themselves senseless on the roof.
As they hunched over, Page leaned towards Cooper and whispered to him. ‘Quinn’s out of prison, isn’t he?’
Cooper stared at Page, surprised by the question.
‘Who?’
‘Mansell Quinn.’
‘Do you know Quinn, Alistair?’
‘I’ve lived in Castleton all my life.’
126
They emerged from the tunnel into the Great Cave, where bands of blue fluorite ran across the ceiling. Page pointed out the fossils in the rock, the remains of sea creatures that had died in the reef. He showed them a flowstone formation called Motherin-law’s Tongue and an imitation boulder left by the BBC while filming The Chronicles of Narnia.
‘So you were in Castleton back when Carol Proctor was murdered?’ said Cooper.
‘Of course. In fact, at the time I lived very near where it happened.’
‘In Pindale Road? So your family were neighbours of the Quinns?’
‘Well, very close.’
Page pointed to crystal-clear water lying in a rock pool, with tiny blind shrimps flickering across the surface.
‘Apart from the shrimps, there isn’t much natural life in a cave like this,’ he said. ‘But it’s amazing how things can find a way to survive.’
He showed them moss growing in the walls near the fibre optic lights, and the empty webs left by spiders that had died because they found no flies to feed on. With his lamp, he pointed out the shapes formed in the walls - Father Christmas, Bambi, an alligator’s head, and the dog from Tintin, whose name none of them could remember.
‘And here -‘ he began, as they entered the Orchestra Gallery.
But then he stopped. Cooper looked at him, puzzled by the change in his manner. It was almost as if he’d frightened himself with his own stories.
‘There - in the light from the Great Cave - can you see the shadow on the wall?’
Cooper followed the beam of his light. The outline of a head and shoulders was visible in a shadow picked out by the lights of the chamber they’d just passed through. He could even see two stubby horns protruding from the head.
‘It’s the Devil himself,’ he said.
127
‘Yes,’ said Page. ‘That’s who it is.’
‘Are you all right?’
‘Fine.’
Cooper looked up at the gallery again. But without a light, the shadow had disappeared.
‘You see, the effect of the light is a bit funny in here,’ said Page. ‘You not only imagine shapes - sometimes you even think you can see them moving.’
Diane Fry and Gavin Murfin had called at West Street on the way to their next call, which was all the way down the county in Sudbury.
‘I want to know how they’re getting on with tracking down William Thorpe,’ said Fry.
‘If he’s anything like Proctor, they shouldn’t bother,’ said Murfin.
Fry was struggling to put Raymond Proctor out of her mind. She couldn’t stand people who pushed her so far that she lost control, even for a moment. Instead of thinking about Proctor, she ought to be more concerned about Dawn Cottrill. Dawn had been the one to find her sister murdered. She might have had a right to be upset, to react badly to the police. But she hadn’t.
In the incident room she was met with shaken heads when she asked about Thorpe.
‘And I suppose it’s too soon for the postmortem report on Rebecca Lowe?’ Fry said.
‘Sorry.’
‘Any sign of the weapon? Have they finished searching the scene yet?’
‘No sign.’
‘DNA?’
‘You’re joking.’
‘You didn’t ask whether Quinn had been found,’ said Murfin, following her as she stamped out.
128
‘Not much hope of that,’ said Fry. ‘If we can’t find Thorpe, what chance do we have of locating Quinn?’
Deeper into the cavern, they entered Roger Rain’s House, where a perpetual cascade of water poured through the roof from the floor of Cave Dale. Cooper remembered it from the day before, when the water had spattered his face as he lay in the rescue stretcher. But it was only now that Page decided to mention the water had been found to contain sheep’s urine.
‘Oh, great,’ said Cooper, trying to remember whether he’d kept his mouth closed.
They passed through the Devil’s Dining Room and reached a barrier at the top of a slope where the muddy remnants of a flight of steps and a wooden chute ran down into the darkness. They could hear the distant sound of rushing water.
‘This is the Devil’s Staircase. You can hear the River Styx from here,’ said Page, standing at the top of the chute. ‘Which is a good thing. As long we can hear it, we’re safe. If the noise stops, it means the water on the
