Already Dead(100)

‘What’s the connection between Ralph Edge and the Gibsons?’

‘Josh Lane is the connection.’

‘Josh Lane. The barman at the Light House.’

‘Yes, Josh Lane. My obsession,’ said Cooper.

He waited for Fry to make a sarcastic comment, but it didn’t come. He noticed the cat slink back into the room and sit watching them curiously, her whiskers twitching as if trying to detect something in the air.

‘According to the intelligence at the time, Lane was involved in the drugs trade on a small scale. He even supplied Ecstasy from behind the bar at the Light House. Selected customers only, of course. But you have to be very careful when you play that game.’

‘You certainly meet some unsavoury characters when you get involved in the drugs business,’ said Fry.

He was glad she understood that, at least. ‘Yes, it’s easy to get yourself in too deep. Those people have no hesitation in putting pressure on you, forcing you to do what they want. You have to go along with them. So you find yourself drawn in deeper and deeper. And then it’s too late. It was too late for Josh Lane. The only wonder is that he’s still out and free.’

‘Obsession,’ said Fry, surprisingly gently.

‘All right. Well, Lane knew the local drug dealers,’ said Cooper. ‘He had no choice but to acknowledge them. Sean Gibson introduced him to Ryan. Now, Ryan Gibson was in the army. He always claimed that he’d been a member of special forces. SAS, you know.’

‘They all claim that.’

‘Ryan either genuinely had been, or he’d mixed with people he learned things from. He was one of those men who was never able to go straight once he was out of the services. He’d learned so much discipline, and taken so many orders. Some men can’t adapt to civilian life, you know. They go to pieces without the discipline and structure, without all their mates around them. They can never hold down regular jobs, because they can’t tolerate taking orders from people they don’t respect, and don’t like dealing with members of the public.’

‘He drove a forklift truck, though.’

‘Yes, out in the yard at the depot, thinking his own thoughts, not having to listen to pointless chatter because of the noise of the truck.’

‘Did he crave a bit of excitement?’

‘Of course.’

‘I suppose Carol Villiers told you all about this sort of thing,’ said Fry. ‘The effect on individuals who’ve left the forces?’

Fry’s tone of voice was one Cooper was familiar with, a tone that he felt could lead to unpredictable results.

‘She understands,’ he said cautiously.

‘Mmm.’

‘So Josh Lane. He met Ralph Edge through the Gibson brothers. They had this little scheme going between them. Well, quite a big scheme, I imagine. Edge identified fraud cases, and the Gibsons put the squeeze on the parties involved, blackmailed them for a share of the money. Insurance fraud attracts big penalties these days. And who’s going to admit they’re being blackmailed for the proceeds of a crime? The Gibsons thought they’d hit lucky. They had the best inside information they could get. They had Ralph Edge.’

‘Until Glen Turner threatened to put a spoke in it.’

‘That’s it,’ said Cooper. ‘That’s the whole thing. By the way…’

‘What?’

‘Are you looking for anyone in connection with a drugs inquiry at the moment?’

‘As it happens, yes.’

‘You could try talking to Sean Gibson about it. There’s a good reason he was lying low and getting his brother to lie about him.’

Cooper broke off and went into his kitchen to take a long drink of water. His throat was getting sore. He could sense the approaching spasms of pain and dizziness that he always experienced when he was forced to relive his memories.

‘What you call my obsession,’ he said, when he sat back down again. ‘It was all about the fire. The fire that Liz died in—’

‘I know,’ said Fry.

Cooper nodded, grateful to her for not making him spell it out.

‘Well, it always seemed too convenient to me, the arson,’ he said. ‘I mean, when you think about all those moorland fires they started beforehand. It was obviously part of a bigger plan. I think it was always part of their plan to burn down the Light House.’

‘For the insurance money?’

‘Yes, Diane. The Whartons were desperate for money. You remember them living in that grotty little council house on the Devonshire Estate? And Maurice Wharton, dying in his hospice bed?’

‘Yes, I remember.’

‘Maurice was tormented by the fact that he’d left his wife and children with nothing. But they had that last resort. Stage a fire that would burn down the Light House for the insurance money. It had to be done before the auction or the building would have passed to new owners, and the bank were waiting to take the proceeds from the sale. They had one chance to do it. And we just got in the way, Liz and I. We were in the wrong place at the wrong time. Eliot Wharton was too hot-headed to consider a change of plan. He did it because he was angry. But Josh Lane…’