Diane Fry went to the window and watched for a few minutes as Cooper left the house and got into his car. He didn’t look back. He had someone else to worry about now.

Fry closed the curtains and turned back to the half-empty cardboard boxes littering the floor of her flat. She seemed to have spent a large part of her life watching Ben Cooper walking away.

12

13

Cooper had barely managed to get back to his desk in the CID room after the Nadens left, when Carol Villiers took a phone call.

‘Ben, someone else is coming in,’ she said. ‘Name of Jason Shaw.’

‘Another one in response to the appeals?’

‘It seems so.’

‘Amazing.’

Cooper had to admit he’d been wrong about the use of the official name by the press office for the location of the crime scene. At least three local people had recognised the name of Hollins Bridge, after all. And their response had been very prompt.

But it felt too good to be true. The Nadens’ account seemed unreliable at best. Their story wasn’t very convincing. He wondered if Mr Shaw would be the sort of person who put two and two together and got five.

But, in fact, Jason Shaw was very matter of fact about it. There was no messing around with imaginative leaps or hesitation about what he might or might not have seen near the Corpse Bridge that Thursday night.

‘There was somebody running through the trees in white. Somebody else chasing her. One of them, I don’t know which, shouted something, but I couldn’t make out any words. And that was it.’

Shaw looked at Villiers as she wrote it down. When she’d finished the last word, he seemed to be about to get up and leave the interview room.

‘Her?’ said Cooper.

‘You what?’

‘You said “her”. This figure in white was a woman, then?’

Shaw licked his lips as he considered how to answer. He was a different type to the Nadens certainly. He was one of those members of the public who thought they just had to make a statement, say what they wanted to say, and they would never be asked any questions.

‘Er … it could have been.’

‘You’re not sure?’

‘I’m not totally sure,’ he said. ‘It was just…’

‘An impression?’

‘Yes.’

Jason Shaw was about thirty years old, with a complexion darkened not by sunbathing but by a lot of time spent outdoors. He had a few days’ growth of dark stubble and a silver stud in his left ear. His eyes were a bright blue, which was always a striking combination in someone so dark-haired. Shaw was dressed in blue jeans and a well-worn Harrington jacket, which smelled of something earthy that Cooper couldn’t quite identify. Smells like that were always amplified in an interview room at West Street. It resulted from the fact that there was no air conditioning or ventilation, and no windows to open.

Over the years Cooper had experienced some interesting aromas from suspects during interviews. Often the individual himself didn’t seem to be aware of the odour, until it was bounced back at him from these claustrophobic walls. It could work as a perfectly good interview technique. It made a suspect feel uncomfortable about himself, without resorting to tactics that might breach the procedures of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act.

‘But you’re quite confident there were people in the trees,’ said Cooper.

‘Right. That’s it.’

‘What vehicle do you drive, sir?’

‘Why does that matter?’

‘In case someone saw it near the scene, then we can identify it as yours.’

Shaw nodded. ‘It’s a Land Rover Defender. Blue.’

‘Thank you. And you say that at the time you were walking your dog on the trackway.’

‘It’s a Border Collie,’ said Shaw. ‘His name is Patch.’

Cooper exchanged glances with Villiers. Unlike Diane Fry, Carol knew what he was thinking. She was always on the same wavelength.

‘Mr Shaw, did you see anyone else on the track? Any other walkers?’ asked Villiers.

‘Not a living soul.’

Cooper gazed into Shaw’s blue eyes while he answered Villiers, but he saw not a flicker of amusement or deceit.

‘Do you know some people called Naden?’ asked Villiers.

Cooper held his breath. That was a good question. He watched Shaw pause for a moment.

‘Naden? Naden … no, I don’t think so. Should I?’

‘Perhaps not.’

There had been a slight hesitation there, though it might mean nothing. A lot of people had trouble remembering names. If they saw each other, it might be different. Maybe Cooper should have arranged an accidental face-to-face encounter before the Nadens left the station, and observed the reactions. But it was too late now.

‘Well, thank you for coming forward, Mr Shaw,’ he said.

Shaw nodded. ‘I hope it was a help.’

Cooper saw him pause, as if he wanted to say more.

‘Is there any other detail you’d like to add, sir?’

‘No, but … I was wondering, has anyone else come in? After the appeals, I mean.’

‘We’ve had some other response,’ said Cooper.

‘Good.’

Shaw stood and Villiers got up to show him out.

‘By the way, sir,’ said Cooper before he reached the door. ‘Where do you work?’

‘Me?’ said Shaw. ‘I work at Knowle Abbey.’

The scene at the Corpse Bridge was much quieter today. There was a marked police car blocking the entrance to the trackway and a scene guard further down, with a crime-scene examiner still working in a tent erected over the stretch of riverbank where Sandra Blair had been found.

But Cooper didn’t want to go all the way down to the scene and nor did the Reverend Latham. The elderly clergyman was content to stop and rest on a bench halfway down the track, where they could see the river and the arch of the stone bridge below them, as well as the hills on the Staffordshire side of the Dove, and even a corner of Knowle Abbey behind a plantation of trees.

‘I think something was going on here,’ said Cooper. ‘More than just a simple murder, if there is such a thing.’

Latham murmured to himself, but said nothing. The old man was thinner than Cooper remembered him, his hands bony and shaking slightly. He supported himself on a stick, but his posture was still upright and his eyes were bright and inquisitive. His voice had lost some of its power – he would struggle to make himself heard in the pews at the back without the help of a microphone. And before he left his house near Edendale, he’d taken the time to wrap himself up warmly in an overcoat and a long scarf, with an incongruous red woollen hat that he said had been knitted by a parishioner.

‘This was what they call the coffin road,’ said Cooper. ‘It leads to the Corpse Bridge.’

‘Indeed,’ said Latham.

‘But am I right in thinking there was more than one coffin way?’

‘Yes, you’re right. There were several old coffin roads from these small settlements along the eastern banks of the Dove. They all converged on this bridge.’

‘Why, though?’

Latham shook his head sadly. ‘For many years coffin roads were the only practical means of transporting corpses from these communities to the graveyards that had burial rights. You see, when populations increased, more churches were built to serve new communities. But that encroached on the territory of existing parish churches and their clergy. It threatened their authority – and, of course, their revenue. They insisted that only a mother church could hold burials.’

‘Just burials?’

‘They were the most lucrative of the triple rites of birth, marriage and death,’ said Latham.

‘So it was all about money?’

‘Money and power,’ said the old clergyman sadly. ‘I’m afraid the established church was to blame for a lot of injustices in those days.’

‘Only in those days?’ said Cooper.

Latham looked at him sharply, but couldn’t resist a twinkle coming into his eyes.