You can cope with that, can you?
At least you dont get many real deaths here.
Theres only ever been one in Peak Cavern. That was a long time ago. And, well Page hesitated, looking back anxiously over his shoulder at the mouth of the cavern, as if he heard noises in the darkness but couldnt see what was there. Well, that was different, he said. It was unique. And a long time ago.
Some of the rescue team were carrying their gear back to the cavers clubhouse in Castleton. But Page lived only a couple of hundred yards away, in one of the cottages climbing the hillside on a narrow lane called Lunnens Back.
Ill be here between ten and five tomorrow, he said. Just ask for me if Im not around.
Since it was impossible to get a car anywhere near the cavern approach, Cooper had left his Toyota in the main car park, near the new visitor centre. From there, he could see a long line of people winding their way up to Peveril Castle. The climb was gruelling, and some of the older visitors stopped to rest at every chance, pretending to admire the view while they eased the pain in their knees. As a child, Cooper had himself visited Castleton on a school outing. In term time, the streets of the town were full of children with worksheets.
In the car park, he turned his face to the sun and breathed deeply. Right now, he couldnt imagine who or what was going to ruin his rest day.
Diane Fry knocked on the door of the DIs office at West Street, and walked straight in. Paul Hitchens was leaning back in his chair, gazing out over the roof of the east stand at Edendale Football Club. He barely moved when she entered.
Sir? You said you wanted to see me.
Sir? You said you wanted to see me.
Hitchens was silent for a moment, lost in some thoughts of his own that he wasnt going to let Fry interrupt. So she waited until he was ready. She watched the sunlight from his window cast shadows on his face, making him look older than the DI shed met when she first transferred to Derbyshire Constabulary, not all that long ago. Since setting up home with a nurse in Chesterfield hed become middle-aged almost overnight, preoccupied with finding the right wallpaper for the bathroom and tending his lawn at weekends. Hitchens himself had seemed to sense the difference, too. He was a man settling into his position in life.
But now Fry noticed him fingering the scar across the middle knuckles of his left hand, as if remembering an old injury.
I hear Mansell Quinn is due out today, said Hitchens finally.
Fry felt a surge of irritation and fought to contain it. Who, she said, is Mansell Quinn?
The DI spun a little on his chair, glanced at Fry as if checking who she was. She had a feeling that hed have said the same thing no matter who had walked into his office. He might have been having this conversation with the cleaner.
You wont remember him, DS Fry, he said. Quinn got a life sentence for murder some years ago. He lived in Castleton, a few miles up the road from here, in the Hope Valley. Do you know it?
A tourist honeypot, isnt it?
Interesting place, actually. I went there as a kid. I remember being particularly impressed by the sheep they came right down into the centre of the town. I suppose they must have been looking for food. I hadnt seen one up close before.
Sir? said Fry. You were talking about somebody called Quinn
Yes, Mansell Quinn. Hitchens swung his chair back again and gazed out of the window. His eyes seemed to go out of focus, as if he were staring beyond Edendale to the country further north towards Hope Valley, on the fringes of the Dark Peak. Well, Castletons quiet most of the year, when the tourists arent there. People know each other very well. Quinns case caused quite a stir. It was a pretty violent killing blood on the sitting-room carpet, and all that.
Fry hadnt been asked to sit down, so she leaned against the wall by the door instead.
A domestic?
Well, sort of, said Hitchens. The thing was, Quinn denied the charge at first, but entered a guilty plea at trial. Then he changed his mind again when hed been inside for a while. He said he didnt do it after all.
A bit perverse. Did he get parole?
No.
He ruined his own case, then. The parole board would have thought he was in denial.
It doesnt work like that any more. Early release depends on an assessment of any future risk you might pose, not on whether youve accepted the courts verdict. The Home Office makes an issue of it in its policy for lifers these days.
They were forced into that, werent they?
Thats a sore point around here, Fry.
Sorry.
Risk assessment, said Hitchens. Thats what it comes down to. We know about risk assessment, dont we?
Fry nodded. Too often, it meant covering your back, a means of avoiding litigation or compensation payouts. But that was one thought she didnt articulate. It might not have been what the DI meant.
Mansell Quinn had behaviour issues, said Hitchens. He had to undertake anger-management training in prison.
And he still didnt get parole?
No. Quinn served thirteen years and four months, until he reached his automatic release date. Hitchens turned round fully in his chair and leaned forward on his desk. And that date is today. Mansell Quinn was due to collect his belongings and walk out of HMP Sudbury at half past eight this morning. Hitchens looked at his watch. Half an hour ago, in fact.
So?
Quinn will be on licence. Hes supposed to move into temporary hostel accommodation in Burton on Trent, and he has an appointment with his probation officer this afternoon. One of the conditions of his licence is that he stays away from this area. Weve been asked to keep an eye out for him, in case he breaches his conditions.
Fry shrugged. So what if he does turn up here? Sometimes prisoners get a bit over-excited about being out and decide to celebrate. We might find him in a pub somewhere, but it will mean nothing.
Probably.
She straightened up to leave the DIs office. But then Fry hesitated, feeling there might be something more that he hadnt told her.
Anger management? So Quinn is a violent man, would you say, sir?
No doubt about it, said Hitchens. He has a long history of violent incidents in his past. In fact, he got knockback early in his sentence because he assaulted a fellow prisoner. He broke the mans arm and removed a couple of his teeth. And he couldnt explain why he did it. Or wouldnt.
And what about the original murder?
Well, there was certainly enough blood at the scene. The place was like an abattoir. Not what youd want your sitting room to look like especially in your nice new three-bedroom detached house in Castleton. Pindale Road, that was the place.
Fry settled back against the wall with a sigh. What happened exactly?
Well, it seems that Quinn had made his way home from the pub, where hed been drinking with his mates all afternoon. There was a row; he lost his temper, grabbed a handy kitchen knife And bingo a body on the floor, blood on the shag-pile, and the suspect still on the premises when a patrol responds to the 999 call. Terrible scenes with the kids arriving home. The whole street hanging out of their doors to see what was going on and generally getting in the way. All the usual mess. The victim was dead at the scene. She had multiple stab wounds to her body.
An ordinary domestic, then, said Fry, irrationally disappointed. One like thousands of others. I suppose the reasons for the argument might vary a bit, but the choice of household object doesnt usually show much imagination. And its always the wife who ends up dead on the floor.
Except there was one big difference in the Quinn case.
Fry lifted her head.
What?
The body on Quinns sitting-room floor, said Hitchens. It wasnt his wifes.
2
Sudbury Prison, Derbyshire
There used to be poppies in every cornfield once they were bright red, like splashes of fresh blood. Mansell Quinn was sure hed seen them all through the summer. As soon as the sun came out, they were everywhere in little clusters, peering from among the yellow stalks, nodding their bloodied heads in the sun, waiting for the combine to scythe them down. For a few hot days each year, a field in the bottom of the valley would be filled with entire red rivers of poppies, pooling and streaming, moving slowly in the breeze.
This morning, he noticed for the first time that there was a cornfield right across the road, its acres of brown stalks just starting to seed. The fences around it were strung barbed wire. Quinn looked for poppies in the corn, needing that glimpse of red. But there were no poppies.
As he walked towards the outer gate clutching a plastic carrier bag and his travel warrant, Quinn began to realize that even his liberty clothing was too big for him, and too stiff to be comfortable. Hed lost weight during the last fourteen years, and his body had hardened, as if a callus had grown over his skin, the way it had grown over his heart.
Past the gatehouse, he turned to look back for the last time. Above a bank of flowers was the white sign with its slogan Custodywith Care and a mission statement: committed to rehabilitation andresettlement of prisoners.
Eight thirty was time for the morning collection. Right now, a court van was turning in through the gate and slowing for the speed hump, its steel grilles and reinforced doors making it look like an armoured personnel carrier. As Quinn stepped on to the grass to let it pass, the driver gave him a cautious glance, though the van would be empty yet this morning, its cage still smelling of too much disinfectant.
Ill be home in an hour or so. And I cant bloody wait. What about you?
The man who fell into step alongside him was at least twenty years younger than Quinn, somewhere in his mid-twenties. He had short, gelled hair and a tattoo on the side of his neck, and he looked freshly shaved and scrubbed. He could have mingled with any bunch of lads in town on a Saturday night which was just what hed be doing by tonight, no doubt.
Itll take me a bit longer than that, said Quinn.
Eh?
A bit longer to get home.
Oh? You sound like a Derbyshire bloke, though.
Thats exactly what I am.
Right.
But Quinn had been born in the Welsh borders. It was there that the poppies had filled his summers. He supposed they must have found their way into the seed that the farmers sowed, or lay hidden in the ground until disturbed by the plough. Then they would flower before the wheat ripened, flourishing secretly between sowing and harvest. For the young Mansell Quinn, those poppies had been like a glimpse of wicked things existing where they shouldnt be.