‘I can’t do overtime tonight,’ said Murfin. ‘I’ve only just told Jean that I’m going to the football on Saturday, and I have to get home in time for the row.’
‘Okay. Well, there’s no money for overtime anyway. It just means more for us to do tomorrow, and the day after.’
Murfin offered him a chocolate.
‘No thanks.’
‘Suit yourself. So what about you, Ben? Are you doing anything tonight?’
Cooper hesitated. ‘Nothing special.’
Murfin gave him a sceptical look. ‘You’re lying.’
‘What?’
‘Years of experience have honed my skills of detection. I can sense when someone is telling me a porky. Especially you. You’re as transparent as my new double-glazing.’
‘Yeah, yeah.’
‘So… how are things going with that nice dark-haired little SOCO?’
‘She’s a crime-scene examiner.’
‘Civilian all the same,’ sniffed Murfin.
‘Her name’s Liz. And things are fine.’
‘I like her, actually. I think you’ve made a good bargain there. Better than I ever did.’
‘One of these days I’m going to tell Jean what you say about her.’
‘I’ll let you know when I’m feeling suicidal.’
Below Riddings lay the theological college and the hamlet of Stanton Ford, where the Baslow road skirted the banks of the Derwent.
Cooper saw a car with a window sticker: Christ for all – all for Christ. A student or member of staff from the bible college at Curbar? He could just see the buildings from here, where students would be wrestling with their bibles right now.
Or would they? The college ran residential courses, he was fairly sure. They took students from all over the world, trainee evangelists from Africa and South America. But most institutions were on holiday in August. Students went home for the summer, or did vacation work to raise money. Was Cliff College closed this month, or did they run summer courses?
‘When does their term start down there?’
‘I don’t know, but we can find out.’
Cooper nodded. ‘ There is a God in Heaven that revealeth all secrets. Who said that, Gavin?’
‘It’s in the Bible, isn’t it? It sounds biblical anyway.’
‘Yes, but who said it?’
‘I don’t know. Matthew, or Mark. Or Malcolm. One of those.’
‘Oh, of course – the Gospel according to St Malcolm. I know it well.’
‘Well… right. Last time I went to church, it was all in Latin.’
On the road below Curbar Gap, there were three stones close to the roadside, with biblical references carved on them. Visitors often parked with their car wheels right up to the stones without even noticing them. He’d heard it claimed that zealous students at Cliff College had made the inscriptions at some time. In another version of the story, they were carved in the nineteenth century by a mole-catcher who worked for the old duke. He was said to have been a devout Wesleyan, and inscribed the biblical quotations as a thanksgiving for recovering from a serious illness.
On his way down the road, Cooper pulled over on to the verge and looked at the nearest stone. He must have remembered the story wrong. He’d thought there was actually a quotation carved on the stone, and had even hoped it might have sent him some useful message. But all it said was: Isaiah 1:18. That meant he would have to find someone with a Bible.
Another woman was passing with her dog, this time an arthritic black Labrador. She stopped and stared at them for a moment, then seemed to lose some kind of internal battle.
‘I don’t mean any disrespect,’ she called. ‘But the police need to get a grip.’
Cooper sighed as she stamped away.
‘Thank you.’
Back at Valley View, Cooper skirted the crime-scene examiner’s tent and walked round the back of the house. He wanted to get an idea of the layout on this side of the property.
When he reached the back garden, he realised how easy it was to be distracted by the edge. It was a great looming presence that cut off the light from the east. Its high rock faces dwarfed everything nearer to hand, made the trees look smaller, the fences less solid. The distance from here to the edge was compressed, a trick of perspective caused by the sheer difference in scale.
He felt a cold shudder. His mother would have described that feeling as like someone walking over your grave. As a saying, it had never made much sense to Cooper. For someone to walk over your grave, you would have to be dead. So it could only be said by a ghost. And ghosts didn’t shudder with cold. On the contrary, that was supposed to be the effect they had on the living. So it was another of those baffling aphorisms with which his life seemed to be filled when he was growing up. They were passed on as mystical wisdom, but they were meaningless when you stopped to think about them even for a moment.
He turned and studied the garden. The intruders must have come this way. They had surely entered from the back, from the direction of the edge, rather than approaching through the village.
He bent to inspect the lawn. The grass was cut too short to show any sign of footprints. In fact, it was very neatly trimmed. He made a note to find out who mowed the lawns, whether Jake Barron preferred to do it himself, or if one of those gardening contractors was employed here. And if so, when they had tended to the garden last.
As he crouched in the garden, Cooper noticed something strange. It stood out on the perfectly trimmed grass. It was only a fragment of stone. But if it had lain here for long, it would have been thrown up by the mower.
He worked his way carefully across the lawn to the drive. There was another bit of stone, and another. A small trail of them, leading from the back fence towards the house. It was as if the Devil’s Edge itself had been here, and left its tracks behind. Only small chips and splinters, a mere scattering of gritstone dust. But it seemed out of place amid the neatness of the trimmed grass and swept gravel.
Cooper looked up. The edge looked much the same. Ragged and broken, split into cracks and fissures, still dotted with the figures of climbers drawn to their favourite playground. He assumed that it looked the same from one day to the next, but it was impossible to be sure.
He shook himself, trying to shrug off the feeling that something had passed through the garden even as he stood there. A presence both invisible and cold. Like someone walking over his grave.
Last night, the Barrons had met everyone’s worst nightmare, the fiends who invaded their home and destroyed their lives. No wonder these offenders were being referred to as the Savages. They seemed to come from outside civilised society, and were ruthless in their use of violence. No home was safe any more.
Cooper bagged the fragments of gravel and began to walk back towards the house, unsettled by the same dread that everyone had, the fear of never being safe in your own home.
At the gate, he stopped and looked up at the edge again. This time he saw it not as a playground for rock climbers, but as the battered wall of a stone fortress. The Devil’s Edge had the air of a battlement that had withstood centuries of siege. Cracked and broken, but still standing firm, holding the invaders at bay. Or was it?
That afternoon, after the working-group session had ended, Fry had to make her way through the northern outskirts of Nottingham to reach the M1. Then it was three junctions north up the motorway before heading across Derbyshire via Chesterfield. It was the most direct route, and she preferred driving through the town. The only alternative was a tortuous crawl through country lanes, which was fine if you enjoyed scenery.
It was the sense of dislocation that was bothering her. One minute she’d been in inner-city Birmingham, confronting violence and dealing with gang members, recalling all too vividly her time with West Midlands Police, in the days before she transferred to yokel land. Then suddenly she’d been back here, in the midst of the rural idyll, bird shit on her car and straw sticking to her shoes. And not only that, but sidelined too. Somehow she’d found herself in this horrendous limbo, a world of business speak, living in sheer torture. What had she ever done to deserve this?