Crow breathes out, long and slow. “Editor of the day was a golfing pal of Rideal’s,” he says. “You know how the funny handshakes and the nods and the winks go around here, and around plenty other places too. I won’t say I was leaned on but there was no appetite for more. It was a shame too – I’d got some decent quotes from the farmer who called the coppers in.”
Rowan flashes a smile. “Willing to share?”
Crow shrugs. “I doubt it makes much difference now. Gordon Shell - I think he’s still alive but he’ll be geriatric-and-a-half by now - he was quite pally with this Sixpence chap. Reading between the lines, I think Gordon might have enjoyed having the occasional smoke on the old peace pipe, and that isn’t a euphemism, before you start. He told me he’d meet up with Sixpence a couple of times a week, just to have a few can and chat about the world. He said sixpence had been around, seen the world. Spoke about him like he was a guru, which I suppose isn’t that far of the mark.”
“Explain,” says Rowan. Then adds: “For Snowdrop.”
“Well, Gordon was pretty clear that there was a damn sight more to Sixpence than some old hippy in a school bus. He’d travelled. Knew old languages – languages people don’t even speak any more. Fascinated with all the old caves up that way too – the mineshafts they dug centuries back. Forever looking for new ways into the ground. The way Gordon told me, it was like he was a sort of faith healer. He’d help people if they asked. If you got migraines he could talk to you until they went away. If you were feeling under pressure he could help put you back together. I mean Gordon was very cautious about telling me this – it was the mid-eighties and your lot were hardly popular.”
“My lot?”
“Crusties. Hippies. New Age Travellers. The Peace Convoy.”
Rowan says nothing. The silence becomes uncomfortable.
“I have got something underlined in my notes – a quote we never carried,” says Crow, quickly. “Reverend Marlish, he was there with Tunstall and Rideal and a few of the parents and pupils, putting on a united front. He said Sixpence was ‘a prophet’. Seemed strange to me a religious man would use that word. It was Tunstall who corrected him – he said Sixpence was a shaman.”
Rowan stares at the grave of Derrick Millward, trying to fit the bits together.
“Sixpence had no kids?”
“I’ve got a quote from Detective Sergeant Eve Cater,” he says, rummaging in his pocket for his phone. He squints at the screen, clearly looking at photographs of notes dragged out of storage after having his curiosity piqued. “She said he’d done a lot of good by a lot of people and he had a family of sorts, but that was too vague to use and as it happened, we never ran much more than you’ve seen. She was grateful for that, as far as I can recall. Slipped a few exclusives my way. ”
Rowan suddenly feels an urge to hold Eve Cater upside down and shake her until the secrets fall out. “My brain’s hurting,” he admits, and looks around in search of liquid sustenance.
“That way,” smiles Crow. “Hotel and bar and the birthplace of British rock-climbing, if you’re interested. I’d sit there and have a good hard think.”
Rowan nods. ‘Thinking’ certainly rhymes with his plan.
25
Tuesday, October 28, 1991
The Coffin Road, Boot
4.44pm
Winter is on its way. There’s no snow on the fells but there’s a sawtoothed sharpness to the air. The russets and golds; the honeys and caramels of a few days ago are yielding to the bleached bone and pure velvet blackness of the year’s end.
Eve breathes deep as she climbs. Sucks in the grey-green aroma of sheep-shit and grass. Her boots crunch over the pitted surface of the rock-strewn path: a noise like teeth crunching through ice. She can make out the village of Boot spread out below: little white houses scattered across the lower fells like seeds tossed by a giant hand. She’s already two miles up the Corpse Road. The view is far from picture-postcard but there is a timelessness to it that makes her want to write something poetic.
She looks up as she heard footsteps on stone. Sees Derrick. Smiles at the sight of him, in his big overcoat and woolly hat, moving over ground that he seems to have sucked up through the soles of his shoes since he moved back to the valley three years back. He’s sold the agency in Blackpool. He exists for one case now. One investigation. One pursuit that has become an obsession. She’s forced him to come along today – to make the walk up to Burnmoor Lodge – to sit at the edge of the tarn, feet bobbing in water cold enough to squeeze the breath from their lungs. They go at their own speeds – that’s the unspoken agreement between them. He’s better on the fells than her and she’d rather walk alone than be responsible for slowing somebody down. Their relationship is built on many such unwritten contracts. He never tries the door to her bedroom but she never brings anybody home when there is a chance he might see. He has never known if he sees her as wife or daughter.
“Slow down, I’ll get to you, don’t hurt yourself …,” she stops, short, as she sees the look on his face. His eyes are wide – his face, still puffy despite drastic weight loss, ripples like a disturbed lake as he careers towards her. His breath is raspy, like there’s a boot on his windpipe.
“The vicar,” he splutters, reaching for her and grabbing her, hard, by the forearms. He’s in her face, spittle flecking out from his lips. “Marlish. He’s at the Lodge, up top. Gordon Shell came over on the four-wheeler, shouting like it was closing time…. Him and Rideal – that slippery fucker – they were up there walking. Shell all but grabbed the vicar by the middle and slung him on the quad….,”
“Easy, Derrick, tell me again ….,”
Millward bends double, panting. “His daughter’s gone,” he gasps. “Gone missing. Her and her friend, the girl you know from Silver Birch. They were due back from Keswick hours ago…,”
“Okay,” says Eve, soothingly. She tries to calm him. “Derrick, it’s not even late – they’ll be back before we know it. Violet’s turning into a bit of a terror, so they say …,”
“No,” he shouts, making fists. “They went off with a man. A busker.”
Eve feels as though there are cold fingers creeping up her neck and teasing through her hair. “No… there’s no way …,”
“Him,” nods Derrick, his chest heaving. “He’s here. He’s took them. He’s took them to show us he can …,”
Eve takes his arm and steers him onto one of the big stones that mark this choppy, disjointed section of the Coffin Path.
“Derrick, he wouldn’t come back here. He’s known here…
“We took Pearl’s money, Eve,” hisses Millward, eyes bulging. “We could have stopped this. Told the proper coppers what we were doing; what we knew …,”
“I’m a Detective Chief Inspector,” growls Eve, furious. “I’m a proper copper. I’m the proper copper! And I’ve indulged you in this wild goose chase because I like being with you and because I think Cormac Pearl might have something to do with the disappearance of Mr Sixpence. But we know nothing. Not real. Not for sure. So if you go blundering in telling my colleagues we know about this – that we know who they should be looking for …,”
“That doesn’t matter,” says Derrick, shaking his head. “You know what he’ll do…”
“No we don’t!” snaps Eve. “We have nothing that can help. Let me manage things properly, Derrick. Keep things in-house. Keep things small ….,”