Already Dead(46)

And there he was, stepping out of his door and looking up at the sky, smoking a cigarette. Lane looked the way he always had, since Cooper first met him at the Grand Hotel in Edendale. He was thirty-seven years old, a little overweight, with that discreet piercing in one ear, and his hair still gelled into short, blond spikes. From his appearance, you might think that nothing much had happened in his life during the last few months, except for a trip to the chemist’s to buy a new tube of hair gel.

He was dressed in much the same way Cooper had last seen him too, denims and a sweatshirt. The casual gear had never suited him – he was a little too close to middle age to carry off the jeans. But his hair was still as neatly groomed, the discreet piercing in place, his smile permanently affable. He still looked like the member of staff he’d met at the hotel, ready to be of service, more than willing to help with Cooper’s questions about his time at the Light House. The co-operative Josh Lane.

He no longer had the bar job at the Grand, though. Now he was living on benefits, and staying in this mobile home park, which looked much more downmarket than the one across the river that Cooper was familiar with, the park where they didn’t even allow children. There were plenty of kids here, some of the younger ones running about between the pitches, jumping over fences where there were any, making the dogs bark in excitement.

It was no surprise that the hotel had dispensed with his services. Lane had a criminal record. A couple of convictions under the Misuse of Drugs Act, when he was fined for possession of Class B drugs. Cannabis and amphetamines. There were indications from intelligence that he’d also been involved in a small-scale Ecstasy trade at the Light House after it began to attract a younger clientele. He’d been investigated for supply, but never brought to court.

Lane had been lucky there. Courts could impose a maximum sentence of fourteen years for dealing, even Class B. If only someone had made a decision to put more resources into investigating those allegations more closely, Josh Lane might have been part-way through serving that fourteen-year prison sentence right now. At least the Whartons would have had to look elsewhere for assistance. Cooper knew it might not have saved Liz’s life – but at least he wouldn’t be looking at a situation where justice blatantly hadn’t been done.

He shook his head quietly. There were far too many ‘if onlys’. No matter how many of them you piled up in your imagination, they were never going to amount to anything useful.

Whenever there was a gap in the traffic on the A6, Cooper could hear the river. The Derwent was in spate, many thousands of gallons of water added to its flow by the rainfall running off the surrounding hillsides and crashing downstream from Matlock towards the mills in Cromford and Belper.

Today, news reports said that there were flood alerts in place right across the region, the last stage before a full-scale flood warning, when people were advised to take immediate action against the threat of flooding. Monitoring sensors located in the rivers at key points measured changes in the water levels. Data was recorded at fifteen-minute intervals, so the flood alerts were usually pretty accurate.

But high levels in the rivers weren’t the only problem. Cooper knew how difficult it was to predict the exact location of flooding from groundwater, which was often related to local geology. No one could say for sure which properties were at risk of groundwater flooding. Add the complication of blocked culverts and drains, and thousands of acres of land already sodden from weeks of heavy rain, and flash floods could happen anywhere.

All of this stretch of the River Derwent was at risk. Just downstream was the Wigwell Viaduct carrying the Cromford Canal over the river, close to High Peak Junction. The low-lying fields on either side of the Derwent had flooded regularly in the past, and no doubt they would again. Millions of pounds had been spent on flood defences in the region, but only for the cities.

Cooper waited until it was dark, then turned the Toyota on the verge and spun his tyres deliberately in the mud as he accelerated away from Derwent Park. He crossed the river at Whatstandwell and let the car take its own direction through the network of roads around Wirksworth.

The rain began to come down harder, and cars became fewer and further apart. Very soon, he was driving too fast for the conditions. Water sluiced across his windscreen in torrents, the rain obscuring his view much faster than his wipers could clear it. The road was wet, with pools of standing water that appeared suddenly in the flash of his headlights and disappeared again a second before he hit them. Poor visibility and a dangerous road surface. It was a lethal combination that drivers were warned about constantly.