The Devil’s Edge

18

Saturday

Above the villages of Riddings and Froggatt, the A625 swung up the hill and climbed through dense trees until it emerged again on to open ground near the Grouse Inn and reached the Longshaw Estate. At a triangular junction just below Longshaw was one of the Peak District’s quirkiest tourist attractions. It was a strange one, even for an area known for its quirkiness. It was a wooden pole, standing upright in the middle of a field.

Cooper knew that many visitors thought it was a joke. They came away convinced that the National Trust tourist sign that just said ‘Wooden Pole’ must be a fake – a hoax perpetrated on them by a local farmer. Yet thousands of them still came every year to look at the pole, and take photographs of it.

It was actually a packhorse route marker from the eighteenth century, marking the way up from Hathersage towards Dronfield. The track in a hollow just below it was the old road itself. The present pole wasn’t the original, but it had been there many years. It was so much of a landmark that the area around it was now known locally as Wooden Pole.

There was no explanation of all this on the sign, though. Cooper liked that. A bit of mystery in the landscape was good. Let the tourists go home wondering. A little further north there was another pole, above Stanage Edge. Carvings in the rocks at its base dated back four centuries to 1550, when it must have been a bit different around here.

He sat with Liz on a grassy slope overlooking the Longshaw Estate and Padley Gorge. Somewhere a long way below them ran Totley Tunnel, carrying the railway line from Sheffield that emerged at the little station down there in the gorge.

‘When we were children, Grandad Cooper used to tell us that there was a penny on top of this pole,’ he said. ‘He said if one of us climbed up to collect it, we could have it.’

Liz murmured comfortably. Her eyes were closed, her face turned up to the sun.

‘It used to be considered okay to tell kids anything in those days, I suppose.’

‘Yes. Except one afternoon, a couple of years ago, I overheard Matt telling his girls there was a pound coin on top.’

‘Well, that’s inflation for you.’

Cooper laughed. ‘Worse than that. They didn’t believe him for a second. Kids are much smarter now than we ever were.’

‘Less gullible, anyway.’

‘Some people say it’s a boundary pole, marking the spot where Yorkshire becomes Derbyshire, or vice versa. I seem to remember there was an old man who lived near here who claimed that lots of poles were erected on the moors during the Second World War, to prevent the Germans landing gliders full of troops to invade Sheffield.’

‘That’s the way it goes around here. You make up your own stories, and people choose which they want to believe.’

‘You’re right. It’s always been like that, I think.’

The National Trust sign was pretty much as Cooper remembered it. When you went up close to see what it told you about the pole, all it said was: Keep to the paths, do not climb the walls, keep dogs on leads. Observe the by-laws.

The pole stood about twenty feet high, but it was rather a knobbly-looking affair. In fact, it had the appearance of a failed totem pole, one that had been abandoned before the proper carving had been done. Basically, it was the trunk of a spindly tree, possibly a silver birch.

‘I’m glad we got this time together,’ said Liz. ‘I suspect you’d only be thinking about the Riddings case otherwise. You do get a bit obsessive, Ben.’

‘There are two Riddings cases,’ said Cooper.

‘Oh?’

That was one of the things he liked about her. She worried about him getting obsessed with particular cases, but she couldn’t hide the fact that she experienced the same surge of interest. It was evident in her voice, just that one word.

‘It’s not really clear yet,’ he said. ‘Too few obvious lines of inquiry to follow. But I think the hunt for the Savages is misguided. Well – not misguided, but not relevant to Riddings, or to the death of Zoe Barron.’

Liz sat up. ‘Have you told your DI?’

‘No. It would be the wrong thing to say at the moment.’

‘Mmm. You have to toe the party line.’

‘Yes.’

‘Or appear to be doing so, anyway.’

‘I can ask appropriate questions. But I can’t tell Mr Hitchens and Superintendent Branagh that they’re wrong. Not without some evidence.’

‘You’d better find some evidence, then. What’s your theory?’

‘I don’t have one yet,’ said Cooper. ‘I just have the feeling that the answer lies over there, in Riddings. There’s an awful lot of hate in that village.’

The words sounded wrong and out of place in this location, with the sun beating down on them, the hills rolling gently away to the west, the sound of sheep quietly bleating to each other in a field down the valley. But Cooper knew what he’d said was right. He could sense it wherever he went in Riddings, and not just from Richard Nowak or Alan Slattery. They were open about it. Those who concealed their feelings were the most worrying.

‘This latest attack,’ said Liz. ‘Mr and Mrs Holland?’

‘Yes. You were there, at their house. Fourways.’

‘We found very little in the way of forensic evidence, you know.’

‘I heard.’

‘So unless the lady can provide any information about the intruder

…?’

Cooper hadn’t been present at the interviews with Mrs Holland, but he’d read the transcripts. She’d told her interviewers that she had caught sight of a single figure in the garden of their home, no more than a glimpse of the intruder through a window. She couldn’t say whether he had been heading towards the house, or away from it. She couldn’t even say for certain that it was a he. When pressed, though, she swore that the intruder was wearing a dark mask. Otherwise she would have been able to see a face, wouldn’t she?

‘Nothing of any use so far,’ said Cooper.

‘Perhaps she’ll remember something later.’

‘She thinks the intruder she saw wore a mask.’

‘Like the Savages do.’

‘But there was only one intruder at Fourways, so far as we can tell. The Savages always operate in a group, two or three of them at least.’

‘I see.’

‘I wish you wouldn’t make me call them the Savages,’ he said.

‘Oh, sorry.’

‘Besides…’

‘What?’

‘There’s really no evidence that anyone was trying to break in at the Hollands’ place.’

Liz nodded. ‘No, that’s what we found, from a forensic point of view. No tool marks on the doors, no broken windows, nothing. The intruder was outside. And even then, he was careful not to leave footprints on soft ground.’

‘Careful, or lucky.’

‘The result is the same.’

‘Apparently the Hollands even set off their own burglar alarm,’ said Cooper. ‘They activated the motion sensors and didn’t turn the alarm off.’

‘Well, it would be the last thing on your mind, with your husband breathing his last on the doorstep.’

‘Oh, yes. If Mr Holland hadn’t rushed out to confront the intruder, the outcome would have been quite different,’ he said. ‘A 999 call would have been far better. Well – on most nights, it would.’

Cooper stared across the valley, not seeing the trees or the hills, but trying to picture the scene at Fourways that chaotic night. Had someone taken advantage of the noise and disturbance in the village to undertake a risky mission of his own?

‘What about the suspect you pursued on the night?’ asked Liz.

‘Barry Gamble? He was questioned, of course, but there was nothing to place him at the Hollands’. We found no mask on him, or anything else incriminating. Besides, some of the teenagers at the party identified him positively as the man they’d seen lurking in the bushes at The Cottage. Theoretically, it would be possible for him to have been in both places within a few minutes – they’re close enough together. But why would he hang around after the confrontation with Mr Holland? Why wear a mask at one place and not the other? And there isn’t the remotest suggestion of a motive. No history between him and the Hollands. We never had any hope of a case against him. He got a bit of a scare, though.’

‘A dead end, then.’

‘It seems so.’

Yes, that was an understatement. At the moment, it felt like running into a stone wall. Like running face first into the Devil’s Edge itself.

Cooper found a bottle of water, and passed it to Liz. He looked over his shoulder towards the edges. The closest one was Froggatt Edge, with White Edge forming a higher terrace above it. He could see the outline of White Edge Lodge, standing isolated and sinister like a Gothic castle. Dark clouds were building up in the east, massing over Big Moor.

‘So,’ said Liz slowly, ‘I know why we can’t marry in September or November.’

‘You do?’

‘Since you weren’t available to explain when you said you would, I asked your sister-in-law.’

‘You spoke to Kate?’

‘It seemed preferable to trying to get anything out of you, or your brother.’

‘It’s because of the anniversaries,’ said Cooper. ‘Our mother died in September, and our father in November.’

‘I know.’

‘It might seem a bit unnecessary, but anniversaries like that have always been important in our family.’

‘I understand, really. November was out anyway.’ She shuddered. ‘Just imagine. Rain, wind, mud. A nightmare.’

They were silent for a moment, enjoying the sun. A small group of tourists walked along the track from the road to look at the pole, then walked quietly back again.

‘And… the full works?’ said Cooper hesitantly.

‘Of course.’

‘Right.’

‘Which means we have a lot of planning to do, Ben.’

Cooper knew that he ought to sound enthusiastic. No doubt it was expected of him. But when he looked inside himself, he was forced to admit that what he wanted was to be married to Liz, not to have an actual wedding. Not a wedding with all the fuss – the morning suits and bridesmaids’ dresses, the confetti and cake, the speeches and the endless group photographs. The full works.

He felt Liz take his hand in hers.

‘Don’t worry,’ she said. ‘I know it’s not your kind of thing. My parents are just itching to organise it all. What we do is let them have their day, then we can sneak off somewhere nice and be ourselves. That’s what we both want, isn’t it?’

Cooper’s phone buzzed in his pocket.

‘Sorry, Liz.’

She sat up. ‘Oh, Ben…’

He looked at the screen. Letter arrived this a.m. from sheff rd man. U want to see it? ‘

‘Work?’

‘Yes.’

‘It’s Saturday.’

‘I know, but… you understand.’

She sighed. ‘Yes, I suppose I do.’

Erin Byrne lived in a two-bedroom apartment in Calver Mill, with rooms on three levels connected by an original stone staircase.

At the top of the stairs, Cooper found a small office space, with a desk and a computer, and a few bookshelves along the wall, all brightly lit by a generous expanse of skylight. This felt like a real eyrie, almost an ivory tower, a sanctuary raised clear of any neighbours, with a distant glimpse across the Derwent Valley towards the hills on the other side. Cooper could imagine working here if he was an artist or writer, or some kind of creative person. It felt a long way from the real world out there on the streets.

‘Thanks for coming. I thought we might pop across the road to the Bridge Inn, if you’ve got the time,’ said Byrne.

‘I can spare half an hour or so.’

‘No urgent incidents to attend?’

‘Not today.’

At the end of August, the leaves of the Virginia creeper on the walls of the Bridge Inn were just starting to turn a deep red. Inside the bar, they stood among a display of antique firefighting equipment and hundreds of foreign bank notes stuck on to the oak beams.

‘Outside, I think?’ said Byrne. ‘Less chance of being overheard.’

‘We’re not in a spy film, you know.’

She looked around at the locals in the public bar. ‘I’d feel more comfortable.’

‘All right.’

The riverside garden at the Bridge was big enough to accommodate a couple of hundred people, all under blue and gold Hardy and Hanson parasols. So although it was a Saturday lunchtime, there were plenty of tables free. Byrne chose a spot as far as possible from the pub, overlooking the Derwent and the older of the two bridges. For a few minutes they said nothing, but sat watching the ducks on the river and listening to the sound of the weir as they sipped their drinks.

Byrne fished into her bag. It was one of the most capacious bags Cooper had ever seen. He guessed it must contain her notebook, digital recorder, camera, phone, and whatever else the modern newspaper journalist needed.

‘I brought you a copy of this week’s Eden Valley Times,’ she said. ‘Just out. Hot off the press.’

‘Oh, thanks. I suppose…?’

‘We led with a story on the Savages, yes.’

‘We don’t call them that.’

‘Don’t blame me. It’s what everyone is talking about. We just reflect the interests of our readers.’

‘Right.’

She laughed. ‘You’re all the same.’

‘Who?’

‘The police. You look down so much on the media. Until you want our help with something. An appeal to the public, an e-fit of a wanted man. Oh, then we’re all supposed to be on the same side. But when we want information from you, the barriers go up. Then you pull that disapproving face and say we’re not helping the situation. You say we’re sensationalising.’

‘I don’t have a disapproving face,’ said Cooper. ‘Do I?’

She took a drink to hide her expression behind the glass. ‘Well, perhaps not as much as some I could mention. I’ve met Superintendent Hazel Branagh.’

Cooper stifled a smile. ‘Oh, have you?’

‘It was at some civic do. She was being all smiling and matey with the dignitaries, but when she found out who I was, she looked as though she’d just sucked on a lemon.’

‘We’re not all like that. But some police officers have had a bad experience with the press during the course of their careers. We learn to be cautious. We definitely learn not to say too much.’

‘Or not to say anything at all,’ said Byrne.

‘Not quite, surely?’

She put down her glass and positioned it carefully on a coaster, wiping off a mist of condensation.

‘My dad was a local newspaper journalist too. Old school. He ended up as a subeditor on the Sheffield Star. He once told me that when he was a trainee reporter, if he had the police stories to cover, he actually went round to the police station every morning and spoke to the desk sergeant. That was when there were such things as desk sergeants, of course. The sergeant would look in the incident book and tell him what had happened overnight. And because they spoke every morning, they got to know each other. So if the sergeant was busy, he just gave Dad the incident book to read for himself. It’s a question of trust, you see.’

‘That was, what? The seventies?’

‘I suppose so. Dixon of Dock Green might still have been on the telly.’

‘It wouldn’t happen now.’

‘Too true. The reporters on police calls now never see a police officer, let alone get to know one. They never go inside a police station, either. All they do is make a phone call and get a recorded message. There’s absolutely no personal contact, and no trust. My dad pulls his hair out when I tell him what it’s like now.’

‘My dad would, too,’ said Cooper.

She opened her mouth as if to ask him about his father. But perhaps she read something in his face, because she kept the question to herself. That required quite a lot of self-control for a journalist.

‘Anyway, enough of that,’ she said. ‘I’m sure you don’t want to listen to me moaning. This is what you wanted to see.’

She handed Cooper a clear plastic wallet containing a single sheet of paper and an envelope. The note itself was crudely written. He might actually have said drawn rather than written. It looked as if it had been scrawled in felt-tip pen by a clumsy child. Just one sentence.

‘Sheffeild Rode,’ he said thoughtfully.

‘I know it’s crude,’ said Byrne. ‘And illiterate, too.’

‘Sheffield isn’t all that difficult a word to spell, surely.’

‘It could be written by someone whose first language isn’t English?’

‘Maybe. And what’s this symbol?’

The note was accompanied by a rudimentary sketch – a short horizontal line with an arrow beneath it, pointing to the centre of the line. If it was supposed to represent a road, with a particular house indicated on it, the sketch was worse than useless. But perhaps it wasn’t that at all. It looked more symbolic than representational.

‘I don’t know,’ said Byrne. ‘No one in the office could identify it.’

‘And you didn’t look it up?’

‘We’d normally do a Google search, of course. But there’s no way of entering a picture as a search term. No way that I know of, anyway.’

‘No, that’s right.’

‘So without a clue what to look for, we were a bit stumped. That’s why my editor agreed we should pass it to you. On the understanding that we, you know…’

‘Get some information in return?’

‘Yes. Or at least a bit of a head-start on the nationals when there’s a breakthrough.’

Cooper nodded. ‘I understand.’

‘So, what are you going to do? Raid all the houses on Sheffield Road?’

He laughed. ‘I would have difficulty justifying that on the grounds of an anonymous message.’

‘Yes, I see the problem.’

‘But we can get it forensically examined. Something might emerge.’

‘I’ll leave it with you, then.’

Cooper looked at her as she got ready to leave.

‘You’re not covering the show this afternoon?’ he said.

‘Oh, Riddings Show? That’s today, is it? No, we don’t have time to cover things like that. We pay a village correspondent a few pennies to write down the names of all the winners. Names still sell papers, they say. If necessary, we give them a little digital camera so they can take their own photos, too. Much cheaper than sending a photographer out from Chesterfield. We don’t have our own snappers in Edendale any more.’

‘It’s the way everything’s going.’

‘Oh, I know. We get policing on the cheap too now.’

‘I won’t argue with that.’

‘Well, I’m sure there must be lots of things you should be doing. I bet some of the residents around here would be furious if they saw you sitting in the garden of the Bridge Inn having a drink with a journalist. They’d be writing to the chief constable in their scores.’

Cooper thought that was probably true. But right at this moment, he didn’t care.

Byrne got up to leave. ‘Will you report our conversation to your boss?’

Cooper hesitated. He couldn’t mention his contact with the press to Superintendent Branagh. He’d heard her berate other officers for the slightest communication with the media, or for taking their claims seriously. He would risk being tainted by the meeting.

‘I ought to.’

Byrne smiled. ‘There are a lot of things we ought to do, Detective Sergeant Cooper. Sometimes it’s much more fun doing the things we shouldn’t.’

When she’d gone, Cooper checked his phone for messages, then decided to stay for a few minutes to finish his drink.

He opened the copy of the Eden Valley Times and flicked through the pages, glancing at the photographs. He wasn’t interested in the lead story about the Savages. It wouldn’t tell him anything he didn’t know, and might well fill his head with misconceptions and half-truths.

Halfway through the paper, just before the property section, were the pages of community news. What was going on in the villages, in other words. As usual, that seemed to be mostly WI meetings and summer fetes, tractor rallies and fund-raising garden parties. But there they were, underneath next week’s church services – a party of balsam bashers pictured by the side of Calver Weir. With their boots and waterproofs, packed lunches and water bottles, they looked ready for a happy day of non-native-plant destruction.

He peered more closely. The photograph was in colour, which ought to help identification. But this was the Eden Valley Times, and the colour register had been slightly off alignment when the page was printed. So everyone in the picture seemed to have a faint magenta shadow blurring the left side of their face. It was an odd effect, like looking at a 3D image without the proper glasses on. But Cooper recognised Martin and Sarah Holland, standing just to one side. Barry Gamble was over to the right, lurking close to a couple of Peak District National Park rangers who had posed in the foreground wearing red rubber gloves and clutching tall plants with pink flowers.

It was the expression on Gamble’s face that grabbed Cooper’s attention. Despite the off-register printing, it was clear that he wasn’t smiling for the camera like everyone else. He wasn’t looking towards the photographer at all. In fact, he had been caught in an unguarded moment as he waited for the click of the shutter.

In that second, Barry Gamble had turned his head to the right and was staring directly at the Hollands. And the look on his face told a whole different story from the accompanying piece on the benefits of balsam bashing. His expression was a mixture of loathing and triumph. He had the air of a man taking one last, gloating look at his intended victims.