Already Dead (18 page)

‘Perhaps it’s the kind of rain you can run through without getting wet,’ said Murfin.

‘Do you think so, Gavin?’

‘Nope.’

Fry put on her coat and took an umbrella from the corner. It wasn’t far across the compound to where her car was parked – just twenty-five yards or so. But it was far enough to get thoroughly soaked in this weather.

The umbrella was still wet from the last time she’d used it, and a patch of carpet underneath it was darkening with damp. They didn’t provide umbrella stands for CID rooms. They weren’t considered standard office furniture, she supposed, even in the Peak District. There was probably a crumbling patch of floorboard under this carpet by now, eaten away by wet rot. It was a fate she might be about to share.

A few minutes later, she was in the driving seat of her car, dripping on the carpet, with the wipers working, while she waited for the fan to clear the condensation from her windscreen. The noise of the rain drumming on the roof almost drowned out the radio, and she turned it off.

When her view was clear, she fastened her seat belt and drove out through the barrier, her tyres splashing through a stream of water running down the edge of the road. E Division headquarters had been built at the top of a hill, so all the rain was running down West Street and gathering at the bottom near the lights.

When she reached the foot of the hill, she could see that the junction might be closed completely later on. Drivers were already negotiating their way cautiously through a shallow lake, throwing up waves on to the pavement. Lights had come on in the shop windows, and passers-by were sheltering in doorways waiting for the downpour to stop, trusting that it was only a cloudburst. Without exception, they gazed upwards in awe, fascinated by the sight of gallons of water hurtling from the sky.

Fry had to admit there was something mesmerising about heavy rain. People could get quite obsessed with it. They dedicated their lives to recording rainfall and analysing weather patterns. They knew that Seathwaite in Cumbria was the wettest place in Britain. They could tell you that almost twelve and a half inches of rain had fallen there once in a twenty-four-hour period. Those self-appointed weather experts could reel off statistics all the way back to 1850, when official records began. Rain was one of the highlights of their week. They loved downpours, delighted in showers, positively purred over a torrential deluge like this one. They probably had forty different words for rain.

But for her, it was just wet. Ludicrously wet. It was starting to become unnatural.

As she drove through the town, taking care on the wet tarmac, it occurred to her that it would be quite different at the end of the journey. At her crime scene in Sparrow Wood, there was no tarmac, only mud. And then probably a lot more mud.

Back home in Birmingham, it had rained a lot too. But at least in the city you could go indoors. And if you did have to venture outside, you weren’t forced to wade through six inches of sludge to reach your car, or get your feet wet just crossing the road.

Fry knew this was a punishment. She’d done something wrong in a previous life. Whatever it was, she just hoped it was something she’d enjoyed.

Luke Irvine met her at Prospectus Assurance. ‘Mr Edge is waiting for us,’ he said.

When they entered his office, Ralph Edge spun in his chair and turned his shirt cuffs back, like a man preparing for a fight. He was older than Nathan Baird, and softer in outline, with smooth hands and a pudgy neck. His hair was receding to the point where he’d decided to shave the rest of his head, which gave him a strangely aggressive look that was at odds with the rest of his appearance.

‘So how can I help?’ he asked. ‘What do you want to know about poor old Glen?’

‘He was a claims adjuster here, is that right?’

‘Yes. Their role is to determine the extent of the company’s liability. They investigate claims. Interview claimants and witnesses, consult police and hospital records if necessary. Sometimes they have to inspect property damage. As an adjuster, you can work long hours, including nights and weekends. You have to be able to use a laptop, but a fifty-pound ladder as well.’

‘Much personal contact with the public?’

‘Well … you have to help the policyholder. You’re the one familiar with all the technical terms. Depreciation, replacement costs, actual cash value. Most policyholders don’t understand those things.’

‘Would you say Mr Turner was happy with his work at Prospectus Assurance?’

Edge shrugged. ‘I guess so. Everyone grumbles about money, of course. There used to be a bonus scheme. Up to ten per cent of your salary. That doesn’t happen now. Austerity times, you know.’

‘And how does your job fit in with the work he was doing?’

‘We have to investigate claims to make sure they’re genuine. Sadly, some people do lie.’

‘Oh, I know,’ said Fry.

‘Of course you do.’

‘How much did you know about Mr Turner’s personal life?’

‘Oh, I suppose someone has told you that I was his best friend or something, have they?’

‘And were you?’

‘I’d be a bit more upset, if I was,’ said Edge.

‘Yes, I’d noticed you weren’t too distressed by his death, sir.’

Edge held out one hand in apology. ‘Don’t get me wrong. Glen was okay. We did talk a bit. But his personal life? No, not really.’

‘Do you remember anything out of the ordinary about Mr Turner in the previous few days? Anything particularly unusual?’

‘When do you mean exactly?’

‘Say two days before his death.’

‘That would be…?’

‘Sunday,’ said Fry as he looked towards the wall planner for clarification. She followed his gaze and saw that the whole of the previous weekend was blocked out in bright red tape decorated with gold stars, as if it was a special occasion. A celebration, or some kind of anniversary. A wedding, maybe?

‘Sunday?’ said Edge. ‘Oh, yes. I know what Glen was doing on Sunday, all right. He was getting himself killed. Over and over again.’

18

Josh Lane had been going out every day. He wasn’t working, just taking a trip somewhere different each morning. If the rain had stopped, he went for a walk. Sometimes even when it was still raining too. Then he would stop for lunch in a pub somewhere.

As he followed Lane’s silver grey Honda Civic from Derwent Park that Friday morning, Ben Cooper wondered what was going through Lane’s mind when he did this. It was the sort of thing he imagined he would do himself, if he was facing the possibility of a spell in prison. Taking a look at the world around him before he lost it for a while. Getting the most out of that last taste of freedom.

But he couldn’t bear the idea that he and Lane might think the same way. That wasn’t possible. He wanted this man to be eaten up by guilt. He needed to believe that Josh Lane was desperately seeking peace of mind that he might never get. And, if Cooper had his way, he’d make sure he never got it.

Peace was certainly available in many of these places, if your mind was in the right condition to see it. Today, Lane was driving the short distance up the A6 into Cromford, where he turned into the centre of the village at the traffic lights and headed up the long hill going south.

The road from Wirksworth ran steeply down into Cromford, carrying all telltale signs of nearby quarrying. The unnaturally white surface of the carriageway and the presence of crash barriers on every bend were the clues. Lorries loaded with asphalt and aggregates ground their way up and down this hill every day. No matter how well they were sheeted, or how often their wheels were washed, they left their traces on the roads as reminders of the quarry’s existence. The barriers were there to protect residents living directly in the path of the lorries. If the brakes failed as one of them descended the hill, it would turn into an uncontrollable twelve-ton missile capable of demolishing a house.

As they passed the huge tarmac works at Dean Hollow, Cooper heard the siren go off – a long first blast, giving a two-minute warning of firing. The blasting engineer would be ready with his detonator and firing mechanism, sodium chloride fertiliser pellets packed into tubes to create almost instantaneous blasts. He knew from experience that the vibration would be felt down in the valley.

When they reached Steeple Grange, Cooper thought Lane was heading into Wirksworth. A wide arc of abandoned quarries curved west and north of the little town, forming a backdrop to many of the views over it. Several of those old quarries had been absorbed into the site of the National Stone Centre, which occupied fifty acres of land between the Middleton and Cromford roads.

During the Carboniferous period three hundred million years ago, Wirksworth had been under a tropical sea, which left it with vast quantities of limestone. Centuries of quarrying had left their scars on the area. But almost all of the quarries were disused and derelict now, forming Derbyshire’s own lunar landscape. You could step off a track, or out of a meadow, and find yourself walking on a dead surface of dust and rock, your view blocked on every side by coarse limestone walls, as if you were standing in a crater on the moon.

The great upheaval for Wirksworth came in the 1920s with the reopening of Dale Quarry, known by local people as ‘The Big Hole’. Mechanisation had arrived, and a vast stone crusher was installed. Dust, dirt and noise polluted the heart of the town. Anyone who could afford to leave abandoned Wirksworth, taking commerce with them. Jobs were lost, buildings fell into disrepair, fine old houses were left to decay. What had been one of Derbyshire’s most important towns was blighted.

But in the 1970s the town had been chosen for regeneration. The Wirksworth Project had restored buildings that were falling down, and which now became part of the town’s historic character. With regeneration came new businesses, and a different type of resident had moved in. It had become the sort of place that he and Liz might have wanted to live in.

Cooper was almost caught by surprise when Josh Lane’s car slowed and indicated right near the Lime Kiln pub, well short of Wirksworth town centre.

‘Damn. Where is he going?’ Cooper said to himself, as the Honda waited for traffic to clear. It would be too obvious to pull up right on Lane’s rear bumper for the turn, so Cooper drove on a few yards and stopped in front of a row of neat stone cottages, each with its front door painted a different colour – one green, one blue, the next black – but every one with the same brass urn-shaped knocker.

When Lane had completed his turn, Cooper reversed into an opening between the cottages and followed the grey Honda into Middleton Road. He found himself in front of the ornate gates of Stoney Wood, a park created from the remains of one of the quarries. Lane’s car was in the pull-in by the gates, and Lane himself was already out of it. Cooper turned his head away as he drove past and parked on the grass verge near Middlepeak granite works.

He gave Lane a few minutes, then cautiously made his way through the entrance of Stoney Wood. The slopes of the old quarry had been planted with trees and filled with artworks. Lane was walking up the steepest part of the hill, past hundreds of stones laid out to form an infinity symbol. His head was down as he watched his footing on the slippery ground.

Cooper stayed just out of sight among the trees at the bottom of the slope, and waited. He remembered this place. Its conception had been part of Wirksworth’s regeneration, yet here were all the signs of pagan folk memory that were inescapable in Derbyshire. In Stoney Wood, they were both formal and informal. Close by where he stood, someone had recently laid a pattern of holly and ivy wreaths on the stone seating. Near the top of the hill, he knew Lane would pass the Calendar Stones, modern monoliths placed to align with the sun at the time of the equinox and solstice.

He kept his eyes fixed on the figure picking its way gingerly over a patch of muddy grass. Lane circled the Calendar Stones and stopped. Then Cooper knew he was visiting the StarDisc.

This was just the sort of thing that his sister Claire became enthusiastic about. She loved anything with the kind of New Age atmosphere she’d tried to create in her shop in Edendale. The StarDisc was on a different scale from her crystals and pendulums. It had been created here in Stoney Wood as a twenty-first-century stone circle. A celestial amphitheatre thirty-five feet wide, a temple without walls. Carved into black granite to evoke the darkness of deep space was a star chart mirroring the night sky, its surface inscribed with the constellations. Around the perimeter stood twelve seats denoting the months of the year. Scores of lights illuminating the StarDisc at night were powered by the nearest star – the Sun.

Claire had dragged him to the opening of the StarDisc a few years ago. She must have had no boyfriend in tow at the time, and of course she knew it was a waste of time trying to rope Matt in for something like this. It had been quite an extraordinary event, Ben had to admit. More than a thousand people had turned up to watch an outdoor screening of Steven Spielberg’s
Close Encounters of the Third Kind
and listen to a specially recorded message from the astronomer Patrick Moore. The old lead miners and quarrymen could never have imagined that.

Josh Lane was moving around the StarDisc, walking over the constellations, crouching occasionally to read the name of a star system. He turned slowly to gaze over the scenery in all directions, and Cooper made sure he was standing completely still behind trees. Wearing his green waxed jacket, he wouldn’t be noticeable as long as he didn’t move.

Then Lane began to slither back down the hill to his car, and Cooper turned to make sure he could get to his Toyota in time before he pulled out on to Middleton Road.

Now they were definitely heading into Wirksworth. Down Hutchinson’s Drive, past the Bailey Croft service station and the BP petrol forecourt, and under the arched footbridge that carried a pathway high over the road between Green Hill and Chapel Lane.

A maze of narrow streets and alleyways sprawled on both sides of the main street, some of them leading to an old church set in its own close like a cathedral. On Cooper’s right, the limestone cottages of The Dale and Green Hill clung precariously to the hillside, as if Wirksworth was a Cornish fishing village with only the sea missing. In places it was possible to walk from the garden of one house on to the roof of another. Some residents had even erected greenhouses on their garage roofs in the absence of available space at ground level.