The Corpse Bridge (20 page)

Cooper looked up a number and grabbed the phone. Kilner was surprised to hear from him, that much was obvious. A bit suspicious too. Maybe there was still a trace of guilty conscience in his reaction to an unexpected contact with the police. But that was a good thing, in the circumstances.

After a bit of cautious small talk, some polite enquiries about the family and how well business was doing, Cooper got round to telling Kilner that he wanted to talk to him.

‘Where can I meet you?'

‘What, today?' said Kilner, still reluctant.

‘Yes, this afternoon.'

‘Well, I'll be at Axe Edge. There's a race meeting.'

‘Buxton Raceway? I know it.'

Kilner didn't hang up straight away. Cooper could hear him breathing, a slight wheeze as if he were about to start coughing. A nervous cough, or was Kilner a smoker? He couldn't remember that detail.

‘Can you tell me what it's about?' asked Kilner.

‘I'll tell you when I see you.'

‘Okay, then. I'll get you a hot dog, shall I?'

B
uxton Raceway. Though Cooper had often passed it, he'd never actually visited the races. It wasn't the sort of place Liz would ever have wanted to go with him for a Sunday afternoon outing.

The site stood in a bleak spot off the Buxton to Leek road, at a point where it crossed Axe Edge Moor. This was the highest stretch of moorland close to the border between Derbyshire and Staffordshire. Many of the Peak District's major rivers rose on Axe Edge Moor and the source of the River Dove itself was only a few hundred yards away in a patch of marshy ground near Dovehead Farm, just on the Staffordshire side of the border.

After he'd parked the car Cooper found Brendan Kilner at the end of a small stand for spectators. He was clutching a hot dog in a paper napkin from the stall behind him. The scent of fried onions mingled with a powerful smell of exhaust fumes, despite a strong breeze blowing across the moor.

Kilner gestured with the hot dog.

‘Do you want one?' he asked by way of greeting.

‘Not at the moment, thanks.'

‘Suit yourself.'

He hardly looked at Cooper, but kept his eyes fixed on the circuit, where nothing much seemed to be happening. He'd put on weight since Cooper saw him last. Too many hot dogs and burgers, perhaps. But then, he'd always been a man whose idea of exercise was leaning into an engine compartment with a spanner.

‘Sorry to drag you here,' said Kilner. ‘This is almost the last meeting of the season. I couldn't miss it.'

‘There's no racing in the winter?'

‘No. It gets a bit wild up here, like.'

‘I can imagine.'

Now he was standing still, that wind blowing across the landscape from Axe Edge Moor certainly felt a bit icy. Cooper looked around at the groups of people standing nearby.

‘Can we walk round the other side of the track for a while?'

Kilner wiped his fingers as he swallowed the last piece of hot dog.

‘If you like.'

The circuit consisted of a tarmac oval around a central refuge where a few official vehicles were parked, including a tractor and a paramedic's car. There were already some disabled racing cars lined up awaiting retrieval after the meeting was over. The circuit ran in front of the stand and past spectators who were parked at the trackside, protected by a black-and-white barrier and a high mesh safety fence. The landscape behind the raceway looked even more bare and rugged. In the background Cooper could see the distinctive jut of a rock face. He recognised it as a feature standing between the site of the Health and Safety Executive's laboratories at Harpur Hill and a flooded quarry once known by local people as the Blue Lagoon.

As they strolled away from the stand Cooper began to see cars and their drivers. The drivers wore racing overalls, crash helmets and fire-retardant gloves, just like the stars of Formula One. But their vehicles were a bunch of beaten-up hatchbacks. Datsun Sunnys, Ford Fiestas, Vauxhall Novas. Although really all that was left of each car was the chassis. They had been stripped down and armoured. In addition to heavy front and rear bumpers, iron cages had been welded along the sides. They were all painted in bright colour schemes.

‘These are 1300cc saloon stocks,' said Kilner as a series of cars began to move out on to the track.

A man wearing goggles and ear protectors stood on a white breeze-block podium with a set of flags. About fifteen cars began to move round the circuit, slowly at first as if they were merely in a procession. Then there must have been a signal that Cooper didn't see, because engines roared simultaneously as drivers accelerated towards the starting flag, jostling for position in the first straight.

‘I heard you were in the fire up at the old Light House,' said Kilner. ‘It was in all the papers and everything. That was a bad business.'

‘Yes.'

Cooper would have been amazed if Kilner didn't know all about it. Everyone else in the area did.

Kilner was watching the cars thoughtfully. ‘I suppose you don't want to talk about it.'

‘Not to you, Brendan, anyway.'

‘Fair comment. I can't blame you for that. Put things behind you, get on with life. That's the motto, like.'

On the track a car spun three hundred and sixty degrees, but the driver recovered and kept going, trying to regain ground. Ahead of him another collided with the barrier, bounced and came to a halt. A blue-and-yellow car seemed to be in the lead all the way, so far as Cooper could tell.

‘There's not the sort of excitement you get in some types of racing,' said Kilner. ‘Super bangers or hot rods. You can pretty much predict who's going to come in first. But it's the spectacle, you know. The noise, the smell, the whole thing. It's like a drug, I suppose.'

Cooper had never been much of a petrol head himself. But his brother Matt would probably have enjoyed himself here. He was forever tinkering with one of his tractors back at Bridge End Farm. For years Matt's pride and joy had been a vintage Massey Ferguson that never did any work around the farm, but turned out a couple of times a year for a tractor rally and trundled around the roads with scores of others. The Massey had soaked up too much cash, though, which the farm couldn't afford, and it had been sold off.

With a glance around to make sure no one was near them, Cooper showed Kilner an edited version of the list that Villiers had produced for him.

‘Recognise some of these names, Brendan?' he said.

Kilner fiddled in his pockets until he found a pair of reading glasses. Old age was creeping up on him too.

‘Of course,' he said. ‘All of them, I think. You probably guessed that or you wouldn't be here.'

‘Apart from Bowden, can you suggest anything they all have in common?'

As the stock cars came past their position again, the noise of the engines was deafening. Cooper missed something that Brendan Kilner was saying.

‘What?'

‘I said, “They've all got an axe to grind.” But then, haven't we all these days? Even the cops, I bet.'

Kilner laughed and Cooper got the whiff of fried onions again, but at second hand.

‘So what axes do the Nadens and Jason Shaw have to grind?' he asked.

Kilner shrugged. ‘It's all about family. Ancient history if you ask me. But that stuff means a lot to some people, doesn't it? Me, I can never bring myself to visit the place where my mum and dad were buried. Come to think of it, we didn't actually bury my dad – we burned him, then scattered him.'

‘What are you talking about, Brendan?' asked Cooper.

‘The graveyard, of course.'

‘Graveyard?'

Kilner turned to look at him. ‘What, you don't know about the graveyard? Where have you been these past few months?'

A stock car was nudged and went into a spin, stopping against the fence. It was unable to get back on the circuit, and the others came round and passed it again before track officials stopped them with a series of orange flags. The drivers waited patiently on the circuit while a tractor dragged the damaged car clear. It seemed a surprisingly civilised process – not really what he'd expected from the battered condition of most of the vehicles. They were like battle-scarred chariots under their heavy armour.

‘Can you be more specific?' asked Cooper.

Kilner put a hand on his arm without taking his eyes off the circuit. ‘I shouldn't say any more. You just go and look at the graveyard. You'll see for yourself easily enough.'

The flag man was counting down the remaining laps now as cars approached his podium. Then suddenly they were into the last lap and the blue-and-yellow car was still out in front. A car kicked up a cloud of dirt as it hit the edge of the central refuge and stalled.

Then the chequered flag came down and there was just time for the winner to do a victory lap in the back of an official car before preparations got under way for the next race. Brendan Kilner cheered and clapped with the rest of the crowd.

‘Who won?' asked Cooper.

Kilner laughed. ‘The same guy who always wins,' he said.

S
cott Heywood swung his bike off a bend in the road above Pilsbury and coasted along the path towards the site of the castle.

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.

T
he 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.