Blind to the Bones. Stephen Booth

father. But it made it hard to let people know that he really, really didn’t want to talk about what happened. Not any more. There had to be a time when he could get on with his life without someone thrusting the fact of his father’s death in his face all the time and waiting for him to react.

      ‘Would you like some tea?’ said the overalled mechanic. ‘The kettle’s not long boiled.’

      ‘No, thanks. I have to get back to Edendale.’

      ‘Can’t you stop and talk for a bit? We’re just taking a few minutes’ break, that’s all.’

      ‘It’s a bit of a drive from Glossop.’

      ‘Be careful on the roads, then,’ said PC Ludlam. ‘Don’t go speeding or anything daft like that – or I’ll be after you. At least, I will once Metal Mickey here gets the bloody motor fixed. Until then, you can do what the hell you like, of course. And so can every other bugger in E Division.’

      ‘If you could show me the way out,’ said Cooper.

      ‘Are you sure you won’t have some tea?’

      ‘Sorry, I’m in a rush.’

      ‘Ah,’ said the traffic officer. ‘You’re working with Jimmy Boyce’s lot. Rural Crime Team. That was the meeting upstairs, wasn’t it?’

      ‘Yes.’

      It had been a long day. Cooper had been up well before dawn to get from Edendale to Glossop and meet the team for the raid at the suspected drugs factory in the isolated Longdendale farmhouse. After his visit to Withens with PC Udall, there had been a series of interviews to do back at Glossop section station, and then a final debriefing meeting with the Rural Crime Team. Now, he was starting to feel dizzy with tiredness. He had eaten at some time during the day, but couldn’t quite work out how many hours ago that was.

      Cooper turned back towards the garage, only to find that PC Udall had followed him out of the meeting and was standing watching him.

      ‘I noticed you’d gone the wrong way,’ she said. ‘It’s a bit of a rabbit warren, I’m afraid.’

      ‘Don’t tell anybody I couldn’t find my way out of the station.’

      Udall smiled. ‘I’ll show you the way. You wouldn’t want to be in here all night.’

      ‘No, it’s kind of scary.’

      ‘Yes, it’s all the white tiles that do it. We call this the morgue.’

      Later that night, two firefighters found they’d taken the wrong path as they were making their way down the hillside from Withens Moor. They were both tired and smelled strongly of smoke. Their personal water carriers felt heavy, but at least they weren’t full of water now. They had just finished a late shift damping down the hot spots that still flared among hundreds of hectares of scorched peat moor.

      The two men were sweating heavily inside their suits and helmets, and cursing the distance they had to walk to get to the four-wheel-drive Land Rover that would ferry them back to their station. Crews from all over North Derbyshire had been on the moor all day, as well as a dozen Peak Park rangers and a team of gamekeepers employed by the landowners. But because of the location, even Land Rovers had only been able to ferry the men to within a mile and a half of the spreading fire and the clouds of smoke rising high above the hills. From there, they had to walk with their equipment, knowing that there was no possibility of pumping water up to the summit.

      ‘There’s the air shaft, Sub,’ said Leading Firefighter Beardsley.

      Sub Officer Whittingham stopped and peered into the darkness. ‘It’s the wrong one,’ he said. ‘The next air shaft beyond it is where we meet the track.’

      ‘You sure?’

      ‘Well, if not, where’s the Land Rover?’

      ‘Right.’

      As they approached the nearest air shaft, Beardsley asked if they could stop for a rest.

      ‘I’m knackered,’ he said. ‘This gear is killing me.’

      ‘Just for a minute, then.’

      Beardsley eased off his water carrier and flexed his shoulders with a groan.

      ‘You’d think they’d have mobilized the helicopter,’ he said.

      ‘We’re cheaper,’ said Whittingham. ‘Besides, it’s no good for damping down.’

      Though a helicopter had been on standby at Barton Airport, ready to scoop water from the Longdendale reservoirs and bomb the blaze, it had not been called on. Now it was no longer needed. Because moorland fires could burn underground for many months, firefighters had to dig deep into the peat to deal with hot spots.

      ‘Hold on, what’s that?’ said Beardsley.

      Whittingham peered into the darkness. ‘I think you mean “who”.’

      Someone was lying alongside the air shaft, stretched out on the ground with his head turned to the side, as if sleeping.

      ‘It’s some hiker,’ said Whittingham. ‘This is access land up here. They camp anywhere.’

      ‘You all right, mate?’ called Beardsley.

      ‘He’s asleep.’

      ‘I doubt it. He hasn’t got a sleeping bag or anything.’

      ‘That doesn’t stop ’em.’

      ‘Hey up, mate. Wake up.’

      For some reason, neither of the firefighters wanted to go near the sleeping man. They stood back from him, as if afraid to intrude on his privacy or to make too much noise with their boots and flame-proof overalls.

      ‘You don’t think he was caught in the fire, do you?’ said Beardsley.

      ‘Why?’

      ‘I don’t know. He doesn’t look well to me. We should get the paramedics out.’

      ‘Hang on. Let’s just check.’

      Whittingham laid his equipment on the heather. He bent down to the prone figure and took him by the shoulder to shake him. He got no response.

      ‘Paramedics, Sub?’ said Beardsley.

      ‘It’s a bit late for that, I think. He’s dead.’

      ‘No? Oh God, has this buggered up our rest time?’

      ‘Have you got some light there?’

      Beardsley shone a torch on the figure. ‘Hey, that’s blood,’ he said.

      ‘Yes, I know that, Beardsley. Shine it on his face, will you?’

      The torch beam moved, but failed to pick up a reflection where they would have expected white skin.

      ‘Bloody hell,’ said Beardsley. ‘What happened to his eyes? I can’t even see them for the blood. And his face is black. Has he been burned by the fire?’

      Whittingham leaned a bit closer and took off his right glove. Avoiding the pools of blood where the eyes should have been, he touched a finger gently to the face of the dead man.

      ‘No,’ he said. ‘I think he did that to himself.’

       9

       Sunday

      Sunday mornings had become a battleground for Ben Cooper. It was like going over the top in the trenches every time they opened the doors. In the minutes of waiting, he could see the whites of the eyes of the people alongside him, and feel their tension rising. Five minutes to ten, and there was still no sign of anyone on the other side of the glass.

      The first