Blind to the Bones (17 page)

A hundred yards into the heather, a pair of lapwing lifted and began to circle at a distance. A curlew was calling, but it was impossible to locate it against the landscape. Its bubbling song rolled around the slopes of the surrounding hills like running water.

The air shaft itself was at least twelve feet high, and about eighteen feet across, much too high to get a look inside without a ladder. It had been rebuilt at some time – and the builders had used any piece of stone that came to hand. Some were the original dressed chunks of sandstone, blackened by soot from the steam trains that had passed below ground. But in between there were smaller pieces of clean stone, their golds and reds mortared together with the black in a rough patchwork. From a distance, the result gave the air shaft a look of being in camouflage. It blended in well against the hillside behind it. It looked solid enough, but on the windward side the mortar was already beginning to crumble. No trained waller had rebuilt this.

It was one of those spells when there was nothing to do but wait. Cooper walked a little way across the peat from the air shaft. A snipe took off from almost under his feet, where it had been nesting invisibly in a boggy patch, hoping no one would notice it.

All around him, he could see the wet, black mounds of the moors, broken by small valleys. In some of these places, the peat had been eroded right to the bedrock, worn down to the bone.

Cooper tried to orientate himself to figure out which valley had Withens somewhere at the bottom. He located it by the trees and a glimpse of a road disappearing over a rise. He thought this air shaft was the one he had been able to see from the roadside above Withens.

He could see patterns burned into the heather moors below the road. They were so precise that they looked almost like giant letters, with exact verticals and horizontals linked neatly together. In fact, the series of shapes could have been a message designed to be read only by aliens in outer space. Cooper hoped the aliens had good dictionaries – the message seemed to consist entirely of ‘H's.

In the midst of the high, empty spaces, the skyline was broken by a line of lorries heading towards Manchester on the A628. Somewhere up there were the remains of one of the ancient guide marks for the old packhorse roads. They were the only remaining signs of the trade that had once passed across these moors before the turnpike roads and railways had arrived. Medieval salters and badgers had relied on those stone markers to guide them across featureless terrain in all kinds of weather. The Dark Peak moors had created an almost impassable barrier. Even now, there was only the one road through Longdendale.

Activity behind him made him turn and join the group of officers. A quick search of the area around the body and the victim's clothing had produced a wallet, with identification. The information was passed back from the area cordoned off at the air shaft.

‘Name of Neil Granger, with an address in Tintwistle,' said DI Hitchens.

‘That's only a few miles down Longdendale from here, sir.'

‘Good. Let's hope we can keep it local.'

After a few minutes, DCI Kessen made his way carefully away from the body via the approach path that had been marked out. The protective suit did him no favours – his paunch protruded like a round cushion. Kessen stood a few feet away and waited patiently until he had everyone's attention.

‘We have an ID, as you know,' he said. ‘There are cash and credit cards in the victim's wallet, so it seems we're looking for a motive other than robbery. And down in a lay-by on the main road, we have a vehicle whose registered owner matches the ID from the victim.'

The DCI spoke in a flat, matter-of-fact tone that made him sound almost as if he were bored. But Cooper decided he quite liked it. It had an air of calmness and confidence that was sometimes lacking at the start of a major enquiry.

‘It's an open scene, of course, but the perpetrator must have left some traces on his approach or departure, so I intend to fully exploit all forensic opportunities. And if the victim came up here voluntarily, then he came for a reason – and possibly in the company of his attacker. A check on the victim's associates and his recent movements will produce some early lines of enquiry, I'm sure. Where's the nearest civilization – anyone know?'

‘A village called Withens, sir,' said Cooper. ‘Down in the valley to the east.'

‘Know it, do you?'

Kessen's gaze was steady, almost impersonal. Cooper wondered whether the DCI had forgotten his name.

‘Yes, sir. I'm seconded to the Rural Crime Team for some enquiries down there, and I'm in the middle of conducting interviews. In fact, if this is the same Neil Granger, he's related to several of the residents of Withens, and the vicar was expecting to see him yesterday.'

‘Ah. Keep on it, then. There's a local connection here, I'm sure of it. And while you're in Withens, you can have a word with this Michael Dearden, who the FOAs had to turn back from the scene in his car. In fact, perhaps you can do that first, in case there's anything of interest. Find out what he was doing up that track in his four-wheel drive when there's a perfectly good road. We looked at the maps, and he must have driven up past a disused quarry called Far Clough.'

‘I'll find it.'

DI Hitchens rubbed his hands. ‘Yes, it could be fairly straightforward, sir,' he said. ‘That was my own feeling from the start.'

Kessen looked at him, and said nothing. Behind the DCI, Neil Granger's body was being turned over for the video cameras. And everyone could see that the victim's face was covered in black make-up, streaked by the blood from his wounds.

I
n Withens, a few elderly people were arriving at the church as Ben Cooper drove past. Perhaps the vicar held an afternoon service for them. Cooper looked for the Reverend Alton in the churchyard, but couldn't see him.

At Waterloo Terrace, some children watched him pass. Their bikes lay on the ground in a tangle, the spokes of their wheels lying on top of each other in complex patterns. There were two boys around the age of fifteen, one with short-cropped hair and the other with gelled spikes. There was a girl of about the same age, and a smaller boy who couldn't be more than ten, who leered aggressively at the car. Behind them, Cooper glimpsed a taller figure, a well-built young man in his twenties. Could that be Scott Oxley, the eldest son?

Cooper barely had time to think about it before he found himself driving out of the village to the east, where he passed an old man standing in the road. In fact, he had to slow right down to avoid running him over. The man was wearing a tight tweed jacket and a pair of baggy trousers that had been made for a younger, bulkier man – a man who had worn them until the seat shone and the edges of the pockets were frayed like lace.

Cooper wound down the window of the Toyota.

‘I'm looking for Shepley Head Lodge,' he said. ‘Am I on the right road?'

‘There isn't any other road.'

‘That's what I thought.'

‘It's just over the next hill. But I wouldn't go up there, if I were you.'

Cooper laughed at his ominous tone. It sounded like a line from an old black-and-white horror film, but it ought to have been delivered by a Transylvanian coach driver, or some other superstitious yokel.

‘Especially not at this time of night?' said Cooper.

‘Eh?' The old man looked at him as if he were stupid.

‘No, I meant – the name of the people is Dearden, not Dracula. It isn't even an anagram.'

‘You can laugh, if you want.'

‘Sorry. And have you heard of a place called Far Clough?'

‘Over there.' The old man pointed across the road to the south. ‘Do you see a series of little valleys in the hillside? We call 'em cloughs in these parts. There are three of them over there, and they're called Near Clough, Middle Clough and Far Clough.'

‘OK.'

‘Near Clough is the closest to the village, you see – that's why it's called Near Clough. It's a shorter walk from here. The other two are further away.'

‘Yes, I see.'

‘Unless you drive there. In that case, Near Clough is the furthest, and Far Clough is the nearest.'

‘How do I get there by car?' said Cooper, squinting up at the moor.

‘You can't, there's no road.'

‘But you just said –'

‘If you had a good tractor,' he said, with a pitying look, ‘or maybe one of those ATV things, you could drive there. But not in that car you've got.'

‘It has four-wheel drive,' said Cooper, feeling defensive about his Toyota.

‘Ah, well. Try it if you want to. You don't have to listen to me. I'm only a daft old bugger who doesn't know any better. But think on – there won't be anybody around to rescue you, when you get stuck. Nobody goes up to the cloughs from one month to the next.'

‘OK,' said Cooper. ‘I think I'll walk.'

‘Do you good, I reckon, instead of sitting in a car all day.'

‘Do you live in Withens, sir?' said Cooper.

‘Aye. What about it?'

‘It's a bit out of the way, isn't it?'

‘That has its advantages, I reckon.'

‘What advantages?' said Cooper as he studied the view over Withens. ‘I mean, where's the nearest shop, for example?'

‘Shop? Shop? Do you think there's a supermarket round the corner here somewhere?'

‘Well, I just wondered …'

‘Oh, aye. There's probably a whole bloody Meadowhall shopping centre behind the bus shelter. Not to mention the cinema and the drive-in chuffin' McDonald's.'

‘I was just wondering where the nearest shop is,' said Cooper.

‘Glossop that way. Or Holmfirth that way. And bloody great hills in between, whichever way you go.'

‘Thanks.'

The man began to walk off, his shoulders stiff with affront.

‘Thanks a lot, anyway!' called Cooper.

He shrugged as he watched the old man leave.

‘I'd better go and face the undead on my own, then.'

A hundred yards further up the road, Cooper crested a rise, and a house came into view on his left. It stood on an elbow of land nudging into the valley and had been hacked out of the hillside, with high stone walls behind it and a small copse of trees beyond a range of outbuildings. The copse was unusual in this landscape. It must have been deliberately planted and nurtured many years ago, probably when the lodge was built. The front windows of the house had a terrific view over the valley. And the road stopped at the gateway, where a gravel drive swung up towards the house. Beyond that, there was a field gate leading on to the moor.

Shepley Head Lodge was actually over the border in South Yorkshire. There was no sign at the county boundary, only a stone that someone had erected on the grass verge. On the hill above the house, Cooper could see a line of grouse butts near the western edge of Winscar Reservoir. Streams ran out of the cloughs towards the reservoir. On the steeper slopes, they formed tiny waterfalls, white and glittering, cutting into the rock like diamonds.

Why would anyone build a house way out here? It would have to be someone who loved the view, because it would send most people scurrying back down to the shelter of the valleys or the streets of a town.

The clouds were heavy and grey, and there was more rain on the way. There was no sign of castle battlements or bats circling overhead, and no sound of wolves howling in the trees, but Cooper did feel the first hint of doubt. Once he had turned the corner and come over the hill, he had left traffic noise behind him, even what there was of it in Withens. Shepley Head Lodge was rather a lonely spot.

He shook the feeling off, blaming the old man for his ridiculous warning. And he began to walk the last few yards to Shepley Head Lodge.

M
ichael Dearden turned out to be a lean, awkward man with a cold air. When Cooper showed him his ID on the doorstep, Dearden put on a poor pretence of incredulity and amazement.

‘So somebody has actually come to see us?' he said. ‘Gail! Somebody from the police has come to see us!'

‘Were you expecting someone to call?' said Cooper.

‘Expecting, no. Hoping, yes. But hoping doesn't get us anywhere. We've phoned the police station so often that it's on our “Friends and Family” list for discount calls.'

‘Actually,' said Cooper, ‘I think you've probably been contacting South Yorkshire Police, haven't you?'

‘Yes?' said Dearden.

‘Well, I'm Derbyshire CID. You're a bit out of my patch here, Mr Dearden. You're over the county boundary. If you've been having problems of some kind, South Yorkshire will deal with them for you.'

‘Oh, will they?'

‘Yes, I think so.'

‘Well, think again. And think differently this time.'

A pale woman had appeared from upstairs and was staring at Cooper from the bottom step.