‘Hob Hurst’s House,’ said Cooper. ‘It isn’t really a house.’
‘And I suppose there was never really anyone called Hob Hurst?’
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Well, no.’
‘How did I guess?’
‘It’s the name of a character in local folk stories. A goblin or a giant, I’m not sure which. What you can see there is actually the result of a landslip, but it does look like a ruined house from a distance, if you have a bit of imagination.’
‘Whoever built that hotel certainly had a bit of imagination,’ said Fry. ‘Some romantic Victorian, I suppose, fresh from a trip to the Alps.’
‘Probably. You know, when this viaduct was built for the railway line, there was a campaign against it. Everyone said it would ruin the view, just for the sake of getting from Bakewell to Buxton more quickly. Now it’s one of the most popular sights in the area.’
They almost passed the Infidels’ Cemetery without seeing it, although it was right by the roadside. Cooper had driven a few yards beyond it before he braked suddenly and reversed. Part of the wall that had once protected the graveyard had been knocked down. A wire fence was all that barred the gap, though the deep beds of stinging nettles behind it looked pretty hostile.
It was much quieter here than at Monsal Head. Across the valley they heard a shepherd calling to his dog, his voice a high, harsh cry like a moorland bird. Somebody was shooting on the opposite hill. As always in the countryside, the sound of gunfire didn’t seem out of place, let alone worth commenting on.
‘Well, nobody has been in this cemetery for months,’ said Fry. ‘Even I can tell that.’
‘They didn’t venture beyond the first couple of yards, anyway.’
Most of the ancient gravestones had fallen flat and were smothered with tangled goose grass and brambles. The stones that had stayed upright were coated in yellow lichen and shrouded in ivy that masked their familiar graveyard shapes.
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The only exceptions were the two stones nearest the road. Someone had cleared the ivy from them, revealing their inscriptions.
With difficulty, Cooper read the name and dates on one of the stones.
‘I don’t think this person was much appreciated in his day,’ he said. ‘“Though man’s envy may thy worth disdain, Still conscious uprightness shall fill thy breast.” I might suggest that one to Gavin for his epitaph.’
‘Why? Is he feeling under-appreciated?’
‘I think so.’ Cooper moved a few yards to the side. ‘Diane, look at this one.’
Only a small patch had been cleared in the ivy covering the second stone. It had been done quite recently, too. The broken stems were still shredded and oozing a little sap when Cooper touched them.
‘That’s a bit odd,’ he said.
‘Why?’
‘Well, I was assuming that whoever cleared the ivy from these stones was an amateur historian, trying to confirm the names of people buried here. Or maybe a relative who wanted an ancestor to be remembered, not just lost in the undergrowth.’
‘Seems reasonable,’ said Fry.
‘But look at this - the name and dates haven’t been exposed, just the inscription after them. It’s only a short one, too. Caro data vermibus. What does that mean?’
‘I’ve no idea.’
‘You’re the educated one.’
‘Ben, I took a degree in Criminal Justice and Policing at the University of Central England. It didn’t make me fluent in Latin.’
Cooper walked backwards and forwards in front of the stones, but beyond the first few feet of ground from the road the blanket of nettles and brambles was dense and unbroken. He watched a butterfly flit among the nettles.
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Impatiently, Fry walked back to the entrance and looked up the road. ‘How near is this to Wardlow, did you say?’
‘Only a couple of miles.’
In the language of Derbyshire place names, ‘low’ always meant ‘high’. So this particular village must have been named after the lookout hill, Wardlow Cop, whose flattened conical shape appeared on their left as they began the descent from Monsal Head.
Wardlow itself was just as DI Hitchens had described it a series of farms and houses scattered along one road. It was bordered on both sides by long, narrow strips of pasture land, preserved in their medieval patterns by drystone walls, networks of them strung across the fields and climbing the hills. Some parts of the White Peak plateau were said to have twenty-four miles of wall for every square mile of farmland. Instead of regular field patterns, the eye was likely to see a confusing geometry of stone, long courses of wall exaggerating every contour in the landscape.
Some of the farms at Wardlow had been converted into homes, but others were still working. A tractor turned out of a yard as they reached the start of the village, where two Union Jacks were flying. Cooper noticed that the village pub was closed during the day, like so many in places without much tourist trade. The Church of the Good Shepherd was just beyond a cattery operating from a cluster of surplus farm buildings. It was a small stone church with a slate roof and leaded windows, but no tower. Anything bigger would have been out of place.
They finally found space wide enough to park alongside someone’s hedge without blocking the road completely, and they crossed to the church. Through double gates they walked into a grassed area, where a pair of stocks stood near the rear wall. Cooper didn’t think they were medieval - more likely erected for a village fete some time in the last few decades. A chance to throw wet sponges at the vicar, rather
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than rotten eggs at a convicted felon. Ritual humiliation, all the same.
Behind the church was the graveyard itself, small and underused. There’d be no need to close this one to
