‘Oh God. It’s another fire,’ he said.

‘No, they’ve found something.’

He heard exclamations, someone calling for a phone, another voice insisting they should call the emergency services.

‘Is somebody hurt?’ he said.

As a firefighter, Roger had first-aid training. He pushed his way through the cluster of runners to see what the problem was. When he got near, people automatically stood back to let him through, as if happy to let someone else take over.

Roger found himself teetering on the edge of a hole exposed in the earth. Breathing hard, he looked down, expecting to see someone lying injured. But at first he couldn’t figure out what he was looking at. He wiped the sweat from his forehead as his eyes started to adjust to the darkness in the hole.

‘Oh, shit.’

He took a step backwards and bumped into the runners crowding behind him. He panicked, terrified of losing his footing and stumbling into the hole to join whatever lay down there.

Because Roger had just seen … but what exactly had he seen?

Gingerly, he crouched and took a closer look. Yes, he’d been right the first time. It was a decomposed human hand, yellow and shrivelled, protruding from a bundle of black plastic, like a pale ghost rising out of Oxlow Moor.

25

Diane Fry knew that Henry Pearson was staying at a hotel in Edendale. Even if he hadn’t left his contact details, she had seen him on the TV news – a shot of him getting into his BMW with an armful of files, looking serious and dignified, like a lawyer going into court to fight an important case.

Pearson had also done a few sound bites directly to camera, speaking about how determined he was to discover what had happened to his son and daughter-in-law. That clip would be used over and over in the news bulletins.

Fry could see clearly that the sequence had been filmed in the car park of the Holiday Inn on Meadow Road, with the spire of All Saints Church visible in the background at the bottom of Clappergate.

When she rang the hotel that morning, she was put straight through to Mr Pearson’s room.

‘Yes?’ he said eagerly, when Fry announced who she was. ‘Is there any news?’

‘Not at the moment. But we’d like you to come into the station for a chat. If you could, sir.’

‘I’ll be right there,’ he said.

Well, that was short and sweet. Eager wasn’t the word for it. Mr Pearson sounded positively desperate.

While she waited, she checked in with DCI Mackenzie, who was presiding over the incident room as SIO. Fry was grateful that he’d spared her this, the routine tasking and data analysis that went with a major inquiry. So far he’d given her a free hand, and she appreciated his faith in her.

Mackenzie confirmed that search teams were being assembled to begin operations on Oxlow Moor, focusing on the abandoned mine shafts.

‘It’s quite technical,’ he said. ‘The maps aren’t as accurate as we’d like, and the extent of visible surface remains is unpredictable. So we need the specialists. But it will be done.’

‘What about forensics?’ asked Fry.

Mackenzie shook his head. ‘Still no luck on the major blood source. We know it doesn’t match the DNA profiles for the Pearsons. However, the lab say they’ve isolated another profile from the bloodstains. Small traces, but DNA from a separate individual.’

‘A fourth person, then?’

‘Yes, someone else who lost a small amount of blood. Also, there’s a partial print recovered from David Pearson’s mobile phone. Not David’s or Trisha’s. It should help.’

‘If we can produce a suspect to compare it to,’ said Fry.

‘Exactly.’ Mackenzie looked up. ‘One thing we can be sure of, anyway.’

‘What?’

‘DS Cooper’s two suspects aren’t in the frame. These DNA profiles aren’t a match to the samples Gullick and Naylor gave on arrest.’

When Cooper reached the weed-covered car park of the Light House, he could see only a few firefighters in the distance, still flailing with their beaters where hotspots were smouldering in the heather. Their activities had moved on and away from the pub. The nearest appliance was just visible on the edge of the moor, framed against the long ridge of Rushup Edge and the far-off Kinder Scout.

On the horizon, Kinder was also burning now, a double disaster. A brisk wind was whipping up flames twenty feet high across a front that must stretch more than a mile and a half. As the ranger had predicted, most of the firefighting equipment and resources had been drawn away from Oxlow to tackle the new wildfires spreading on the higher plateau.

If the fire was burning below ground level here, there was a danger it could burst up through the peat at any time. If that happened, the Light House could be at risk. There weren’t enough men and equipment left on the moor to provide a spray curtain over the building and ensure those floating embers didn’t land on the roof.

Again Cooper was overwhelmed by the impression of how isolated the Light House was. He and the empty pub were alone in the devastated landscape, like the last survivors of a nuclear holocaust. Despite the height and its commanding vantage point, he felt as though he was being observed. He imagined a movie camera in a helicopter, one of those dizzying overhead shots, pulling back to reveal that his tiny figure was the only movement in an expanse of desert.

‘I don’t know what film that would be from,’ he said. Then he looked guiltily over his shoulder, in case he was caught talking to himself out loud.

Cooper shook himself and went to the back door of the pub, where a bored uniformed PC stood guard at the tape marking the cordon. The door was fixed permanently open now, and lights had been sent up inside the bar, where the body of Aidan Merritt had been found. How long ago had that been? Only a few days, surely? It seemed like a lifetime, though. Diane Fry had walked in here. And by that simple act, she had turned everything round.

Carol Villiers had already negotiated her way over the stepping plates to reach the main bar.

‘So what are we looking for?’ she asked.

‘Cellars.’

She looked down at her feet, an automatic response.

‘Access to the cellars,’ said Cooper.

‘I knew that.’

The furniture in the bar looked sad and rather seedy in the totally artificial illumination. From the ceiling hung horrible lights in fittings shaped like candles, but made out of some kind of rigid green plastic. Cooper could see the pictures on the walls more clearly, baffling images of steam trains and fly fishermen that bore no relationship to the history or location of the pub.

Somewhere there must be a trapdoor to provide access to the cellar from inside the pub. Cooper found it behind the bar counter, concealed by a pile of flattened cardboard boxes and old beer crates. He didn’t think it had been hidden deliberately, just lost and forgotten under the general rubbish and disorder.

‘We need to move all this stuff aside.’

Villiers helped him with the task. When the hatch was cleared, an iron handle became visible, set flush into the wood. Slowly Cooper eased the door up, and Villiers switched on her torch to locate a flight of stone steps. She recoiled at the aromas rising from the hatchway.

‘Phew,’ she said. ‘There’s nothing worse than the smell of stale beer.’

Cooper agreed. But there was more to the odour than that. A miasma rose around him, putting thoughts of ancient damp and mould into his mind. He felt as though he’d just opened Count Dracula’s tomb, releasing centuries of decay.

He pulled out his own torch. ‘Down we go, then.’

‘You first,’ said Villiers.

Cooper looked at her in surprise. ‘What? Spiders?’

‘Maybe,’ she said defensively.

At the bottom of the steps, Cooper found a light switch. He was amazed when it worked, and the cellar sprang into view. Unlike the shuttered pub above, the cellar had always looked like this, bathed in artificial light. They were below ground, so there were no windows. And the air immediately felt cooler, with that hint of dampness.