after all his years in E Division making arrests, interviewing suspects, reading intelligence files on known criminal associates. Certain family names cropped up time and time again. Others he remembered particularly after just one meeting — an individual could make such a deep impression on him he would never forget them for as long as he lived. There were even one or two who’d been helpful to him in the past and who might not run a mile when they saw him coming.
One of those individuals was suggested by a name on this list. The Kilners were a widespread family in this part of Derbyshire. But one particular member of the family, Brendan, was well known to Cooper.
Brendan Kilner had been the owner of a garage that was targeted during a proactive operation tackling an increase in the number of expensive, top-of-the-range cars being stolen in North Derbyshire, most of which were never recovered. The suspicion was that they were being processed locally and shipped abroad through a third party. There was always a market for stolen BMWs and Mercedes in parts of the world where fewer questions were asked.
But Kilner himself had never been convicted of anything. Two of his mechanics had gone down for a few years after the police operation located a couple of lock-ups in Edendale where the two employees had been working on stolen vehicles in their spare time. The inquiry had focused on tracking down the dealers who organised the shipping — they were the really serious players, part of an organised crime gang. Once their stage of the enterprise was disrupted, the market disappeared. They also made most of the profit, of course, so they were a much juicier target for an action under the Proceeds of Crime Act, which extracted large amounts of money from convicted criminals. Some of the proceeds even went towards maintaining levels of policing in the county.
It had never been entirely clear whether Kilner was squeaky clean in relation to the stolen car scam, but he’d been remarkably helpful at the time. He opened up his records to the police investigation and shared everything he knew about the activities of his two mechanics, who were by then safely in custody.
During the interviews Cooper was unable to escape a niggling doubt about the garage owner and whether there might be some hidden paperwork somewhere, a possibility the leading officer in the case decided not to pursue. Since then Brendan Kilner had nothing recorded against him, either in Criminal Records or in the intelligence databases. Going straight, then. The garage was still there, BK Motors — now in a double unit on an industrial estate on the outskirts of Edendale.
Cooper looked up a number and grabbed the phone. Kilner was surprised to hear from him, that much was obvious. A bit suspicious too. Maybe there was still a trace of guilty conscience in his reaction to an unexpected contact with the police. But that was a good thing, in the circumstances.
After a bit of cautious small talk, some polite enquiries about the family and how well business was doing, Cooper got round to telling Kilner that he wanted to talk to him.
‘Where can I meet you?’
‘What, today?’ said Kilner, still reluctant.
‘Yes, this afternoon.’
‘Well, I’ll be at Axe Edge. There’s a race meeting.’
‘Buxton Raceway? I know it.’
Kilner didn’t hang up straight away. Cooper could hear him breathing, a slight wheeze as if he were about to start coughing. A nervous cough, or was Kilner a smoker? He couldn’t remember that detail.
‘Can you tell me what it’s about?’ asked Kilner.
‘I’ll tell you when I see you.’
‘Okay, then. I’ll get you a hot dog, shall I?’
Buxton Raceway. Though Cooper had often passed it, he’d never actually visited the races. It wasn’t the sort of place Liz would ever have wanted to go with him for a Sunday afternoon outing.