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

by Stephen Booth

  ‘We’re not being much use here,’ he said.

  They retreated to the garden. Cooper found himself standing near the miniature version of the Devil’s Edge. He noticed that a stone had fallen off the top and lay shattered on the drive.

  ‘Actually, I got a letter the other day,’ said Murfin.

  ‘Oh? Good news?’

  ‘They sent me my pension statement. It was like a first draft of the inscription on my tombstone.’

  ‘Gavin, you really enjoy being miserable, don’t you?’

  ‘It’s the only pleasure I get.’

  ‘That must be why you insist on supporting the Rams, then.’

  Murfin sniffed.

  ‘Why don’t these people have guard dogs?’ he asked.

  ‘Guard dogs?’ said Cooper.

  He’d seen plenty of dogs in Riddings, but none of them looked much use for guard duty. The fashion seemed to be for geriatric golden retrievers and pampered spaniels. Not a German Shepherd or Rottweiler in sight.

  ‘It’s a good question, Gavin. I don’t know.’

  ‘Perhaps it’s too common.’

  ‘I think we’ll be more use back at the office,’ said Cooper.

  ‘What, no house-to-house, boss?’

  ‘All the information that could be got out of neighbours was collected last night. Nobody was taking any notice of what was going on at Fourways. Thanks to a bunch of drunken teenagers and Mr Barry Gamble.’

  ‘Oh, Gamble. The local vigilante nut job?’ said Murfin.

  ‘I don’t think he’s a total nut job.’

  ‘He’s a good actor, then. He gets my vote for the Oscar.’

  ‘I know what you mean. But he’s just eccentric. There used to be one in every village. But he seems particularly out of place in Riddings.’

  Murfin shoved his hands in his pockets, considering the property in front of them.

  ‘No house-to-house, then. I’m devastated. What about my hill?’

  ‘I’ll find you a mountain of paperwork to climb instead,’ said Cooper.

  ‘Oh, thanks.’

  They went back down the drive to where a long roll of crime-scene tape had been used to cordon off another gateway. Murfin paused, and looked back at Fourways.

  ‘You know what, Ben? If I lived in Riddings, I’d have my house on the market by now,’ he said. ‘Too many murders bring down the tone of an area. It really ruins the character of a place.’

  One of the SOCOs glanced round from the back of the crime-scene van as Murfin walked past. They all tended to look a bit indistinguishable in their shapeless blue scene suits, especially with their hoods up and masks on. But Cooper recognised this SOCO from her size and the way she moved. He didn’t have to wait to see her eyes over the top of her mask.

  ‘Hi.’

  ‘Hi, you.’

  ‘One day we’ll stop meeting like this.’

  They both spoke in lowered voices, conscious of the comments they would get if colleagues saw them chatting at a crime scene.

  ‘So, where were you?’ asked Liz.

  ‘When?’

  ‘Last night. You said you were going to explain something. But I never even saw you. Never heard a peep from you all evening.’

  ‘Look at this,’ said Cooper. ‘This is where I was.’

  ‘But I heard you were already in the area when it happened.’

  ‘Yes, I was,’ admitted Cooper.

  She came a bit closer.

  ‘Ben,’ she said, her tone switching from accusation to concern. ‘You’re not …?’

  ‘What?’ he said, suddenly afraid of what she was going to say.

  ‘You’re not getting obsessed with the case, are you? I know what you’re like. You’ll be letting it take up every minute of your time if someone doesn’t stop you. And no one will thank you for it, you know.’

  ‘I don’t think it’s like that.’

  ‘I hope not. Because I’m the one who’ll have to stop you. I need some of your time for myself.’ She lifted a case of equipment from the van and gave him a wink. ‘Besides, you definitely can’t be like that when we’re married.’

  ‘Shush.’

  ‘It’s not going to be a secret for long. We need to talk …’ She broke off as the crime-scene manager came out of the house to look for her. ‘Later.’

  Carol Villiers and the rest of the team were already at their desks in West Street, busy with phone calls, following up contacts from residents in Riddings during the night. Most of them were complaints about noise from the party, or the police helicopter frightening their horses. But they all had to be checked out.

  ‘Well I don’t know about you, but I’ve been busy,’ said Villiers. ‘All the work is done back at the office, like you said.’

  ‘Yes, it is. Sometimes I think it would be nice to have a desk job.’

  She studied him more closely. ‘Actually, you look shattered, Ben. Didn’t you get much sleep?’

  ‘No, I couldn’t get last night out of my mind.’

  ‘It wasn’t your fault.’

  ‘If I’d been able to take control of the situation, instead of letting that chaos go on …’

  ‘It wouldn’t have made any difference to Mr Holland.’

  ‘Maybe not. But we might have been pursuing the real suspects instead of letting Barry Gamble and a bunch of drunken kids lead us on a wild goose chase. Damn it.’

  ‘Well, let’s put that aside. I got the intel you wanted. And a bit more besides.’

  Luke Irvine and Becky Hurst came over and joined them, forming a tight-knit group around Cooper’s desk.

  ‘There was one thing I was thinking about,’ said Cooper. ‘Mr Nowak said they had a breakin at Lane End a while ago.’

  ‘Yes, I found the incident log.’

  ‘What was the outcome?’

  ‘Finalised at source,’ said Villiers.

  ‘Oh, great.’

  ‘Finalised at source’ was the current euphemism for a decision not to investigate a crime. A lack of evidence, low priority, a judgement that there was no prospect of a successful outcome. Whatever the reasons, the report could be signed off, provided the victim was notified of the decision within five working days and issued with a Victim of Crime leaflet. That was the Code of Practice, by the letter.

  Cooper sighed. When you did things by the book, the results could depend on which book you were using. It was hardly an unusual story, though. At the serious end of crime, money was rarely a major issue. But at the bottom end, forensic resources were considered too expensive to be justified.

  ‘They did get a visit from Victim Support,’ said Villiers.

  ‘What about Richard Nowak?’ said Cooper. ‘Any convictions?’

  ‘Nothing on him.’

  ‘Really? So much for the Russian mafia theory, then.’

  ‘Definitely a red herring,’ laughed Villiers. ‘It might almost have been intended to distract us from the real villain in Riddings.’

  Detecting a tone of significance in her voice, Cooper looked up and caught the smile on her face. A bit self-satisfied, perhaps. But right now, he was glad to see it. That smile suggested that someone had made some progress. If Carol had discovered a new lead, she was entitled to feel as pleased with herself as she wanted to be.

  ‘Come on. Spill it.’

  Villiers nodded. ‘Mr Kaye.’

  ‘Wait.’ Cooper located Kaye on the map of Riddings. ‘Tyler Kaye at Moorside House? What about him?’

  ‘He’s well known.’

  Now Cooper was interested. ‘Well known’ in this context meant only one thing – an individual with a substantial criminal record, whose name cropped up frequently in the intelligence system.

  ‘He’s a Sheffield villain,’ said Villiers. ‘And a major player, by all accounts. I’m just waiting for a return call from the Regional Intelligence Unit.’

  ‘But he’s a celebrity,’ protested Irvine. ‘He runs a string of clubs across the north of England. He puts on gigs. His company manages
some well-known bands.’

  ‘And your point is?’ said Hurst.

  ‘Okay,’ said Cooper. ‘I can see he’s likely to have some form from way back. Drugs, I suppose? Links to organised crime? It seems to go with the territory. But it’s not what we’re looking for, is it?’

  Villiers looked at him with a frown. ‘Unless the Barrons and the Hollands had both upset him at some time. It sounds as though he’s the only one who might have the right contacts.’

  That made Irvine laugh. ‘What, to put a hit on his neighbours?’

  ‘It’s not what we’re looking for,’ repeated Cooper.

  ‘Oh, do we actually know what we’re looking for?’ asked Villiers.

  ‘Well … maybe not. But I think I’ll know it when I hear it. What about the others?’

  ‘There’s nothing on the PNC – none of them has a criminal record.’

  ‘Shame.’

  ‘But …’

  ‘But? Have you found something, Carol?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Brilliant.’

  ‘It’s a county-court hearing.’

  ‘A civil case, then? Is it relevant?’

  ‘Yes, I think so.’

  Cooper felt the familiar surge of interest, sparked by the tone of her voice. ‘Which of them was involved?’

  ‘Nowak and the Barrons,’ said Villiers. ‘It was a dispute over ownership of a piece of land. The judge said it was ludicrous to drag a petty argument between neighbours into court. It must have cost them both a fortune in legal fees. The lawyers are the only winners in a case like that, aren’t they? But you know how these things go. Nobody wants to back down.’

  ‘So who won?’

  ‘Well, that’s debatable. Reading the reports, it sounds as though they both thought they’d lost the case. Neither of them really got what they wanted, you see. Not completely. The judge thought he was achieving a reasonable compromise, but neither of the parties involved seems to have been in any mood to find a middle ground.’

  ‘That’s the problem with the Judgement of Solomon. The baby tends to die in the process.’

  She nodded. ‘Well, strictly speaking, the Barrons were given the judgment. They weren’t awarded any costs, but in the letter of the law they were the successful party.’

  ‘So … Did Nowak seem to you like a man who would bear a grudge?’

  ‘I don’t know. But it certainly must have cost him a lot of money.’

  Cooper stood up, his tiredness forgotten.

  ‘Well, I think we’d better talk to Mr Nowak again,’ he said.

  ‘Ah. So now we do know what we were looking for, do we?’

  On the way back into Riddings, Cooper came to a traffic jam on Curbar Lane. A couple of uniformed officers were trying to marshal a media posse into a convenient cluster. Of course, there had been a lot of press attention ever since the Savages first started operating in the eastern edges. Yet now, with two fatal attacks in the same village, all the photographers seemed to be clustered around the gate of Moorside House, hoping for a glimpse of Tyler Kaye.

  ‘This isn’t helping at all,’ he said.

  ‘Nothing we can do about it,’ said Villiers.

  ‘We haven’t heard that Mr Kaye is back yet, have we?’

  ‘Last we heard he was still in Florida. But I’ll check.’

  ‘Thanks. I wouldn’t like to think the press knows more than we do.’

  Cooper turned into Croft Lane and slowed the car to a crawl. Many of these lanes around Riddings petered out into rough tracks that meandered upwards to the moors. Several times already in the last few days he’d had to stop where the tarmac ran out and struggled to turn the Toyota in someone’s gateway.

  He stopped at a point where he judged the back of the Hollands’ property met the Barrons’.

  ‘I won’t be a minute, Carol. I just want to take a look here.’

  He went through the back gate into the garden of Fourways. In the copse at the back of the house, he came across an area that had been left wild, perhaps to encourage wildlife. Pushing his way through the undergrowth, he came to the remains of a dry-stone wall, so overgrown and covered in moss that it was invisible until he was practically touching it. The wire fence that surrounded the Barrons’ property ran along the top of this wall too. Or at least, it had at one time. Now there was a gap. He found the broken end of the wire, and could see from the glint of the metal that it had been cut cleanly, and quite recently too.

  He turned to go back to the gate, thinking he ought to send scenes-of-crime down here. He could see that Villiers had got out of the car and was waiting for him, a puzzled look on her face. Perhaps he ought to explain himself too.

  It was then that he noticed the remains of the old gravel path under the foliage. Small granules of gravel, too small to be used on a drive where vehicles would compact it. Small enough to stick in the soles of your boots, especially if you were running.

  Cooper stopped. The hairs on the back of his neck crawled as he sensed movement in the undergrowth at the bottom of the garden. A surreptitious rustle, the faintest of sounds, almost inaudible against the sigh of the wind.

  Keeping his back to the garden, he spoke to Villiers.

  ‘Carol, I think we’re being watched. Go back round the house and out into the lane. Quietly, without any fuss. Make it look as though you’re leaving.’

  He pretended to be checking messages on his phone, while he waited a couple of minutes to give Villiers enough time to get out and round the corner into the lane. Then he turned back to the garden and strode rapidly across the grass.

  Now he saw a face in the bushes. It almost merged with the undergrowth, and bits of foliage seemed to sprout from it like whiskers. It reminded Cooper of one of those stone gargoyles you saw on old churches. A living image of the green man.

  ‘Mr Gamble?’ he said. ‘You might as well come out.’

  There was a moment of silence, then a loud sniff and more rustling in the undergrowth. Finally a figure pushed aside the branches and stepped on to the grass.

  ‘I heard something going on,’ he said. ‘So I came to have a look. You can’t be too careful. Especially at the moment. That’s right, isn’t it?’

  ‘Of course.’

  Gamble made a half-hearted attempt to brush the twigs and burrs from his jacket, apparently oblivious to the privet leaves in his hair. For a moment Cooper saw him as a kind of elemental figure, something from a children’s folk tale. A mischievous goblin or ancient woodland sprite. The boggart in the flesh. But what mischief was he up to now?

  ‘So you were just passing, were you, Mr Gamble?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Cooper nodded. ‘Again?’

  Villiers pushed her way through the bushes behind him.

  ‘Do we need the handcuffs again?’ she said, straightening her jacket.

  ‘No,’ said Cooper. ‘Not this time.’

  He turned back to Gamble. ‘You never learn, do you, sir?’

  Gamble shuffled his feet. ‘I’m not doing anything wrong.’

  ‘This is a crime scene. You shouldn’t be here.’

  ‘Oh well, I’d better be off then. So, er … what happened to the Hollands?’

  ‘I’ve no doubt you’ll find out in due course.’

  ‘Only I saw the ambulance.’

  ‘I’m sure you did.’

  ‘You don’t give much away, do you?’

  ‘No. But if you happen to stumble across any information, Mr Gamble, I’m sure you’ll come and share it with us, won’t you?’

  ‘I don’t know anything. Not a thing,’ said Gamble. ‘Shall I just …?’

  ‘DC Villiers will escort you off the property,’ said Cooper.

  ‘Fair enough.’

  ‘No – wait a minute.’

  Gamble stopped, his eyebrows waggling uncertainly.

  ‘Perhaps you can help,’ said Cooper. ‘What do you know about a dispute between Mr Nowak and the Barrons? An argument over a bit of land.’


  ‘Oh, that. Everyone knows about that. It was the boundary, you see. Just along there, on Croft Lane.’

  ‘How did it start?’

  ‘Well, when Nowak bought Lane End, there was no wall or fence there, not even a hedge to mark the boundary between the properties. There was just a grass verge bordering the lane.’ Gamble removed his hat and scratched his head. ‘It had been that way for decades, I suppose, and the previous owners had never bothered about it. But when the Barrons moved in at Valley View, they decided to lay claim to the verge. Jake Barron said he wanted to create an access into the pony paddock. Their daughters are into horses, you know. Gymkhanas and stuff. They wanted to get a trailer in without going through the main entrance and past the garage block.’

  ‘So they claimed the land they needed?’

  ‘Aye. Trouble was, there were no maps with the deeds, to show the exact line of the boundary. If you ask me, I think it might actually have been common land, dating from the time when the original village was built by the duke. I don’t suppose anyone worried about boundaries back then, being as how the whole village belonged to one person. It would just have been shared by the community.’

  ‘I see.’

  Gamble smiled ruefully. ‘Those were the days, eh? Not much community spirit now. Not between those two, anyway. Not anywhere, really.’

  ‘So they ended up in a dispute that went as far as a court hearing.’

  ‘That’s right. You know, if they’d got on better, it might have been settled amicably. But they hated each other on sight, I reckon. Nowak and Barron, they were like two bulls at a gate. They locked horns, and that was it. Neither of them was ever going to give in. Not in this life.’

  ‘And the Barrons won, in the end?’

  ‘So they say.’

  ‘Did anybody else take sides in this dispute? Any of the other neighbours?’

  ‘No. They just sat back and enjoyed the show. It was a few months ago now, of course.’

  ‘Thank you, sir.’

  Cooper realised Gamble was looking at him eagerly, as if he suddenly felt like part of the team and might be employed for his natural detection abilities. There was nothing worse than an interfering amateur who felt they’d been given some encourage ment.

  He nodded to Villiers, who took Gamble’s arm.

  ‘We know where to find you if we need to speak to you again, Mr Gamble.’