Dead And Buried

Besides, there was a question of pride. He would never live down the fact that a body had been lying a few hundred yards away, without him being aware of it. A murder victim, no less. It would haunt him for the rest of his career.

And the reason it had happened was simple. He’d grasped the opportunity to leave the scene on Oxlow Moor early because he had an appointment to view a property that he couldn’t afford to buy. He’d compromised his professional integrity to please Liz.

And the worst of it was something he could hardly explain to himself. When he looked at Liz now, and saw how happy she was, he even felt guilty about feeling guilty.

At Bridge End Farm, Ben Cooper stopped by the stable to say hello to his two nieces. The elder, Amy, was really growing up now. She was a proper teenager, a bit gawky, yet obsessive about her appearance. Josie wasn’t far behind either — there were only a couple of years between them. Matt would really have his hands full soon.

A few weeks previously, the girls had got the horse they’d always wanted. The eight-year-old chestnut gelding belonged to Amy really, a present on her last birthday. But the two girls were very close, and it was good to see them sharing the pleasure, as well as the hard work grooming and mucking out. The arrival of the horse had been a joint project anyway. They had been nagging their father about it for the past two years.

Ben suspected that emotional blackmail had played a large part in their strategy. Crucially, their mother had been on their side too. Kate’s opinion would have been a clincher.

Matt Cooper was coming back from the hill behind the farmhouse with the old sheepdog at his heels. They had been moving the sheep between fields. Ben could smell the lanolin from their fleeces, which had impregnated Matt’s clothes and the skin of his hands where he’d been handling the ewes to check them for foot rot.

Ben was reminded of Gavin Murfin’s jibe at Diane Fry, and her response: Trust me, I’ll be happy if I don’t have to see another damn sheep ever in my life. Not much chance of that in the Peak District. They were everywhere.

Matt watched his daughters busy with their grooming equipment.

‘That blasted horse costs a fortune,’ he grumbled. ‘It eats its own weight in hay and oats every day, and doesn’t produce a thing. And hay isn’t cheap this year, as you know.’

Matt looked tired. It was a busy time of year for farmers. Not that any time of year wasn’t busy. That was what Matt would have told him, if he’d been silly enough to ask.

But Ben didn’t need telling — his childhood at Bridge End had been ruled by the seasons. Not the usual seasons known as spring, summer, autumn and winter, but lambing, shearing, harvest, ploughing and all the other jobs in the endless round of activities that a farm demanded.

‘Well, I spoke to a few of the blokes who were in the Young Farmers back then,’ said Matt. ‘They’re not quite so young as they were, of course. But then none of us are. And some of them aren’t even in farming any more.’

‘What did they say?’

‘I told them you were asking about the Pearsons. They were aware of the couple in the bar, because they were strangers. I think we were all aware of them.’

‘Who did you talk to?’

‘I’m not giving you names.’

‘This isn’t a game, Matt. I’m trying to find out what happened to two tourists who went missing near the Light House and have never been found. They might be dead. The smallest bit of information could be useful to us right now.’

‘I know, I know. I’ve heard all that before. But there’s a question of loyalty, you see. I think you’ve forgotten that.’

Ben stared at him, feeling suddenly frightened by the huge gulf that had opened up between them. It had been widening for years, but now its extent was terrifying. It was as if he’d just looked up from his feet and found that the earth had opened in front of him. A yawning chasm was staring him in the face, a gulf far too wide to cross.

Sometimes it felt as though everything had changed since the death of their mother. In the years of her illness, Isabel Cooper had been the glue holding the family together. Without her, they had fragmented and gone their different ways. Now they hardly even knew how to communicate.

‘Who did you turn to when there was that incident last year?’ said Ben coldly.

‘Me? No one. It was Kate who rang you. And it was your friend Diane Fry who got me out of a cell.’

Of course the problem was that they had never really talked about that night. Now its memory lay between them, shocking and impossible to ignore, like a pool of blood on the carpet.

‘You know they wouldn’t let me get involved,’ said Ben.