‘Are you coming?’ he said.

‘No, I’ll wait here,’ said Fry. ‘I’ve got a few phone calls to make.’

‘Fair enough.’

Across the road he found Mrs Beresford was at home on her own, which was fine by Cooper.

‘One of your colleagues came the other day, you know,’ she said straight away when she answered the door.

‘I know. Just a couple more questions.’

She was a small woman with a chilled look, her ears and nose pink with cold as if she’d just come back from a brisk walk on the moors. Even as Cooper introduced himself, she was removing a quilted body warmer. Perhaps he was lucky to have caught her.

‘I don’t know what else I can tell you,’ she said.

‘It’s about Sandra Blair’s husband,’ said Cooper.

‘Gary? He died. I did tell—’

‘Yes. About five years ago?’

‘That would be about right.’

‘Do you happen to know where Mr Blair’s family are?’

‘His family? Well, I don’t think his parents are still around. They used to live at Bowden, of course.’

‘The estate village for Knowle Abbey.’

‘Yes. Sandra and Gary lived with his parents for a while after they got married. But there was no way they could ever have had children there, in one of those little houses. And they were planning a family. At least … Sandra said they were.’

‘And no other relatives in the area?’

‘Not that I know of. Some of the people at Bowden would have a better idea, perhaps.’

‘Thank you.’

Cooper went back to his car and drove through Earl Sterndale. Ahead he saw a distinctive hill called High Wheeldon. He glanced at Fry, but she was still busy with her phone, talking to someone at her office in St Ann’s.

‘Everything okay, Diane?’ he said, hoping she was being called back to Nottingham.

She nodded. ‘Absolutely fine.’

Cooper sighed and drove on. Fry hadn’t even asked where they were going next.

Viewed from the road out of the village, High Wheeldon looked like a Derbyshire pyramid, a transplant from Egypt, or something casually dropped by a passing alien. Artificial, certainly. Nature wasn’t capable of constructing such a regular, conical shape. Yet when you got closer and the road skirted its eastern side, you could see that it had been an optical illusion. High Wheeldon wasn’t shaped like a pyramid at all from here, but was just another irregular hump in the landscape, mysterious enough in its own enigmatic way, lending itself to leaps of the imagination, the way so much of the Peak District landscape did.

Once you turned off the main road to Longnor, it became obvious that Bowden was no ordinary village. To enter it you had to pass through a gateway and over a cattle grid, past the signs warning you that it was private property and part of the Knowle Abbey estate.

The houses were all well constructed from local stone, but in a surprisingly wide variety of architectural styles. It was as if the architect, or the earl who’d commissioned him, couldn’t quite make his mind up which design he preferred. There were Norman arches, Tudor-style chimneys, medieval turrets, Swiss roofs and Italianate windows. The paintwork on all the cottages was a collective Knowle Park green. But the houses with arched windows and balconies were larger and more ornate in style, distinguishing them from the plainer cottages. There had always been a social hierarchy, even among workers on the same estate.

It looked as though there had been a farmhouse here. But the house and its outbuildings had been converted. A barn had become a series of small apartments for staff. A lodge with castellations and imitation arrow slits guarded the entrance to Knowle Park itself. Cooper recalled seeing a matching lodge at the north entrance.

Sheep were grazing in an adjacent field and across the park he could see a small herd of cattle. Limousin cross, if he wasn’t mistaken. During the landscaping of the park, the course of the River Dove had been altered slightly and a new bridge had been built. Big landowners could do that in those days, if it improved the view. Planning permission was never a concern. Nor was consideration for your neighbours, probably.

Bowden had a small church with a disproportionately tall spire. But the doors were locked and weeds were growing in the porch. On two sides of it was the burial ground, with several untidy rows of headstones, many old enough to be worn and corroded by the weather, their inscriptions almost illegible.

This was where the mourners from those small hamlets to the east would have arrived after their arduous trek across the hills and over the Corpse Bridge. Many of the coffins mouldering under these headstones would have been carried for miles and allowed to rest for a while on the same coffin stone where they’d found the effigy on Friday. Cooper found it hard to grasp the fact that all those people had been brought here at the end of their lives and laid to rest on the earl’s property, as if they were a final tribute.

Though he could hear a few children playing somewhere, there seemed to be very few residents of Bowden actually at home. On a small field next to the graveyard he could see piles of wood heaped up in a large stack, ready for Bonfire Night on Tuesday. A short distance away from it a yellow bulldozer was parked behind the church. It must be handy to have that sort of equipment available.

They began to knock on doors and it was Diane Fry who found someone first. Cooper got a call from her on his phone and he walked back across the central green to meet her.

‘This is Mrs Mellor,’ said Fry. ‘Mrs Mellor, my colleague Detective Sergeant Cooper.’

She was a woman in her mid to late sixties, with a welcoming smile and a faint smell of pine disinfectant and toasted cheese. In the background Cooper could hear what sounded like daytime TV, perhaps an old episode of Lewis or Midsomer Murders.

‘Hello. Come in,’ she said. ‘Would you like a cup of tea? I don’t see many people during the day, even on a Saturday.’

Fry followed him into the house. Cooper wished he was alone in circumstances like this. He would find it easier to get on with people and encourage them to talk. But he seemed to be stuck with her for now.

They sat down in a cosy sitting room and the kettle was soon boiled for tea. Mrs Mellor produced a plate of biscuits and it occurred to Cooper that it must be around lunchtime. He felt hungry.

‘I gather you knew the Blairs,’ said Cooper. ‘They used to live in Bowden.’

‘Yes,’ said Mrs Mellor. ‘They were just across the way there. They lived here for many years.’

‘All these properties at Bowden still belong to Knowle Abbey, don’t they? The cottages were built for estate workers.’

Mrs Mellor poured the tea for them both. ‘Oh, yes,’ she said. ‘The earl himself is the landlord. Though I don’t think anybody sees much of him these days. Not this present one, anyway. We deal mostly with the estate manager or one of the office staff.’

‘So the people who live here are all workers at the abbey or on the estate?’

‘Knowle Abbey staff and pensioners.’

‘Pensioners?’ he asked.

‘You know, retired staff or estate workers. You don’t get kicked out of your house as soon as you retire. At least, that’s been the arrangement in the past.’

‘So Gary Blair’s father must have worked for the estate? Or he used to?’

‘He was a forester. Alan Blair was part of a team maintaining the woodlands around the estate. Mostly to keep the paths clear and remove any damaged trees. But they produce a bit of commercial timber too. He started working at that job a long time ago, under the old earl.’

‘The old earl,’ said Cooper. ‘He was popular, wasn’t he?’

Mrs Mellor sat down opposite him and sighed.

‘All the estate workers loved the old man,’ she said. ‘He was lovely. The old earl liked to ride round his land and see what was going on. Somehow he managed to know all the men personally and asked after their families by name. And he always gave them a big dinner at Christmas too as a “thank you”. The children of the estate were given two parties a year, one in the summer and one in December. Of course, Father Christmas always managed to make a surprise appearance. The earl used to love doing that job himself, until he got too old for it. I believe there was quite a lot of beer drunk in honour of the old man. But it doesn’t happen now.’