Part 10 (2/2)

Details of the Pearsons' movements towards the end of that night were sketchy, and had to be partly speculation. What was known for certain was that they'd arrived at the George, where they'd booked a table for dinner at seven thirty. Since their Range Rover III was still standing outside The Old Dairy next day, the presumption was that they'd walked to Castleton. The owner of the cottage confirmed they were keen walkers a that was why they came to the Peak District, they'd said. At the George, staff who'd served them remembered that they'd come in wearing outdoor clothes and walking shoes. It wasn't at all unusual; Castleton was a centre for walkers at any time of the year.

Cooper thought about the photographs of the Pearsons again. You couldn't always tell the outdoor types, of course. And the Peak District had enough variety to attract anyone. But personally, he wouldn't have pegged David Pearson as the kind of man to be hiking over the moors in the middle of winter. The activity had its attractions, without a doubt, but it was minority appeal. Most people would have jumped into the car and driven to Castleton. Almost everyone, in fact, even if they hadn't bothered to check the local weather forecasts. It was one of the factors that had fuelled theories that the Pearsons had set the whole thing up. If you looked at it that way, it was the unlikeliest element of the scenario. Yet from the evidence, that seemed undoubtedly to be what had happened.

Okay, so the meal had gone off uneventfully. The mushrooms in peppercorn sauce, the Bantry Bay mussels, the honey-glazed ham shank. The Pearsons' table hadn't been close to the windows, so they might not have noticed the weather deteriorating. It was only a bit of sporadic sleet anyway. A few wintry showers. What was that to a couple of determined, experienced walkers with the right gear?

But wait a minute. Exactly how experienced were the Pearsons? Cooper made a note to find out. The original inquiry had traced their movements the day before their visit to Castleton, but those had all been by car, surely? They'd filled up the Range Rover at Sickleholme service station, so they must have been using fuel. A trip into Buxton for the Christmas market, maybe. Afternoon tea at the Old Hall Hotel. The Twelve Days of Christmas at Chatsworth House. That would have been David and Trisha's style, if he wasn't mistaken.

But still, they seemed to have decided to walk to Castleton a a distance of about three miles from the cottage. He estimated an hour at a brisk pace. No one could say exactly when they'd set off, so the couple might have taken their time, a leisurely stroll over the moor to work up an appet.i.te, with a nice meal awaiting them at the end of it.

Well, not quite the end of it. There had been the hike back to The Old Dairy to take into consideration.

So what about when the meal was over? When they left the George, the Pearsons were believed to have walked in this direction, past the green and into Bargate, where they could turn directly on to the start of the Limestone Way as they headed back to their cottage.

He watched Villiers do it now, walking up Castle Street, pa.s.sing his car and stopping at the gift shop by the green.

And that was what bothered Cooper. From the statements taken at the time, there was really no confirmation of it a only a pa.s.sing reference to the Limestone Way in the course of conversation with staff at the George.

What if the Pearsons had instead turned the corner of Castle Street by the youth hostel on to the narrow lane called The Stones? Extensive interviews and appeals to the public had resulted in an identification earlier in the evening by customers who had been waiting at the little fish and chip shop a few yards up. The couple had been seen to cross the bridge over the Peak Water. According to the statements, they'd seemed very relaxed, and had stopped, as everyone did, to listen to the water rus.h.i.+ng under the parapet as it tumbled from the mouth of Peak Cavern.

But, as Fry had pointed out, that was when the Pearsons were on their way in to Castleton, not out of it. It was merely confirmation that they'd arrived on foot. It gave no indication how they'd left. They had talked about the Limestone Way, and that was the safest route back to their cottage in bad conditions, wasn't it?

Yet it was perfectly possible that the Pearsons had taken the other route. If they'd left Castleton the same way they'd come in, they would have gone over the slopes of Hurd Low and found themselves on the edge of Oxlow Moor. Their route should have connected them to the Limestone Way to the east, and a straight run back to the cottage at Brecks Farm. But what if they'd strayed to the west? With no landmarks or reference points to guide them, it would have been all too easy. Once you'd lost your way in those conditions, you could walk round in circles for hours and be none the wiser.

There was a track to the west, too. He pictured the Pearsons struggling across the snow-covered heather, stumbling over rough ground and finally feeling a path under their feet. They would have followed it, surely. If they were desperate enough by then, they would have grasped at it like a drowning man sighting an oasis.

He shook his head in dismay. But all that did was widen the search area dramatically. His suggestion would not be welcomed.

Yes, the Pearsons would probably have found it easier to follow the track to Hurd Low, but it would have meant leaving the lights of the town behind sooner, as the trail started in Cavedale, deep below the ruined walls of Peveril Castle. If they'd walked over Hurd Low on their way to the George, it would have seemed logical to go back the same way.

Logical, but possibly fatal.

He'd lost sight of Villiers now, so he redialled her number.

'Carol?'

'I'm going through the gate into the dale,' she said.

'Cave Dale?'

'Yes. It's pretty gloomy in here, you know. Lots of dark corners among the rocks. Caves, even.'

'Well, that's why it's called Cave Dale.'

'Right. I was just thinking it would be an ideal location for an ambush.'

'Ambush? Is that your military training coming out again?'

'I suppose so.'

'Who would want to ambush the Pearsons?'

'I have no idea,' admitted Villiers. 'I'm just using my imagination. Isn't that what you do, Ben?'

'I wouldn't always recommend it,' said Cooper.

'The start of the Limestone Way is straight ahead. There's no missing it once you're in the dale.'

'You can come back now, Carol.'

A few minutes later, Villiers opened the door and slipped into the pa.s.senger seat of the Toyota. Cooper showed her the map and told her his theory.

'It's not really a theory,' she said. 'It's speculation.'

'You're right. I know.'

'But I suppose speculation is what we need right now.'

'We don't have anything else.'

They both sat in silence for a moment. Cooper guessed that Villiers was thinking what he was a how disappointing it would be if they went over all the old ground and came up with nothing but the same old facts and the same worn-out theories.

Cooper had never known a case where the events they were investigating were so ambiguous. He could see why the inquiry had eventually run out of steam. There was no firm evidence that the Pearsons had died. Nor was there definite proof that they were still alive and living under new ident.i.ties somewhere.

'The Pearsons both had mobile phones, didn't they?' said Villiers. 'Why didn't they make an emergency call?'

'Yes, that was looked into, of course. David had an iPhone.'

'Oh yes. At the George, they said he was using it constantly to access the internet, to read emails and even to look at maps of the area with its GPS feature. The staff overheard Trisha telling him that he would run the battery down.'

'Well if he was using GPS when they walked across the moor, it would have drained pretty quickly,' said Cooper.

'That would be the phone found buried in the peat.'

'Yes, that was David's. As for Trisha, she had a smartphone too, but she was on a different network. According to the phone company's records, her handset wasn't logged on during the relevant time. It seems likely that she couldn't get a signal. It isn't unusual in that area. Heck, it isn't unusual anywhere in this part of the county.'

'So where is Trisha's phone?' asked Villiers.

'We don't know, do we?'

'No.'

Villiers looked thoughtful. Cooper waited, watching her expression, trusting her to put her finger on some significant point. Or at least hoping that she would.

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