Already Dead

20

Carsington Water had a very low dam wall, nothing like the structures holding back the waters of the Upper Derwent further north. Reservoirs like Ladybower and Howden had been built in a different time and to a different scale, matching the size of the hills around them. Their history was dramatic too, the scene of training runs for the Second World War Dambusters squadron and their bouncing bombs.

But Carsington was a product of the 1990s, the last big reservoir built in Derbyshire. With its visitor centre, sailing club, water sports centre and nature reserve, the emphasis was firmly on leisure activities. That was surely a clear sign of changing times. It wasn’t considered acceptable any more to flood vast tracts of land without any regard for the interests of local people. Villages were no longer destroyed to provide a water supply for the inhabitants of a distant city. Carsington was as much a symbol as a utility.

Ben Cooper slotted his Toyota into a space in the main car park for the visitor centre. The first thing he noticed as he walked towards the building was a display of drought-tolerant plants. Mimosa, calendula, juniper. He supposed it was part of the centre’s overarching message about the pressure on available water supplies and the need for conservation. How to manage your garden during a hosepipe ban. Right now, it looked like a laughable irony. Flood-tolerant plants would have been more appropriate.

He stopped to check his phone. Had he remembered to charge it up last night? The screen glowed when he touched the button at the bottom, and a series of icons appeared. Yes, he had. He felt unduly pleased with himself. Those little coloured squares on the screen labelled Phone, Mail, Safari were symbols of his reconnection with the world. He didn’t intend to use them, but the fact that they were there signified an achievement.

He ran a hand across his face to see how it felt. Not brilliant, but a lot better since he’d found the charger for his shaver. He’d even found a set of clean clothes, since there was nothing he could do about the ones he’d taken off earlier in the week. He was wearing his old waxed coat with the poacher’s pockets. It had seen a lot of muck in its life, and a bit of blood too. But he thought he would pass. As satisfied as he could be, Cooper walked round to the rear of the visitor centre to enter the courtyard.

Unlike most reservoirs, Carsington wasn’t used as storage capacity for the supply system. Its function was to pump water in and out of the River Derwent, taking it out at times when the river was high and putting it back again when levels were low. There was an overflow in the dam wall, which had been planned to cope with the worst flood conditions that its designers could envisage occurring in a ten-thousand-year period. Looking at the weather forecast, those conditions could happen this week.

A time capsule was said to be buried in the reservoir floor near the value control tower. He supposed it would only be discovered when Carsington was emptied in the distant future. The area was certainly changing beyond recognition. Not more than a mile away from Carsington Water was an organic farm, where some friends of Claire’s had once stayed in an EcoPod, with a solar powered shower and a compost toilet, and inquisitive goats wandering in and out from the surrounding fields.

Around the courtyard there were shops, an ice cream parlour and an RSPB outlet. Cooper bought a filter coffee from the Watermark café and sat under a glass canopy in the courtyard, watched hopefully by a small flock of sparrows who perched on the tables and a magpie that eyed him from the safety of the edge of the roof.

For him, the highlight of this courtyard was the Kugel Stone. Three feet in diameter and weighing over a ton, it was a large black granite ball that floated almost magically on a thin film of water. Two pumps supplied jets of water at different speeds, causing the stone not only to float on the surface, but to rotate slowly. The lightest touch of a finger made the Kugel revolve in a different direction.

He looked up just as Carol Villiers entered the Watermark café. She was looking smart as always, that extra attention to detail making her stand out from the crowd, especially in CID. Her clothes always seemed to fit better, her shoes were less scuffed, she moved with a physical confidence that others lost when they spent so much time at a desk job. She even seemed to have reached the courtyard from the car park without getting wet or dishevelled, as if she’d simply materialised from a teleportation machine.

‘Hello, Carol,’ said Cooper.

‘How are you doing?’

‘I’m okay.’

She gave him that concerned look he’d come to expect. He’d seen it so often over the last few months. Cooper wondered if this was what disabled people sometimes complained about — the way people stared at them with an expression of mixed curiosity and pity. Each time he saw that look, it felt as if everyone was trying to fix him into a role of pitiable victim.

He ordered more coffee, and she sat down across the table. She hardly took her eyes off him, as though she was afraid that he would try to escape if she looked away even for a second.

‘So what’s happening at the moment?’ asked Cooper. ‘Anything exciting?’

Villiers didn’t answer directly. ‘You know we want you back, Ben. We need you at West Street.’

‘Really? I don’t think Diane Fry would want to see me back.’

‘Yes, she would. You’d be surprised. She doesn’t want to be there any more than we want to see her.’

Cooper shook his head. ‘I just can’t come into the office, Carol.’

Villiers sighed. ‘So then,’ she said, ‘does it have to be unofficial?’

‘I can be unofficial,’ said Cooper.

Villiers regarded him steadily. ‘You know, while you’re on extended leave, you’re just another member of the public.’

Cooper nodded. ‘It has its advantages.’

When Villiers had returned to Derbyshire she’d been that much older and leaner than he remembered her, with an extra assurance in the way she held herself. When they were younger, they’d gone to school together, studied for their A levels at High Peak College at the same time. She’d been a good friend, a bit sports obsessed perhaps, really into swimming and running half marathons. She’d been Carol Parry then, the daughter of Stan and Vera Parry, who ran a bed and breakfast in Tideswell High Street.

But there had been another dimension behind her new self-confidence — a shadow in her eyes, a darkness behind the facade. Cooper had noticed it then, and he couldn’t mistake it now. Part of that darkness might be explained by the loss of her husband, killed by a roadside bomb in Afghanistan. But perhaps there were other experiences too, episodes in her life that she would never talk about.

‘Well, you know we have a murder case?’ she said. ‘It happened not very far from here, actually.’

‘Yes, I did hear that.’

‘You’re not completely out of the loop, then.’

‘It’s the front page headline in this week’s Matlock Mercury,’ said Cooper. ‘I noticed it when I was in the petrol station this morning.’

Villiers nodded. ‘That’s good.’

She made it sound like an achievement, as if he was a spinal injury patient attempting to move a finger for the first time, or a baby wobbling upright for a half a second before falling flat on its face again. Was he supposed to feel a warm glow that he’d pleased her with his powers of observation? Immediately he felt an unkind urge to puncture her expectations.

‘But I didn’t read the story,’ he said. ‘So, apart from that, I know nothing.’

‘Oh. Well, I’ve been away in Chesterfield for a few days assisting C Division, so I’m only just catching up myself. But the victim’s name is Glen Turner. There’s nothing of any interest in his background. Not that we’ve found so far, anyway. He worked in insurance. A claims adjuster, employed by Prospectus Assurance. Unmarried, thirty-eight years old, lived with his mother in Wirksworth.’

Cooper felt a jolt of excitement so completely unexpected that he thought for a moment he’d been electrocuted. He put his cup down in its saucer with an unnecessary clatter. He’d suddenly seemed to have lost proper co-ordination.

‘Prospect Assurance?’ he said.

Villiers brightened visibly at the tone of his response. ‘Yes. Have you heard of it?’

‘Oh … I think they have offices in Edendale.’

‘Yes, they do.’

Villiers’ coffee arrived, and Cooper took a moment to steady himself. His hand was shaking again, and he hid it under the table where he hoped she wouldn’t see.

‘So what happened to him?’ he asked.

‘Mr Turner was found dead in a shallow stream. Well, the stream wasn’t quite so shallow as it normally would be…’

‘Because of all the rain,’ said Cooper.

‘Yes.’

She gave him that look again.

‘Don’t say “good” again, Carol. I’m not a dog to be patted on the head every time I fetch a ball.’

Villiers had the grace to flush a little. Not that it didn’t suit her. It took the edge off that hard exterior she’d come back to Derbyshire with, the tough shell of a woman who’d seen active service overseas and had gone through an unsuccessful marriage at the same time. It made her a bit more like the Carol Parry he remembered from their school days. It was a transition he’d been hoping to see signs of for months now. He wondered if she’d decide to revert to her maiden name at some point.

‘I’m sorry, Ben,’ she said. ‘You’re right, of course. It’s just the way that everybody’s been talking about you recently, it got into my head. I suppose it might have made me sound a bit, well…’

‘Patronising,’ said Cooper.

She smiled. ‘Yes, patronising.’

‘It’s all right,’ he said.

And it genuinely was all right. He didn’t mind at all. The fact that she’d apologised straight away made Cooper feel warm towards her. He couldn’t imagine Diane Fry sitting there and saying sorry to him without hesitation … Not in a million years.

‘So. A flooded stream. And a dead victim called, let’s see … Glen Turner?’

Villiers laughed. ‘Are you taking notes?’

‘No.’ Cooper shook his head slowly. ‘Just listening to you, Carol.’

She took a drink of her coffee, reluctant to meet his eye for a moment. ‘He was lying dead on his back in the water. He’d been there for a number of hours before he was found by a council gully-emptying crew. His body was diverting the flow of water into the road.’

‘He drowned?’

‘Not sure. Cause of death so far unconfirmed.’

Cooper frowned. ‘There are several questions springing to mind.’

‘Well, I won’t say “good” — but I’ll admit that’s definitely what I like to hear.’

Thoughtfully, Cooper looked down at his empty coffee cup. Outside the window, the Kugel stone slowly turned and turned, driven by its jets of water. It was a testament to the power of even a small amount of water that it could lift a ton of granite so easily.

‘Was Mr Turner a big man?’ he said.

‘Yes. He formed a pretty good dam.’

‘And his clothes were found, I hope?’

‘Nearby in the woods. All present, including his wallet. Cash, credit cards, driving licence, mobile phone, the lot.’

He guessed from Villiers’ expectant expression that she was waiting for him to say something about robbery being discounted as a motive. But that was obvious enough.

‘Woods,’ he said. ‘Which woods?’

‘Oh. Sparrow Wood. The other side of Wirksworth, near Brassington.’

‘The Forestry Commission woodland?’

‘No, a privately owned section next to it.’

‘Car?’ said Cooper.

‘A Renault Mégane, but it was parked outside a pub about a mile away in Brassington.’

‘His shoes …?’ said Cooper.

‘Yes, mud on them.’

He nodded. ‘And there were no witnesses.’

‘Why do you say that, Ben?’

‘It’s a quiet road. Whatever happened took place at night, probably. And the weather has been bad. I suppose it was raining on the night he was killed. So there would be no one around to see anything. No witnesses.’

‘Only a couple who saw an unidentified man in a four-wheel drive near the woods.’

‘I see.’

Cooper gazed for a few moments at the expanse of water outside the window, where a boat was tacking across the little bay in the rain. Everything looked suddenly blurred and indistinct. Though he tried to concentrate on what had just been said, he found his mind drifting towards a nice pub that he knew, standing close to the western edge of the reservoir with views of the hills on the other side. The Knockerdown Inn. He was pretty sure it was open all day in the summer. There might be a log fire in the bar to dry out in front of. They served fish, chips and mushy peas with their own home-made batter.

Cooper’s eyes had settled on the four wind turbines that had recently been erected to the north on Carsington Pasture. The wind farm was just outside the boundary of the national park, but very close to the High Peak Trail. He remembered the National Park Authority objecting to the scheme because of the impact on the landscape of turbines three hundred and fifty feet high overlooking the reservoir.

Close by the new wind farm was the Dream Cave, where the remains of a woolly rhino had been found and Homo erectus had visited during the warm inter-glacial period. By the time the Romans arrived more than two thousand years ago, they’d found a thriving lead mining industry in this area. Now, they would find tourists living in EcoPods.

Human memory seemed such a fleeting, fragmentary thing in this landscape. Ephemeral and transitory. It flickered into the mind and out again so quickly that it meant nothing. Nothing at all.

He became aware that Villiers was looking at him with concern, her coffee going cold in front of her. In fact she seemed to have been speaking his name, and perhaps had been doing so for a minute or two.

‘Ben?’ she said. ‘Earth to Ben Cooper.’

‘Sorry,’ he said, shaking himself as if throwing off a heavy blanket.

‘I have to say this, Ben, but you’d really lost it there for a while.’

‘It’s nothing.’

But he could see she wasn’t convinced. He would have to work harder to pass muster, even with Carol Villiers.

‘Focus,’ she said. ‘You need to focus on something useful, a practical objective.’

‘You’ve told me that before.’

‘Because it’s the best advice I can give you.’

Cooper tried to smile. ‘I’ll remember.’

But Villiers was watching him closely. She didn’t miss much. In fact, she never had.

‘Well,’ she said, picking up her phone and checking the screen, about to get up and leave. ‘It’s been great, Ben, but-’

‘Don’t go, Carol. Not yet.’

He’d blurted the words out. But as soon as they left his mouth he knew they made him sound desperate and needy. That wasn’t the impression he’d been trying to give.

‘Sorry, Ben, I have to.’

What was he going to do? Carol Villiers was the person he could rely on. He knew he could trust her.

‘Where are you going now, Carol?’ he asked.

‘Into Wirksworth, then Carsington. I’ve got to see if this man in the four-wheel drive rings a bell for anyone connected to Glen Turner.’

‘Mind if I tag along?’

Her mouth fell open. Then after a moment she smiled. ‘It would be a pleasure.’