Secrets of Death Read Free Page B

nothing through the windscreen because of the condensation. Had someone slept in their car overnight? Perhaps two people? She had heard of all kinds of things going on.
    If you were doing that, you’d leave the windows slightly open to let in some air, wouldn’t you? These were all rolled firmly shut. So the BMW was just abandoned, then? That must be it.
    Marnie rapped on the driver’s side window. There was no response, no sudden movement rocking the car, no startled noises. Relieved now, she ran her sleeveacross the glass and stuck her face close to it, shading her eyes against the glare of the sun as it broke over the trees.
    At first, she couldn’t understand what she was seeing. It didn’t seem human, or animal either. Her brain whirled, trying to make sense of it. A shop window dummy, a practical joke of some kind?
    She tried the handle and found the door unlocked. As she pulled it open, the realisation hit her. She knew it was no practical joke. A man sat in the driving seat. A real man, flesh and blood. But there was something wrong with his head. Something very wrong.
    By the time Shirley Gooding arrived, running late from dealing with a child too sick to go to school, she was amazed to find Marnie Letts standing in the middle of the car park screaming.
    Every morning, Detective Inspector Ben Cooper set off to work with his car full of sound. He needed it to insulate him from the world outside. The traffic passing in the street, the people on the pavements, the market stalls setting up in the square – all the bustle and activity of Edendale on a fine summer’s day. Sometimes, it could be too much.
    For the past few weeks, he’d been listening to Bruce Springsteen. ‘Dancing in the Dark’. It was always the first track that started up when he switched on the ignition. Always the same CD in the player, always the same opening chords. He hadn’t bothered changing it. One day, he supposed he’d get tired of it. For now, it suited him fine. It was like a switch that turned himon for the day, clicked him into professional mode and prepared him for the hours ahead, when anything could happen.
    He halted in traffic at the Hollowgate lights, reflecting on how his feelings were mirrored by the outside world. During those few minutes of his drive to West Street, Cooper always passed from dark into light. Everywhere he looked, he caught his town in the process of changing its character. He could see it taking off one face and putting on another. During the past few hours, Edendale had hidden away its night-time turnover of drunks and clubbers staggering between takeaway and taxi rank in noisy clumps, shadowed by weary police officers with their high-vis jackets and riot vans. They had to be ushered indoors with the coming of daylight, like vampires retreating from the sun.
    The morning brought an influx of visitors to the town. The roads got busier, the car parks filled up, the coaches crawled through the narrow streets, and the pavements became hazardous with boots and hiking poles. All the gift shops and visitor centres propped open their doors; the newsagents put out their ice cream signs.
    Edendale looked so different in the sun. And it felt different too. The atmosphere was much more relaxed, the flow of movement slower. Walking groups met at their rendezvous points, chatting and adjusting their equipment for so long that you’d think they weren’t planning to do any walking at all. The pavements were full of strolling retired couples who’d decided to have a day out in the Peak District, with a nice lunch in apub garden and a doze on a bench by the river. Japanese tourists stood gazing into the windows of the Bakewell pudding shops or took selfies on the old bridge over the Eden, forcing passers-by into the road.
    Unlike the visitors, Cooper could see through the façade. That darkness was never dispelled completely. He could sense it lurking in the background. He’d seen enough of it to know it was always