The Devil's Edge by Stephen Booth Read Free Book Online Page B

blackberries were ripening at the wayside. What a waste.
    Just beyond a sign warning of horse riders, Cooper saw a gate with a cattle grid to keep the sheep out. There might have been sheep in Riddings once, but there wasn’t much sign of them now. Apart from horses, the nearest livestock would be the Highland cattle roaming the flats above Baslow Edge, so often photographed by tourists against a backdrop of the Eagle Stone or Wellington’s Monument.
    Nearby, a woman in a pink sleeveless top was kneeling on the grass weeding a flower bed, watched by a West Highland terrier. In a small orchard, speckled hens pecked among windfall apples. Life seemed to be going on as normal in Riddings.
    ‘The Barrons have been here for three years,’ said Gavin Murfin, sweating his way to the meeting point and peering at the scum-covered water in the horse trough. ‘One of the neighbours told me that Valley View was on the market for nearly two and a half million. I guess prices have fallen a bit since then, though.’
    ‘Not in this village.’
    ‘Oh?’
    ‘So where did the Barrons get the money to move into Riddings, I wonder?’
    ‘I know what you mean. Not forty years old yet, and three kids to bring up. You’d think they’d be on the breadline like the rest of us poor saps who have families draining every penny from our pockets. But Jake Barron is in line to take over the family business. The Barrons have a chain of carpet warehouses across South Yorkshire – Sheffield, Rotherham, Doncaster, all those places. His dad is still company chairman, but Jake is chief executive. I guess he’s taking a fair whack out of the company.’
    ‘Hasn’t the carpet trade suffered from the recession?’
    ‘No, the opposite. People have been spending their money on home improvements instead of moving house. New furniture, new carpets, that sort of thing. There’s no recession so bad that somebody doesn’t benefit from it. They say the pound stores are booming.’
    Detective Constables Becky Hurst and Luke Irvine arrived together, and shared the results of their interviews with neighbours. No one had seen or heard anything, it seemed. As far as the residents of Riddings were concerned, the Barrons’ assailants had come and gone like ghosts.
    ‘Who has details of the Barrons’ children?’ asked Cooper.
    Hurst held up a hand. ‘I can tell you that. There are three of them. Their names are, let’s see …’ She consulted a notebook. ‘Melissa, Joshua and—’
    ‘Fay,’ said Murfin. ‘Melissa, Joshua and Fay.’
    He couldn’t resist a note of satire in his voice as he read out the names. His own kids were called Sean and Wendy.
    ‘But I don’t suppose they were in a position to see or hear anything. I bet none of them even went near a window to look outside.’
    ‘We need to keep knocking on doors, then,’ said Cooper.
    Murfin wiped a hand across his brow and fumbled in his pockets for sustenance. ‘We need more manpower to do all this door-to-door.’
    ‘I’ve been promised there’s more coming.’
    ‘Some people have got out from under anyway,’ said Murfin grumpily.
    ‘Like who?’
    ‘Diane Fry, that’s who. The Wicked Witch of the West Midlands. Let’s face it, she’s just phoning it in these days. Secondment to a working group, I ask you. It should be me phoning it in. I’m the one who’s done his thirty. I’m the one who’s so close to retirement it’s practically singeing my arse. But look at me – still pounding the streets, knocking on doors. It’s cruelty to dumb animals.’
    ‘Gavin, I really don’t think you’d want to be on a working group. Implementing Strategic Change ? Think about it.’
    Murfin chewed his lip ruminatively. ‘Okay, I thought about it. And I fell asleep.’
    Cooper thought of the Barrons’ house again. They were getting nothing from the neighbours, so the answers must lie at Valley View. Everything would depend on forensics from the scene, and he was missing out on