Already Dead(66)

Fry nodded. ‘It’s odd that he should have gone there on Monday, isn’t it? Shouldn’t he have been at work?’

‘Oh, he said he wasn’t feeling well enough on Monday. He took a day off.’

‘That would have been because of the injuries he received at the paintballing over the weekend.’

Clearly Mrs Turner was surprised by the turn of the conversation. ‘Oh, you know about that? I didn’t think—’

‘What?’

But Mrs Turner had stopped. Her eyes glazed over for a moment. ‘Yes, poor Glen. He was a bit sore after his experience. Like I say, he decided not to go into the office on Monday.’

‘But he was well enough on Tuesday?’

‘Yes. Well, he went back to work. But then he never came home in the evening.’

‘I see.’

So what had happened on Tuesday? It was remaining a blank day in a remarkably empty life. According to Nathan Baird, nothing out of the ordinary had taken place at the office that day, and Glen Turner had left at the usual time. But surely there must have been some banter about the team building weekend. A bit of sniggering behind Glen’s back, a few subtle cracks about his humiliation. Perhaps some not so subtle hilarity. And after work? Why had he gone to Brassington, and who had he met up with?

Fry turned to Mrs Turner again and told her the scanty information about the stranger in the red rain jacket. She didn’t expect much. The description was so vague that no one would have recognised it. So she wasn’t surprised when Mrs Turner shook her head.

‘It means nothing to me, I’m afraid. Is it somebody Glen met?’

‘We don’t know. It’s possible. Did your son drink at a pub in Brassington?’

‘He didn’t drink much at all.’

‘Of course he didn’t,’ said Fry.

‘Well, the odd pint of beer. And he was always careful never to drink and drive. That’s why we went to the Red Lion, or the Hope and Anchor. They’re within walking distance of here.’

Fry noticed that ‘we’, and felt uneasy again. When Glen Turner did go to the pub, he went with his mother? There was something wrong with that picture. She was more than ever convinced that Glen had a secret he’d been hiding, even if it was only a tendency to slope off to the pub on his own occasionally. And perhaps a friend or two that his mother wouldn’t have approved of?

‘I don’t suppose your son kept a diary?’ said Fry.

‘I don’t think so. At the office perhaps…?’

‘He kept a record of appointments on his phone.’

She had been sitting on Ingrid Turner’s sofa as they talked. Now Fry stood, and found herself looking out of the back window. There was a surprisingly large garden. She would never have expected it from the front of the property. There didn’t seem to be any access to the rear of the cottage from St John’s Street, so there must be a back lane.

A few minutes ago Mrs Turner had listed her son’s membership of Wirksworth Community Growers as one of his plus points. Fry had assumed there must be an allotment somewhere, perhaps shared with some old geezer who actually did all the work. But here was a burgeoning plot filled with vegetables, and a line of canes supporting fruit bushes. One side of the garden was taken up by an expanse of glass and gleaming aluminium.

‘You do have a nice garden,’ said Fry.

‘Thank you.’

‘Is that greenhouse new?’

‘Yes, Glen bought it for me. I’m the real enthusiast about gardening, I suppose. But Glen always took an interest. He was good that way.’

Fry thought back to her examination of Turner’s bank and credit card statements. She couldn’t remember every detail, of course. But this was a large structure, surely twenty feet long. A couple of thousand pounds, perhaps?

‘It’s wonderful. Where did Glen get it?’

‘I couldn’t say. Two young men arrived one day and put it up.’

‘Do you have a receipt, by any chance?’

‘Not me. Glen dealt with all that sort of thing.’

‘There was no paperwork in his room. Hardly anything. Did he keep receipts and bills somewhere else?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Mrs Turner. ‘He never bothered me about bills. I just passed everything on to Glen. I suppose they must be somewhere. At the office, perhaps? In his briefcase?’

Fry shook her head. ‘No, we found nothing like that.’

‘I can’t tell you, then. He did use the computer a lot. There was the one upstairs, and he had a laptop for work.’

‘We’ve got people examining those,’ said Fry. ‘But it takes time.’

‘I don’t know why it should be important, though.’