Irvine decided to dodge down the narrow back streets and wind his way across town past the parish church and Edendale Community School to reach the Buxton Road. It should mean that he would bypass the traffic that always snarled up on the main shopping streets like Clappergate. Even the Market Square got congested, though the businesses in that part of town were mostly banks and building societies, estate agents and pubs. Everything else had moved into the indoor shopping centre.
Edendale was a magnet for tourists, and they seemed to come in greater numbers every year, whatever the weather. The Eden Valley straddled the two distinct geological halves of the Peak District – the limestone hills and wooded dales of the White Peak, and the bleak expanses of peat moors in the Dark Peak. Its position made a perfect base for exploring the national park, and all the usual services had developed to cater for the tourists – hotels, bed and breakfasts, restaurants, outdoor clothing shops. Some of the old-fashioned businesses were still there, the butchers and bakers and antique shops. But to Irvine’s eye, they looked more like antiques themselves, part of the picturesque scenery.
Gavin Murfin had been working in this area for so long that he knew a lot of useful things, and the best places to go. It had been Gavin who’d introduced him to May’s Café, just off West Street, the place where everyone nipped off to now that there was no canteen. It was one of the most useful lessons he’d learned during his first week in CID.
But it wasn’t the impending departure of Gavin Murfin that was bothering Irvine. He’d felt secure with Ben Cooper as his DS. You knew where you stood with Ben. He’d tell you the facts, give it to you straight, put you on the right path if you went astray. But you knew he’d always back you up. It was what you’d want from your supervising officer. It made you feel you were a valued member of his team.
Irvine had learned that being in the police was like being part of a big family. You didn’t always agree with each other, or even get on very well. But you were still family. It was a crucial factor when it came down to the ‘us and them’, the moment when you faced a dangerous situation together.
Yes, the loss of Cooper was bad news, whichever way you looked at it – even if it was temporary, and nobody knew if that was the case or not. For Irvine, the reappearance of Diane Fry in E Division was like the tsunami after the earthquake. If you survived one, the other would definitely get you. The old one-two flattened you every time.
When he thought about it, Fry made a pretty good tidal wave. She could knock you off your feet and leave you floundering.
He wondered how Becky Hurst truly felt about Diane Fry. It was difficult to tell with women. They were nice enough to each other face to face, but it was a different matter when their backs were turned. Becky was too smart to let it show if she felt strongly, though. She was an expert at keeping her head down and her nose clean. It was a skill he’d yet to learn for himself. Keeping his mouth shut was just too hard to do sometimes.
He’d known Hurst for a while – they’d applied for CID at the same time, done their detective training together, ended up being posted to E Division as a pair of new recruits. When he looked around now at other officers of his own age, Irvine was struck by how few of them showed any interest in CID. And why should they, when there was no extra pay, no promotion, not even any additional prestige?
There were specialist jobs in uniform which looked much more exciting – firearms, surveillance, air support unit. Some couldn’t resist the continually shifting demands of being a response officer, the first on the scene to every incident, driving on blue lights all day long. But Irvine had found the continuous adrenalin rush too exhausting. The brain never seemed to catch up with the body when you were working constantly on instinct and training. Life in CID might be far more bogged down in paperwork and procedure than he’d imagined, but at least you were called on to think occasionally.
He’d thought of going into intelligence. Even a Senior Intelligence Analyst with Derbyshire Constabulary earned only about thirty thousand pounds a year. A successful professional criminal would laugh at that.
And life on the Senior Management Team didn’t look enticing from this distance either. It seemed to him that the SMT tried to solve everything with spreadsheets and matrices. Common sense scared them. Extra resources meant more mobile data terminals, and more tasers. And for months now the chiefs had hardly been able to think of anything else but the new Police and Crime Commissioner and what priorities he’d decide on for Derbyshire.
Irvine laughed quietly to himself. If he spoke those thoughts out loud, people would think he was turning into Gavin Murfin. Except that Gavin had never understood what a spreadsheet was, or a matrix – and now he’d never have to. Lucky man.