you’re right. I wonder how he managed the mortgage.’ Hitchens sighed. ‘There’s an awful lot of stuff to work on, sir.’
‘Information is what we need,’ said Kessen. ‘If we can establish what sort of people we’re dealing with and what terms they’re on with Quinn, we might be able to work out his intentions.’
‘I suppose so. But we can’t begin to take measures to protect all these people, can we?’
‘We can warn them that they might be at risk. Who else do we have?’
‘There are two friends of Mansell Quinn. Or former friends, at least. The three of them were very close at the time of the murder. Both were called to give evidence at the trial, and both declined to give him an alibi. That was pretty much the clincher.’
‘Who needs enemies, eh?’
‘Number one, we have Raymond Proctor, aged fifty, married. He runs a caravan park near Hope.’
‘Family?’
‘Married, as I said. Two teenage children. Hang on, no – one grown-up son. The teenagers are step-children, from his wife’s previous marriage. Poor bugger.’
Kessen regarded him coolly. ‘Proctor, you say?’
‘Yes, this is the guy whose first wife was killed by Quinn – he’d been having an affair with her. So we can’t expect much love lost there, I suppose.’
‘Friend number two?’
‘Number two is William Edward Thorpe, aged forty-five, single. Thorpe was a soldier, spent quite a lot of his time serving overseas. He was with the local regiment, the Worcestershire and Sherwood Foresters, but he was discharged last year.’
‘Current whereabouts?’
‘Unknown.’
‘His regiment should have records.’
‘We’ve tried them,’ said Hitchens. ‘On discharge, Thorpe went to Derby for a while. He was staying with one of his old army buddies who’d finished his stint a few months earlier. But the friend says Thorpe walked out after a few days, and he doesn’t know where he went after that. The computer throws up a drunk-and-disorderly charge for a William Edward Thorpe in Ashbourne a couple of months ago, but his address was given as “no fixed abode”.’
‘We need to find him. Quinn has a motive for looking him up.’
‘So much work,’ said Hitchens.
DCI Kessen waved away the comment.
‘Sudbury’s an open prison, right?’ said Murfin.
‘Yes.’
‘Didn’t we have one who escaped from there recently?’
‘If you can call it escaping. He was on an unsupervised work party on the prison farm, and never went back to his cell at the end of the day.’
‘I don’t know why they bother doing it. I mean, those open prisons are a cushy number. And he’ll only get sent back to somewhere worse when he’s caught.’
‘If he’s caught.’
‘Come on, sir. When did we not catch someone who’d walked out of Sudbury? These blokes always go straight home. The poor sods don’t know what else to do.’
Cooper put his hand up. ‘Gavin has a point, sir. Mansell Quinn didn’t escape, but his thinking could be the same. He might just have been going home.’
‘Damn right. He turned up at his wife’s house and killed her.’
Cooper shook his head. ‘That wasn’t his home. He never lived there.’
‘No, you’re right. His previous address was in Castleton. But somebody else lives there now. Complete strangers, I assume. Check on it, would you, Murfin.’
‘Quinn’s mother lives in Hathersage,’ said Cooper. ‘That will be the place he thinks of as home.’
‘We’ve talked to her, haven’t we? DS Fry?’
‘Yes, sir. But I don’t think she was being entirely open with us.’
‘Put a bit of pressure on, then. Get some officers into the area to talk to all the neighbours. See if we can get a sighting of Quinn. OK, Paul?’
Hitchens had no choice but to nod.
‘Somebody look into public transport,’ said Kessen. ‘Is there a railway station near Sudbury?’
‘We’ll check, sir.’
‘He might have hired a car,’ said someone. ‘Or stolen one.’
‘We should look into it,’ said Hitchens. ‘Right.’
‘If Quinn does have a car,’ pointed out Kessen, ‘it’s going to make it much less difficult for us. A known vehicle will be easier to locate than an individual who may or may not be on foot, and who has the whole of the Peak District to wander around in.’
‘We hope for the easy option, then,’ said Hitchens.
‘Obviously. So we want sightings of vehicles in Aston, near the victim’s home.’
‘And appeals, sir?’
‘The press office are already on to that. They’re fixing up a press conference later this afternoon. We aim to get Quinn’s photograph on the local TV news tonight. We need as many members of the public looking out for him as possible.’
‘I got chatting with some of Mrs Lowe’s neighbours at Aston this morning,’ said Murfin. ‘They said they were just passing, but of course they’d come for a nosy around to see what was going on.’
‘The next-door neighbours?’
‘No, further up the village. They didn’t see anything last night, but they volunteered Mansell Quinn’s name themselves. They’d heard he was due out.’
‘Where did they hear that from?’
‘They seemed to think it was something everybody knew.’
‘The Carol Proctor killing is a case everyone in that area will remember,’ said Hitchens. ‘At least, everyone who was living around there in 1990. But we have to reach the others as well – the newcomers, and all those thousands of visitors, too.’
‘If necessary, we’ll spend some money on distributing posters. Anything else, Paul?’
‘I think that’s it for now, sir.’
But Cooper raised a hand. ‘Sir, if Quinn is looking for revenge for some perceived injustice at his trial, I wonder if he might also go after the professionals involved. For example, the judge, the lawyers –’
‘– or the police
