Scared to Live. Stephen Booth

pocket and wiped the palms of his hands on his sweater.

      ‘Yes, poor bugger. He was going out of his mind. Is Brian all right, do you know?’

      ‘His injuries are only minor.’

      ‘That’s something, anyway.’

      Even out here, the smell of smoke and charring was very strong. Mr Wade himself seemed to reek of burning, like a smoked kipper. If he’d stood in his garden wearing that same sweater while the fire was burning, it was probably impregnated with the smell: smouldering wood and singed flesh.

      ‘Are you normally at home during the day, Mr Wade?’

      ‘Sometimes I work late shifts,’ he said. ‘I make deliveries for the supermarkets.’

      ‘I see.’

      ‘I ought to be in bed now. But I couldn’t sleep with all this excitement going on.’

      Fry looked across the fence at number 32. The SOCOs had erected a crime-scene tent over the doorway, so it was impossible to see inside the house now, except for a vague shape moving past a blackened window now and then. The bodies of the victims had long since been removed, and the firefighters had finished damping down, leaving nothing but a few streams of muddy water running into the gutter.

      ‘Yes. Riveting, isn’t it?’

      By the time she got back to E Division headquarters in West Street, Fry had a headache. She looked in her desk for some Paracetamol, but found only an empty box, not even a broken foil strip. She glared angrily around the CID room. Light-fingered bastards. She never let herself run out of Paracetamol, so someone in the office had been nicking them from her drawer without asking. In this place, they’d steal your fillings if you left your mouth open too long.

      She took a few deep breaths instead and drank a cup of water. She had to be fit and on the ball. This wasn’t a time to screw up; it was the perfect opportunity to demonstrate her ability. Had she done everything that needed to be done right now?

      She’d left Gavin Murfin at Darwin Street to liaise with the fire investigator and chase up the SOCOs. She’d also asked for a search team to examine the vicinity of the house. What she needed was some indication of malicious intent, so she could go to the DI with a view on the case. That would show she could deal with a challenge.

      The pain tightened across her forehead. She ought to have asked Cooper to bring her a new supply of Paracetamol from the supermarket. The day was about to begin in earnest, and there were bound to be more problems coming her way before long. It was going to be one of those weeks, all right.

      The dead body lay at an awkward angle, half on a rug by the bed. It had been a nice sheepskin rug once, soft and white – until it soaked up most of Rose Shepherd’s blood. Now it was stained dark red and caked into stiff clumps. When Miss Shepherd died, she’d been wearing her nightdress, a cotton one designed for comfort rather than style, with enough folds to conceal the source of the blood.

      PC Myers raised a hand to the light switch, but remembered the light was already on. His partner stood in the doorway, tugging at his radio.

      ‘What do you think she’s done to herself?’

      ‘Can’t tell,’ said Myers. ‘She’s dead, though.’

      ‘Back off, then. Don’t touch her.’

      But Myers was crouching closer to the body, and he could see the circular hole punched neatly through the cotton near Rose Shepherd’s heart.

      ‘Bloody hell, Phil,’ he said. ‘The old bird’s been shot.’

       5

      Ben Cooper drove out of the Somerfield’s car park before the plastic crime session was over. He wasn’t sorry to be leaving. He didn’t think Steve Judson would be sorry to lose him, either. Two calls on his mobile were two too many.

      As he accelerated his Toyota into Fargate and crossed the junction towards Chesterfield Road, Cooper considered phoning Diane Fry to let her know where he was heading. But if she hadn’t heard about the Foxlow incident already, she’d find out soon enough.

      But, wait … a triple death, she’d said, in a house fire. If that turned out to be malicious intent, E Division would have its work cut out. Caseloads were always a headache when a major enquiry cropped up. There were only eighteen DCs on the division, most of them scattered across the sections. Every officer in Derbyshire Constabulary had an average of three crimes on his desk at any one time – well, except in Glossop section, where they claimed to have five. But then, Glossop always had been a world of its own.

      Oh well, it looked as though his social life might be put on hold again. And just when it was getting more interesting.

      He crossed the bridge over the River Eden and hit the A623 into Calver. To the west, beyond Abney Moor, was his old home, Bridge End Farm. The town of Bakewell was a little further on, and then it was a straight run down the A6 to Matlock.

      This was one of his favourite parts of the Peak District, because it seemed to have the best of both worlds. The high gritstone edges rose to the east – Curbar Edge and Baslow Edge. Dark, bare and ancient. But down here in the valleys, the dense woodland gave the landscape an entirely different character. At this time of year, he could start to think of it as his own world again, almost free of tourists, settling under its blanket of fallen leaves.

      And beneath the trees, among the fields and the drystone walls, were the small farms. Each one, like Bridge End, trying to face up to its future.

      Finally, he reached Foxlow. It was one of those villages that looked as though nothing ever happened, but where the worst things often did. Not much traffic during the day, and no one out on the street. The residents were all at work, or in their gardens, or shut away in their front rooms, wondering what all the activity was outside.

      The scene at Bain House was already swarming with personnel and vehicles. When Cooper reported to the RV point, he was amazed to see officers from the Firearms Support Unit patrolling the outer cordon with their automatic weapons cradled across their bullet-proof vests. That could only mean one thing.

      His DI, Paul Hitchens, was coming across the garden with the crime-scene manager, Wayne Abbott. Hitchens was dressed in a dark suit and tie, keeping up his image as one of the smartest detectives in E Division. Abbott was wearing his pale blue crime-scene coverall, and neither the colour nor the shapeless outfit suited his muscular build and stubbled jaw.

      Waiting patiently for them at the incident control unit was the divisional head of CID, Detective Chief Inspector Oliver Kessen. Until potential forensic evidence had been preserved and recorded, the scene was Wayne Abbott’s domain, and crime-scene managers were jealous gods. Everyone had to wait for his permission to enter.

      It was somehow reassuring to see Kessen at a crime scene, though it indicated the seriousness of the incident. Although he wasn’t a big man, the DCI had the ability to become a focal point for activity wherever he happened to be. He was the still centre at the heart of events that might otherwise descend into chaos. Today he looked as calm as ever, using his mobile phone to deal with some administrative problem at the office as he waited for Hitchens and Abbott to reach him.

      Cooper admired that. Better to be calm and unhurried than to rush around doing all the wrong things in the early stages. It was the way he’d like to be himself, if he ever made it to a senior level. But he wasn’t sure he had the right temperament. Maybe that was why he was still a DC.

      He joined the fringes of the group, hoping for more information. The details he had so far were scanty. A woman found dead in her home, possible signs of an intruder.

      The DCI took his time ending his call. ‘Definitely a shooting?’ he said finally, turning his gaze on Abbott.

      Abbott pulled the hood and collar of his scene suit away from his neck and peeled off his gloves. ‘Absolutely. At