She laughed. ‘Yes, I think I had everything. A local girl who knows the area, has life experience and leadership abilities. Not to mention the training. Our basic training includes on-and off-road driving, weapons training, lines of communication…’
‘And good physical fitness.’
‘We were tested every six months. That doesn’t happen here, I guess.’
Cooper remembered the way she’d looked at Gavin Murfin.
‘No.’
They were climbing now, towards the highest point of Big Moor. Beyond Swine Sty, the county boundary ran right along a stream called Bar Brook. The moors they could see in the middle distance lay in South Yorkshire.
‘This stuff is difficult to walk through,’ said Villiers.
‘It’s peat, but it’s shallow peat. Not like the depths on Kinder or Bleaklow.’
The result of the peat’s shallowness on these eastern moors was a mass of coarse, tussocky grass interspersed with boggy areas. Villiers was right – it was a difficult landscape to walk through. In places, it felt like wading through drifts of snow, with no idea what lay underneath. Blankets of dead bracken stems choked everything.
‘And you met your husband in the service?’ asked Cooper.
‘Glen had a posting to the Tactical Provost Squadron. The TPS take on forward policing tasks in conflict zones. He served with his unit in the Gulf – Iraq, you know.’ Villiers paused, seemed to reflect for a moment on something. ‘The rest of his guys are still in a conflict zone now, in Afghanistan. Those are just the more publicised taskings, though. Most of our work doesn’t get in the news.’
‘Close protection duties?’
‘Not me personally. But I was given the training. We all were. So stick close to me and you’ll be safe, Ben.’
‘Great.’
‘Mind you, I’m used to carrying a Browning nine-millimetre. An extendable baton doesn’t quite feel the same on the hip.’
As they reached the top of the moor, Villiers gazed across the valley that opened up to the east.
‘I was trained not far from here, you know. Until the training school moved down south, we were based at RAF Newton in Nottinghamshire. We used to have a Hawker Hunter at the entrance, as our gate guardian.’
‘Over the river, then,’ said Cooper. ‘I think I know the site. The buildings are an industrial estate now, though. The airfield itself has gone back to being arable land. They grow oilseed rape.’
‘Shame.’
She hesitated. ‘I keep saying “we” and “us”, don’t I? I keep forgetting I’m not in the RAFP any more. When you’ve been a member of a tight-knit unit for so long, it’s hard to make the break. Especially if you’ve served in a conflict zone. You learn to depend totally on your mates, to watch each other’s back. Being part of a team under pressure, there’s nothing like it.’
‘I understand,’ said Cooper.
‘That’s why so many leave the services and find it impossible to adjust to civilian life. They suddenly find there’s no one to watch their back, no mates to depend on. No buddy at their side.’
Cooper could think of nothing to say. He could tell from the catch in her voice that she was no longer talking just about her colleagues in her unit, but about a much more personal loss. It was a loss that she might never recover from, no matter how often people told her that time was a healer.
‘You might not think so yet, Carol,’ he said, ‘but we can be like that too. A close-knit team. People you can depend on to watch your back.’
She smiled. ‘Thanks, Ben.’
In the distance, Cooper saw the antlers and head of a stag outlined against the moor. The animal itself stood motionless, listening. Its ears were erect, its nostrils quivering. What was it listening for? What scent had it detected? Could an animal sense the presence of evil on the moor?
‘How long were you actually in the services?’ asked Cooper as they reached the edge. ‘It can’t be more than – what? Nine years?
‘Yes. The standard contract.’
‘It seems such a lot to have crammed into nine years.’
‘Well, that’s the armed services for you. You never know what you’re going to be doing next, or where you’re going to be posted. It’s not like being a copper in sleepy old Derbyshire.’
She smiled, and Cooper knew he didn’t have to tell her that it wasn’t like that. But he said it anyway.
‘It can get quite exciting,’ he said. ‘Some of the time, anyway.’
‘From what we hear in the media, all you do is fill in paperwork for an entire shift.’
‘So Snowdrops spend their off-duty time reading the Daily Mail, do they?’
‘Oh, and I forgot – maybe the odd spell of planting false evidence, too.’
‘Well, that’s true.’
They began to trudge back towards the edge. As he walked through the expanse of reeds and cotton grass, Cooper noticed the way the distant rocky outcrops seemed to change shape. They slid slowly sideways, merged and divided, their outlines shifting from smooth to jagged to a distinctive silhouette.
It was all the effect of altering angle and perspective. With each step, a transformation took place in the landscape, a gradual reveal like the slow drawing aside of a curtain. At a point halfway across the flats, a split rock he hadn’t noticed before came into view. As it emerged from behind a larger boulder, its two halves slowly parted and turned, like the hands of a clock creeping past noon.
Of course, his logical mind told him that he was the only moving object in this landscape. It was his steady strides across the flats that were causing the change in perspective. But his senses were sending him a different message. With no nearby landmarks, and in this peculiar light, the effect was deceptive. Despite what he kept telling himself, it really seemed to be the rock that was moving.
Some people studied these rocks in minute detail, mapping the strata and analysing their structure. Cooper supposed it was important to understand the geology, to explain in cool scientific terms how these eastern edges had come into existence. That was one way of dealing with their presence. But he couldn’t help feeling that a logical approach took away the mystery. Didn’t analysis always destroy romance, and drain the life out of poetry? Why not just stand and gaze, and let the imagination wander? He preferred the edges this way – wild, and full of magic.
‘Afghanistan,’ he said. ‘You mentioned it once, but…?’
Villiers stared out over the valley. ‘Yes, we were both in Afghanistan. We were there for two months, instructing new Afghan police recruits in Kabul. That was fairly uneventful, actually. There are lots of other duties that people never get to hear about back home. Back in 2002, Glen was injured in Cyprus, during demonstrations against a new radio mast at RAF Akrotiri. He got a commendation from the Provost Marshal for that.’
Cooper waited, knowing there was more, but not sure of the right question to ask, or even if he should be asking.
Finally Villiers spoke again, more quietly. Cooper had to strain to catch her voice, before her words were swept away in the wind blowing across the Devil’s Edge.
‘But then he went back to Afghanistan,’ she said. ‘Two years ago, he was shot and wounded in Helmand Province, when Taliban insurgents opened fire on his patrol one night. He died from his injuries before they could fly him back home.’
They stood silently together for a few minutes as the light faded and dusk settled on the valley. Riddings was directly below them, and Curbar could be glimpsed in the south.
Northwards, the village of Froggatt lay below its own gritstone edge. The main part of the village was on the other side of the A625, with a tiny, ancient stone bridge that crossed the river to reach the Grindleford road. That bridge must have stood on another packhorse route, Cooper felt sure. Probably the route that snaked up the slope behind the Chequers Inn and zigzagged to the top of the rock-strewn edge. It was a steep track, worn into ruts over the centuries by the hoofs of the laden horses. It boggled the mind to imagine how they had managed it. Cooper had always thought it was difficult enough going down without losing your footing, let alone carrying a couple of millstones. Those packhorse men must have been tough characters.