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Already Dead(84)



But on Sunday morning, all that changed. An email came through, informing her that DCI Mackenzie would be assuming the role of Senior Investigating Officer and setting up an incident room. And that was it – an email. Was that all she was worth now?

Fry felt her determination harden. Before the MCU arrived, she ought to get everything done that she could. It would be perfect if she could make some positive progress on the Glen Turner murder inquiry. She hadn’t been back to the scene at Sparrow Wood since Thursday. There was time to put that right today. Already she was putting her coat on when the call came in. There had been an incident at Sparrow Wood. Time to get on the road.

The B5056. It was probably the quietest stretch of road that Ben Cooper had ever driven on in the Peak District. Its route parted from the busy A515 just north of Ashbourne and snaked its way northwards, heading vaguely in the direction of Bakewell some twenty miles away. A substantial length of the B5056 formed the eastern boundary of the national park. But that seemed to be almost its only purpose. The road successfully managed to avoid villages, except for the tiny settlements of Longcliffe and Grangemill, each of them more of a glorified crossroads than a village.

Further north, it nearly reached Winster, but shied away from it at the last minute, as if it had the plague. The road continued to meander between Harthill and Stanton Moors, more at home among the ancient stone circles and rocky tors than human habitation, until it finally hit a T-junction on the A6 near Haddon Hall and couldn’t go any further.

Cooper had driven along this road at night, and during the day, and he could barely remember passing any traffic. Everyone seemed intent on cramming their cars into Dovedale or Ashbourne at one end, and Bakewell at the other. It was the perfect road to drive on, if all you wanted to see was the occasional rabbit or pheasant, and nothing to remind you of other people.

He’d parked in a gateway near Eagle Rocks, one of the outcrops on the high ridge around Brassington, their jagged outlines looked eerie and mysterious in foggy conditions.

A dilapidated complex of barns and farm buildings stood near the junction of Pasture Lane and the B5056. They were a complete hotch-potch of brick, random stone, and corrugated iron roofs, all tumbled into ruins and overgrown with weeds, dank and sodden in the rain. Layers of rotting leaf mould lay in the mud.

Just over the fields at Ballidon an abandoned twelfth-century church stood alone in the middle of a field, its deteriorating structure left in the care of an organisation called the Friends of Friendless Churches. The village of Ballidon had shrunk to a point where its single road was no more than a rat run for the quarry lorries that rumbled backwards and forwards from the limestone works at the end of the dale. In the driest months, grey dust covered walls and doorways, including a Victorian postbox set into the stones of a farm, still carrying the VR initials. Just now, he supposed Ballidon would look better than usual, thanks to the rain washing off the accumulated dust.

Sparrow Wood spread down the slopes of the hill, dank and dark. The trees were heavy with foliage, which dripped water on the ground, creating an irregular pattering sound as if hundreds of small animals were moving invisibly around him.

Cooper had always thought late autumn was the best time to commit a murder. There were so many places like this to conceal a body – lots of secluded little hillsides close enough to the road, but where no one ever went. Later in the year they were knee deep in freshly fallen leaves. You could cover a corpse in a blanket of foliage several inches thick, yet leave no sign of disturbance. The body would decompose with the leaves as winter came on, kept warm under its covering even if the surface frosted over. There would be no visible trace of human remains, until the first heavy rain of spring washed the top layer of debris away, or the first dog came foraging in the woods for rabbits.

A body could lie undiscovered for years, if you were lucky. Yes, it was during the murder and the disposal of the corpse that you were most likely to be seen. Concealment itself was easy.

But no one had bothered concealing this body, had they? Maybe they’d been in too much of a hurry, or didn’t know the area well enough to find the right spot. Or perhaps they’d wanted the body to be found. Yes, there was always that possibility.

He found a deep hole in the rocks above Sparrow Wood. The entrance was equipped with bolts for descending on ropes, but uncovered. Dangerous for the merely inquisitive. The drop from the level of the hillside was perpendicular and he couldn’t make out the depth. All kinds of things had been found dumped down shafts like this in the past – human and animal remains, toxic chemicals, discarded weapons.