‘If you would like for someone to travel to England, it can be arranged,’ he said.
‘Why?’
‘To assist in your investigation. We very much wish to help. Co-operation with our European colleagues is encouraged at the highest level.’
‘Well, I don’t think that will be necessary for now, but I’ll pass on your offer.’
‘It’s been a pleasure to liaise with you, Sergeant Fry. I hope we’ll speak again soon.’
‘Goodbye, then.’
‘
Fry put the phone down.
Then she noticed Murfin making frantic gestures at her with his phone.
‘What is it, Gavin?’
‘I’ve got that waitress on the phone — the one from Matlock Bath, who came in to do the photofits. I think you’d better speak to her.’
‘OK, put her on.’
Murfin transferred the call, and Fry picked up.
‘Good morning, Miss Rawson. I understand you have some new information for us. What is it? Have you remembered something?’
‘Well, I’ve just seen something really. That woman I saw on Saturday — it’s the one who’s in the papers. The one who was killed.’
Fry was disappointed. ‘Yes, Rose Shepherd. We know that, Tina. It’s the other two people we’re trying to identify.’
‘No, no. That’s what I’m trying to tell you. She’s right here in the paper. I mean the woman she was meeting, the younger one.’
‘Who’s in the paper, Tina? I don’t understand what you’re saying.’
‘Listen, I’m telling you. The woman that Miss Shepherd met at the tea rooms, the one you wanted me to give you a description of — I’ve seen a photograph of her in the paper. It’s her, it’s definitely her.’
Tina took a deep breath, as if realizing that she wasn’t going to make herself understood unless she spoke more slowly.
‘I’m looking at her photograph right now, Sergeant. She’s the woman who was killed in the house fire in Edendale. It says here her name is Lindsay Mullen.’
Almost all the houses in the Bonsall area were built in the local style — limestone walls with contrasting sandstone quoins and door and window surrounds. Derbyshire limestone was notoriously hard to work, so in some places the builders had laid rough stone without any attempt to form courses. Cooper could see small stone buildings scattered across the landscape here. Most of these were field barns, used for storing feed and equipment, or sheltering animals. But some of them were probably disused coes, the huts built by lead miners near their mine shafts.
With a clatter of wings, a flock of racing pigeons took off from a loft and circled Cooper’s car. Pigeon lofts seemed to be a feature of Bonsall, too. And that phone box outside the Barley Mow pub — wasn’t that supposed to have been designed by the same architect who built Liverpool Cathedral and Waterloo Bridge?
Through Bonsall, the road became single track, with a few passing places tucked into the stone walls. The farm where Simon Nichols worked lay on the plateau to the west of Masson Hill. Cooper had to pass through Uppertown, then follow a couple of B roads before abandoning tarmac altogether for a route the maps would call ‘unclassified’. There were no helpful signs, and many of the tracks were old miners’ roads that led past the remains of disused lead workings and took you back to where you’d started from. You had to know where you were going in an area like this.
Despite what he’d told the DI, Cooper didn’t really know where he was going. This meant he had to stop to consult his OS map, and try to interpret the spider’s web of black and green lines that crammed the spaces between the B roads. To his left he could see the curious bumps in the landscape that indicated the covered shafts and overgrown spoil heaps of a long-abandoned mine. But he had no idea whether it was Low Mine, Whitelow Mine, or Beans and Bacon Mine. Or even one of half a dozen sites marked on the map simply as
Finally he found himself driving down a stony track, looking for a farmhouse that had been promised by a worn sign half a mile back. But before he found Lea Farm, he came across a pick-up truck and a middle-aged farmer unloading posts for fence repairs.
‘Good morning. DC Cooper, Edendale Police. I’m looking for a Mr Simon Nichols.’
‘Simon? He’s not here. He’ll probably be holed up in his caravan.’
‘He lives in a caravan?’
‘Yes, down at the bottom of the big field there.’
‘Do you own this farm, sir?’
‘Yes, the name’s Finney. Michael Finney.’
‘So you employ Mr Nichols?’
The farmer grunted as he heaved aside two more posts. ‘I suppose so.’
‘When did you last see him?’
‘Not for a few days, as a matter of fact.’
‘Is that normal? I mean, if he’s supposed to be employed here.’
Finney straightened his cap and turned to look at Cooper, weighing him up with a shrewd glance.
‘Well, the thing about Simon is, he tends to drink quite a lot. Sometimes he goes on a bender and stays away for a couple of days. Other times, he just sleeps it off in the caravan. But he turns up eventually. He’s a good worker, when he’s sober. That’s why I keep him on.’
‘And he’s cheap, I expect?’
The farmer shrugged. ‘This is unskilled work. He’s never complained about the wages.’
‘Can I take a look at the caravan?’
‘If you like. Let me get the last of this stuff off the truck, and I’ll show you.’
The caravan stood in a corner of a field, almost hidden by weeds and a copse of trees. Cooper had to park his Toyota in a gateway and walk into the field. The eel post of the gate was new enough to swing smoothly on its hinges, but the clap post it closed against was a chunk of weathered timber so black and hard that it almost seemed to have turned to stone.
‘Keep him well out of the way, don’t you, Mr Finney?’
The farmer shrugged. ‘Simon prefers it down here. He likes to keep himself to himself.’
‘There’s often a reason for that.’
‘I don’t know what you’re getting at.’
Behind the caravan, a row of silage bags glistened in black plastic wrappings, pools of water reflecting the branches of the trees. Overhead, the upper boughs were full of dark, untidy shapes — the nest of the rooks Cooper could see flapping restlessly against the sky.
‘Just that some people prefer not to get visitors …’ he said.
‘Oh, I feel that way myself some days.’
‘… and it usually means they have something to hide.’
Finney sniffed sceptically, but trailed after Cooper as he approached the trees. The nearer he came to the caravan, the more Cooper became aware of the silence in this corner of the field. Apart from the rustling of the birds, there was no sound or movement, no sign of life. Surely someone who didn’t like visitors would be alert for a stranger approaching, or the sound of a car parking in the lane.
Cooper stopped and looked around. The field was full of tussocky grass and outcrops of flat, pale limestone. It was enclosed by two walls that snaked across the landscape until they crested a rise. Halfway up the slope, a section of wall had bulged and fallen. The dislodged stones lay on the ground, grass growing over them. This land hadn’t been used to contain livestock for a while — not unless Mr Finney was happy for his animals to scramble over the damaged wall.
‘I don’t suppose Mr Nichols has a car, sir?’
‘A car? No. I give him a lift into town now and then, if he needs to go to the doctor’s or something,’ said Finney. ‘Otherwise, he gets around on that — ’
