Stephen Booth - The Devil’s Edge

‘Oh, personalised number plates. I see.’

‘What?’

‘Nothing.’

‘Well, it seems they had decided to expand the business just at the wrong time,’ said Villiers. ‘They bought out another firm with stores in Ireland. Paid through the nose for it, too. At the time, they said it was a perfect fit to grow the business. But they didn’t know the recession was about to hit. And it was worse in Ireland than here, as you know. The economy was decimated. The Celtic Tiger rolled over and died.’

‘So the Barrons overstretched themselves.’

‘By a long way. They had a bit of a cushion to carry them through for a while, but they couldn’t survive forever waiting until the upturn came along. They’d taken out a massive loan from their bank for the purchase, and it was being called in. The bankers couldn’t see any prospect of a return on their money, so they pulled the plug. I’m told the chain of carpet warehouses is only days away from going into receivership.’

‘I must say, Jake Barron didn’t seem to be suffering from the effects of a financial crisis,’ said Cooper.

‘That must have been what infuriated Edson most, seeing the Barrons still spending money when he was about to lose everything.’

‘Yes, I can imagine.’

‘Jake was a smart businessman, you see,’ said Villiers. ‘He moved all his assets into his wife’s name before the crash came and the crisis became public. The house was entirely hers, for a start. Yes, a smart businessman, Jake. But Russell Edson wasn’t. He was just a jobbing builder who got lucky.’

‘And then very unlucky.’

DI Hitchens was smiling when they met him near the horse trough in the centre of the village. It seemed like the first time he’d done that all week.

‘Well, Ben – it looks as though you’ve come up smelling of roses. Unlike some of the officers in the task force.’

‘Sir?’

‘They recovered a couple of items from one of the slurry pits. An HTC android mobile phone, and a purse containing a hundred and fifty pounds in cash.’

‘Zoe Barron’s property.’

‘Yes. But I don’t understand…’

‘What?’

‘Well, why would they just dump their haul? Including the cash – that doesn’t make sense. Even if they were afraid of getting caught, they would keep the cash, wouldn’t they? Or stash it somewhere at least. Somewhere they could recover it later, I mean – not a slurry pit, for heaven’s sake.’

‘Doesn’t it seem likely that those items were taken to distract our attention from something else?’

‘But from what?’

‘From the real motive for the attack.’

‘The real motive?’

‘Oh, yes,’ said Cooper. ‘What about Russell Edson? Any sign of him? If we don’t find him now, we’ll have a problem. There’s a mist coming down, and it’s going to be dark soon.’

‘Well, we’ve found his red MG. It’s been left up at the car park by Riddings Edge.’

Cooper loved the transitional nature of dusk. He liked the way the colours changed, and the world slipped into shadow. It was fascinating how a figure moving in the distance could become smaller and smaller, fainter and fainter, until it was no longer a movement but a trick of the light.

At the car park below Riddings Edge, the only light seemed to come from within the mist itself. It was as if it had swallowed light from the day and was leaking it slowly back into the valley.

Apart from Russell Edson’s red MG, there were only a couple of vehicles still in the car park. Late-evening walkers? Photographers hoping to capture a sunset? Or maybe it was something more. From here, Cooper couldn’t see Riddings at all. Instead, he was looking down towards the River Derwent, and beyond it a small hump of land that hid the larger village of Calver.

A gnawing in his stomach, which he’d thought was anxiety or fear, suddenly resolved itself, as he realised that he hadn’t eaten anything all day. He was starving. He had a vivid image of a pub that stood in the middle of Calver, overlooking the cricket field. A sprawling Georgian inn, said to be haunted. It was a pub, not a fancy restaurant, but it did good food. A lot of their produce was sourced from the area, and local people left bags of plums, pears and rhubarb at the back door, which was one of the reasons home-made desserts were always available.

It was the sort of place Cooper would choose to go to like a shot. But not Russell Edson. No home-grown rhubarb pie for him.

He tried Edson’s mobile number again. It was engaged, as it had been for some time.

Villiers and Hitchens arrived in the car park. A marked police car went past with its lights flashing, though Cooper couldn’t guess where it was heading.

‘Russell Edson?’ said Hitchens. ‘This is a firm suspect?’

‘Mr Edson is much too respectable to get his own hands dirty, of course,’ said Villiers. ‘So he must have contracted it out. Got a man in to do the job.’

‘In a way,’ said Cooper.

Villiers looked at him curiously, but he kept his face as straight as he could.

‘There’s very little daylight left,’ said Hitchens. ‘I think we’re going to have to leave it until morning, Ben. We can’t risk officers up there in the dark. They would all get lost and break their legs. The compensation payments don’t bear thinking about.’

When Hitchens turned away to respond to a call on his radio, Cooper looked up at the edge and saw a figure. Not an outcrop of rock this time, or a trick of the light – but a human figure gazing down towards Riddings.

‘Carol,’ he said, indicating the spot.

‘I see him. Is it…?’

‘I think so.’

He tried the number again. And this time it rang.

‘Mr Edson? Where are you?’

‘Ah, Sergeant Cooper. Where else would I be? I’m on the edge.’

‘Stay right where you are.’

‘Only if I choose to, Sergeant.’

Cursing under his breath, Cooper began to climb the path from the car park towards the edge. Villiers fell in behind him.

By the time they reached the moor, it was totally dark. The lights from Riddings and the other villages in the valley failed to reach this far. Besides, the sky overhead was black with clouds, which blotted out the stars and any moon there might have been. It wasn’t a night for watching meteor showers.

As the thought went through Cooper’s head, it began to rain. Heavy drops were suddenly beating on his shoulders and soaking his hair. He’d come without a waterproof, but there was no time to go back. Villiers, of course, had been much more sensible.

‘If I can get close enough, I’ll try talking to him,’ said Cooper. ‘But I don’t want to alarm him too much. He might be in a dangerous state.’

‘You mean you want me to stay out of the way, in case I frighten him,’ said Villiers.

‘Not exactly. But I think we can do this without fuss. He just needs approaching the right way.’

‘All right. I’ll take the other path and go round.’

‘Can you find it?’

‘I’m like a cat in the dark.’

Villiers vanished into the darkness, swishing through the wet bracken. Cooper continued up the path alone, placing his feet carefully out of the streams of water running down from the edge.

Normally, the night was the perfect time to walk on the moor. Out here in the dark, you could experience the place properly. Your eyes had a chance to adjust to the darkness, free from the glow of city lights. But you needed to use your night hearing too, and your other senses. The moor became a different world then. Its size was measured as much by sound and smell as by sight. You became more aware of the hum of life around you. Not human life, but the sound of the natural world stirring in the safety of darkness.