Claw 
by 
Stephen Booth

"A mesmerizing story of blackmail, romance, and deception."
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Drusilla Delaney, the daughter of an impoverished minister, becomes fascinated with the wealthy Framling family--especially with the son and daughter,
the mysterious Fabian, and the beautiful, impetuous Lavinia. Through them, she finds herself the unlikely heir to an extraordinary bejeweled fan made of
peacock feathers. But though priceless and dazzling to behold, the fan bears a curse that promises ill fortune--and even death--to whoever possesses it....
"Enthralling."
THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW 


Stephen Booth is the
creator of young Derbyshire
police detectives
D.C. Ben Cooper and
D.S. Diane Fry, who have appeared in eight novels, the latest being Dying
to Sin. The books have won awards on both sides
of the Atlantic and have been translated into fifteen languages. Stephen was recently described by the Sunday
TtUgraph as "one of our best story-tellers." He lives
in Nottinghamshire.

"Booth is a modern master of rural noir."
- THE GUARDIAN

"One of the elite British mystery writers."
-WASHINGTON TIMES

Visit the author's website:
www.stephen-booth.com
CRIME EXPRESS
Published by Crime Express in 2007
Crime Express is an imprint of
Five Leaves Publications,
PO Box 8787, Nottingham NG1 9AW
Copyright © Stephen Booth, 2007 ISBN: 978-1-905512-24-9
Crime Express 2

Five Leaves acknowledges financial support
from Arts Council England

<?

Five Leaves is a member of Inpress
(www.inpressbooks.co.uk),
representing independent publishers

Typesetting and design:
Four Sheets Design and Print
Printed in Great Britain
I

1.



The bones were tiny. They lay in his hand
like a set of pearls, translucent and fragile.
When he turned them to the light, he
could see their fractured ends and hollow cores.
They were light as a feather, as brittle as chalk.
And as easy to break as a straw.
For a moment, Detective Constable Ben Cooper
stared at the narrow window and faded curtains,
though they hid nothing more than a street corner
in a Derbyshire mining town. He was trying
to picture a shape coming out of nowhere, a
shadow against the sun. He could almost feel the
sudden grab, hear the sharp snap. A broken back,
he guessed. Dead in an instant.
Cooper looked up. Had he spoken that last
thought out loud? PC Tracy Udall had been
watching him handle the bones, her expression
suggesting he might do something against procedure
at any moment. His secondment to the Rural
Crime Squad had given him a kind of loose cannon
status in Udall's eyes. He was the rogue
element that no one quite controlled.

"Where did you say these were found, Tracy?"
he asked.

Udall nodded at the opposite wall. "In a
Tupperware box. They were stuffed in a drawer,
with his underwear and socks."

She said it as if the socks made the presence of
bones worse, somehow. A casual attitude to death
was always disturbing. No one could tolerate a life
tossed away like so much rubbish.

As usual, Udall was in full uniform, her duty
belt loaded with equipment that rucked her yellow
high-vis jacket into untidy folds over her
waist. Handcuffs, baton, CS spray. And a series of
leather pouches that Cooper had forgotten the use
for. In fact, he didn't think there had been all
those items to carry when he was in uniform.
Changes happened fast in Derbyshire Constabulary,
and six years in CID werea long enough to
get out of touch with core policing.

"But at least they're only a handful of bones,"
said Udall. "Less than a handful."

The only thing she'd taken off was her hat,
which she laid carefully on a chair, a gesture to
informality. In the enclosed space, she had to
stand very close. And despite the six-inch difference
in their heights, Cooper found her slightly
intimidating.

This had been an unremarkable bedroom once
-- one of those tiny spaces that was no more than
a box room. There was just enough distance
between the walls to fit a bed, and a chest of drawers
under the window. He'd slept in a bedroom
like this himself as a child, back at Bridge End
Farm. But some youngsters spent their entire
lives in a space this size.

"I suppose he didn't have much interest in
bones," he said.

"No. They weren't one of his special trophies."

Downstairs, officers from Serious Crime could
be heard moving through the rooms, checking the
kitchen, breaking open the shed in the back yard.
They'd raided the house in response to intelligence
that it was being used to stash the proceeds
of activities by local drug dealers who were being
targeted in a major police operation. It was the
sort of place they might find to keep their money
safe until the attention died down. The officer in
charge downstairs had hopes of finding a couple of
hundred grand hidden under the floorboards, or
stuffed into coffee tins, the way a southern force
had in a similar raid a while ago.

Cooper turned slowly and studied the room. It
couldn't be called a bedroom any more. There was
no bed in it, for a start -- only a series of glassfronted
cabinets, a small table, and a single chair.
Some of the contents of the cabinets were difficult
to make out, unfamiliar shapes under a gathering
layer of dust. Shoeboxes and biscuit tins had been
crammed into the rest of the available space, and
two suitcases lay open on the floor.

Cooper put the bones down, feeling oddly disturbed
by the way they slid and rustled in their
evidence bag, like the last few crumbs in a packet
of biscuits.
"Prey, I suppose," he said.

Udall nodded. "Aren't they all?"

She was strangely quiet this morning. Cooper
wondered if some issue in her personal life had
come too close to the surface. Tracy Udall had two
small children at home, and he gathered that the
father had been absent from the word go. Present
for the conception, maybe, but missing for the
birth. Udall was as professional as they came, but
even police officers were human.

"A small species of some kind," he said. "It
would have been taken by the male, then dismembered
later on. You wouldn't think there'd be
much flesh on it, would you? Enough to keep a
few hungry mouths quiet for a while. But that's
all."

"Every scrap is important when you're a parent."

"I see. Well... maybe I don't."

"One day, Ben."

Between them, the boxes and suitcases in this
room contained a collection of several thousand
eggs. Nestling between layers of cotton wool were
the speckled pale greens and blues of bullfinches,
redstarts and wheatears, the creamy white of a
woodpecker. There were the blotched, chestnut
red of the peregrine, and goshawk eggs the colour
of the moon. Each item had been recorded in a
notebook, with the date, time and location of the
acquisition. Every egg had been labelled in precise
black letters, and its insides had been blown out
through a tiny hole drilled in its side. There had
been a lifetime of work in these dead things.

Cooper could see other items, too -- fleshless
skulls, clawed feet, severed wings. Some people
liked to collect the skeletons of dead birds. But
avian bones were so light and fragile they soon fell
apart, and all you found was a skull. A collector
hoped for a fledgling to die in the nest. Only then
could you retrieve a complete skeleton, if you were
lucky.

"I reckon our egg thief just scooped the entire
contents out of a nest," said Udall.

"He seems to have picked up practically anything
he could find."

"Yes. You might call him a bit of a magpie."

Relieved, Cooper felt the tension ease, without
knowing what had caused it in the first place.
"He's a genuine collector, certainly. Obsessive,
I'd say. Real collectors always seem slightly unbalanced
to the rest of us."

"As if the rest of us are normal, Ben?" Udall
sighed. "Yes, you're right. And that'll probably
count in his favour with the courts, if we ever get
him that far."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, we can't prove he was engaged in this
activity for personal gain."

"He wasn't dealing?"

"Not so far as we can tell. By the look of this
room, he seems to have held on to everything he
found, no matter how worthless and bizarre."

Cooper picked up the file Udall had given him,
and frowned at the mug shot on the first page.
Kevin Hewitt, aged forty-two, an unemployed van
driver.

"Single, I'd guess," he said. "Oh... no, I'm
wrong. Separated from his wife."

"That's worse than single," said Udall, with
feeling.

Leaning past her, Cooper examined the aluminium
cage that stood on the table. The whole
room could have done with fumigating, but the
area around the cage smelled worst of all.
"And this was Mr Hewitt's most special trophy,
I suppose," he said.
"You could call it that. It makes me sick to look
at it."
The goshawk chick had been very young. How
anyone had imagined they could keep it alive in
an old parrot cage in a box room was beyond
belief. Now it lay in a pathetic heap, its eyes
glazed with death, its beak gaping to show a
glimpse of red tongue. The debris around it on the
soiled newspaper would be difficult to identify. It
might be interesting to know what Hewitt had
been trying to feed the chick with, but it made no
difference in the long run.
Cooper looked at Udall. "Definitely a goshawk?
I can't tell at this age."
"Sergeant Jackson will be here soon to confirm
it. Then we'll get the remains to the lab to do a
cross-check against the DNA database."
"But ten to one it's a wild bird, snatched from
the nest?"
"Oh, a hundred to one," said Udall. "A

thousand to one."
The young raptor could be called beautiful,
even in death. There was a kind of elegance in the
angle of the head, and the way the feathers lay. Its
legs were stretched out, as if reaching for its prey.
Yet it would never have seen prey, except at second
hand, delivered half-digested from its
mother's beak. Those talons had been made to
ride currents of air over Alport Castles crags in
the Upper Derwent Valley, not to lie on a filthy
sheet of paper in a collector's trophy room.
Cooper studied the young goshawk closely
before he straightened up to his full height and
faced Udall again.
"And where is Mr Hewitt now?"
"Well, that," said Udall, "is what we have to
find out."

Kevin Hewitt was already too high, and he was
sweating badly. A hot trickle ran down his forehead,
and another dripped into his shirt. He
didn't have a hand free to wipe it away, so the perspiration
was already in his eyes, blurring his
vision and making him blink. He stopped for a

rest, digging the gaffs of his irons into the bark
and clutching a branch for support. He was
breathing hard, and he could feel pains starting to
shoot through his shoulders.
"Damn, she was right. I am getting too old for
this."
The only response was an angry, high-pitched
cry from the bird circling above the tree. A coarse gyak, gyak, gyak, telling the world there was a disturbance
near her nest. The bird was way up in
the sky, almost too far for Hewitt to see, even if he
could use the binoculars. But he knew she was
watching him, her eyes so much sharper than his,
observing his slightest movement.
At this time of year, the female wouldn't hesitate
to attack him, if he got too close. Three
pounds of angry female goshawk were quite a
scary thought. The beak was fearsome enough,
but you didn't want to tangle with those talons.
They were designed for tearing lumps of meat off
warm prey.
The male bird, the tercel, would be away hunting,
soaring invisibly over the conifer plantations,
or flicking among the trees, twisting and turning

in pursuit of some prey on the ground. When
Hewitt imagined the strike, the talons sinking
into fur, he knew why people wanted these birds.
Goshawks had short, powerful wings that made
them manoeuvrable in dense woodland. But they
were totally focused on their prey, and sometimes
they collided with obstacles. He'd heard of one collector
who stumbled across a stunned bird in the
woods and snatched it up before it flew off again.
Lucky bugger. It would never happen to him.
Kevin Hewitt had to work for everything he got.
Hewitt's common sense was telling him he'd
climbed too far. But he couldn't go back, not now.
He coughed as a scatter of dirt fell on his face and
into his mouth. That was the story of his life.
Going out on a limb for people who always let him
down, who'd leave him to crash and burn. When
his end came, everyone would stand and watch
him fall. No one would care what happened to
him. Whether he ended up spending a few months
in the nick, or lying down there on those rocks,
with his neck broken. What was the difference?
Cautiously, Hewitt inched further along the
branch, wincing as a patch of bark bit through his

jeans. Even that movement shifted his balance,
and he had to clutch at the rope fastened to the
trunk. For a few seconds, he wobbled dangerously.
His hands shook, and his palms were slippery
with sweat. What he really needed was a safety
harness, the kind that tree surgeons used. But
there was no way he could carry a thing like that
around, not without some nosey sod asking what
he was up to. The climbing irons were tricky
enough to hide.
Of course, if he was caught, there'd definitely
be a prison sentence this time. They might even
impound his old Bedford van, and then he'd really
be sunk.
But it was worse than that. If he landed in jail,
Janine would do what she'd threatened and file
for divorce next day. She'd get to keep the kids,
too. No doubt about that. Women had it all their
own way in family courts. They could refuse
access and ignore as many court orders as they
liked -- and they were never punished for it. If he
blew his last chance with Janine, he'd never see
Jack and Ebony again. He might as well throw
himself in the reservoir if that happened.

Hewitt glanced over his shoulder. Yes, Howden
was nice and handy down there. Plenty deep
enough at the moment, too. He could just imagine
himself taking a header off that stupid bloody
dam, the one they'd built to look like a castle, with
its towers and battlements.
For a moment, he thought of the male goshawk,
returning to a favourite perch after a successful
attack on some unsuspecting rabbit, then pluck1ing
it and pulling out the entrails before it ate the
meat. That was the way he could see himself end
ing up. Not like the hawk, flying free over the
moor. But like the poor bloody rabbit, gutted and
I skinned.
'Hewitt sighed. "Onward and upward, damn it."
IHe began to move again, slowly and painfully,
peering up into the leaves. The nest was up there I somewhere, he was sure. It was almost within his h grasp, if only he could see it.

"A goshawk chick all right. They can tear up their
own food at about a month old, but this one is only
[ just starting to feather."
Sergeant Phil Jackson was approaching thirty

years' service, and no doubt counting the days to
his full pension. He looked as though he'd been
round the block a few times in his thirty. More
than a few. Cooper had taken a liking to him
immediately.
"It's a pity, but it's practically impossible to keep the breeding sites of rare species a secret,"
said Jackson, as he removed the dead goshawk from its cage. "Word gets around, and twitchers
turn up in their hundreds. The only thing that
works is guarding nests day and night, and no one
has the resources to do that."
Cooper was standing at the window, looking
down into the street. This was an ordinary terraced
house -- a typical council property, identical
to thousands of others on the eastern borders of
Derbyshire. A cluster of spectators had gathered
in the street, drawn from their houses by the sight
of police activity. Actual miners might still live in
some of these homes, men who were working the
handful of pits left over from the closures of the
80s and 90s.
He could see that the Serious Crime team were
starting to leave already. There had been no stash

of money in Kevin Hewitt's house, then. No
wedges of used notes under the floorboards, nothing
stuffed in the coffee tins except coffee. Not
even a sniff from the Springer spaniel that was
now being loaded back into his van. The team
would be off to raid another property somewhere,
probably. Some officers enjoyed the smash and
grab jobs, preferred to leave the legwork to someone
else. Cooper didn't mind that.
"And birds of prey are particularly at risk,
Sergeant?" he asked.
"Oh, yes -- and the rarer the better, as far as
collectors are concerned. At one time, the fashion
was to stuff raptors and mount them on a perch
in your sitting room. Then eggs became the target.
As long as there's money to be made, birds of
1 prey will be killed."
"Supply and demand."
i"Like anything else."
Jackson was a wildlife liaison officer working
with the Peak Nestwatch project. He was also
South Yorkshire Police, but county boundaries
were meaningless up on the moors of the Dark
Peak.

Thanks to Tracy Udall, Cooper knew the basics
of Nestwatch. The Upper Derwent Valley was an
area that had been associated with birds of prey
for a long time. Until the 1960s, they'd been
absent for more than a century, eliminated by pesticides
and persecution. Then the goshawk had
returned to breed, followed by peregrine falcons.
For twenty or thirty years, visitors had been able
to watch them displaying in the spring over the
Alport Castle crags. The fastest birds in Britain,
graceful and spectacular.
But alarm bells had rung in 2001, when just
one goshawk chick survived from eleven nests,
and adult birds vanished from the valley. It had
been impossible to tell what was happening,
because most of the land was in private ownership.
But something had to be done. The result
was Pak Nestwatch, a partnership between the
police and bodies like the RSPB and the national
park.
"So is the situation improving?" asked Cooper.
"Changing, anyway," said Jackson. "When the
powers of imprisonment came in, serial egg collectors
took a step back. It wasn't a question of a

twenty-quid fine any more. Collectors knew they
could go down."
«So -- ?"
"So they took one of two routes. They either
gave up altogether, or they decided it would have
to be worth the risk they were taking."
"The stakes were raised."
"Exactly." Jackson looked up, assessing him
with a cool blue eye. "Are you interested? We can
always do with some help."
"Anything I can do, Sergeant."
"If you've got time later, I'll show you the hide
i we use."
1"Igooffdutyatfive."
"Fine."
Jackson turned his attention back to the 1 goshawk. The bird's down was thick and woolly, 4 but when Jackson ran his thumb across it, Cooper
could see the first adult plumage -- dark, trans
I verse bands on the flight feathers, longitudinal
markings on the wing coverts. Within a few more
days, those feathers would have been strong
enough to take the bird into the air, and even
Kevin Hewitt wouldn't have caught it.

The legs had only a tinge of the bright yellow
characteristic of the adult. Later, the eyes would
have turned that piercing orange-yellow that gave
the goshawk such an evil appearance. If it was a
male bird, it would have developed the dark band
behind the eyes that made it look even more fearsome.
But the strength of the feet and talons was
already obvious, and the sharp hook of the beak
was unmistakeable.
"There's only a window of about two and a half
weeks between feeding themselves, and their first
flight," said Jackson. "Mr Hewitt took one too
young. A pity the cameras didn't pick him up at
the time."
"Oh, yes, the cameras."
Nestwatch had introduced high-tech surveillance
techniques at an early stage. One year, live
CCTV pictures had been transmitted direct from
a goshawk nest to the Fairholmes visitor centre.
In the street, two youths looked up and saw
him. Cooper let the curtain fall back. Just as in
every town centre, offenders intent on raiding
protected nest sites had learned to wear a hood or
a hat in front of cameras to prevent identification.

Nestwatch had responded by taking samples of
DNA from the feathers of birds of prey and setting
up a database to identify stolen specimens.
Sergeant Jackson had turned the dead bird
over, lifting one of the bare yellow legs.
"See the ring?" he said.
"Yes, I noticed that."
"A Schedule 4 bird bred in captivity has to be
fitted with a ring issued by DEFRA, and stamped
with a serial number. The ring is what distinguishes
it from a wild bird. You have to put it on
the chick soon after hatching. It passes over the
foot, and becomes impossible to remove intact
once the bird grows."
"But this bird has a ring. Doesn't that mean it's
captive bred?"
"No. In goshawks, there's a difference in size
between the male and female birds, so there are
two sizes of ring. The normal practice is to fit both
rings until a chick's sex becomes apparent -- and
that isn't until it's fledged. Then the wrong ring is
removed. This particular bird is too young for
anyone to be able to judge its sex. Yet it only has
one ring."

"Can we check the serial number?"
"I've already done it. This ring was issued by
DEFEA four years ago. The captive bird it was
made for would be fully adult by now." Jackson
shook his head. "You know, if this wild bird had
reached adulthood, Mr Hewitt might have got
away with it. Abuses can only be detected if
there's a visible discrepancy between the ringed
bird and its registered age. But when it's an obvious
juvenile--."
"I see. So if he got a ring on it, he must have
taken the bird from the nest just after it hatched."
"Yes."
"Which means he managed to keep it alive for
a while."
"Three or four weeks, I'd say."
The newly hatched goshawk would have been a
sitting target for Kevin Hewitt. Cooper could picture
him smiling as he peered over the edge of the
nest, reaching in a hand to pick out a chick with
silky white down and half-closed eyes, scarcely
able to lift its head.
"So he used a fraudulent ring? But, Sergeant,
you said just now these rings can't be removed."


"Well, that wasn't quite true," admitted
Jackson. "There is one way that a ring can be
removed intact."
"What way is that?"
"By cutting off the bird's leg."
"Damn."
Jackson stared at him grimly. "Yes. Let's hope
the captive hawk had already died a natural
death."

Janine Hewitt was just leaving her front door
when Cooper and Udall arrived on the Devonshire
housing estate. She had one child in a pushchair,
and a boy of about four trailing behind. According
to her husband's record, there was an older son,
presumably at school. Janine looked a good few
years younger than Kevin -- not much more than
thirty, but thin and gaunt-eyed, like a woman old
before her time.
"Going somewhere, Mrs Hewitt?" asked Udall,
subtly placing herself in the woman's path, forcing
her to slow down.
"We're off to the park for an hour. Nothing
wrong with that, is there?" she said.

"Giving the kids a bit of fresh air? Well, it's not
a bad day for it."
"It's for me," said Janine. "It drives me crazy
being cooped up in the house all day. You've no
idea what it's like. One of these mornings, I'm
going to lose it completely and go mental. Then
you lot would have reason to come round quick, I
reckon."
"We'll walk with you," said Cooper.
"Please yourselves."
The older child stared at the police officers as
they walked across the road. He clung to his
mother's hand, but showed little interest in her.
Udall's uniform seemed to fascinate him
instead.
"We're looking for Kevin, you know," said
Udall. "We need to locate him urgently."
Janine didn't answer. They entered a small
recreation area -- a stretch of grass grown
slightly too long since the council last cut it, two
lines of wooden benches facing each other, a few
shrubs and flower beds, a fenced playground
where children clambered on a slide.
"Did you hear me, Mrs Hewitt?"

"Yes, you're looking for Kevin. Isn't everybody?"

Cooper and Udall exchanged glances. "Has
someone else been asking about him?"

Janine settled herself on a bench. Not the first
bench or the second, but the third seat along the
path, with a view of the playground, near an old
iron drinking fountain. She chose it as if it was
routine, regardless of the fact that all the other
benches were empty.

"There were some other coppers here this
morning. They searched my house," she said.

"That would be Serious Crime."

"They said they were looking for money.
Money? Do I look as though I have a secret wad of
dosh? What's it all about?"

"Well, what did they tell you?"

"They didn't tell me anything. It looks like
you're not going to, either. It doesn't make any
sense."

"Mrs Hewitt, where is your husband?" asked
Udall.

"I don't know," said Janine, sounding almost
relieved that she was finally able to make sense of
what she was being asked.
"When did you last see him?"
"He hasn't been around for weeks. Three
weeks, at least. I don't know exactly. I'm not his
keeper. We don't live together any more."
"Yes, we know that. But he keeps in touch,
surely? He visits the children from time to time?"
"Sometimes. But, like I said -- ."
" -- you haven't seen him for three weeks. Is
that what you said?"
Cooper watched Janine Hewitt closely while
Udall questioned her. After a few minutes, she
began to get nervous.
"I don't have to answer any more questions,"
she said. "It's upsetting the kids."
"You'll let us know if you hear from Kevin,"
said Cooper, handing her his card.
At first he didn't think she was going to take it,
but politeness seemed to get the better of her, and
she shoved the card into her pocket.
"I'm off," she said.
"It was a short visit to the park, Janine."
"I didn't like the atmosphere."
The four-year-old seemed disappointed when

his mother dragged him away. Cooper felt warm,
and looked at the drinking fountain. But he could
see there had been no water in it for decades.

"Who else do we have on the list, Tracy?" he
asked.

"A fellow egg collector, Gareth Stark. We think
he was Hewitt's partner at one time."

"So what happened? Did they fall out?"

"Stark got caught in possession and did three
months. He claims to have given up egg collecting
now."

"And become a law-abiding citizen?"

"We'll see."

They walked back to the car, which they'd been
careful to leave in sight -- a vital precaution on
the Devonshire Estate.

"Did you believe Janine Hewitt when she said
she hadn't seen Kevin for three weeks?" asked
Udall.

"She didn't quite say that. Didn't you notice?
She answered you obliquely -- she said Kevin
'hadn't been around'. Evading a direct answer is
a classic sign of a lie."

Udall nodded. "I should have pressed her on it."
"It wouldn't have done any good. You'd just
have forced her to lie directly. Then she would
have resented us, and we'd lose her co-operation
altogether."
"Co-operation? Is that what you'd call it?"
"She did speak to us," said Cooper. "Around
here, that means we're practically best friends."

2.



Gareth Stark had been brought into the
police station at Edendale. He was sitting
in Interview Room Two with a plastic cup
in a paper napkin, staring at the coffee in disgust.
He had long, thin fingers and a mane of dark hair
that was probably tied into a pony tail when he
wanted to look trendy.
His expression changed from disgust to outrage
when he heard Udall's first question.
"I wasn't just some egg collector, my dear," he
said. "I was an oologist. For me, it was a question
of scientific study."
"Oh, of course."
Cooper suspected that calling Tracy Udall 'my

dear' was likely to earn Stark a crack on the head
with her side-handled baton if he wasn't careful.
But Stark seemed oblivious. He looked from one
to the other, and a curl came to his lip.

"Without the early collectors, we wouldn't possess
half the knowledge about bird species that we
do now. And there wouldn't be specimens in the
museums for future generations to study."

"But those collectors did all the work,"
suggested Cooper. "We don't need any more
specimens now."

"How do you know?" said Stark quickly.

"Fair enough, sir. We don't."

The lack of argument seemed to deflate him.

"What about your partner, Kevin Hewitt?"
asked Udall.

"Partner?" Stark laughed. "Kevin was useful,
that's all. He could climb trees. And he developed
a sort of sly talent for avoiding getting caught. An
instinctive cunning. But he never had the brains.
Kevin was just a collector. Too obsessive, too
greedy. Eventually, he was bound to make a mistake."

"But you were the one who got caught. You
received a three-month prison sentence."

Stark's face froze. "Not through my own mistake."

"And yet you didn't provide information
against your partner. That was very loyal."

"Kevin wasn't -- ." Stark stopped, and grimaced.
"I know what you're doing. You're trying
to provoke me. Well, it won't work. I'm here voluntarily,
to provide information. I can leave any
time I want to."

"Kevin is back to his old trade," said Cooper.
"Did you know?"

"He would never have seen it as a trade. Egg
collecting was always a passion for Kevin. He's
never been driven by money."

"Well, Mr Hewitt seems to have lost his principles.
He's working for money now. And we'd like
to know who he's working for."

Stark gazed at the wall, and at first Cooper
thought he wasn't going to respond. But then he
sighed and slumped in his chair.

"He must be going after the peregrines, I suppose.
Or is it goshawks?"

"How did you know that?" asked Udall.
"One of the first principles of egg collecting is
'the rarer the better'."
"Who would Kevin be working with now, Mr
Stark? We need names."
"I have no idea. I lost touch with that world
when I got the conviction. Suddenly, I became persona
non grata. And don't ask me where Kevin
will go. The birds he'll be looking for don't always
use the same nests every year. Kevin will have
found new sites. That's his skill. It's what he
does."
"Not for much longer," said Cooper.

Back at his desk, Cooper opened Kevin Hewitt's
file. Hewitt had a record of minor offences, mostly
between the ages of fifteen and twenty-five. There
had been spells of community service, probation
and fines. Despite being a serial offender, he'd
avoided prison. That was mostly because Hewitt
had never been convicted of a violent offence. The
prisons were too full to send away anyone except
the most dangerous offenders.
Cooper put some actions in progress -- an alert
for the whereabouts of Hewitt's Bedford van, a

request for his phone records, to see who he'd
been calling in the past few days. Bank records
would show if Hewitt was spending money or
drawing cash out somewhere, but he'd need
authorisation for those.
Jackson and Udall had provided intelligence on
egg collectors and known associates of Hewitt's.
Cooper felt sure he'd have more sense than to go
to an address already known to the police, though.
It wouldn't even take that instinctive cunning
Gareth Stark had referred to.
A few minutes later, he saw Udall emerge from
a meeting she'd been attending.
"Serious Crime still have Kevin Hewitt as a
suspect, but he's dropped very low on their list,"
she said. "They think since the principle suspects
came under scrutiny, they've been using people
like Hewitt for their own purposes."
"Like stashing the proceeds?"
Udall nodded. "On the surface, he might not
seem like the obvious choice."
"But that's a very good reason for choosing
him, right?"
"Exactly. He could have been set up as a fall

guy, an expendable asset."
"Someone is doing a bit of strategic thinking at
the top, then. It doesn't sound like a bunch of
unemployed steel workers making a bit of pocket
money, Tracy."
"No. I think that's why they're happy to leave
Hewitt to us."
"So we're not off the enquiry?"
"Far from it. Do you know, they even asked if
the Rural Crime Squad could mount a surveillance
operation in the Upper Derwent."
"What, using CROPS?" asked Cooper.
"We have people trained in CROPS, of course.
But have you seen the moors up there?"
"Yes. A bit exposed for covert rural observation
points."
"You'd need to be able to disguise yourself as a
grouse to pass unnoticed."
"From next month, a grouse would be the most
dangerous thing you could look like, Tracy. They
have a pretty short life span once the shooting
season starts."
Udall sighed. "Country sports. I can't see the
appeal. Give me dinner and a few glasses of wine

in a nice restaurant any time."
Cooper looked down at his desk, wondering if
he'd just been given a signal. Was he supposed to
respond to a cue?
"Tracy, I've been thinking about Kevin
Hewitt," he said.
"Oh, yes?"
"He's well-known to us, of course. And the
funny thing is, I remember him. I even interviewed
him a couple of times myself. But I never
thought Hewitt was a real villain. He struck me as
too much of a family man. He loved his kids, no
doubt about it. I can't see him taking the risk of
being put away and not seeing them for a few
years."
"Things change," said Udall. "Children go
through phases when they become unbearable.
Sometimes I feel I wouldn't mind a spell in the
nick to get away from my two. It'd be a nice holiday."
"I've
watched my nieces grow up, but I suppose
it's different when you're actually a parent."
"There's no escape," said Udall. "And a lot of
men can't take that responsibility."

Cooper frowned thoughtfully. "Hewitt must
know he's likely to land a prison sentence this
time."
"Maybe he doesn't care any more, since his wife
kicked him out. Some men get like that. They see
themselves on the long slide downhill, and they
can't face it. Then they turn reckless, as if they're
inviting disaster. It's a sort of death wish."
"Rather prison than trying to live on your
own?"
"Well, at least you have a place where you
belong, a status in some kind of hierarchy, even if
it's right at the bottom. It's an animal instinct,
the desire to be part of a pack."
"And Kevin seems to know all about animal instincts."
Udall pulled her hat on and adjusted her belt.
"It's true, though," she said. "We're not made to be
solitary. Loneliness is the biggest killer there is."
Surprised, Cooper looked up at her. But she was
already leaving.

By five-thirty, it was turning into a grey, claggy
day, so common in the high moorland of the Dark

Peak. Cooper had crossed the viaduct over the
drowned village of Ashopton, and turned off the
A57 towards the Fairholmes visitor centre. Most
of the pull-ins along the eastern arm of
Ladybower Reservoir were full of cars, despite the
weather.
On summer weekends, the road beyond
Fairholmes was closed to traffic. A shuttle bus ran
visitors up the valley instead, skirting the banks
of the reservoirs as far as the turnaround at
King's Tree. Occasionally, the police got calls from
tourists who'd missed the last bus back and were
too exhausted to face a six-mile walk.
Today, though, the road was open. Cooper
steered cautiously through the ducks that waddled
in ragged troupes across the road and drove
through a gate past the western tower of Derwent
Dam. In places, these reservoirs had formed
sandy beaches that were exposed when the water
level dropped. On a sunny day it was a bit like the
seaside. Not quite the Costa del Sol, perhaps, but
you could use your imagination.
It was only from the map that the geography of
the Upper Derwent became clear. The long valley

was filled with reservoirs -- Howden, Derwent,
Ladybower. The lower slopes were covered with
conifer plantations, and above them rose the
heather moorland, vast acres etched by doughs
and scattered with cairns. On some of those
moors, there were no signs of civilisation for miles
in any direction. Well, not unless you counted
grouse butts as civilisation.
Cooper met Sergeant Jackson at a gate providing
access on to Lightside Moor. He had another
man with him, a middle aged figure in tweed cap,
green shooting vest and brown corduroy trousers
-- an outfit designed to blend in with the moor.
An English pointer sat behind him, constantly
alert. Cooper approved of that. He liked a real
working dog.
"This is Harry Blakelock, who owns Lightside,"
said Jackson. "Owner -- and keeper too. Eh,
Harry?"
"I just have a lad who helps me part-time," said
Blakelock sourly. "There's not enough money in
grouse shooting to employ full-time keepers. Not
on a moor this size."
"Mr Blakelock says we can take my Landrover

I

most of the way across if we want," said Jackson.
He raised an eyebrow. "But I thought you might
rather walk."
"Suits me."
Cooper laced his boots and fastened his leggings.
With a woolly hat, he'd be
indistinguishable from any walker on the
moors. Blakelock watched him, his jowly cheeks
sunk into the collar of his jacket. Cooper noticed
a green gun slip on the ground nearby, the carrying
case for Blakelock's shotgun. He'd almost
missed seeing it in the heather, and he knew it
wasn't approved practice to leave a gun lying
around, even for a few minutes. But Mr
Blakelock wouldn't have been shooting at this
time of year, unless he was taking crows and
pigeons. They were classed as pests, and therefore
open season.
"Stay on the paths," said Blakelock. "Don't go
disturbing my birds."
Jackson nodded. "Don't worry, Harry."
Cooper gave the moor owner a smile, which
wasn't returned. The birds that concerned
Blakelock were red grouse. They'd be his source of

income once the shooting season started next
month.
At first glance, Lightside Moor seemed almost
featureless, the hanks of heather and whinberry
blurring into the distance. As they headed up the
first slope, Cooper caught a glimpse of something
yellow below the crest of a ridge, but within a couple
of steps it was hidden by the terrain.
Cooper looked at the map for the names of the
moors. He saw Alport, Westend, Ronksley. And
this one, Lightside, surrounded on all sides by
more moorland, plantations to the east, and the
boggy ground of Featherbed Moss to the north.
Gamekeepers tended these moors all year, battling
encroaching vegetation and disease-carrying
ticks. And, of course, the predators -- or 'vermin',
as so many keepers called them.
"So where do you think the biggest risks for
birds of prey come from, Sergeant?" he asked,
pausing to let the older man catch up.
"Well, pigeon fanciers don't like them -- particularly
peregrines, because they take racing
pigeons sometimes. And gamekeepers don't like
any birds of prey, because they think they reduce

the grouse population."
"Well, they do. Don't they?"
Jackson's breath was getting ragged as they
approached the top of the moor. "Some do. Hen
harriers."
"Anyone else?"
"Oh, a few serial egg collectors are still out
there. And raptor keepers who want to improve a
captive strain."
They came across a grouse butt that had been
dug into a peat bank and shored up with sheets of
corrugated iron. On the next slope, Cooper could
see another butt. And beyond that a third, and a
fourth.
The yellow shape he'd glimpsed turned out to
be a battered fibreglass shelter. The foam insulation
was peeling from the walls, and swallows had
built their nest in a loose fold of foam. Two
scarred wooden benches inside could probably seat about ten men with their guns and dogs
when the weather turned bad during a shoot. But
visitors other than shooters had engraved disrespectful
graffiti in the remaining insulation.
In the valley behind him, Cooper saw Howden

Reservoir, sheltering deep in its conifer plantations.
The only sounds on the moor were curlew
and snipe, crying at the presence of intruders.
"Nearly there now," said Jackson. "Thank
God."

It looked like an ordinary garden shed. A shed
that someone had dropped from an aircraft on to
a remote part of the moors. Okay, they'd dropped
it carefully -- it was perfectly intact, anchored to
the ground and coated with preservative. Its
weather boarding and green felt roof looked
incongruous above the crags of Alport Castles,
though. It was one of the most unlikely tourist
attractions Cooper could imagine, even in the
Peak District. This was where people came to
watch birds displaying over the crags.
"We might see birds here, if we're lucky," said
Jackson.
Cooper had brought his own binoculars, an old
pair of Zeiss 10 x 50s. He adjusted them as
Jackson explained the excitement about eggs
being laid in goshawk nests since late April.
Incubation lasted for around five weeks, and that

was the time when nest sites attracted the attention
of predators in human shape. Egg collectors
wanted freshly laid eggs, which were easier to
blow, so they were out in their camouflage gear as
soon as word got round that the first goshawk was
laying.
"They spend all winter planning their next season,
as if it's a military campaign -- targets,
tactics, how to avoid the enemy," said Jackson.
"They're really getting organised."
Alport Castles themselves towered over the valley
and the farmstead way below. Tors perched
precariously on the summit, and boulders were
tumbled on the slopes. If the mist descended, it
would be easy to look out of the corners of your
eyes and mistake the thousands of gritstone boulders
for the shapes of people, crowds of them
standing perfectly still and ghost-like on the edge
of the moor.
Cooper noticed a pair of black shapes circling over the moor, and turned his binoculars westwards.
Carrion crows. This pair probablythey had
their eyes on a weak lamb somewhere. Soon
they'd land nearby and wait for it to weaken.

Then they'd begin to work on its eyes, like delicacies
that had to be eaten fresh. Once their victim
was blinded, the crows could eat the rest of it at
their leisure.
"And what if the goshawk's eggs survive to be
hatched?"
"Then the egg collectors are replaced by people
who want live chicks to sell, or to raise in captivity.
It's a never-ending battle, Ben."
Cooper tried to analyse the background noise.
He couldn't see a road from here, so probably it
was only the sound of the wind scything through
the plantations. Close to the edge, the gusts were
dangerously strong, banging angrily between the
rocks. A half-grown sheep called plaintively -- a
strange, unnatural cry that stuck in its throat.
He lifted the binoculars again, and saw a single
outline soaring over the valley. This time, it was a
peregrine. The bird rose effortlessly on a thermal,
then flicked a wing and swooped behind the crags,
perhaps spotting the movement of prey.
"They don't need binoculars," said Jackson.
Watching the bird, Cooper found the phrase
'eagle eyed' going through his mind. The only way

the police could achieve that sort of surveillance
in the Upper Derwent was to get Oscar Hotel 88
airborne from Ripley, and there was no way he
could justify the cost of a helicopter.
"It's amazing there are still individuals plundering
nests," said Jackson. "They obviously
haven't heard about the measures we're taking to
protect endangered species these days." "They might have done," said Cooper.
"Publicity doesn't necessarily deter people. They
always think it can't happen to them."
"Well, the last one was caught by the cameras.
He wasn't too difficult to identify, because he was
a known collector."
"I've heard you sometimes use off-duty police
officers pretending to be campers," said Cooper.
"Is that right?"
Jackson smiled. "I believe it is."

In fact, Cooper knew an officer who'd volunteered
for the job, and had spent three days in the
Upper Derwent with his tent and binoculars. A few
hours of your time were worthwhile if you cared
about the national park's wildlife. Maybe that was
what Sergeant Jackson had in mind for him.

Cooper noticed a figure striding purposefully
towards them along the edge of the moor.
"Who's this?"
"Oh, it's one of our volunteers," said Jackson.
"A keen birdwatcher, Calvin Ryan. And when I say
keen --."
"He'd have to be really dedicated to come all
the way up here."
"Oh, he's here regularly. Cal is a bit of a crank,
I suppose, but we can't discourage him. The more
eyes we have, the better."
Ryan was wearing a knitted beanie hat, pulled
so low that it almost met his goatee beard. His
rucksack had pockets and Velcro straps that held
camera, notebook, mobile phone, and other items
that Tracy Udall might have been happy to wear
on her belt.
"Peregrine," he said, gesturing excitedly.
"Yes, we've seen it."
Ryan wiped a sheen of sweat from his forehead
with the back of a hand, and looked at Cooper.
"Peregrines were almost wiped out in Derbyshire,
thanks to pesticides. When they came back,
Alport Castles was the first site they chose to

begin breeding again."
"This is one of my colleagues, Cal," said
Jackson. "He's not a tourist."
Ryan looked disappointed. "Oh."
But he wasn't deterred for long from expressing
his enthusiasm. He followed the flight of the
bird over the valley with eagerness.
"I love the goshawks and peregrines," he said.
"They're the most fantastic of all the birds."
"They look great when they're flying," agreed
Cooper.
"It's not just the way they look."
Ryan laid a hand on his sleeve, gripping a bit
too tightly. "Goshawks mate for life, you know. A
bonded pair will hunt co-operatively, two of them
together. Then, when the chicks are hatched, the
tercel isn't allowed near the nest. He has to leave
the food he catches at a distance, where the
female bird can fetch it for the chicks."
They lost sight of the bird again, and a moment
of silence followed, as if they'd just been deprived
of their reason for communicating with each
other.
"Do they fly a long way from the nest site?"

asked Cooper.
"The male hunts up to three miles away."
"So anyone with a rifle could pick off that hird,
and we'd never be any wiser."
"That's what happened in the past, we think,"
said Jackson. "The male birds just disappeared. If
they were killed, the bodies were either removed
by someone, or eaten by scavengers."
Ryan tugged angrily at his hat. "Not this
one. He'll be back. Sometimes when he catches
prey, he stores it in a safe place for feeding on
later."
"I suppose a little bit of decay makes the meat
tastier," suggested Jackson. "It's like you'd hang
a joint of beef for a few days to make it sweet and
tender."
Ryan pulled a disgusted expression. "I'd like
you to know I'm a vegetarian."
A gust of wind blew along the edge of the valley,
and a shower spattered their faces.
"We need more people watching," said Ryan.
"More eyes equals more protection."
"So I heard."
Yes, Cooper had heard it from Phil Jackson

only a few minutes earlier, but not with so much
fervour.
"Look at this place," said Ryan, waving a dismissive
hand at the grouse moor behind him.
"Birds that hunt the moorland are persecuted so
much they've stopped breeding altogether in
prime habitats."
Cooper glanced at Jackson, but he was edging
away, on the pretence of checking the moorings of
the shed.
"So you blame the moorland owners and gamekeepers,
Mr Ryan?"
Ryan glared at him as if Cooper had just called
his entire belief system into doubt.
"Persecution definitely exists," he said. "You
can see that. And these grouse moors are where
the conflict occurs."
"The problem comes from a minority, though,
surely? There are people who actively protect
birds of prey, but also shoot."
Ryan seemed to hold himself in with an effort.
"I don't have a problem with shooting. But I do
have a problem with raptor persecution. The bottom
line is that birds of prey are protected by law."

Ryan hitched his rucksack and moved off
along the edge, with the air of someone who'd
won an argument through sheer righteousness.
He reminded Cooper of a street preacher -- one
of those wild-eyed men who lurked outside shopping
precincts, confident that they only had to
shout at people long enough for everyone to
agree with them.
Jackson smiled at Cooper when Ryan was out
of earshot.
"Cal's right, though," he said. "At the end of the
day, it was public opinion that led to a ban on fox
hunting. What will be next on the public's list of
things to ban if they see birds of prey being killed?"
"You think the shooters and shoot owners are
worried?"
For a moment, Jackson followed the flight of
the peregrine until it vanished against the background
of heather.
"I think some of them will be panicking," he
said. "There's a propaganda war going on, Ben -- and they're losing right now."

The next tree was even higher. Hewitt had to
lean against the trunk for a while until he felt
strong enough to carry on. He dug a bottle of
water out of his pocket and took a long drink,
then urinated on the grass at the base of the fir.
It was supposed to bring good luck, wasn't it?
Hewitt grinned to himself, but the sweat drying
on his face made smiling uncomfortable.
What he really needed was a nice stream nearby.
He could imagine clear, cold water tumbling
over a few stones, tinged slightly brown from
the peat, like a good malt whisky. Water was
everywhere in the Peak District, cascading in
torrents from the hills to fill up the reservoirs.
But there was no stream here in the plantation.
Not for half a mile or so, way back across the
moor.
Then Hewitt saw the bird. It swooped over
the woods, hovered for a second, then soared out
again, far above his head. He caught the flicker
of plumage and saw the shape of the wings
against the light as it turned. A goshawk.
Probably the male bird, the tercel, hunting for
prey to feed its mate and the chicks in the nest.

Fumbling for his binoculars, Hewitt moved
away from the tree and tried to keep the bird in
sight. If it decided to pursue something on the
ground, it would move too fast for him to follow.
But if he could track its movements and see where
it returned to, it would save him a lot of pain and
effort.
He lost the goshawk for a moment, and
scanned backwards and forwards over the moor
anxiously, straining his eyes to pick out any
movement against the background. He caught
up with the bird as it skimmed low over a slope.
It was swinging its head from side to side,
searching for rodents in the vegetation. Hewitt
admired the grace of its flight, the way it hardly
seemed to move its wings to maintain height,
just that flick of a pinion to change direction or
catch a thermal and rise several feet in a second.
And then he heard the shot. The crack of it
echoed across the moor and into the valley, bouncing
of the ramparts of Alport Castles.
And suddenly the bird was gone from his field
of vision. Hewitt was left with nothing more than
the impression of exploding feathers, a body that

was lighter than air tossed over and over, like a
rag caught in the wind. Somebody had shot the
tercel.

3.



Next morning, Sergeant Jackson came into
the CID office at Edendale. He was carrying
an evidence bag that contained a
dead goshawk.
"A walker picked it up, and phoned in," he said.
"Another few hours, and the carcass would have
disappeared, one way or another."
"Shot?"
"Yes."
Cooper watched Jackson turn the bird over in
his hands, examining its wings, the talons and
beak -- all the hallmarks of a raptor. There was
even a reason why its legs and feet were bare of
feathers. It was so they didn't get covered in blood

when it sank its talons into prey.
But there was blood now, and plenty of it -- the
whole of the bird's left side was matted.
Cooper could sense Jackson's despair at the
fate of the goshawk. Almost the only action he
could take was to record the incident. And even
that was a recent innovation. For many years, no
police force had prioritised wildlife incidents,
because they weren't recordable. If you cleared up
a burglary, it came off the crime figures. But catch
a bird thief, and it didn't show up in any statistics.
No target to be met, no performance to be measured.
Now at least the public could see that
offences were being dealt with.
Beyond that, Jackson's options were limited. It
wasn't like a burglary, where there might be witnesses,
fingerprints, a car registration to follow
up. Wildlife crime happened in remote areas, on
private land. Not much chance of a witness, and
no forensic evidence. Even if you had a suspect, it
would be someone with a legitimate reason to be
at the scene. After the introduction of Right to
Roam legislation, that meant pretty much everyone.

"It's very frustrating," said Jackson. "So
many wildlife criminals are involved in other
offences. Arrest one, and you collar a well
known villain."
"But what are your chances of an arrest?"
"Zero."
Cooper felt strangely relieved when Jackson
took the goshawk away. There was always something
alien about a dead bird. It was probably that
third eyelid, the nictating membrane, that closed
from the inside corner to protect the eye. It was so
reptilian that it marked birds as survivors from
an earlier age.
"Well, I think it's definitely a sadistic offence,"
said Udall when she heard the news. "These are
people who take pleasure in inflicting cruelty.
They're potential serial killers."
"That's putting it a bit strong, Tracy."
"Don't psychologists say the typical serial killer
starts his careers by mistreating animals? It's
part of the pattern."
"Yes, they do say that."
"After all, this is someone who's prepared to
use violence on a casual basis. If he lacks respect

for animal life, he might not respect human life,
either."
Half an hour later, Cooper's phone rang. It was
Sergeant Jackson again.
"Maybe not zero after all," he said. "Cal Ryan
says he was up at the hide when the goshawk
was shot."
"Did he see anything?"
"Yes. He saw Harry Blakelock. And Mr
Blakelock was carrying a firearm."
"I'll have to talk to him, Phil. Is that okay with
you?"
"You're the detective." Jackson sounded bitter.
But a moment later, his tone changed. "No, that's
fine. I might still have to work with the man when
I this is over."
"I'll get up there today. He lives at Lightside
Lodge, doesn't he?"
"Yes. But he'll be out on the moor on a day like
this. I can give you his mobile number so you can
lifcrack him down."
"Thanks, Phil."
"There's another thing. A whole bunch of
itchers were down in the valley at the time. You

often see them lined up near Derwent Dam with
their telescopes and telephoto lenses. One or two of
them have helped us in the past. And they're familiar
with the major egg collectors. Word goes round
the bird watching community like wildfire."
"You mean they saw Hewitt?"
"No, Gareth Stark. Every clued-up twitcher
knows about Stark. They were breaking out the
champagne when he went down."
"Don't tell me Stark was spotted in the valley
when the bird was shot, too?"
"No. But his car was."
"That complicates the picture," said Cooper.
"Do you want me to speak to Stark?"
"Would you, Phil?"
"With pleasure."
"I'll ask Tracy Udall if she'd like to come along.
If Stark calls her 'my dear' once more --."
Jackson laughed. "Tell her she'll be welcome. I'm getting a bit slow on my feet these days, and I
might not be able to hold her back."

Harry Blakelock was carrying a twelve-bore side
lock with a thirty-inch barrel. When Cooper got a

closer look, he could see that it was a magnificent
Purdey, with beautiful engravings. It must have
been worth fifteen thousand pounds at least, even
second hand. He knew from the firearms licensing
records that Mr Blakelock had a safe somewhere
at home, with at least three more shotguns in it.
As Cooper approached, Blakelock's English
pointer was creeping across a stretch of boggy
ground, her body rigid from nose to tail. She'd
detected the scent of grouse hiding in the
heather.
"That's Molly," said Blakelock. "Useful dog."
"I have a few questions to ask you, sir."
"Go ahead, then."
Blakelock listened in stony silence to Cooper's
questions. Then he slapped the stock of his gun.
"I was up here on the moor, as you know damn
well. You saw me yourself. But I was back home by
six-thirty, and I went nowhere near those woods.
You can check my gun over, if you want. I shot a
crow a few minutes ago, and there's still a cartridge
in."
"It won't tell me anything."
"Of course it won't."

A covey of grouse broke cover, flapping furiously
to escape. But they were in luck today.
Blakelock was only checking how many birds
there were, not intending to deplete their numbers.
It was over a month yet before the grouse
season started, and these birds would begin to
plummet out of the sky. Cooper knew real shooters
were scornful of the rush to be the first to kill
a bird on the opening day of the season. The
Glorious Twelfth was just a marketing ploy, they
said, a photo opportunity for the media. But
proper shooting would follow soon after, grouse
being driven by beaters towards paying guns.
As the squawking birds gained speed and altitude,
Molly was already pointing out another
covey in the heather. Blakelock turned to watch
her.
"I know your brother, don't I?" he said over his
shoulder. "Matt Cooper? He has a farm near
Hucklow."
"That's right."
"And I remember your grandfather -- he was a
grand old bloke. And wasn't your father -- ?"
"Yes, I'm sure you knew him, too."

"Well, you must know the way it is -- these bird
groups have got to increase their membership, so
they put out sensationalist reports. They quote
incidents which are just plain bloody wrong. They
don't know who's causing the problem, so it must
be gamekeepers. But I've seen reports that disturbance
by bird watchers is responsible for the loss
of birds. The tercel sees a crowd of twitchers near
his nest, and he says 'sod this, I'm off."
Cooper was getting irritated by the clouds of
black flies dancing over the heather. They were
always a problem on a warm, still day.
"There are always two sides, Mr Blakelock," he
said.
"Come off it. These bird groups, they're completely
blinkered. They don't care about the wider
picture. Without shoots, these moors would be
abandoned to the damn dog owners, and the ramblers.
There'd be no wildlife up here, that's for
sure. And there's a demand for shooting, you
know. Not just in this country -- I have a party of
Germans who book a few days on the moor every
year. Businessmen from Frankfurt."
"You know that some people would question

the morality of shooting wildlife for pleasure?"
"Pleasure?" said Blakelock. "I get pleasure
from the skill it takes to put the grouse here in the
first place. I get pleasure from the surroundings I
spend time in. And from the co-ordination of hand
Iand eye, if you like. But not from the act of
killing."
"But most of the killing is done by people who
pay money to do it."
"If a hundred grouse need culling, why should I
do it myself when there are people willing to pay?
Anyway, we try to be selective on our shoots. If
you've got a seasoned eye, you can pick out the
oldest bird in a covey as they scatter. I don't allow
massacres."
"Is it always so straightforward?"
Blakelock didn't answer the question directly.
He broke the shotgun open, emptied the remaining
cartridge, and put the gun away in its slip.
"There's this idea some people have of putting
an end to shooting and returning the moors to
their original state," he said. "It's completely
impractical, you know. The balance of nature was
altered centuries ago."

"And, as you said, the grouse bring in money."
"A day's shooting might bring in eight thousand
pounds or so. But the money gets paid
straight back out to keepers and beaters.
Nobody's getting rich owning a grouse moor."
"Then why spend so much effort destroying the
predators?"
Blakelock looked at him coolly. "All your family
have been shooters, Detective Constable Cooper. I
bet you've even been on shoots yourself, haven't
you? Local farmers and their families often get
invited for a day out on the moor."
The staccato warning call of a grouse rattled
across the moors. Go back, go back, go back. Cooper wafted the flies from his face, trying to
gain time before he answered.
"Yes, I know a bit about shooting."
"Bagged a few grouse yourself, I dare say?"
"I stick to clays these days, Mr Blakelock."
Blakelock called his dog to heel. "I really don't
I understand it. You're shooting people, all you
tCoopers. You always have been. Yet here you are,
Jiarrassing people like me, just because I'm going
about my legitimate business. Very odd. Give

someone a uniform and a warrant card, and suddenly
they forget which side they're on."
"I'm not on anyone's side, sir. My job is to see
the law doesn't get broken."
"Sometimes, when there are bad laws, you have
to choose," said Blakelock. "Those are the times
when we all have to take sides."

"Stark had an alibi," said Udall, the moment
Cooper returned to the office in Edendale.
"Bastard."
"But his car was identified, wasn't it?
According to Phil Jackson, the twitchers even
took his licence number."
"Oh, he was in the valley all right. But he was
with a woman. Can you believe it?"
Cooper laughed at her expression. "It takes all
sorts, Tracy."
"They went to Fairholmes for a picnic, then
hired a couple of bikes for a romantic ride along
Derwent Reservoir. She corroborates his story in
full. We've even got his signature in the book at
the hire centre. Stark had the nerve to tell us that
he was paying a nostalgic visit to old haunts."

"Did you believe him?"
"No, I didn't. To be honest, I was amazed when
I found it really was a woman he was with. I was
pretty sure it was you he fancied in that interview
room, not me."
"For heaven's sake, Tracy --."
"Oh, sod it. You never heard me say that."
Cooper watched her fiddling with her belt, tugging
at it as if the thing was never going to be
comfortable, no matter what she did. When Udall
stood close to his desk, he could smell the familiar
aroma of wool and polyester. Police uniform
trousers. They were notoriously ill-fitting and
itchy to wear, too.
"Have you any idea how many twitchers were
in the valley that day, Tracy?"
"Fifty, sixty. Why?"
"You know, some of the shooting fraternity
argue that it's disturbance by bird watchers that
scares the goshawks off."
Udall sucked her teeth. "Perhaps."
"They've got a point, when you see the crowds
, of twitchers lined up with their binoculars and
> telephoto lenses."

"I said 'perhaps'."
Cooper picked up a file that had been left on his
desk and read the first page. "Did you know that
Harry Blakelock once had his firearms certificate
revoked?"
"Oh? A security breach? Or a domestic?"
"Neither," said Cooper.
He turned the file over to the reasons for revocation.
Many cases like this cropped up each year,
some of them stupid and unavoidable. They
mostly involved insecure storage -- guns abandoned
in a Landrover outside a pub, or even in a
field after a shoot. Of course, people who didn't
know any better shouldn't be allowed to own a
gun.
But there were also an increasing number of
domestic incidents. A certificate holder could be
vulnerable to complaints by his partner that he'd
made threats. Cooper knew of one man who'd lost
his firearms certificate on a drink driving conviction.
But this case wasn't any of those.
"It appears Mr Blakelock went to his GP and
asked for an anti-depressant prescription," he
said. "Grounds for revocation: a mental illness,

meaning that he can't possess firearms without
being a potential danger to the public"
"Damn," said Udall. "I bet that really pissed
him off."
"The lesson is not to be in too much of a hurry
to talk to your doctor, I suppose."
"But he must have got his certificate back?"
Cooper remembered the Purdey. "Oh, surely."
It was recorded in the file that Blakelock had
found a solicitor in East Anglia who specialised in
shooting law, and he'd lodged a successful appeal
against revocation.
"I've heard the name of this solicitor before,"
said Cooper. "He handles a lot of Firearms Act
appeals."
"Part of the preventative justice system, then.
Balancing the public interest against an individual's
right to possess a gun."
Cooper shrugged. "He did a good job for Mr
Blakelock."
"Hoorah for justice."
It was a shame to be so cynical so young, but
Cooper knew he couldn't judge Udall when his life
experience was so different from hers. While she

was listening to a burst of chatter from her radio,
he picked up another file that had been left for
him.
"Now this is interesting, Tracy. Kevin Hewitt's
phone records."
"Anything of significance?"
"Mostly calls to his wife. Some long conversations
-- chatting to the kids, probably. A couple of
calls to Gareth Stark. We'll have to ask him about
those. But get this, Tracy -- there have been
three calls made to Lightside Lodge. That's Harry
Blakelock's number."
Udall pursed her lips. "What's the connection
between those two?"
"I don't know. But --."
But she was listening to her radio again, and
Cooper realised he'd lost her attention.
"They've found Hewitt's Bedford van," she
said. "Parked by the Westend River bridge."
"On the banks of Howden?"
"That's the place."

The van didn't take long to open. In the back,
they found a pair of aluminium climbing irons

fitted with fibreglass shin guards and Velcro
straps.
"Geckos," said Cooper, touching a finger to the
flat tips of the gaffs. "There's a couple of hundred
pounds in these irons alone. But Kevin Hewitt has
been unemployed for months. He's been getting
money from somewhere, all right."
There was also a pair of climbing gloves, spare
boots, a rucksack, and a set of plastic boxes like
those in Hewitt's trophy room. Udall had found a
rolled sleeping bag and a blanket. She turned out
the contents of the rucksack, and pulled her face
at the smell of dirty clothes.
"That answers the question of where he's been
sleeping since we raided his council house. He
couldn't go back to his wife, since she decided she
didn't like living with a criminal and kicked him
out. So Kevin's been living in his van."
Cooper lifted a digital camera out of the glove
compartment. "I don't believe Janine Hewitt
kicked her husband out because he was a crimi
nal. It was because she was frightened he'd get
1 caught. She didn't want her children coming into
contact with the police and Social Services."

"I can relate to that."
"On the other hand, I think she would certainly
be reluctant to give up benefiting from the proceeds
of Kevin's activities."
"So they'd have had to get together and find a
way for Kevin to pass the money on without going
to the house. I can understand that, from her
point of view. But why would Kevin take the risk?
What was in it for him?"
"It was his only chance of staying in touch with
his kids," said Cooper. "Whatever else Kevin
Hewitt's faults are, I think he loves his children."
Udall straightened up. "Well, there's no hoard
of cash in this van, any more than there was in his
house. So where's Kevin now?"
Cooper looked at the conifer plantations surrounding
the reservoirs, and the vast expanses of
moorland beyond them.
"I don't know. But I'm getting a really bad feeling
about Kevin Hewitt's future."

Janine Hewitt was wearing a completely impractical
pair of shoes in the park that day. They were
red and strappy, with heels that wobbled when

she stood up to check on the child in the
pushchair.
"I bought these on eBay," she said, when she
saw Cooper looking at them. "They were only a
fiver."
Cooper wondered if he was supposed to compliment
her on her taste. But a glance at Janine's
expression told him that she didn't expect anything.
No compliments, no sympathy. Not from
him, not from anybody.
"How are the children?"
"They're all right," she said listlessly. "I'll be
glad when they're all at school. But I suppose it
could be worse."
"Worse?"
"There are only two of them," she said. "Some
women round here, they have a house full by the
time they're thirty. Poor cows."
For the first time, Cooper noticed how pale and
weary she looked. He wondered if she was ill, or
whether it was just exhaustion, the day to day
grind of bringing up young children on her own.
tee knew there couldn't be much money in the
Piousehold. A fiver on a pair of shoes was an

extravagance, intended only to raise her spirits
for a short while.
"Janine, your husband could be in danger, did
you know that?"
She looked up at him. "Could he?"
"We think so."
She gazed across the park, tears suddenly glistening
in her eyes, as if emotion had sneaked up
on her unexpectedly. Cooper looked away, embarrassed.
Talking to Janine Hewitt made him
wonder about this whole mating for life thing. All
that pairing, breeding, and caring for the young.
Then watching them learn to fly and fend for
themselves. And doing it all over again the next
year.
"Kevin was okay until they got their claws into
him," she said suddenly.
"They? Who are 'they'?"
"There were a couple of foreigners," she said.
"Kevin said they were Germans, who came over
here looking for birds."
"Falconers?"
"I don't know what that means. They wanted
birds to train for hunting. Kevin said they'd pay

good money for the right bird. That's what everyone
wants these days, not eggs."
"Yes. He was talking about falconers."
"Did he mention any names, Janine?" asked
Udall. "Or where he met them?"
"He never told me anything like that. I didn't
know any details, and I didn't ask. It's best not to
know. That's what Kevin always said."
"Sometimes it's true."
Janine found a tissue and wiped her eyes. "You
know, I told Kevin if he could get us out of this
place, I'd have him back."
"Get you out?"
"Find us a proper home, somewhere nice. Not
this shit hole. I want a house of my own, a garden
the kids can play in. I'm not going to stay living
next door to a bunch of drug addicts who leave the
yard full of syringes for Jack to pick up. I can't have my kids sleeping in rooms so damp the wallf$aper
won't stay on the walls. I want to get right
it of the Devonshire Estate."
"How would Kevin find enough money for
at?" asked Cooper.
"There are ways," she said. "Everyone knows

there are ways to get money. Look at some of the
people round here. Do you think they live on a few
quid a week in child benefit, like I do?"
"Janine -- are you telling us you put pressure
on Kevin to commit more and more serious
crimes? You actually encouraged him to get in
deeper?"
She'd begun to cry again. The child in the
pushchair turned to look, stirred out of her apathy
by the sound of her mother sobbing.
"No, no. I didn't do that."
"Well, that's what happened, Janine. Isn't it?"
"I never seriously thought there was a chance
he'd get enough money together. Not Kevin."
"You underestimated him, then."
Janine laughed through the tears. "Hardly. I've
never seen anything from him. And I don't suppose
I will now."
"You haven't seen anything? No money?"
"No. He promised me he'd do it one day. But,
like I said, he never got it together. That was
Kevin all over."
Cooper and Udall looked at each other. They
knew that Kevin Hewitt had found at least one

source of money. So what happened to it?

"Germans?" said Cooper when they were back in
the car. "I can't believe she said Germans. An
international connection is all we need, Tracy."
"Our wildlife officers have contact with their
counterparts in Europe," said Udall. "German falconers
are often mentioned in their intelligence
reports. They roam the whole of Europe in search
of new material, even as far as Greenland to
obtain gyr falcons. I'm told falconry is very popular
in Germany."
"Don't they breed their own chicks?"
"Some falconers do. But not on a large enough
scale to meet the demand."
"And, in this case, the demand is for young
birds."
"Yes. Young enough to be trained."
"Why does everything come down to supply and
f demand, Tracy?"
"It's what makes the world go round."
Cooper gazed at the Devonshire Estate as they
down the street. Some of the addresses in area were the homes of the most active drug

dealers in town -- people who certainly lived
much better than Janine Hewitt.
"Harry Blakelock mentioned a party of
Germans who book a few days on his grouse shoot
every year," he said. "He said they were businessmen
from Frankfurt."
"Maybe they are."
Cooper felt easier as the outlines of the hills
became visible beyond the streets of the estate.
"You know, I bet Mr Blakelock would do anything
to avoid losing his shotgun licence again.
He'd stand no chance of winning an appeal a
second time, no matter how good a lawyer he
got."
"So if someone had a bit of information about
him -- ? Information they might be inclined to
report to the police, which could lose him his certificate."
"Yes.
Anything might do it, too -- evidence of a
security breach, an assault, drunk driving.
Another medical problem."
"He'd want to keep them quiet somehow."
Cooper nodded. "Despite his complaints,
Blakelock must have plenty of money. He'd be a

prime target for blackmail, wouldn't you say?"
"A sitting duck."

Cooper sighted along the barrels, shifted his grip
on the stock and breathed in the scent of gun oil
as his fingers felt for the trigger. The shotgun fitted
snugly into his shoulder, and the weight of the
double barrels swung smoothly as he turned his
body. With that movement came an eagerness to
see the target in his sights, a desire for the kick
and cough of the cartridge. He was ready.
"Pull!"
The launcher snapped and a clay flashed across
his line of vision. The barrels swung up and to the
right to follow its trajectory, and his finger
jeezed. The clay shattered into fragments that
fCurved towards the ground.
"Pull!"
The second clay flickered overhead. Cooper
efully increased the pressure on the trigger,
f the extra squeeze as the target's line stead
The clay shattered like the first.
fNice," he said, breaking the shotgun open as
I brother Matt walked across from the trap.

"That Remington's a well-made piece of equipment,
isn't it?" said Matt.
"The best."
It was the gun Cooper had won the Shooting
Trophy with a couple of years ago, but he hardly
had time for it these days, not since he'd moved
out of the farm. The residents of Welbeck Street
wouldn't be quite so relaxed about him carrying a
shotgun around.
In addition to the trap, Matt had brought out
three boxes of clay pigeons and a hundred cartridges.
The small black pellets in those cartridges
were enough to smash a clay. But when they
caught a real bird in their lethal hail, they pierced
its flesh and lodged in its muscles and internal
organs, maybe in its brain. Cooper supposed it
was a quick death.
"I've just bought a new gun," said Matt. "A
Baikal Choke. I paid £400 for it."
"A bargain."
And probably it was. But a £400 Baikal was a
bit different from Harry Blakelock's Purdey. And
a clay pigeon was a different prospect from a
grouse on Lightside Moor, too. Grouse were so

attractive because they were uniquely difficult to
shoot. It was impossible to simulate their speed,
their style of flight, or the way they sprang up
from the heather anywhere, even from behind
you. No set of clays could match that.
Cooper knew some people saw grouse shooting
as an anachronism -- they pictured the tweed
clad rich blasting away at wildlife, like a scene
from some nineteenth century novel. Others were
uneasy about deriving pleasure from the destruction
of living creatures. Killing an animal was one
thing. When it had to be done, there was a satisfaction
in knowing you'd done the job properly.
He turned away to put his shotgun in the Land
Rover, where he locked it into a steel box. But get
pleasure from killing? Yes, he had to agree,
at was a different thing altogether.

4.



By Friday, Kevin Hewitt lay on a stainless
steel table. Entering the mortuary, Cooper
could see that his egg collecting career was
at an end. Janine's children were without a father.
He wondered whether Jack and Ebony would
mourn their dad and remember him forever, or
forget him within a few months. Maybe Janine
would introduce another man into their lives and
tell them he was their new dad. Unlike goshawks,
people didn't necessarily mate for life.
"A heart attack?" asked Cooper. "Or did he just
lose his grip and fall?"
The pathologist, Doctor Juliana van Doon,
pulled down her mask and drew off her latex

gloves.
"Well, your deceased certainly fell, DC Cooper.
It was the force of his impact with the ground that
killed him. There are multiple internal injuries -- all listed in my report, if you need them. But his
heart wasn't in good condition, either. How did
you know that?"
"It was just a guess, ma'am."
Mrs van Doon smiled. "Well, there's a lot of
fatty degeneration present, which would have
been dangerous at his age -- especially if he was
in the habit of climbing trees. Some people never
learn how to adapt their lifestyles to their physical
capabilities. But Mr Hewitt didn't live long
enough to experience a heart attack."
"What do you mean?"
"I suspect this was what made him fall."
Cooper realised the pathologist was holding a
stainless steel bowl. At the bottom was a tiny,
black metal ball that was almost invisible against
the gleam of the metal, but rattled ominously
when she tipped the bowl.
"An airgun pellet," he said.
"That's what I thought. But I'm glad to hear

you confirm it."
"Where did you find it?"
Mrs van Doon pointed with her scalpel. "I
removed the pellet from a wound in the
deceased's scalp, just behind the right ear. The
entry wound was almost masked by a contusion
from the fall -- that's why it wasn't evident at the
preliminary examination."
"Could it be left over from an old injury? These
things are so tiny -- they can stay in the body for
years without the victim being aware of them."
"No, the wound was fresh. The track of the pellet
into the flesh is still clear, and there was no
sign of healing."
"So he was shot with an air rifle while he was
in the tree," said Cooper.
"That's what it looks like."
Cooper didn't feel convinced. Unlike a shotgun,
an airgun fired a single lead pellet. It was useful
for controlling pest species, provided they could be
shot at short distances, thirty-five yards or less.
And there had been plenty of people who'd lost an
eye in a close-range accident. But an airgun pellet
wouldn't normally kill a human being.

"No, the pellet wouldn't have caused a serious
injury in itself," said Mrs van Doon when he mentioned
it. "But it would have given Mr Hewitt
quite a shock. There would certainly be a sharp
pain. I imagine you'd instinctively put a hand up
to the place you were hit."
"And that was enough for him to lose his grip."
"Yes, I'd say so. If you like, we could start calling
him 'the victim' now, instead of 'the
deceased'."
Cooper looked at the pellet again. "For all
Kevin Hewitt knew, he might have been stung by
a wasp or something. If he never saw the shooter,
he wouldn't have been able to tell the difference."
"Yes, I'm sure you're right. The pellet would
have come right out of the blue." Mrs Van Doon
shook the dish again. "So there you have it, DC
Cooper -- here's a case where you could say the
I victim literally didn't know what hit him."

I Tracy Udall pulled up a chair in the CID room,
loring the stares of the other detectives. Cooper
I asked her to help him go over the evidence, to
to make sense of Kevin Hewitt's last few

weeks of life.
"Well, let's look for a motive. Who might have
had it for Kevin?"
"Gareth Stark, definitely," said UdaU. "He has
a grudge against Hewitt for his conviction. And
the Germans -- I bet they want the money back
they paid for a goshawk."
"Okay. And Harry Blakelock?"
"Yes, if Hewitt had something on him."
Cooper looked up. "Tracy, were there any photographs
found in Hewitt's house?"
"No, but there was a digital camera in the van,
with a spare memory stick."
"So there was."
"Judging by his meticulous filing, I suppose he
must have taken photos to record his finds, too."
"Have we looked what's on the camera?"
"Not yet. Well, it didn't seem important. It'll
just be eggs, Ben."
"Retrieve it from Exhibits, will you? And the
memory stick, too."
Udall returned a few minutes later with the
camera, and connected it up to a PC. There were
lots of photos. And Tracy was right, most of them

were of eggs. There was also an entire sequence
showing the acquisition of the goshawk chick --
the nestling still in its nest, the young chick in its
cage at Hewitt's house.
But right in the middle of the sequence,
there were some shots Cooper couldn't make
out at first. They had been taken from some
high vantage point, possibly in the very tree
Hewitt had found the nest. Shots of Harry
Blakelock, and a gun left unattended on the
moor. The time stamp from the camera was
evidence of how long the gun was left before its
owner returned.
"Blackmail material," said Udall.
"I wonder how much Hewitt was asking for it."
"Too much for Blakelock to stomach?"
Cooper sighed. "So Kevin Hewitt not only upset
bird enthusiasts, but his former partner, a bunch
of Germans, the local drug dealers, and even
§Harry Blakelock. He pissed everyone off. That's
lite an achievement."
"Not forgetting his wife," said Udall.
"Janine?"
"Possibly the most unforgiving of all."

"You're right." Cooper tapped his pen thoughtfully.
"Tracy, what would you have done if you'd
been in Hewitt's position?"
"I'd have kept my head down. Left the area,
probably. But, as Janine said, someone had their
claws into him. Kevin was driven by more than a
concern for his own popularity."
Cooper thought about Hewitt's home circumstances.
He still believed he'd been right in his
original assessment of the man. Kevin Hewitt didn't
need to have anyone's claws sunk into him,
when he was already wriggling on the painful
hook of family, the sharp barbs sunk into his flesh
by a love for his children. He wasn't the sort of
man to slip free from that responsibility.
"Anything else?" asked Udall, as if she thought
he'd nodded off.
"Yes. Ballistics say the airgun pellet was a .22.
Probably something like Vermin Pell."
"Vermin Pell? What a lovely name."
"It's self explanatory," said Cooper. "They're
designed for taking out vermin."
Udall looked at him as if he'd said something

inappropriate.

"I'm not suggesting that Kevin Hewitt --."
"I know, Ben." She turned over a page of the
file. "And I see that Hewitt's clothes were marked
with Smart Water. He'd found the right tree,
then."
"Yes."
Smart Water. Another high-tech weapon in
Peak Nestwatch's armoury -- a chemical treatment
sprayed on trees at a height where it could
only be picked up by climbing. A suspect's clothes
could be examined under ultra-violet light, to
prove whether he'd climbed that specific tree.
Cooper stared at Udall, suddenly aware of
something glaringly obvious that he'd overlooked.
"I'm being an idiot," he said. "It should have
been the first action we took."
"Oh?" Udall frowned. "I'm not with you. You
i mean, if Hewitt's killer touched him, he might
have picked up traces of Smart Water, too?"
"Well, he might," said Cooper. "But what about
le other surveillance measures?"
Udall put down the report. "The what?"
"Kevin Hewitt isn't the only one who's been
ig digital technology, is he?"

"The cameras, Tracy. The CCTV cameras."

An hour later, Udall returned looking pleased
with herself. She was carrying a tape which she
slid into a VCR.
"You were right, Ben. Nestwatch had a camera
set up on a tree that overlooks the approach to the
nesting site. Sergeant Jackson retrieved the tape
this morning."
Udall pressed the play button and a grainy shot
of trees and undergrowth came on to the screen.
"Did it catch Kevin Hewitt approaching the
tree?"
"No, we weren't that lucky."
"I bet he'd have known the camera was there,
and come in from a different direction."
"Yes, he was canny enough."
Nothing happened for a few minutes. The occasional bird flickered across the screen, a branch
swayed jerkily in the breeze.
"Coming up now," said Udall. "Watch the edge
of that tree. He comes into shot there, but only
briefly. And he's clearly carrying a firearm."

Cooper could see the figure now, unnaturally
bulky in a green jacket, brown corduroy trousers,
a hat pulled over the ears. Most walkers on the
moors dressed in bright colours, so they'd be easy
to spot from a distance if they got lost or injured.
But some people didn't want to be noticed. It was
essential to blend in with the landscape when you
went out hunting vermin.
"See him?" asked Udall.
Cooper paused the tape. "Not only do I see him,
Tracy. I know him."
"So what do we do?"
"Call out the team."

As soon as he got out of the car, Cooper could feel
a fine rain in the air, soft as feathers on his face.
Sunlight and showers passed across the hills,
clouds moving so quickly across the horizon they
were dizzying. For some reason, Udall was wearing
her stab-proof vest. A sensible precaution on
most occasions, but it looked odd when the most
dangerous thing in sight was a gorse bush.
As they drove into the Upper Derwent Valley,
the team had been careful not to disturb the peace

with their beacons or the wail of their sirens. But
now the time for discretion had passed. A Ford
estate parked at the visitor centre was boxed in
and surrounded. Within minutes, a suspect was
sitting in the back of a police Range Rover, twisting
his beanie hat in his hands.
"It's harassment. You should be going after the
people who kill living animals, not me."
"We just need to clear something up, Mr Ryan,"
said Cooper. "We're investigating the manslaughter
of Mr Kevin Hewitt."
"You're wasting your time. You've got the
wrong person."
An officer came across from the Ford, carrying
two clear, plastic evidence bags that he showed to
Cooper. They contained a BSA Meteor and five
tins of Vermin Pell.
"I see you own an air rifle, though, Mr Ryan."
"Well, I never said there was anything wrong
with shooting in itself. I'm not one of those animal
rights nutters who want to ban all country sports
on principle. Is that what you took me for?"
Cooper tried never to give away what he was
thinking. It didn't always work, though. You'd

need a course at RADA for that, sometimes.
"So you're telling me you try to take a moderate
position?"
"I think birds that have legal protection should
be protected properly," said Ryan. "Is that a moderate
position?"
"It depends."
"And if they're going to be protected properly,
that means someone has to enforce the law. You
lot never do."
"On the contrary, that's exactly what we're
going to do now," said Cooper. And he began to
issue the caution.

Without even thinking about it, Cooper knew
exactly where he'd find Janine Hewitt that afternoon.
In the recreation ground on the Devonshire
Estate, he could see Jack scuffing about in the
grass, as if kicking at a non-existent ball, while
Ebony slumped in her pushchair, watching the
trees.
Janine had chosen the same bench to sit on,
close to the old drinking fountain. Perhaps she
preferred it because it was on the north side of the

park and caught the best of the sun.
But Janine didn't seem to have noticed the sun.
Her eyes were turned downwards, gazing at her
shoes. They were the same shoes that she'd
bought an eBay -- a real bargain, a cheap way to
make a bit of a show. She didn't acknowledge
Cooper's presence, even when he was standing a
few feet away. He waited on the path, trying to
assess her mood before he spoke. But it was
Janine who finally broke the silence.
"Oh, it's you," she said. "I should have
guessed."
She sounded resigned, not disturbed or aggressive.
Cooper moved a few steps closer, then
stopped and smiled at Jack, who responded with a
blank stare.
"You know Kevin won't be coming back, don't
you, Janine?"
"Yes, they called me in to identify him."
"I'm sorry."
"Have you caught the person who did it?" she
asked, without hope.
"We have a suspect in custody. And... well,
we've got some theories on motive."

Janine nodded wearily. "It doesn't matter, does
it? I mean -- the motive, the 'why'. The result is
just the same."
Cooper found he wasn't listening to Janine
Hewitt any more. Instead, the voice inside his
head was Calvin Ryan's. He was remembering a
moment on the windswept edge of Lightside
Moor, watching a black shape soar over Alport
Castles. And he could hear Ryan saying something.
It sounded like Don't forget the goshawks.
Janine's four-year-old, Jack, was playing on the
grass, running round the old drinking fountain.
Though it hadn't been used for years, the fountain
was solidly made, and no one had gone to the
trouble of digging it out and breaking it up.
Cooper could see a hole at the base, where the root
of a tree had pushed through the earth and left a
dark cavity.
"A bonded pair will hunt co-operatively, two of
them together."
As Cooper watched, Jack bent down and peered
into the hole, as if expecting to find something
interesting. Perhaps he was playing some game of
his own imagination. A treasure hunt, who could

say? The child looked towards his mother, and for a
second an expression of conspiracy passed across
his face before he moved on, chuckling at the sight
of a blackbird scratching in the dead leaves.
Janine had begun to gather herself together,
picking up the toddler's bottle from the seat. The
bench she was using was the third one from the
gate on the northern side of the park. It was
always the same bench that she chose, the one
near the old drinking fountain. There was nothing
remarkable about the bench itself, that
Cooper could see. But it was always the same one.
"Then, when the chicks are hatched, the tercel
isn't allowed near the nest. He has to leave the food
he catches at a safe distance, where the female bird
can fetch it for the chicks."
Cooper pulled his phone out of his pocket. Then
he hesitated, surprised by a stab of doubt. Instead
of making the call, he left Janine and walked back
to his car. For a while, he sat in the driver's seat,
trying not to think about anything in particular,
until he saw Janine and the children on their way
home. Back to their dismal council house, the
bedrooms with damp walls and the drug addicts

next door. He couldn't imagine what it was like
raising two small children in conditions like those.
As soon as they were out of sight, Cooper went
back to the park. He followed Jack's footsteps to
the drinking fountain, and examined the cavity.
Something in there, definitely. It wasn't just a figment
of the child's imagination. From the marks
on the ground, he guessed there had been dead
leaves piled over the hole at one time, but they'd
been kicked aside by the blackbirds scratching for
insects.
He reached in, grabbed a handful of plastic, and
tugged. It was the wrapping of a package, and the
plastic rustled as he drew it into the light. To
Cooper, the sound seemed very loud in the suddenly
silent afternoon.
The package was too big to have fallen into the
hole accidentally. Too full of money. When he'd
pulled it out, he saw there were hundreds of used
notes, held together in bundles by rubber bands
and spilling out of a rip in the plastic. It was impossible
to say how much money there was. Kevin
Hewitt had been gathering it from many sources,
perhaps some that would never be uncovered.

Cooper turned, imagining Janine watching
him. And not just her, but the children, too -- the
restless Jack, the lethargic toddler in her
pushchair. He could picture them staring at him
with those hungry eyes, helpless and desperate.
At his feet lay more money than he could count.
Thousands, certainly. Right now, his duty was to
call it in, make sure it was secured for evidence
before he handled it any further. But what was
the point, really? No one would ever come forward
to claim the cash. It was a pity, because there were
so many uses it could be put to.
Well, Harry Blakelock had been right about one
thing. Sometimes you had to choose. There were
times when everyone had to take sides.
Cooper straightened up as he looked at the
notes. Yes, so many uses. For a start, he bet there
was enough money here to put a deposit on a
small house, somewhere a lot nicer than the
Devonshire Estate. A place well away from the
damp and despair, and the junkies.
Enough money, perhaps, to give one family a
new start.

<WIM[ CXPRffi
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Trouble in Mind by John Harvey

TheMentalist by Rod Duncan

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