'What was through there?' asked Villiers.

'A desk, a few filing cabinets. Loads of old paperwork just mouldering away. I suppose it's been left for the new owners, if anyone buys the pub at the auction.'

'What sort of paperwork?'

'Accounts, I suppose. Orders, deliveries, records of paying guests, VAT returns. Whatever. That would be part of the business history, wouldn't it? If you took the place on, you'd want to get an idea of how many bookings there were for the rooms. The time of year, where they came from and all that.'

'Yes, of course. But we're not thinking of buying the pub, are we? I mean a are we?'

'No. But it seems to me that the information we want might be down here anyway. We need to get scenes of crime here.'

Cooper inhaled deeply. He was trying to detect the presence of other smells in the cellar that shouldn't be there. No stink of petrol, thank goodness. So at least Maurice Wharton hadn't kept a motorbike down here. But his brain was running along another track. He was thinking of the temperature control. That cool twelve degrees Celsius.

'Carol, what is the temperature inside your fridge?'

Villiers looked startled. 'A fridge should be about three degrees Celsius. Anything higher and you have the risk of bacteria. Anything lower and food starts to freeze.'

'I didn't know that,' said Cooper.

'Don't worry. Food probably doesn't stay long enough in your fridge for it to matter.'

Cooper nodded thoughtfully. Twelve degrees was too warm, then. Too high a temperature to preserve anything for very long. There would definitely be a smell by now.

'What are you thinking, Ben?' asked Villiers, watching the expression on his face.

'Oh, nothing important,' he said. 'I was just wondering about the deterioration in the quality of the beer down here.'

'Ben, that wasn't what you were thinking at all,' said Villiers.

He liked the way Carol understood him. She never seemed to read the wrong messages as Diane Fry so often used to do when they worked together.

'No,' said Cooper. 'You're right.'

In fact, the memory that had been eluding him had just come back exactly as he'd hoped, in a moment when he wasn't even trying to remember it. He'd recalled a look from Betty Wheatcroft, the slightly dotty old woman, the former teacher who'd been so disappointed at his lack of knowledge, the way teachers in his childhood always had been.

'No, actually,' he said, 'I wasn't thinking about that at all. I was thinking about the ninth circle of h.e.l.l.'

Diane Fry took Henry Pearson into the little office she'd been given. She felt a bit embarra.s.sed by it, because it was so clearly makeshift. None of the furniture even pretended to match, and the walls showed unfaded patches where the previous occupant had taken down his charts and year planners.

She promised herself she would have a better office one day. And it wouldn't be too long now, either.

But Pearson didn't seem to notice, or care, what sort of room he was in. He sat in the only available chair, declined tea or coffee, but accepted a gla.s.s of water.

He'd brought his briefcase with him, no doubt containing those files Fry had seen him carrying so importantly on the TV news. When he placed it on the desk, her heart sank. She hoped he wasn't about to whip out a file and start trying to win her over to his case. His obsessive earnestness reminded her of UFO nuts, conspiracy theorists and other cranks she'd encountered. Mostly harmless, but not the sort of person you'd want to get cornered by at a party.

Instead, he produced his leather-bound writing pad, opened it and placed a pen next to it before giving her his attention.

'First of all,' she said, 'I realise that some of my questions will have been asked before.'

'Many times, I'm sure,' said Pearson. 'The same questions have been asked over and over until I know them by heart. It was a surprise to me at first, the way the police work. But I'm accustomed to it now. Hardened would perhaps be a better word.'

'I understand.'

His grey hair was smoothed neatly back, and his eyes regarded her sharply. She remembered how, when he'd arrived in Edendale earlier in the week, he'd studied each officer he met, as if hoping to see something in them that he hadn't yet found.

'All that doubt and suspicion,' he said. 'All that cynicism. I've found it quite shocking. Why does no one want to accept the truth? David and Patricia haven't left the country and changed their ident.i.ties. They would never do that. A horrible crime has been committed, and my son and his wife are the victims. I really wish you and your colleagues would regard them that way.'

'You remain convinced of that?'

'I'm as convinced of that as I have been of anything in my life.'

Fry was pretty sure she'd heard him use those exact same words on TV, when facing the cameras.

'Despite the evidence?' she asked.

She was being provocative, of course a angling for a response beyond the practised phrases. But Pearson seemed to know that too. His answer came with a suggestion of weary resignation in his voice.

'Evidence? What evidence?' he said. 'Do you mean all those unconfirmed sightings, fake photos, forged emails, non-existent credit card purchases? Is that what pa.s.ses for evidence these days? I think not.'

'But something we do possess,' said Fry, 'is compelling evidence of your son's illegal financial activities, prior to his disappearance.'

Pearson still regarded her calmly. 'I've never tried to make any secret of that, Detective Sergeant. In fact you might be aware that it was my cooperation with the authorities that led to the information coming to light.'

'Yes, you permitted the original inquiry team access to your son's private papers, and his computer records. It was very helpful of you.'

'I thought it would ultimately be in David's best interests.'

'Absolutely. Though it might be said that the embezzlement would have come to light anyway, in the course of inquiries. Then it might have cast a different light on subsequent events.'

'I'm not sure what you mean,' said Pearson.

'I mean that it's all about interpretation. Creating a consistent story.'

His jaw clenched then, his face set as if for an argument. She could see the amount of determination that was in him, the strength of purpose that had kept him going so long. For more than two years now, Mr Pearson had been campaigning to convince the world that his son and daughter-in-law were innocent victims who'd been caught up in some terrible fate.

Fry's phone rang then, breaking the tension.

'Excuse me,' she said. 'It might be important.'

'Certainly.'

She could feel his intense gaze fixed on her as she took the call. When she grasped the information she was being given, she wished she'd stepped outside the office to answer it. She couldn't help making eye contact with Pearson just once as she listened. Then she had to look away in embarra.s.sment.

Fry ended the call and stared at her desk, knowing there was no way she could conceal her expression. The news had caught her off guard, with no opportunity to prepare for contact with the bereaved relative. This wasn't the way it should be.

But at least she was about to tell Henry Pearson that he'd been right along. That was some kind of consolation, perhaps.

It was Pearson himself who finally shattered the silence.

'What is it?' he said. 'There's something. I can tell.'

Fry took a breath and lifted her eyes to face him. 'Yes, that was my boss, DCI Mackenzie, in the incident room. We've had a call. It seems that some human remains have just been found in an old mine shaft on Oxlow Moor.'

'Human ...?'

'I'm sorry,' said Fry helplessly.

'A body?' said Pearson. 'You mean a body. Just one? Well, it could be anybody.'

Fry shook her head. 'Two bodies. We can't be certain at this stage, but ...'

She didn't need to say any more. She looked at Henry Pearson, saw the sudden draining of colour from his face. The att.i.tude and expression were all gone, ripped from him like a worn-out coat. He'd turned instantly into an old, old man, exhausted and desolate.

But surely it couldn't have been such a shock? Hadn't he been expecting this discovery for more than two years?

As she watched Pearson disintegrate in front of her eyes, Fry was horrified at the realisation that crept into her mind, a certainty that she had been the victim of a huge scam, just like everyone else.

'You never thought they were dead at all,' she said. 'You've been playing your part all this time, waiting for the moment when they'd make contact again.'

Pearson hung his head and twisted his hands together. It was astonishing how a person could change so quickly. He looked smaller than he had a few minutes ago, more frail and crumpled, emptied of any strength or energy.

'There really was a plan for them to disappear, wasn't there?' said Fry. 'But it all went wrong.'

'Yes, it's true. I suppose there's no point in pretending any more.'

So it had all been a facade. Henry Pearson had been playing a role. The effort of putting on the performance must have been what kept him going. The necessity of maintaining appearances had been the only thing that drove him on.

But this ... well, the person now sitting in front of Fry was a different man. He was the real Henry Pearson, the face behind the mask. And the face was a pitiful one, broken and wretched. This was a man who'd had to wait more than two years for the moment when he was allowed to grieve for his son.

'I didn't know whether they'd gone or not,' said Pearson. 'All this time, I thought they might actually have got away, that they'd just left the country a bit sooner than they originally planned. I a.s.sumed that David didn't get a chance to tell me or his mother what they were going to do. Or that ... well, perhaps that he'd wanted to break all contact with us, too.'

'So you kept on with the pretence that your son and his wife must have been attacked and murdered here in Derbyshire. That was your agreed role, a way of distracting attention from the real story, from David and Trisha's actual whereabouts. The only trouble is, Mr Pearson a it wasn't a pretence.'

'In the end, we didn't know what to think. It was part of the plan that there would be no communication for a while, until we judged it to be safe. That time should have come over a year ago, when the police inquiry was shelved and the publicity had died down. Surely then, we thought, it would be safe? But no word came from David.'

'And you just kept on playing your part?' asked Fry. 'How could you do that?'

Pearson threw his hands out in a desperate appeal. 'What else was there for me to do? Please, can you tell me that? What else?'

26.

The two bodies had been tightly rolled in heavy-duty black bin liners. The plastic wrapping meant that some areas of flesh had been protected from exposure to the air. If there was any good news, that was it. The uneven pattern of decomposition would increase the chances of a positive identification.

Fry shuddered as she joined the small group of people gathered on the edge of the hole. For her, the blackened heather further up the hill heightened the nightmarish nature of the location on the shoulder of Oxlow Moor.

The sight of the yokels playing open-air charades with their sheep down in the fields below didn't make things any better. It must be some kind of rural festival taking place. When she looked around, Fry felt as though she was trapped between two different kinds of h.e.l.l.

'Wasn't this one of the mine shafts searched during the original missing persons inquiry?' asked DCI Mackenzie.

'It must have been. They all were.'

'So how is it we have this?'

'A secondary crime scene,' said Fry.

Wayne Abbott looked up from where he was crouching in the shaft.

'Well I can tell you one thing for certain,' he said. 'They haven't been here for two and a half years. The condition of the plastic is too good. In fact, the bodies look generally too well preserved. The pathologist will be able to tell you a lot more. She should get plenty of information from the post-mortem, given the state of the remains.'

Mackenzie looked at Fry, who allowed herself a smile. Where's the best place to hide something so that it won't be found? Where it's already been looked for. She wished she could remember who'd told her that, so she could thank them. It had been well worth repeating.

'So Henry Pearson wasn't expecting this outcome after all?' said Mackenzie.

'Not at all. It knocked the ground from under him completely. He won't be doing any more media interviews for a while.'

'Interesting.'

'More sad than interesting. He was still clinging to the belief that David and Trisha had managed to get out of the country and change their ident.i.ties. Somehow he'd convinced himself that they'd covered their tracks so well that no one could make contact with them, not even him. So he just carried on playing his part regardless.'

'And yet his son and daughter-in-law have been dead for ... well, how long would we say?'

'Shall we say about two years, four months, at a guess?' said Fry.

'From the moment they disappeared, then.'

'Yes.'

Mackenzie looked at the remains in their makeshift grave. The edges were crumbling, and the thick plastic was scattered with debris, stones and lumps of peat. The damage had been done by the fell runners. The impact of scores of feet pounding over the cover had shaken it loose and broken it into two pieces, which lay just inside the shaft. According to the initial reports from witnesses, one of the back markers had almost fallen right through.

'Is it possible,' said Mackenzie, 'that someone knew David Pearson was planning to do a bunk and followed him up here to stop him?'

'To make sure he didn't escape justice?'

'Yes.'

'Well, it's possible,' said Fry. 'We'd have to go through his business records again, follow up on everyone affected by his activities. But ...'

'What?'

'Well, if the bodies haven't been buried here the whole time since the Pearsons disappeared, where were they until now?'