Read The Devil's Edge for Free Online Page A

lives at number four. He’s the member of the public who called the incident in.’
    ‘Oh, yes. Mr Gamble.’
    ‘Well, his wife was in. Her name is Monica.’
    ‘Where’s her husband?’
    ‘She didn’t know.’
    ‘Didn’t know?’
    ‘She told me she often doesn’t know where he is. Sorry.’
    ‘He should never have been allowed to wander off from the scene,’ said Cooper.
    ‘He did make a statement to the FOAs.’
    ‘The first officers to arrive didn’t know what sort of incident they were dealing with. We really need to speak to Mr Gamble again, and soon. I don’t like the fact that he’s disappeared, Becky.’
    ‘No, that’s why I thought you ought to know straight away.’
    ‘You were right. Thanks, Becky.’
    ‘The good news is that he can’t have gone far. He hasn’t taken their car, so he’s likely to be on foot. I’ve got his mobile number from his wife. I’m trying to call him, but there’s no answer so far.’
    ‘Okay. Keep at it.’
    Cooper started the car and drove on. He really didn’t like Mr Gamble being missing. He liked even less the knowledge that before long, someone was going to ask him about Gamble. Either his DI or Superintendent Branagh would want to know where the informant was. I don’t know wasn’t a good enough answer.
    The Chadwicks’ home, The Cottage, was a barn conversion with big Velux windows installed in the roof. As Cooper approached, two herons took off from behind the house and flapped ponderously away over the village, their feet trailing clumsily below their bodies. You didn’t often see two herons together. He felt sure there must be a pond behind the house, nicely stocked with fish.
    He passed a Nissan Qashqai and a Mercedes Kompressor standing close together in front of a double garage. A small boat trailer was parked on the drive. He looked for the burglar alarm, and found a yellow box high on the front wall. There was also a security light at the bottom of the drive.
    The Chadwicks were outside, enjoying the sun, seated on garden chairs under a parasol. Mr Chadwick rose to greet him. He was a tall man with anxious eyes and a balding head shiny with perspiration.
    ‘Bill Chadwick. This is my wife, Retty. Marietta, that is. We call her Retty.’
    Cooper showed his warrant card, even though they hadn’t asked to see it. It was odd how some people were so trusting when he said he was a police officer. No matter what was going on around them, they still felt no reason to be suspicious of strangers.
    ‘You’ll have heard …?’ he began.
    ‘At Valley View, yes. The Barrons.’
    ‘It’s so close,’ said Mrs Chadwick. ‘Ever so close. Just across the lane.’
    They all looked instinctively towards Valley View, though it wasn’t even possible to see Curbar Lane from here, let alone anything of the Barrons’ property. Trees and the corner of a wall, then more trees. And beyond the trees, Riddings Edge. So close? Cooper wondered if the Chadwicks knew what it was actually like to have neighbours living practically on top of you, packed in cheek by jowl, so close that you could hear them clearly through the walls on either side of you. There were lots of people in Edendale who knew what that was like. His own ground-floor flat in Welbeck Street sometimes echoed to the slam of a door from the tenant upstairs, the clatter of feet on the stairs, the blare of old Mrs Shelley’s TV set next door.
    ‘Obviously you’re some of the Barrons’ closest neighbours,’ he said.
    ‘And you wondered if we might have noticed anything,’ said Chadwick. ‘Obviously. But I’m afraid we didn’t.’
    ‘But you were at home last night?’
    ‘Actually, we went out as soon as it got dark,’ said Chadwick.
    ‘Where to?’
    ‘Up on to the edge.’
    ‘Really?’
    Cooper couldn’t keep the surprise out of his voice. He’d been warned only a few minutes earlier about the people who went up on the edge at night. But he hadn’t thought the Chadwicks were the sort