stopped, reluctant to rejoin the noise.
The passage that ran through the centre of the house had once been a gloomy place. In his childhood, the woodwork had been covered in dark brown varnish, the floorboards painted black on either side of narrow strips of carpet that ran down the passage and up the stairs. That carpet had long since lost any trace of pattern under the dirt trampled into the house by humans and animals alike. But now, this part of the house was almost unrecognisable. Kate’s influence had brought light and colour into the farmhouse, with fitted carpets and woodwork stripped to its original golden pine. Mirrors caught and emphasised the light, creating illusions of movement and life in the passage.
Almost unrecognisable – but not quite. Ben paused at the bottom of the stairs, seizing the chance of a quiet moment on his own away from the family. Even though the house was so changed, there were certain spots where the memories were too strong to be erased by paint and fabric. Here, at the bottom of the stairs, was one of those places. When he stood here and looked up towards the bedroom doors, he knew he would see his mother. He would hear the swish of her dress and the scuff of her slippers as she moved across the landing. She was always there, even now. There in his imagination, at least.
One day, he hoped he might stand here at the foot of the stairs and see his mother coming towards him, instead of always moving away.
He wanted to talk to her, but was too conscious of the crowd in the sitting room to speak out loud. Instead he found himself just giving a little nod towards the landing. She would understand.
In Riddings, the Chadwicks were watching their daughter Bryony getting ready to go out. They knew there was no point asking her what time she’d be back. She would never tell them, always said she didn’t know, because it depended how good a time she was having that night. She had her own key and she knew how to operate the burglar alarm, so they could go to bed if she came in late. But both of the Chadwicks were aware, without mentioning it to each other, that there would be no sleep for them tonight. They would lie awake worrying about Bryony, and who she might be spending time with. They had a feeling she’d fallen into bad company, and was developing a relationship with quite the wrong sort of person. They had always dreaded the phone call in the middle of the night.
Russell Edson and his mother sat down to dinner in silence, just the two of them in the huge dining room, surrounded by antiques Russell had collected, random items he’d picked up whenever they took his fancy. A pair of Royal Worcester porcelain vases, a William IV brass barometer, an Aubusson tapestry. They didn’t give him the same satisfaction as the old cars, particularly the MG. People didn’t see his antiques. That was because they didn’t get many visitors any more at Riddings Lodge. He and his mother had held parties at one time, when they first moved to the village. They put on champagne receptions out on the lawn in the summer, elegant suppers here in the dining room in the winter. But he’d gradually lost touch with his old friends in Sheffield, and the neighbours no longer replied to his invitations. Snobs, all of them.
Martin and Sarah Holland were walking up through the village towards the edge. They, too, were silent, holding hands until the slope became too difficult or they had to use their torches to light the way. At the top, they stopped to get their breath, and looked down at the village. They searched automatically for the lights of their own house on Curbar Lane. Strange that they should feel so much safer out here, on the edge in the dark, than down there in their own home. There was an advantage to being in the dark. No one knew that better than the Hollands. Fourways was right next door to Valley View, and violence had come too close to their lives.
Across the lane, Vanessa Slattery had made up a bed in one of the spare rooms for her son. He’d insisted on staying overnight, saying that he was concerned about her being in the house at South Croft on her own. And it was true, it did help a bit. But what about tomorrow, and the day after? Alan had his job to go to, and she couldn’t expect too much of his time. She watched him patrolling the garden, putting on all the outside lights and checking every door and window before he locked the house up for the night. She was slightly troubled by the fact that he seemed to be enjoying this so much. She’d always known he had an aggressive streak, and it didn’t take much to bring it out. And he was likely to be far too free in what he said, even to the police, if they asked him questions about the Barrons.
Richard Nowak had drunk too much, and he intended to drink more yet before the night was over. Not vodka – he hated the stuff – but good single malt Scotch whisky. He had his own miniature bar at Lane End, and he made sure it was always well stocked. Alcohol was the only thing that helped him deal with the stress. And these people certainly made him feel stressed. God knew, he needed to unwind. His father Adam had already gone to bed, and Sonya was on the phone to one of her friends. She’d been on the phone all evening, and most of the day. Talking about him, no doubt. Complaining how awful her life was, hoping that one of her friends would give her the right advice. Of course, there was another day to face tomorrow. And who knew what might happen then?
Behind number 4 Chapel Close, Barry Gamble was in his shed. He felt he ought to be out and about in the village, but he knew Monica was keeping an eye out from the sitting room. She’d drawn the curtains back so that she could see the door of the shed, and she was sitting with her armchair turned towards the window. She didn’t trust him, that much was obvious. But all he ever intended was to make sure everyone was safe and behaving in a civilised manner. He thought of himself as the guardian of Riddings. The police were useless, after all. If anything was going on that shouldn’t be, he was the one who would know. But he was wasting his time trapped in his shed. All he could do was check through his collection, pausing for a moment at one particular item.
Another person was up and about in Riddings. If Barry Gamble hadn’t been stuck in his shed, he might well have seen the figure creeping cautiously along the edge of Curbar Lane, ducking behind a tree when the lights of a car went by. He might have seen the person, but he wouldn’t have experienced any feeling of recognition. As far as most of Riddings was concerned, this was a total stranger.
Diane Fry had stopped at the services on the M1 at Tibshelf. A TV was on in the restaurant, a news bulletin with some story about a murder. She heard a mention of Derbyshire, and found herself glued to the screen.
As she watched the item, her coffee grew cold on the table. Behind the reporter on the screen she could see blue crime-scene tape. And beyond that, crime-scene examiners whom she recognised, officers she’d worked with often.
Oh my God. What a time to be sitting on the sidelines.
8
Thursday
The CID room at Edendale was full this morning. As full as it ever was, anyway. Ben Cooper looked around the room, and smiled. The team had a more settled look than it had done for a long time. It was strange to be thinking that, with everything else that was going on at the moment – the cost-cutting and uncertainties, the feeling of walking on a tightrope day by day, not knowing whether your job would still exist next month, or even the division you worked in. But it was true. Somehow, a shadow had been lifted.
Cooper was particularly pleased with the two youngsters, Luke Irvine and Becky Hurst, who were settled in and doing well. A steady lad, Irvine. He reminded Cooper a bit of himself when he was a few years younger. Fair enough, Irvine wasn’t Derbyshire through and through. He came from a Yorkshire mining family, with Scottish blood a generation or two back. But he would do, as they said round here.
Dependable as Irvine might be, it was Becky Hurst who was proving to be the best of the new recruits to Edendale CID. She was like a little terrier, keeping at a task until she produced a result, no matter what the assignment. She seemed to have no ego problems, no reluctance about doing the less glamorous jobs. That was a drawback with some of the more ambitious young officers, the ones who thought they were too good for the routine stuff, but not Hurst. Cooper had to check himself sometimes, to make sure he was resisting the temptation to let Becky do all the legwork. She deserved better than that.
This was what his mother had dreamed of for him, the promotion to sergeant. For her, it had been the culmination of an ambition. Her son had achieved the same rank as his father. Young Ben had finally come up to the standard set by Sergeant Joe Cooper, the great local hero. He remembered the moment he’d lied to her as she lay in her hospital bed. He’d told her he’d been promoted, when in fact he had just learnt that he’d lost out to the newcomer, Diane Fry. One of the most difficult moments of his life, the decision to tell his mother what she so much wanted to hear, instead of the truth.
