Stephen Booth - The Devil’s Edge

‘It’s a pity I told you that Barry Gamble came to Riddings Lodge that night,’ said Edson. ‘You didn’t know about that until I mentioned it, did you? Gamble hadn’t let on.’

‘No, sir, he hadn’t.’

Edson shook his head. ‘Strange man. I didn’t expect him to be the sort of person to keep a secret. Just one more mistake.’

Finally, Cooper felt close enough to hold a proper conversation, instead of shouting against the noise of the wind and rain. He could almost see Edson’s eyes, just a glimmer of white in the darkness.

‘So what happened, Mr Edson? Why did it go so wrong?’

‘I’m not sure where it all went wrong. Oh, I didn’t know enough about money from the beginning, I suppose. I certainly didn’t realise how quickly it would disappear. And I was a fool to trust Jake Barron. But after that…’

A few more steps, and Cooper was close now. He could see Edson smiling sadly. Yet his expression also seemed to reflect a sort of satisfaction, as if somehow things had actually gone the way he expected.

‘After that was when everything really started to fall apart, surely?’ said Cooper. ‘The death of Zoe Barron wasn’t part of the plan, was it?’

‘What?’

‘I think you just wanted to punish the Barrons. But you hired the wrong people. You’d heard about the Savages and how they got away with their crimes. You figured another attack would just be put down to them. But the people you hired weren’t professionals like the Savages. These boys were complete amateurs. They had no idea how to do the job right. They didn’t know the way to hurt someone without killing them. They didn’t know what to do to make it look like a genuine robbery. A mobile phone and a purse? What sort of haul is that? Right there, when you made that decision – that was your worst mistake.’

Edson took a step closer to the edge, wiping the rain from his face. The wind whipped round him, lashing his hair, flapping his coat open like the wings of a bird.

Cooper began to move towards him, but saw how slippery the wet rock was. He was afraid of startling Edson and making him lose his footing. The edge was too high, the drop too steep and sudden. Making a sudden move would be dangerous. He looked past Edson, met Villiers’ eye, made a small gesture to keep her back.

‘It’s very good,’ said Edson. ‘Your story, I mean. All those things that went wrong. I think it’s probably very accurate, in a way. An example of bad planning. Yes, it was an appalling decision to employ amateurs. It’s always better to spend a bit more money and use professionals. You get what you pay for, after all.’

‘Yes, that’s true.’

Edson paused, and looked out over the dark valley.

‘There’s only one problem with that story, Sergeant Cooper,’ he said. ‘The person who hired those thugs to attack the Barrons – it wasn’t me.’

With a loud crack, a slice of rock shifted, dropped, then slowly peeled away from the face of the edge.

Cooper saw Russell Edson held for one second in mid-air, his arms outstretched, his coat flapping around him like wings. He was a huge black bird, screaming and screaming, a creature fighting against the blast of the wind and the pull of gravity. His last moment was only a flicker of movement, a dark thrashing against the sky.

And then he began to fall.

Tuesday

On the eastern edges, car windscreens flashed in the sun, like secret signals being sent across the valley. There would be no climbers on the Devil’s Edge today. The rock faces were too wet, and there was too much police activity. Parties of gritstone addicts took one look and went further north, to Froggatt or Stanage.

But at E Division headquarters in West Street, Edendale, plenty was going on. The August bank holiday weekend was over, and Ben Cooper was at his desk, chest-high in paperwork. Who knew there would be so many forms to fill in when you’d just been involved in a fatal incident?

He’d told the whole story to Liz the day before, emptying out his feelings to her all day long, it seemed. And she’d listened to him for hours, as the bank holiday crowds thronged into the Peak District around them, intent on squeezing every last ounce of enjoyment from the scenery, from the picturesque villages, the stately homes and heritage centres. It had meant, for once, that Liz didn’t talk only about the wedding. He cared about her deeply, of course. Yet he was already starting to feel exhausted by the subject.

Wearily, Cooper stopped for a moment to gaze out of the window of the CID room at the rooftops of the town, longing to be out there in the open. But he was stuck here for quite a while yet, head down, repeating details he’d already given several times over.

At the same time, he was waiting impatiently for something to be decided. And waiting, as everyone knew, was the most difficult thing in the world.

‘Daydreaming, Ben?’

He started, and turned to find Diane Fry at his shoulder. She had never lost that ability to creep up on him when he wasn’t expecting it. It was a trick that made him feel particularly vulnerable.

‘Oh, Diane.’ He stood up eagerly. ‘Is there any…?’

‘News? Yes, the CPS have made a decision. Quick work, for them. But they’ve established precedents in the last few years. Similar cases, with similar reasons for their decision.’

‘What decision?’

‘No prosecution,’ said Fry. ‘Not in the public interest.’

‘Oh, thank God.’

‘I’m pleased for your brother, Ben.’

‘And it’s a victory for you too.’

A shadow passed across her face. ‘A victory of sorts,’ she said.

‘No, you did a really good job at the farm,’ said Cooper.

‘Average, I thought.’

‘Well, anyway… Thanks, Diane. I just wanted to say that.’

‘I didn’t do it as a favour to you.’

‘I’m sure you didn’t. But I’m saying thank you nevertheless.’

Cooper wondered why it always seemed to end up like this between them, why even saying thank you had to sound like an argument.

‘You know, when you first came to E Division,’ he said, ‘I really thought we would be able to work together.’

‘It’s too late for that now. There’s one DS too many in Edendale. A team can only have one leader.’

‘What went wrong, Diane?’ he asked, hearing the echo of a question he’d asked Russell Edson not so long ago

‘Wrong? I couldn’t say.’

Cooper gazed at her, but she looked away. To his ears, her answer seemed to mean ‘I don’t want to say’. Perhaps she just liked to give the impression that she knew more than she was telling. On the other hand, he couldn’t resist a nagging suspicion that she did know something he didn’t.

He was sure of one thing, though. He would never find out what it was unless he asked her exactly the right question.

‘You had a tough one in this Riddings place, from what I hear,’ said Fry. ‘Too many people with malicious intent. Whether there’s a prosecution or not, it never makes for a good outcome.’

Cooper wondered if that was a subtle dig, some oblique reference to the Bridge End Farm incident.

‘Matt was a different case,’ he said.

‘I know the difference,’ said Fry. ‘There are people who think they’re doing the right thing, protecting their families. And there are others who know that what they’re doing is wrong, but don’t care. I met one of those not very long ago, in Birmingham. He was as close to me as your brother is to you, genetically speaking. In other ways, we were worlds apart. But he’s gone now.’

‘Oh, you mean your biological father. He’s still alive, though, isn’t he?’

‘Yes, as far as I know. But to be honest, I wish I’d killed him.’