Текст книги "The Corpse Bridge"

Автор книги: Stephen Booth

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Текущая страница: 26 (всего у книги 39 страниц)

9

Outside, the centre of Hartington village was gradually getting busier. Some of the people he could see were probably local, calling at the post office or filling up their cars at the little petrol station in Mill Lane. But there were visitors too. There were always folk looking for somewhere to spend their time at the weekend, as long as the weather wasn’t too bad. And even then some hardy individuals would venture out in the snow.

Near the village stores they passed a row of eighteenth-century cottages. The door of one stood partly open, with a sign offering free range eggs and pure Hartington honey straight from the hive.

‘The part-time girl, Kimberley, hardly ever saw Sandra Blair,’ said Irvine. ‘She knew a lot more about the old dear she works for.’

‘Miss Grindey? Anything interesting?’

‘Not really.

They turned into Hyde Lane, where the village hall stood. This end of the building still showed traces of its original sign, which had been painted on the wall. Hartington Amusement Hall. Cooper wondered if the amusements in those days had been the same as those enjoyed by Hartington residents now.

He opened a small gate and they climbed a set of steps into the graveyard of St Giles’ Church. According to a plaque, the bench at the top of the steps was a gift from His Grace the Duke of Devonshire in 1978. That must have been the old duke, father of the present incumbent at Chatsworth. From somewhere in his memory, Cooper dredged the fact that the eldest son of the duke held the title of Marquis of Hartington, at least until he succeeded to the dukedom.

As in many English villages the signs of the ancient landowners were everywhere, even if they no longer owned any of the properties. That part of English history would take a long time to disappear. It would still be evident while the pubs existed and while some of these houses remained standing.

Cooper turned at the bench and looked back at the village. The organisers of events held at the amusement hall would probably have been obliged to get approval from the duke for their entertainments. He must have had the final say in pretty much everything else.

In the graveyard they found a thickset, middle-aged man vigorously raking leaves off the paths into a big heap. He was wearing a baseball cap and he had receding grey hair sticking out in untidy clumps. He didn’t see them coming at first and Cooper was struck by his grimly determined expression as he lashed out with the rake. He was digging out the last of the dead leaves from cracks between the stones, but his mind appeared to be dwelling on something entirely different that made him angry.

‘Mr Naden?’ called Cooper when they got closer.

The man looked up, startled. Almost frightened. For a moment Cooper wondered if he was deaf, or listening to an iPod while he worked. But it appeared he’d just been so deeply engrossed in his thoughts that he was noticing nothing around him. That took quite a bit of concentration.

‘Yes? Can I help you?’ he said, with the rake poised in mid-air. ‘I can’t show you the church. I don’t have the keys.’

‘We’re not visitors, sir.’

Cooper produced his warrant card and introduced himself and Irvine.

Naden looked around him and hefted the rake in his hand. For a second Cooper thought he was going to do a runner or lash out at the two police officers. He almost took a step backwards to put himself out of reach of a weapon, but stopped himself. He was surely just imagining things. Everybody was starting to look suspicious.

‘What can I do for you, Sergeant?’ asked Naden finally.

‘We’re making enquiries about a lady called Sandra Blair,’ said Cooper.

‘She works at the tea rooms.’

‘That’s the lady.’

Naden began to poke at some more leaves, but in a desultory fashion. There was no longer the passion he’d been showing with the rake when Cooper first set eyes on him.

‘We’re trying to contact her family. Would you know—’

‘There’s a sister in Scotland, I think.’

‘We’re aware of that.’

‘But that’s all I know.’

Cooper sighed. He was beginning to wonder if this sibling north of the border actually existed. Could she be a figment of Sandra Blair’s imagination, casually mentioned to everyone she met in order to give the impression that she had a family like everyone else? If the sister in Scotland couldn’t be tracked down, he might have to turn his attention to finding the family of the deceased husband. For some reason he couldn’t explain to himself, he had no faith in the existence of a grandfather who’d arranged a meeting at one o’clock in the morning.

‘Are you the churchwarden or something?’ asked Cooper.

‘No, I just help out,’ said Naden. ‘We all have to do our bit.’

‘And how did you first meet Mrs Blair?’

Naden shrugged. ‘I’m not sure, really. I suppose she’s always been working at the tea rooms.’

‘I don’t think so.’

‘Well, that’s where we always saw her. She doesn’t live in Hartington.’

‘No, you’re right there.’

Out of the corner of his eye, Cooper noticed Irvine had walked a few yards away and was kicking at a pile of leaves. He was getting bored.

But Cooper waited a little longer. Naden raised his head, sensing from the silence that he was supposed to say something else.

‘What’s happened to Sandra Blair, then?’ he said. ‘Has she had an accident?’

I thought you’d never ask, thought Cooper.

‘Something like that, sir,’ he said.

‘Well, he was a washout,’ said Irvine as they returned to the car. ‘Mr Grumpy with the rake. What was his name?’

‘Mr Naden,’ said Cooper.

‘He didn’t tell us anything.’

‘He might do, though. Given time.’

Irvine laughed. ‘I don’t know how you can have so much patience with people like that, Ben.’

‘Sometimes it’s the only way,’ said Cooper.

‘Are we going back to West Street now?’ asked Irvine.

‘Yes.’

‘What next, then?’

‘That address book has to be gone through,’ said Cooper. ‘Sandra Blair’s remaining relatives must be in there somewhere. The sister in Scotland…’

‘And her grandfather,’ said Irvine.

‘Yes. Well, possibly. And perhaps someone who knew her a bit better than her employer and her neighbours. Gavin should be in the office. You can do the job between you. But let me know if you think you’ve traced the sister. We’ll need her to come down for a formal identification and start going through all the formalities.’

‘Couldn’t someone else do the identification? Someone who knew Mrs Blair well?’

‘Yes, of course, if we really needed it,’ said Cooper. ‘We could get Miss Grindey to do it. But it’s a sensitive issue for the family of a murder victim. They feel it’s their job, to make that official confirmation of the death of their family member. They don’t understand when it’s been left to some person they didn’t even know, and they can get very upset about it. It just doesn’t feel right to them. They should be the first to know about the death, too. But in this case…’

‘Understood.’

Cooper took a last look around the centre of the village. His route back to Edendale would be up through Hartington Dale and north on the A515 to the turning for Tideswell.

Despite the visitors, Hartington was actually quieter than he remembered it. That was due to the closure of the cheese factory, he supposed. There were no delivery vehicles coming and going to the empty factory in Stonewell Lane. There was no major employer in the village now. And he didn’t have time to buy that piece of cheese either.

‘After that you can call it a day, Luke,’ he said. ‘It’s not as if there are any house-to-house enquiries to do near the crime scene.’

‘There are no houses there,’ said Irvine.

‘Exactly. I’m going to get the press office to start putting out some public appeals as soon as possible. Tomorrow we’ll see what forensics have come up with. Then we ought to have some leads to follow up.’

‘Suits me,’ said Irvine. ‘I’ve got a date tonight anyway.’

Cooper looked at him as he started the Toyota. He couldn’t help a twinge of envy. He’d been Luke Irvine’s age once and it wasn’t all that long ago either. But he couldn’t remember the last time he’d been able to say those words to a colleague: ‘I’ve got a date tonight.’ It sounded so innocent. The sentence seemed to hang in the air inside the car, oozing with freedom and hope for the future.

With a jerk, Cooper put the car into gear and drove away from Hartington.

‘Good luck with that then, Luke,’ he said.

10

The first appeals for witnesses were broadcast on the local TV news early that evening. They appeared on Twitter feeds for the police and BBC Radio Derby, and were soon all over the internet. Detectives wanted to hear from anyone who’d been in an area of the Upper Dove Valley last night near a location known as Hollins Bridge.

When Cooper heard the appeal, he realised the press office had decided against using the familiar colloquial name for the bridge. Instead they had chosen the official name, which featured on Ordnance Survey maps of the White Peak but was never used by ordinary people. At least, it wasn’t used by local people – only by visitors who relied entirely on maps.

That was a pity. The individuals they were hoping to hear from would surely be local. Too often people didn’t have enough knowledge about their own locality. Not accurate, factual knowledge. They just knew the stories and legends, and the vernacular names.

So he just had to hope that someone with useful information would make the proper connection. But wasn’t that the whole principle behind solving crime?

Cooper tidied the paperwork on his desk, pulled on his jacket and left the office. He drove out through the barrier from the police compound and headed down West Street towards the town.

Dusk was long past and it was dark over Edendale. Below him street lights sparkled in the cold air and windows of houses glowed in their pale colours. It would only need the first heavy frost to arrive and the town would start to look quite Christmassy.

The thought reminded him that he had some shopping to do. Instead of continuing all the way to Fargate, he turned off into Hollowgate and found a parking place in the market square near the war memorial.

When he got out of the car, Cooper listened for a few moments, enjoying the sound of the River Eden running below him in the darkness. At night its sound had a mysterious quality, as if thousands of tiny, invisible creatures were out there, whispering and murmuring until daylight came again. He could picture the mallard ducks that lived on this stretch of the river through the centre of town. They would be bobbing gently on the surface as they slept with their heads towards the weir. The flow of water didn’t seem to bother them. He’d always admired the ability of the mallards to float calmly in whatever torrent of water came their way.

He turned towards the town. The high street was only a few yards away and some of the shops were still open. Even at the beginning of November, there were groups of young people sitting out in the beer gardens of the pubs. The smoking ban had made some of them quite hardy.

Cooper thought he might even walk down to the Hanging Gate for a drink before he went home to Welbeck Street. It was certainly a tempting thought.

Sally Naden was having a bad day with the pain. Sometimes the tablets weren’t enough to keep its excruciating surges suppressed all day long. By the middle of the afternoon the pain could break through its anaesthetic restraints like a deranged killer ripping out of a straitjacket. Once loose, the agony swept through her body in uncontrolled waves and left her exhausted and helpless.

So her mind was distracted and she wasn’t quite thinking straight by the time the phone rang and Geoff began to tell her this garbled story about people being killed and the police looking for someone. She thought he was describing the plot of some TV programme he’d been watching. He was a great one for sitting in front of episodes of Lewis and Midsomer Murders and trying to guess who did it. In fact, he would get really tetchy if you interrupted him at the wrong moment and he missed a vital clue.

As she listened to him gabbling down the line, she thought he must finally have lost touch with reality. That was the risk of watching detective drama stories all the time. You ended up confusing them with the real world. Life wasn’t actually like that. People didn’t get killed every day, the way they did in Inspector Barnaby’s world.

Finally, Sally began to realise what he was telling her.

‘Seriously? You mean—’

‘We were there,’ said Geoff.

‘It’s not possible.’

‘Well, I think it is. What are we going to do?’

Geoff had calmed down a bit and she could hear him trying to formulate a plan. What was in his own best interests? That would be the concern foremost in his mind.

‘The chances are, they’ll find out we were in the area, one way or another,’ he said. ‘Someone will have seen us or our car, or … Well, you know – it will come out sooner or later. And it will look bad if we haven’t mentioned it.’

Sally laughed, but winced with the pain it caused her. ‘You mean they might suspect you of murder? That’s a joke.’

‘Both of us,’ said Geoff firmly. ‘We were both there.’

Sally felt another surge of pain as she thought about what they’d have to do. But, for the first time in many years, she knew that her husband was right.

It was a difficult decision for Jason Shaw too. That evening, after he’d listened to the news, he sat in his little cottage in Bowden and stared at the log fire for quite a while, gulping from a can of lager. When that one was finished, he went to the fridge to fetch another. He needed something to help him think.

He remembered very clearly the figure he’d seen running through the woods near the Corpse Bridge. That pale shape in the twilight dodging through the trees. Its unnatural appearance had made him wonder whether his eyesight had been blurred by the rain.

More worrying had been the noises. The sound of something crashing through the undergrowth and that wordless yell. Who had been shouting and who were they calling to?

Jason had heard many noises in the woods at night. Often they were nocturnal animals. Foxes or badgers, or even owls. Their screeching could be unnerving if you weren’t used to it. But at least their presence was natural in the darkness. Sometimes there were gamekeepers or poachers. But they didn’t shout to each other like that. Or at least, the poachers didn’t. They wanted to remain unnoticed, so they moved as quietly and unobtrusively as possible. Jason knew that as well as anyone.

But now and then, he knew there were other people out in the woods at night. Sometimes there were kids playing games.

Popping the tab on another can, Jason took a swig. Yes, perhaps that was who it had been near the bridge. It was Halloween, after all. They might have had to go off and mess around on their own. But the bridge was a long way from anywhere. And it had been raining. Kids weren’t so tough these days, were they? The first drop of rain and they were back in the house with their PlayStations.

So that just left the final group. The ones who were doing things he didn’t understand, and didn’t want to. He’d glimpsed them from time to time, whole groups of them, sometimes silent, but other times talking or singing. He’d found dead animals too – animals that hadn’t been caught by a poacher or trapped by a keeper. Neither would do those things to a sheep that he’d seen, or leave such a bloodied mess. The reasons for that were beyond his imagination.

Jason heaved himself up from the armchair and stepped to the back window of his cottage. He heard his dog grumble outside in the kennel where it slept. Lights were on in most of the cottages in Bowden. Behind their curtains people were watching TV, maybe just hearing about the body found at the Corpse Bridge, wondering if anyone would come forward.

The bridge was too close to Bowden for anyone’s comfort. People would soon find themselves asking each other if the killer might be nearby. They would be afraid. They would wonder whether they and their families were safe. Jason was wondering the same thing. Because he was frightened too.

Suddenly, the lager tasted sour in his mouth. It made Jason feel sick with fear to think that someone might have been watching him from the trees near the Corpse Bridge last night, especially if it was one of those people – the ones who did evil, inexplicable things in the woods.

Well, he’d seen someone and the chances were high that they’d seen him. Jason put the lager can down and picked up the phone.

Ben Cooper was walking back through the streets of Edendale when his phone rang. A mobile number he didn’t recognise. Should he answer it? It might be a wrong number or a sales call, even at this time in the evening. He should let it go to voicemail.

But something made him answer the call instead.

‘Yes?’ he said cautiously.

‘Ben? That is you, isn’t it? You don’t answer your phone very professionally these days. You sounded very surly.’

Cooper stopped walking. He’d suddenly found that he couldn’t walk and talk at the same time.

‘Diane?’ he said.

‘Who else did you think it was?’

‘You’ve got a new phone. I didn’t recognise the number.’

‘It’s me, nevertheless. How are you doing?’

‘I’m okay. Hold on, though … what do you mean by “surly”?’

It sounded trivial, but he was so surprised that he couldn’t think what else to say. The last thing he’d anticipated was a call from Diane Fry. So he fell back on the first thing that came into his mind.

‘Rude, ill-tempered, unfriendly. You sounded as though you didn’t want to speak to anyone.’

‘Not the old Ben Cooper you know and love, then,’ he said.

But as he said it, the sharpness in his tone was obvious, even to himself. Blast her, she was right again – he was getting surly.

Fry sighed down the line. ‘Well, that’s the pleasantries over with,’ she said.

Cooper thought he detected actual disappointment in her voice. Surely she couldn’t have expected a delirious greeting, given their history?

He bit his lip. Well, not all of it had been bad. Fry had shown some loyalty over the years, even been the one who understood him and came to his aid when he needed it. But somehow she’d always managed to ruin things and sour their relationship again. He’d always assumed she wanted it that way.

‘So what are you doing at the moment?’ asked Fry.

‘Nothing much.’

‘Are you in town?’

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Why?’

‘I’m packing.’

‘What? Oh, yes, I heard. You’re moving, aren’t you? Leaving Edendale.’

‘Yes, I’m going to live in Nottingham. It makes sense. It’s far too much of a trek getting to St Ann’s every morning from here.’

‘I understand. So?’

‘Well…’

She hesitated. Cooper hadn’t heard her hesitate very often. She’d always seemed very confident in her views and always knew what she wanted to say.

‘Well, the new flat is part-furnished,’ she said, ‘but I’ve got a couple of pieces of my own furniture here. Only small stuff, but awkward. I can’t get them into my car. So I thought…’

‘Go on.’

‘I remembered you had that big four-wheel drive. You do still have it, don’t you?’

‘The Toyota, yes. It’s getting a bit old now. I was thinking of replacing it.’

‘But it has plenty of space in the back, if I remember.’

‘I suppose so,’ said Cooper.

‘Enough to get my bits and pieces in, I think. If I asked nicely.’

‘Nicely? Diane, are you asking me for a favour? You want me to help you move your stuff to Nottingham?’

‘Only if you’re not doing anything else.’

‘Ah.’

So that was it. She thought he could be taken advantage of because he had nothing better to do with his time any more. Or perhaps she felt sorry for him. Cooper wasn’t sure which was worse.

‘You know perfectly well I’m not likely to be doing much,’ he said. ‘I don’t have a personal life left, of course.’

Cooper knew he was sounding ill-tempered again. Rude and unfriendly, even. He felt certain now that this was actually the reason she’d called him. She’d known he had nothing better to do, that he was just as sad a case as she was herself, ever since that fire at the Light House pub had snatched his entire future away.

No doubt it wasn’t really his load capacity she wanted, but a glimpse of Ben Cooper at his lowest ebb, just as he was moving on.

He almost ended the call then and there, with his rudest comment yet hovering on his lips. But a small voice at the back of his mind made him change his intention. He wasn’t at his lowest ebb, was he? Yes, months ago he’d been in a bad way. That couldn’t be denied. But he’d submitted himself to the counselling sessions, he’d worked all his feelings through and dealt with them. He was okay now. He was fine. He could let Diane Fry see that he was back to his normal self. More than that, he could show her that he was full of energy, raring to go. And he was ready to move on too. She would see that he wasn’t going to miss her at all. His life was totally back on track.

‘All right,’ he said. ‘I’ll be there in a few minutes.’

He could hear the surprise in her voice. She’d thought he wasn’t going to agree.

‘Thanks, Ben,’ she said. ‘I appreciate it.’

And that was probably a first too. Cooper couldn’t remember hearing Fry thank him before. He might actually enjoy this task.

When he ended the call, Cooper realised he was staring into the window of a children’s bookshop in Hollowgate. He didn’t remember it being here before. The shop must have opened some time during the last few months, when he wasn’t really noticing things like this.

As he focused his gaze into the shop, Cooper found himself looking at a display of books with bright, cheerful covers – The Snappy Playset Garage, The Things I Love about Bedtime and The Things I Love about School. Next to them were My Home and My Family. Each title seemed to taunt him from behind the glass, until the accumulated effect was unbearable.

He felt the urge to find a brick and toss it through the bookshop window, as if that would destroy the image. The physical action and the sound of glass smashing might make him feel better for one fleeting moment.

But it was worse than that. Cooper knew the really disturbing images were inside his head, and there was nothing he could ever do to smash them.