The Kill Call

of plague tableaux in the museum. One represented the last days of John Daniel, plague victim number ninety-two. Number ninety-two? A sentence from a TV series had run irreverently through Cooper’s head – ‘ I am not a number .’ The bubos were clear and livid on John Daniel’s neck, illuminated by a candle burning at the head of his bed.
    But the exhibit that had impressed him most was the long list of all the plague victims. Among all the Thorpes, Syddalls, Rowes and Thornleys were the names of two boys, the sons of a widow who had taken in a journeyman tailor as her lodger. It was a delivery of cloth from London for the tailor that had brought the plague to Eyam. The two sons had been dead within a month.
    He looked at his list. Two more calls to make in Eyam, following up reports of a disturbance during the night. His instinct was to suspect drunks. The timing was surely too early to be related to the death of Patrick Rawson. But Fry was right to give them to him – everything had to be checked at this stage. Next week could be too late.
    A horse was being walked through the village, clacking slowly past the Mechanics Institute. A pallet of cured Danish ham stood outside the butcher’s shop, and stone dust rose from a new housing development. One day, excavation work for new foundations would unearth some of the old plague victims’ graves in Eyam. If it hadn’t happened already.
    A display of postcards outside a shop caught Cooper’s eye. He felt in his pocket for some change, and bought a card with a picture of the Plague Cottage, showing the names listed on the plaque at the gate.
    Then he made his way back past Eyam Hall to reach the car park on Hawkhill Road, near the museum. He stopped for a moment to admire the way the honey-coloured stone of the houses blended with the foliage on the hillside. Just occasionally, the handiwork of man and nature seemed to fit perfectly together, complementing each other, creating a very satisfying harmony. It was a rare thing. But it happened more often in the Peak District than in other parts of the world. And it was good to get the chance to just stop and stare now and then.
    An elderly lady with mobility problems was waiting to cross the road. Before Cooper could move to help her, someone came out of the shop and gave her an arm to lean on. Two cars had stopped, and one of the drivers even waved.
    Cooper realized he was having difficulty remembering that he wasn’t on leave any more, because he’d offered to do some jobs for Diane Fry. Get back on duty, Cooper.
       
    Fry had to pass through Eyam to reach Longstone Moor. On the main street, she saw Cooper, his mind clearly somewhere else as usual.
    She watched as an old biddy with a stick started to totter across the road, taking her own good time, holding up the traffic for no good reason. Cooper seemed to be about to move towards her. Perhaps he was going to arrest her for obstruction. But someone else got there before him, and the whole performance creaked painfully on before cars were able to begin moving again.
    Fry sighed as she turned off the main street towards Longstone Moor. She couldn’t even send him home, because he wasn’t actually supposed to be on duty. And anyway, you took what resources you could get. No point in complaining.
    She changed the CD as she drove through a steep-sided dale. Alison Moyet’s The Turn came to hand, and she slipped it into the CD player. A solitary guitar, then the familiar bluesy voice singing ‘One More Time’. Perfect.
       
    Birchlow was an amorphous cluster of gritstone cottages, laid out according to no visible plan. An organic village, then, thought Cooper. A settlement now barely interesting enough to attract a single tourist, unless they were lost. It had nothing to offer in competition with the attractions of areas to the south and west. Unlike Eyam, it had even escaped the effects of the plague.
    Cooper knew tiny villages like this. They were dominated by the older generations, the younger population having moved away to find work, or to live in the cities. Few youngsters had any interest in scraping a living from the land. In Birchlow, the natural instinct would be to distrust the unfamiliar. He could expect politeness on the surface, suspicion underneath. Not to mention a tendency for people to conceal the fact that they were capable of any human feelings.
    His other visits in Eyam had proved fruitless, as he’d suspected. But the system had