‘Sometimes you can.’

‘But it wasn’t you who killed George Redfearn, Poppy. That’s something I can’t believe.’

‘Can’t you, really? But it’s so easy, isn’t it? To get someone up on a high place like that and shove them off. You don’t need much strength.’

‘No, that’s true.’

And he had to admit it was true. A quick push, a momentary loss of balance. He’d imagined it himself on the sharp ridge of Parkhouse Hill just yesterday.

But Poppy was still backing away from him as he crossed the walkway.

‘You are right, though,’ she said.

‘Right?’

‘It wasn’t me. I was back home by then. You can check with my dad, if you want. He’ll be only too happy to talk to you.’

Cooper held his breath, listening for a sound, any sound, in the darkness. He was beginning to feel disorientated by the blackness all around him. His eyes couldn’t adjust because of the light he was standing in. He felt like a character on a stage, pinned by the spotlights, and about to perform his big scene in front of an audience he couldn’t see.

‘You’re a different person from the one I met before, Poppy,’ he said.

‘I was in character before.’

‘I’m sorry?’

‘I took a joint honours in drama studies at De Montfort,’ she said. ‘I wasn’t great. But good enough.’

Poppy was backing away steadily and Cooper had to follow to keep her in view.

‘And you coached the rest of your group, didn’t you?’ he said. ‘They all played their parts well. Congratulations.’

‘Thank you,’ said Poppy again. Then she paused. ‘But the final act isn’t over yet, I’m afraid.’

Cooper found himself at the foot of a flight of metal steps leading up on to an overhead walkway. It might once have passed over the cheese vats, but now there was nothing but a bare concrete floor below.

He thought he saw Poppy’s pale figure above and ahead of him, and he mounted the steps on to the walkway.

‘Where are you?’ he said.

But the voice came from behind him.

‘I’m here. Very close.’

Cooper stopped moving. He became certain that there was more than one other person in the factory with him. Someone had been here all the time. They’d been keeping very quiet in the darkness. But now he could hear their breathing and a footstep coming closer. So Jason Shaw had come after all. Or had he?

41

Diane Fry slammed her foot down on the accelerator pedal as her Audi hurtled down the A515 towards the Hartington turn-off.

Ben Cooper wasn’t answering his phone, which was typical. He’d probably got himself into a situation where he couldn’t answer it or had no signal. Or perhaps he’d simply turned it off.

Fry cursed him under her breath. Did he really need her help, after all? Had his call been a test: request her help knowing she wouldn’t come, just so he could point to a final betrayal? She couldn’t let him have that satisfaction.

There was a marked car behind her, but the other had taken Jason Shaw back to the custody suite in Edendale, where Becky Hurst would process him. With Luke Irvine in the car with her, she hoped there would be enough manpower. There was no one else available at such short notice, unless she sounded the alarm. And she couldn’t do that yet, without any clear idea about what was happening.

‘Turn here, Diane,’ said Irvine, pointing at the junction to the left.

He seemed to be as worried as she was herself. But then, Irvine knew as well as anyone that his DS was capable of doing something rash.

‘Try Ben’s phone again,’ she said. ‘And keep trying.’

Another face appeared from the darkness, lit for a second by a bursting firework, a blue-and-white flash and crackle through the broken skylights high in the roof of the old cheese factory.

‘Are you on your own?’ said a voice.

‘What do you think?’ replied Cooper.

‘I think you might just have made a mistake.’

Cooper experienced another disorientating memory. The thickset, middle-aged man who’d been raking leaves in the churchyard at Hartington vigorously. He was wearing the same baseball cap, forcing those same untidy clumps of grey hair to stick out at the sides. Cooper remembered that grimly determined expression as he’d lashed out with his rake at the weeds. A deep anger in his expression, an intense physical concentration.

‘Hello, Mr Naden,’ he said.

Naden didn’t reply. Cooper looked from him to Poppy and back again. These two made an unnerving team.

‘It should have been obvious you were the leader,’ said Cooper. ‘I could see it on that photo taken on the testing grounds at Harpur Hill. The one on the old coffin road. The photo that Poppy took, I imagine, since she wasn’t in the shot herself.’

Naden glowered at Poppy Mellor, who shrank a little further into the shadows.

‘What about it?’ he said.

‘We would have been able to identify all the members of the group from that photo anyway,’ said Cooper. ‘I suppose you guessed that. And you were right at the front, Mr Naden. As if you were conducting a guided walk. The others were looking to you. Nothing could disguise that.’

‘I told Sandra to delete that photo from her phone,’ said Naden grimly.

‘And she may have done. But she emailed it to herself first. She must have wanted a memento, I suppose. We found it on her laptop.’

‘Idiot woman. She was mad, you know.’

‘She is dead.’

‘Well, I didn’t kill her.’

‘No. But I know who you did kill, Mr Naden.’

Naden had moved closer without him noticing. He didn’t know which way to face now, which direction the threat might come from. The training manuals said you should make sure to have an escape route if you were likely to face a threat. But Cooper was aware only of the drop to the concrete beneath him, the low rail that wouldn’t stop anyone going over.

‘That night, when you were supposed to be at the bridge with the others,’ he said. ‘It didn’t all go wrong by accident, did it? You had a different plan from everyone else.’

He could sense Poppy stiffen and draw in a sharp breath.

‘You said it was the wrong day,’ said Cooper, ‘but your wife thought it was the right day. You knew who was actually wrong, didn’t you?’

With a smug smile, Naden leaned closer to stare into Cooper’s face. ‘She kept insisting it was the right day,’ he said. ‘She didn’t believe me, but kept on and on about it, even after we got home. That gave me the excuse to go out again later that evening, to check what was happening.’

‘But you went to meet George Redfearn instead.’

Naden nodded. ‘Well, he never suspected me. I looked too harmless, I suppose. But I’ve thought about it often enough over the years. Just not in relation to Redfearn.’

‘So how did you do it?’

‘I told him I knew his wife. I said I had some information to give him about her.’

‘Mrs Redfearn was in Paris at the time,’ said Cooper.

‘Exactly. One of her regular trips. She’s ten years younger than him, you know. He was bound to have a sneaking suspicion about what she was up to.’

‘But how did you know personal details about the Redfearns like that?’

Naden pursed his lips. ‘It’s general gossip.’

Cooper could tell Naden was lying.

‘Oh, I get it now,’ he said. ‘You employed Daniel Grady from Eden Valley Enquiries. He purported to be a property enquiry agent asking questions on behalf of a prospective house purchaser. His job is to pick up all the bits of gossip about the neighbours. I bet he’s very good at it, too. Even when money doesn’t change hands. He must be a godsend to potential blackmailers.’

Naden shrugged. ‘It doesn’t really matter, does it? I had the information I needed. And it worked. Redfearn came to meet me at Pilsbury Castle. It’s a very quiet spot, you know. No witnesses.’

‘Except there were,’ said Cooper.