One Last Breath. Stephen Booth

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      ‘I’ll be here between ten and five tomorrow,’ he said. ‘Just ask for me if I’m not around.’

      Since it was impossible to get a car anywhere near the cavern approach, Cooper had left his Toyota in the main car park, near the new visitor centre. From there, he could see a long line of people winding their way up to Peveril Castle. The climb was gruelling, and some of the older visitors stopped to rest at every chance, pretending to admire the view while they eased the pain in their knees. As a child, Cooper had himself visited Castleton on a school outing. In term time, the streets of the town were full of children with worksheets.

      In the car park, he turned his face to the sun and breathed deeply. Right now, he couldn’t imagine who or what was going to ruin his rest day.

      Diane Fry knocked on the door of the DI’s office at West Street, and walked straight in. Paul Hitchens was leaning back in his chair, gazing out over the roof of the east stand at Edendale Football Club. He barely moved when she entered.

      ‘Sir? You said you wanted to see me.’

      Hitchens was silent for a moment, lost in some thoughts of his own that he wasn’t going to let Fry interrupt. So she waited until he was ready. She watched the sunlight from his window cast shadows on his face, making him look older than the DI she’d met when she first transferred to Derbyshire Constabulary, not all that long ago. Since setting up home with a nurse in Chesterfield he’d become middle-aged almost overnight, preoccupied with finding the right wallpaper for the bathroom and tending his lawn at weekends. Hitchens himself had seemed to sense the difference, too. He was a man settling into his position in life.

      But now Fry noticed him fingering the scar across the middle knuckles of his left hand, as if remembering an old injury.

      ‘I hear Mansell Quinn is due out today,’ said Hitchens finally.

      Fry felt a surge of irritation and fought to contain it. ‘Who,’ she said, ‘is Mansell Quinn?’

      The DI spun a little on his chair, glanced at Fry as if checking who she was. She had a feeling that he’d have said the same thing no matter who had walked into his office. He might have been having this conversation with the cleaner.

      ‘You won’t remember him, DS Fry,’ he said. ‘Quinn got a life sentence for murder some years ago. He lived in Castleton, a few miles up the road from here, in the Hope Valley. Do you know it?’

      ‘A tourist honeypot, isn’t it?’

      ‘Interesting place, actually. I went there as a kid. I remember being particularly impressed by the sheep – they came right down into the centre of the town. I suppose they must have been looking for food. I hadn’t seen one up close before.’

      ‘Sir?’ said Fry. ‘You were talking about somebody called Quinn …’

      ‘Yes, Mansell Quinn.’ Hitchens swung his chair back again and gazed out of the window. His eyes seemed to go out of focus, as if he were staring beyond Edendale to the country further north – towards Hope Valley, on the fringes of the Dark Peak. ‘Well, Castleton’s quiet most of the year, when the tourists aren’t there. People know each other very well. Quinn’s case caused quite a stir. It was a pretty violent killing – blood on the sitting-room carpet, and all that.’

      Fry hadn’t been asked to sit down, so she leaned against the wall by the door instead.

      ‘A domestic?’

      ‘Well, sort of,’ said Hitchens. ‘The thing was, Quinn denied the charge at first, but entered a guilty plea at trial. Then he changed his mind again when he’d been inside for a while. He said he didn’t do it after all.’

      ‘A bit perverse. Did he get parole?’

      ‘No.’

      ‘He ruined his own case, then. The parole board would have thought he was in denial.’

      ‘It doesn’t work like that any more. Early release depends on an assessment of any future risk you might pose, not on whether you’ve accepted the court’s verdict. The Home Office makes an issue of it in its policy for lifers these days.’

      ‘They were forced into that, weren’t they?’

      ‘That’s a sore point around here, Fry.’

      ‘Sorry.’

      ‘Risk assessment,’ said Hitchens. ‘That’s what it comes down to. We know about risk assessment, don’t we?’

      Fry nodded. Too often, it meant covering your back, a means of avoiding litigation or compensation payouts. But that was one thought she didn’t articulate. It might not have been what the DI meant.

      ‘Mansell Quinn had behaviour issues,’ said Hitchens. ‘He had to undertake anger-management training in prison.’

      ‘And he still didn’t get parole?’

      ‘No. Quinn served thirteen years and four months, until he reached his automatic release date.’ Hitchens turned round fully in his chair and leaned forward on his desk. ‘And that date is today. Mansell Quinn was due to collect his belongings and walk out of HMP Sudbury at half past eight this morning.’ Hitchens looked at his watch. ‘Half an hour ago, in fact.’

      ‘So?’

      ‘Quinn will be on licence. He’s supposed to move into temporary hostel accommodation in Burton on Trent, and he has an appointment with his probation officer this afternoon. One of the conditions of his licence is that he stays away from this area. We’ve been asked to keep an eye out for him, in case he breaches his conditions.’

      Fry shrugged. ‘So what if he does turn up here? Sometimes prisoners get a bit over-excited about being out and decide to celebrate. We might find him in a pub somewhere, but it will mean nothing.’

      ‘Probably.’

      She straightened up to leave the DI’s office. But then Fry hesitated, feeling there might be something more that he hadn’t told her.

      ‘Anger management? So Quinn is a violent man, would you say, sir?’

      ‘No doubt about it,’ said Hitchens. ‘He has a long history of violent incidents in his past. In fact, he got knockback early in his sentence because he assaulted a fellow prisoner. He broke the man’s arm and removed a couple of his teeth. And he couldn’t explain why he did it. Or wouldn’t.’

      ‘And what about the original murder?’

      ‘Well, there was certainly enough blood at the scene. The place was like an abattoir. Not what you’d want your sitting room to look like – especially in your nice new three-bedroom detached house in Castleton. Pindale Road, that was the place.’

      Fry settled back against the wall with a sigh. ‘What happened exactly?’

      ‘Well, it seems that Quinn had made his way home from the pub, where he’d been drinking with his mates all afternoon. There was a row; he lost his temper, grabbed a handy kitchen knife … And bingo – a body on the floor, blood on the shag-pile, and the suspect still on the premises when a patrol responds to the 999 call. Terrible scenes with the СКАЧАТЬ