Read Online Dead And Buried (Cooper and Fry) by Stephen Booth - Free Book Online Page B

likely to get a result.’
    ‘We haven’t even identified him yet, ma’am.’
    ‘Well, get on to it.’
    ‘There’s a briefing in half an hour,’ said Cooper. ‘DCI Mackenzie from the EMSOU.’
    ‘I knowhim,’ said Branagh. ‘Alistair Mackenzie will do a good job. But …’
    ‘Yes, ma’am?’
    ‘If you do have problems, talk to your DI, who will keep me in the loop. EMSOU need our help at the moment. We won’t let ourselves be pushed around by them.’
    ‘I understand.’
    ‘It would be nice,’ said Branagh, ‘if we could tie up the Pearson inquiry as well as the new case. David and Trisha Pearson are names that have been haunting this division for years. And not only E Division. The subject comes up regularly at meetings of the Senior Command Team. It’s never been forgotten. We hear about it often from the family.’
    Cooper nodded. ‘I’ll make sure I get up to speed on the Pearson situation before the briefing starts.’
    ‘That’s an excellent idea.’
    ‘I wasn’t on duty myself at the time it happened,’ he said. ‘But I think I know someone who was.’
    It was more than two years since David and Trisha Pearson had gone missing. Two visitors from Dorking in Surrey, they had been known to no one in the area until they disappeared. Now everyone had heard their names.
    The Pearsons had vanished one night in December, when a snowstorm closed in suddenly as they walked back to their rented cottage. Their winter break in the Peak District had ended that night. They had been in their thirties, fit and active. But they had never been seen since.
    It had been just before Christmas, too. Cooper knew what that would have been like. All over Derbyshire people would be winding down for a long break at home with their families, snatching up those last-minute presents, gathering for seasonalparties with their friends or office colleagues, going out and getting drunk on any old excuse. Well, who needed an excuse? It was nearly Christmas, after all.
    That was how it had been for most people. But not for those who were obliged to work over the holiday period. There were always a few who drew the short straw. And they tended to let you know how they felt about it.
    ‘Yes, I was duty DC,’ said Gavin Murfin, when Cooper sat him down in a chair in the CID room. ‘Funny how I always seem to pull the Christmas rota. Anyone would think there was a conspiracy to land all the worst jobs on the local sucker. I must have a big neon sign on my head or something.
Dump your unwanted shit here
.’
    Cooper signalled to the rest of the team, and they gathered round Murfin like a family listening to their ageing grandfather tell a favourite story. Becky Hurst sat upright with her arms folded and a sceptical expression on her face. Luke Irvine slouched casually in a swivel chair, eyes moving constantly from his computer screen to Murfin and back. Carol Villiers leaned against the wall, the light from the window behind her. Cooper perched on a desk and studied Murfin as closely as if he’d been a suspect in an interview room.
    ‘Did you go up to Oxlow Moor, Gavin?’ he asked.
    ‘Well, not at first. I was called out to the cottage where the Pearsons were staying. They were reported missing by the farmer’s wife, who’d gone to see if they needed anything after the snow stopped. That was quite late the next day, you understand.’
    ‘The day after they disappeared?’
    ‘Right.’ Murfin shivered at the memory. ‘It was damn cold up there. Snow on the ground, a wind that cut right through you like a knife. You should have heard me moaning about being dragged out of a nice warm office on a false alarm. We were having a bit of fun here, those ofus who were in over Christmas. There were mince pies and everything.’
    ‘But it wasn’t a false alarm, was it, Gavin? Did the incident escalate quickly?’
    ‘I wouldn’t say it was quick. People are reported missing all the time – everyone knows that. And they were