‘Oh, yeah. Since I landed off the Ark.’
‘So why don’t you know this place?’
Murfin glanced around the houses in The Dale. ‘Probably because they don’t have any crime.’
‘There was the counterfeit currency case,’ said Irvine.
‘Forged notes? Not my speciality.’
Irvine remembered the case because the counterfeit banknotes had been Scottish. The inquiry had involved several businesses in Wirksworth after fake currency was used at shops all along St John’s Street. It turned out to be a technique used in a number of towns up and down the country. A few months later, a counterfeiter in Glasgow had been arrested with fifty thousand pounds’ worth of fake tenners in his car. He’d used digital images of genuine notes from his iPhone and reproduced them on an inkjet printer.
With a sigh, Irvine wiped condensation off the passenger window of the car. Now, shopkeepers in places like Wirksworth were suspicious of Scottish currency. Well, even more suspicious than they’d been before. If Scots voted in their referendum to become independent, those Bank of Scotland notes would probably cease to be legal tender in England anyway.
‘Some of these houses are quite nice,’ he said.
‘Parking,’ said Murfin.
‘What?’
‘There’s no damn parking. Look where I’ve had to stick the car. Every time something comes past it nearly takes the wing mirror off on your side.’
Irvine glanced automatically into the wing mirror.
‘Heads up, Gavin,’ he said. ‘There’s a red BMW coming.’
20
Carsington Water had a very low dam wall, nothing like the structures holding back the waters of the Upper Derwent further north. Reservoirs like Ladybower and Howden had been built in a different time and to a different scale, matching the size of the hills around them. Their history was dramatic too, the scene of training runs for the Second World War Dambusters squadron and their bouncing bombs.
But Carsington was a product of the 1990s, the last big reservoir built in Derbyshire. With its visitor centre, sailing club, water sports centre and nature reserve, the emphasis was firmly on leisure activities. That was surely a clear sign of changing times. It wasn’t considered acceptable any more to flood vast tracts of land without any regard for the interests of local people. Villages were no longer destroyed to provide a water supply for the inhabitants of a distant city. Carsington was as much a symbol as a utility.
Ben Cooper slotted his Toyota into a space in the main car park for the visitor centre. The first thing he noticed as he walked towards the building was a display of drought-tolerant plants. Mimosa, calendula, juniper. He supposed it was part of the centre’s overarching message about the pressure on available water supplies and the need for conservation. How to manage your garden during a hosepipe ban. Right now, it looked like a laughable irony. Flood-tolerant plants would have been more appropriate.
He stopped to check his phone. Had he remembered to charge it up last night? The screen glowed when he touched the button at the bottom, and a series of icons appeared. Yes, he had. He felt unduly pleased with himself. Those little coloured squares on the screen labelled Phone, Mail, Safari were symbols of his reconnection with the world. He didn’t intend to use them, but the fact that they were there signified an achievement.
He ran a hand across his face to see how it felt. Not brilliant, but a lot better since he’d found the charger for his shaver. He’d even found a set of clean clothes, since there was nothing he could do about the ones he’d taken off earlier in the week. He was wearing his old waxed coat with the poacher’s pockets. It had seen a lot of muck in its life, and a bit of blood too. But he thought he would pass. As satisfied as he could be, Cooper walked round to the rear of the visitor centre to enter the courtyard.
Unlike most reservoirs, Carsington wasn’t used as storage capacity for the supply system. Its function was to pump water in and out of the River Derwent, taking it out at times when the river was high and putting it back again when levels were low. There was an overflow in the dam wall, which had been planned to cope with the worst flood conditions that its designers could envisage occurring in a ten-thousand-year period. Looking at the weather forecast, those conditions could happen this week.
A time capsule was said to be buried in the reservoir floor near the value control tower. He supposed it would only be discovered when Carsington was emptied in the distant future. The area was certainly changing beyond recognition. Not more than a mile away from Carsington Water was an organic farm, where some friends of Claire’s had once stayed in an EcoPod, with a solar powered shower and a compost toilet, and inquisitive goats wandering in and out from the surrounding fields.