lower level has reached the roof and the cavern is about to flood. Then we have four minutes and thirty seconds to get out.’
‘What’s beyond here?’ asked Cooper.
‘Another twelve miles or so of passages, chambers, crawls and sumps. That’s what we know of, anyway - there may be hundreds of miles more that haven’t been discovered yet. But this is as far as we go today.’
Cooper gazed down the Devil’s Staircase towards the noise of water. Even the girls were quiet as Page reeled off the names of the caverns deep in the hill: Fingernail Chamber, the Vortex, Surprise View. Many of them conjured up images of a fairyland waiting to be explored. But Cooper knew there was no fairyland, only darkness down there.
When they walked back into the Devil’s Dining Room, Cooper noticed Page flashing his light into the corners and running it along the ledges where the shadows lay thickest.
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In the roof of the chamber were black spikes of stalactite, like meat hooks.
‘Those are called the Devil’s Hooks,’ said Page. ‘In fact, there’s a nice little story about this chamber. It’s where they used to hold the Beggars’ Banquet.’
‘The what?’
Page seemed not to hear Cooper’s question, but continued his story with a distracted air.
‘For hundreds of years, Peak Cavern was used for an annual gathering of gypsies or tinkers. It was called the Beggars’ Banquet, and it was held right here in the Devil’s Dining Room every August - by royal permission, no less. It was said to be a celebration of the pagan festival, Lughnasa.’
It might have been the echo effect of the chamber, but Page’s voice sounded unnaturally loud, as if he were addressing a more distant audience than the small group around him. He turned as he spoke, performing a complete circuit of the Devil’s Dining Room with his lamp. The stalactite spikes glittered and winked in the ceiling.
Cooper was momentarily reminded of his panic in the narrow tunnel during the rescue exercise. He was conscious again of the massive weight of rock above him, and pictured the spiked roof gradually descending. Even from here, it seemed a very long way to the exit.
‘The bands of tinkers were led by a famous outlaw called Cock Lorrel, “the most notorious knave that ever lived”,’ said Page. ‘Cock Lorrel was the King of the Beggars, and it was said that he invited the Devil to his banquet in Peak Cavern to prove he was afraid of no one. Hence the Devil’s Dining Room.’
He paused. As his voice died away, they could hear the sound of running water, the strange and unidentifiable noises made by the crevices in the rock, the inexplicable rattle of small stones.
Page turned his head back towards where they had come
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from. Back towards the Devil’s Staircase and the endless web of passages deep in the darkness of the hill.
‘The festival went on for two weeks,’ he said, ‘so we can only imagine the condition of this place by the end of it. But what we do know is that they were pretty blood-soaked affairs. The guests at the Beggars’ Banquet were cannibals.’
Amy and Josic laughed, thinking the story was over. Still bursting with energy, they went ahead up the wide steps through the Orchestra Gallery. Cooper saw their faces glowing in the light from the pool where the tiny, blind shrimps lived.
‘He is, isn’t he?’ said Page.
‘What?’
‘Quinn - he’s out of prison?’
‘It seems to be general knowledge,’ said Cooper. ‘But you must have been only a youngster in 1990, Alistair.’
‘I was fifteen.’
Page fiddled with the cord of his lamp, giving his full attention to it for no apparent reason, as if to discourage Cooper from probing any further. Even though his father had dealt with violence in his job, Ben knew how deeply he himself would have been affected if, at the age of fifteen, he’d learned of a murder near to his home. Close to home, it was a different matter. He wanted to ask Page what he’d thought of Mansell Quinn, but decided to leave it. It was doubtful what value there might be in the memories of a fifteen-year-old boy
They caught up with the girls in the Great Cave. Amy and Josie were gazing up into the roof sixty feet above them, awed by the swirl holes made by the waters of the prehistoric river. And they were looking for the rock that had made the shape of the Devil in the next chamber.
‘The poet Ben Jonson wrote about Cock Lorrel and the Beggars’ Banquet,’ said Page cheerfully, spitting out the ‘t’ in ‘banquet’ so hard that it ricocheted off the walls like a bullet.
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‘Back in the seventeenth century, that was. It’s in his poem The Gypsies Metamorphosed. It’s a bit gruesome, though. He says that the dishes eaten at the banquet were made from all the people Cock Lorrel and his followers didn’t like - they broke open their heads and ate their brains.’
Page looked at the two girls doubtfully, but Cooper knew they wouldn’t be bothered by anything gruesome. Amy and Josie had been raised on a livestock farm. They’d seen more birth and death in their short lives than most adults ever did.
Feeling the change of air as they passed through the Bell Chamber, Cooper realized he was nearly outside again. His mind went back to the conversation he’d had with Dl Hitchens before he left West Street that morning. There seemed to be a short gap in his memory of what the DI had been saying, just after he’d told Cooper that his father had been the arresting officer in the Mansell Quinn case. But then Hitchens’ voice had drifted in again, like a radio station coming back on to its wavelength.
‘Joe Cooper and a PC were the crew of the car that responded to the 999 call when Carol Proctor was killed. Your father knew Mansell Quinn, of course.’
‘He knew everybody,’ Cooper had said automatically.
‘Yes, I think he probably did.’
