important, Ben. Important for everyone concerned, I mean. Do you understand?’
‘Yes, I understand. There is one thing I’d like to ask, sir.’
‘What do you have in mind?’
‘I’d like permission to interview Sarah Holland again.’
Hitchens opened his mouth to refuse, but hesitated. Cooper knew that if he’d asked Superintendent Branagh, the refusal would have been immediate. But the DI was a different matter. They’d worked together for a long time, and Hitchens had surely learned by now that Cooper’s instincts could often be trusted.
Nevertheless, Cooper kept his fingers crossed out of sight until Hitchens answered.
‘Okay, Ben. In a day or two, yes? And do it sensitively. Who will you take with you?’
‘Carol Villiers.’
The DI nodded. ‘Are you happy with her?’
‘Perfectly.’
Some of the team were at their desks in the CID room when he walked in. Becky Hurst, Gavin Murfin. He could sense their embarrassment, their difficulty at not knowing what to say to him. For once, Murfin was without a wisecrack or a cynical comment.
They were all good people. But who could he actually rely on for help? At one time he might have gone to Diane Fry. Despite their ups and down over the last few years, Fry had come through when he needed someone to believe in him. Now, she had pretty much written him out of her life.
In the end, he couldn’t stand it any longer. He picked up his jacket and went down to the car park. Back out in the open air, he stopped to take some deep breaths. He heard a footstep behind him, and turned to see Carol Villiers.
‘Ben, you look dreadful,’ she said. ‘Oh, thanks.’
‘Is there anything…?’
Cooper kicked at a loose stone, turned, and walked away a few feet. He stared unseeing at the rooftops of Edendale spread out in front of him, then walked back again. He was feeling lost.
‘I don’t know what to do,’ he said. ‘What do other people do at a time like this?’
‘Focus,’ said Villiers. ‘Focus on something useful, a practical objective. Think about how you can help your brother and his family.’
‘The family. Yes, Amy and Josie. Oh God.’
‘Ben…’
‘Okay, yes. Focus on something. But what?’
‘Well, how about this? There was another incident on Tuesday night, somewhere on the outskirts of Sheffield. Dore, I think. The MO fits the Savages exactly. Word is that South Yorkshire have made some more arrests.’
‘Tuesday night? Close to the time of the attack on the Barrons?’
‘Close enough to make it impossible for the same offenders to be responsible for both. Even Robin Hood and his Merry Men couldn’t be in two places at the same time.’
‘No.’
She patted him on the shoulder. ‘So it looks as though you were right. Your feelings were spot on. Congratulations.’
‘Thanks,’ he said.
Villiers was looking at him as though she expected jubilation. And he supposed he should be pleased, ought to be experiencing a sense of vindication right now. But the feeling didn’t come. Inside, he just felt dead. Being right no longer gave him any pleasure.
23
Even more than the neighbouring villages of Curbar and Froggatt, Riddings was dominated and constrained by its edge. There was nowhere in the village that the edge wasn’t visible, except from inside the houses – and only then in a room where the windows faced away from it.
To Cooper’s eyes, the people here seemed to have tried to keep the world out, in their own way. Maybe at a subconscious level they saw the edge as a form of protection, a psychological barrier. It symbolised their desire for privacy.
Yet the world couldn’t be kept out, could it? You could never escape it, never get away from people altogether. No gates or fences would keep them at bay. The world was right here, in Riddings.
In some villages he knew in Derbyshire, superstition would be taking hold by now. Grandmothers would be trotting out well-worn stories of past supernatural events, and aged regulars in the local pub would be retelling folk tales about hobs and demons, hideous creatures who came down from the moor at night to spread terror and destruction among God-fearing folk.
But the inhabitants of Riddings weren’t the type to give in to superstition. They were more likely to put their faith in burglar alarms and electronic gates. Right at this moment, the residents were probably phoning each other to discuss the employment of private security guards. Their demons would be kept away by a man in a uniform with a two-way radio and a German Shepherd. If they were lucky.
Cooper looked at his phone for the hundredth time that morning. It had become a compulsion since leaving Bridge End Farm. It was far too early for any news, of course. He didn’t even know who he was expecting to call, or what he was hoping to hear. There would be no news yet. All he could do was wait. And waiting, as everyone knew, was the most difficult thing in the world.
He had to try to think about something else. That was the only way.
‘Let’s try to get things into a logical order,’ said Villiers. ‘Focus, remember? If you’re going to be here, Ben, then concentrate your mind.’
‘Yes, you’re right. I’m okay. Let’s do that.’
‘Let’s start with Tuesday night, then – and the Barrons. Why would anyone attack them, if it wasn’t a robbery?’
‘They had fallen out with the Chadwicks. Jake Barron had an unpleasant confrontation with William Chadwick.’
‘And we know Chadwick has a temper, from the incident at his school,’ said Villiers.
‘He admits he was under stress at the time he spoke to Jake.’
‘Absolutely. But the Barrons had also been involved in a long-running dispute with Richard Nowak.’
‘Mr Reasonable.’
‘So he says. That’s not the impression he gives, though.’
‘He has no record of violence,’ pointed out Cooper.
‘True. But there comes a point when anyone might cross the line.’
That was true. Cooper had seen it many times – examples of perfectly ordinary people who had lost perspective and cracked under intolerable pressure. No one was immune. No individual could be sure that they would never find themselves in those circumstances.
‘Their dispute was over the piece of land in Croft Lane. But it had been settled in court.’
Villiers shook her head. ‘Not to Mr Nowak’s satisfaction.’
‘Okay. But the Barrons’ closest neighbours are the Hollands at Fourways, Tyler Kaye at Moorside House, and Russell Edson at Riddings Lodge. Mr Kaye wasn’t even in the country. And no one seems to have anything against the Hollands.’
‘Not that we know of. Not that they’re telling us about.’
‘All right.’ Cooper glanced automatically at his phone, then shoved it deliberately into his pocket. ‘And of course we have Mr Gamble.’
‘Ah yes, Barry Gamble. If I’ve got this right, at the time of the attack Mr Gamble is out nosying around the village, as is his habit. He’s close to Valley View when he hears a suspicious noise. He sees a light on – and because of his previous observations, he knows this is unusual.’
There was a sceptical tone to her voice as she spoke the last sentence, an upward inflection that made it sound more like a question. Cooper realised she had put her finger on a point that had bothered him very early on in
