During their years at the Light House, the Whartons had tried to fight off the inevitable. Long ago, they’d moved away from the traditional hunting prints and picturesque Peak District scenes. The horse brasses and decorative plates had gone.
For a while, Cooper recalled, they’d opted for a cultural look — shelves of ancient hardback books bought in a job lot, modern abstract artworks, an occasional musical instrument hung near the ceiling. Then one day it had all vanished again, the pub closed for refurbishment, consultants swarming through the rooms, distressing the decor, jamming decrepit furniture into every corner — wooden benches and oak dressers, a reproduction writing desk. An antique look, he supposed. Nostalgic chic. It was an attempt to recapture some past that had never existed. Because the Light House as it appeared now had been a Victorian re-creation. Still a stop-off for travellers, yes. But it had been the height of modernity in its day. The facade hinted of aspirations to grandeur.
Well, the antiques were gone again, sold off to raise a bit of cash against the Whartons’ debts perhaps. The main bar was left with a range of standard pub furniture, glass-topped tables and wooden chairs, scattered haphazardly, as if the clientele had abandoned the pub in a hurry.
‘I want to take a look at the function room upstairs,’ he said.
‘Oh, the party?’ said Villiers. ‘Right, I see. Reliving the memories.’
They climbed the stairs to the first floor, where Cooper opened the door and examined the dusty floor and the little bar in the corner. The YFC party had taken place in this room, he was fairly sure. Even in his inebriated state, he remembered coming up and down those stairs. There seemed to have been a lot of people in the pub that night, though. Had someone else been holding a party here? Or was the function room spilling out revellers into the public bar from time to time?
Given the lack of records, it would require someone with a better memory than his to recall the facts. He could get Hurst or Irvine to trawl through the witness statements again, looking for someone who’d been attending a different party. Two days before Christmas, though? Whose memory wasn’t hazy, especially if you were the kind to get caught up in the social whirl?
‘Why not ask your brother?’ suggested Villiers, as he was about to close the door again.
‘Matt?’
‘That’s the only brother you’ve got, as far as I recall.’
‘Yes, but …’
‘He was there too, wasn’t he? I mean, he was in the Light House that night. You came here with him. That’s what you told us, Ben.’
Cooper said nothing, and found he was gripping the door handle a little too tightly. Villiers nodded, reading his silence as clearly as if he’d spoken everything that was in his mind.
‘But you can’t believe that your brother might be involved in a violent incident,’ she said. And she paused. ‘Oh, wait …’
He turned to look at her then, and watched the realisation dawn on her face, the memory of an incident, all too recent, when Matt Cooper had shot and injured an intruder at Bridge End Farm. Matt had been lucky to escape prosecution, a decision by the Crown Prosecution Service that had reflected the public mood of the time. But despite the relief among the family at the outcome, everyone knew now. Everyone was aware that Matt Cooper had the potential for violence.
That knowledge, and that knowledge alone, changed everything.
Henry Pearson had been brought to the scene as a gesture towards good relations with the family. but who had tipped off the media, no one seemed to know. Photographers from two local newspapers snapped Mr Pearson as he got out of his car and spoke to DCI Mackenzie. A crew from a regional TV station had set up near the outer cordon, and a reporter was doing a piece to camera, with the moor and the crime-scene tent in the background.
Mackenzie didn’t look happy about it, but he had to appear concerned and cooperative in front of the cameras. Possibly Mr Pearson had orchestrated all this himself. During the past two and a half years, he must have learned the best ways of handling the media. This was an opportunity for him to revitalise the interest in his campaign.
‘No one has mentioned what forensic evidence you’ve obtained from the items that were dug out of the peat,’ he said.
‘Sir?’
Pearson looked at Mackenzie directly. ‘For example, was there blood?’
It was impossible to refuse such a straightforward request for information from a member of the family.
‘Yes, sir. There was.’
‘And?’
Mackenzie held out his hands apologetically. ‘I can’t tell you any more at the moment.’
Diane Fry was waiting to speak to the DCI, holding back until he was free from the attention of the cameras.
‘We’ve got some preliminary results back from forensics,’ she told Cooper.
‘Finally,’ he said. ‘And?’
‘Those stains on David’s anorak. Well, they’re confirmed as human blood.’
‘Pretty much as expected.’