You didn’t have to retire from the job for your desk to become everybody’s dumping ground around here. The layers of accumulated paper were as deep as the pile of the carpet at Rebecca’s Lowe’s house. Nothing had protected her at Parson’s Croft. But then, she hadn’t known what direction the danger would come from.
‘Diane,’ said Cooper.
He heard her sigh. ‘Yes, Ben?’
‘What about Rebecca Lowe? Why would Alan Proctor have killed her! Why is there no forensic evidence? And what was his motive?’
‘We’ll never know, thanks to Quinn,’ she said. ‘With all three of them gone, the relationship between them is impossible to figure out.’
‘Yes, I suppose so.’
Cooper moved a stack of paper aside and found a packet of photographs. What were these? He slid one out. ‘The City of Aberdeen’, hurtling towards distant hills and an evening sky ominous with thunderclouds. He’d forgotten to send the trainspotter’s pictures back.
The photo of Mansell Quinn on the westbound platform at Hope was missing, of course. But the photographer had been right - the light had been interesting that night. Over to the right he could see the slopes of Win Hill and Lose Hill, and in the centre the distinctive shape of Mam Tor stood out against the sky. Mam Tor meant Mother Hill. But it was a father who’d been most important in this case. Like father, like son. And there was something else that Diane Fry had
473
said today. Something about a dangerous love. DNA isn’t everything.
Cooper dropped the photos suddenly and stared out of the window at the sunlight on the roofs of Edendale. It was a nice day again out there. But they’d had an awful lot of rain recently.
He spun round to see if Fry was still there.
‘Diane,’ he said.
‘What now?’
‘I know you said I shouldn’t think about outings …’
‘Yes, Ben?’
‘But do you have time for a drive?’
She turned to stare at him as if he’d made an indecent suggestion.
‘Where to?’
‘Well, first of all, I’d like to call at the Cheshire Cheese in Castleton.’
‘A pub? It’s a bit early, Ben, isn’t it?’
Cooper shook his head. ‘No, it’s late enough. I just hope it isn’t too late.’
474
46
Beyond the railway line it wasn’t much of a road, more of a dirt track. But it had been well constructed, and it didn’t have too many potholes to gather mud when it rained. It passed a farm entrance and skirted the edge of Win Hill before petering out in a gateway. From there, the route marked on Ben Cooper’s street atlas was actually a public footpath that crossed a stile and ran along the edge of a field, where it was barely visible but for a line of flattened grass.
‘OK, the times fit all right,’ said Diane Fry. Ten o’clock at the Cheshire Cheese, and the journey between the two locations is what - fifteen minutes?’
‘Yes,’ said Cooper. ‘And it’s only a short walk from here.’ ‘It’s been too long to get any impressions from the track, Ben.’
‘And too wet. Shall we walk to the house?’ ‘What about your leg? Are you sure you can manage?’ ‘Well, that’s part of what we’re trying to find out.’ They followed the faint outline of the footpath, keeping a few yards to the side of it. And within ten minutes they’d reached the hedge of elm saplings.
‘Do we have to push our way through it?’ said Fry doubtfully, looking down at her clothes.
475
‘No need. There’s a little gate, look. I never knew that was here.’
‘It doesn’t appear to have been used much.’
Cooper eased open the gate in the hedge, wincing as it creaked on its hinges. ‘It needs oiling,’ he said.
‘OK, so we’re in the garden. What now, Ben?’
‘This way.’
Fry followed him as he walked round the side of the house. Cooper crossed one of the lawns, then stopped.
‘What are you looking at?’
‘The concrete heron,’ he said.
‘We came all this way to look at a concrete heron? Why? You don’t even have a garden of your own, Ben.’
‘No. I wonder if it was made out of cement from the Hope works, though.’
‘Does it matter?’
‘Not in the least.’
Cooper put on a pair of latex gloves and grasped the heron’s head. It took the indignity with a stony glare.
‘Ben, what are you doing?’
‘If I take the weight a bit -‘ he said. ‘Diane, I can’t bend too well at the moment. Could you … ?’
