One of those individuals was suggested by a name on this list. The Kilners were a widespread family in this part of Derbyshire. But one particular member of the family, Brendan, was well known to Cooper.
Brendan Kilner had been the owner of a garage that was targeted during a proactive operation tackling an increase in the number of expensive, top-of-the-range cars being stolen in North Derbyshire, most of which were never recovered. The suspicion was that they were being processed locally and shipped abroad through a third party. There was always a market for stolen BMWs and Mercedes in parts of the world where fewer questions were asked.
But Kilner himself had never been convicted of anything. Two of his mechanics had gone down for a few years after the police operation located a couple of lock-ups in Edendale where the two employees had been working on stolen vehicles in their spare time. The inquiry had focused on tracking down the dealers who organised the shipping – they were the really serious players, part of an organised crime gang. Once their stage of the enterprise was disrupted, the market disappeared. They also made most of the profit, of course, so they were a much juicier target for an action under the Proceeds of Crime Act, which extracted large amounts of money from convicted criminals. Some of the proceeds even went towards maintaining levels of policing in the county.
It had never been entirely clear whether Kilner was squeaky clean in relation to the stolen car scam, but he’d been remarkably helpful at the time. He opened up his records to the police investigation and shared everything he knew about the activities of his two mechanics, who were by then safely in custody.
During the interviews Cooper was unable to escape a niggling doubt about the garage owner and whether there might be some hidden paperwork somewhere, a possibility the leading officer in the case decided not to pursue. Since then Brendan Kilner had nothing recorded against him, either in Criminal Records or in the intelligence databases. Going straight, then. The garage was still there, BK Motors – now in a double unit on an industrial estate on the outskirts of Edendale.
Cooper looked up a number and grabbed the phone. Kilner was surprised to hear from him, that much was obvious. A bit suspicious too. Maybe there was still a trace of guilty conscience in his reaction to an unexpected contact with the police. But that was a good thing, in the circumstances.
After a bit of cautious small talk, some polite enquiries about the family and how well business was doing, Cooper got round to telling Kilner that he wanted to talk to him.
‘Where can I meet you?’
‘What, today?’ said Kilner, still reluctant.
‘Yes, this afternoon.’
‘Well, I’ll be at Axe Edge. There’s a race meeting.’
‘Buxton Raceway? I know it.’
Kilner didn’t hang up straight away. Cooper could hear him breathing, a slight wheeze as if he were about to start coughing. A nervous cough, or was Kilner a smoker? He couldn’t remember that detail.
‘Can you tell me what it’s about?’ asked Kilner.
‘I’ll tell you when I see you.’
‘Okay, then. I’ll get you a hot dog, shall I?’
Buxton Raceway. Though Cooper had often passed it, he’d never actually visited the races. It wasn’t the sort of place Liz would ever have wanted to go with him for a Sunday afternoon outing.
The site stood in a bleak spot off the Buxton to Leek road, at a point where it crossed Axe Edge Moor. This was the highest stretch of moorland close to the border between Derbyshire and Staffordshire. Many of the Peak District’s major rivers rose on Axe Edge Moor and the source of the River Dove itself was only a few hundred yards away in a patch of marshy ground near Dovehead Farm, just on the Staffordshire side of the border.
After he’d parked the car Cooper found Brendan Kilner at the end of a small stand for spectators. He was clutching a hot dog in a paper napkin from the stall behind him. The scent of fried onions mingled with a powerful smell of exhaust fumes, despite a strong breeze blowing across the moor.
Kilner gestured with the hot dog.
‘Do you want one?’ he asked by way of greeting.
‘Not at the moment, thanks.’
‘Suit yourself.’
He hardly looked at Cooper, but kept his eyes fixed on the circuit, where nothing much seemed to be happening. He’d put on weight since Cooper saw him last. Too many hot dogs and burgers, perhaps. But then, he’d always been a man whose idea of exercise was leaning into an engine compartment with a spanner.
‘Sorry to drag you here,’ said Kilner. ‘This is almost the last meeting of the season. I couldn’t miss it.’
‘There’s no racing in the winter?’
‘No. It gets a bit wild up here, like.’
‘I can imagine.’
Now he was standing still, that wind blowing across the landscape from Axe Edge Moor certainly felt a bit icy. Cooper looked around at the groups of people standing nearby.
‘Can we walk round the other side of the track for a while?’
Kilner wiped his fingers as he swallowed the last piece of hot dog.
‘If you like.’
The circuit consisted of a tarmac oval around a central refuge where a few official vehicles were parked, including a tractor and a paramedic’s car. There were already some disabled racing cars lined up awaiting retrieval after the meeting was over. The circuit ran in front of the stand and past spectators who were parked at the trackside, protected by a black-and-white barrier and a high mesh safety fence. The landscape behind the raceway looked even more bare and rugged. In the background Cooper could see the distinctive jut of a rock face. He recognised it as a feature standing between the site of the Health and Safety Executive’s laboratories at Harpur Hill and a flooded quarry once known by local people as the Blue Lagoon.
As they strolled away from the stand Cooper began to see cars and their drivers. The drivers wore racing overalls, crash helmets and fire-retardant gloves, just like the stars of Formula One. But their vehicles were a bunch of beaten-up hatchbacks. Datsun Sunnys, Ford Fiestas, Vauxhall Novas. Although really all that was left of each car was the chassis. They had been stripped down and armoured. In addition to heavy front and rear bumpers, iron cages had been welded along the sides. They were all painted in bright colour schemes.
‘These are 1300cc saloon stocks,’ said Kilner as a series of cars began to move out on to the track.
A man wearing goggles and ear protectors stood on a white breeze-block podium with a set of flags. About fifteen cars began to move round the circuit, slowly at first as if they were merely in a procession. Then there must have been a signal that Cooper didn’t see, because engines roared simultaneously as drivers accelerated towards the starting flag, jostling for position in the first straight.
‘I heard you were in the fire up at the old Light House,’ said Kilner. ‘It was in all the papers and everything. That was a bad business.’
‘Yes.’
Cooper would have been amazed if Kilner didn’t know all about it. Everyone else in the area did.
Kilner was watching the cars thoughtfully. ‘I suppose you don’t want to talk about it.’
‘Not to you, Brendan, anyway.’
‘Fair comment. I can’t blame you for that. Put things behind you, get on with life. That’s the motto, like.’
On the track a car spun three hundred and sixty degrees, but the driver recovered and kept going, trying to regain ground. Ahead of him another collided with the barrier, bounced and came to a halt. A blue-and-yellow car seemed to be in the lead all the way, so far as Cooper could tell.
‘There’s not the sort of excitement you get in some types of racing,’ said Kilner. ‘Super bangers or hot rods. You can pretty much predict who’s going to come in first. But it’s the spectacle, you know. The noise, the smell, the whole thing. It’s like a drug, I suppose.’