Bernie liked to think of himself as an old-fashioned rural postman, who knew his patch and the people he delivered to. He’d heard so many stories about a postman being the first to raise the alarm when someone was ill or dead and even the neighbours hadn’t noticed. It had never happened to him yet, not in fifteen years with the Royal Mail. But he was always on the lookout for elderly people on his round, the ones who lived alone and didn’t get many visitors. Not that Rose Shepherd was all that elderly – but you never knew, did you?

Ken Bruce was announcing the ten o’clock news bulletin. Was it so late already? Bernie knew he ought to get on – he’d already lost enough time this morning, with having so many special deliveries to make and getting stuck behind the tractor that overtook him every time he stopped. Miss Shepherd was probably out doing her shopping in Matlock, wasn’t she? Monday morning was a good time to go to the supermarket. Nice and quiet. She’d just forgotten to empty the post from her box for once. She’d do it when she got back from the shops.

Bernie pushed his card through the flap, put the package back behind the van seat, then reversed into the road and drove on. He’d missed the news headlines, but Bruce was playing a song he remembered from the sixties – the New Seekers, ‘Now the Carnival is Over’. Bernie was singing quietly to himself as he headed back through Foxlow.

3

Detective Constable Ben Cooper opened his fridge door, then closed it again quickly when he caught the smell. Another thirty seconds of breathing that in, and he’d lose his appetite for breakfast. He had a brief after-image of something nasty wrapped in plastic, caught by the interior light like an exhibit at a crime scene, sordid and decomposing, its DNA degrading beyond use.

‘Well, do you want me to call in and see the solicitor again tomorrow morning?’ he said into his mobile phone. ‘I can manage that, if you like, Matt. But I’m not sure it’ll do any good.’

‘He wants a kick up the pants, that’s what’ll do him some good. Maybe I ought to go in and see him myself. What do you reckon? I’ll go straight into his office when I’ve finished the muck spreading tomorrow.’

Cooper smiled at the thought of his brother bursting into the offices of Ballard and Price, his overalls covered in slurry. Matt could be a bit intimidating at the best of times, especially in an enclosed space. In his present mood, the solicitors’ receptionist would probably call the police to have him removed.

‘It wouldn’t help, you know.’

Matt sighed in frustration. ‘Bloody pen pushers and bureaucrats. They seem to spend their time making life difficult for everyone else.’

‘I suppose Mr Ballard has a job to do, like the rest of us.’

‘Oh, yeah. He takes a lot longer about it, that’s all.’

Cooper ran a finger round the fridge door, checking the rubber seal for gaps. It hadn’t occurred to him things could get as bad as that so quickly, just because he hadn’t bothered checking inside for a few days. It wasn’t as if the weather was particularly warm or anything. It was nearly the end of October, and summer was over in the Peak District. But the fridge had come with the flat, so he wasn’t sure how old it might be.

‘I don’t know what else I can do,’ he said. ‘You’re the executor, Matt.’

‘I hadn’t forgotten.’

Of course, he knew what was bothering his brother and making him so impatient. Probate on their mother’s will was taking so long that he was starting to get worried about the future of Bridge End Farm. If money had to be found from the estate, the only way it could happen would be if assets were sold off.

‘I thought you’d know a bit more about the law than I do,’ said Matt.

‘Well, not this part of the law.’

He didn’t bother to tell Matt that his knowledge of criminal law was also a bit sketchy. There were eight thousand criminal offences on the statute books – and more than a thousand of them had been invented since Cooper became a police officer. Without the manuals, he’d be lost, like everyone else.

Cooper left the fridge alone and crossed the kitchen, dodging the cat that was sitting looking at him expectantly, having heard a rumour there might be food. On the days he was at home, meal times seemed to come round every hour.

‘Besides,’ he said, ‘don’t forget how much Mr Ballard charges for his time.’

‘You’re right, Ben. Just a phone call then, I suppose.’

‘At least it’ll keep the subject fresh in his mind.’

There was silence for a few moments. The Cooper brothers had always been comfortable with silence. They’d grown up together on the farm hardly needing to speak, because each understood what the other was thinking. But that was when they were physically together. You could read a person’s thoughts in their face, in the way they moved or breathed, or what they did with their hands. It was different on the phone, though. Silence felt awkward and wrong. Not to mention a waste of money. With his mobile pressed to his ear, Ben started to wonder whether he could get a reduced tariff from Vodaphone for the amount of non-talk time he used.

But in this case, he sensed that there was more to his brother’s silence than awkwardness.

‘Is there something else, Matt?’

‘Yeah …’

Ben felt his stomach tighten. For a second, he thought he was going to be sick, and he looked to see if the fridge door had fallen open again and released the nauseous smell into the room. After the death of their mother, there surely couldn’t be more bad news already. But he could read a lot into one word from his brother.

‘What is it? Something wrong with one of the girls?’

‘No, they’re fine,’ said Matt. ‘Well, I think so.’

‘You’re not making much sense, Matt.’

‘Look, Ben, I’ve made an appointment to go into the surgery on Friday. I want to talk to Dr Joyce. And if necessary, I’ll ask to see the specialist who treated Mum.’

‘Why? We know what happened to her – it was a series of strokes. It happens all the time in people of her age.’

‘I don’t mean the strokes. I mean the other problem.’

The family had rarely referred to Isabel Cooper’s condition by name. For a long time, it had been ‘Mum’s problem’. Towards the end, before she died in Edendale District General from a brain haemorrhage, it had become ‘the other problem’. Now, it seemed to Ben there was no point in trying to avoid spelling it out. Mum wasn’t around any more to be upset if it inadvertently slipped out in her presence.

‘Oh, the schizophrenia.’

‘Yes.’

‘I don’t understand, Matt. What do you want to find out that we don’t already know?’

‘I can’t talk to you about it on the phone – it’s too complicated. Can you come over some time? I’ve got a lot of stuff to show you.’

‘Well, I’m going to be a bit busy this week –’

‘So what’s new?’

‘All right, what if I call at the farm tonight when I come off duty?’

‘That’ll do.’

‘See you, then.’

Cooper put out a bowl of cat food and placed it on the floor in the conservatory, near the central-heating boiler. Randy was an animal with a fixed routine and firm ideas about his territory.

Then he went back to the fridge, took a deep breath and eased open the door. He scooped out some rotten tomatoes, half a carton of sour milk, and a wedge of Stilton with its blue veins blossoming into a furry carpet. They all went into a plastic bin liner. He wasn’t sure any of the items accounted for the smell, though. Poking in the salad tray at the bottom of the main compartment, he found a liquefied lettuce, which probably did.

When he’d got rid of the worst, he tied up the bin liner and put it to one side. Now he ought to remove everything else from the fridge and give it a good clean. Probably it could do with defrosting, too.