something that wasn’t entirely human at all, but part man, part monster.
‘Add another unidentified individual to the file,’ said Cooper. ‘Along with our mystery man in the phone box.’
‘They could be one and the same person, of course.’
‘Maybe. The time is right, and the two locations are only a few yards apart.’
Cooper pictured the short stretch of road along Curbar Lane from The Green to Valley View. He wished there had been CCTV in Riddings, the way there was on streets in Edendale town centre. A suspect emerging from the phone box and lurking outside the Barrons’ gates would immediately have been picked up and identifiable.
He remembered Luke Irvine’s comment about using Google to get a view of Riddings. The HOLMES staff would have done it already; would have produced a detailed image of the village to plot sightings and incidents.
Cooper opened Google maps, and typed ‘Riddings’ into the search bar. In an instant he was looking at a detailed satellite view of the village, with all the roads overlaid on to the map. When he zoomed in, every house was visible, every field boundary, even cars that had been left parked on drives. He could see who had a swimming pool, and who had a tennis court. So much for walls and security cameras, when anyone with internet access could peer into your back garden and see the layout of your property.
These large, expensive homes and their grounds had spread out from the centre of the old village, transforming acres of rough ground into upmarket suburbia. But the satellite image made it obvious that the battle for dominance over the landscape wasn’t all one-sided. Above the village, the cover of bracken and heather could be seen encroaching on to the old field systems, like a brown tide. Dry-stone walls seemed to be no barrier to the spread of vegetation from the direction of Riddings Edge. Given time, it would engulf those fields, erasing all signs that civilisation had ever been here. But for now, humanity was still in control of the lower slopes.
He clicked on the full extent of the zoom facility and centred the screen on Riddings Lodge. Details were clear now that he hadn’t been able to see when he was right there on the ground. He could calculate the best angle of approach from the back fence to the house without coming in sight of a window. He could see exactly how far away the neighbouring houses were, and how dense the trees were in between. He was surprised to discover a manege at the rear of the Edson property, and a small paddock set out with jumps. Those hadn’t been evident from his brief tour of the boundary. But it was clear now that there was access to them from behind the stable block.
When he scrolled the map towards the north-east, the rough ground at the foot of Riddings Edge became visible. The transition from rock-strewn slope to landscaped garden was quite startling at this point. The entire colour and texture of the image changed suddenly along a dead-straight line, as if the village existed in a bubble, cut off from the wilderness beyond it by an invisible barrier.
Cooper was reminded of a science fiction story he’d once read, in which a small community found itself isolated from the rest of the world by an alien force field that appeared overnight. The story went on to explore how the inhabitants behind the barrier dealt with the isolation, the power struggles and vicious infighting that developed. New hierarchies formed in the absence of authority, law and order gradually collapsed, and individuals with extreme beliefs came into their own. One religious fanatic proclaimed that their enforced isolation was a punishment from God for the community’s sinful behaviour.
Looking down on Riddings, through a camera mounted on an orbiting satellite, he felt a bit like God casting his eyes down from heaven, knowing all about the activities of the in habitants in this little place on the edge of Derbyshire. If he was God, would he have delivered a punishment on them like this? Let some of them die? And made the rest of them live forever in fear?
Well, of course he didn’t know everything about what went on in Riddings. He knew far too little, in fact. But down there was someone who knew more. Someone who had decided to take on the role of God, and had handed out the punishments. Did that person see the village as clearly as Cooper did now on his Google satellite image?
Along the corridor in the superintendent’s office, Hazel Branagh looked up at DI Hitchens, and raised an eyebrow.
‘Detective Sergeant Fry, you say?’
‘Yes, she’s a good officer,’ said Hitchens. ‘And her skills are being wasted at the moment.’
‘Possibly.’ Branagh picked up a memo. ‘But there’s a small matter of a Leicestershire officer with a broken nose.’
‘What does that have to do with anything?’
‘Well, like DS Fry, this officer is also a member of the Implementing Strategic Change working group. And it seems Fry was the only, er… witness to the incident in which he suffered his injury.’
Hitchens smiled. ‘I imagine it was self-inflicted.’
‘According to his own statement, he tripped over the kerb in a pub car park and struck his face on the bonnet of his own car.’
‘It’s easily done,’ said Hitchens. ‘I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve seen that happen.’
Branagh replaced the memo on her desk. ‘It used to be suspects who fell down the stairs on the way to the cells,’ she said. ‘Even when the custody suite was all on one level.’
‘So I’ve heard. Those were the days, eh?’
‘Mmm. But now it seems to be our own officers who suffer mysterious injuries.’
‘Times change,’ said Hitchens. ‘But there are accident-prone individuals in every walk of life, I imagine. Besides…’
‘What?’
‘I thought you said he was from Leicestershire?’
Branagh’s lips twitched, the closest she came to a smile. For her, it was practically a belly laugh.
‘Good point,’ she said.
‘Anyway, we’ve been asked to withdraw DS Fry from the working group.’
‘She was never right for it,’ said Branagh.
‘About as right as a pit bull in a poodle parlour.’
‘Perhaps we’d better find her something more meaty to get her teeth into, then.’
‘You’re going where tomorrow?’ Gavin Murfin was saying.
‘Riddings Show,’ repeated Cooper. ‘Do you fancy coming?’
‘Look,’ said Murfin, pointing at his chest. ‘This is me. Add Saturday afternoon, plus the start of the football season. And what do you get?’
‘Pride Park,’ said Cooper.
‘Correct.’
The new season had started, and Murfin was a hardcore Rams fan. So dedicated that he’d even recovered from relegation and the arrival of American owners. His threats to transfer allegiance to Nottingham Forest had never translated into action. It was inconceivable, anyway. He was a true Derby County fan.
‘Take Carol with you,’ said Murfin. ‘Why not?’
Cooper looked at Villiers, and saw her expression immediately become eager.
‘You don’t have to come,’ he said. ‘There’s no overtime, remember.’
‘What else would I be doing?’ she said. ‘I haven’t been back in the area long enough to get a social life sorted out for myself yet.’
Murfin opened his mouth to make a suggestion.
‘And I don’t like football,’ said Villiers.
‘Riddings Show it is, then. I’ll buy you a choc ice.’
In a corner of the CID room, a TV news programme was replaying a clip from Superintendent Branagh’s earlier press conference, following the incident at Fourways.
‘Yes, we are connecting the inquiries,’ she was saying. ‘We believe the people who carried out this attack are the same offenders currently being sought for a series of previous incidents in other villages in this part of the county.’
Listening to her words, Cooper couldn’t help shaking his head.
‘You still think they’re wrong,’ said Villiers.
‘I can see why they’re thinking this way,’ said Cooper. ‘But it feels wrong to me.’
‘But you can’t go to Hitchens or Branagh and say you have a feeling, right?’
