The site stood in a bleak spot off the Buxton to Leek road, at a point where it crossed Axe Edge Moor. This was the highest stretch of moorland close to the border between Derbyshire and Staffordshire. Many of the Peak District’s major rivers rose on Axe Edge Moor and the source of the River Dove itself was only a few hundred yards away in a patch of marshy ground near Dovehead Farm, just on the Staffordshire side of the border.
After he’d parked the car Cooper found Brendan Kilner at the end of a small stand for spectators. He was clutching a hot dog in a paper napkin from the stall behind him. The scent of fried onions mingled with a powerful smell of exhaust fumes, despite a strong breeze blowing across the moor.
Kilner gestured with the hot dog.
‘Do you want one?’ he asked by way of greeting.
‘Not at the moment, thanks.’
‘Suit yourself.’
He hardly looked at Cooper, but kept his eyes fixed on the circuit, where nothing much seemed to be happening. He’d put on weight since Cooper saw him last. Too many hot dogs and burgers, perhaps. But then, he’d always been a man whose idea of exercise was leaning into an engine compartment with a spanner.
‘Sorry to drag you here,’ said Kilner. ‘This is almost the last meeting of the season. I couldn’t miss it.’
‘There’s no racing in the winter?’
‘No. It gets a bit wild up here, like.’
‘I can imagine.’
Now he was standing still, that wind blowing across the landscape from Axe Edge Moor certainly felt a bit icy. Cooper looked around at the groups of people standing nearby.
‘Can we walk round the other side of the track for a while?’
Kilner wiped his fingers as he swallowed the last piece of hot dog.
‘If you like.’
The circuit consisted of a tarmac oval around a central refuge where a few official vehicles were parked, including a tractor and a paramedic’s car. There were already some disabled racing cars lined up awaiting retrieval after the meeting was over. The circuit ran in front of the stand and past spectators who were parked at the trackside, protected by a black-and-white barrier and a high mesh safety fence. The landscape behind the raceway looked even more bare and rugged. In the background Cooper could see the distinctive jut of a rock face. He recognised it as a feature standing between the site of the Health and Safety Executive’s laboratories at Harpur Hill and a flooded quarry once known by local people as the Blue Lagoon.
As they strolled away from the stand Cooper began to see cars and their drivers. The drivers wore racing overalls, crash helmets and fire-retardant gloves, just like the stars of Formula One. But their vehicles were a bunch of beaten-up hatchbacks. Datsun Sunnys, Ford Fiestas, Vauxhall Novas. Although really all that was left of each car was the chassis. They had been stripped down and armoured. In addition to heavy front and rear bumpers, iron cages had been welded along the sides. They were all painted in bright colour schemes.
‘These are 1300cc saloon stocks,’ said Kilner as a series of cars began to move out on to the track.
A man wearing goggles and ear protectors stood on a white breeze-block podium with a set of flags. About fifteen cars began to move round the circuit, slowly at first as if they were merely in a procession. Then there must have been a signal that Cooper didn’t see, because engines roared simultaneously as drivers accelerated towards the starting flag, jostling for position in the first straight.
‘I heard you were in the fire up at the old Light House,’ said Kilner. ‘It was in all the papers and everything. That was a bad business.’
‘Yes.’
Cooper would have been amazed if Kilner didn’t know all about it. Everyone else in the area did.
Kilner was watching the cars thoughtfully. ‘I suppose you don’t want to talk about it.’
‘Not to you, Brendan, anyway.’
‘Fair comment. I can’t blame you for that. Put things behind you, get on with life. That’s the motto, like.’
On the track a car spun three hundred and sixty degrees, but the driver recovered and kept going, trying to regain ground. Ahead of him another collided with the barrier, bounced and came to a halt. A blue-and-yellow car seemed to be in the lead all the way, so far as Cooper could tell.
‘There’s not the sort of excitement you get in some types of racing,’ said Kilner. ‘Super bangers or hot rods. You can pretty much predict who’s going to come in first. But it’s the spectacle, you know. The noise, the smell, the whole thing. It’s like a drug, I suppose.’
Cooper had never been much of a petrol head himself. But his brother Matt would probably have enjoyed himself here. He was forever tinkering with one of his tractors back at Bridge End Farm. For years Matt’s pride and joy had been a vintage Massey Ferguson that never did any work around the farm, but turned out a couple of times a year for a tractor rally and trundled around the roads with scores of others. The Massey had soaked up too much cash, though, which the farm couldn’t afford, and it had been sold off.
With a glance around to make sure no one was near them, Cooper showed Kilner an edited version of the list that Villiers had produced for him.
‘Recognise some of these names, Brendan?’ he said.
Kilner fiddled in his pockets until he found a pair of reading glasses. Old age was creeping up on him too.
‘Of course,’ he said. ‘All of them, I think. You probably guessed that or you wouldn’t be here.’
‘Apart from Bowden, can you suggest anything they all have in common?’
As the stock cars came past their position again, the noise of the engines was deafening. Cooper missed something that Brendan Kilner was saying.
‘What?’
‘I said, “They’ve all got an axe to grind.” But then, haven’t we all these days? Even the cops, I bet.’
Kilner laughed and Cooper got the whiff of fried onions again, but at second hand.
‘So what axes do the Nadens and Jason Shaw have to grind?’ he asked.
Kilner shrugged. ‘It’s all about family. Ancient history if you ask me. But that stuff means a lot to some people, doesn’t it? Me, I can never bring myself to visit the place where my mum and dad were buried. Come to think of it, we didn’t actually bury my dad — we burned him, then scattered him.’
‘What are you talking about, Brendan?’ asked Cooper.
‘The graveyard, of course.’
‘Graveyard?’
Kilner turned to look at him. ‘What, you don’t know about the graveyard? Where have you been these past few months?’
A stock car was nudged and went into a spin, stopping against the fence. It was unable to get back on the circuit, and the others came round and passed it again before track officials stopped them with a series of orange flags. The drivers waited patiently on the circuit while a tractor dragged the damaged car clear. It seemed a surprisingly civilised process — not really what he’d expected from the battered condition of most of the vehicles. They were like battle-scarred chariots under their heavy armour.
‘Can you be more specific?’ asked Cooper.
Kilner put a hand on his arm without taking his eyes off the circuit. ‘I shouldn’t say any more. You just go and look at the graveyard. You’ll see for yourself easily enough.’
The flag man was counting down the remaining laps now as cars approached his podium. Then suddenly they were into the last lap and the blue-and-yellow car was still out in front. A car kicked up a cloud of dirt as it hit the edge of the central refuge and stalled.
Then the chequered flag came down and there was just time for the winner to do a victory lap in the back of an official car before preparations got under way for the next race. Brendan Kilner cheered and clapped with the rest of the crowd.
‘Who won?’ asked Cooper.
Kilner laughed. ‘The same guy who always wins,’ he said.
Scott Heywood swung his bike off a bend in the road above Pilsbury and coasted along the path towards the site of the castle.