Dedication
To Lesley, as always
Epigraph
The world is full of obvious things which nobody ever observes.
—Sherlock Holmes in The Hound of the Baskervilles, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Dedication
Epigraph
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Acknowledgments
About the Author
By Stephen Booth
Copyright
About the Publisher
1
For one second, she was floating. Sailing out into grey nothingness like a bird released from its cage. Cold, damp air wrapped round her body as she flung out her arms and kicked her feet in a desperate attempt to find solid rock.
She tried to scream, but the breath was torn from her throat as she fell. All she could hear was a faint, distant cry, the mewl of a terrified animal, bouncing back from the muffling curtain, drowned by the crashing of water. Her waterproof rattled against her shoulders like battered wings; her hair blew free and smothered her face. She could see nothing, feel nothing, taste only the bitter tang of fear in her mouth.
It happened so fast that her brain wasn’t quick enough to work out what was going on. The fall was too quick, too short and too sudden. The impact killed her instantly.
As she lay on the rock, with her blood dripping between the gritstone slabs, a bird called from the plateau. It was a long, mournful shriek like the voice of a spirit, a phantom that haunted Kinder Downfall.
Almost before she’d stopped breathing, a swirl of mist snaked across her legs and settled in her hair, clutching her in its chilly embrace, hiding her body from view. It would be hours before she was found, a day before they carried her down.
But hers wasn’t the first death on the mountain. Another woman had lain here, decades before. She’d left the memory of herself on this rock, though not her name. The Downfall had seen more than its share of blood.
And that was why they called this place Dead Woman’s Drop.
2
Sunday
Detective Inspector Ben Cooper knew he was in the right place when he saw the tape. The way some officers strung it up at a crime scene made it look so untidy, as if a puppy had run amok with a roll of toilet paper and trailed it all over the street.
At the far end of Haddon Close, he found blue-and-white coils tied in unsightly knots round lamp posts, fluttering in strands from a fence and lying in sodden heaps on the pavement. Someone had managed to get every horizontal length of it upside down too – quite an achievement considering how often it had been twisted. The message POLICE LINE – DO NOT CROSS was illegible to anyone not standing on their head.
But it seemed to have worked its magic. That or the bored scene guard staring into the distance with his arms folded across his chest had special powers of some kind. Inquisitive members of the public were noticeably absent for such an open and vulnerable crime scene.
‘No, Strictly Come Dancing is on the telly,’ said the guard when Cooper stopped to ask him. ‘It’s the start of a new season.’
‘Oh, I see.’
‘There were plenty of folk around earlier on, though. And there’ll be a few drunks later, when the pubs shut. I’m due to be relieved by then.’
‘Anyone else on scene?’
‘DC Hurst and the CSIs. And DS Fry is still here from the Major Crime Unit.’
‘OK, thanks.’
The guard noted Cooper’s identity and the time of his arrival on a clipboard and lifted a strand of the tape for him to duck under.
The house was a fairly unremarkable semi-detached property sitting in a quiet corner of an Edendale housing estate. It looked as though it had been built sometime in the last twenty years, with stone cladding to blend in with the traditional building style of the Peak District.
Cooper stopped at the Forensic Investigation van and struggled into a scene suit before he entered the inner cordon. Stepping plates had been laid on the drive, and he could see a trail of splattered blood leading from the open front door.
He already knew some of the story. For once, this murder inquiry was almost cleared up before he arrived. Some cases had no mystery about them at all. The killing of Danielle Atherton required hardly any investigation or the identification of a suspect, just the collection and analysis of evidence, and the building of a watertight case for the Crown Prosecution Service.
Because there hardly seemed any doubt, did there? Not only had Danielle’s husband still been standing over her body when the first response officers arrived, but he was also the person who made the 999 call. Most people who committed murder had no idea what to do next. For many, their first instinct was to phone the police, or call for an ambulance.
So that was what Gary Atherton had done. On the recording of the emergency call Cooper had listened to, Atherton could be heard saying, ‘You’d better come. I think I’ve just killed my wife.’
Case closed? Well, almost.
Unfortunately, people had been known to make false confessions, to pick up a knife and say they’d done it, perhaps to protect someone else. Or they might even convince themselves they had done it. A confession wasn’t enough on its own. The evidence had to support it, and be convincing.
In the hallway, Cooper found Detective Constable Becky Hurst on duty, taking charge of the evidence. She’d been in his team at Edendale CID for a while now, and was one of his most valuable assets. She was efficient and cool under pressure, and she didn’t suffer fools, as DC Luke Irvine and his civilian investigator, Gavin Murfin, had often found out.
‘What do we know so far, Becky?’ Cooper asked her.
‘It’s pretty straightforward,’ she said. ‘The victim was stabbed several times in the neck and shoulder, and once in the palm of the hand.’
‘A defensive wound?’
‘Just the one,’ said Hurst.
‘Have we a confirmed time of death?’
‘An emergency call was made from a mobile phone located at this address at ten thirty-two a.m. The caller identified himself as Gary Atherton, and he told the call handler that he’d killed his wife.’
‘Yes, I’ve heard it.’
‘Well, the first response officers arrived at ten forty-four a.m. and confirmed the victim showed no signs of life. Paramedics were on scene shortly afterwards and verified death.’
‘It looks as though she lost a substantial amount of blood.’
‘And it seems Mr Atherton had made no attempt to control the bleeding either.’
‘What about the phone?’
‘Bagged up. It had bloodstains on it and some nice clear prints.’
Cooper nodded. ‘And Mr Atherton himself?’
‘He went quietly. He’s in custody now bein
g processed.’
‘Good.’
‘Dev Sharma has only just left,’ said Hurst.
‘I’m sure everything is being done according to the book,’ said Cooper. ‘I’ll catch up with DS Sharma when I get back to West Street.’
‘And Luke has talked to some of the neighbours. They say they heard shouting from the Athertons’ property. A violent argument. By all accounts, Mr and Mrs Atherton had been having some problems recently.’
‘Nothing out of the ordinary, then.’
‘Not so far, boss. Oh, and there’s a teenage son, Bradley. He’s no more than fourteen. Social Services are looking after him.’
‘Where is DS Fry?’
Hurst pointed towards the kitchen.
‘I’ll go and speak to her,’ said Cooper.
Most of the Major Crime Unit from the East Midlands Special Operations had been and gone from Haddon Close, leaving only Detective Sergeant Diane Fry on liaison. The task of putting the evidence together would be left to Divisional CID.
For a few moments Cooper watched the crime scene examiners working in the sitting room of the Athertons’ home. Then he turned towards the kitchen, where he saw the murder weapon.
With incidents like this, the outcome was often much worse when it happened in the kitchen. There were too many weapons lying around handy. In this instance, a bloodstained carving knife had been tossed in the sink, where a trickle of water from the tap had splashed the blood into a jagged arc across the porcelain.
Sophie Pullen had been the first to see the danger that day. Its approach was slow and inevitable. And still they’d walked right into it.
The hike onto Kinder Scout had started the same way as it always did. The group had met at the Bowden Bridge car park outside Hayfield and stood for a moment to examine the memorial plaque on the rock wall, as if it was some kind of shrine. Darius Roth made a point of it, and they followed his lead, as always.
The Mass Trespass onto Kinder Scout started from this quarry 24th April 1932.
To Sophie, the group of walkers depicted on the plaque looked much like their own group, a leader striding ahead, a slightly disorganised rabble following behind. The sun cast the skeletal shadows of an oak tree onto the plaque, the remains of a few leaves now brown and withered. There was a wooden bench, too, inscribed with a poem that began:
As I trudge through the peat at a pace so slow
There is time to remember the debt we owe . . .
They called themselves the New Trespassers Walking Club. That was Darius’s idea, of course. A homage to the original Kinder Mass Trespass. And he made sure they would never forget it, with these little rituals at the start and finish. This was Sophie’s fifth annual walk onto Kinder. But for some of the group, it was their first, which gave Darius the opportunity to explain the significance of the event all over again.
Sophie had said hello to the Warburtons, the middle-aged couple who’d booked a pitch for their caravan on the campsite, only a few yards from the car park. For her, they seemed to be the only normal people in the group, the ones she could have a reasonable conversation with, a chat on a subject that didn’t make either of them sound obsessive.
‘It’s a nice day for it,’ Pat Warburton had said, straightening her hat on her grey curls. ‘Let’s hope the sun lasts.’
‘I’m not sure it will,’ said Sophie.
Sam Warburton chuckled. ‘You’re always looking on the dark side,’ he said. ‘It will be a wonderful day. I can’t wait to get up on the moors.’
‘If he makes it that far,’ said Pat with an anxious frown. ‘He’s not as strong as he used to be.’
‘I’m sorry to hear that.’
Sophie wasn’t sure how old the Warburtons were, but certainly in their sixties at least. They’d been coming on the walk for longer than anyone else, apart from the Gould brothers. Sam and Pat both carried hiking poles and wore matching orange Regatta shell jackets with cotton bucket hats. They walked at their own pace, never racing to get ahead of the others, the way some did. Yet the couple were also the most cheerful, enjoying every moment of their day without complaint or argument. That was why Sophie liked to talk to them. It was a refreshing change from Nick and Darius, and some of the others, who seemed to regard the walk as a competition.
Darius was waving his arms overhead like a tour guide to collect the group together. He wasn’t wearing a hat at all, probably so that his expensively coiffed blond hair could stir gently in the breeze. He was the tallest of the group anyway, so it was hard to miss him. Yet he always seemed to want to make himself bigger, and even more noticeable.
‘All right, guys and gals, it’s time for the off,’ he called.
Guys and gals? The phrase jarred with Sophie. That seemed to have echoes of the famous DJ who turned out to be a paedophile. Wasn’t that one of his catchphrases? Could Darius be ignorant of that, or didn’t he care?
But the two students cheered. Sophie glanced at them sourly, their eager faces grating on her. They were both wearing white Columbia Eco jackets, which they claimed were made from recycled water bottles and were free from chemical dyes. Sophie hadn’t worked out yet which of the students Darius was trying to impress. The short, dark one called Millie, or Karina, the taller blonde? Perhaps it was both. In their eagerness to please Darius, they might as well be identical.
Sophie supposed she ought to try to get a chance to talk to them, to find out more about them. There must surely be more. What were they studying at Manchester Metropolitan University, for a start? How had they come to be connected with this group? And how did they know Darius Roth? But Sophie had never asked.
Then her boyfriend, Nick, appeared at her elbow, smiling in anticipation. He looked flushed, his normally tanned skin slightly pinker than usual. He was very fit, exercised regularly at the gym and went for a run every day. Climbing to the top of Kinder Scout was effortless for him. Sophie already knew he would leave her behind before they reached the summit.
Nick hadn’t even bothered with a waterproof but had tossed on a leather bomber jacket, as if he was just strolling down to the pub. He’d bought a peaked Russian Army cap from Amazon, with a red hammer and sickle badge, and earflaps tied over the top. It was a personal jibe aimed at Darius, who so far had pretended not to notice it.
‘Ready, Soph?’ said Nick.
‘Of course.’
‘Hey, have you seen Liam Sharpe? He’s put weight on since last time.’
‘He’s got a new relationship,’ said Sophie. ‘A Hungarian chef.’
‘Oh really? I hope he can keep up. Darius will kick him out of the group otherwise.’
‘Darius doesn’t have the right to kick anyone out. We haven’t appointed him as our dictator.’
Nick laughed. ‘Trying telling him that. Darius does whatever he wants.’
The group were moving off, with Darius at the head. He turned to beam at his followers, flashing startling white teeth, which seemed to catch the sunlight. His wife, Elsa Roth, was close by as usual, but walking slightly behind him, fitting into his shadow, like a small boat catching the slipstream of a much larger vessel. She was dark and very pretty, with masses of wavy black hair tucked under the brim of her hat. She rarely smiled at anyone else. But when Elsa looked at Darius, Sophie saw something special, an expression beyond mere admiration.
Even Elsa’s choice of a burgundy monogrammed Gucci windbreaker seemed to say something about her relationship with Darius next to his Dubarry shooting jacket with a long royal-blue lambswool scarf tossed casually round his neck. Sophie estimated they were wearing the best part of fifteen hundred pounds between them just in their coats. Elsa’s Harris tweed Tilley hat alone had probably cost more than Sophie’s entire outfit.
A burst of laughter came from Theo and Duncan Gould. They looked almost like twins, though Sophie knew there were about five years between them in age. They had the same receding hairlines, similar greying beards and ancient Barbour waxed jackets. They were the only members of the g
roup who wore gaiters, with elasticated ankles and stirrup straps that passed under the soles of their walking boots. They looked like experienced hikers, which was more than some of the group did. And the brothers never split up, but walked shoulder to shoulder, bulky shapes tramping steadily onwards.
The Goulds ran a plant nursery in Chinley and did a bit of landscape-gardening work. Sophie gathered that neither of them had ever married. She wondered what they talked about to each other as they walked, and what had made them both laugh out loud just now. If she could get closer, she might try to listen in.
The group turned left out of the car park onto Kinder Road and passed the hamlet of Booth, with its ancient sheep wash on the River Kinder.
As they made their way up the road, Faith Matthew slipped in alongside Sophie and Nick in her bright red Berghaus and red woollen hat. Nick fell silent as she approached and it was left to Sophie to make small talk as usual. She found it awkward. Suddenly, she didn’t really know what to say.
‘Here we are again,’ said Faith cheerfully. ‘How have you been, Sophie?’
‘Fine.’
‘The job going well? You’re still teaching at that primary school in Buxton?’
‘Yes, I’m enjoying it.’
‘Good.’
‘You haven’t brought Greg with you this time?’ said Sophie.
Faith looked uncomfortable now.
‘Oh, Greg? No.’
‘He’s still, you know . . . in the picture?’
‘Well, he’s around,’ said Faith vaguely.
Sophie nodded, trying to watch Faith’s expression as she turned away to look up at the hills. She was aware of Nick stomping along silently beside her. He’d put a bit of distance between them, as if he wanted no part of the conversation. He hadn’t spoken to Faith, and she hadn’t uttered a word to him either.
‘I hope there’s nothing wrong,’ said Sophie.
‘No,’ said Faith. ‘Everything’s fine.’
Then abruptly Faith dropped back to talk to the Warburtons. They were just a few yards behind. Sophie could hear their hiking poles tap-tapping on the road surface.
Sophie caught up with Nick and touched his arm.
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