Stephen Booth - The Devil’s Edge

It was sad to see a village where farming had so thoroughly disappeared. In fact, it couldn’t really be called a village at all, could it? It was just a facade, a surface veneer of nostalgia. It was probably a symptom of things to come, a time when thriving rural communities would be a distant memory. A trace of a field pattern and an abandoned slurry pit on Big Moor.

He read the latest text from Liz on his phone. R u ok? Then he switched on the CD player, needing to fill the car with sound. In Riddings, he’d picked up a favourite Show of Hands album called Roots . Just the right thing to remind him that he was still in the countryside, not some outer suburb of Sheffield. Now, when he restarted it, the fourth track came on: ‘Country Life’. The vocals were Steve Knightley at his angriest on the hypocrisy of attitudes to the countryside. Cooper had chosen it because he remembered that it contained a verse inspired by the devastating foot and mouth outbreak:

Picture postcard hills on fire Cattle burning in funeral pyres Out to graze they look so sweet We hate the blood, but we want the meat

But the lines that struck him now came at the end of the first chorus. They seemed amazingly appropriate:

One man’s family pays the price For another man’s vision of country life

Ben thought of Zoe and Jake Barron, and Martin Holland, and of Barry Gamble. Even of Russell and David Edson, and poor old Glenys, all the other people who’d been affected by the events in Riddings. Every one of them had clung to their own vision of country life. In some cases, it was a vision of escape, or a yearning for peace and quiet. In others, it was a chance to act like the country squire.

The coffin of our English dream Lies out on the village green

He started the Toyota, and drove slowly towards the exit. Before he reached the barrier, he saw Fry’s black Peugeot a few yards ahead, standing at the kerb on West Street. He wondered what she was doing, just sitting there in her car. What was she waiting for?

And then he saw the answer. Carol Villiers ran down the steps from the double doors at the front entrance. Without a glance towards the car park, she went up to Fry’s Peugeot, opened the passenger door and got in. Fry turned her head and said something. Again, that private communication between them, a moment that he wasn’t allowed to share. What were they talking about? Where were they going? When had they arranged this meeting?

It shouldn’t bother him, but it did. He felt a sharp stab of anxiety, an uneasy sense that something was going on he didn’t know about. And perhaps he would never find out what it was.

Although the barrier was up to let him drive out, Ben sat quite still, holding his breath, making no attempt to leave the car park as the Peugeot drove away down West Street.

‘So it’s good that you didn’t get involved,’ Matt was saying. ‘You left it up to Detective Sergeant Fry, without any interference. I’m glad you felt you could trust her.’

‘Oh, yes,’ said Ben, as he watched Fry’s car disappear into Edendale. ‘That’s very important, isn’t it? Trust.’