For weeks now, national park rangers had been warning people not to light barbecues or camp fires, because of the higher than normal risk of fires. There had already been six moorland fires in the national park in the past two months.

Moorland fires could have a particularly devastating effect at this time of year, wiping out ground-nesting birds and even small mammals such as lambs, which couldn’t escape the advance of the flames. Wildfires not only harmed wildlife but destroyed rare plants and caused erosion. They undid years of hard work in managing those rare environments.

In the past few weeks alone, fires had broken out at Stanton Moor, at Ramshaw Rocks near Warslow, and on Moscar Moor near Ladybower Reservoir. Much of the land was owned by the water companies like United Utilities. In a way, that was an advantage: the companies couldn’t tolerate the resulting run-off into the water supply, so they were willing to cough up the money needed to hire helicopters at two thousand pounds an hour.

Over the Easter period in 2003, landowners had spent around sixty thousand pounds in five days on helicopters to help extinguish three simultaneous fires on Kinder and Bleaklow. There was no contribution to the cost from the state, and lobbying government to fund the use of helicopters had proved fruitless.

Ironically, one of the problems was developing sustainable water supplies out on the moors. The most difficult and severe fires were in remote, inaccessible locations. Water was usually some distance away – and the key to putting fires out was to get water on them. One of the biggest challenges was a logistical one. For years, the authorities had been talking about developing a network of ponds and pipelines across the moors to increase the speed of delivering water to a fire site. It hadn’t happened yet.

They walked towards the door of the station, and Villiers keyed in the security code. A prisoner transport vehicle had drawn up outside the custody suite, and a prisoner was being unloaded from the cage at the back.

Cooper had worked in this division for fifteen years, some of that time in section stations like Bakewell and Matlock, but most of it here at divisional headquarters in Edendale. He was becoming almost as well known as his father had been before him, that old-fashioned copper people in the town still talked about, both for the way he had spent his life and the way he’d died.

In the CID room, the atmosphere felt strained. Cooper detected it as soon as he walked through the door. He looked round the room. The two youngest DCs, Becky Hurst and Luke Irvine, were busy, their heads down, desks piled with paperwork, keyboards clattering, phones ringing intermittently. As usual, they were trying to deal with several things at once.

Meanwhile, the most experienced member of the team, DC Gavin Murfin, was amusing himself by filling in application forms for jobs he could never hope to get, and would never actually apply for. Today he was completing Form 518, the Specialist Post Application form for a Surveillance Operative at the East Midlands Counter Terrorism Intelligence Unit. He’d said yesterday that he liked the fact that the form was designated Restricted when complete.

Murfin looked up when he saw Cooper arrive. His pen was poised dramatically in mid-air.

‘Ah, boss,’ he called. ‘Would you say I “create processes that make sure stakeholders’ and customers’ views and needs are clearly identified and responded to”?’

‘No,’ said Cooper.

‘Would you agree that “this officer’s performance in their current position is satisfactory”?’

‘No.’

‘Or that “the officer meets the person specification/promotion criteria”?’

‘No.’

‘Ben, I have to tell you – my line supervisor’s comments are a very important part of the application process.’

‘It’s still no.’

Murfin sighed. ‘Well, that’s buggered this one, then.’

Keyboards had fallen silent, and the rustle of paperwork had stopped. Even the phones seemed to have taken a break. Cooper could feel the rest of the team watching him carefully.

‘For heaven’s sake,’ he said. ‘Give me that, Gavin.’

‘It’s restricted,’ protested Murfin.

‘Only when complete.’

‘Well, all right.’

Cooper glanced over the form, feeling slightly uneasy about what Murfin might have been writing. When he was in this mood, anything could happen. And as Gavin had pointed out, Cooper was his line supervisor and therefore responsible for his activities.

He ran his finger down the first page, which asked for personal details. For the question ‘Which of the following best describes your religious affiliation?’, Murfin had crossed out all the options and written ‘Jedi knight’. The next question was: ‘How do you identify your sexual orientation?’

‘I’ll put “backwards” for that one,’ said Cooper.

‘But I’m not—’

‘Yes you are. And now I’m going to file your application in the usual manner.’

Cooper ripped the form slowly in half, and dropped the two pieces into the nearest waste-paper bin. As he did it, he could almost hear the tension in the room ease, like a quiet sigh of relief. Even Murfin smiled, as if it was just the result he’d been hoping for.

‘Gavin, why are you even bothering with all that?’ asked Villiers in the subsequent silence. ‘You’re due to retire next month anyway.’

‘Well, exactly,’ said Murfin. ‘I wouldn’t have dared do it before. Blimey, I would have got myself into so much trouble. But now I’m retiring, it doesn’t matter, see. I can put what I like on the forms, and no one will take any notice.’

‘Has this been some lifelong ambition, then?’

‘It’s been Jean’s ambition. You know how I hate to disappoint her.’

‘She’s been disappointed in you all her life, Gavin.’

Murfin shook his head. ‘No, that’s not true. It’s only since she married me. She was perfectly happy until then.’

Cooper bit his lip, trying not to laugh. Though Gavin seemed to be joking, it felt as though laughing would be the wrong thing to do right now.

Murfin was becoming such a contrast to Hurst and Irvine, who were still young in service. A couple of weeks ago, Cooper had overheard Irvine referring to his colleague as a ‘flub’, and had to caution him about his attitude. The ironic thing was that Irvine could only have picked up the expression from Gavin Murfin himself, since no one else used it these days.

In the last few months, Murfin had reverted to the language he’d learned on the job as a young PC thirty years ago, in less politically correct times.

‘I seem to have mislaid my acronym book,’ said Murfin. ‘What’s NIM?’

‘The National Intelligence Model. You ought to know that if you’re applying for a job as … what is it? A Surveillance Operative with the Counter Terrorism Unit.’

‘Right. I’m an ideal candidate as a SOCTU with a specialised knowledge of NIM and, er … give me another one.’

‘BONGO,’ said Irvine.

Murfin frowned, and ran his tongue round the inside of his teeth as if searching for a last crumb. Then he seemed to take the decision to ignore the jibe. The relaxed attitude of his shoulders seemed to say, ‘All water off a duck’s back, mate.’ BONGO was the old-timer’s slang for a lazy police officer. It stood for ‘Books On, Never Goes Out’.

‘Maybe we should get some work done,’ said Villiers.

Carol Villiers had been back in Derbyshire for only a few months. She’d been lucky with a successful application when her period of service in the RAF Police came to an end. There certainly hadn’t been many successful applications since then. Derbyshire Constabulary, like every other regional police force, had been finding ways of saving money for a couple of years now. That meant reducing staff numbers wherever possible. Specialist functions were being shared with neighbouring forces, and officers who left were rarely replaced. Retirement was more than encouraged; it was being made compulsory for those who had already served their thirty years.