The Corpse Bridge (9 page)

So her mind was distracted and she wasn't quite thinking straight by the time the phone rang and Geoff began to tell her this garbled story about people being killed and the police looking for someone. She thought he was describing the plot of some TV programme he'd been watching. He was a great one for sitting in front of episodes of
Lewis
and
Midsomer Murders
and trying to guess who did it. In fact, he would get really tetchy if you interrupted him at the wrong moment and he missed a vital clue.

As she listened to him gabbling down the line, she thought he must finally have lost touch with reality. That was the risk of watching detective drama stories all the time. You ended up confusing them with the real world. Life wasn't actually like that. People didn't get killed every day, the way they did in Inspector Barnaby's world.

Finally, Sally began to realise what he was telling her.

‘Seriously? You mean—'

‘We were there,' said Geoff.

‘It's not possible.'

‘Well, I think it is. What are we going to do?'

Geoff had calmed down a bit and she could hear him trying to formulate a plan. What was in his own best interests? That would be the concern foremost in his mind.

‘The chances are, they'll find out we were in the area, one way or another,' he said. ‘Someone will have seen us or our car, or … Well, you know – it will come out sooner or later. And it will look bad if we haven't mentioned it.'

Sally laughed, but winced with the pain it caused her. ‘You mean they might suspect you of murder? That's a joke.'

‘Both of us,' said Geoff firmly. ‘We were both there.'

Sally felt another surge of pain as she thought about what they'd have to do. But, for the first time in many years, she knew that her husband was right.

I
t was a difficult decision for Jason Shaw too. That evening, after he'd listened to the news, he sat in his little cottage in Bowden and stared at the log fire for quite a while, gulping from a can of lager. When that one was finished, he went to the fridge to fetch another. He needed something to help him think.

He remembered very clearly the figure he'd seen running through the woods near the Corpse Bridge. That pale shape in the twilight dodging through the trees. Its unnatural appearance had made him wonder whether his eyesight had been blurred by the rain.

More worrying had been the noises. The sound of something crashing through the undergrowth and that wordless yell. Who had been shouting and who were they calling to?

Jason had heard many noises in the woods at night. Often they were nocturnal animals. Foxes or badgers, or even owls. Their screeching could be unnerving if you weren't used to it. But at least their presence was natural in the darkness. Sometimes there were gamekeepers or poachers. But they didn't shout to each other like that. Or at least, the poachers didn't. They wanted to remain unnoticed, so they moved as quietly and unobtrusively as possible. Jason knew that as well as anyone.

But now and then, he knew there were other people out in the woods at night. Sometimes there were kids playing games.

Popping the tab on another can, Jason took a swig. Yes, perhaps that was who it had been near the bridge. It was Halloween, after all. They might have had to go off and mess around on their own. But the bridge was a long way from anywhere. And it had been raining. Kids weren't so tough these days, were they? The first drop of rain and they were back in the house with their PlayStations.

So that just left the final group. The ones who were doing things he didn't understand, and didn't want to. He'd glimpsed them from time to time, whole groups of them, sometimes silent, but other times talking or singing. He'd found dead animals too – animals that hadn't been caught by a poacher or trapped by a keeper. Neither would do those things to a sheep that he'd seen, or leave such a bloodied mess. The reasons for that were beyond his imagination.

Jason heaved himself up from the armchair and stepped to the back window of his cottage. He heard his dog grumble outside in the kennel where it slept. Lights were on in most of the cottages in Bowden. Behind their curtains people were watching TV, maybe just hearing about the body found at the Corpse Bridge, wondering if anyone would come forward.

The bridge was too close to Bowden for anyone's comfort. People would soon find themselves asking each other if the killer might be nearby. They would be afraid. They would wonder whether they and their families were safe. Jason was wondering the same thing. Because he was frightened too.

Suddenly, the lager tasted sour in his mouth. It made Jason feel sick with fear to think that someone might have been watching him from the trees near the Corpse Bridge last night, especially if it was one of
those
people – the ones who did evil, inexplicable things in the woods.

Well, he'd seen someone and the chances were high that they'd seen him. Jason put the lager can down and picked up the phone.

B
en Cooper was walking back through the streets of Edendale when his phone rang. A mobile number he didn't recognise. Should he answer it? It might be a wrong number or a sales call, even at this time in the evening. He should let it go to voicemail.

But something made him answer the call instead.

‘Yes?' he said cautiously.

‘Ben? That
is
you, isn't it? You don't answer your phone very professionally these days. You sounded very surly.'

Cooper stopped walking. He'd suddenly found that he couldn't walk and talk at the same time.

‘Diane?' he said.

‘Who else did you think it was?'

‘You've got a new phone. I didn't recognise the number.'

‘It's me, nevertheless. How are you doing?'

‘I'm okay. Hold on, though … what do you mean by “surly”?'

It sounded trivial, but he was so surprised that he couldn't think what else to say. The last thing he'd anticipated was a call from Diane Fry. So he fell back on the first thing that came into his mind.

‘Rude, ill-tempered, unfriendly. You sounded as though you didn't want to speak to anyone.'

‘Not the old Ben Cooper you know and love, then,' he said.

But as he said it, the sharpness in his tone was obvious, even to himself. Blast her, she was right again – he
was
getting surly.

Fry sighed down the line. ‘Well, that's the pleasantries over with,' she said.

Cooper thought he detected actual disappointment in her voice. Surely she couldn't have expected a delirious greeting, given their history?

He bit his lip. Well, not all of it had been bad. Fry had shown some loyalty over the years, even been the one who understood him and came to his aid when he needed it. But somehow she'd always managed to ruin things and sour their relationship again. He'd always assumed she wanted it that way.

‘So what are you doing at the moment?' asked Fry.

‘Nothing much.'

‘Are you in town?'

‘Yes,' he said. ‘Why?'

‘I'm packing.'

‘What? Oh, yes, I heard. You're moving, aren't you? Leaving Edendale.'

‘Yes, I'm going to live in Nottingham. It makes sense. It's far too much of a trek getting to St Ann's every morning from here.'

‘I understand. So?'

‘Well…'

She hesitated. Cooper hadn't heard her hesitate very often. She'd always seemed very confident in her views and always knew what she wanted to say.

‘Well, the new flat is part-furnished,' she said, ‘but I've got a couple of pieces of my own furniture here. Only small stuff, but awkward. I can't get them into my car. So I thought…'

‘Go on.'

‘I remembered you had that big four-wheel drive. You do still have it, don't you?'

‘The Toyota, yes. It's getting a bit old now. I was thinking of replacing it.'

‘But it has plenty of space in the back, if I remember.'

‘I suppose so,' said Cooper.

‘Enough to get my bits and pieces in, I think. If I asked nicely.'

‘Nicely? Diane, are you asking me for a favour? You want me to help you move your stuff to Nottingham?'

‘Only if you're not doing anything else.'

‘Ah.'

So that was it. She thought he could be taken advantage of because he had nothing better to do with his time any more. Or perhaps she felt sorry for him. Cooper wasn't sure which was worse.

‘You know perfectly well I'm not likely to be doing much,' he said. ‘I don't have a personal life left, of course.'

Cooper knew he was sounding ill-tempered again. Rude and unfriendly, even. He felt certain now that this was actually the reason she'd called him. She'd known he had nothing better to do, that he was just as sad a case as she was herself, ever since that fire at the Light House pub had snatched his entire future away.

No doubt it wasn't really his load capacity she wanted, but a glimpse of Ben Cooper at his lowest ebb, just as he was moving on.

He almost ended the call then and there, with his rudest comment yet hovering on his lips. But a small voice at the back of his mind made him change his intention. He
wasn't
at his lowest ebb, was he? Yes, months ago he'd been in a bad way. That couldn't be denied. But he'd submitted himself to the counselling sessions, he'd worked all his feelings through and dealt with them. He was okay now. He was fine. He could let Diane Fry see that he was back to his normal self. More than that, he could show her that he was full of energy, raring to go. And
he
was ready to move on too. She would see that he wasn't going to miss her at all. His life was totally back on track.

‘All right,' he said. ‘I'll be there in a few minutes.'

He could hear the surprise in her voice. She'd thought he wasn't going to agree.

‘Thanks, Ben,' she said. ‘I appreciate it.'

And that was probably a first too. Cooper couldn't remember hearing Fry thank him before. He might actually enjoy this task.

When he ended the call, Cooper realised he was staring into the window of a children's bookshop in Hollowgate. He didn't remember it being here before. The shop must have opened some time during the last few months, when he wasn't really noticing things like this.

As he focused his gaze into the shop, Cooper found himself looking at a display of books with bright, cheerful covers –
The Snappy Playset Garage
,
The Things I Love about Bedtime
and
The Things I Love about School
. Next to them were
My Home
and
My Family
. Each title seemed to taunt him from behind the glass, until the accumulated effect was unbearable.

He felt the urge to find a brick and toss it through the bookshop window, as if that would destroy the image. The physical action and the sound of glass smashing might make him feel better for one fleeting moment.

But it was worse than that. Cooper knew the really disturbing images were inside his head, and there was nothing he could ever do to smash them.

D
iane Fry's flat was in one of the large detached Victorian villas in Grosvenor Avenue, just off Castleton Road. Although the tree-lined street had once been prosperous, almost all the properties were in multiple occupancy now – one-bedroom flats, smaller bedsits and some houses where the tenants shared communal facilities.

Cooper knew this as a student area, mostly for young people studying at the High Peak College campus. He had no idea why Fry had chosen to live here when she came to Derbyshire. And he had even less understanding of her reasons for staying in Grosvenor Avenue when she could so easily have afforded somewhere better on her detective sergeant's salary.

But that might have been because he'd never asked her about her reasons. Or he'd never asked her properly. There was a lot about Diane Fry he didn't understand, but she only shared information about herself on a need-to-know basis. At least that meant he wasn't the only person who didn't understand her. Nobody at West Street did. The only person he'd ever met who might have a bit more insight was Diane's sister, Angie. Cooper reassured himself with that fact.

A couple of the other tenants were just leaving the house as he parked outside the gate. They didn't look like students, though. They were a bit too old and bundled up in old clothes as if off to a night shift at a job where they didn't expect to stay clean. When he said hello to them, they answered readily enough, in accents that sounded East European. Of course, Grosvenor Avenue wasn't just student territory any more. The High Peak College students were competing for cheap accommodation with migrant workers from countries in the European Union.

He remembered something Fry had said to him years ago, when he moved out of Bridge End Farm into his own little flat on Welbeck Street. ‘A cheap rent just means something really grotty that nobody else wants,' she'd said. But number 8 Welbeck Street was a lot better than this.

Cooper rang the bell set among half a dozen others by the front door and it was opened almost immediately.

‘Hello, Diane.'

‘Hi. Come in.'

She left him to close the door and set off up the stairs. She was dressed in unfaded denim jeans and a sparkling white shirt, like someone who'd decided to dress casually but found she didn't have any casual clothes. He'd rarely seen her when she wasn't wearing black suit trousers, aiming for the smart professional look. Yet this look suited her. It somehow managed to soften her edges. Her fair hair had grown a little longer too, and it masked the hard lines of her face, which in the past she'd always seemed keen to emphasise. Whatever had caused the change in her appearance, he was glad of it. Though he knew better than to comment on it. Fry never took compliments well.

‘Aren't you supposed to say “thank you for coming” or something like that?' said Cooper, though he was speaking to Fry's retreating back.