On the other hand, most of the visitors from out of the area seemed to have dressed in the confident expectation that it never rained in Derbyshire in August. But it was a bank holiday weekend, for heaven’s sake. It always rained.
During the showers, they all milled around the tea tent, dodging each other with trays of tea and cakes. It was a peculiarly British thing, the way people were able to drink tea and eat ice cream while sitting in the rain, yet still seem to be enjoying themselves.
‘Look at Mr Nowak,’ said Villiers. ‘No one is talking to him. They don’t even seem to acknowledge his presence. I saw one woman speak to his dog, but not to him.’
‘He came, though,’ said Cooper.
‘So why is he here? He must have known it would be like this.’
‘To be part of the village, I think. To feel that he belongs.’
Villiers shook her head. ‘Surely it just rubs in the fact that no one else thinks he does belong.’
‘It’s a very deep instinct, the urge to belong, the need to be part of a group. People will put up with all kinds of humiliations in their desire to be accepted.’
‘Like initiations.’
‘Exactly. It happens everywhere, from street gangs to the police.’
‘And the military,’ said Villiers. ‘But sometimes they go too far, as we know.’
‘Mmm. Are you thinking…?’
‘That someone humiliated Mr Nowak a bit too much. It’s possible.’
A hundred yards away, a man was shouting. At first Cooper thought it was part of the show. Another children’s entertainer, perhaps. But this one sounded too aggressive. And that language he could hear wasn’t suitable for children, surely?
‘What’s all the commotion over there?’
‘It looks like Richard Nowak and Alan Slattery.’
‘Had we better sort it out?’ said Villiers.
‘Give it a minute.’
They moved a bit closer, watching the angry gestures, trying to hear what the raised voices were saying. It was difficult to tell which of the men was the most irate, or what they were arguing about.
‘Mrs Slattery and the Nowaks are direct neighbours too,’ said Cooper.
‘Interesting. Is this what you were hoping for, Ben?’
‘Sort of.’
Villiers shook her head. ‘In some of the countries I’ve served in, people are incredibly polite to each other,’ she said. ‘There’s often a very elaborate system of manners, so elaborate that it becomes a ritual. And I think that’s because those are large populations of people living cheek by jowl, right in each other’s pockets. Sometimes you might have someone living literally on your doorstep. In those circumstances, you’ve got to have a way of masking the animosity that builds up between individuals.’
‘But here, they don’t seem to think it’s necessary?’
‘Well, they’ve got a certain amount of distance between each other. Or at least, the illusion of distance. And all that seems to have done is break down the barriers of courtesy. The animosity comes right out in the open.’
‘It’s a property thing,’ said Cooper. ‘Owning property is a very British obsession. And once you own it, you have to defend it against all comers. I’ve seen it so often.’
He didn’t mention that he’d seen it in his own brother. Villiers hadn’t asked about his family yet, but he was sure she would before long. He was certain that she knew all about his father. Everyone with any connection to Edendale knew about the death of Sergeant Joe Cooper. In fact, he recalled her writing a letter, which had arrived just after the funeral. She was serving overseas somewhere then. He remembered opening the letter with its foreign stamp and discovering it was from his old school friend, offering her sympathy.
But she might not know about the more recent death of his mother. It depended who she’d talked to since she’d been back. It was strange to think that this person he hadn’t seen for so long might know everything about him.
‘I suppose it’s why guns are illegal in Britain,’ she said. ‘Neighbours would be shooting each other every week otherwise.’
There was a final flurry of shouting, and some shocked gasps from onlookers.
‘Uh-oh,’ said Cooper.
‘Incoming,’ said Villiers.
And they both watched Richard Nowak sprinting frantically across the showground towards them.
20
Diane Fry gazed out through the windscreen at the streets of Sheffield. They were in an area of the city she didn’t know at all. Firth Park. Narrow streets, endless rows of brick terraces. Satellite dishes sprouted in clusters from gable ends, wheelie bins stood on the pavement outside every front door. On the corner, a kebab and burger shop showed the only signs of life.
‘What are they playing around at? It’s like waiting for paint to dry.’
DI Hitchens was tapping the wheel impatiently. Fry could see that he hated not being in control. The operation was in the hands of South Yorkshire Police, and they were taking their time. Fair enough. They wanted to get it right.
‘There’s no hurry,’ she said. ‘We’ve got all day.’
‘Sod that. I don’t know about you, Diane, but I’d like to get some time off this weekend.’
Fry nodded. Station gossip had it that the DI’s girlfriend was pregnant, and that she was pressuring him to make plans. That sort of thing was difficult to keep to yourself. It was true that he was less keen these days to spend more time in the office than was strictly necessary. Fry felt she ought to be able to sympathise. A work-life balance, and all that. But you probably needed to get a life first, before you could properly understand.
‘They know what they’re doing,’ she said. ‘They’ve done the surveillance, collected all the intel. Let them have their moment. We’ll soon have ours.’
Down the street was a lock-up shop. This one looked as though it had been locked up for years. Steel shutters were drawn down over the windows and the front door. A delivery entrance in a side street was protected by locked gates, with a No Parking sign faded almost to illegibility. Behind the shop, a derelict building was starting to crumble, cracks splitting the brickwork, weeds growing out of the window ledges and between the slates in the roof.
Fry looked up. Dirty net curtains hung over the windows on the first floor. A broken drainpipe had left a dark stain down the wall. You wouldn’t imagine that anybody lived there. But surveillance by South Yorkshire officers had confirmed that someone did.
Hitchens had begun to whistle under his breath. It was a habit that Fry found particularly irritating.
‘It’s time, surely.’
‘Okay, here they come now.’
A van came down the street at speed. A marked police vehicle appeared and blocked off the junction at the top. Officers in black jumped out of the van. The strike team didn’t bother with the steel shutters, but went straight for the gates. The padlock was snapped off, and they were into the delivery yard in seconds. Fry heard the battering ram hit the back door, and the shouts of officers as they entered the building, clattering up the stairs to the flat.
The radio crackled, but Hitchens was already out of the car.
‘All right, they’re in. Suspect detained.’
‘Let’s hope he’s the right suspect,’ said Fry, as they ran into the yard.
A door stood open on to a set of bare wooden stairs, the steps splintered and scattered with decades of dust. A stale smell oozed out of the flat.
Hitchens turned for a moment at the foot of the stairs.
‘If one of the Savages had to live anywhere, this would be it.’
Red in the face and breathing heavily, Richard Nowak ran a few more paces across Riddings showground towards Cooper and Villiers, slowing down suddenly as he got nearer.
Cooper realised that Nowak hadn’t been running towards them for assistance, as he thought. He hadn’t even recognised them as police officers. He had been running away from the confrontation with Alan Slattery. That seemed out of character, from what Cooper had seen of him.