Cooper produced a piece of the stone he’d collected and bagged from the Barrons’ lawn.
‘What about this, sir?’
Monk peered at it closely. ‘Too small. If it came from a drive, anyway. No, I doubt we laid that stuff. Not here in Riddings.’
‘Why?’
‘Well, it’s a personal choice, but ten-millimetre gravel like this tends to move around more and get stuck in car tyres. We advise people to use a fourteen-or twenty-millimetre stone on driveways.’
‘I see. Thank you, Mr Monk.’
The man looked at him curiously. ‘Is it important?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Well, I’m not saying it isn’t from round here. Just that it’s unlikely my firm laid it. There are a few other outfits around. I wouldn’t call them cowboys exactly, but not they’re not as well qualified, if you know what I mean. Not so particular about their work. A couple of lads out of a job might decide to set up a little gardening business, mowing lawns and that sort of thing. Then they start branching out. When people ask them if they can do drives or tree surgery, they don’t want to say no. That’s how it happens. I’m not naming any names, you understand. But you might find some around here that answer the description.’
Cooper nodded. ‘Thanks again.’
‘No problem.’
The landscaper went back to work on the house across the road. The driveway looked quite smart to Cooper, but he could see there was an occasional burst of green where a weed had dared to come through.
‘Gravel?’ said Villiers when he got back in the car.
Cooper could hear the laugh in her voice, and turned in his seat, ready to justify himself. Then he saw her face, and he couldn’t help laughing with her. For the first time today he was seeing the old Carol, the one he’d known before she went off to join the services and experienced all the bad things that he was sure must have happened to her.
‘Well, that’s what we’re like in Derbyshire Constabulary,’ he said. ‘We leave no stone unturned.’
10
Monica Gamble greeted Cooper and Villiers with a sour expression, a resigned look, as if she was always expecting this kind of knock on the door.
‘Mrs Gamble. Is your husband in?’
She hesitated, not sure what the best answer would be.
‘Well…’
‘Oh, I forgot,’ said Cooper. ‘You often don’t know where he is.’
‘That’s right.’
‘I expect that can be quite convenient sometimes.’
He could see Mrs Gamble trying to figure out what was safe for her to say. She must be wondering how long he’d been outside the house, watching. What were the chances that he had seen her husband through the window? If she lied, he would know. Not worth the risk.
‘He was here a moment ago. He’s probably gone to his shed.’
Cooper hadn’t realised the extent of the back gardens in Chapel Close. It wasn’t obvious, when the front doors of the houses opened almost on to the road. There was certainly room behind number four for a large wooden shed, though.
Gamble met them at the door of the shed, no doubt alerted by their footsteps, and his wife’s slamming of the kitchen door. Inside, Cooper glimpsed the usual gardening equipment – a lawn mower, forks and spades, a few hand tools hung on racks. A workbench ran along one wall, fitted with a vice, the wooden surface pitted and scarred.
Further back, in the darkest part of the shed, Cooper could see that there was another room partitioned off, a makeshift door firmly closed against prying eyes.
Gamble had been boiling a kettle when they arrived. A small cloud of steam trickled out of the door into the open air. A large white mug stood on a table with a tin of tea bags.
‘More questions?’ he said, settling his cowboy hat over his ears. He glanced at his wife, as if expecting her to go, but she showed no signs of leaving.
‘Just a few,’ said Cooper.
‘Go on, then.’
‘It’s about Tuesday night, of course. When you were at Valley View.’
‘Yes?’
‘After you heard the noise from the Barrons’ property, you mentioned seeing a light on in their kitchen.’
‘That’s right.’
‘Did that strike you as odd, Mr Gamble?’
‘Odd? I…’
‘Because according to your initial statement, it was when you saw the light on in the kitchen that you decided to go and investigate.’
‘Well, there wasn’t usually…’
‘Yes?’
‘Er… yes, it struck me as odd.’
Gamble had developed a stubborn expression, his thick eyebrows bunched together.
‘Let’s be honest,’ said Cooper. ‘You’d watched the Barrons’ house at that time of night before. You knew what their habits were.’
‘I don’t know why I thought it was odd,’ he said sullenly. ‘I just heard the noise and saw the light, and I thought I ought to see what was going on. I was being neighbourly. Concerned.’
‘Concerned. Of course. And was that also why you ran to Riddings Lodge before you called the emergency services? You were concerned for Mr Edson’s welfare?’
‘Signal,’ blurted out Gamble.
‘What?’
‘I couldn’t get a signal on my mobile phone. You know what it’s like in these places.’
‘Ye-es.’
It was true that this landscape made it difficult to receive a signal from a mobile phone mast. That high wall of rock to the east would block any mast located on the Sheffield side of Riddings. There was an area up on the Snake Pass that for years had possessed neither mobile phone reception nor coverage for the police radio network. For a long time it was a spot where you would want to avoid having an accident or emergency. The only way to get assistance was to leave the scene. In that case, the national park authority had finally given planning permission for a radio antenna on an existing pole, with an equipment chamber underground to reduce the impact on the environment. It was perfectly possible that Mr Gamble had been obliged to leave the scene of the Barrons’ assault to make his call.
Gamble had noticed Villiers trying to edge closer to the doorway to see inside the shed, and he stepped smartly in her way.
‘What network are you with, sir?’ asked Cooper.
‘O2. You can check.’
‘I know.’
It bothered Cooper that the answer about the mobile phone signal had come so quickly. It was as if Gamble had been expecting the question for days, and the reply had been bottled up inside him, under so much pressure that it burst out of its own accord when the button was pressed.
He couldn’t help the feeling that he should have asked this question before. Yet how could he, when he didn’t know Gamble had gone to Riddings Lodge until he got that information from Russell Edson?
‘Mr Gamble, why didn’t you tell the first police officers you spoke to that you went to Riddings Lodge before you made the emergency call?’
‘It didn’t seem, well… relevant.’
Cooper heaved a sigh. ‘Also, I need to ask you again whether you saw anyone else around Curbar Lane at that time? Please think carefully. This is very important.’
Gamble considered for a moment, glancing at his wife out of the corner of his eye, fingering the brim of his hat.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I saw the Chadwicks. You know, the people from over there, at Nether Croft.’
‘The Cottage,’ said Cooper.
‘That’s what they call it now. It was always Nether Croft to me. But I saw them, the Chadwicks. They were walking up The Hill, just as it was getting dark.’