‘Sorry,’ he said.
Villiers looked even more puzzled. Murfin straightened his tie again, just for something to do with his hands, and headed out of the door.
The Roths lived just outside Hayfield, deep in a network of lanes that no one but walkers would discover. Ben Cooper and Carol Villiers passed a small hamlet halfway up Valley Road. Beyond it, the road became even narrower, bounded by a stone wall and overhung with dense trees. One property seemed to be accessible only by a footbridge over the river.
Up ahead lay a pedestrian access to the campsite where Sam and Pat Warburton had stayed. But just before a terraced row of houses, Cooper turned the Toyota onto a track and headed away from the river. A neat sign at the bottom of the track indicated that he was approaching Trespass Lodge.
After a few bends, the house came into view among the trees. From this viewpoint, it seemed enormous — a long Georgian frontage with perfectly symmetrical mullioned windows and a stone portico at the front door. An extra wing had been added at some time, tastefully designed by some previous Victorian owner. Cooper wondered what the house had been called back then. The Victorians had no idea of the Mass Trespass, and would never have approved. It was only after the First World War that the working class started to get bolshie.
Imitation gas lamps lined the drive near the house. A water feature resembling a miniature version of the Emperor Fountain at Chatsworth House stood in the middle of a neat swathe of grass, alongside a large pond that had ambitions to be a lake, with a patch of rushes but no bird life. Beyond it was a stable block and paddock, but Cooper could see no sign of horses. A range of garages looked much better used, and other outbuildings had been converted and modernised, perhaps as guest accommodation or for holiday lets.
A pair of French bulldogs scampered about on the lawn. They turned their snub noses and bat ears towards him as he approached. He could imagine what his brother would say about dogs like this. For Matt, working dogs were the only kind that mattered. These Frenchies he would dismiss as fashion accessories.
Cooper parked on the gravel and Villiers rang the bell. Elsa Roth answered the door herself. She was slim and dark-haired with bright eyes that assessed Cooper and Villiers instantly.
‘Yes, please come in,’ she said. ‘Darius is expecting you.’
They were led into a large hallway through the porticoed entrance, which seemed out of keeping with the age and style of the house. The huge sitting room had black sofas with black cushions round a wood-burning stove and a massive flat-screen TV. Through a stable-type door the kitchen boasted a four-oven Aga and a long pine table beneath exposed beams. When Roth opened another door, Cooper got the distinctive whiff of chlorine. An indoor swimming pool somewhere.
‘We’d like to talk to you too, Mrs Roth,’ he said.
‘Oh, I suppose you will. Though I don’t know anything really.’
‘I take it you know about the Kinder Mass Trespass, though? Your house is named after it.’
She looked vague. ‘It’s an interest of Darius’s. Something one of his family was involved in.’
‘Do you know when it was?’
‘Oh, I’m not sure. I’m not good on historical dates.’ She laughed. ‘Before my time anyway.’
Cooper was struck by the womb-like silence of the lodge. Every house he entered had a different soundscape. The acoustics depended on the thickness of the walls, the depth of the carpet, the ratio of tiles to curtain, the size of the windows and the effectiveness of the double glazing. And the sounds changed, depending on the time of day, the atmospheric conditions, the number of people in the room.
Here, the sound was so different from the Athertons’ semi-detached in Edendale with its rustling scene suits, the voices of busy professionals, the noise of traffic in the road outside. He might as well have been in another world, a different country.
The furnishings were expensive, he could see that. The carpets were thick, the wooden floors highly polished, the Georgian plasterwork beautifully preserved. But there was something about the furniture, the choice of pictures on the walls that suggested there wasn’t the taste to go with the wealth. It was something he often noticed in stately homes. Each owner wanted to put their own mark on a property, and their tastes didn’t always fit in.
‘We were the founders of the New Trespassers,’ said Darius. ‘One of my ancestors took part in the original Kinder Trespass in 1932.’
‘That must have been — what, your grandfather?’
‘Yes, his name was Daniel Roth. He was only a young man at the time of the trespass. Just eighteen years old, I believe. But he was a man of strong principles, like a lot of his friends. He stood up for what he believed in, and he became a martyr. I think those are the sort of people we should be remembering, don’t you?’
Roth pushed a lock of his wavy blond hair back into place. He was reclining in an armchair, his long legs stretched out on a Wilton rug. His most prominent facial feature was his nose, which Cooper thought was the type referred to as aquiline. It made him think of Roman emperors and Egyptian pharaohs, someone noble and aristocratic.
‘Most of the group came from Manchester, didn’t they?’ said Cooper.
‘Yes, they were mostly young working-class men,’ said Roth with a pleased smile. ‘My grandfather Daniel worked in a railway yard in Gorton. They made steam locomotives. When the weather was good, they could see the upper slopes of Kinder Scout from where they lived. It must have looked like a promised land from the back streets of Gorton.’
Cooper was examining the elegant surroundings. A lot of money had been invested here.
‘You’re in the property business, I believe?’ he said.
‘For my sins, yes. Property development. We have a substantial portfolio of properties in Greater Manchester and right across the North-West.’
‘Has that always been your family concern?’
‘Not at all. We used to be in textiles,’ said Roth. ‘We got out of that business in my father’s day. It was one of the best things I persuaded him to do. No one can compete with the Chinese these days. Property is a different matter.’
‘Is your father still alive?’
‘Sadly, no. We lost him ten years ago. A heart attack. He was only seventy, but he pushed himself very hard all his life. You have to do that if you’re going to make a success in business. So we inherited control of the business from Dad when he died.’
Cooper doubted whether Darius pushed himself so hard that he’d end up in an early grave. He treated himself too well, perhaps enjoyed the trappings of wealth without feeling the compulsion to add to it in the way his forebears had. It was often the case when money was inherited. It all came too easy. And it could disappear just as readily.
But there was only one aspect of his family history that Darius Roth really wanted to talk about.
‘I’ve got an archive of everything published about the Mass Trespass,’ he said. ‘All the newspaper cuttings, everything. I employed a researcher to do a proper job for me. Look, there’s a framed photograph over the fireplace. My grandfather is the one in the middle.’
Cooper dutifully studied the photograph. And there they were — five of those laughing young men with the Brylcreemed hair, the tweed jackets and shorts. They all carried heavy-looking backpacks as they linked arms ready for the expedition onto the forbidden territory of Kinder Scout.
‘They called it rambling in those days,’ said Darius. ‘It sounds a bit too aimless for us now, doesn’t it? As if there’s no real purpose or destination to it. We can’t stand that idea in the twenty-first century. So most of us call ourselves walkers. The more serious ones are hikers.’