The Corpse Bridge (22 page)

‘But not the victim's prints?'

Abbott shook his head. ‘Not that we can confirm. But there are so many partials, it's asking the impossible to get a definite negative.'

‘Understood.'

Fry cast her eye over the body. The man was aged around fifty or fifty-five, his hair still dark but showing signs of hereditary baldness from the gleam of scalp on top of his head. He was also a couple of stone overweight, she guessed, though it was difficult to tell given the extent of post-mortem bloating on the torso and limbs. The visible skin was badly discoloured, a series of ugly shades from red to green. The victim was wearing dark trousers, like the bottom half of a business suit, but sensible stout shoes and an expensive-looking padded jacket.

‘A tourist?' she said.

‘No,' replied Irvine promptly.

Fry looked up. ‘Do we have an ID already, then?'

‘Yes, the victim's name is George Redfearn,' said Irvine. ‘A company director. He's listed as being on the board of Eden Valley Mineral Products.'

‘And what do they do?'

‘Oh, small-scale limestone quarrying. Mr Redfearn has an address over at Taddington.'

Fry waited. Irvine shouldn't need asking. He'd worked with her before, so he ought to know that she didn't carry a map of the Peak District in her head, the way some officers did.

‘That's about seven miles away, if you know where you're going and take the Flagg road,' said Irvine.

‘And how many miles is it the way I'd go?' asked Fry.

‘Ten.'

‘What about a car?'

‘There's a black BMW parked by the road just down there at Pilsbury. I did a check on the number plate and confirmed it's registered to Mr Redfearn.'

‘Yes, I saw it on the way here,' said Fry.

‘It even has a personalised number plate,' said Irvine. ‘The last three figures are GR8. That's his initials, you see. George Redfearn. But you can say it as “great”.'

‘Yes, thanks, I got it,' said Fry. ‘But Pilsbury I don't get. I saw two or three houses…'

‘That was it,' said Irvine.

Fry noticed Irvine's attention slip past her and over her shoulder, along with an expression of relief. She turned and saw Ben Cooper and Gavin Murfin arriving, just passing through the outer cordon and giving their names to a uniformed officer guarding the scene.

‘Oh, by the way, any ghosts or spirits seen in the area?' asked Fry with a smile.

‘Spirits?' said Abbott.

‘Yes, didn't you know?'

‘Who's talking about spirits?' asked Murfin as he lumbered up. ‘I wouldn't mind a nice drop of Scotch myself right at this moment. A ten-year-old malt, for preference. Is there a pub in the neighbourhood?' He looked around him, as if noticing the landscape for the first time. Then he sighed. ‘No, I didn't think there would be.'

‘Actually,' said Cooper, ‘we're only a stone's throw from Crowdecote. The Pack Horse Inn.'

Murfin screwed up his face. ‘Crowdecote? Isn't that near a bridge?'

‘Yes, the nearest road crossing over the Dove is at Crowdecote. In fact, it's the only one on this stretch of the river between Hartington and Glutton.'

‘Speaking of gluttons,' said Fry. ‘Some around here could do with taking up a more healthy diet.'

‘I get my five a day,' said Murfin defensively.

‘When they say that, they don't mean five meals a day, Gavin. They mean five portions of fruit and vegetables.'

‘That's ridiculous.'

B
en Cooper wasn't surprised to see Fry at Pilsbury Castle before him. It was inevitable now.

‘The Major Crime Unit will be taking over after this, I suppose,' he said.

Fry just nodded. Well, it was only what he'd anticipated. He'd been expecting it ever since Fry first appeared at the Corpse Bridge. In fact, it was almost as if he'd had a premonition when he thought about the Devil manifesting at a crossroads. Diane Fry might not quite be Satan, but she made a good stand-in when required.

‘So what do you think now about blaming all this on someone with a grudge against Earl Manby and his family?' she said.

‘It's still … possible,' said Cooper, feeling immediately defensive.

‘It's just a theory, Ben. A theory is no good on its own. When you think that's all you've got, you want to hang on to it at all costs. It can affect your judgement. You lose objectivity.'

Cooper watched her leave. He reflected that Diane Fry had honed into a positive talent this ability to walk away from a conversation with the last word hanging in the air as it left her lips. Often her final shaft of wisdom was spot on, an accurate barb that struck his heart.

But she wasn't right this time. Yes, there were some things he'd wanted to hang on to in his life. Things he'd wanted desperately to cling to, but had lost anyway.

Cooper looked at the body of the latest victim lying at the foot of a tree. His theory about the grudge wasn't something he felt so desperate to hold on to that it would affect his judgement. Well, was it?

Instinctively, Cooper took a step closer to the body, until Abbott put a hand up to stop him. He wasn't wearing a scene suit.

Then Cooper sniffed. ‘What would you say that smell is, Wayne?' he asked.

Abbott began sniffing too. ‘It's petrol, I think.'

‘Have there been any vehicles down here?'

‘Not recently. The tyre marks would be clear enough in the mud. We can only make out a few mountain bikes, that's all.'

‘Strange. It's a pretty strong odour.'

Abbott nodded. ‘We'll see if we can identify any traces from the soil and vegetation close to the body, shall we?'

‘That would be great.'

Pilsbury Castle had occupied an area of high ground overlooking the River Dove. The Normans had built it to re-establish control of the area after William the Conqueror's campaign to devastate and subdue the north of England. In medieval times the site would have overlooked a key crossing point of the river.

Cooper looked out over the valley of the Dove towards the peculiar shapes of Parkhouse Hill and Chrome Hill in the distance to the north. He would be able to see the Corpse Bridge from here, if it wasn't for the trees around it. He could certainly make out Knowle Abbey quite clearly. And across a stretch of parkland, located at a suitable distance from the abbey, he could see the village of Bowden.

O
nce the photographs had been taken and the scene thoroughly examined, the safe retrieval of the body from its position at the foot of the outcrop was going to be difficult. The slope was close to being perpendicular.

Ben Cooper walked round the outer circumference of the castle site. Of course, the steep slope and the limestone knoll had been part of the natural defences for the site. The castle itself was either destroyed after its owners took the wrong side in a twelfth-century rebellion or it may simply have become redundant as the village of Pilsbury became increasingly depopulated. Its timber defences were long gone, anyway. Now there was little to see except for the mounds, and the remains of ditches and earthworks.

From the Pilsbury side of the river, he had a good view of a steep descent on the opposite side of the valley. The green lane that snaked down towards the Dove was called Marty Lane, but was still known locally as ‘the old salt way'. From here it headed up on to the limestone plateau, then over the Derbyshire hills towards the towns of Monyash and Bakewell, and onwards to Chesterfield.

When he'd done a complete circuit, he found Luke Irvine waiting for him.

‘Ben, uniforms have been calling on the houses in Pilsbury,' said Irvine. ‘It didn't take them long.'

‘And?'

‘Well, we've got some witnesses.'

Cooper turned to Irvine with automatic interest, then stopped himself.

‘Shouldn't you be telling DS Fry this?' he said.

‘She's not here,' pointed out Irvine.

‘Fair enough.'

‘They're just down in Pilsbury.'

‘Okay, we'll go and talk to them.'

‘By the way, I was thinking about the Sandra Blair case,' said Irvine. ‘Last night in the pub.'

‘Is that what you spend your time doing when you're in the pub?' asked Cooper.

‘Not usually.'

‘I'm glad to hear it.'

Irvine explained to Cooper his idea based on the Agatha Christie plot.

‘A conspiracy?' said Cooper. ‘More than one perpetrator involved?'

‘I know it sounds crazy,' began Irvine.

‘No, it's interesting that you thought of it too,' said Cooper.

‘Really?'

‘A conspiracy? Maybe. Let's hope so, anyway.'

‘Why, Ben?'

‘Well, every conspiracy needs a network,' said Cooper. ‘And every network has a weak link.'

I
t seemed that a party of late-season tourists had been renting a six-bedroom property on the Derbyshire bank of the Dove, an imposing three-storey Georgian house that used to be part of the Knowle estate. When Cooper saw it, he knew it must originally have been the home of someone significant – the estate manager at least, or perhaps an elderly relative of the earl, who had to be given a place to live on the estate but wasn't wanted too close to hand. Premium rental properties came at a high price in the Peak District, even in November. This house probably cost around two thousand pounds a week to rent.

‘So what's their story?' asked Cooper as he and Irvine headed down the few yards of track to the hamlet of Pilsbury.

‘Some people called Everett rented the property for a birthday celebration and invited three other couples to join them,' said Irvine. ‘They're all friends from the Manchester area. Young professionals, you know the type. Too much money to spend on indulging themselves.'

‘I've heard of the type,' said Cooper.

‘Well, according to local residents, they've been behaving oddly ever since they arrived. They've been wandering around at night in the dark. People have reported hearing raised voices, right through into the early hours of the morning. This is a quiet area, as you can see.'

‘That's an understatement.'

Raised voices in the early hours of the morning was normal for the centre of a town like Edendale. But not out here, with only three or four houses and a couple of farms, and a road that nobody ever used on the way to somewhere else.

‘Let's go and speak to them,' said Cooper.

Pilsbury was what they called a shrunken village. Though it claimed to date back to Anglo-Saxon times and appeared in the Domesday Book, the few present-day houses were late-seventeenth or early-eighteenth century. It might have been a busy little spot in past centuries, he supposed. The castle was built to defend a river crossing that had been an important trade route through Pilsbury. But the centuries had passed it by and history had abandoned it. There were other settlements like this scattered around the landscape, some marked only by the bases for houses and garden plots enclosed by half-defined bankings, buried among hawthorn bushes and limestone outcrops.

There was no answer to the door at the elegant three-storey house in Pilsbury. Cooper peered through the front windows, while Irvine walked round the back and checked the garage.

‘It doesn't look occupied,' said Cooper.

‘And there are no vehicles. According to what we were told, there should be three cars.'

A farmer passing in a Ford Ranger stopped when he saw them.

‘They're gone,' he called. ‘Buggered off. Done a bunk.'

‘When?'

‘Just now. I saw the last bloke going down the road here in his Merc thirty seconds ago.'

‘A Mercedes?' asked Cooper.

‘Yes, a green Merc.'

‘Do you mean they've taken the Hartington road, sir?'

‘Yes, but if you hurry—'

Cooper laughed.

‘Oh, don't worry,' he said. ‘He won't get far.'

The farmer laughed too. ‘Aye, daft sod. He left the first gate open. He couldn't stop long enough to close it behind him, I suppose.'

Cooper knew this stretch of road. Wallpit Lane was a gated single-track road between Pilsbury and Hartington, skirting the eastern bank of the Dove. He recalled there were perhaps five or six iron gates across it between here and Hartington, the first of them right here by Pilsbury Farm, which had now been left standing open.

‘Why did they run, do you think?' asked Irvine as they passed through the first gate.

‘Presumably they saw all the police activity,' said Cooper.

‘Guilty consciences?'

‘Yep.'

‘Shall I call it in? We can get units to intercept him in Hartington?'

‘No need. Ten to one we catch up with him before that.'

‘If you say so, Ben.'

‘Well, look – it's a gated road. I don't suppose they're used to them in Manchester.'

Like so many arrangements in the Peak District, the method of closing these gates was a bit random. Some used short lengths of rusted metal bent into a hook to catch the upper bars of the gate. Others relied on a loop of rope to go over the top of the post. One or two were hung so that their own weight kept them open. The rest had to be wedged just right against a strategically placed lump of limestone. You didn't get to make a quick getaway on this road.

When Cooper came round the next bend, he saw the green Mercedes stopped fifty yards ahead. The driver was out of the car and wrestling with a gate that had been closed across the road. He'd stopped at the gate, only to discover that it swung towards him and his car was in the way, preventing it from opening. The outer bar of the gate was now wedged against his bumper. Cooper could see his mouth moving as he cursed and gesticulated.

The driver turned round and was about get back in to his car to reverse when he saw Cooper's Toyota approaching. His shoulders sagged and he clung to the door of his car with a disgusted look at the bonnet, as if it had let him down somehow.