The Devil’s Edge bcadf-11

by Stephen Booth

  ‘What have you found?’ asked Cooper.

  ‘Handprints. Two white handprints on the wall.’

  ‘White?’

  ‘Two prints, clear as day,’ said Abbott. ‘They look almost as if they’ve been made in chalk.’

  ‘Good work.’

  Watching the SOCOs at work photographing the wall, Cooper fingered his bag of stone chippings, deep in thought. What sort of person left white handprints? It didn’t make sense.

  But then, that was par for the course. Nothing the Savages did made sense either. Only in some twisted logic of their own, anyway. They were fearless and audacious. And no one knew where they would strike next.

  Lane End had a drive of freshly laid gravel, thick and crunchy under the Toyota’s tyres. Two convex mirrors mounted on the gateposts provided drivers leaving the property with a view round the blind bend to warn of oncoming traffic. This was certainly an area to drive with care, thought Cooper. The lane was only wide enough for one vehicle, and those stone walls looked pretty unyielding.

  He drew up in front of the house and parked next to a brand-new Mini Clubman.

  ‘Who lives here?’ asked Villiers as she got out of the car.

  ‘Some people named Nowak,’ said Cooper. He checked his notebook. ‘Richard and Sonya, and Mr Nowak’s father, Adam.’

  ‘Polish?’

  ‘At some time.’

  Villiers shaded her eyes as she studied the house. Cooper couldn’t resist the impression that she was scanning the horizon for potential enemies. A group of insurgents, a suspect vehicle on the skyline.

  ‘They are only possible witnesses at the moment,’ he said. ‘We’re canvassing all the immediate neighbours in the hope that one of them might have seen or heard something on the night of the attack on the Barrons.’

  ‘Yes, I understand.’

  ‘The grounds of Valley View are just across the lane there. That wall is their boundary. We don’t know which way the attackers came in, but this lane is one of the possible approaches. And, as you can see, it ends here.’

  ‘At Lane End.’

  ‘Exactly.’

  Richard Nowak was older than Cooper had anticipated. He didn’t know why he’d expected to meet someone in their thirties or forties, but Nowak was clearly in his early sixties. Well, that wasn’t old these days. And he was undoubtedly fit and healthy. He had sandy hair cut very short, and large hands with a powerful grip as he shook Cooper’s.

  ‘It’s so nice to see police officers flocking to the premises,’ he said with a sardonic smile.

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘When we had our shed broken into a while ago, the police didn’t even come. They said there would be no forensic evidence, so there was no point in investigating. When we had the quad bike stolen, they didn’t do anything then either. Oh, they were happy to counsel us as victims of crime, but they made it clear that they weren’t going to try to find out who’d stolen the bike, let alone get it back. But when you’re driven to take the law into your own hands, they arrive in force and arrest you. They treat us as if we’re the criminals.’

  ‘You should have had a visit from a scene-of-crime officer.’

  ‘Yes, a civilian.’

  ‘Most of them are. They’re just as professional.’

  ‘And yet now we have a crime at my neighbours’, and the police are out in force. Three detectives have been to my house in the space of twenty-four hours. I’m so lucky.’

  ‘Well, we’re doing our best, sir.’

  ‘That was a detective you sent yesterday?’ said Nowak. ‘He ate a lot of my wife’s chocolate cake.’

  ‘Detective Constable Murfin. He’s very experienced.’

  ‘Yes, his experience shows in his waistline.’

  Cooper introduced Carol Villiers and watched as she returned Nowak’s firm handshake. He found that he was looking forward to getting her impressions of the man. He already knew he could trust her opinion.

  ‘We’re sorry to bother you again, sir,’ said Cooper. ‘But the fact is, your property is in a very strategic position here, from the point of view of our inquiry.’

  ‘I know, I know. You think the people came up this lane. And if they did, I ought to have seen them. And if they came in a car, they would have turned round in my driveway. But I can’t tell you whether any of that happened. I didn’t see anything, nor did my wife.’

  ‘Your father also lives here?’

  ‘My father was already in bed at that time. He’s not in the best of health.’

  Cooper looked at the front of the house. ‘What sort of view do you have from your front window? Can you see the gate?’

  ‘Not quite.’

  ‘And you don’t have CCTV, I noticed.’

  ‘No, unlike some of my more wealthy neighbours. So, as you can see, we would not be able to tell if someone drove up this lane and turned round.’

  ‘Would you mind if we take a look along the boundary on this side, sir?’

  ‘Help yourself.’

  Villiers accompanied Cooper as he followed a flagged path towards the right-hand corner of the property. According to his sketch map, the house he could just see through the trees was South Croft, home of Mrs Slattery, the doctor’s widow. Croft Lane ran just behind the hedge towards Nowak’s. But the lane was so narrow and empty of traffic, he wouldn’t have known it was there.

  ‘What are you looking for?’ asked Villiers.

  ‘I want to get a good idea of the layout in this area, the way the properties adjoin each other. Who neighbours who, and how well they can see the approach roads.’ Cooper looked at her apologetically. ‘I realise that might sound a bit strange.’

  ‘Not at all. You need to know the ground. It’s vital.’

  They walked back past the gate, where the gravel drive swept up to the house. Cooper glanced out on to the lane, then back up at the Nowaks’ house. Richard Nowak was still watching them from his front door, his arms folded, sleeves rolled up over muscular forearms.

  ‘He’s not missing much now,’ said Villiers quietly.

  Cooper restrained a smile. ‘Have you noticed that there’s one feature we can see from here? If you look down the lane…’

  ‘Another set of gates. Rather grand ones.’

  ‘It’s the entrance to Riddings Lodge. Mr Edson. Quite a statement, aren’t they?’

  ‘And he has CCTV, I imagine?’

  ‘Oh, yes. Why?’

  ‘Mr Nowak’s comment. Unlike some of my more wealthy neighbours.’

  ‘Ah. A little bit of envy creeping through there.’

  ‘Aren’t those gilt-edged gates all about provoking envy?’

  Cooper nodded. ‘Of course. I wonder if there’s any envy of the Barrons, too?’

  ‘Can we see Valley View from here?’

  Cooper pointed down the lane. ‘It’s close to where the road takes a bend there. See the big bank of rhododendrons?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Those mark the boundary of the grounds at Riddings Lodge. Valley View and Fourways are on the other side of them.’

  ‘We’d better move, before Mr Nowak starts getting nervous,’ said Villiers.

  The last section of boundary was a stone wall, which ran right up to the rough ground at the foot of Riddings Edge. Over the wall was more Edson territory. But the Nowaks and the Edsons had made sure they couldn’t see each other along this section. The wall was too high for that.

  ‘What next?’ asked Villiers.

  ‘I need to speak to Barry Gamble again. And I’m glad to have someone with me this time.’

  ‘Someone?’

  ‘Actually,’ said Cooper, ‘I’m glad to have you.’

  When they left Lane End, Cooper noticed that his tyres had pushed the gravel up into waves like the wake of a boat. It was laid so deep and soft that every vehicle, no matter how small, must leave this impression. The marks of the Mini Clubman’s tyres would be just as visible as those of his Toyota. He supposed someone must rake this stuff back into
place regularly to keep it looking neat. Otherwise there would soon be wheel ruts worn into the drive, and bare earth exposed. And that would never do.

  Bare earth? Cooper looked back at the drive again as he reached the gate. If there was bare earth under this gravel, he could see no sign of it. No weeds broke the white surface – not a single blade of grass trying its luck. Someone with a rake and a tank full of systemic weedkiller, then.

  A few yards down Curbar Lane, he saw a smart blue van, the signage on its side advertising Garden Landscaping and Design Services, Paving and Driveway Specialists. He stopped when he saw a man in a matching blue overall, and got out to speak to him, showing his warrant card.

  ‘Excuse me, do you maintain many of the driveways in this area?’

  ‘Oh, yes. We installed quite a few of them, too.’

  ‘At Valley View, for instance?’

  ‘Stone paving, right? A very nice design, that. Expensive, but it lasts well. We installed that about three years ago, when the new owners came in. Oh, isn’t that the people…?’

  ‘Yes. There’s no gravel on their property, is there? I couldn’t see any.’

  He shook his head. ‘Gravel. no. Not at Valley View.’

  ‘I thought gravel was making a bit of a comeback.’

  ‘Well, gravel driveways cost less to build, but they need more maintenance. Over time, tyre tracks appear, hollows fill with rain, the surface breaks down. And keeping down weeds and grass is a never-ending job. I’m working on the drive of the house across the road there. If it were me, I’d have put a weed barrier down under the gravel when it was laid. But I didn’t build this one. I just got the maintenance. I’m not complaining, though.’

  ‘There must be plenty of work.’

  ‘Oh, aye.’ The man looked at Cooper more closely. ‘My name’s Brian Monk, by the way. This is my company. Well, it belongs to me and my brother. But we thought Monk Brothers sounded odd for a trading name.’

  ‘A bit too monastic.’

  ‘Maybe.’ He removed a blue baseball cap and scratched his head. ‘Well, if you’re interested in Riddings, it’s a bit funny round here. You’d think gravel would be a good material to use in a place like this. It matches the predominant stone colouring of the area. Nicely rural, like. And a lot of people just like the crunch of it under a car’s wheels. Some even go for it as a security measure, too – you can hear people coming, you know. But the thing is, you can’t use gravel on a site that has any gradient to speak of. It needs regular top-up, and can be really tricky to keep in place. And there are lots of gradients here, as you can see.’

  ‘Any other problems with it?’

  ‘Well, it sprays out everywhere, especially if you like to spin the wheels on your posh convertible.’

  Cooper laughed, recognising the view that a tradesman must get of the people he worked for.

  ‘I bet they complain a lot, don’t they?’

  ‘You can say that again,’ said Monk. ‘See, I tell them – if you have a lawn next to your gravel driveway, you’re going to have to pay for expensive repairs to mowing equipment. Not to mention the potential damage to people and property if gravel gets spat out at speed by a mower. Then if you get it spreading on to pathways, there’s another hazard. Granules will roll underfoot, and you get people slipping and falling over. Some of these folk are paranoid about getting sued for injuries. If you’re laying gravel, you don‘t lay it any deeper than two inches, otherwise cars sink in. It does depend on the size of the granules, though.’

  Cooper produced a piece of the stone he’d collected and bagged from the Barrons’ lawn.

  ‘What about this, sir?’

  Monk peered at it closely. ‘Too small. If it came from a drive, anyway. No, I doubt we laid that stuff. Not here in Riddings.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Well, it’s a personal choice, but ten-millimetre gravel like this tends to move around more and get stuck in car tyres. We advise people to use a fourteen-or twenty-millimetre stone on driveways.’

  ‘I see. Thank you, Mr Monk.’

  The man looked at him curiously. ‘Is it important?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Well, I’m not saying it isn’t from round here. Just that it’s unlikely my firm laid it. There are a few other outfits around. I wouldn’t call them cowboys exactly, but not they’re not as well qualified, if you know what I mean. Not so particular about their work. A couple of lads out of a job might decide to set up a little gardening business, mowing lawns and that sort of thing. Then they start branching out. When people ask them if they can do drives or tree surgery, they don’t want to say no. That’s how it happens. I’m not naming any names, you understand. But you might find some around here that answer the description.’

  Cooper nodded. ‘Thanks again.’

  ‘No problem.’

  The landscaper went back to work on the house across the road. The driveway looked quite smart to Cooper, but he could see there was an occasional burst of green where a weed had dared to come through.

  ‘Gravel?’ said Villiers when he got back in the car.

  Cooper could hear the laugh in her voice, and turned in his seat, ready to justify himself. Then he saw her face, and he couldn’t help laughing with her. For the first time today he was seeing the old Carol, the one he’d known before she went off to join the services and experienced all the bad things that he was sure must have happened to her.

  ‘Well, that’s what we’re like in Derbyshire Constabulary,’ he said. ‘We leave no stone unturned.’

  10

  Monica Gamble greeted Cooper and Villiers with a sour expression, a resigned look, as if she was always expecting this kind of knock on the door.

  ‘Mrs Gamble. Is your husband in?’

  She hesitated, not sure what the best answer would be.

  ‘Well…’

  ‘Oh, I forgot,’ said Cooper. ‘You often don’t know where he is.’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘I expect that can be quite convenient sometimes.’

  He could see Mrs Gamble trying to figure out what was safe for her to say. She must be wondering how long he’d been outside the house, watching. What were the chances that he had seen her husband through the window? If she lied, he would know. Not worth the risk.

  ‘He was here a moment ago. He’s probably gone to his shed.’

  Cooper hadn’t realised the extent of the back gardens in Chapel Close. It wasn’t obvious, when the front doors of the houses opened almost on to the road. There was certainly room behind number four for a large wooden shed, though.

  Gamble met them at the door of the shed, no doubt alerted by their footsteps, and his wife’s slamming of the kitchen door. Inside, Cooper glimpsed the usual gardening equipment – a lawn mower, forks and spades, a few hand tools hung on racks. A workbench ran along one wall, fitted with a vice, the wooden surface pitted and scarred.

  Further back, in the darkest part of the shed, Cooper could see that there was another room partitioned off, a makeshift door firmly closed against prying eyes.

  Gamble had been boiling a kettle when they arrived. A small cloud of steam trickled out of the door into the open air. A large white mug stood on a table with a tin of tea bags.

  ‘More questions?’ he said, settling his cowboy hat over his ears. He glanced at his wife, as if expecting her to go, but she showed no signs of leaving.

  ‘Just a few,’ said Cooper.

  ‘Go on, then.’

  ‘It’s about Tuesday night, of course. When you were at Valley View.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘After you heard the noise from the Barrons’ property, you mentioned seeing a light on in their kitchen.’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Did that strike you as odd, Mr Gamble?’

  ‘Odd? I…’

  ‘Because according to your initial statement, it was when you saw the light on in the kitchen that you decided to go and investigate.’

  ‘W
ell, there wasn’t usually…’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Er… yes, it struck me as odd.’

  Gamble had developed a stubborn expression, his thick eyebrows bunched together.

  ‘Let’s be honest,’ said Cooper. ‘You’d watched the Barrons’ house at that time of night before. You knew what their habits were.’

  ‘I don’t know why I thought it was odd,’ he said sullenly. ‘I just heard the noise and saw the light, and I thought I ought to see what was going on. I was being neighbourly. Concerned.’

  ‘Concerned. Of course. And was that also why you ran to Riddings Lodge before you called the emergency services? You were concerned for Mr Edson’s welfare?’

  ‘Signal,’ blurted out Gamble.

  ‘What?’

  ‘I couldn’t get a signal on my mobile phone. You know what it’s like in these places.’

  ‘Ye-es.’

  It was true that this landscape made it difficult to receive a signal from a mobile phone mast. That high wall of rock to the east would block any mast located on the Sheffield side of Riddings. There was an area up on the Snake Pass that for years had possessed neither mobile phone reception nor coverage for the police radio network. For a long time it was a spot where you would want to avoid having an accident or emergency. The only way to get assistance was to leave the scene. In that case, the national park authority had finally given planning permission for a radio antenna on an existing pole, with an equipment chamber underground to reduce the impact on the environment. It was perfectly possible that Mr Gamble had been obliged to leave the scene of the Barrons’ assault to make his call.

  Gamble had noticed Villiers trying to edge closer to the doorway to see inside the shed, and he stepped smartly in her way.

  ‘What network are you with, sir?’ asked Cooper.

  ‘O2. You can check.’

  ‘I know.’

  It bothered Cooper that the answer about the mobile phone signal had come so quickly. It was as if Gamble had been expecting the question for days, and the reply had been bottled up inside him, under so much pressure that it burst out of its own accord when the button was pressed.