‘I think there were two factions, who had a disagreement,’ said Cooper. ‘And it all fell apart that Halloween night. Somebody wasn’t where they were supposed to be according to the plan. That person was out killing George Redfearn at Pilsbury Castle. Mr Redfearn’s murder was a message the earl couldn’t ignore.’

‘But who was that?’ asked Villiers.

‘Whoever Sandra Blair was supposed to meet at the bridge that night.’

‘We’ve talked to the members of the group we can identify. They all insist there were only five in the core group – the Nadens, Jason Shaw, Rob Beresford and Sandra Blair herself.’

‘It’s not true, though,’ said Cooper.

‘Why, Ben?’ said Villiers.

He indicated the group photo on his screen, the one taken at Harpur Hill with the Nadens, Shaw, Beresford and Sandra Blair.

‘Well, think about it,’ he said. ‘This photo was taken on Sandra’s phone. But she’s in the shot herself. So who took the picture?’

Ben Cooper was anxious to get an opportunity to see inside Jason Shaw’s house. But at the moment he didn’t have enough justification for a search warrant. As Irvine had said, it was all speculation and suspicion. It was a shame, though. A person’s home told you more about them than any amount of background checks you could do. No matter how many friends, colleagues and neighbours you talked to, you wouldn’t ever get a true picture of the person. Everyone created a public façade for themselves, sometimes several. You could be one person at work, a different one with the family, and another when you were down the pub with your friends. But inside the home was where the façade broke down. You could see the aspects of a person’s life that they didn’t want anyone to know about.

It was only inside Sandra Blair’s home that he’d got a proper feeling for the sort of person she was. And, though she had some unusual interests, he didn’t feel she was the fanatical type who would be willing to take violent direct action, as she’d been described by the Nadens.

And of course he’d seen inside Knowle Abbey too. That was an eye-opener. Yet he’d learned almost nothing about its present owner, while learning perhaps too much about some of his eccentric ancestors. Earl Manby remained an enigmatic figure, a sort of figurehead for the estate, like the eagle’s head emblem of the Manby family, representing something more than just itself.

Cooper would have liked to be able to see behind the façade being presented at Knowle on behalf of his lordship, if only for the sake of his own curiosity. But it probably wouldn’t happen now. He wondered if Detective Superintendent Branagh had ever managed to get a few words with the earl, as he’d suggested. That was a conversation he would love to have overheard. They were two people accustomed to exercising power.

In a way coffin roads represented the worst aspects of the hierarchical structures so many people had lived with. They weren’t legacies from an ancient past, but were deliberately brought into being during medieval times. They were an unintended side-effect of an old canon law on the rights of parishioners. As Bill Latham had said himself, they were just one more exercise in power and privilege.

Cooper put on his jacket and set off to visit Knowle Abbey for the final time.

Staff interviews were under way at Knowle. The Major Crime Unit had taken over the estate office, ousting Meredith Burns from her desk.

Cooper thought of that message they’d found: ‘Meet Grandfather, 1am’. But that must have been a different meeting, surely? It had been marked in Sandra Blair’s diary for 31 October. And this killing had happened earlier than one o’clock. It had been planned for the period when the bonfire was blazing away in Bowden, a time when many of the staff from the abbey were either at home themselves or distracted from their duties.

‘A shotgun,’ he said when he met Fry at the outer cordon. ‘That’s a totally different situation altogether from the other deaths, Diane.’

‘Absolutely.’

Of course, there were many legally held shotguns in the possession of ordinary individuals in an area like this. Farmers always had them. Cooper owned one himself, though he kept it in the gun cabinet at Bridge End Farm with Matt’s.

But right now he was thinking of the men he’d seen at that remote farmstead on Axe Edge Moor. Bagshaw Farm, the home of Daniel Grady. Had one of those men been sent on a different kind of rat hunt?

He hadn’t liked Grady and felt sure a bit of digging would turn up all kinds of dubious activities. But was Grady so closely involved with the protest group? Or did somebody simply have enough money to pay him for this kind of service?

Cooper told Fry about the plans for Alderhill Quarry and the link to George Redfearn’s company. Her mouth fell open when he mentioned the sum of two hundred million pounds.

‘Do you remember what Meredith Burns said that first time we visited Knowle Abbey?’ said Cooper. ‘When I offended her by asking for a photograph of the earl?’

‘Yes, she said he wasn’t a rock star. I thought that was stating the obvious myself.’

‘No, not that. She said he would much rather find some other way of paying for the upkeep of the abbey, instead of letting all these visitors in. Because it was his home.’

‘Oh, yes. I do remember,’ said Fry.

‘Well, this is it, isn’t it?’

‘This is what?’

‘The quarry scheme is his alternative way of funding the repair and maintenance of Knowle Abbey.’ Cooper waved a hand at the visitors being turned away at the gate, at the car parking area, and the buildings converted for use as a restaurant, a craft centre, a gift shop. ‘The revenue from the quarry would have enabled him to put a stop to all this. No more crowds of visitors coming in to gawp at his home.’

‘Well, it would be a shame, I suppose,’ said Fry, ‘if you’re interested in that sort of thing. But there are plenty of other historic houses in Derbyshire. Chatsworth is much grander, they tell me. And Haddon Hall is supposed to be better preserved.’

‘No, no, you’re missing the point,’ said Cooper. ‘Think about it for a minute. No paying visitors means no restaurant, no craft centre, no gift shop and no plant nursery. And without those there would be no guides, no car park attendants, no catering staff or shop assistants. A lot of people would lose their jobs.’

‘You’re right.’

Cooper sighed. He didn’t want to be right. Not all the time. Not when the truth seemed so tragic and so inevitable.

‘At the moment Knowle Abbey is putting a lot of money back into local communities through the wages paid to all these staff. That would stop if the quarry goes ahead. Eden Valley Mineral Products would have no interest in employing local people.’ He shook his head in despair. ‘It’s just like the cheese factory all over again.’

‘What?’ said Fry, puzzled.

‘Never mind.’

‘You know, that’s not what I expected you to say.’

‘What did you expect me to say, Diane?’

‘“I told you so.”’

37

‘So it’s a smokescreen, isn’t it?’ said Fry.

‘What is?’

‘This business about the Corpse Bridge. It was all designed to distract our attention, to make us think the deaths were connected with the redevelopment of the graveyard. I have to say that if I’d been the investigating officer myself in those initial stages, the idea would never have occurred to me.’

‘That’s because of your local ignorance,’ protested Cooper. ‘You’d never heard of the Corpse Bridge or a coffin road.’

‘Exactly,’ said Fry. ‘Except that I wouldn’t describe it as ignorance. I’d call it the advantage of an unbiased mind.’

Cooper thought about it for a moment. Could she be right about this? To be fair, she sometimes was right. That cold objectivity of hers had its place.