Стивен Бут - Blind to the Bones

‘By the way, I asked the community constable about the Oxley kids,’ said Udall. ‘He’s only been on the patch about eighteen months, but he’s had a few dealings with them already.’

‘Any of them in particular?’

‘There have been several complaints about the younger ones. The usual sort of stuff — hanging around outside people’s houses, making a lot of noise, swearing, running across gardens. You get the picture.’

‘Nothing out of the ordinary there.’

‘No. Nothing out of the ordinary. Not where there’s a group of youngsters gathering together. And of course that means they get blamed for anything that goes off in the village — minor thefts and damage to property. Also any vandalism, graffiti, litter — you name it.’

‘Did the community bobby ever get any proof the Oxley kids were involved?’

‘Proof’s a different matter. But he’s spoken to them many a time. Also to their parents. Or he’s tried to.’

‘I know what he means,’ said Cooper, with a sigh.

Udall laughed at him as she tested the security of her baton in its ring on her left hip and switched her torch on and off. She flipped open her medical protection pouch, which contained a face mask, latex gloves, antiseptic wipes and a contaminated-waste bag. The most immediate threat to a police officer often came from an encounter with body fluids rather than with a lethal weapon. Hepatitis B and HIV were on the streets, even in Edendale. But just in case she did need to subdue a violent suspect, Udall had also been issued with a CS spray.

‘He says the Oxley adults co-operated to the minimum amount they could get away with. They never became aggressive or argued with him. They always promised to talk to their kids and keep a closer eye on them. They never gave him justification for taking further action.’

‘But have the complaints stopped?’ said Cooper.

‘No. And the Oxleys had quite colourful careers, by all accounts. All the boys have court records. There were even some arson charges at one time. Ryan and Jake are the ones giving most cause for most concern at the moment. Actually, the Social Services case officer is quite optimistic about Ryan — she says he’s a sensible lad at heart and will probably settle down.’

‘Really?’

‘There’s no need to sound quite so cynical, Ben. Many of our young offenders settle down and become perfectly respectable citizens.’

‘OK,’ said Cooper. ‘And Jake?’

‘He’s causing some problems at the moment.’

‘Is there nothing that can be done with him?’

‘Basically, there are two options. Either we take him away from his parents and put him into local authority care. Or we leave him where he is, until he’s old enough to earn himself a spell in a detention centre.’

‘And that would be the start of a long cycle of court appearances, and eventually prison.’

‘Exactly. But we operate on the principle that the best place for a child is at home, with his family. So, with this kind of case, we’re in a cleft stick.’

‘What about the older ones?’

Udall hesitated. ‘Scott and his cousins, you mean? They’re not the concern of Social Services any more, and I only asked about the children. But there’ll be court records we can look up.’

‘And the girls aren’t a problem? Lorraine and Stacey?’

‘Not that I know of.’

‘Well, if they’re clean, let’s hope they stay that way.’

‘Amen.’

Finally, Udall checked her personal radio and chose a battery. Cooper waited patiently while she made sure the radio was on the right channel and placed it in its holster. She adjusted the lead to the handset, so that it wouldn’t be in the way if she had to draw her baton. Then she gave her duty belt a final tug, and was ready. She lifted an eyebrow at the way Cooper was watching her.

‘How do I look?’ she said.

‘Terrifying.’

‘Thanks a lot.’

‘But only if I were a criminal,’ said Cooper. ‘Or an Alsatian dog.’

PC Udall’s liveried Vauxhall Astra was white, with an orange flash and black-and-white checkerboard patterns down each side, and a blue beacon on the roof. It had those yellow and red diagonal stripes on the tailgate which had been dubbed a ‘baboon’s bum’, after something very similar had been spotted on a BBC wildlife programme. The code number of the vehicle was painted on the roof in large black letters for identification by the air support unit. A bottle of mineral water had been thrown on the back seat.

Ben Cooper had never felt entirely comfortable being driven by someone else. He much preferred being at the wheel than being a passenger. He had always supposed it was something to do with a need to be in control. But maybe today it was also the result of Tracy Udall’s tendency to wave her hands breezily as she talked. The B6105 Woodhead Road out of Glossop was narrow and winding, and at one point, as it descended into Longdendale, there was a sharp kink in the road called The Devil’s Elbow, which had been a notorious accident black spot for years.

There was a long string of five reservoirs filling the valley bottom. One of them, Valehouse, came into sight as they approached the Devil’s Elbow, then they descended the hill towards its neighbour, Rhodeswood. They drove alongside Torside Reservoir for a while, past the national park information point. Although it was Monday, there were small sailing boats on Torside Reservoir. The track of the former railway line ran right by the road here, converted into the Longdendale Trail.

Finally, they crossed the dam between Torside and Woodhead and eased cautiously out into the traffic on the A628.

‘This end of the valley has always had a few problem areas for us,’ said Udall. ‘Hadfield and Hollingworth, particularly. The closer you get to the outskirts of Manchester, the bigger the problems. The motorway makes it so much easier for people to get to Longdendale now.’

‘What about the upper end of the valley?’

‘Well, not so much. The crime rate tends to decline when the population disappears.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Look at your map. See those names along the road? Then look around you here. Where’s the village of Crowden? Where’s Woodhead? Where’s Saltersbrook?’

Cooper looked. ‘Judging from this map, we must have driven through all of them in the last half-hour, but I missed them. Did I fall asleep, or what?’

‘No. It’s because they’re not there any more.’

‘They just died?’

‘They were removed,’ said Udall. ‘Flattened, cleared, eliminated. Apart from their names, they were wiped off the map.’

‘You’re kidding.’

‘Nope. I’m told there used to be at least five inns along this stretch of road, between Crowden and Saltersbrook. Crowden alone had a school with forty pupils in it. And there was a seventeenth-century Stuart mansion called Crowden Hall. They’ve all gone.’

‘We’re not talking about villages that disappeared under the water when the reservoirs were built, Tracy?’

‘No, these villages were well above the water line. They were right here, on the road. You can still see where the houses were, in some cases. But a few foundations are all that’s left. In fact, take a look at Saltersbrook, and you’ll find the ruins of the village inn on the old packhorse road. At Woodhead, there was one house that stood right over the entrances to the railway tunnels. It’s just a few square yards of concrete now.’

‘But why?’

‘Well, this is a water catchment area, Ben — the hillsides gather the water that feeds the reservoirs down in the valley.’

‘Of course.’

‘The water companies decided that the presence of people in Longdendale might pollute the water supply for the customers in Manchester and the Lancashire cotton towns. So they moved them all out and demolished their villages.’