Already Dead(53)

During the Carboniferous period three hundred million years ago, Wirksworth had been under a tropical sea, which left it with vast quantities of limestone. Centuries of quarrying had left their scars on the area. But almost all of the quarries were disused and derelict now, forming Derbyshire’s own lunar landscape. You could step off a track, or out of a meadow, and find yourself walking on a dead surface of dust and rock, your view blocked on every side by coarse limestone walls, as if you were standing in a crater on the moon.

The great upheaval for Wirksworth came in the 1920s with the reopening of Dale Quarry, known by local people as ‘The Big Hole’. Mechanisation had arrived, and a vast stone crusher was installed. Dust, dirt and noise polluted the heart of the town. Anyone who could afford to leave abandoned Wirksworth, taking commerce with them. Jobs were lost, buildings fell into disrepair, fine old houses were left to decay. What had been one of Derbyshire’s most important towns was blighted.

But in the 1970s the town had been chosen for regeneration. The Wirksworth Project had restored buildings that were falling down, and which now became part of the town’s historic character. With regeneration came new businesses, and a different type of resident had moved in. It had become the sort of place that he and Liz might have wanted to live in.

Cooper was almost caught by surprise when Josh Lane’s car slowed and indicated right near the Lime Kiln pub, well short of Wirksworth town centre.

‘Damn. Where is he going?’ Cooper said to himself, as the Honda waited for traffic to clear. It would be too obvious to pull up right on Lane’s rear bumper for the turn, so Cooper drove on a few yards and stopped in front of a row of neat stone cottages, each with its front door painted a different colour – one green, one blue, the next black – but every one with the same brass urn-shaped knocker.

When Lane had completed his turn, Cooper reversed into an opening between the cottages and followed the grey Honda into Middleton Road. He found himself in front of the ornate gates of Stoney Wood, a park created from the remains of one of the quarries. Lane’s car was in the pull-in by the gates, and Lane himself was already out of it. Cooper turned his head away as he drove past and parked on the grass verge near Middlepeak granite works.

He gave Lane a few minutes, then cautiously made his way through the entrance of Stoney Wood. The slopes of the old quarry had been planted with trees and filled with artworks. Lane was walking up the steepest part of the hill, past hundreds of stones laid out to form an infinity symbol. His head was down as he watched his footing on the slippery ground.

Cooper stayed just out of sight among the trees at the bottom of the slope, and waited. He remembered this place. Its conception had been part of Wirksworth’s regeneration, yet here were all the signs of pagan folk memory that were inescapable in Derbyshire. In Stoney Wood, they were both formal and informal. Close by where he stood, someone had recently laid a pattern of holly and ivy wreaths on the stone seating. Near the top of the hill, he knew Lane would pass the Calendar Stones, modern monoliths placed to align with the sun at the time of the equinox and solstice.

He kept his eyes fixed on the figure picking its way gingerly over a patch of muddy grass. Lane circled the Calendar Stones and stopped. Then Cooper knew he was visiting the StarDisc.

This was just the sort of thing that his sister Claire became enthusiastic about. She loved anything with the kind of New Age atmosphere she’d tried to create in her shop in Edendale. The StarDisc was on a different scale from her crystals and pendulums. It had been created here in Stoney Wood as a twenty-first-century stone circle. A celestial amphitheatre thirty-five feet wide, a temple without walls. Carved into black granite to evoke the darkness of deep space was a star chart mirroring the night sky, its surface inscribed with the constellations. Around the perimeter stood twelve seats denoting the months of the year. Scores of lights illuminating the StarDisc at night were powered by the nearest star – the Sun.

Claire had dragged him to the opening of the StarDisc a few years ago. She must have had no boyfriend in tow at the time, and of course she knew it was a waste of time trying to rope Matt in for something like this. It had been quite an extraordinary event, Ben had to admit. More than a thousand people had turned up to watch an outdoor screening of Steven Spielberg’s Close Encounters of the Third Kind and listen to a specially recorded message from the astronomer Patrick Moore. The old lead miners and quarrymen could never have imagined that.

Josh Lane was moving around the StarDisc, walking over the constellations, crouching occasionally to read the name of a star system. He turned slowly to gaze over the scenery in all directions, and Cooper made sure he was standing completely still behind trees. Wearing his green waxed jacket, he wouldn’t be noticeable as long as he didn’t move.