Stephen Booth - The Corpse Bridge

‘By far the least believable Christie plot,’ said Irvine, who had watched Poirot on TV.

The man tapped the side of his nose and almost winked. ‘Where there’s a motive, people will find a means.’

But a week or two later the public outcry against the decision had changed the minds of both the pub’s owners and the potential buyer. The project went ahead and Bamford owned its community hub. When he went into the Angler’s Rest now for a Sour Brown, people again asked for gory details or the kind of assistance that would lose him his job.

‘I suppose you’re involved in that case over near Buxton,’ said the man now, with an inquisitive lift of the eyebrows.

‘Maybe so.’

But as Irvine looked at his neighbour, he recalled that earlier conversation. An Agatha Christie plot? He wondered if he should phone Ben Cooper right now with the interesting idea that had just come into his head.

But of course not. Unlike Cooper, he had a life after all.

‘Do you fancy another drink, mate?’ he said.

Sunday 3 November

Carol Villiers had produced a list of names and it was waiting for Cooper on his desk when he arrived in the CID room on Sunday morning. He wasn’t supposed to be on duty, but there was nothing for him to do at home. It was a choice between being here and painting shelves in the shop. No contest. He loved his brother, but the thought of spending all day working with Matt filled him with dread.

The list Villiers had drawn up contained the names of all the residents of Bowden, plus Sandra Blair and her husband Gary, who were former residents, and those of Jason Shaw and the Nadens.

After a moment’s thought, Cooper added Rob Beresford and his parents to the list. Was there anyone else he should consider? No, that seemed to be about it.

Cooper glanced through the list again. There were quite a few familiar surnames on it. That was inevitable, after all his years in E Division making arrests, interviewing suspects, reading intelligence files on known criminal associates. Certain family names cropped up time and time again. Others he remembered particularly after just one meeting — an individual could make such a deep impression on him he would never forget them for as long as he lived. There were even one or two who’d been helpful to him in the past and who might not run a mile when they saw him coming.

One of those individuals was suggested by a name on this list. The Kilners were a widespread family in this part of Derbyshire. But one particular member of the family, Brendan, was well known to Cooper.

Brendan Kilner had been the owner of a garage that was targeted during a proactive operation tackling an increase in the number of expensive, top-of-the-range cars being stolen in North Derbyshire, most of which were never recovered. The suspicion was that they were being processed locally and shipped abroad through a third party. There was always a market for stolen BMWs and Mercedes in parts of the world where fewer questions were asked.

But Kilner himself had never been convicted of anything. Two of his mechanics had gone down for a few years after the police operation located a couple of lock-ups in Edendale where the two employees had been working on stolen vehicles in their spare time. The inquiry had focused on tracking down the dealers who organised the shipping — they were the really serious players, part of an organised crime gang. Once their stage of the enterprise was disrupted, the market disappeared. They also made most of the profit, of course, so they were a much juicier target for an action under the Proceeds of Crime Act, which extracted large amounts of money from convicted criminals. Some of the proceeds even went towards maintaining levels of policing in the county.

It had never been entirely clear whether Kilner was squeaky clean in relation to the stolen car scam, but he’d been remarkably helpful at the time. He opened up his records to the police investigation and shared everything he knew about the activities of his two mechanics, who were by then safely in custody.

During the interviews Cooper was unable to escape a niggling doubt about the garage owner and whether there might be some hidden paperwork somewhere, a possibility the leading officer in the case decided not to pursue. Since then Brendan Kilner had nothing recorded against him, either in Criminal Records or in the intelligence databases. Going straight, then. The garage was still there, BK Motors — now in a double unit on an industrial estate on the outskirts of Edendale.

Cooper looked up a number and grabbed the phone. Kilner was surprised to hear from him, that much was obvious. A bit suspicious too. Maybe there was still a trace of guilty conscience in his reaction to an unexpected contact with the police. But that was a good thing, in the circumstances.

After a bit of cautious small talk, some polite enquiries about the family and how well business was doing, Cooper got round to telling Kilner that he wanted to talk to him.

‘Where can I meet you?’

‘What, today?’ said Kilner, still reluctant.

‘Yes, this afternoon.’

‘Well, I’ll be at Axe Edge. There’s a race meeting.’

‘Buxton Raceway? I know it.’

Kilner didn’t hang up straight away. Cooper could hear him breathing, a slight wheeze as if he were about to start coughing. A nervous cough, or was Kilner a smoker? He couldn’t remember that detail.

‘Can you tell me what it’s about?’ asked Kilner.

‘I’ll tell you when I see you.’

‘Okay, then. I’ll get you a hot dog, shall I?’

Buxton Raceway. Though Cooper had often passed it, he’d never actually visited the races. It wasn’t the sort of place Liz would ever have wanted to go with him for a Sunday afternoon outing.

The site stood in a bleak spot off the Buxton to Leek road, at a point where it crossed Axe Edge Moor. This was the highest stretch of moorland close to the border between Derbyshire and Staffordshire. Many of the Peak District’s major rivers rose on Axe Edge Moor and the source of the River Dove itself was only a few hundred yards away in a patch of marshy ground near Dovehead Farm, just on the Staffordshire side of the border.

After he’d parked the car Cooper found Brendan Kilner at the end of a small stand for spectators. He was clutching a hot dog in a paper napkin from the stall behind him. The scent of fried onions mingled with a powerful smell of exhaust fumes, despite a strong breeze blowing across the moor.

Kilner gestured with the hot dog.

‘Do you want one?’ he asked by way of greeting.

‘Not at the moment, thanks.’

‘Suit yourself.’

He hardly looked at Cooper, but kept his eyes fixed on the circuit, where nothing much seemed to be happening. He’d put on weight since Cooper saw him last. Too many hot dogs and burgers, perhaps. But then, he’d always been a man whose idea of exercise was leaning into an engine compartment with a spanner.

‘Sorry to drag you here,’ said Kilner. ‘This is almost the last meeting of the season. I couldn’t miss it.’

‘There’s no racing in the winter?’

‘No. It gets a bit wild up here, like.’

‘I can imagine.’

Now he was standing still, that wind blowing across the landscape from Axe Edge Moor certainly felt a bit icy. Cooper looked around at the groups of people standing nearby.

‘Can we walk round the other side of the track for a while?’

Kilner wiped his fingers as he swallowed the last piece of hot dog.

‘If you like.’

The circuit consisted of a tarmac oval around a central refuge where a few official vehicles were parked, including a tractor and a paramedic’s car. There were already some disabled racing cars lined up awaiting retrieval after the meeting was over. The circuit ran in front of the stand and past spectators who were parked at the trackside, protected by a black-and-white barrier and a high mesh safety fence. The landscape behind the raceway looked even more bare and rugged. In the background Cooper could see the distinctive jut of a rock face. He recognised it as a feature standing between the site of the Health and Safety Executive’s laboratories at Harpur Hill and a flooded quarry once known by local people as the Blue Lagoon.