Dead And Buried Part 30

'I've worked in a few pubs,' said Roddy. 'And the cellar often becomes a dumping ground. You wouldn't believe the clutter in some places. The ice-maker, the chest freezer, the post-mix machine ... People think they're out of the way yet still handy. I even saw a motorbike once. It was a lovely bike, but imagine the stink of petrol mixing with the smell of beer. That's a recipe for disaster all right.'

In the middle of the conversation Cooper became aware of a diesel engine outside, the sound of a large vehicle and the crashing of heavy items being delivered When they left the Hanging Gate, the reason for the noise became evident. A brewery dray was drawn up in the street, and a wooden hatch set into the pavement was standing open for fresh kegs of beer to be lowered in.

'We must have drunk a lot if they needed to bring in new supplies at this time of the evening,' said Murfin.

'It's probably a regular delivery time.'

As he watched two draymen wearing leather gauntlets for roping kegs into the cellar, Cooper realised he'd always known at the back of his mind that the brewery dray delivered to the pub once a week. That must be true of all pubs, mustn't it?

He felt like smacking his forehead with his hand.

'How could I have forgotten that?' he said.

He fumbled for his phone as they walked down the street.

'Who are you calling?' asked Murfin. 'Not the fiancee? Are you having to report in?'

'Just something I have to do now before I forget.'

'You know your trouble, Ben?'

But Cooper had stopped listening to Murfin as he dialled a number and the phone was answered.

'Josh? It's Ben Cooper. Detective Sergeant Cooper, you remember? Good. I'm sorry to bother you, Josh, but I wonder if you'd have a bit of time to spare tomorrow? Are you working? If not, I'd like you to come up to the Light House for a while.'

Lane sounded reluctant, and even a little nervous.

'Yes, I could call in before I go to work. But ... am I allowed? Isn't it a crime scene? Police a do not cross and all that?'

'You'll be fine with me. I can arrange it. Shall we say two o'clock?'

'Okay then. What do you want me to do?'

'It's simple,' said Cooper. 'I want you to show me the cellars.'

24.

When Ben Cooper woke the next day, it was with the scent of smoke in his nostrils. He knew he must have been dreaming, imagining he was in the middle of a wildfire raging across the moors. He couldn't remember the nightmare, but he must have experienced it. It wasn't in his memory, but it lingered in his senses.

Gavin Murfin's brown Megane still stood outside in Welbeck Street. Cooper vaguely remembered Gavin heading off home in a taxi at the end of the evening. He hoped he'd arrived safely. There'd be h.e.l.l to pay if he hadn't. Jean would certainly hold him responsible.

Cooper shook his head to try to clear it. He recalled making the appointment to meet Josh Lane at the Light House. And there was something else he ought to remember, too. But, like the dream, it was evading his grasp just now.

The news was bad this morning. The latest bulletins reported more wildfires. And this time they were on Kinder Scout. Cooper stared out of the window of his flat. The street outside looked the same as it always did. But the town wasn't affected by the fires, except when people complained about soot on their washing. The damage was happening out there, on the moors.

Cooper decided to skip breakfast, drank a quick coffee and went out of the door. He wasn't due in the office for an hour or so.

This was Kinder Scout, after all. Kinder was the highest moorland plateau in the Peak District, part of a landscape almost unique to Britain, whose importance had only in recent years been fully appreciated. It was said that the expanses of peat on Kinder soaked up excess carbon from the atmosphere, and would continue to act as a carbon sink even if the climate became warmer and wetter, as the scientists predicted.

On the way, he called Liz, conscious that he ought to put things right if she was still unhappy about his night off from wedding planning. But for once she seemed to be the one who was preoccupied.

'Don't worry, I'll fill you in later when I see you,' she said.

'Is everything all right?'

'Of course. Tonight, then?'

'Absolutely. Or ...'

'What?'

Cooper was thinking that tonight was too long to wait. He'd missed seeing her more than he could admit. Gavin Murfin just hadn't been a subst.i.tute.

'Well I'll try to see you for a few minutes during the day, if I can. You're on duty, aren't you?'

'Oh yes. Busy, busy. People keep finding crime scenes for us.'

'I suppose they do.'

Within a few minutes Cooper was driving through Bradwell into the Hope Valley, phoning in to get the latest update on the operation. He joined the A625 and turned on to a back road by the post office in Hope village. The road snaked its way between the River Noe and the Hope Valley railway line until it finally reached the a.s.sembly point in a visitors' car park near the hamlet of Upper Booth.

As usual there was a problem with rubberneckers. Some members of the public liked nothing better than a good fire. They seemed to treat it as an alternative to daytime TV. As a result, cars were drawn on to the verge and into every gateway along the road. Nearer to the car park, they were lined up as if for a party, with a young man with long hair leaning on his car playing a guitar. Other people were using binoculars or taking photographs with their mobile phones. A middle-aged couple had set up a folding table and were drinking tea. Late arrivals were finding it difficult to get parking s.p.a.ces.

On the narrowest bend, Cooper found cars projecting so far into the roadway that it would be impossible for anything as large as a fire appliance to get past. Someone ought to be here sorting this out, keeping the access clear. But it would mean taking resources away from where they were needed most. Not for the first time, the public weren't helping at all.

When he arrived at the a.s.sembly point, he was met by a national park ranger in his distinctive red jacket. The rangers were often the first line of defence against the spread of moorland fires. They were out there on the ground every day, and they didn't worry about working nine to five when there was an emergency situation.

'What I'm hoping for is that the wind will change direction,' said the ranger.

'To stop the fire spreading towards the villages?' asked Cooper.

The ranger shook his head, and jerked a thumb towards the road.

'No, so that all the gongoozlers get a face full of smoke. That might make them go home.'

Looking up the hill at the fire burning along the skyline, Cooper could see a helicopter hovering low over the moor, carrying a huge orange bucket full of water. It released its load to help douse the fire, and a moment later was heading back eastwards until it disappeared.

He glimpsed a farmstead sheltered by a belt of trees, reminding him too much of Bridge End. He imagined the farm where he'd grown up being threatened by a moorland fire. It didn't bear thinking about.

And this wasn't the first fire on Kinder. When he was younger, he'd walked across this moor while the peat below him was burning, warming the surface but not quite breaking through. It was a strange experience, like crossing a hotplate with clouds of richly scented smoke rising all around him.

'How did it happen?' he asked. 'Isn't the Fire Severity Index at its highest level already? The access land should be closed to the public.'

The ranger shrugged. 'We can close access land all right, but we don't have the power to shut public footpaths. Which is a nonsense, when you think about it a because a lot of those paths run right across access land anyway. People think they can hold barbecues in the middle of a tinder-dry moorland, as if they were in their back garden. Why don't they all go home and set fire to their own property?'

Cooper spotted the fire service's Argo making its way across the edge of the plateau, its fogging unit spraying water on to the advancing fire front. He remembered the whole of that part of Kinder being a bog at one time. You wouldn't have been able to walk across it, even in summer, without your boots sinking into water and evil-smelling mud soaking through your socks. He could still hear the squelch of his footsteps, and smell the fetid gas that was released from the sodden ground.

But he knew there would be no bog up there now. That stretch of moor had been dry for years.

'Which direction is it moving?'

'Westwards at the moment,' said the ranger. 'Towards Hayfield.'

'It won't get that far, surely?'

'No, we'll have it under control before then. But we're pretty overstretched. We're having to pull in all the resources we can. The trouble is, some of the other fires aren't completely damped down. They could flare up again.'

'Like Oxlow Moor?'

'Yes. Though there isn't much left to burn up there, to be honest.'

High above him, bright red embers were floating like fireflies against the bank of black smoke, and Cooper could see for himself that the fire was heading westwards.

Just away to the west was Kinder Downfall, a cascade of water falling vertically among shattered rocks. It was the highest waterfall in the county, where the River Kinder hit the edge of the plateau. On bl.u.s.tery days, the water seemed to flow upwards as the wind caught it in mid-air and hurled it back over the edge.

Below the downfall, the dark waters of Mermaid's Pool were reputed to be haunted by a spirit who could either grant eternal life or pull you under the surface and drown you. Myth said it was a site of ancient human sacrifices. He remembered looking down at the pool from the rocks and realising how obvious it was that it used to be much larger. You could make out the original shape from the slope of the ground, and from the beds of reeds standing where the shallower parts of the pool had been. It must have covered three or four times the area it did now, but its edges had retreated, the body of water shrunk to little more than a pond. It would be very difficult now to imagine anything living in there except a few small fish and the odd frog, let alone a water demon. Luckily the people of Hayfield didn't go in for human sacrifices as much as they used to.

He became aware that the ranger had finished conducting an agitated conversation on his radio and was cursing.

'What's the problem?' asked Cooper.

'Our temporary reservoir on the moor has been sabotaged.'

Cooper knew what he meant. He'd seen the big orange tank sitting in the middle of the moors. Because of the risk of fire, every year the national park rangers sited one of the water tanks out on Kinder. They held more than fifty thousand litres of water, and were large enough for a helicopter to lower its dipper bucket into, if necessary. Due to the remote nature of the moorland sites, tanks were often vital to prevent a fire from spreading. They usually stayed up there throughout the summer, and could be refilled from bowsers towed by rangers' Land Rovers.

'We had reports that the tank was empty, and when it was checked we found that somebody had cut the side of it with a knife,' said the ranger. 'The original cut was only about eighteen inches long, but the force of fifty-four thousand litres of water ripped a ten-foot hole. That's impossible to repair. We're just left with a big collapsed balloon.'

'What does that mean for Kinder?'

The ranger followed Cooper's gaze up the hill.

'The consequences of losing that tank could be devastating. They helicopter is using Ladybower Reservoir instead, but it takes a lot longer. We were hoping to stop the fire in its tracks, but that won't happen now.'

'A few more square miles destroyed, then.'

'You can bet on it.'

'And it's Kinder, too.'

'Yes, Kinder. What can I say?'

Kinder Scout had its own unique history. Britain's national park movement had started right here in the 1930s, when four hundred ramblers from Manchester staged a ma.s.s trespa.s.s on to grouse moors owned by the Duke of Devonshire.

The 1932 Kinder Trespa.s.s was the turning point in the campaign to open up access to the countryside. Five young ramblers had been jailed, and the resulting waves of support had ensured that Kinder was included when the first national park was created in the Peak District after the Second World War. Eventually, a later Duke of Devonshire had apologised for his ancestor's actions. How times changed.

It was an episode recorded in Derbyshire Constabulary history, too. About a third of the force had been deployed around Hayfield to intercept ramblers taking part in the trespa.s.s. One hiker convicted of a.s.sault on a gamekeeper had protested his innocence right into his eighties. It had taken an enlightened chief constable to make amends for that one.

Cooper went back to his Toyota. He had to accept that there wasn't much he could do, short of grabbing a beater and going up on the moor himself. Being here was just tormenting him, and he might even be getting in the way. He wished the ranger luck, and left.

Near Upper Booth, a couple of cars had been turning in a field entrance, and came slowly past him down the road. A silver Mercedes and a pale blue VW. As they pa.s.sed, Cooper saw that their paintwork was covered in black specks, a shower of oily soot from the moorland fires they'd been watching with such enjoyment.

It looked as though the ranger's prayers had been answered. The wind had changed direction after all.

At West Street, Cooper sat down at his desk and tried to get his thoughts in order. It was taking a bit of an effort this morning.

He remembered first of all that he'd arranged to meet Josh Lane at the Light House later on. The cellars were one part of the pub he felt sure hadn't been looked at. Since nothing seemed to have been taken, a reason for the presence at the Light House of either Aidan Merritt or his killer still hadn't been established. But what might be in the cellars?

He was picturing a motorcycle now. That was Roddy who'd put the idea into his head. But Maurice Wharton hadn't been the type to ride a motorbike a or any of his family, except perhaps his son. Eliot was old enough to have a driving licence at seventeen, but he would have been too young when they lived at the pub.

Ah yes, Aidan Merritt a that was the second thing. According to Mrs Wheatcroft, Merritt's father had been interested in the abandoned mines, and knew the locations of all the old shafts, maybe some that had been lost for a while. Had Aidan picked up some of that knowledge from his father?

It was interesting to speculate, but Cooper wasn't sure how it fitted in with the inquiry. The mine shafts had been searched after the disappearance of David and Trisha Pearson, and there was nothing to suggest that Aidan Merritt had even had any contact with the Pearsons, let alone a reason to kill them.

So what else was there? Cooper tapped a pencil against his teeth as he gazed out of the window at the rooftops of Edendale. There was something that still eluded him, a memory that he hadn't quite grasped at the time, and that was proving even more elusive now. He hoped it would come back to him at some point when he wasn't thinking about it.

DI Hitchens stuck his head round the door.

'Ben, have you got a minute?' he said.

Cooper went into the DI's office. Hitchens looked weary, drained of energy. He had a leaflet on his desk promoting a seminar for inspectors. Meeting the challenges of the new performance landscape.

'I wanted you to be the first to know, Ben,' he said. 'I'll be moving on soon.'

'Really?'

'Yes, one way or another.'

Cooper sat down. He didn't quite know how he felt about that. He was used to his DI, who had served in E Division for years. But everyone moved on eventually a especially if they were the least bit ambitious and wanted promotion. It always created a bit of uncertainty, though. Who would they get in his place? Hitchens might not have been the most dynamic DI, particularly in recent years. But sometimes it was better the devil you knew than the devil you didn't.

Automatically, Cooper's mind began to run through potential candidates for the job, those in other divisions rumoured to be tipped for promotion or transfer. On the other hand, might the DI's departure create a vacancy that would be filled internally?

'And you'll be losing DC Murfin soon,' said Hitchens. 'How do you feel about that?'

'Gavin has a lot of experience,' said Cooper, immediately conscious that he'd said it before, and not just once. Was it starting to sound as if he was d.a.m.ning Murfin with faint praise?

'Experience, yes. It's worth a lot. Or it used to be, anyway. Everything is different these days, as you know. We have to make cutbacks everywhere we can.'

'We're not likely to lose anyone else, are we?' said Cooper.

Hitchens shrugged. 'Who can say?'