It was a fine morning now — cold, but not raining for once. November was so unpredictable for weather. But then, every month was unpredictable in the Peak District.
He went through the gate and wheeled his bike as far as the information board, where he removed his helmet, pulled his Boardman water bottle from its cage and took a drink. In front of him was a sharp limestone outcrop with a tree growing from its furthest slope. Scott knew this wasn’t part of the castle. It had probably been incorporated into the site as a natural defensive feature.
When he’d finished his drink, he shooed a couple of grazing sheep out of the way and walked up the grassy slope until he reached the edge of the outcrop. From here he had a fantastic view over the strange mounds where the castle had been and across the valley of the Dove. He could see as far as the even stranger shapes of the hills to the north. The air was bracing and he could feel himself cooling off quickly as the sweat dried on his skin.
Then Scott looked down.
‘What the heck is that?’ he said.
One of the sheep answered him and it made him jump. A plaintive croak, like the sound of a broken gate. It echoed mournfully around the crag.
‘I think … No, it can’t be,’ said Scott.
After a moment’s hesitation he began to slither his way down the far side of the slope, clinging to a branch of the tree to prevent himself sliding all the way down on his backside. By the time he got to the bottom he could see that he wasn’t imagining things.
‘Hello!’ he called. ‘Are you okay?’
He felt embarrassed by the sound of his own voice. He knew it was futile. The person was lying much too still at the foot of the slope, folded over into an unnatural shape. He could see that it was a man. He could distinguish a broad back and a large backside, with one arm twisted on the grass and ending with a pudgy hand turned palm upwards. A sheen of moisture gleamed on the clothes and on a patch of bald scalp in a fringe of dark hair.
Scott had never seen a dead body before. But he was surprised to find that there was no mistaking one when he saw it.
22
The Reverend William Latham lived in a small bungalow on one of the newer estates on the edge of Edendale. This wasn’t quite sheltered housing for the elderly, but most of the people Cooper saw were past retirement age. They’d reached the time in their lives when they couldn’t manage a big garden and didn’t want to be coping with stairs.
He supposed it was a pleasant enough location. You could see the hills from here, and there was a bus route into town at the corner of the road. But it felt like the last stop on a journey, the sort of place you would never leave.
The Reverend Latham was cautious about visitors. When Cooper rang the bell he shuffled down the hall and called through the door to ask who it was.
‘Bill? I’m sorry to disturb you. It’s Ben Cooper again.’
Latham opened the door and peered out before lifting the security chain.
‘Can’t be too careful,’ he said.
‘Quite right.’
‘So what can I do for you? More questions about coffin roads?’
‘No,’ said Cooper. ‘A burial ground.’
‘Ah. Interesting.’
Latham invited him in, though he left Cooper to close and lock the front door, which rather undermined his caution about visitors. The old man led him down the hall into an untidy sitting room. As Cooper looked around he realised that untidy would be a kind word for this room. It looked like benevolent chaos.
Cooper was used to seeing homes occupied by drug addicts and low-end criminals. They were invariably chaotic, a mess of used needles, empty alcohol bottles, rotting food and dirty clothes. That wasn’t the case here. The disorder consisted of books and newspapers, pens and paper clips, cardboard boxes and piles of typed A4 sheets. There was a table under there somewhere and several chairs. An ancient leather sofa was occupied by two grey long-haired cats, sitting happily among the scattered papers and the remains of chewed cardboard.
‘This is Peter and Paul,’ said Latham, gesturing at the cats. ‘Say hello.’
Cooper wasn’t sure whether the old man was speaking to him or to the cats. But he said hello anyway. The cats glared at him and showed no signs of moving from the sofa to let him sit down.
‘There’s a chair here,’ said Latham, picking up a pile of multicoloured folders which slipped out of his grasp and cascaded on to the carpet. Cooper bent to pick them up, but the old man stopped him. ‘No, no, it’s all right. They’re as well filed on the floor as anywhere else, I suppose.’
Cooper removed a pair of glasses from the chair and placed them on the table. ‘Are you writing a book or something?’ he said.
‘How did you guess?’
‘Oh, I don’t know. It just looks like a writer’s room. What is the book about?’
‘It’s just a little memoir,’ said Latham, waving a hand in a self-deprecating gesture. ‘The difficulty I have is that my memory isn’t as good as it used to be. It’s requiring rather a lot of research to get the facts right. Dates and names and so on. I suppose it’s my age.’
Latham perched himself on another chair and gazed vaguely at Cooper.
‘Are you hoping to get it published?’ asked Cooper, failing to keep a faint note of incredulity from his voice.
‘I’m told it’s very easy to publish a book yourself these days,’ said Latham. ‘Modern technology has opened up all kinds of doors. There are things called ebooks now.’
‘Yes.’ Cooper eyed the piles of paper. ‘Where’s your computer?’
‘My what?’
‘You have a laptop, at least?’
Latham shook his head. ‘I do have a typewriter somewhere. I haven’t used it for a while. There was a problem getting new ribbons.’
Cooper didn’t know what else to say. If he went any further into the subject, he might end up volunteering to do the work himself. And that was beyond the call of duty.
‘I was at Bowden yesterday,’ said Cooper. ‘You know, the estate village for Knowle Abbey?’
‘Oh, the Bowden burial ground?’ said Latham. ‘Surely you know all about that?’
‘No, I don’t,’ said Cooper.
Latham raised an eyebrow at him and Cooper realised his tone had been a bit too sharp.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I don’t know anything about the burial ground.’
One of the cats stirred uneasily and dragged itself off the sofa. As it strolled out of the room, Cooper could see that it was beautifully groomed, but obese.
‘I’m afraid there’s nothing anyone can do about it,’ Latham was saying. ‘It’s all perfectly within the rules and regulations.’
‘What is?’
But now he’d set Latham off on a train of thought, the old man wasn’t going to be steered by someone else’s questions. ‘When a church or burial ground has been consecrated, it comes under the jurisdiction of the bishop,’ he said. ‘In the case of a churchyard, the legal effects of consecration can only be removed by an Act of Parliament or the General Synod. But if the land or building isn’t vested in an ecclesiastical body, then the bishop has the power of deconsecration.’
‘So?’
Latham nodded at him. ‘That’s the case at Bowden, you see. The church was built by a previous Earl Manby and it belongs to the estate. So the bishop of this diocese has agreed to deconsecrate. There was no reason for him to refuse. The church itself isn’t used any more, you know. It’s the burial ground that has been most at issue.’
‘Are you telling me the present Earl Manby is planning to sell off the church and burial ground at Bowden?’
‘Well, of course.’
‘For what purpose?’
‘That I can’t tell you.’
‘He must have some scheme in mind for the land. But can he really do that to a graveyard?’
‘By law, any graves more than seventy-five years old can be removed, though the removal and destruction of gravestones is subject to controls under the Cemeteries Act.’ Latham looked at his chaotic table. ‘I could quote you the specific section, if I can find the reference.’