The Corpse Bridge (40 page)

But something was wrong here. Fry wasn't going to be around after today. She had a whole new career of her own to look forward to.

‘So that's your parting gift,' he said. ‘When you finally leave Edendale, you want to make sure that you leave me feeling in your debt.'

Fry dropped her gaze to the floor. ‘Something like that, I suppose. Yes, something like that.'

Cooper was feeling very strange. Perhaps it was the alcohol. The first real drink he'd had for months. Well, the first time he'd felt relaxed enough to enjoy it. It was odd that he'd spent days working out how he could get away from Fry and now he discovered he didn't want her to leave.

‘Are you really going, Diane?' he said.

‘I'm already gone.'

‘You can't be quite gone,' said Cooper, putting down his glass.

‘Why not?'

‘Because I've still got your TV in the boot of my car.'

‘So you have.'

‘You'll need it for the new apartment in Nottingham. You've moved everything else. That old place at Grosvenor Avenue must be empty now.'

‘Pretty much. But we can't move it tonight,' said Fry. ‘You've been drinking.'

‘So have you.'

‘True.'

Fry gazed at him. And it felt as if everything that had ever passed between them over the years dissolved in that moment, in that one look. Cooper's doubts about Fry fell away. For the first time he found himself looking past the brittle façade and seeing the real person underneath, vulnerable and lonely. Fry was like a 3D picture, baffling at first. But if you stared at it for long enough, your eyes slipped through the surface to a different focus and found something surprising that took your breath away.

‘So, Diane…'

‘So let's leave the TV where it is,' she said. ‘We're not going anywhere tonight.'

C
ooper was awake early next morning. Quietly, he opened the back door into the garden behind Welbeck Street.

A strong wind had been blowing from the north all night. He walked out of his flat into a world of bare branches and swathes of dead leaves covering the ground. So that was it, he thought. Autumn was truly over. Nothing could stop the winter now.

For a while he sat on a garden chair and watched the sun rise. Fry had been right that a death could provide a bridge to the future. It meant a new start in so many ways. But nothing was quite so simple, was it? It was all very well trying to look ahead, to think about what might still be to come. But it was all daydreams, a lot of wishful thinking. Whatever you did, there was no escaping your fate. No one had any idea what the future would bring.

Cooper gazed up at the hills around Edendale, the ever-changing landscape of the Peak District, the countryside he'd grown up in. The colours of those hills altered season by season, month by month. They might look bare and bleak now, but new life was just below the surface, waiting to burst through again, if it was only given half a chance.

Yes, winter always ended. And, if you could look far enough into the future, spring was just around the corner.

Read on for an excerpt from

Lost River

A Cooper & Fry Mystery

Available now from Witness Impulse

Monday

O
N THE BANKS
of the river, Ben Cooper was running. His breath came ragged and hot in his throat. The sweat ran into his eyes. All around him, water rushed over stones, pale rocks gleamed under the surface, wet slabs of limestone caught the glare of sunlight trapped in a narrow valley. As he splashed at the edge of the water, he saw shimmers of steam rising from the wet grass, bursts of foam on the edge of his vision. And he saw long streams of blood, swirling in the current like eels.

A hundred yards away, someone had started to scream. The noise echoed off the limestone cliffs, and shrieked among the caves and pinnacles of the dale. He wanted to put his hands over his ears to block out the noise, to stop the pain of the screaming.

But he knew it would never stop, would never be out of his head again.

Behind him, other people were running. He could hear them stumbling and gasping, crashing into trees, cursing each other. The outlines of the Twelve Apostles swayed against the sky above him, jagged stone spires bursting from the hillside like teeth.

Cooper stopped to swipe the sweat from his eyes, wondering whether he was seeing anything properly. The sun reflecting off the water created impenetrable shadows and glittering fringes of light, caught strands of grass waving below the surface like hair. A fish popped up to the air, another jumped and splashed across the river. Water foamed around an obstruction, a shape lying deep on the gravel bed.

Cooper shook his head. Who was screaming? Why didn't someone tell them to stop? There were enough people here by the river. Scores of people. Dozens of families had been drawn into Dovedale by the hot May bank holiday weather. Sensing the sudden burst of excitement, they milled aimlessly on the banks like panicked sheep. In the distance, he could see them lining the stepping stones in a dumb row.

Nearby, a man stood on the bank, his hands raised, water dripping from his fingers. Cooper had the mad impression that he was some kind of priest, performing a blessing. High on an arch of rock another figure hunched, silhouetted against the sky, his face invisible. A predator on its perch, scanning the valley for prey.

In the water, Cooper saw another rock. More rocks everywhere, lying half in and half out of the river, worn as smooth as skin. Pale, wet skin, everywhere in the water. What chance did he have of distinguishing anything? No chance. No chance, until it was too late.

He looked up again. Was it really someone screaming? Or was it just a bird, startled from its roost in the birches on the limestone edge? A whole flock of birds screeching to each other, over and over, a cacophony of despair. It felt as though the rocks themselves were screaming.

He breathed deeply, tried to focus, forced himself to be calm. Now wasn't the time to lose his head. He was a police officer, and everyone was looking to him to do something. He lowered his eyes, and kept running. Still there was too much light glaring off the water, too many shadows, too much random movement. The roots of an ash tree covered in algae crouched at the edge of the water. A broken branch lay like a severed limb.

There were shouts up ahead now, and the sound of an engine. Voices calling questions, and shouting instructions. Finally, someone was trying to take charge of the chaos. He stumbled into the water, splashed spray in a wide, glittering arc. The coldness of the water was a painful shock, a blast of ice on his hot skin. He missed his footing on a wet stone, slipped, found himself crouching low over the water, staring at a broken reflection of his own face.

No. Not his own face. It was smaller, motionless – a white face, hair floating, the blood washed clear by cold, crystal streams, a green summer dress tangled on the body like weeds. A green shroud of weeds barely stirring in the water.

He plunged his hands into the river and grasped the limp arms. With a heave, he drew the body up out of the water, into the air, and held the cold form in arms, hardly daring to look at the white face. The limbs flopped, her head lolled back on her neck. Water cascaded from the folds of her dress and oozed from the sides of her mouth.

Finally, Cooper raised his voice.

‘Here,' he called.

And then the screaming stopped. The limestone gorge fell silent. And there was only the roar of rushing water – the endless sound of the River Dove, never stopping, continually washing clean. A torrent of water, purifying death.

Cooper turned towards the bank. And that was when he saw them. They were standing close together, but apart from the crowd, as if the onlookers had instinctively drawn away. Two adults, and a boy of about thirteen. He stared at them in despair, his mouth moving but no words coming out.

Their isolation, the tense attitude of their bodies, the desolation of their expressions – they all told him the same story. This was the dead girl's family.

W
ELL, THE TOURIST
authority would love it. They'd be sending out the ice-cream vans and unfolding the awnings at the tea rooms. For once, summer had come early in the Peak District.

The thought was no consolation to Detective Sergeant Diane Fry, as she sat in her car on a hot street in Edendale. The windows were open, but there wasn't enough breeze here to ruffle her hair, let alone to cool the clammy interior of a black Audi. She cursed herself for having parked with the front seats in full sun, so the heat had been focused on the fake leather like a laser aimed through the windscreen. She couldn't even use her air conditioning without risking the battery. Now the heat was rising all around her in a mist, steaming up the mirrors. Another half hour of this, and she might spontan-eously combust. That was, if she didn't die of boredom first.

She thumbed the button on her handset.

‘Anything happening?'

‘Not yet. It's all quiet.'

‘Okay, thanks.'

Fry sighed, glanced in her rear-view mirror, and shifted uncomfortably in her seat. The Audi was a new car, since she'd finally got rid of the battered old Peugeot. But she hadn't been able to tear herself away from black. These days, everyone seemed to go for silver grey or metallic blue, but personally she tended to agree with Henry Ford – anything, so long as it was black.

Of course, it wasn't the best choice when the summer decided to start early, with a heat wave at the end of May. Black seemed to absorb every last drop of heat.

What she needed was movement. Her foot on the accelerator, a breeze whipping past the windows. The air con going full blast. She wouldn't really care where she was heading, if only she was moving. Out of this housing estate, out of the town of Edendale, and into the Derbyshire countryside for the sake of a cool breeze on the hills. She never thought she would hear herself say it.

A voice crackled.

‘Still nothing. Shall we call it a day?'

‘Not yet.'

‘I'm dying here, Diane.'

‘I'll make sure you get a good funeral, Gavin.'

In the CID car, DC Gavin Murfin and young DC Becky Hurst would really be getting on each other's nerves by now. Murfin would be dropping crumbs on the floor and sweating, and Hurst would be talking too much and spraying the interior with air freshener. One of them would probably kill the other, if she made them sit in the sun any longer. Fry pictured the contest. If she had to place a bet, her money would be on Hurst. She was younger, faster, and meaner.

Fry looked up the street again at a suggestion of movement. An old man walking an ancient dog. Neither of them was moving at more than half a mile an hour. The dog was black, like her car. Its head drooped as it slowly put one foot in front of the other on the pavement, heading towards the corner shop at the end of the street.

They weren't what she was watching for. Her target was a fair-haired man in his late twenties, wearing a baseball cap. Intelligence said that he was living in one of these houses halfway along the street, a typical Devonshire Estate council-owned semi. But she was starting to think he might have moved home.

‘I'd better start making a note of what music I want,' said Murfin.

‘What?'

‘At my funeral. I don't want any of this happy-clappy, celebrating-his-life sort of stuff. I want everyone to cry when I go.'

‘Gavin, can we keep the chatter to a minimum, please?'

She heard him sigh. ‘Okay, boss.'

In the last few months, Fry had found herself thinking about moving home, too. She wasn't sure whether it was the new car, or all the other things that she had to think about, particularly the major decisions she had to make. Decisions that she'd been putting off for weeks.

Whatever the reason, her flat at number 12 Grosvenor Avenue had begun to feel narrow and confining, as if she was living in a cell. The detached Victorian villa, once so solid and prosperous, had started to flake at the edges, the window frames warping with damp, tiles slipping off the roof during the night and frightening her half to death with their noise.

‘Is this him, Diane?'

Fry watched a white baseball cap emerge from behind an overgrown privet hedge on to the pavement.

‘No, it's female.'

‘Oh, yeah. You're right. Female, and suffering from a recent fashion disaster.'

Despite herself, Fry smiled. ‘You being the expert, of course, Gavin.'

She could hear another voice in the background. Hurst, giving Murfin some earache.

‘Becky says I'm being sexist,' said Murfin. ‘So I'm going to have to go and kill myself.'

‘Fair enough.'

Fry looked at the row of council houses, wondering about the kind of people who lived here, rent paid out of their Social Security benefits. Some of them hardly seemed to care about the conditions they brought their children up in.

When she'd first moved into her flat, there had been a private landlord – absent, but at least a real person who could be spoken to occasionally. Last winter, the property had been sold to a development company with an office somewhere in Manchester and an automated switchboard that put you on hold whenever you phoned with complaints.

It was a shame. When she looked around the other houses in Grosvenor Avenue, she saw what could be done by a responsible owner. But the present landlords didn't worry about their steady turnover of tenants, who were mostly migrant workers with jobs in the bigger Edendale hotels, and a few students on courses at High Peak College. The former tended to disappear in the winter when the tourist season was over, and the latter were gone in the summer. Fry had been the longest surviving tenant for two or three years now. No doubt the owners wondered why she was still there. She was starting to wonder that herself. It was probably time to say goodbye to the mock porticos, and the flat on the first floor, with its washed-out carpets and indelible background smells.