reacted as if he’d been shot.
He looked up to see Carol Villiers’ face pressed against the glass. He unlocked the door, and she jumped eagerly into the passenger seat.
‘Just wondering,’ she said. ‘We haven’t spoken to Sarah Holland again. Or to Tyler Kaye at all. Weren’t we going to do that today?’
‘It’s not necessary.’
‘I see.’
She produced her notebook, and Cooper watched her expectantly. He recognised an element of teasing in her tone. He probably shouldn’t allow that. But he let it go, because he knew she had something he wanted.
‘Did you know there were fifteen complaints to the district council about neighbour nuisance?’ she said. ‘But none from Russell Edson. And none about him either.’
‘There must be some other motive,’ said Cooper. ‘Maybe disputes that end in court aren’t the problem. There could be one that everyone is keeping quiet about.’
Villiers beamed. ‘You’re right. How come you’re always right, Ben?’
‘I can’t explain it. It just comes naturally.’
‘It’s all in the breeding. I see.’
Cooper closed his laptop. He was learning that he couldn’t hurry Villiers when she had something to say. The more important it was, the longer she seemed to take getting the information out. She liked to savour the tastiest titbits before she released them.
‘So there was some kind of dispute between Edson and the Barrons?’
‘Absolutely. But not over anything so trivial as the ownership of a bit of land. This was about money. A large amount of money.’
‘Ah. Now that’s getting to the real life blood of Riddings.’
‘Yes. And to follow your analogy – our Russell was bleeding profusely. It seems Mr Edson has been spending an awful lot of money on legal fees, without the dispute ever coming to court. He hired private detectives and paid for surveillance. He must have collected a mass of information, everything that could be known about the Barrons. He was like a jealous husband digging up dirt on his wife’s lover.’
‘What?’ Cooper felt confused now. ‘He didn’t have a wife. Was he interested in Zoe Barron?’
‘No, in Jake.’
‘Eh?’
Villiers laughed. ‘Not like that. No, Mr Edson was interested in destroying him.’
Cooper gazed at the stone houses clustered in the centre of Riddings. The quaint narrow lanes, the old horse trough, the neat grass verges, the Union Jack flying at the crossroads. Beyond the centre lay the large, expensive properties, with their pony paddocks and landscaped gardens. It was a place for the upwardly mobile, in more than one sense. Property prices in the seven-figure bracket, and a long drag up that hill without a car.
Yet in another sense, this village was still a jungle – dark and wild, crawling with primal instincts.
‘This has taken some digging out,’ said Villiers. ‘Gavin has helped me to tap into all the best sources. It’s amazing what you can come up with when you start piecing bits of information together. But it’s all there somewhere, waiting for someone to put two and two together.’
‘Tell me,’ said Cooper. ‘I can’t bear this.’
‘Okay, here goes. Jake Barron had persuaded Edson to put a lot of money into the carpet business. And when the company went bankrupt, Edson realised he’d lost it all.’
‘Bankrupt? I thought the Barrons were doing well?’
‘No, they just tried to give that impression.’
‘Oh, personalised number plates. I see.’
‘What?’
‘Nothing.’
‘Well, it seems they had decided to expand the business just at the wrong time,’ said Villiers. ‘They bought out another firm with stores in Ireland. Paid through the nose for it, too. At the time, they said it was a perfect fit to grow the business. But they didn’t know the recession was about to hit. And it was worse in Ireland than here, as you know. The economy was decimated. The Celtic Tiger rolled over and died.’
‘So the Barrons overstretched themselves.’
‘By a long way. They had a bit of a cushion to carry them through for a while, but they couldn’t survive forever waiting until the upturn came along. They’d taken out a massive loan from their bank for the purchase, and it was being called in. The bankers couldn’t see any prospect of a return on their money, so they pulled the plug. I’m told the chain of carpet warehouses is only days away from going into receivership.’
‘I must say, Jake Barron didn’t seem to be suffering from the effects of a financial crisis,’ said Cooper.
‘That must have been what infuriated Edson most, seeing the Barrons still spending money when he was about to lose everything.’
‘Yes, I can imagine.’
‘Jake was a smart businessman, you see,’ said Villiers. ‘He moved all his assets into his wife’s name before the crash came and the crisis became public. The house was entirely hers, for a start. Yes, a smart businessman, Jake. But Russell Edson wasn’t. He was just a jobbing builder who got lucky.’
‘And then very unlucky.’
DI Hitchens was smiling when they met him near the horse trough in the centre of the village. It seemed like the first time he’d done that all week.
‘Well, Ben – it looks as though you’ve come up smelling of roses. Unlike some of the officers in the task force.’
‘Sir?’
‘They recovered a couple of items from one of the slurry pits. An HTC android mobile phone, and a purse containing a hundred and fifty pounds in cash.’
‘Zoe Barron’s property.’
‘Yes. But I don’t understand…’
‘What?’
‘Well, why would they just dump their haul? Including the cash – that doesn’t make sense. Even if they were afraid of getting caught, they would keep the cash, wouldn’t they? Or stash it somewhere at least. Somewhere they could recover it later, I mean – not a slurry pit, for heaven’s sake.’
‘Doesn’t it seem likely that those items were taken to distract our attention from something else?’
‘But from what?’
‘From the real motive for the attack.’
‘The real motive?’
‘Oh, yes,’ said Cooper. ‘What about Russell Edson? Any sign of him? If we don’t find him now, we’ll have a problem. There’s a mist coming down, and it’s going to be dark soon.’
‘Well, we’ve found his red MG. It’s been left up at the car park by Riddings Edge.’
27
Cooper loved the transitional nature of dusk. He liked the way the colours changed, and the world slipped into shadow. It was fascinating how a figure moving in the distance could become smaller and smaller, fainter and fainter, until it was no longer a movement but a trick of the light.
At the car park below Riddings Edge, the only light seemed to come from within the mist itself. It was as if it had swallowed light from the day and was leaking it slowly back into the valley.
Apart from Russell Edson’s red MG, there were only a couple of vehicles still in the car park. Late-evening walkers? Photographers hoping to capture a sunset? Or maybe it was something more. From here, Cooper couldn’t see Riddings at all. Instead, he was looking down towards the River Derwent, and beyond it a small hump of land that hid the larger village of Calver.
A gnawing in his stomach, which he’d thought was anxiety or fear, suddenly resolved itself, as he realised
