Robert Nield, by the way,’ said the man. ‘This is my wife, Dawn. Our son Alex is here somewhere. I think one of the staff took him out of the way of…Well, they’ve all been very kind. They couldn’t have treated us better.’
‘I’m Detective Constable Cooper.’
‘You’re a policeman. We actually didn’t realize that, did we, love?’
Mrs Nield shook her head. She hadn’t spoken yet, but at least her face appeared briefly from behind the tissue.
‘I’m a detective with Derbyshire Constabulary.’
‘We know a few of your people,’ said Nield, ‘but I don’t think I’ve come across you before.’
‘I’m based in Edendale, sir.’
‘That would explain it. We’re Ashbourne people.’
‘Yes, I know.’
Nield looked at him curiously, as if he too was searching for an elusive memory, a connection that he wasn’t quite making. Cooper was used to that look from people he’d never met before. Often they’d known his father, a long-serving police sergeant of the old school who’d practically been the centre of the community in Edendale. Sergeant Joe Cooper was known to thousands, even now. And those who’d never met him in life knew of his death.
Well, it would come to Nield later, when he was thinking straight again. He could deal with it then.
‘I don’t know what arrangements have been made, but I could run you home,’ said Cooper. ‘My car is just outside.’
‘That’s good of you. I’d completely forgotten, but I left our car behind when we came in the ambulance.’
‘In the Dovedale car park?’
‘Yes.’
‘If you like, we can drop your wife and son home, then I’ll take you to pick up your car. How does that sound?’
‘Excellent.’
‘As long as you feel up to driving. If not, I can arrange for it to be taken care of.’
‘No, I’ll be fine. We’ll find Alex, and we can be off.’
‘I keep thinking “if only we could turn back the clock”,’ said Dawn Nield as they walked to Cooper’s Toyota. ‘Just a few minutes, or a few seconds. If only I’d been watching Emily more closely, if we hadn’t been throwing the stick for Buster, or we’d chosen to go somewhere else that day instead of Dovedale. Robert said it would be crowded on a bank holiday. That was why we went early. If we’d set off a bit later, we might not have been able to park the car, or there might have been more people around when it happened…’
‘Love, there’s no point in tormenting yourself,’ said Nield.
‘No, you’re right.’
Dawn wiped her eyes and looked briefly at Cooper. He read everything in that fleeting glance. While she might tell her husband he was right, those were no more than the words that came automatically from her mouth. What was happening inside her head was a whole world away. He knew she would never stop tormenting herself, could never rid herself of the endless ‘what ifs’. That list of possibilities would run through her mind in a constant loop, the moments when history might have been changed, playing over and over again like scenes from a film she had never actually watched. For the rest of her life, she would still be asking herself: What if?
The drive back to Ashbourne on the A52 took only twenty minutes. Cooper was glad it wasn’t a longer journey. The atmosphere in the car became uncomfortable as the Nields fell silent, each of them absorbed in their own thoughts. He’d tried to fill in some of the silences himself, but there was a limit to how much you could say in these circumstances without starting to sound ridiculous and insincere.
Ashbourne was a town built mostly of red brick, which made it look totally different from the limestone and millstone grit of Edendale to the north. This was clay country, softer than the White Peak, less forbidding than the bleak moorlands of the Dark Peak.
At school, in Geography lessons, Cooper had learned the significance of the boundary of Red Triassic rock which ran from Ashbourne to Thorpe, leaving the limestone gorge of Dovedale in startling contrast on the other side.
Perhaps it was all that red brick, but somehow the town felt unfamiliar to Cooper, as if he had already left his comfort zone. The Pennine hills were in his blood, and nothing could replace them. If he were ever to move, even the few miles to Ashbourne, it wouldn’t feel like home.
As he drove into the town, Cooper could see the last stages of construction work taking place on Clifton Road, where a new hospital was due to open next year. He wondered if it would have its own A&E department, whether it would have made any difference if Emily had got to hospital a few minutes quicker.
But he recalled the body he’d held in his arms, the futile attempts to resuscitate her on the riverbank. Surely she had already been dead when she came out of the water?
The boy was very quiet. At least the mother had let some of it out in that burst of emotion. But Alex was dumb. He was a slim youth, a bit under-sized for thirteen perhaps. He had dark hair like his father’s, but allowed to grow long, so that it fell over his face. His mother occasionally tried to push it back into position, and each time the boy flinched away from her. Alex had dark eyes, too, that gazed into Cooper’s every time he looked in his rear-view mirror.
Shock took people in different ways, of course. It was slightly disturbing, though, the way the boy kept looking at him and saying nothing. It was as if he was trying to weigh up Cooper’s trustworthiness, wondering whether he could share some secret with him. It was highly likely that he found it impossible to talk to either of his parents at that age. What thirteen-year-old could? A stranger to talk to might be exactly what he needed.
But how did you communicate to a thirteen-year-old boy that he was welcome to talk if he wanted to? Probably you didn’t. Teenagers were like animals, weren’t they? You had to wait until they came to you.
The Nields lived on the Shires Estate, off Wyaston Road. Executive homes with a view of the countryside where the road turned into a steep hill before curving to a dead end just short of the A52. At the bottom, children were playing football in the road. You didn’t see that too often.
The Nields’ house looked to be ten or twelve years old, with carriage lamps and hanging baskets, an oriel bay window and two half-timbered gables. It was set back from the road behind a neatly trimmed beech hedge, and a paved driveway led up to a double garage.
A house like this was usually described in estate agents’ adverts as a period-style detached residence. Cooper turned and looked at the view beyond the end of the close – Peak District hills on the horizon, including the distinctive pyramid shape of Thorpe Cloud. A detached residence in a much sought-after area, then. Lucky Nields.
He dropped Dawn and Alex off at the house, reassured to see a member of the family waiting anxiously for them on the drive. Nield explained that it was his wife’s sister, come up from Derby to be with her.
‘Thank you,’ said Nield, when Cooper returned him to the car park in Dovedale. ‘I don’t know how to thank you enough.’
‘There’s
