Ben Cooper and Diane Fry 11 - The Devil’s Edge

by Stephen Booth

  ‘Did that strike you as odd, Mr Gamble?’

  ‘Odd? I …’

  ‘Because according to your initial statement, it was when you saw the light on in the kitchen that you decided to go and investigate.’

  ‘Well, there wasn’t usually …’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Er … yes, it struck me as odd.’

  Gamble had developed a stubborn expression, his thick eyebrows bunched together.

  ‘Let’s be honest,’ said Cooper. ‘You’d watched the Barrons’ house at that time of night before. You knew what their habits were.’

  ‘I don’t know why I thought it was odd,’ he said sullenly. ‘I just heard the noise and saw the light, and I thought I ought to see what was going on. I was being neighbourly. Concerned.’

  ‘Concerned. Of course. And was that also why you ran to Riddings Lodge before you called the emergency services? You were concerned for Mr Edson’s welfare?’

  ‘Signal,’ blurted out Gamble.

  ‘What?’

  ‘I couldn’t get a signal on my mobile phone. You know what it’s like in these places.’

  ‘Ye-es.’

  It was true that this landscape made it difficult to receive a signal from a mobile phone mast. That high wall of rock to the east would block any mast located on the Sheffield side of Riddings. There was an area up on the Snake Pass that for years had possessed neither mobile phone reception nor coverage for the police radio network. For a long time it was a spot where you would want to avoid having an accident or emergency. The only way to get assistance was to leave the scene. In that case, the national park authority had finally given planning permission for a radio antenna on an existing pole, with an equipment chamber underground to reduce the impact on the environment. It was perfectly possible that Mr Gamble had been obliged to leave the scene of the Barrons’ assault to make his call.

  Gamble had noticed Villiers trying to edge closer to the doorway to see inside the shed, and he stepped smartly in her way.

  ‘What network are you with, sir?’ asked Cooper.

  ‘O2. You can check.’

  ‘I know.’

  It bothered Cooper that the answer about the mobile phone signal had come so quickly. It was as if Gamble had been expecting the question for days, and the reply had been bottled up inside him, under so much pressure that it burst out of its own accord when the button was pressed.

  He couldn’t help the feeling that he should have asked this question before. Yet how could he, when he didn’t know Gamble had gone to Riddings Lodge until he got that information from Russell Edson?

  ‘Mr Gamble, why didn’t you tell the first police officers you spoke to that you went to Riddings Lodge before you made the emergency call?’

  ‘It didn’t seem, well … relevant.’

  Cooper heaved a sigh. ‘Also, I need to ask you again whether you saw anyone else around Curbar Lane at that time? Please think carefully. This is very important.’

  Gamble considered for a moment, glancing at his wife out of the corner of his eye, fingering the brim of his hat.

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I saw the Chadwicks. You know, the people from over there, at Nether Croft.’

  ‘The Cottage,’ said Cooper.

  ‘That’s what they call it now. It was always Nether Croft to me. But I saw them, the Chadwicks. They were walking up The Hill, just as it was getting dark.’

  ‘They were going to watch the meteor shower,’ said Cooper.

  ‘Oh?’ He sniffed. ‘Aye, well, if they say so, I suppose.’

  ‘Anyone else?’

  Gamble lowered his head and fixed Cooper with a keen gaze from under his eyebrows.

  ‘Yes, the Hollands. I don’t know where they had been until that time. You should ask them, I reckon.’

  Gamble moved slightly, and Cooper noticed a digital camera on the table in his shed. Not a cheap pocket camera, but quite a decent SLR model.

  ‘Are you interested in photography, Mr Gamble?’ he asked.

  ‘Oh, just in an amateur way.’

  Cooper wished he could get a look at what was on the camera. But he didn’t have any justification at the moment.

  ‘You’ll be around, sir, if we need you again?’

  ‘I’m always around,’ said Gamble.

  As they left Chapel Close, Cooper’s phone buzzed. It was a text from Liz.

  Hiya. forgot to ask u last nite, what did matt mean abt not marrying Sept or Nov?

  He looked at the screen for a while, knew he couldn’t possibly explain it in a text message, and finally typed:

  Will explain tonite.

  It was funny, but he’d rather assumed that Liz had understood what his brother had meant, why nothing like a wedding could be planned for those months. Anniversaries had always been important in the Cooper family. Their mother had died in September, their father in November. The anniversaries of their deaths were always marked by a visit to their graves in Edendale cemetery. It was a tradition that neither he nor Matt would ever want to be the one to break.

  The memory of his mother’s death was still too clear in his mind. He had been the only one there at her bedside in the hospital, after her fall. He remembered waiting outside among the trees, while Matt and their sister Claire sat with their mother, watching the fading light as the day came to an end. He’d spent the previous few days talking to people about the death of their loved ones, encountering all kinds of ways of dealing with death, and accepting it. He hadn’t been sure how he would react himself, what other people would expect of him. He became terrified that when the reality of dying came close enough to touch him personally, his mind would go into denial. How could he face the physical truth? The slow process that began with the final breath. Surely, when the moment came, it would be too much to cope with. He’d be frozen with fear, unable to express a thought or emotion in case it burst a barrier that held back the demons.

  And then the moment had come when he’d found himself holding his mother’s hand as she slept, and realised that she wasn’t asleep, but dead. Her fingers felt limp and cold. Her stillness was beyond sleep.

  He’d expected to go through all kinds of emotions, but none of them seemed to come. There was only a spreading numbness, an emptiness waiting for something to fill it.

  He remembered walking down the corridor to the nurses’ station. A young nurse in a blue uniform looked up at him, and smiled.

  ‘Yes, sir? Is there anything I can do for you?’

  ‘It’s my mother,’ he’d said. ‘I think she’s dead.’

  And that had been it. Now he would never be able to tell her about his engagement. The two things she’d hoped for, his promotion and his marriage, had both evaded her in life.

  ‘The Hollands,’ said Villiers. ‘I guess that’s where we’re going next.’

  Cooper jerked, drawn back into the here and now by her voice.

  ‘Fourways,’ he said. ‘Right on the corner of Curbar Lane, and next door to the Barrons. He’s a retired lawyer. They seem pretty harmless, but …’

  ‘You never know, do you?’

  ‘Not here,’ said Cooper.

  As they entered Fourways, Cooper noticed something he hadn’t seen on his previous visit, perhaps because he’d been distracted by a phone call or a text, he couldn’t remember which. A stone feature had been constructed in the front garden, a sort of vertical rockery built from the local gritstone. It seemed to be intended to echo the view of Riddings Edge beyond the house. On top of smooth slabs someone had balanced jagged and weathered stones, apparently chosen to suggest animal shapes. Cooper gazed at it for a moment, trying to fathom its significance. He didn’t know what it meant, but he knew what it was. This was the Devil’s Edge in miniature, right here outside the Hollands’ front door.

  ‘Mrs Holland. This is my colleague, DC Villiers.’

  ‘Hello. What can we do to help?’

  ‘Just a quick question.’

  Sarah Holland looked expectant, but she was
smiling. Her expression suggested she was alert, and ready to help. Quite the opposite of Barry Gamble.

  Cooper gestured first at the rockery. He needed to satisfy his curiosity.

  ‘Who built the stone feature in your garden, Mrs Holland?’

  ‘Oh, I did,’ she said. ‘Though Martin collected most of the stones for me, on his walks.’

  ‘Mr Holland is a keen walker?’

  ‘He likes to keep fit. And walking is wonderful exercise at our age. Good for the heart, isn’t it?’

  ‘I believe so. Does he go walking on the edge?’

  He didn’t feel the need to specify which edge he meant. She must be as conscious as he was of the gritstone battlement looming over their heads.

  ‘Yes, of course. It’s a great place to walk. It’s quite flat on the top, you know – once you get up there.’

  Cooper looked at the small-scale version of the Devil’s Edge again.

  ‘Do you do your own gardening, Mrs Holland?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘It’s a big garden. Do you do all the work yourself?’

  ‘No, we have a couple of young men who come in now and then to mow the lawns, do the weeding, all the heavier work. They work at quite a lot of properties in Riddings. They’re good boys. Hard workers.’

  ‘AJS Gardening Services?’

  ‘Yes, that’s them.’

  Martin Holland came through the house to join them.

  ‘Ah, glad to see you’re still on the job,’ he said. ‘Nothing like a police presence. How can we help you?’

  ‘Where were you both on Tuesday?’ said Cooper. ‘I’m not sure I asked you before.’

  ‘Oh, we’d been out balsam bashing,’ said Mrs Holland, with a smile.

  For a moment Cooper thought he must have misheard her. ‘You’d been out …?’

  ‘Balsam bashing.’

  No, he’d definitely heard it right. And she sounded proud of it, too. So it probably wasn’t a euphemism – not for the sort of thing he was imagining, anyway. There were all kinds of quaint local customs in Derbyshire, of course. Well dressing, garland ceremonies, Shrovetide football games. But balsam bashing was not one he’d heard of before.

  ‘Himalayan balsam,’ said Mrs Holland.

  ‘Oh.’

  Now she looked disappointed in him. He’d failed some kind of test, and that didn’t happen to Cooper very often where local knowledge was concerned.

  ‘It’s an invasive species,’ she said. ‘It smothers riverside habitats, harms native plant life and erodes the riverbanks. It needs to be rooted out by late August, before its seed pods explode.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘It was on TV.’

  ‘Was it?’

  ‘Central News. That was when the schoolchildren helped to clear Calver Marshes. Everybody’s been helping along the Derwent. Cub scouts, conservation volunteers, Duke of Edinburgh Award people. Everybody.’

  ‘I must have missed it,’ said Cooper. He actually was surprised that he hadn’t known about it. Normally he would have been aware of a project like that. Living in the town was somehow disconnecting him from what was going on in the villages.

  ‘So anyway, there was a working party. We were clearing the stretch of river from Froggatt Old Bridge down past Calver Mill and around the weir. It was quite a big party of volunteers, maybe three dozen or so. We were there most of the day, from about ten o’clock in the morning. Hard work it was, too. But it’s all in the interests of the community and the local environment.’

  ‘Who else was there from Riddings?’

  ‘Well, Barry Gamble, of course. A few of the other people from Chapel Close. Old Mrs Slattery drifted by, but she didn’t stay very long. She’s not too strong, from the look of her.’

  ‘How about Mr Edson?’

  Mrs Holland sniffed. ‘You’re joking. Edson wouldn’t get his hands dirty with a job like that. He wouldn’t even think it was worth getting a speck of mud on his green wellingtons. Though I’m surprised he didn’t send the gardener down to do some work on his behalf.’

  ‘Anyone else you knew?’

  ‘I think they were mostly people from Calver or Froggatt. Plus a couple of national park rangers.’

  ‘What time did you come back?’ asked Villiers. ‘You weren’t working in the dark, I’m sure.’

  Mrs Holland laughed. ‘Oh, no. Most of us went for a drink at the Bridge Inn afterwards. It’s thirsty work, you know. And it was our last session together, so it was a kind of celebration drink. Or two.’

  ‘Or three,’ said her husband.

  ‘Well, some of us, perhaps.’ She looked at him accusingly. ‘Anyway, that meant it was dark when we came home. So it was after nine o’clock, I suppose. Possibly nearer ten.’

  ‘Is the balsam bashing finished, then?’ asked Cooper.

  ‘Until next year. Why, were you thinking of volunteering?’

  ‘I don’t think I’d have time.’

  ‘That’s what everyone says.’

  ‘I suppose they do.’

  ‘Do you know many of the residents of Riddings?’ asked Villiers.

  ‘Quite a few,’ said Holland. ‘More than most do, I’d say. We’re quite gregarious, and like to say hello when we’re passing. But you don’t get people coming together much in this village.’

  ‘That’s right,’ said his wife. ‘There’s no pub here, or anywhere else to meet. We only have the chapel, and that’s just for a few particular individuals. The annual show is about the only time you see people together.’

  ‘Oh, Riddings Show?’ asked Cooper.

  ‘Yes, it’s this Saturday, as it happens. Always on the bank holiday weekend. For some folk in this village it’s the one day of the year that they actually see each other. It’s funny, they might have spent the previous twelve months avoiding someone, but everyone goes to the show. Everyone. You have to put in an appearance.’

  ‘A question of being accepted, looking respectable?’

  ‘Not everyone is all that respectable,’ said Holland.

  ‘Yes, we do have the Russian mafia living in Riddings,’ said his wife.

  Cooper raised an eyebrow. ‘Do you?’

  ‘Mr Nowak at Lane End. You must have spoken to him.’

  ‘Yes. His family is Polish.’

  Holland shrugged. ‘Sarah rather likes the idea of having a criminal as a neighbour. As long as he’s a major drugs baron, or the head of an organised crime syndicate. Nothing petty, you know. But then he’d have to be a particularly successful criminal if he can afford to live at Lane End.’

  ‘We don’t know much about him,’ Mrs Holland admitted.

  Cooper nodded, noting that she knew enough about him to pronounce the ‘w’ in his name as a ‘v’.

  ‘You must see a few strangers around in the village,’ put in Villiers.

  ‘Of course, there are all kinds of people hanging around Riddings at times. Tourists. They walk through the village and take photos of almost anything. Sometimes I see them with their cameras pointing apparently at random, and I want to ask them what on earth there is to photograph. I mean, what? A tree? A wall?’

  Cooper nodded, thinking: Or a burglar alarm?

  ‘We’re quaint,’ said Mrs Holland. ‘That’s what it is.’

  Her husband snorted. ‘Quaint. Nonsense.’

  ‘I bet we are if you live on a council estate in Sheffield.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Cooper, as he and Villiers turned to go.

  Before they were halfway down the drive, Mrs Holland called after them.

  ‘It’ll be in the paper this week. The balsam bashing, I mean. We all had our photograph taken before we started.’

  Cooper started the car, and waited for a white van to pass on Curbar Lane, heading towards the centre of the village.

  ‘This is getting quite exciting,’ said Villiers. ‘Meteor showers, balsam bashing, gravel … I hardly know what’s going to come up next.’

  ‘Sarcasm,’ said Cooper.

  ‘N
o. Actually, I’m really starting to get into it.’

  Cooper shook his head. ‘Unfortunately, I don’t think we’re making progress quickly enough.’

  ‘Well, there should be some results coming in from forensics soon, shouldn’t there? That ought to provide some lines of inquiry. I presume there’s been a thorough forensic sweep at Valley View?’

  ‘Of course,’ said Cooper. ‘But … well, I could be wrong.’

  She looked at him curiously. ‘Are you often wrong, Ben?’

  ‘No comment.’

  ‘You’re enjoying yourself, aren’t you?’ she said. ‘Having a murder case to work on gives you a kick.’

  ‘It does,’ admitted Cooper. ‘I think a lot of officers would say that, if they were to tell the truth.’

  She nodded. ‘I always felt like that. Even when you know people around you are getting killed, the excitement of the moment carries you along. There’s nothing like it, really. It’s not something the public back home get to hear about, but I saw a lot of guys really high on the adrenalin rush of being shot at. And being able to shoot back, of course.’

  ‘In my case,’ said Cooper, ‘I think it’s the shooting back that I like. Speaking metaphorically, obviously.’

  ‘Catching the bad guys.’

  ‘Or at least making life difficult for them.’

  ‘So where to now, then?’ she said.

  ‘South Croft. Mrs Slattery, widow of Dr Slattery.’

  Cooper pulled out into Curbar Lane and turned past the horse trough into The Green, where the mobile library was parked. It was right what he’d said, that they didn’t seem to be making any progress. For some reason, a phrase that Superintendent Branagh had used was running through his head. Time isn’t on our side. Cooper’s subconscious had rephrased it and set it to the tune of the old Stones song. It seemed to change the emphasis, refine the meaning. Time is not on our side. Time is NOT on our side.

  A woman walking her dog turned to watch them go by. A few yards further on, the driver of the mobile library stared at them until they’d passed. A pair of hikers stopped abruptly on The Hill and gaped as if they were members of a travelling circus.

  Forget about surveillance. In this village, Cooper had the feeling that he was the one being watched.

  11

  Mrs Slattery was ill. She’d taken to her bed, sedated by her GP as a result of the stress she was going through. All this business in Riddings had really upset her. If the police didn’t sort it out soon, it would kill her.