Stephen Booth - The Corpse Bridge

There was a campsite next to the pub, though it was empty. Marston’s Burton Ales. Outside the door stood an old sink and a brush for boot washing, and plastic bags were kept in the porch for walkers to put over their dirty boots before entering the pub. It was the same principle as the one used at crime scenes, where forensic examiners and police officers wore plastic overshoes to avoid contaminating the scene with trace evidence and footwear marks.

The pub had milk delivered from a dairy in Hazel Grove. The bottles were still sitting in the porch, even though it was past midday. Of course, the Quiet Woman was closed. Many landlords in the more outlying villages found there was no point in opening their pubs during the day, especially in the winter months. There just wasn’t enough lunchtime trade to pay for the overheads.

Cooper looked across the road to locate the Beresfords’ house. Luke Irvine would be unhappy that his DS seemed to be covering the same ground, as if Irvine hadn’t done a good enough job the first time round. But that couldn’t be helped. Not today. It was bad enough having Diane Fry tagging along like a spare part. Didn’t she have anything better to do with her time? He supposed he could ask her, but he would only get a sarcastic answer.

‘Are you coming?’ he said.

‘No, I’ll wait here,’ said Fry. ‘I’ve got a few phone calls to make.’

‘Fair enough.’

Across the road he found Mrs Beresford was at home on her own, which was fine by Cooper.

‘One of your colleagues came the other day, you know,’ she said straight away when she answered the door.

‘I know. Just a couple more questions.’

She was a small woman with a chilled look, her ears and nose pink with cold as if she’d just come back from a brisk walk on the moors. Even as Cooper introduced himself, she was removing a quilted body warmer. Perhaps he was lucky to have caught her.

‘I don’t know what else I can tell you,’ she said.

‘It’s about Sandra Blair’s husband,’ said Cooper.

‘Gary? He died. I did tell-’

‘Yes. About five years ago?’

‘That would be about right.’

‘Do you happen to know where Mr Blair’s family are?’

‘His family? Well, I don’t think his parents are still around. They used to live at Bowden, of course.’

‘The estate village for Knowle Abbey.’

‘Yes. Sandra and Gary lived with his parents for a while after they got married. But there was no way they could ever have had children there, in one of those little houses. And they were planning a family. At least … Sandra said they were.’

‘And no other relatives in the area?’

‘Not that I know of. Some of the people at Bowden would have a better idea, perhaps.’

‘Thank you.’

Cooper went back to his car and drove through Earl Sterndale. Ahead he saw a distinctive hill called High Wheeldon. He glanced at Fry, but she was still busy with her phone, talking to someone at her office in St Ann’s.

‘Everything okay, Diane?’ he said, hoping she was being called back to Nottingham.

She nodded. ‘Absolutely fine.’

Cooper sighed and drove on. Fry hadn’t even asked where they were going next.

Viewed from the road out of the village, High Wheeldon looked like a Derbyshire pyramid, a transplant from Egypt, or something casually dropped by a passing alien. Artificial, certainly. Nature wasn’t capable of constructing such a regular, conical shape. Yet when you got closer and the road skirted its eastern side, you could see that it had been an optical illusion. High Wheeldon wasn’t shaped like a pyramid at all from here, but was just another irregular hump in the landscape, mysterious enough in its own enigmatic way, lending itself to leaps of the imagination, the way so much of the Peak District landscape did.

Once you turned off the main road to Longnor, it became obvious that Bowden was no ordinary village. To enter it you had to pass through a gateway and over a cattle grid, past the signs warning you that it was private property and part of the Knowle Abbey estate.

The houses were all well constructed from local stone, but in a surprisingly wide variety of architectural styles. It was as if the architect, or the earl who’d commissioned him, couldn’t quite make his mind up which design he preferred. There were Norman arches, Tudor-style chimneys, medieval turrets, Swiss roofs and Italianate windows. The paintwork on all the cottages was a collective Knowle Park green. But the houses with arched windows and balconies were larger and more ornate in style, distinguishing them from the plainer cottages. There had always been a social hierarchy, even among workers on the same estate.

It looked as though there had been a farmhouse here. But the house and its outbuildings had been converted. A barn had become a series of small apartments for staff. A lodge with castellations and imitation arrow slits guarded the entrance to Knowle Park itself. Cooper recalled seeing a matching lodge at the north entrance.

Sheep were grazing in an adjacent field and across the park he could see a small herd of cattle. Limousin cross, if he wasn’t mistaken. During the landscaping of the park, the course of the River Dove had been altered slightly and a new bridge had been built. Big landowners could do that in those days, if it improved the view. Planning permission was never a concern. Nor was consideration for your neighbours, probably.

Bowden had a small church with a disproportionately tall spire. But the doors were locked and weeds were growing in the porch. On two sides of it was the burial ground, with several untidy rows of headstones, many old enough to be worn and corroded by the weather, their inscriptions almost illegible.

This was where the mourners from those small hamlets to the east would have arrived after their arduous trek across the hills and over the Corpse Bridge. Many of the coffins mouldering under these headstones would have been carried for miles and allowed to rest for a while on the same coffin stone where they’d found the effigy on Friday. Cooper found it hard to grasp the fact that all those people had been brought here at the end of their lives and laid to rest on the earl’s property, as if they were a final tribute.

Though he could hear a few children playing somewhere, there seemed to be very few residents of Bowden actually at home. On a small field next to the graveyard he could see piles of wood heaped up in a large stack, ready for Bonfire Night on Tuesday. A short distance away from it a yellow bulldozer was parked behind the church. It must be handy to have that sort of equipment available.

They began to knock on doors and it was Diane Fry who found someone first. Cooper got a call from her on his phone and he walked back across the central green to meet her.

‘This is Mrs Mellor,’ said Fry. ‘Mrs Mellor, my colleague Detective Sergeant Cooper.’

She was a woman in her mid to late sixties, with a welcoming smile and a faint smell of pine disinfectant and toasted cheese. In the background Cooper could hear what sounded like daytime TV, perhaps an old episode of Lewis or Midsomer Murders .

‘Hello. Come in,’ she said. ‘Would you like a cup of tea? I don’t see many people during the day, even on a Saturday.’

Fry followed him into the house. Cooper wished he was alone in circumstances like this. He would find it easier to get on with people and encourage them to talk. But he seemed to be stuck with her for now.

They sat down in a cosy sitting room and the kettle was soon boiled for tea. Mrs Mellor produced a plate of biscuits and it occurred to Cooper that it must be around lunchtime. He felt hungry.

‘I gather you knew the Blairs,’ said Cooper. ‘They used to live in Bowden.’