Dead And Buried

Perhaps Lane wasn’t going to be as useful a witness as he’d hoped. Nevertheless, Cooper led him to the far end of the cellar.

‘What about this area partitioned off?’

‘Oh, that,’ said Lane. ‘Maurice and Nancy called it the office. Actually, it was more of a place for them to be on their own when they felt the need. And somewhere to put things so they were, well …’

‘Out of the way?’

‘Yes.’

‘But there are filing cabinets in here.’

‘Yes, old business records, I suppose. Nothing of any interest.’

‘No?’

Lane was getting a bit fidgety now. He looked at his watch. ‘I’m sorry to be awkward, but I really should be leaving soon if I’m going to get to work on time. They don’t like you being late at the hotel.’

‘Yes, of course.’

He smiled uncertainly. ‘Have I helped at all?’

‘Actually, I think you have, Josh,’ said Cooper.

‘Oh?’

Lane looked at him, hoping for more, but seemed to realise that he wasn’t going to get any information. He went to the steps and climbed up through the hatch.

‘Did I tell you that I used to come here sometimes?’ called Cooper. ‘I remember this pub when it was all lit up and you could see it for miles.’

There was no reply for a moment, and he wondered if Lane was still there. Then a voice came down to him through the hatch from the floor above. He almost didn’t recognise it, the tone of the words was so different.

‘Don’t worry, Sergeant,’ said Lane. ‘The place will be lit up again soon.’

Cooper frowned. What did that mean? Lane must be referring to the prospect of the pub reopening under new owners. The date of the auction wasn’t far off now. Thomas Pilkington and his son would be getting stressed about the possibility of the police refusing to release their crime scene because the investigation was still ongoing, or of a potential buyer being put off by the story of a double murder.

On second thoughts, that might be a pretty good marketing angle. There were plenty of ghoulish individuals who would flock to visit a pub with a reputation like that. They would probably fight each other to book an overnight stay in the Bakewell Room. In no time, business would be booming again, with locals telling gruesome stories of the murderous Mad Maurice.

Cooper went into the area where the filing cabinets had been stored, and looked at the desk covered in box files and magazines. The office, Lane had called it. A place to be alone? Well it was certainly quiet enough down here. But also a place to put things out of the way.

He found that the cabinets were unlocked. He slid the drawers out one by one, their runners squealing in protest. The noise seemed unnaturally loud in the cellar, reverberating painfully against the stone walls in the narrow space.

He flipped through the tabs on a series of suspension files, discarding invoices for deliveries, electricity bills, insurance documents, copies of VAT returns. He finally found an entire drawer marked ‘Guest Records’. They went back to a time almost five years before the closure of the Light House, but fortunately they were arranged in date order.

Cooper wondered who had been responsible for keeping the records up to date. Was that Mad Maurice in his saner moments? Or had Nancy been the one with the organising brain?

Whoever he had to thank, it was easy enough to locate the record of the Pearsons’ overnight stay in the Light House. Thank goodness the Whartons had been old-fashioned enough not to store all their records on computer. A copy of the entry from the register slid into his hand, dated that night in December.

Holding the page carefully by the edges, Cooper read the names of David and Patricia Pearson, their address in Dorking, their home phone number and nationality. The space for their car registration was left blank. The Range Rover had been at the Old Dairy, of course. But, as Nancy had said, they were checked into Room One, the Bakewell Room.

His eyes scanned down to the bottom of the page, until he located the signature of the member of staff who’d checked them in and taken their payment. But surely that wasn’t an ‘M’? No, it was definitely an ‘E’. The signature read ‘E. Wharton’. The Pearsons had been signed in by Eliot.

‘Do you know what?’ said Cooper to himself, his voice echoing off the cellar walls. ‘I think we might find it’s Eliot’s blood on David Pearson’s clothes.’

30

Henry Pearson held himself stiffly as he peered through the plate-glass window. In the tiled room on the other side of the glass, the body of his son lay on a stainless-steel table. Fry watched him as a mortuary attendant drew back the cover slowly, careful not to expose parts of the neck and shoulder that had suffered more advanced decomposition.

‘Yes, of course it’s David,’ he said.

‘Thank you.’

His eyes remained fixed on the pale face, barely acknowledging Fry’s presence. According to Ben Cooper, David Pearson had once resembled a well-known actor, some old Hollywood heart-throb. Fry hadn’t been able to see the resemblance from the photographs. She certainly couldn’t see it now.