Lost River

‘And you saw Emily go into the water?’

‘Not really. We were chatting on the bank. I think I was watching out for Alex – he tends to wander off on his own, you know. The next thing I knew, someone shouted, and when I looked round Buster was coming out of the river, shaking himself, spraying water everywhere. And then we realized we couldn’t see Emily.’

He paused, appeared to be doing his best to recall events accurately.

‘Go on, sir.’

‘Well, I suppose it was a minute or two before we realized what had happened. We thought she was just hiding behind a rock or something. Children play like that, don’t they? But…she wasn’t playing.’

Dawn had brought out the tissues again while her husband was speaking. Cooper was beginning to feel uncomfortable, but there was an important point here.

‘If I’ve got this right, Mr Nield, you didn’t actually see Emily go into the water, and you didn’t see her fall or hit her head on a rock?’

‘I suppose that’s true. But that’s what happened, isn’t it? Well, isn’t it?’

‘Yes, I’m sure it was,’ said Cooper, because that was what you said in these circumstances. ‘One more thing – did you happen to see anyone near your daughter in Dovedale? A stranger?’

They shook their heads.

‘No,’ said Nield. ‘Well, there were a lot of people around. All of them were strangers, I suppose.’

‘But no one in particular showing an interest in her?’

‘Not that I remember. Dawn?’

‘No, sorry,’ she said. ‘What is this about? These are strange questions to be asking. I don’t understand them.’

‘I’m just trying to clear up the details.’

Mrs Nield rose unsteadily and left the room. Cooper took a drink of his tea, found it was already starting to get cold.

‘She’ll be all right,’ said Nield. ‘It takes a bit of time.’

‘I know.’ Cooper looked out of the window at the outline of Thorpe Cloud. ‘By the way, what was Alex doing when the accident happened?’

‘Taking photographs, I think,’ said Nield. ‘We bought him a digital camera for his birthday. He loads them on to his computer and creates effects with them. He has some software. I’m not sure what they call it…’

‘Photoshop?’

‘That’s it. He’s very creative, you know.’

‘So what was he taking photos of in Dovedale?’

‘I don’t really know. Rocks, water, trees.’

‘Not people?’

‘No. He isn’t really interested in that. He likes to look for patterns. You know – the bark on a tree, moss on a stone, sunlight through the leaves. He makes images from them, and uses them as background on his computer screen.’

Nield smiled at Cooper.

‘There are a lot worse things that a boy of his age could be doing, aren’t there?’

‘Yes.’ Cooper smiled back. ‘I was thinking, Alex might have caught a few people in the background. If he was taking photographs of the river, for example. There were so many people around that day, it would be hard to avoid them altogether.’

Nield frowned. ‘Well, I suppose so. But he would edit them out. Why are you so interested?’

How to explain to him? How to tell the father that he would like to track down some more witnesses to what had happened? Independent witnesses, whose memories might not yet have been distorted. Well, he couldn’t. Cooper hesitated for a few moments, then backed off.

‘Oh, no reason. Just in case there were any loose ends.’

Nield was still frowning, but before he could ask whatever question was on the tip of his tongue, his wife came back into the room. She looked better, as if she’d splashed cold water on her facer and combed her hair. It always helped, somehow.

‘How is Alex?’ asked Cooper.

‘A bit quiet,’ she said. ‘Do you want to talk to him?’

‘Well…’

‘He’d be glad to see you. He quite took to you yesterday.’

‘Really?’

‘He said he thinks your job must be interesting.’

Cooper suspected that Alex Nield was probably just another teenager who’d watched too many episodes of CSI and The Wire to have an accurate picture of what police work was all about in Derbyshire.

‘Go on up,’ said Nield. ‘He’s in his room. Second door on the left. He’ll only be playing on his computer.’

‘You’re sure you don’t mind? He’s a minor. Strictly speaking, I shouldn’t talk to him without one of you being present.’

Nield laughed. ‘You’re not going to interrogate him, are you? It’ll do him good to talk to someone outside the family. And it might get him away from that computer screen for a few minutes.’

Cooper looked at Mrs Nield, who nodded. Well, it was against procedure, but he was doing it at the request of the family. It would be a private conversation, not an interview with a witness. As long as he kept it that way, he’d be fine.

On the first floor of the Nields’ house, he found a galleried landing, and counted the doors to five bedrooms. One door stood open, and when he glanced in he saw a desk, laptop, bookshelves, a small filing cabinet. Two of the others had small ceramic name plaques on them. He knocked on the door bearing Alex’s name in Gothic lettering, and got a muffled ‘yeah’. He took that as an invitation to enter.

The boy was sitting at a desk in front of a PC screen, his legs curled round the seat of his chair. On the screen, Cooper saw a graphic representation of a medieval castle with individual buildings inside its walls – a barracks, a stable, a granary and warehouse.

‘What is it you’re playing?’

‘War Tribe. It’s a morpeg.’

‘Oh, okay.’

Alex snorted, as if he was used to adults just pretending they understood what he was saying. But Cooper thought he might have a bit of an advantage.

‘An MMORPG,’ he said. ‘A Massive Multi-player Online Role-Playing Game.’