few years earlier. That was when — ’

‘Yes, I did study a bit of Modern History at school. The Cold War, and all that.’

‘History? Well, I suppose it is history, now. No, the sixties were the Berlin Wall, John F. Kennedy’s assassination, the Six-Day War in the Middle East. The Soviet Union and China were both testing atomic bombs. And everyone talked about the four-minute warning we’d get of a nuclear attack. At school, we didn’t discuss whether there’d be a nuclear war but what we’d do in those last four minutes.’

Fry laughed. ‘Among schoolboys? I bet there was a reasonable consensus.’

‘So what happened to the ROC when the cuts happened?’ insisted Cooper.

‘About half the Derbyshire posts were closed. We lost Baslow, Chinley, Hope, and several others. The strength was reduced by fifty per cent in 1968, each post was limited to a maximum of ten observers.’

Cooper nodded. When you came to think about the events of the 1960s, the world must have seemed a pretty unstable place. Student revolutionaries on the streets. Civil rights, women’s lib. A time when anything seemed possible. And, if you’d asked his mother at the time, the biggest sign that the world was coming to an end would have been the introduction of decimal coins, those strange new ten-pence pieces that were making their way into her purse.

‘Yes, it was a very weird time,’ said Headon. ‘All around us, people spent their time talking about pop music and fashion, as if they were the only things that were important. But we knew the apocalypse was a real possibility. You know the nuclear strategy of the super powers was called MAD — Mutually Assured Destruction? It was commonplace to fear the end of the world. Now no one knows what an air-raid siren sounds like, or a fallout warning. I’ve even heard sirens going off by mistake, and no one takes a blind bit of notice.’

‘So the posts must have been re-organized. Including 8 Group?’

‘Of course. In fact, it was only after the re-organization that we became part of 8 Group. Until 1968, we were 18 Group here. Based in Leeds, that was.’

‘Really?’

Headon laughed. ‘It’s a long way from Leeds, I know — but that’s just the way they divided the country. Edendale was Post 18/R5 back then. We were part of the 18 Group R- Cluster, along with Buxton and Baslow, and Hope. And Birchlow, too.’

Fry and Cooper looked at each other. ‘Birchlow?’

‘Yes, Post 4. That was one they closed. The clusters became bigger, and this area was moved into Coventry district instead of Leeds. Those earlier posts were just handed back to the landowners. And you know how much care some farmers take of historic sites on their land.’

‘Why didn’t you mention the Birchlow post before?’ said Cooper.

‘Because of its history. It’s best to let sleeping dogs lie, isn’t it? People in Birchlow don’t like anyone poking their noses into old trouble.’

Cooper sighed. The old man with the clock, Mr Wakeley, had almost told him this when Cooper visited his home in Eyam on Wednesday. Skeletons in the cupboard, that was what he’d said. Was there some kind of family feud here that went back over the decades? The sort of story that everyone knew about, and no one ever mentioned. In a small community, people who hated each other had no chance of avoiding contact, as they might in a city. So they did the next best thing, and kept their mouth shut. He should have pushed Mr Wakeley to explain what he meant, but at the time he’d put it down to an old man just wanting someone to talk to.

‘I think you’d better tell us about it, David,’ said Cooper. ‘We’re going to find out now, one way or another.’

Headon stared into his glass. ‘Someone died. A boy got killed.’

39

‘I don’t really understand this, Ben,’ said Fry. ‘But we need to know more about these deaths. You’re right — there is some connection, isn’t there?’

‘I think so, Diane. But I just can’t see why, or what the link is.’

‘I’ll make a few calls. It should all be on record.’

‘What about Pauline Outram? Do you think she knows more than she told us?’

Fry thought for a moment. ‘No. She was genuine. Don’t forget, she never knew her mother, or her father either. She has no memories of her own from that time, and none that have been passed down to her, either.’

‘And everyone else in Birchlow seems to have decided not to talk about it.’

‘We’ll see.’

The archives took a lot of tracking down on a Sunday. Without the internet and digital archiving, they would have had to wait another day. But, over the course of the afternoon, they dug out newspaper reports of the original incident, an inquest report, photographs of some of the individuals involved. Bit by bit, they managed to piece together the story. The story of the Birchlow observer post.

‘June 1968,’ said Cooper. ‘They were dismantling at the end of an exercise. Three observers on a shift, as usual. The young man who died was Jimmy Hind.’

Fry had brought a drink of water to her desk. Archives made her mouth feel dry, even when they were digital. She could practically feel the dust on the back of her throat. But it was such a relief to be back at work properly. She felt much more at ease now, restored to her own environment, with Cooper back in his chair, head bent over a file. Enough socializing for now.

‘The other two people involved were…?’ she said.

‘The first was Leslie Michael Clay — he was leading observer, the number one in charge of the post during the shift.’

‘Leslie Michael Clay? But that can’t be the same Clay we’re looking for. He’d be well into his eighties by now.’

‘Our Michael Clay is fifty-one. He would have been too young in 1968.’

‘This was probably his father then, do you think?’

‘Could be,’ said Cooper. ‘Then there was the number two observer. Jimmy Hind’s friend, Peter Massey.’

‘Your farmer at Rough Side Farm. Go on.’

‘At the end of an exercise, the crew had to take down and dismantle all the equipment. The smaller items they took home with them for safe-keeping, but the larger bits of equipment were stored inside the post. When the accident happened, Clay and Massey were lowering the siren down the shaft, and it seems they hadn’t tied a very good knot. Hind was underneath it, waiting to position it at the bottom of the shaft.’

For a moment, they both studied the photograph of the post crew. Jimmy Hind was identifiable from the newspaper pictures. A slight young man in round, wire-rimmed glasses, with long hair sticking out from under his beret.

‘It was reported at the inquest that Clay was a lot bigger and stronger than Massey, so maybe there wasn’t an equal strain on the rope, but they could never be sure exactly what went wrong. Anyway, when it was halfway down, the siren bumped off the side of the shaft, and a knot slipped loose. Hind might have tried to dodge — there was a sort of toilet cubicle just behind him. But he didn’t make it. The siren hit Hind on the head, cracked his skull open. He went down, and the siren broke both his legs when it fell on him.’

‘And he was killed outright?’

‘Not outright. He lived on for a couple of weeks, before they turned off his life support.’

‘How old was Jimmy Hind again?’ asked Fry.

‘Seventeen.’

‘All his life ahead of him.’

Cooper nodded. ‘That’s what the coroner said, too.’

Fry looked at the printouts Cooper had gathered. She had the impression that he, too, was glad to be back at work. Since they’d both returned from Longstone Moor, their eyes had hardly met — the reports they’d unearthed had taken all their attention. With luck, some of the things they’d talked about today would never be mentioned again.

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