‘And Faith Matthew herself, of course.’
‘Of course.’
‘That’s a very disparate group,’ said Villiers. ‘What do you imagine members of this club have in common?’
‘Maybe the clue is in their name,’ said Cooper.
‘Well, as you know, they managed to get totally lost in the fog,’ said Irvine. ‘Then when Mr Sharpe was injured, they split up into three groups. They said they couldn’t get a phone signal to call for help, so that’s why they set off in different directions. Miss Matthew stayed with the casualty.’
Cooper frowned again. ‘Did she? Just her, on her own?’
‘It seems so.’
‘But if the injured walker was immobilised, how did she end up at Dead Woman’s Drop? She must have left him at some point.’
‘True.’
‘A couple of the walkers were suffering from a degree of shock after their experience,’ said Irvine. ‘The two youngest ones, Miss Taylor and Miss Scott.’
‘What about the injured man?’ asked Cooper.
‘Mr Sharpe is still in hospital for X-rays,’ said Irvine. ‘He has a suspected broken ankle, along with exhaustion and hypothermia.’
‘We need to talk to him as soon as possible. I don’t like a delay in being able to ask someone questions. It gives them too much time to make up a story. Carol, can you liaise with the hospital and get access to him as soon as possible?’
‘No problem.’
‘If his story is different from everyone else’s, we’ll know there’s something wrong,’ suggested Irvine.
‘Not necessarily,’ said Cooper. ‘They’ll already have talked about it between themselves. They had plenty of opportunity.’
‘You think there was some kind of conspiracy?’
‘I don’t know. It’s possible.’
‘They may be a very close-knit group,’ said Villiers, ‘no matter how disparate they appear on the surface.’
Cooper looked back towards Hayfield. The weather was completely different down in the valley, with small puffs of cloud drifting across a blue sky. As he gazed over the patchwork of fields, the sun broke through the clouds sporadically, highlighting one hillside and then another, changing the colours in the landscape as it went. It caught a white-painted farmhouse here, casting shadows from a copse of trees over there.
‘What next, Ben?’ asked Villiers.
‘I need to start by visiting the family,’ he said.
He didn’t need to specify whose family. Villiers would know perfectly well. A case like this always started with the victim.
Faith Matthew’s house was in the middle of a terraced row on Market Street, Hayfield, near the bottom of Fairy Bank Road. The street climbed northwards out of the village, with the tower of the parish church set against a background of moors across the valley.
Ben Cooper and Carol Villiers mounted a short flight of steps to reach the front door of the house. When they knocked, it was answered by a middle-aged woman with her hair dyed in grey streaks. She was still wearing an outdoor coat, as if she’d just arrived or was about to leave.
‘Mrs Matthew?’ said Cooper.
‘Yes, I’m Jennifer Matthew. You must be...’
Cooper held up his ID. ‘Detective Inspector Cooper, Edendale CID. This is Detective Constable Villiers.’
‘Come on in.’
‘I’m not holding you up?’ he asked.
‘No.’ She looked down at her coat and fingered the buttons. ‘Oh, I haven’t been here long. And it’s an odd thing, but I couldn’t take my coat off. It didn’t feel right without Faith being here. This was her house.’
‘I understand,’ said Cooper.
But he didn’t really. Why would she not feel able to take her coat off in her own daughter’s house? It wasn’t Cooper’s experience of family. When he was growing up at Bridge End, relatives walked in the back door without knocking, let alone worrying about taking their coats off, as if they were tradesmen. Mrs Matthew looked positively uncomfortable, as if she was a stranger here and had never been in Faith’s home before.
Just inside the front door, a small lobby was hung with Faith’s outdoor coats, scarves and hats. The sitting room was decorated in shades of red, with a magenta patterned rug in front of the fireplace.
‘How long has your daughter owned this house?’ asked Cooper as he followed Mrs Matthew through into the sitting room.
‘Oh, a couple of years,’ she said.
‘Did you visit her here often?’
‘Occasionally. Why do you ask that?’
‘I was wondering how well you knew some of her friends.’
‘I can’t say we knew them at all.’
Cooper listened, registering that there was no one else in the house.
‘Is Mr Matthew not here with you?’
‘Jack is in Buxton at the moment. There are lots of things to sort out, you know... at a time like this.’
‘Of course.’
At a time like this. That phrase coincided with the first crack in her exterior, a wobble of her voice. ‘A time like this’ meant the violent death of her daughter. Her reserve was very British.
‘There should be a family liaison officer on the way,’ said Villiers.
‘Oh, she’s been,’ said Mrs Matthew. ‘She’s very nice. I asked her to get me a few things, so she’s gone into the village.’
She looked vaguely around the house. What was she thinking? That the place wanted a good clean? The fridge needed emptying? Surely not that she had to start sifting through her daughter’s possessions already.
‘I just wanted to be able to make a cup of tea,’ said Mrs Matthew. ‘For people who come, you know. It seems so rude otherwise. And Faith doesn’t appear to have any fresh milk.’
‘I wouldn’t worry about it, Mrs Matthew.’
‘Well, sit down anyway,’ she said.
‘Thank you. There are some questions we need to ask you.’
‘I realise that. Though I’m not sure what Jack or I can tell you, Detective Inspector. As I said, we didn’t know Faith’s friends. And that’s who she was with, wasn’t it? Her group of “friends”.’
Cooper heard the intonation clearly. She definitely said ‘friends’ with inverted commas.
‘Your daughter mentioned the walking club to you, I suppose.’
‘Yes, she did. I can’t say I understood what it was all about myself.’
‘The Kinder Mass Trespass,’ said Cooper.
She frowned. ‘Sorry.’
‘It doesn’t matter.’
So the Matthews lived in Manchester but had no idea of the history of the movement that had started there. It was odd, in a way, that the story was remembered so clearly here in Hayfield, where local people had come out to jeer and shout insults as six ramblers were arrested by the police on Kinder Road. The commemorative plaques were here, the plans for a visitor centre. Yet Manchester people had forgotten. Or at least, some of them.
‘You must know Faith’s boyfriend, though,’ said Cooper.
‘Greg,’ she said. ‘We’ve met him.’
Cooper exchanged glances with Villiers. Mrs Matthew had a definite knack for making her feelings clear in a simple phrase without saying out loud what she meant, or even changing her expression. It was evident to Cooper that Greg Barrett was disapproved of.
‘You don’t like him,’ he said.
‘I always thought Faith could have done better for herself.’
‘I understand he has a good trade and runs his own business.’
She turned her head away so that he couldn’t see her eyes. ‘It’s not important now, is it?’