Lost River. Stephen Booth
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got that right,’ said Wragg. ‘I never want to catch duty on a bank holiday again, I can tell you. Do you know how long it took me to get my car through those jams? You won’t be able to move down here later.’
‘That will be somebody else’s headache.’
‘I wish.’
Cooper was leaning against Wragg’s car. He had a clear view up the gorge towards the weirs, and beyond them, the pool where he’d pulled the body out of the water.
‘How old is she?’ he said.
‘Eight.’
‘She’s only eight years old?’
‘Yes.’
‘She was here with her parents. How the hell did it happen?’
‘They say their dog went into the water to fetch a stick. A golden retriever, it is. It seems the girl ran in after the dog. Only the dog came out.’
Cooper shook his head in despair. ‘Where are the parents now?’
‘Gone with her to hospital.’
‘They surely don’t think she’ll be revived. Do they?’
Wragg shaded his eyes with a hand as he watched some members of the public being shepherded away from the scene.
‘You don’t give up in these circumstances,’ he said. ‘That’s the very last thing you do.’
Events had moved pretty quickly once the girl’s body had been recovered from the water. Cooper had carried her to the bank and laid her on the grass. Then a woman had come forward from the crowd of bystanders, saying she was a nurse. Cooper had handed over resuscitation efforts to her, and she kept it going until the fast-response paramedic arrived, closely followed by the ambulance and Sergeant Wragg and his colleagues from the Ashbourne section station.
‘We’ll need a statement from you, of course,’ said Wragg.
‘But it will do later. We’re trying to catch as many witnesses as we can among the public before they disappear.’
‘Of course.’
‘But there doesn’t seem any doubt it was an accidental drowning.’
‘There was blood, though,’ said Cooper. ‘Blood in the water. She had an injury on her head.’
‘She probably fell and hit her head on a stone. That would explain why she drowned in such a shallow depth.’
‘“Probably“?’
‘There’s hardly going to be any trace evidence,’ said Wragg irritably. ‘The stone is somewhere out there being washed by thousands of gallons of water every second. We’ll see what eye-witness statements say, but I think you’ll find that’s it.’
‘Yes, all right.’
There had been no blood on the girl when he’d picked her up. But Cooper remembered seeing the wound now, an abrasion and broken skin on her forehead. The toughest thing he’d ever done was putting that body down, handing the little girl over to someone else. It felt like abandoning her to her fate. For some ridiculous reason, his instinct had been telling him he was the only person who could save her.
It was strange what your mind could do in a crisis. Sometimes, the rational part of your brain cut out altogether and you acted entirely on instinct, with no conscious thought involved. But occasionally your mind presented you with odd flashes of information that didn’t even seem to be relevant at the time.
Right now, Cooper was remembering images from the last hour or so. Paler rocks under the surface, streams of blood swirling in the current like eels. Jagged limestone spires at crazy angles. A dead, white face with floating hair. And a man with his hands raised, water dripping from his fingers.
‘Anyway, the Nield family…’ said Wragg, consulting his notebook. ‘Father is a supermarket manager in Ashbourne. Mum is a teacher. There’s a boy, about thirteen years old, name of Alex. They’re all in a state of shock, as you can imagine.’
‘And the girl?’ said Cooper.
‘What?’
‘The girl. You haven’t mentioned her name. She must have a name.’
Wragg looked taken aback.
‘Of course. Her name is Emily – Emily Nield. She’s eight years old.’
‘Thank you,’ said Cooper. ‘That’s what I wanted to know.’
He was aware of the noise of tourist cars rattling over the cattle grids out of Dovedale. Streams of scree had spilled from Thorpe Cloud like ash from a small volcano, slithering slowly towards the valley bottom. Two spaniels splashed in the water, scattering the mallards.
Many visitors were still clustered on the smooth, green slopes of the lower dale, where the limestone grassland had been grazed short by rabbits and sheep. Some were making their way down to the car park from the slopes of the dale, where they’d been exploring the woods or the limestone pinnacles and caves.
Suddenly, Cooper pushed himself away from the car.
‘Just a minute.’
‘Where are you going?’ asked Wragg.
But Cooper didn’t bother answering. He ran over to the car park and began to dodge between the groups of people, searching for a face. Some of them stared at him as if he was mad. But he was sure he’d seen someone he recognized. It was just a glimpse, a face half turned away in shadow, but the angle of a cheek and the tilt of a head were distinctive. It was a face he remembered for a reason, one that should mean something important.
He stopped two women getting into their Land Rover Discovery.
‘Excuse me, did you happen to see…?’
But he didn’t know what he wanted to ask them, and they hurriedly slammed their doors, fearing that he was some lunatic.
Cooper stopped, shaking his head. Maybe he was mad. But that face had been important, if only he could pin down its meaning.
Frustrated, he walked slowly back to the police vehicles. The River Dove was returning to its normal state after the excitement. Small brown birds with white bibs hopped from stones and plunged into the water after food. Dippers, they were called. It was said that crayfish and freshwater shrimps lived in this river. The water gave life to so many creatures. But it could take life away, too.
‘DC Cooper, are you okay?’ asked Wragg.
‘Yes. Why wouldn’t I be?’
‘You’re shivering.’
‘Oh, I’m just cold.’
Wragg stared at him with a baffled expression. He wiped the sweat from his own face with a handkerchief and squinted up at the glaring sun.
‘Oh, yeah. Chilly day, isn’t it?’
Cooper didn’t reply. He couldn’t tell Wragg what he really felt. It sounded too ridiculous. But right now, he felt chilled to the bone.
And that was it. The entire operation blown in a few seconds of inattention. Fry turned off the engine of the Audi, got out and stood on the pavement, waiting for Murfin and Hurst to join her.
‘What went wrong, boss?’ asked Murfin. He looked exhausted and irritable, perspiration standing out on his forehead.
‘I missed the signal,’ said Fry.
‘That’s tough.’
He exchanged glances with Hurst, who stood in the background, unsure of her position, or what she was