Looking round at the shouts, Cooper saw that the bus was a Hulley’s number 19 from the Devonshire Estate. Oh, great. He took a sharp step back from the kerb, turning his body away towards the shop window behind him. There were too many eyes gazing from the windows of the bus, and the likelihood of too many familiar faces, people he didn’t want to meet when he was off duty. Half of the names on his arrest record had addresses on the Devonshire Estate. He didn’t recognise the voices, but there was no doubt their owners knew him.
Well, this was his own choice. Many police officers opted to live outside the area they worked in, for exactly this reason. When you went for a quiet drink in your local pub, you didn’t want to find yourself sitting next to the person you’d nicked the day before, or sharing a table with a man whose brother you’d just sent to prison.
But Cooper had resisted moving to a neighbouring division. He could easily have travelled into Edendale every morning from Chesterfield or Buxton, but that wouldn’t be the same. He belonged here, in the Eden Valley, and he wasn’t going to let anything push him out. He intended to stay here, settle down, raise a family, and eventually turn into a cantankerous pensioner who rambled on about the good old days.
That meant he had to put up with these awkward moments – the looks of horrified recognition on faces, the shying away as he passed in the street, the aggressive stare at the bar. It was all part of life. All part of life’s rich pageant. That was what his grandmother would have said. He had no idea where the expression came from, but he knew it would stick inside his head now, until he found out. He supposed he’d have to Google it when he got home. He seemed to be turning into one of those people whose mind collected odd bits of information like a sheep picking up ticks.
As he walked, Cooper checked his phone in case he’d missed a text message, but there was nothing. He carried on towards the end of Hollowgate, ignoring the loud group of youngsters. Not his business tonight. He’d only just come off shift, at the end of a long-drawn-out series of arrests and the execution of search warrants. With six prisoners processed through the custody suite at West Street, there wasn’t much of the evening left by the time he finally clocked off.
At the corner of Bargate he stopped again and listened for the sound of the river, just discernible here above the noise of traffic. The council had been talking about making Hollowgate a pedestrianised zone, like neighbouring Clappergate. But of course the money had run out for projects like that. So a stream of cars still flowed down from Hulley Road towards the High Street, forming Edendale’s version of a one-way system. ‘Flowed’ wasn’t exactly the right word for it. Half of the cars stopped in front of the shops to unload passengers, or crawled to a halt as drivers looked for parking spaces, the little car park behind the town hall already being full at this hour.
Cooper studied the pedestrians ahead. There was no sign of her yet. He glanced at his watch. For once, he wasn’t the one who was late. That was good.
He decided to wait in front of the estate agent’s, looking back towards the clock on the Wavy House to make sure his watch wasn’t fast. There was always a smell of freshly baked bread just on this corner, thanks to the baker’s behind the shops in Bargate. The scent lingered all day, as if it was absorbed into the stone and released slowly to add to the atmosphere. It was good to have somewhere in town that still baked its own bread. For Cooper, it was the sounds and smells that gave Edendale its unique personality, and distinguished it from every other town in the country, with their identikit high streets full of chain stores.
He turned to look in the estate agent’s window, automatically drawn to the pictures of the houses for sale. This was one of the more upmarket agents, handling a lot of high-end properties, catering for equestrian interests and buyers with plenty of spare cash who were looking for a country residence. He spotted a nice property available not far away, in Lowtown. An old farmhouse by the look of it, full of character, with a few outbuildings and a pony paddock. But six hundred and fifty thousand pounds? How could he ever afford that? Even on his new salary scale as a detective sergeant, the mortgage repayments would be horrendous. He had a bit of money put away in the bank now, but savings didn’t grow very fast these days, with interest rates still on the floor. It was a hopeless prospect.
‘So which house do you fancy?’ said a voice in his ear.
It was totally different from the voices that had shouted to him from the bus. This one was warm, soft and caressing. A familiar voice, with an intimate touch on his arm.
Liz appeared at his side, laid her head against his shoulder, and slipped her hand into his. He hadn’t seen her approach, and now he felt strangely at a disadvantage.
‘What, one of these?’ he said. ‘Chance would be a fine thing.’
She sighed. ‘True, I suppose.’
Cooper looked beyond the pictures of houses and caught their reflections in the glass. The pair of them were slightly distorted and smoky, as if the glass was tinted. Edendale’s traffic moved slowly, jerkily behind them, like a street in an old silent film. And not for the first time, it struck him how well matched they looked. Comfortable together, like an old married couple already. Liz looked small at his side, her dark hair shining in the street lights, her face lit up with a simple, uncomplicated pleasure. It delighted him that she could respond this way every time they met, or even spoke on the phone. Who wouldn’t love to have that effect on someone? It was a wonderful thing to bring a bit of happiness into the world, to be able to create these moments of joy. A rare and precious gift in a world where he met so much darkness and unhappiness, so many lonely and bitter people.
‘Kiss, then?
He bent to kiss her. She smelled great, as always. Her presence made him smile, and forget about the gaping faces. Who cared what other people thought?
They crossed the road, squeezed close together, as if they’d been parted for months. He always felt like that with Liz. At these moments, he would agree to anything, and often did.
‘So, any progress on the big case?’ she said.
‘The home invasions, you mean?’
‘Yes. The Savages. That’s what the newspapers are calling them.’
Cooper grimaced at the expression, sorry to have the mood momentarily spoiled. It was typical of the media to come up with such a sensational and ludicrous nickname. He knew they were aiming to grab the public’s attention. But it seemed to him to trivialise the reality of the brutal violence inflicted on the victims of these particular offenders.
‘No, not much progress,’ he said.
‘It must be awful. I mean, to have something like that happen to you in your own home.’
‘The victims have been pretty traumatised.’
The gang of burglars the papers were calling the Savages had struck several times this summer, targeting large private houses in well-heeled villages on the eastern edges. E Division was Derbyshire Constabulary’s largest geographical division by far, and those long gritstone escarpments in the east marked its furthest fringes, the border with South Yorkshire.
Cooper wondered how he would feel if he owned that nice house in Lowtown, and someone broke into it. He’d been told that owning property changed your attitude completely, made you much more territorial, more aggressively prepared to defend your domain. Well, he’d seen that at first hand. Because it had certainly happened to his brother. He’d watched Matt turn into a paranoid wreck since he became responsible for the family farm at Bridge End. He patrolled his boundaries every day, like a one-man army, ever vigilant for the appearance of invaders. He was the Home Guard, ready to repel Hitler’s Nazi hordes with a pitchfork. That level of anxiety must be exhausting. Was owning property really worth it?
‘Do you think the Savages are local?’ asked Liz, voicing the question that many people were asking. ‘Or are they coming out from Sheffield?’