As they made their way up the road, Faith Matthew slipped in alongside Sophie and Nick in her bright red Berghaus and red woollen hat. Nick fell silent as she approached and it was left to Sophie to make small talk as usual. She found it awkward. Suddenly, she didn’t really know what to say.
‘Here we are again,’ said Faith cheerfully. ‘How have you been, Sophie?’
‘Fine.’
‘The job going well? You’re still teaching at that primary school in Buxton?’
‘Yes, I’m enjoying it.’
‘Good.’
‘You haven’t brought Greg with you this time?’ said Sophie.
Faith looked uncomfortable now.
‘Oh, Greg? No.’
‘He’s still, you know... in the picture?’
‘Well, he’s around,’ said Faith vaguely.
Sophie nodded, trying to watch Faith’s expression as she turned away to look up at the hills. She was aware of Nick stomping along silently beside her. He’d put a bit of distance between them, as if he wanted no part of the conversation. He hadn’t spoken to Faith, and she hadn’t uttered a word to him either.
‘I hope there’s nothing wrong,’ said Sophie.
‘No,’ said Faith. ‘Everything’s fine.’
Then abruptly Faith dropped back to talk to the Warburtons. They were just a few yards behind. Sophie could hear their hiking poles tap-tapping on the road surface.
Sophie caught up with Nick and touched his arm.
‘What?’ he said.
‘You don’t like her, do you?’
‘Who?’
‘Faith, of course.’
He shrugged. ‘I suppose she’s OK. She’s one of the group, isn’t she?’
‘I wouldn’t have thought so, the way you reacted to her.’
‘I’m just not interested in gossip about someone’s boyfriend,’ he said, a bit too tetchily.
‘All right, all right. But there’s one funny thing, Nick.’
‘What?’
‘I haven’t seen Faith since last year, and I only started working at St Anselm’s this term. How did she know I was teaching there?’
‘No idea.’
They walked on in silence. The path entered water-company property before diverting at a second set of gates onto a steep cobbled track that led up onto White Brow. Below, Sophie could see the old water-treatment plant, which had been abandoned years ago. The building was extensive and had glass skylights running along its roofs. But it was rapidly falling into dilapidation, and many of the panes of glass were smashed.
Beyond the dam, they walked along the edge of Kinder Reservoir, crossing a couple of streams. The dark slopes of Kinder itself loomed across the water. At one point, they reached a muddy section, where they had to divert and go round a gnarled hawthorn tree leaning almost horizontally towards the path. Darius sat astride a branch as if riding a horse and grinned at the rest of the group.
‘Take a photo,’ he said.
Elsa obliged him, as she always did.
Past the furthest arm of the reservoir, Sophie looked up at the mottled slopes of Kinder, with patches of purple heather still clinging to their flowers. She could already see low cloud sitting on Ashop Head, like steam rising from a giant cowpat.
They could have worked their way up William Clough and crossed the rocky stream, but instead they veered off to the right and began to climb a steep, muddy path up towards the summit of Sandy Heys.
The group paused just below the ridge for a breather, and to enjoy the spectacular view over the reservoir towards Chinley Head and the hills on the Cheshire border, with the lower slopes of Kinder a series of green humps below them until the darker woodland encroached. The High Peak looked bright and peaceful from here, with shafts of sunlight breaking through the cloud to bathe the landscape.
Sophie turned back to the hill. Over the next rise, wisps of cloud swirled as if waiting for their arrival.
‘All right,’ called Darius. ‘Let’s keep going, folks.’
Without a word, they stood up, adjusted their rucksacks and began to climb again. Within a few yards they were out of the sunlight. The rocks at the top of the slope were wet, the clumps of tussocky grass sodden underfoot.
Striated lumps of stone lay along the edge of the plateau like unearthed graves, battered into eroded slabs. Deeper in, the outcrops had become gnarled and twisted into menacing shapes, protrusions bulging like eyes, sharp slivers of rock reaching towards the path like the beaks of prehistoric birds. Even in daylight, Kinder was populated by monsters. In the complete darkness of a High Peak night, primitive superstitions must have run riot here.
Sophie felt uneasy. Her instincts told her hundreds of eyes were watching her from among those scattered stones.
3
Diane Fry had barely exchanged a word with Ben Cooper since the last time they’d met. Now, he saw her standing in the Athertons’ kitchen. Even in the unflattering scene suit and hood, he recognised the angle of her head and stiffness of her shoulders.
Cooper watched her for a moment from the doorway. He was expecting an announcement at any time about her promotion to DI in Major Crime at the East Midlands Special Operations Unit, but it hadn’t come yet. They would be back at the same rank again, the way they were when they first met as DCs in Edendale after Fry transferred from the West Midlands.
He wanted to ask someone about the promotion, but there was no one he felt able to approach. It didn’t seem appropriate, though curiosity was consuming him.
But something was going to happen. Cooper could feel it in the air, sense it in that unacknowledged network of signals that constantly flowed through a large organisation like the police force. You grew attuned to their sound after a while in the job. The change in tone of emails on a particular subject, the sudden absence of someone’s name on the list of recipients or the warnings to watch out for some kind of professional misconduct that he’d never even thought of but that someone, somewhere in the organisation must have committed.
And then there were the ominous mutterings about spending reviews, which always led to doom-laden speculation about whose budget would be cut next. Sometimes the tone could be unintentionally disturbing. A flow of vague information created a hotbed for rumour.
Of course, it was possible that Fry wouldn’t get the DI vacancy at EMSOU even if she was promoted. Like Cooper himself, she was still employed by Derbyshire Constabulary and was only on assignment to the regional unit. She could be redeployed to anywhere in the county, even back into uniform or to a desk job at Ripley.
That thought made Cooper laugh. The image of Diane Fry sitting at a desk in an office at headquarters sending out memos and chairing meetings was just too incongruous.
Just at that moment, Fry turned and saw him. Her eyes narrowed.
‘What are you smiling at?’ she said.
‘Good to see you too.’
Her expression didn’t change. ‘I’m busy here, as you can see.’
‘I know. I came to ask if you needed any assistance. Your colleagues from EMSOU seem to have left you on your own.’
‘I can manage, thank you.’
She made it sound as if he’d insulted her. Cooper shrugged inside his scene suit. Fry had always been stubborn and independent. But a refusal to accept help when it was offered seemed to Cooper like a weakness, not a strength.
‘I don’t doubt it, Diane.’
Fry suddenly softened under his gaze.
‘So how are you?’ she said.
Well, that was almost human. She’d apparently remembered how to greet people she knew.
‘I’m fine, thanks. Busy, as always. What about you? Anything new?’
‘Not really.’
Cooper moved closer to where she was standing. The sleeves of their scene suits rustled against each other, a papery whisper in the silence of the Athertons’ kitchen.