Fry examined the fossil. It was just a dead sea creature that had been turned to stone over millions of years. She shared Mrs Turner’s view on these things. They were dead and gone, rock and dust. So what had interested Mr Turner so much about this object that he’d gone to the stone centre to buy it straight after his consultation with Mr Chadburn at Richmond Jones?
That evening at the Wheatsheaf, Luke Irvine was eager to be the first to buy Carol Villiers a drink when she described the time she’d spent with Ben Cooper earlier that day.
‘How did you do it?’ asked Irvine in admiration.
‘It was actually quite easy,’ said Villiers. ‘He’s still the same old Ben Cooper deep down, you know. Some things he can’t resist. An interesting case, for example.’
‘You’ve been giving him information about the murder inquiry?’
‘Yes, some.’
Irvine felt uneasy. ‘It’s up to you. But Diane Fry mustn’t find out.’
‘No, Diane mustn’t know.’
He looked at Murfin and Hurst, checking to see that they shared the need for conspiratorial silence. He could see from their faces that they did.
‘So do you think you’ve distracted him from his obsession, Carol?’ asked Irvine.
‘Sure.’ She hesitated only slightly. ‘Well, I think so.’
‘You can have my medal,’ said Murfin, raising his glass in a toast. ‘You deserve it more than me. It’s still in my drawer at the office.’
‘Your Diamond Jubilee medal? I thought it was your most treasured possession, Gavin. You couldn’t wait for it to arrive.’
‘I know,’ said Murfin. ‘It’s funny, though. Getting it was the really important thing. Just knowing they hadn’t forgotten me completely, the people up there. The thing itself, well … it’s just a bit of old metal, isn’t it?’
Irvine watched them in silence. He wasn’t convinced about Ben Cooper. But he didn’t feel able to say so. Both Carol Villiers and Gavin Murfin had known Cooper much longer. They ought to be right about these things.
Still, Irvine had an uneasy feeling – one of those feelings you were supposed to keep to yourself. So that was what he’d better do, he supposed.
25
The one thing Ben Cooper couldn’t ask Carol Villiers to do was run a PNC check. Unauthorised use of the police national computer system was a serious disciplinary offence. Many officers around the country had been sacked for accessing information from the PNC, or passing it on to members of the public. Some had even been prosecuted for breaches of the Data Protection Act.
At one time, Cooper might have turned to his contacts on the local newspaper for information. There was a journalist called Erin Byrne that he’d dealt with in the past. But the Eden Valley Times no longer had an office in Edendale. Its parent company had been swallowed up by one of the big publishing corporations that already owned half of the regional newspapers in the UK. What was left of the editorial staff had been centralised and now worked from a production hub twenty miles away in Sheffield. Like most small towns, Edendale would probably never have its own local paper again.
So who could he talk to? Who would have the same sort of local knowledge that an old-fashioned newspaper reporter used to possess? Who would know the area and its characters well, particularly its villains? He need someone like his father, the old-style copper. But they didn’t exist any more, did they? Well, not still in the service.
The old police station at Lowbridge had been closed in the previous year’s cutbacks. It was just one of the county’s assets to be offloaded, following cuts in the annual policing budget. Many of the force’s properties had been under-used for years – or so the argument went. Money could be saved, and revenue earned, by selling off surplus buildings like this one. Yet here it still stood, empty and abandoned, its doors and windows boarded up and scrawled with obscene graffiti. No one wanted to buy a disused police station in Lowbridge.
And why would they? There were already enough empty properties waiting for a buyer. If you were looking for somewhere to open a shop, you were spoiled for choice on the high street. ‘For Sale’ and ‘To Let’ signs sprouted on almost every frontage. If you wanted a property to convert into flats, there was the old primary school, or the Mechanics’ Institute, or the magistrates’ court. They’d all stood empty for years. Prime residential development opportunities for someone with the money, the vision, and a massive amount of optimism. But a derelict police station? Surely it was best left to the ghosts of old coppers, to the memories of prisoners who’d literally left their mark on the walls of the disused cells, or even to the vandals who’d swarmed to the empty building like locusts. Its symbolism made it a prime target for protest and abuse.