it in books, but never knew where it was. Does anybody know what this is for?'
'No,' I replied. 'Lots of crackpot theories, like it was made by the keels of Viking ships as they were dragged overland; or maybe by charioteers as they trailed a foot along the ground to try to slow down. Must've ruined their sandals. It's anybody's guess.'
'What do you think?'
I shook my head. 'The truth,' I replied, 'would probably be mundane and obvious, once we knew it. It usually is. Far better for it to remain concealed.'
Annabelle stood up, and slowly turned in a full circle, studying the view. I watched the wind ruffle her hair. When she was facing me again she said: 'You love the moors, don't you, Charles.'
It was a statement rather than a question, but I replied to it. 'Yes, I suppose I must.'
'Why? What is it about them that draws you?'
I'd never tried to put it into words before. 'I don't know. They're beautiful. And mysterious. They have stories to tell that we can only try to imagine. They're never the same for two days together, or even for ten minutes. They reveal themselves to you in brief glimpses, like a curtain blowing open and then closing again. But all the time there is a constancy about them.' I shrugged, struggling for the right words. 'I don't know, I suppose I just feel at peace when I'm near them.'
Even as I spoke I was wondering if it was my feelings for the moors I was describing, or for the woman who'd asked the question.
Above us, ragged clouds, the colour of wet slate, were scurrying eastwards. Thirty thousand feet higher, the pale sky was patterned with pink fish-scales, through which an invisible jetliner etched its trail, straight as a laser beam. We walked, hand in hand, back up the hill to the outcrop of millstone grit that is Blackstone Edge.
'Are we in Lancashire or Yorkshire?' Annabelle asked.
'Neither,' I asserted. 'We're just about on the border, but history has been rewritten. The Wars of the Roses were now fought between Calderdale and Greater Manchester. It was a close-run thing until Kirklees joined in and tipped the balance.'
When we reached the piled-up boulders of the Edge, I pointed to a smooth one and told Annabelle to sit there. We were both puffing with the exertion. I sat on the ground, leaning back against a rock and facing her, with my legs splayed out in front of me.
'I want to tell you something,' I said. 'About me.'
Her smile was replaced by a look of concern. She sensed from my tone I was being serious, and she was uncertain and possibly worried about what I was about to say.
'What is it, Charles?'
I picked up a small stone and tossed it at my left boot. It bounced off the toe and rolled into the grass. I followed it with my gaze, as if it were some juju that might tell me the right words to use.
'Just over a year ago,' I began, 'not long after I first met you, I…
I… killed a man.' There, I'd said it. 'We were on a raid, and ' 'Yes, I know.' ' he came at me with a… You know?' I looked up at her face, into those eyes the colour of a bluebell wood in spring.
'Yes,' she replied, very softly.
'How do you know?'
'I read in the papers that a drug dealer had been shot. It said he fired a shotgun at a policeman, who fired back and killed him. I wondered if you were involved, and when I didn't hear from you for a long time… Then, one day, I bumped into Gilbert Superintendent Wood. So I asked him.'
'You've known all the time?'
'Yes. Do you want to talk about it?'
'No, I don't think so. I just wanted to tell you.'
She slid down off her rock and reached out for my hand. Hauling me to my feet she said: 'Come on, then. Get me to my PCC meeting.'
High above, the vapour trail was breaking up and drifting away. The jet that had made it would be heading out over the Atlantic by now. I was glad I wasn't on it. I wouldn't have traded places with the Emperor of China.
We threw our coats on the back seat or the car and I pushed the heater controls to maximum and started the engine. Annabelle clicked her seatbelt fastened and looked across at me.
'Thank you for showing me the Roman road,' she said.
I winked at her and said: 'You're welcome, ma'am.'
'Does it have a name?'
'A name?'
'Yes, like Watling Street, or the Fosse Way.'
'Oh, didn't I tell you?' I replied, thinking fast.
'No, you haven't mentioned it.'
'Sorry about that. It's called the M… let me see… the M… LXII.'
She chuckled and smiled. It was an indulgent smile, tolerant, and, I thought, affectionate. We arrived at her gate well before six. I politely declined the offer of a quick cup of tea and drove home.
The Peak District is chopped off the bottom of the Pennines by what Yorkshire geography teachers call the Aire Gap, although their Lancastrian colleagues may have a different name for it. The Gap acts as a funnel for migrating birds, working their way from one coast to the other. It's also a major transport route between the conurbations of Manchester and Leeds, especially since the coming of the motorway.
It's a good area for a young, ambitious policeman to work in. The wool and cotton barons left a legacy of fine houses, mills and remote farms, built like castles from the local stone. Property prices are low, and the attractions for today's highly mobile criminals are tempting.
There's a lot more to the area than that, though. Something in the water, or the air, reacts with the genes of a few susceptible people to produce villains who break all the rules of the game.
This valley spawns serial killers.
Everybody knows their names. They were splashed over the front pages of the tabloids, feeding the egos that created them. Even Haigh and Christie, who did their foul work in London, were born near here.
Then there are the ones who worked within the law — brutish, inarticulate men who were driven by something within to write misspelt letters to the Home Office, volunteering to become the Public Executioner. And the Government, glad to find the final cog in the mechanism that started in Westminster and ended in the lime pit, accepted them. Six hangmen, including three Pierrepoints, were born in the valley. Between them they despatched, with varying degrees of incompetence, over a thousand of their fellow men and women.
I was having a restless night. All of these things, plus a few faces from the past, came to disturb my sleep. Twelve years ago I caught a double killer. In the heat of the moment I could cheerfully have pulled the trap myself; but now, and in the quiet of the night, I'm glad he didn't hang. He's still inside, and will be for a long time. That's good enough for me. I can live with knowing I put him there. The memory of those two kids in that blood-splattered room easily dispels any doubts that may arise.
Once the birds started singing I knew that any chance of sleep was gone. I rose ridiculously early, shaved and showered, and drove to work; pausing only to put on some clothes, of course.
We always made a point of having a full team conference on a Monday morning, although 'conference' was putting it a bit grandly, these days. Due to my change in routine I hadn't seen a Sunday paper, but I was quickly brought up to date. Georgina's disappearance had attracted the attention of a good number of cranks. Unsolved crimes, especially murders or potential murders, always do. Some were sincere, some were mischievous, all were time-wasters. Now one of them had hit the headlines.
Madame Julia LeSt rang medium and psychic healer, said she could find Georgina. The Sunday News believed her and the police's reluctance to cooperate amounted to sheer incompetence.
I tossed the paper I'd been given to read straight into the bin. 'You had finished with that, hadn't you?' I asked Sparky, who'd brought it in.
'Yes, boss. Texture's no good for me.'
'Mmm, it is a bit coarse. Jeff, you've handled most of the crank calls. How many times has Madame LeSt rang been in?'
'I've seen her three times in the last month. She wants access to something personal from Georgina. Then
