To cross the tracks at Hope, Cooper had to climb a set of wooden steps on to an iron footbridge where two men with cameras were standing. They must be waiting for express trains to come through, because they didn’t look interested in the diesel units that had just pulled away.
He soon found a path that led into trees and through a kissing gate before heading up the hill to Aston. A stone barn with a corrugated-iron roof stood in the middle of a field, adjoining an old cattle shelter full of spray tanks. An ideal place to loiter unseen, if you needed to.
By the time he reached the village, Cooper was breathing hard. But the walk hadn’t been taxing, just short of twelve minutes from the station. And he hadn’t seen a soul, apart from the trainspotters on the footbridge and a few sheep. In another minute or two he would pass right by Rebecca Lowe’s driveway at Parson’s Croft.
A woman came towards him with a Labrador trailing at her heels. She gave him a close look before saying ‘hello’. Cooper knew he didn’t look like the average hiker. If she was a resident, the woman had probably been interviewed already and would be suspicious of strangers.
At Parson’s Croft, a liveried police car was parked on the driveway and a uniformed female officer stood near the front door, but otherwise it was quiet. The press had gone away, moving on to the next news story as soon as the SOCOs and detectives had dispersed.
Rebecca Lowe’s killer wouldn’t have needed to approach the house via the main gate. The hedge around the property was five feet high, but ragged. It consisted largely of elm
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saplings, which would die before they reached maturity as the beetles that spread Dutch Elm Disease got under their bark. Cooper could have forced his way through in several places. Had the Crime Scene Manager worked on the assumption that the killer had arrived via the obvious route? Or had the weak points in the hedge been examined for fibres left on the branches by someone pushing their way through?
What Cooper really wanted to do was explore the garden, but his presence would have been recorded. In any case, he ought to get back to the station if he was going to catch the train back to Hathersage.
He reached Hope station with five minutes to spare and stood with a group of hikers on the Sheffield platform, listening to an announcement about a delay. Cooper looked round. Nobody seemed to be surprised.
With a shriek and a whine, an express train thundered through. A plate on the locomotive said it was the ‘City of Aberdeen’. The two photographers ran from one side of the bridge to the other to get shots of the train. When it had disappeared around the bend, they began to pack their cameras away. Perhaps they were going for lunch in one of the pubs in Hope.
Cooper gazed around the station. Unlike Hathersage, the platforms here weren’t overlooked. It was well out of the village, and the only vantage point was from the footbridge. On an impulse, he ran up the wooden steps and explained to the photographers what he wanted. He wasn’t very hopeful, but it made sense to cover all the bases while he was here.
‘When did you say?’ asked one.
‘Monday. Between seven thirty and nine in the evening.’
The photographer shook his head and zipped up his bag. But the other man hesitated, reluctant to get involved, or perhaps keen to get started on his lunch.
‘I was here,’ he said.
‘You were?’
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‘I live just down the road in Bradwell, and I noticed the light was interesting that night. There were some thunderclouds moving in from the west. Cumulonimbus.’
‘Right.’
‘It made for some nice lighting effects. I knew a Manchester express was due, so I chucked the bag in the car and came down.’
‘You were here, on the bridge?’
‘Yes, of course.’
‘What time would you have been in position?’
‘About seven thirty, I suppose. I did a bit of setting up, checked the light meter, put a high-speed film in, and took a few trial shots.’
‘Did you notice anyone on either of the platforms?’
‘On the platforms?’ The photographer looked down from the bridge, as if seeing the platforms for the first time. ‘But they’re waiting for the local trains, aren’t they?’
Cooper sighed, recognizing the fact that the photographer wouldn’t have noticed another human being unless they were there on the footbridge with him, comparing the sizes of their zoom lenses.
‘Have you had the film developed?’ he asked.
‘No, it’s still here in my bag.’
‘Would you let me borrow it? I’ll give you a receipt, and you’ll get free prints from it.’
Cooper heard the first rattle of the approaching Sheffield train, the one that would take him back to Hathersage. He braced himself for an argument that he didn’t have time for.
‘Will it help?’ said the photographer.
‘It might do. I can’t say until we have a look at it.’
The friend was fidgeting impatiently in the background, tapping the iron railing of the bridge. The photographer looked over his shoulder at him. And Cooper saw with relief that he, too, didn’t have time to get into a long argument.
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‘Here, you can have it,’ he said. ‘I don’t think they’ll come out too well, anyway. The sun was at the wrong angle.’
Diane Fry had more driving to do this afternoon. Just her luck, when she felt so bad and all she wanted to do was stay indoors, away from the pollen. She’d have to leave her car windows closed all the way. Her doctor had told her to avoid freshly-cut grass, but from May onwards the stuff was all around her in the Peak District. First there were silage trailers blocking the roads, and then vast loads of hay bales filling the air with dust. Try keeping that lot out of your car.
