The Devil's Edge (27 page)

‘Wait,’ said Cooper.

Through the undergrowth he’d glimpsed the remains of an ancient building with a corrugated-iron roof and no windows. Moss grew on the stone walls, and a crooked door was half covered in peeling green paint. The weeds in front of it were dense and impenetrable, and a bird had built its nest on a broken downspout. He was looking at an old farm building, a lot older than most of the properties in Riddings. It was Barry Gamble’s artistic statement about decay and abandonment.

And now Cooper could see why the composition of Mr Gamble’s photograph had been all wrong. There was a reason why the angle of his shot had been awkward, with the building off-centre. The photographer had been unable to move those ten yards to the right and take a few steps closer to his subject. He had been prevented by the barbed-wire enclosure.

Inside the enclosure, Cooper saw a pair of brick slurry pits, which must have lain disused for decades. They were overgrown with willowherb and full of a dark, oily sludge, choked with old tyres and covered with green scum. He dreaded to think how foul that sludge would smell, once you broke through the crust on the surface. Matt would never have let any part of his land get like this.

Cooper leaned over and looked into the nearest pit. There was one clear patch on the surface, where something had dropped through the scum and vanished into the murky depths. A small cloud of mosquitoes hovered over it.

For a moment, he stood quite still, oblivious to anything else around him. The moor seemed to recede as if it was no more than a landscape in a dream. For a second he’d slipped back into the real world, the one inhabited by all those people down there in Riddings.

He looked towards the village, and saw the distinctive roof of one of the houses very close to the bottom of the track. His mind filled rapidly with images. The body of Zoe Barron, her blood staining the tiles. The fragments of gravel scattered across the Barrons’ lawn. The white handprints on their back wall. Gardeners, a grey woollen fleece, and a gust of wind blowing canvas over a face-painting tent.

Then he shook himself. He felt as though he’d just woken up and found the nightmare was real. He took a step backwards, and almost bumped-into Villiers.

‘What’s the matter?’ she said. ‘Ben? What is it?’

Cooper could barely answer her. After everything that had happened this week, it was as if his mind had suddenly cleared. The fog had lifted, the mist had finally been burned away by the sun. He still didn’t have the proof, of course. But like those white chalk marks on the rock faces of the edge, he realised that there were one person’s prints all over this case.

‘We need to get some equipment up here, and empty out these slurry pits,’ he said.

‘Oh my God, Ben. Are you serious? You are going to be
really
popular.’

‘I know. Trust me, I know.’

25

Diane Fry stood in the farmyard at Bridge End, watching the activity still going on. A tractor had been reversed out of the way to give the forensics team room to work, and a ballistics expert brought in from the Forensic Science Service was faffing about in the yard in his scene suit. To one side stood a trailer full of fresh manure, which no one had wanted to move. Nearby, a cat sat on the wall, washing its paws calmly, as if waiting for the next stage of the entertainment.

Fry had supervised a neighbouring farmer who had come to deal with the cows, taking them round the back of the milking parlour to avoid crossing the ground in front of the house. That would have made DCI Mackenzie
really
unhappy, to see a herd of cattle trampling his crime scene. Considering that possibility, Fry almost wished she’d allowed it to happen.

She looked around the yard again, picturing the scenario of last night’s shooting. The victim, Graham Smith, had been hit by a single shotgun blast in the middle of the yard. Blood splatter on the ground had been indicated by a series of yellow plastic evidence markers. The preliminary theory was that Smith had been shot in the back while running away from the farmer brandishing a shotgun. And no evidence had so far been found to contradict that theory.

According to the ballistics man, the lead shot used would have had a muzzle velocity of more than thirteen hundred feet per second. Fry knew that that could make a terrible mess of a human body at close range. Further away, the damage was serious, but more widely spread. Individual pellets became embedded under the skin – but provided the face wasn’t hit, it might only be a question of scarring once the pellets were removed.

But if the pellets missed their target and travelled even further, they would become scattered and lose their velocity, causing minimal damage. Eventually, the shot would fall harmlessly to the ground.

Fry stood in the doorway where Matt Cooper would have emerged from the house, an old jacket and a pair of jeans pulled over his pyjamas. He would probably have fired from here, if he’d been defending his property. But perhaps not if he’d been pursuing an innocent victim who was already fleeing. No cartridge case or wad had been found to show where he was standing when he fired. But the victim had been hit in the back, so it was obvious, wasn’t it?

She studied the surface of the yard around the area of the yellow markers. Then she took one final glance around the outbuildings, the parked tractor, the trailer full of manure, the cat grooming itself.

Finally, she sighed. Of course, she felt under no obligation to try too hard to find evidence clearing Matt Cooper. And yet …

Fry looked at Mackenzie as he walked gingerly along the edge of the yard, skirting the smellier areas. She remembered seeing the DCI slip on a cowpat as he came into the yard, twisting his body painfully as he tried to keep his footing.

‘What are you thinking about, DS Fry?’ asked Mackenzie as he came nearer.

‘Cow muck.’

‘Well, there’s plenty of it.’

‘And it’s slippery.’

‘Yes. So?’

‘I’m thinking that if Graham Smith slipped as he was running away across the yard …’

Mackenzie looked at her more closely. ‘It’s possible. I did it myself.’

‘I know you did, sir. I saw you.’

‘What are you suggesting?’

‘Matthew Cooper has been saying in interview that he thought one of the intruders was armed, hasn’t he?’

‘Yes. But as you know, they weren’t in possession of any firearms. And nothing has been found at the scene.’

Out of the corner of her eye, Fry could see the FSS man removing his scene suit and packing his gear, getting ready to depart. Job done, then? Well, perhaps not.

‘Take a look over here,’ she said. ‘Would you, sir? Please?’

‘Why, what have you found?’

‘I could tell you what I think we’ll find. But you should see it for yourself.’

Mackenzie crossed to the trailer with her, wrinkling his nose at the increasing pungency of the smell as they approached. Fry pulled on a pair of latex gloves, ignoring the odour and the cloud of flies that rose from the manure. She began to shake loose some of the straw.

‘I don’t know what on earth you’re doing,’ said Mackenzie. ‘Is it some kind of rural custom?’

‘It’s all a question of trajectory and velocity,’ said Fry.

‘Oh?’

‘Well, mostly. There’s also the complication of people who see only what they want to see, and ignore anything unpleasant.’

A black pellet dropped into her gloved hand.

‘Is that it?’ said Mackenzie.

‘No,’ said Fry. ‘There’ll be more shotgun pellets over this way.’

‘Where?’

‘In the trailer.’

‘But it’s full of …’

‘I know. So?’

The DCI grimaced. ‘How did they get here?’

‘Some of the pellets missed their target,’ said Fry. ‘At that range, you wouldn’t miss. Not unless your target moved suddenly.’

‘I see.’

‘And now, given the velocity and trajectory, we’ll be able to calculate exactly where the shooter was standing when he fired.’

Mackenzie bent to look at the pellet in her hand.

‘I’ll get the ballistics expert back.’

He called over one of his DCs to send him after the forensic scientist, who was probably washing his hands before departure.

‘By the way,’ said Fry, ‘when they searched Matt Cooper in the custody suite, was there anything in the pockets of his jacket?’

The DC checked his notebook. ‘I can tell you that.’

‘Let me guess,’ said Fry. ‘A seventy-millimetre cartridge casing, and a plastic wad.’

‘Yes, exactly right.’

Fry nodded. A sea of conflicting emotions was seething inside her. She loved those moments when she was proved right. Everybody did, didn’t they? It was pretty much what she lived for, that brief surge of adrenalin and excitement that made her heart quicken and her breath catch in her throat. But the credit in this instance wasn’t hers. Not truly. It belonged to the same person who had so often snatched the glory from her in the past. Even now, when he shouldn’t even have been speaking to anyone involved in the investigation. How did he manage to do that?

An incongruous shape caught her eye. Something round and shiny, a curious object to be nestled in a heap of cow manure. Fry reached in a hand. It was fortunate that she was still wearing her gloves. She took hold of the object and drew it slowly from the manure. It kept coming – more than three feet of it; a length of pale, smooth wood sliding into the light and becoming thicker as it emerged. A baseball bat.

‘Well I think that’s pretty clear,’ she said. ‘Don’t you?’

* * *

An hour later, DCI Mackenzie was preparing to leave the farm. Before he got into his car, he turned to Fry with an ironic smile on his lips.

‘You’re a real farm girl, aren’t you? A proper expert in rural life. I was thinking of offering you a job with my team in Derby, but you’re obviously more at home here in the country.’

‘What?’ said Fry, outraged. ‘
What?
’

Mackenzie laughed as he opened his car door, wiping the soles of his boots carefully on the grass.

‘Look at this stuff. I don’t want to take any of this back to the city with me, do I?’

Fry stood stunned as Mackenzie and his team left the farm.

‘A farm girl?
Me?
’

At West Street, Cooper had just returned from a session with Superintendent Branagh and DI Hitchens, justifying the exercise to empty and examine the slurry pits outside Riddings.

In any other inquiry, it would have been out of the question. But these were no ordinary low-priority burglaries they were dealing with. This was a high-profile case, and for once the budget had been stretched. It was important to be seen to be doing something, and officers with shovels and expensive machinery were just the ticket.

Gavin Murfin was very subdued today. Cooper looked at him, aware that Murfin wasn’t on the rota for duty this weekend.

‘Should you be in, Gavin?’ he asked.

‘No, but they couldn’t manage without me.’

‘Overtime, then?’

‘Oh? It hadn’t even crossed my mind.’

‘Yeah, right.’

‘Well, I’m here to help, anyway.’

‘Thanks, Gavin,’ said Cooper.

‘First of all, there’s a message for you. William Chadwick phoned. He and his wife want to talk.’

‘Oh, good.’

‘Do you think they might be involved in some way? In connection with the deaths of the Barrons, or Martin Holland?’

‘Not really. I did think at one time of finding out about the incident at Chadwick’s school. Checking out the family of the pupil involved.’

‘Oh, in case it could have been a revenge attack that went pear-shaped? They just got the wrong house?’

‘Valley View is directly across the lane from the Chadwicks. I thought if the attackers were coming into the village by an indirect route, they might easily have got confused.’

‘It’s possible. But …?’

‘I didn’t bother checking in the end. It doesn’t seem necessary now.’

At The Cottage, Cooper was invited into a sitting room somewhere in the depths of the barn conversion, with French windows looking out on to a large pond surrounded by reeds and oriental grasses. There was no sign of the herons today. Had they been scared off, or had they simply exhausted the available supply of fish?

Marietta Chadwick did most of the talking. Her husband sat fidgeting with anxiety, wiping the sweat from his forehead.

‘This isn’t a place where we expect violence to happen, you know,’ said Mrs Chadwick. ‘It’s rather beyond our experience.’

‘Not for all of you.’ said Cooper.

‘I’m sorry?’

‘Some of the residents in this village are probably more familiar with violence than you might think.’

‘I don’t know what you mean.’

‘Never mind.’

She twisted her hands together nervously. ‘I’m just trying to explain why we … well, why our initial response might have been the wrong one, in retrospect.’

‘Oh?’

‘We didn’t want to put ourselves forward, that’s the truth of it. We’ve got so used to trying to keep a low profile. Just in case, you know.’

‘There’s really no need to make excuses, Mrs Chadwick.’

‘I wasn’t … Well, anyway … it’s about Russell Edson.’

‘Oh?’

‘We’ve never been happy with him. Such an odd man. That Barry Gamble is odd, too, of course – but in a different way. We’ve always thought he was harmless. Not everybody agrees with us, though.’

‘Mr Edson?’ said Cooper, trying to steer her back on topic.

‘Edson, yes. Well, he’s a complete pain in the neck, to be honest. Have you seen his place? Of course you have.’

‘It’s well protected.’

‘He uses that CCTV system like a surveillance network. We imagine him sitting inside the house, watching his monitors twenty-four hours a day. If you do the least thing on that lane, he sees you and comes out to object. If you park your car with its wheels slightly over the verge, or let your dog go to the toilet on the grass, or even pick a blackberry off the hedge … The smallest thing, and he’ll be out shouting that it’s his property and you have no rights. He’s a very rude person. Very arrogant.’

‘It’s a wonder no one ever punched him on the nose,’ said Chadwick.

‘William,’ said his wife warningly.

‘I’m speaking metaphorically, of course.’

‘Oh, his metaphorical nose,’ said Cooper. ‘I see what you mean.’

‘Also, he wants to cut down that wonderful monkey puzzle tree,’ said Mrs Chadwick.

‘Does he? I thought he was quite proud of it.’

Mrs Chadwick shook her head. ‘He has no feeling for anything if it gets in his way. He wants to clear the view of Riddings Edge from his terrace.’

‘I see.’

‘Those trees are dying out in their native habitat, you know. Climate change is causing forest fires in Chile.’

‘That’s very interesting. But …?’

She nodded, and looked at her husband. Cooper had the feeling they must have discussed this long and hard, maybe all week. Had it taken them five days, ever since the death of Zoe Barron, to make their minds up about what to do? What had convinced them in the end? he wondered. Another death? Or two, even. The deaths of Martin Holland and Jake Barron had intervened.

‘We didn’t come forward before, because it seemed to us that it would only complicate matters,’ said Mrs Chadwick. ‘The situation here is worrying enough, after all. And we kept hearing that police resources were overstretched. We didn’t want to distract you from doing your job with irrelevant information.’

‘When you say “we” …?’

‘Bill and I talked it over, of course. And …’

‘Who else?’

‘Well, we discussed it with one of our neighbours.’ She pointed vaguely to the north. ‘Mr Nowak, at Lane End.’

‘This
is
about Tuesday night?’ said Cooper impatiently. ‘The time of the attack at Valley View.’

‘Yes. There were people in the village that night, you see. Oh, I know that sounds strange. There are always people in the village. And it’s not always clear why. But these were different.’

Her husband couldn’t resist butting in.

‘Russell Edson used to have parties, you know,’ he said. ‘All kinds of people came then. But they haven’t taken place for a while. That’s why we noticed, I suppose.’

‘Did you see any vehicles at all?’ asked Cooper.

‘Nothing unusual.’

‘That’s not the same thing.’

‘Well … one. Though the vehicle itself wasn’t unusual. We see it in the village all the time. But it was a bit late for it to be around.’

‘A bit late?’

Mrs Chadwick looked at Cooper rather too brightly.

‘Yes, late. After all, you don’t do much gardening in the dark, do you?’

When he got back to his car, Cooper wondered whether to return to the office. There was a nagging voice at the back of his mind – a constant muttering of anxiety, a fretful whisper reeling off all the possible developments at Bridge End he should be worried about. But he knew that if he stopped to listen to it, he would never do anything else. He had to find something to occupy his mind. Carol Villiers had been right. He had to focus, and stay focused.