The Murder Road: A Cooper & Fry Mystery Read online

  He certainly ought to have been there the night she needed him. She could have just banged on the wall and he would have gone straight round. But Mrs Shelley’s stroke had been a serious one. She’d looked more than just frail as she lay in her bed in the intensive care unit. She looked so thin that her fragile bones protruded from the sunken skin on her shoulders. One stroke was followed by another and the last one was fatal.

  It was shocking how much that had changed things. Even when she was living next door, he’d hardly been aware of Dorothy Shelley’s presence most of the time. But when she was dead, it made all the difference. From that moment, living at number eight no longer seemed the same. Death had crept a little bit too close to his walls, reminding him once again that there was no escape.

  Thomson had moved into one of the bedrooms and was waiting for him with an impatient cough, while Cooper made a pretence of studying the walls, tapping the plaster with his knuckles. He’d never liked this man. He’d never had any interest in his aunt until she was dying. The prospect of inheriting her two properties in Welbeck Street had brought him to her hospital bed. If Cooper didn’t buy one of these houses himself, he had no doubt they would be sold off to the first property developer who came along.

  He could afford the house now – or at least, he could afford the monthly mortgage repayments. What he hadn’t decided was whether he wanted to stay in Edendale. On the one hand, it was a great place to live and work. But did he really want to continue living in Welbeck Street, with all the memories and living in these walls? It was a question he kept asking himself. And he still didn’t know the answer.

  Cooper took a surreptitious glance at his watch as Guy Thomson continued his sales pitch. He had plans for this evening. And tomorrow was Tuesday, the start of a new working week after his rest day.

  He wondered what would be waiting for him in his office at Edendale CID. Whatever it was, it would involve blood. There would always be blood. It was one of the facts of his life.

  3

  The noise was Mac Kelsey’s first warning. It was like the scrape of claws against metal, a screech echoing inside his cab, loud enough to set his teeth on edge.

  Kelsey could see the road was already too narrow. The undergrowth on the banking reached out onto the road and made it seem even tighter, branches scratching their way along the curtain sides of his DAF, leaves slapping his windscreen, the thump of what sounded like a stone but was probably just a conker from one of the chestnut trees.

  It wasn’t the first time Mac Kelsey had been lost when he was delivering for Windmill Feed Solutions. Even with a satnav, he often seemed to find himself straying off the route into some unmarked back road. In fact, today it was because of the blasted satnav.

  That last turning had been wrong, he was sure of it. He’d known it as soon he squeezed the truck into a narrow gap between two dry-stone walls. In parts this lane was barely wider than single track. He hadn’t met any cars coming the other way yet – but if he did, they’d have to back up to a gateway to let him pass.

  So Mac wasn’t happy. He was running late with a delivery already and he had no idea where this road would bring him out. He jabbed at the screen angrily for an alternative route. The smug voice told him: ‘Perform a u-turn as soon as possible’. He gazed at the walls closing in on either side of the cab. Some chance of a u-turn. This was the last time he was going to follow instructions without question. Definitely the last time he was going to get lost in the Peak District.

  He could only hope that when he reached his destination, there’d be plenty of room to turn the truck. If he ever did reach his destination. But these little hill farms were notorious for their difficult access. They were built on steep slopes and had narrow entrances, usually on a blind bend. They were designed for use by horse-drawn carts. The twenty-first century hadn’t reached some of these places yet.

  Kelsey checked his delivery docket. Bankside Farm. He’d delivered to places called Bankside Farm before. The name told you everything you needed to know about them.

  He stamped his foot on the hydraulic brake. Where had all these sheep come from? There was no sign of a farmer, or shepherd, or whoever was supposed to look after these things. And there were hundreds of them, milling about aimlessly, not going anywhere in particular, just standing there blocking the road from wall to wall, bleating their silly heads off. Mac revved the engine, hoping the sudden noise would scare them off.

  ‘Roast lamb for dinner tonight, then?’ he yelled through the windscreen.

  But the sheep just rolled their eyes and gaped at him. They didn’t care. He could see they couldn’t give a damn. He’d heard that sheep had a suicidal instinct, and this lot were practising to be roadkill. If he ran over a few of them, the others would probably just stand and wait for their turn to go under the wheels.

  ‘Blasted woolly buggers! Get out of the way!’

  The light seemed to have gone from the valley suddenly. Kelsey leaned forward on his steering wheel and looked up at the sky. A mass of dark cloud was surging in from the west. The few patches of blue he’d been looking at previously were rapidly disappearing.

  ‘Damnation,’ he cursed under his breath. ‘Hell and damnation.’

  A mate of his who knew this area had once told him the weather was so unpredictable in the Peak District that you could get all four seasons in one day. Kelsey had thought he was exaggerating. But now, from sweating in his cab half an hour ago, he found himself shivering and squinting into the sky for the first drops of rain. A gust of wind rattled the tarpaulin sides of his truck. It was like being trapped in a tunnel, a live specimen for nature to experiment on.

  He glanced at the satnav again. This section of the route wasn’t at all clear. In fact, the screen seemed to be showing that he was on a non-existent road a few hundred yards to the north. The blasted satellite must be out of alignment or something. Either that, or the earth had shifted suddenly under his wheels and he’d driven into a parallel universe. In another minute he might emerge from a bank of supernatural mist into an impossible world, like an unsuspecting tourist in a creepy horror film.

  Kelsey had been checking his satnav when he passed the diversion sign. He’d reacted too slowly, though he was sure the arrows had pointed down this side road. He was already a couple of miles along it before he started to think it might be wrong. Too late to reverse his way out.

  He winced as he passed into darkness under the first section of a bridge. He wound down the window. But all he could hear was the slow rumble of his own engine, the chug of the diesel exhaust echoing back at him from the arched stone walls. Fumes swirled into the cab, unable to disperse in the confined space. Kelsey coughed as he slid the window shut again.

  He was down to first gear now, the transmission grumbling as he edged the truck forward. He cursed as something thumped against the chassis, a tree stump or a loose rock falling from the banking.

  His scalp was itching under his baseball cap. He was supposed to wear it all the time when he was working, because it carried the company logo on the front, that stupid windmill. But the caps were cheaply made and they didn’t let enough air to his head. Something was giving him an itch all over the back of his neck too, a painful prickling that made him shift uneasily in his seat. Perhaps he was allergic to cattle feed. Or windmills.

  Kelsey jumped as the anguished screeching echoed through his cab. It was so loud that it nearly split his ear drums. He looked up, half expecting to see a creature with red eyes and bared fangs staring through his windscreen, a monster leaping out of the mist. But instead he saw that his truck had rolled slowly under the railway tunnel. Though the arch was high enough in the middle, the frame of the truck body was scraping along the edge of the brickwork. He braked to a halt, feeling the bridge already squeezing his front wings like a giant pincer.

  ‘Double damnation.’

  So that was it. He was wedged in solid. What should he do next? Well, he ought to call the office and tell them he was stuck.
But that recent incident had got him a dressing down from the manager and the other drivers had been talking the piss out of him about it ever since. His reputation was already at rock bottom and Kelsey knew he was on the brink of losing his job. He couldn’t go through that again. Not after the last time.

  Eight years ago his whole world had almost shattered. Every time he thought about it, he felt sick with despair, terrified by a glimpse of that black pit he’d fallen into for a while. The guilt had eaten at him so badly – far worse than anything that had happened to him, the police and the courts and the newspapers, and the split with his wife. He could put some of those things behind him. But one thing he could never escape was the guilt.

  Something thumped onto his cab roof and scrabbled on the surface. An animal of some kind? Kelsey had done enough driving around remote areas of the countryside to know that there was more wildlife out here than people in towns cared to think about. He’d hit deer, badgers, foxes – and once a wallaby while he was driving over the Roaches into Staffordshire. From time to time, in the dusk, he’d glimpsed what he’d convinced himself was one of those mysterious big cats. A panther or a puma. Something that shouldn’t be lurking in the English countryside, but was definitely out there.

  Kelsey picked up his phone and gave a deep sigh. There was going be so much fuss. But he couldn’t sit under this bridge for ever, like a peak-capped troll. It was already starting to get dark and he was blocking the road. If he didn’t act now, he’d be here all night. There was nothing for it but to bite the bullet and take what was coming to him.

  But he didn’t complete the phone call, didn’t manage to call for assistance. Mac Kelsey never locked his cab doors when he was driving. He had never seen the need. But he still turned in surprise when he heard the clunk of a handle and saw the passenger door begin to open.

  Amanda Hibbert was late getting home to Shawhead that afternoon. She’d been helping out backstage at the Arts Theatre in New Mills, where the Amateur Operatic and Dramatic Society were holding a casting read-through for Blood Brothers. When rehearsals started they would continue three nights a week for six weeks. She was just realising what a commitment she’d signed up to. And she was anticipating what her husband might have to say about it when he found out.

  When her headlights picked out the tail of the truck under the bridge, she frowned with irritation. Yet another hold-up. Cloughpit Lane was so narrow that anything could block it. A branch, a rock, a badly parked car. Even, once, a dead sheep that no one wanted to touch. The last thing they needed in this area was people just stopping in the middle of the road.

  Amanda pulled up in her car a few yards short of the bridge and sounded her horn. The lorry had no lights on, which was ridiculous. Somebody could be seriously injured if they drove round the corner a bit too fast and went into the back of it. She hit her horn again, more angrily. When the driver appeared, she would give him a piece of her mind.

  But there was no sign of a driver. Was he asleep, or what? She could see the name of the company on the rear door, over one of those little forklift trucks mounted on the back. Windmill Feed Solutions. She would be phoning them to make a complaint tomorrow.

  She looked at her watch. Ian would already be jumping up and down with impatience wondering where she was. At this rate she wasn’t going to get home for a while yet, even though she lived only a few hundred yards past the bridge.

  She dialled her husband’s number and he answered almost immediately. She could hear the dog barking in the background, its claws rattling on the kitchen floor. And wasn’t that their youngest boy, Adam, shouting petulantly from somewhere in the house? Ian had probably lost control by now. She hoped he hadn’t lost his temper, either with the children or the dog.

  ‘Where the hell are you?’ he snapped.

  ‘Can you believe I’m stuck at the railway bridge?’ she said, trying to sound breezy. ‘Some idiot is blocking the road with a feed lorry.’

  ‘What, delivering to Higher Fold? Have a word with the bloody Swindells.’

  ‘No, before that,’ she said. ‘He’s just stopped in the road. No lights or anything. I haven’t a hope of getting past.’

  ‘I’ll come down there and give him a piece of my mind.’

  As so often when she talked to her husband, Amanda found her annoyance being replaced by anxiety about what he might do if she didn’t stop him. He was so easily provoked that she had to be careful what she said all the time.

  ‘Don’t do anything silly, Ian,’ she said. ‘It’s nothing for you to worry about. He must have lost his way, that’s all.’

  ‘He’ll lose his head if I get hold of him.’

  ‘You just stay there. I’m sure we’ll sort it out soon.’

  He was silent for a moment. ‘No, I’m coming down,’ he said.

  Amanda ended the call. ‘Oh, Lord,’ she said.

  Quickly, she turned off the engine of the Ka, released her seat belt and climbed out. She hesitated over whether to leave the headlights on. They would drain her battery without the engine running and Ian would be furious with her if that happened. But it was much too dark up there by the bridge.

  She had a sudden rush of unease. She’d felt reasonably secure while she was sitting in her vehicle. But now apprehension began to overwhelm her. The night was so dark, the road so quiet, the undergrowth so close as it crowded above her. There were no street lights within half a mile, so this was proper darkness. Without those headlights she would be plunged into intolerable blackness, with no idea who was waiting for her up there at the bridge.

  Perhaps she should wait for Ian to come down from the house after all. It would certainly be safer. But she didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of seeing her cowering in her car while she depended on him to sort out a problem. And it was something and nothing, really. She could deal with it herself.

  Amanda walked up to the lorry and banged on the side. She caught sight of something strange on the ground. Flakes of something green lying around her feet. It was only then that she realised the problem. The roof of the truck was stuck under the bridge. In the glare of the headlights from her car, she could just make out the marks gouged into the arch above her. The flakes were green paint that had been scraped off by the stone.

  Cloughpit Lane Bridge had a double arch. It looked as though the cab had passed through the first arch, but the body of the truck had jammed fast behind it. With a sinking heart, Amanda realised that she wasn’t going to get past this obstruction any time soon. It was going to need a very large tow truck to release the thing. And if the bridge was damaged, that would create a whole new nightmare for the residents of Shawhead.

  She felt her way along the side of the truck, cringing at the feel of the cold, damp stone on her back. She could taste the diesel exhaust fumes that the lorry must have been pumping out until the engine was switched off. She was starting to feel foolhardy now, but decided to press on rather than going back. The cab was just ahead of her, in the open section between the two arches.

  Feeling breathless with tension, she thumped on the driver’s door. But it was obvious by now that the driver wasn’t with his lorry. She tried the handle and was surprised to find that it wasn’t locked. Cautiously, Amanda peered into the cab, half expecting someone to jump out at her. But all she saw was an empty driver’s seat and a clipboard full of paperwork.

  What should she do next? Well, it would help if she knew where the driver was supposed to be delivering to. He’d probably gone on foot to warn them, so the chances were that he was either at Higher Fold Farm with the Swindells, or the Lawsons’ place further up. It was odd that he’d left the lorry unlocked, though. Surely he couldn’t have been fooled by the quietness of Shawhead into thinking there was no possibility of crime.

  She pulled herself up onto the metal step. She could see a sleeping compartment curtained off behind the seats. Anything or anyone could be behind that curtain. Nervously, she reached into the cab. It was a long stretch for her and she was
balanced precariously on the step. When she drew her hand back suddenly, she lost her balance and slipped back onto the road, twisting her ankle on the tarmac as she fell.

  Amanda Hibbert stared up at the lorry, wondering whether she’d really seen what she thought. When she lifted the clipboard, a thin red trickle of blood had run across the paper like an insect. She could still see it in her imagination, as the blood dripped slowly onto the floor of the cab.

  4

  Tuesday 10 February

  It wasn’t the sort of surprise you wanted first thing on a Tuesday morning. Or at any time, come to think of it.

  Not for the first time, Ben Cooper was driving back from Nottingham when he took the call. It was a long trip, nothing like the distance to West Street from his flat in Edendale, which he could walk in a few minutes if necessary. So he’d set off bright and early. He didn’t feel too bright when he first climbed into his new RAV4 Icon to face the traffic. But on the start of his journey he passed a sign telling him it was four miles to Gotham, which always made him smile.

  It was a cold, wet February after a cold, wet winter. Christmas had glistened, but not with snow. The New Year had come in with a downpour. Ben Cooper wondered if it was a sign of approaching middle age that he could remember winters when snow lay on the ground for weeks. Kids used to build snowmen and go sledging. They had snowball fights and never went out except in scarves and gloves. Perhaps it was just his imagination. An idealised picture of winter had implanted itself in his mind from all those Christmas cards with scenes of Victorian carol singers. Had it ever been like that really?

  He’d been told by a counsellor that it could be one of the symptoms of a post-traumatic condition, the inability to distinguish clearly between real memories and imagined ones. It could make it difficult to recall exactly what happened during the incident that had caused the trauma in the first place.