The Corpse Bridge

19

In Edendale that evening the streets were wet with more rain. The Christmas lights hadn’t gone up in the town yet. But it wouldn’t be long, now that it was November. Most of the shops just couldn’t wait to get the Halloween costumes and Guy Fawkes masks off their shelves and fill the space with Christmas gift wrap and tinsel.

Ben Cooper had almost forgotten that he was expected somewhere that evening. He was supposed to be helping his sister Claire get her new shop ready for opening.

Well, his family expected him to forget things, or to be too busy to turn up, or to get called away. And sometimes, lately, they’d expected him just not to be up to it. But that had changed now, hadn’t it?

Claire had closed the old shop months ago. To be fair, it had been a bit of a niche venture, even when times were good. He could have told her that at the time, but he knew she wouldn’t be willing to hear it. If you wanted to do something badly enough, you needed encouragement and support from your family and friends, not discouraging words and predictions of disaster.

Still, it was certainly true that the market for healing crystals and scented candles had fallen through the floor when the economic downturn came along. Edendale people didn’t really go for that sort of thing. The older residents were happy with their goose fat and paraffin lamps. The younger ones thought you could get it all on the internet.

And visitors to the area were spending less money than ever in the town. Even those with a bit of spare cash preferred to spend it in the farm shops or the outdoor clothing stores, or perhaps to visit one of those historic attractions like Knowle Abbey. Small local businesses were struggling against the competition, whatever area of retail they were in.

Cooper thought of the dreamcatcher and the Tarot cards in Sandra Blair’s cottage at Crowdecote. It was ironic to think that Sandra might have been a customer of Claire’s at one time, in the old shop. But Sandra Blair was dead and Claire Cooper had moved on.

The new shop was just off the market square in Edendale. It stood in the steep, cobbled alley called Nick i’th Tor. There had been a half-hearted campaign recently to change the name of the street on the argument that visitors couldn’t pronounce it so were too embarrassed to ask for directions to it. But the idea never stood a chance. Edendale was too proud of its history and too fond of its traditions — even if no one knew what they meant.

He could see through the front window that his brother Matt was in the shop, putting up some shelves for one of the displays. Claire wouldn’t lash out money on professional shopfitters when she could persuade members of her family to do the job for her. But then all the Coopers were like that. It seemed to be an inherited trait.

‘Hi, Matt,’ he said as he entered.

As soon as he opened the door, he was hit by the powerful smells of fresh paint and plaster, and newly sawn timber.

Matt turned. His broad shoulders and increasing girth had been crammed into an old set of blue overalls that hadn’t really fitted him for a couple of years now. Only the lower buttons were fastened on the front, exposing an ancient woolly sweater full of holes. He looked like a grizzly bear struggling to get out of a duvet cover. His face was red and there was a smudge of grease on his cheek. In fact, he looked pretty much as he always did back at the farm.

‘Oh, you made it,’ he said. ‘I thought I was going to be on my own again tonight.’

‘Where’s the boss?’

‘Who?’

‘The owner of the shop. Shouldn’t she be here supervising?’

‘Oh, Claire’s not going to be here tonight. She’s been down in Birmingham for some trade exhibition or something. Networking and looking at new product lines.’

‘Looking at new product lines?’

‘That’s what she said.’

‘Oh, I can just hear her saying it.’

‘Well, her train from Birmingham doesn’t get in until later. She has to change in Sheffield, you know.’

‘Of course. So what needs doing?’

‘You can finish off the paintwork behind the counter.’

‘No problem.’

Ben found a brush and opened a half-used tin of gloss white. A dust sheet was already spread on the floor to catch drips, and the panels on the wall behind the counter were primed and ready for painting.

The place was already completely unrecognisable. This used to be a second-hand bookshop, which had been empty for a while since the death of its owner. Ben could remember all too clearly the dusty upstairs rooms above the shop, where only certain clients were invited to browse. But Claire was only converting the ground floor, so far at least.

It was a smart choice of location, he had to admit. He’d always liked these narrow lanes in the oldest part of Edendale, between Eyre Street and the market square. Claire’s new shop was only a couple of doors down from Larkin’s, a traditional bakery whose window was always full of pastries and cheeses — apricot white stilton, homity pies and enormous high-baked pork pies. And a few yards away in the market square itself was a celebrated butcher’s and game dealers called Ferris’s. Between them these two establishments were among Edendale’s most popular businesses, with locals and visitors alike. They were such a draw that this corner of the market square could qualify as a retail destination, as far as Edendale had one.

So Claire had wisely gone for a complementary business, an outlet for local farmers’ produce. Most of it was organic, of course. Rare breed meats, gluten-free products, dry cured bacon and home-made cakes. A sign already in the window advertised her venture into a more upmarket range. Uncle Roy’s Comestible Concoctions — fudge sauces and wholegrain mustards, seaweed salt and country bramble jelly.

Ben noticed a large sign propped against the wall near where Matt was working. It was probably ready to go in the window display when the stock began to arrive.

‘What does that sign say?’ he asked.

‘Totally Locally,’ said Matt.

‘And that is?’

‘It’s the Totally Locally campaign. You must have heard of it.’

‘No, Matt.’

‘Look, it says here. If every adult in the area spends five pounds a week in their local independent shops instead of online or in the big supermarkets, it would mean an extra one million pounds a year going into the local economy. More jobs, better facilities, a nicer place to live.’

Matt nodded vigorously at the sign. Claire had certainly found an enthusiastic supporter for that one.

‘Well, it makes sense, doesn’t it?’ said Matt.

‘Yes, it does. Will it work?’

‘Have faith.’

They both worked in silence for a while, apart from the occasional curse from Matt. After a few minutes he seemed to remember his brother was there.

‘Are you okay with that, Ben?’

‘Of course. I’ve got the easy job.’

‘Yes, you have.’

‘It makes a change, though.’

‘Oh, yeah. Right.’

There was another pause. Ben finished one panel and shifted position to start the next.

‘So how’s it going, then?’ said Matt. ‘Have you been assigned your own police tractor yet?’

Matt laughed uproariously at his own joke. It wasn’t one of his most appealing characteristics. It had been a regular jest of Matt’s ever since June, when a tractor liveried in police colours had been used to encourage members of the public to sign up for the Farm Watch scheme. Matt had come across the tractor on display at the cattle market in Bakewell, where it had been loaned by the manufacturer, New Holland. Of course, the tractor had then continued to turn up at markets and shows right through the summer, prompting another burst of hilarity from Matt every time he saw it.

It was a bit frustrating. Thieves had been targeting farms across the county and making off with a huge range of items, from livestock to fuel. They’d taken numerous quad bikes, muck spreaders and generators, and six incidents of sheep rustling had been recorded. Many farmers had signed up for Farm Watch, including Matt. But it didn’t stop him making jokes about the police tractor. Well, at least it kept the scheme in his mind.

Ben didn’t bother to answer. It hardly seemed worth it. But Matt tried again.

‘So where have you been today? Anywhere interesting?’

‘I’ve been over at Knowle Abbey and Bowden village.’

‘Oh,’ said Matt, immediately losing interest. ‘Staffordshire people.’

‘No, actually.’

It was odd how Matt’s interest in the affairs of his neighbours ended at the border. No one who lived west of the River Dove was of any concern to him.

‘Not Staffordshire?’ he said.

‘Don’t you know where your own county ends?’

‘Not really. Why would it matter to me? As long as my ewes don’t wander that far.’

‘Talk about parochialism,’ said Ben. ‘You’re the living, breathing embodiment of it.’

‘Cheers.’

‘Well, it’s true. If it doesn’t happen on your patch, it doesn’t exist.’

Matt was right, though. Why should it matter to him? He hardly needed a passport to get in and out of Derbyshire, so he would never notice where the border was. The dry stone walls around his farm were the only boundaries he cared about.

Ben watched his brother line up the shelves on one of the walls. He was frowning in concentration, with a couple of screws sticking out of his mouth. He would do a good job of it. His unrelenting practicality made Ben feel almost useless.

Sensing his brother watching him, Matt looked round.

‘I suppose it’s this woman who was killed at the bridge,’ he said, speaking indistinctly round his mouthful of screws.

‘That’s right.’

‘They call it the Corpse Bridge, don’t they?’

‘You’ve heard of it, then? And the coffin roads?’

‘Yes, I remember all that stuff vaguely. Old stories.’

‘I had the Reverend Latham out there this morning,’ said Ben.

‘Old Bill Latham? Is he still alive?’

‘Definitely.’

‘Good for him. He must be as old as I feel.’

Matt used a spirit level to check that his shelf was exactly at the right angle. Nothing would be falling off this display.

‘And there’s a connection to Knowle Abbey, is there?’ he said.

‘There may be.’

‘That’s another old story.’

‘What is?’

‘You don’t remember the tale?’

‘Which one, Matt?’

‘The Revenge of the Poacher’s Widow.’

Ben laughed. ‘Oh, that story. Yes, Granddad Cooper told it to us when we were children. In fact, I think he probably told it several times over the years.’

‘Yes, he did.’

‘And he got all his folk tales from some book he was given by his parents. Though he embellished the details a bit more every time he told them, of course.’

‘We loved them as kids,’ said Matt. ‘The more gruesome the better, too.’

‘Right.’ Ben shook his head. ‘I don’t quite remember, though.’

‘You don’t?’ Matt stopped working for a moment and crinkled his forehead in an effort of memory. ‘There was some old duke at Knowle Abbey…’

‘An earl,’ said Ben.

‘Whatever. Well, he caught a poacher on his land, nicking his deer or something. And instead of just handing him over to the cops, he turned the poacher loose in the woods and let his aristocratic mates hunt him down like an animal. He reckoned he could get away with doing things like that, because he was so rich and important.’

‘When was this exactly?’

‘Oh, a couple of months ago.’

‘Right.’

Matt laughed again. Ben found it a bit unsettling to hear his brother being so jolly.

‘Anyway,’ said Matt, ‘the poacher got shot and killed. And nobody did anything about it, of course. So the poacher’s widow vowed revenge and put a curse on the duke.’

‘The earl.’

This time Matt ignored his interruption. He finished driving a screw in with his electric screwdriver and brushed some wood shavings off the finished shelf. Then he stood back to admire his handiwork with a smile of satisfaction. Ben found himself beginning to get impatient.

‘So what happened to the duke?’ he said. ‘I mean, the earl.’

‘Oh, he died,’ said Matt airily.

‘Everyone dies eventually.’

‘Ah, but he died a horrible death. I can’t remember exactly how. But I know it was horrible.’

Ben sighed. ‘You’re not a born storyteller, are you?’

‘Not like Granddad Cooper,’ admitted Matt.

Outside, the centre of town was getting noisy again as the pubs filled up.

‘It’s time to knock off here, I think,’ said Matt, ‘before they let the animals loose from the zoo.’

They put out the lights and Matt set the alarm and locked the door. He turned to Ben.

‘Do you want to come back to the farm for a bit?’ he said. ‘Have you had something to eat? I dare say Kate can-’

Ben shook his head. ‘No, I’m okay. Thanks anyway.’

‘Suit yourself.’

Matt couldn’t resist casting another sideways glance at him from the corner of his eye as they turned towards the market square.

‘I’m fine, Matt, really.’

‘Good. But if ever…’

‘I know.’

‘Well. Think on, then.’

When Matt had gone, Ben felt oddly reassured by the conversation they’d just had, standing here on the corner of Edendale market square. There had hardly been any words involved, but what had been said meant a lot. That was exactly the way he and his brother had always communicated with one another when they were boys at Bridge End Farm. Their mother would have said they just grunted at each other. But they’d been so close that they had an understanding beyond words.

Ben smiled. It had felt so good to have that back again, just for a few minutes. At least some things stayed re- assuringly the same in this world. And his brother was one of them.