Irvine went quiet and slumped in his chair, casting a frustrated glance at Becky Hurst. He looked sorry to have spoken.
‘As you can see, those properties cover all the possible approaches to Valley View, with one exception. If our suspects approached along Curbar Lane, they would either have to pass Fourways, which would mean coming through the centre of the village, or they would have to come from the direction of Curbar, past Moorside House. The back of the property borders on to the garden of Riddings Lodge, with The Cottage and Lane End directly across this lane. From any one of these directions, the suspects must have known they were likely to pass witnesses.’
‘And the one exception?’
‘It’s obvious.’ Cooper pointed to the eastern boundary of the Barrons’ property. ‘On this side, there are no neighbours. There isn’t anybody. On this side, there is nothing. It leads only to the edge.’
DNA and trace evidence had gone to the lab. Normally, results would take a week, but the extra expense had been approved to make them a rush job, so they might expect something within forty-eight hours or so.
Fingerprints ought to be back tomorrow, even with a complete search of the national database. It was good to have a shortlist of suspects to compare prints against, but there was no list in this case, not even a shortlist of one.
‘It’ll be the husband,’ said Murfin as the briefing came to an end. ‘You’ll see, it’s always the husband.’
‘The husband is in hospital with serious head injuries,’ pointed out Cooper.
‘That’s a minor quibble.’
‘You don’t believe in the Savages, then?’
Murfin snorted. ‘There are plenty of savages out there. Some of them work in this building. Have you seen that custody sergeant?’
‘Are you with us on this, Gavin? Because it has to be everyone pulling together.’
Murfin looked startled. ‘Of course. I was only kidding.’
‘Yeah, okay.’
Murfin was still regarding him curiously.
‘What?’
‘I’ve never noticed before,’ said Murfin.
‘What are you on about?’
‘Since you got to be DS, I’ve never noticed how much you’re starting to sound like Diane Fry.’
The divisional CID teams would get the legwork, of course. As expected, Cooper was put in charge of house-to-house in Riddings. The SIO wanted a detailed map of the village showing all the properties near the Barrons, every lane, every footpath and every rabbit track. The attackers must have approached and left by some route, however obscure. And with a bit of luck, someone might have seen them.
‘If they knew the area, they must have been in the village before,’ said Cooper, as Irvine came over to join them. ‘An earlier visit to get an idea of the layout, the routes in and out. Make sure you ask about the last few weeks. Any strangers acting in a suspicious manner, or asking questions. They might have posed as inquisitive hikers, or as potential house buyers looking to move into the village. You know the sort of thing, some trick to get information out of the residents.’
‘The thing is,’ said Irvine, ‘you can get a lot of what you need online these days. All they had to do was log in to Google Street View. And there are plenty of aerial maps on the internet.’
An aerial view was of limited use, though. It might show you the layout of buildings and where driveways ran. But it didn’t tell you anything about the lie of the land, whether you would be hidden from view by those trees, what windows were on this side of the house, whether there was a dip in the terrain to conceal your approach, or would you be marching downhill in full view of the whole world?
So what about Street View? But that only showed the public roads. And in Riddings, the view of many of the properties was hidden from the Google camera van. If Cooper was a burglar, he thought, he wasn’t sure he would get what he needed from it.
‘If we can pin down where everyone was and what they saw,’ he said, ‘we might get an angle on the route the attackers took. In and out. We’ve got the approximate times.’
‘They must have used a vehicle, surely,’ said Irvine.
‘If they did, it wasn’t on the Barrons’ property. The gates were closed, and they can only be opened from inside. There’s a lane running along the back here, though. It borders on part of the Barrons’ property. It’s only a track really, but it would be possible to get a vehicle up there.’
‘Who else in the village knew the Barrons?’ asked Irvine.
‘Uniforms are doing a trawl right now,’ said Murfin. ‘But my guess is that it’ll be a short list.’
‘What about this Barry Gamble? First on the scene, and all that. He has to come into the frame. Did he have a justification for being at Valley View?’
‘We’ll be talking to him again today, Luke,’ said Cooper.
Zoe Barron’s sister was on TV, being interviewed on behalf of the family. It was a routine that seemed to be demanded by the media after any personal tragedy.
‘She was a good mother, and a good wife. A very bright, loving woman. She was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. If she hadn’t disturbed those intruders, she would still be alive and with us today.’
‘Did she disturb them?’ said Cooper afterwards. ‘Is that the way it went?’
Murfin shrugged. ‘They came in across the decking and through the back door into the utility room.’
‘Yes, they came into the kitchen, where Zoe was already standing. They came to her, not the other way round. Something about that doesn’t feel right. And, as I asked before, what’s missing?’
‘A motive,’ said Murfin. ‘That’s what’s missing.’
‘Not to mention a clear idea of how they got in and out,’ added Irvine.
‘Right. All we have on that are the views of the loony tendency.’
There were certainly plenty of theories being floated around, if you followed the news sites on the internet, or simply did a Google search. After the attack on Valley View, some members of the public suggested the attackers must have abseiled down the rock face like the SAS. Others claimed they flew in by hang-glider launched from the edge. They didn’t bother to explain what had happened to the glider after it had landed in the Barrons’ garden.
The thought of Google made Cooper remember the biblical reference carved into the stone below Curbar Gap. He didn’t need to find someone with a Bible, of course. Google could come up with it for him in an instant.
He typed in Isaiah 1:18, and the quotation appeared:
Come now, and let us reason together, saith the LORD: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.
Wool? He was puzzling over the simile when DI Hitchens appeared by his desk.
‘Ben, you’ve got a new addition to your team,’ said Hitchens.
‘Oh?’
‘She’s just on her way up from reception.’
Cooper had been waiting for a new recruit ever since he’d become DS. He’d been starting to think that it would be a long wait. Cost-cutting meant that staff wouldn’t be replaced. ‘Natural wastage’ it was called. Nobody had said anything, but he knew how these things were done. Now it seemed that he’d been wrong.
Murfin grinned at him and tapped the side of his nose.
‘Gavin, do you know something?’ asked Cooper.
‘My lips are sealed.’
‘Mr Hitchens said she. Tell me it’s not Diane Fry come back to join us.’
Murfin’s laugh was more of a hysterical bark, too high-pitched and nervous for genuine amusement.
‘Oh God. Shoot me now if it is.’
Hitchens came back into the room.
‘Ben, this is your new colleague, DC Villiers.’
Cooper stood up, ready to hold out a hand in greeting. But he froze when he saw who was with Hitchens, walking calmly into the CID room with a smile. She was a bit older, leaner, more tanned than when he’d last seen her. And there was something else different, an air of confidence, a firm angle to her jaw and a self-assurance in the way she held her head. Her pale hair was pulled back from her face now. But he recognised her immediately.