Within a few minutes, Quinn was out of the dale and over a stone wall into a field. It was a pity to leave, but he could come back later when it was safe. Perhaps after nightfall, when there was no risk of being interrupted.
355
I
33
Despite the cattle grid that narrowed it to a single track, Winnats Pass was the main route from Castleton through to Chapel-en-le-Frith and the whole of the western side of the Peak District. It hadn’t always been the case, though. Just down the hill, Ben Cooper could see the remains of the old A625. A landslip from Mam Tor had swept it away after years of battling by the highways department to protect the tarmac from its unstable shale slopes.
Diane Fry looked tired. He wondered if she’d managed to sleep at all before the early morning call to the abandoned field barn above Pindale.
‘These hills are an odd shape,’ she said, as they drove up the steepest part of the pass.
‘It’s a coral reef,’ said Cooper. ‘Well, a limestone reef.’
‘Sorry?’
‘There was a tropical lagoon here. It stretched right down to Dovedale and Matlock, with a few volcanoes in the middle, and these reefs were the outer edge of it. The reefs were formed by algae and shells, the fossils of molluscs and corals. Fish teeth and scales, stuff like that.’
Fry said nothing. She sniffed and scratched her nose irritably.
356
‘Of course, that was when Britain lay south of the Equator,’ said Cooper.
Silently, Fry got a tissue out of her pocket and blew her nose.
‘You’re not impressed?’ said Cooper.
‘I’m waiting for you to start making sense again.’
‘But it’s true.’
‘Yeah, right.’
And it was true. The lagoon had existed here three hundred million years ago, and masses of shells had collected on the fore reef, where it shelved down towards the valley. It was one of the things Cooper had learned during his school project.
He could still remember his own incredulity when he read the description in the work pack. But the sight of the limestone reefs in Winnats Pass had convinced him - even before he found his first fossils, the perfectly preserved imprint of a spiral shell in a piece of limestone, and the outline of a tiny fish in the face of the cliff.
‘Your birthday is today, isn’t it?’ said Fry.
‘Yes, why?’
‘I was wondering if you’re old enough to be grown up yet.’
Carefully overtaking a cyclist who was going purple in the face on the climb, Cooper drove over the top of the pass. It had just occurred to him that Fry had taken the trouble to remember the date of his birthday - but he had absolutely no idea when hers was.
‘So it was too late, then?’ said Jim Thorpe. ‘He’ll never come home now.’
‘No, sir. I’m sorry.’
Mr Thorpe looked beyond morose today. Ben Cooper couldn’t even think of a comparison. The old man had been crying, and he looked as though he might begin again at any moment.
357
‘It wasn’t your fault, Mr Thorpe,’ said Cooper, shifting uneasily. Maybe he was undergoing an unnecessary guilt trip, but he had a sneaking suspicion that it had been partly his own fault.
‘I had to identify him,’ said Mr Thorpe. The hardly recognized him at first. But it was William all right.’
‘He was staying at a caravan park near Hope, but he decided to leave. That was a mistake.’
‘A caravan park?’
‘Belonging to Raymond Proctor.’
‘Oh, yes. But why there?’
Cooper already felt guilty enough. ‘We agreed he’d be safer there, among other people. And 1 suppose he would have been safer, if he’d stayed.’
‘Why did he leave?’
‘I don’t know.’
The cat was sitting in the middle of the room, glaring at the visitors. Cooper sensed that it didn’t feel it was getting enough attention. It clawed at the carpet a bit, then clawed harder when nobody told it to stop. It came closer, and began to shred the table leg.
‘You never know what’s going to happen, do you?’ said Mr Thorpe. ‘It’s a bit like the weather in these parts. The sun might be shining one minute, but the next second you can be drowned by rain. Nobody can tell what’s going to come next.’
‘I’m sorry, sir,’ said Cooper.
Thorpe looked at him sadly. ‘You said you met my son, didn’t you?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘But you never answered my question.’
‘What was that?’
