Ben Cooper and Diane Fry 11 - The Devil’s Edge Page 3

  ‘You’re right,’ said Branagh. ‘There must be houses nearby, but we can’t see them from here.’

  ‘Yes, they chose their target well.’

  ‘And that’s good news, in a way. It suggests they must have checked out the location in advance. Someone will have seen them.’

  ‘Maybe.’

  Branagh was trying to strike a note of confidence, but Hitchens sounded unconvinced. No one was mentioning the word ‘Savages’ now. Everyone knew the superintendent wouldn’t like it. She loathed the media. More than one officer had felt the strength of her disapproval after quoting something from the press. Besides, it hardly seemed necessary. Standing in this house, and with all the incidents that had happened in the last few weeks, the conclusion seemed obvious.

  ‘We keep an open mind,’ said Branagh. ‘Until the evidence points one way or the other.’

  Everyone nodded. But everyone had their own ideas.

  Hitchens nudged Cooper.

  ‘Take a look round outside, Ben. See if you can get any ideas about their approach.’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘Then we need to start talking to the neighbours. Can you get your team organised on that as soon as?’

  ‘We’re a bit thin on the ground, sir.’

  ‘You’ll get more help. I’ve got at least one more pair of hands on the way for you.’

  Cooper went back out and walked around the house. Roof trusses and window frames were stacked against a wall, presumably ready to go in the extension he could see was being built at the back. He nudged one of the timbers. They were heavy, too heavy for one person to move on their own.

  The parking area provided access to a garage block big enough for four cars at least. To the rear, a terrace led via a decked walkway to a large balcony with wrought-iron railings. Doorways led out of the house on to the balcony from the kitchen and a games room.

  It was a breathtaking position, with spectacular south-facing views across to Stoke Woods and down the Derwent Valley as far as Chatsworth.

  Across a lower deck he found himself looking into a pool room and gym. The garden sloped away to a weeping willow on the boundary. Near a dense coppice of beech trees he could see a greenhouse, a polytunnel, a pergola. Among the beeches he thought he could make out a large tree house.

  He was about to start making more phone calls when he saw with relief that his team were starting to arrive. Divisional CID would have an important part to play here. He aimed to make sure of that.

  Detective Constable Gavin Murfin was the first to plod his way up the drive, chewing ruminatively on a soft mint and wiping sweat from his forehead.

  ‘Nice gaff,’ he said. ‘They tell me it costs a fortune to buy a place like this. I might move here when I retire.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yeah, and I’ll start breeding flying pigs.’

  Of course, there were bigger and better houses than these in Derbyshire. Properties with more bedrooms, higher-specification kitchens, larger grounds and longer swimming pools. But here, location was the factor that raised the price so high. Location, location, location. The estate agent’s mantra was accurate. People were willing to pay big money for a view like this. It was why those who’d grown up here found it so difficult to afford properties in the Peak District.

  Murfin peered through the French windows into the lounge.

  ‘Look at this furniture. I bet they didn’t buy this on eBay.’

  Cooper wondered what had been stolen in the breakin. It was too early to know, even if there was anyone here who could tell them. There were no obvious signs. He’d noticed a retro-style DAB radio standing on a kitchen work surface, and an iPad lying on the table. Easy pickings for a burglar. Who could have failed to snatch up the iPad? Unless they were panicked by the violent confrontation with the householder and fled empty-handed. Or maybe they were looking for something specific. A safe, perhaps, where the Barrons kept their most valuable possessions.

  The house itself was nothing special, as far as Cooper could see. Not architecturally, anyway. It had been added to many times over the years, and had lost any character it might have possessed when it was built. Most of it was stone, but it failed even to blend in with its surroundings. The size was impressive, though. It seemed to go forever, stepping down on to a lower level and constantly revealing another extension. Guest bedrooms, a gym, a sauna. It seemed to have everything.

  ‘I wonder what the mortgage is like,’ he said. ‘It makes me shudder just to think about it.’

  Murfin grunted. ‘Don’t talk to me about mortgages. I’ve got one as big as a planet. As big as Alpha Centauri. We went for a fixed rate just at the wrong time, like. Typical.’

  ‘Alpha Centauri?’

  ‘My lad’s getting keen on astronomy.’

  ‘Your son is doing wonders for your education, Gavin.’

  ‘I have to help with his homework. Just one of my many jobs.’

  ‘Speaking of which …’

  ‘Yeah, I know. Start knocking on doors. Just call me the tally man.’

  ‘I’m not sure how many adjoining properties we’ll have.’

  ‘I can tell you,’ said Murfin.

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Did you think I’d been wasting my time until I got here? Oh ye of little faith.’

  ‘So you didn’t have time to call at that baker’s in Hollowgate?’

  ‘I was a model of restraint. No, I’ve rounded up information on the immediate neighbours. Modern technology is wonderful. Saves me a bit of leg work, anyway.’

  Who did they have to start with? The Barrons’ house was called Valley View for good reason. This whole section of Curbar Lane enjoyed views down into the valley of the Derwent. Along the lane Cooper had noticed a sign for Fourways, and he could just see the roof of another property beyond the trees.

  ‘Yes, Fourways is the nearest,’ said Murfin, consulting his notebook. ‘The people there are called Holland. On the other side we need to talk to a Mr Kaye at Moorside House, and Mr Edson at Riddings Lodge. Across the way are Mr and Mrs Chadwick. Their house is called The Cottage. Irony, I suppose. There are also two properties backing on to this one from The Hill. A Mrs Slattery at South Croft, and a family name of Nowak at Lane End.’

  ‘Nowak?’

  ‘That’s what it says here.’

  ‘Well, when Luke and Becky arrive, we can divide them between us.’

  ‘Looks like the lass is here now,’ said Murfin.

  DC Becky Hurst was just passing through the cordon, ducking to get under the tape. She was sensibly dressed in jeans and sweater, as if she’d known when she got up this morning that she was scheduled for a day in the country. Her hair was very short and a colour that Cooper would probably call coppery red. He was fairly sure it wasn’t the same colour she’d had last week.

  Hurst walked briskly up the drive with that businesslike air with which she approached every job, clutching her notebook and phone in her hand, her expression alert and eager. When she and Gavin Murfin were working together, they often looked like a young Border Collie shepherding an aged ram. Sometimes Cooper felt like calling ‘Come bye’ to get her to steer him into the right pen.

  ‘Morning, boss,’ she said brightly. ‘Has Gavin given you the information I pulled out on the neighbours?’

  Murfin coughed quietly, as if a piece of mint had gone down the wrong way.

  ‘Oh, you did that, Becky?’ said Cooper.

  ‘Of course. Gavin had to call in somewhere on the way.’

  ‘And is there anything else you’ve done for Gavin?’

  ‘Yes, I checked with the hospital on the condition of the householder, Mr Barron. They say he’s on the critical list.’

  ‘In hospital-speak, that means they don’t think he’ll make it,’ said Murfin.

  ‘Thanks, Gavin.’

  Hurst looked at the Barrons’ house for the first time, running a keen eye over the façade as if she was counting the windows and doors.

  ‘S
o it could be a double murder we’re dealing with,’ she said.

  ‘Very likely.’

  A flash of colour caught Cooper’s eye. On the edge above Riddings, two climbers were clinging to the rock face. From here, their grip on the rock looked impossibly precarious. But inch by inch, foot by foot, they were making their way up towards the edge itself. The clang of karabiners reached him clear on the air.

  The rock climbers who’d told him about Riddings Edge had mentioned that many of the routes up those gritstone faces had been given names that reflected a climber’s view of the challenges they presented. There was Torment, Hell’s Reach, Satan’s Gully, Demon Buttress. The message was pretty clear.

  Those names alone would be enough to explain why this particular escarpment had become known as the Devil’s Edge. But this summer, they weren’t the only reason.

  3

  Detective Sergeant Diane Fry was starting to feel suffocated. And it wasn’t just the heat, or the airlessness of the conference room. The suffocation went much deeper. It was a slow choking of her spirit, the draining of life from her innermost being. In a few more minutes she would be brain dead. Heart dead, soul dead, her spirit sapped, her energy levels at zero.

  And her bum was numb, too. This was purgatory.

  Fry had spent the whole morning in Nottinghamshire Police headquarters at Sherwood Lodge. At the front of the room, someone whose name badge she couldn’t read was sticking Post-it notes on a sheet of brown paper that had been Blu-Tacked to the wall. The Post-its were all the colours of the rainbow, which apparently had some significance. A few of them had already moved position several times during the session, making determined advances or strategic retreats, like military units moving around a simulated battlefield. She supposed there was some kind of overall narrative to the present ation. It might even be explained in the handout she hadn’t read. But she’d lost track half an hour ago. Now she was losing the will to live. She could feel her eyes glazing over, a well-known clinical side effect of staring too long at yellow Post-it notes.

  When the speaker turned his back for a moment to move another Post-it, she leaned towards the officer sitting next to her.

  ‘What is this kind of presentation called again?’ she whispered. ‘A Sellotape brainstorm?’

  ‘No. A brown-paper workshop.’

  ‘Of course.’

  If she remembered rightly, her neighbour was an inspector from the Leicestershire force. Mick or Rick, something like that. They’d all had to do ten-second introductions at the start of the session. Tell us who you are and what you hope to get from today. Cue a bunch of po-faced lies.

  ‘The Sellotape comes at the end,’ said Mick or Rick with a conspiratorial smile. ‘When we fix the Post-it notes in their final position.’

  ‘I’ll be on the edge of my seat by then.’

  ‘You and me both.’

  Fry sighed. She was almost starting to miss Edendale. Unlike Derbyshire Constabulary, their neighbours in Nottinghamshire had an extra assistant chief constable, whose sole responsibility was Strategic Change. And change these days meant cooperation between forces to save money. So here she was, in this conference room in Sherwood Lodge, forty miles from Derbyshire E Division and starting to feel nostalgic for the company of DC Gavin Murfin and his colleagues. She would never have thought it possible.

  She wondered idly which she would prefer right now – a nice restful spell in the private hospital she’d seen on the other side of the trees as she came down the drive, or a visit to the pub a little way back down the road.

  She caught Mick or Rick looking at her. He pointedly checked his watch, and made a gesture with his wrist suggesting the act of drinking. A soulmate, then. Or at least close enough for now.

  ‘Seven Mile Inn,’ he said.

  ‘I saw it. Just by the lights.’

  These working-group sessions were supposed to be interactive. That meant she couldn’t entirely escape joining in. At strategic moments she had found herself blurting out phrases that sounded right. Methodical workforce modernisation. Greater interoperability. She tried to say them while other people were shouting out suggestions, so that her words were swallowed in the general verbiage. The best place to hide a tree is in the forest.

  The frustrating thing was that she knew she could do this stuff. She could do it standing on her head, write the entire report for them if that was what they wanted. You didn’t get far in the modern police service without learning those skills. It was just that her heart wasn’t in it. This wasn’t how she should be spending her days, trapped in a stuffy conference room.

  And then the facilitator said the words she’d been waiting for.

  ‘Okay, people. We’ll break for lunch. Please be back promptly at two.’

  Some of the attendees had brought their own sandwiches. Packed lunches, like schoolchildren. There was a civilian, a techy type from an IT department somewhere in the region, who was drinking Coke through a straw while he listened to an iPod and scrolled through messages on his iPhone.

  You would have thought they’d supply lunch, at least. But this was the age of austerity. No such thing as a free lunch. Whoever said that had got it dead right.

  Fry wondered what the others had done wrong to be sent here. When she stood up, her body ached. Not just from the ordeal of sitting still for so long. She physically craved action.

  Somewhere in the world, something must be happening. There must be people who needed her. Mustn’t there?

  The village of Riddings had no pubs, and no shops. Not a sign of a café or a craft shop, or even a farmhouse selling fruit at the side of the road.

  Yet Cooper could see that the place still attracted tourists. Perhaps they saw some quaintness in its narrow lanes and stone houses, or enjoyed the smell of horse manure. But the people who lived here clearly had no interest in tourism. Unlike other villages in the Peak District, they made no effort to encourage visitors. They provided no facilities, not even anywhere to park a car.

  Driving through the centre of the village, he noticed a few smaller cottages standing on The Green, where a hand-written sign advertised horse manure at a pound per bag. But the only people he saw anywhere were women walking their dogs.

  The lanes really were very narrow. Where cars were left parked at the side of the road, their offside wing mirrors had been folded in to avoid getting knocked off by passing vehicles. A lesson learned from experience, he supposed.

  The property neighbouring Valley View was called Fourways. This one was probably worth barely a million. Through more black wrought-iron gates, a drive ran straight up to a double garage, and the house was below it, approached by a set of steps. It was much smaller than Valley View, maybe no more than three bedrooms. But the views alone would add a lot of value to the property.

  On the way to the front door, he passed a window and saw a woman emerging from the kitchen and walking towards a split-level dining room. Through the kitchen door, Cooper glimpsed Shaker-style units, lit by a dozen spotlights. A cream Persian cat sat in a basket by the Aga. When it saw him, it gave him a look of pure contempt.

  He thought of his own moggy back at home in his flat in Welbeck Street, a rescue from the local animal sanctuary and happy just to have a back yard to sit in when it was sunny. There were cats and cats, just like there were different people.

  When he rang the bell, the same woman answered.

  ‘Mrs Holland?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Police. I’d like to have a few words about your neighbours. Have you heard what happened?’

  ‘Oh, the Barrons, yes. Terrible.’

  Inside the house, the entrance hall was floored with slate, which Cooper had always liked the look of. Wherever it was used, it seemed to bring a bit of the natural world into a home. The feel of it underfoot was so different from synthetic flooring. He liked the way it changed colour in different light, and even the smell of it when it got wet. One day he would own a house with slate floors. One day.

>   The Hollands were a couple in their late sixties. Comfortable-looking was the expression that came into his mind. Well settled into retirement, but fit enough to be active. The husband was a bit overweight. Perhaps he ought to play more golf, and eat fewer good dinners. Compared to him, his wife was like a slender bird, forever moving here and there, steel-grey hair cut straight around her face.

  ‘I feel so sorry for the children,’ said Mrs Holland. ‘At their age, it must be terrible. At any age, I suppose. You know what I mean.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I wouldn’t wish a thing like this on anyone, no matter what I might think of them personally.’

  ‘How do you get on with the Barrons, then?’

  ‘Oh. Fine, you know. We don’t see all that much of them. It’s not as if we’re right on top of each other.’

  ‘We hear them more than see them, I suppose you’d say,’ said Mr Holland.

  His wife gave him a look, but Cooper couldn’t quite interpret the message.

  ‘The children play in their garden, of course,’ she said. ‘What children wouldn’t love to have a garden like that to play in?’

  Cooper gazed out of the window, trying to orientate himself in relation to the Barrons’ property.

  ‘Those trees there. They must be on your neighbours’ side.’

  ‘Yes, that’s right.’

  ‘I think I noticed a tree house when I was at Valley View.’

  ‘Oh, you saw it.’

  ‘The most expensive tree house ever built,’ said Mr Holland. ‘When I was a child, my dad built us one out of bits of spare timber, and we loved it. Not Jake Barron. He brought in a tree house designer. Can you believe it?’

  ‘I don’t think Sergeant Cooper wants to hear about tree houses,’ said Mrs Holland firmly.