That reputation must have been relished by the gypsies and tinkers who’d come to the cavern each year for the Beggars’ Banquet. In fact, they had probably cultivated the myth, knowing it would ensure they’d be left alone.
A deep rumbling he’d been hearing came closer, and Cooper saw lightning over Castleton. He touched the handle of the iron gates. There should have been a chain and padlock, but the gates swung open easily at his touch. He could see several footprints at the top of the first terrace, where water running from the cliff face and splashing off the ticket booth had softened the surface.
‘No way,’ he said. ‘There’s no way I’m going in there again. Not on my own, in the dark.’
He fingered his phone, remembering that he’d have to walk all the back into the village to get a signal, or talk his way into someone’s house.
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Cooper was about to turn away from the gates, but stopped. The last shreds of light from the lamps on the path reached a few feet past the ticket booth before being swallowed up in the blackness of the cavern. As his eyes adjusted to the darkness, he could make out the shapes of the abandoned ropemakers’ equipment on the terraces - the sledges and winders, and the jack with its rotating hooks.
And a few yards along the top terrace, he could see a human figure, motionless, slumped over one of the pulley poles.
He pulled out his torch and shone it on the figure, illuminating a hunched back in a dark jacket, and legs that dragged on the floor at an unnatural angle. It hung on the edge of the darkness that led to the Devil’s Dining Room, and he knew he was looking at no one alive.
Carefully, Cooper moved over the terrace towards it. He touched the shoulder, already feeling a prickle of apprehension from the knowledge that something wasn’t right. His hand rested on the dusty fabric, and sank in. His fingers pushed into the shoulder as if it had been reduced to shreds of straw. The figure sagged and slipped sideways. Dust fell out of its sleeves, and a pale, shapeless face rolled towards him, painted eyes staring past him towards the soot-blackened roof.
Somewhere in the darkness of the cavern, Cooper heard a metallic scrape, the drawing back of a powerful spring.
‘Put down the torch and turn round,’ said a voice. ‘Or you’re as dead as that dummy.’
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41
Outside Speedwell Cavern, Diane Fry could see the road that ran up into Winnats Pass. The sides of the pass certainly looked a peculiar shape, but no doubt there was some sound geological reason for that. Coral reefs and tropical lagoons, indeed.
Ben Cooper had also told her a story about the old A625 being closed by landslips from Mam Tor. She’d found it hard to believe, having spent most of her life among roads that stayed pretty much where they were put. But, from Speedwell, she could see the collapsed slopes of the hill, where the shale had been loosened by the vast amounts of water that fell in these parts. It was obvious even to her that thousands of tons of rock had slithered down into the valley, carrying the road with it, ripping up yards of tarmacked surface as if it had been so much black crepe paper.
A member of staff was waiting for them in a room at the top of a steep flight of steps. He made them put on white safety helmets from a heap on a table.
‘Was it you who called in?’ she said.
‘Yes.’
‘And what’s your name, sir?’
‘Page.’
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‘Mr Alistair Page?’
That’s right.’
Fry studied him for a moment.
‘I’d like to talk to you later, Mr Page,’ she said.
A guide took them down the steps, which ran back under the road, descending steeply into the hillside. The arched roof was low, as if constructed with small men in mind. Fry found it impossible to get into her stride as she went down. She had to take the steps one at a time for fear of losing her balance and pitching headlong to the bottom, where even her hard hat might not save her. Behind her, Gavin Murfin clutched cautiously at the handrail, which meant he had to stoop rather than walk in the middle of the steps where the roof was high enough to stand upright.
‘And how far does this canal thing run?’ Fry asked the guide.
‘Over half a mile. The old lead miners cut southwards from here to intersect the veins that run east to west through this hill. Some of the veins are still visible in the tunnel we’ll go through.’
‘We’re not here for the tour, by the way.’
‘Fair enough.’
When they reached the landing stage at the bottom, two members of the task force dressed in boots and overalls were already sitting in a long punt-type boat. In front of them was the mouth of a tunnel cut through the rock. Once they entered it, they would find their heads only an inch or two below the roof.
‘There isn’t much weight in this boat, so it’s going to ride a bit high in the water, I’m afraid,’ said their guide. ‘You’ll have to duck as we go through the tunnel. Also, it might go a bit too fast for me to control properly. But don’t worry it’s perfectly safe.’
He switched on an electric motor and the boat began to move. The low hum of the motor was no louder than the
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splash of water and the bump of the hull against the walls. They ducked their heads to avoid the roof, but couldn’t avoid the occasional scrape of a helmet on rock. Around them was the smell of cold, wet stone. And the tunnel was dead straight. All Fry could see ahead were two rows of lights fixed to the walls, reflecting in the slowly moving water like elongated candles. They made the tunnel seem endless, and the entrance to the cavern unreachably far away.
Ben Cooper watched Mansell Quinn closely for a clue to his intentions. He knew he was trying to look for humanity in a face hardened by despair. The creases at the corners of Quinn’s eyes hadn’t been there in the old photographs, and his hairline had receded a little from his forehead. But his hair was still much the same colour - still that sandy blond, like desert camouflage.
Quinn was very lean, but the muscles in his shoulders were well defined. Apart from his hands and face, he had
