The days of Pilkington & Son, Livestock Auctioneers, were numbered anyway. And not just because of their inconvenient location or the lengthening list of European Union regulations that became ever more difficult to comply with. The number of cattle markets was dwindling fast, even in rural counties like Derbyshire. And three years ago, the futuristic white sails of a new agricultural business centre that the farmers called ‘Nine Nipples’ had appeared fifteen miles away at Bakewell, part of a £12 million regeneration project. It had a vast parking area, modern penning, three sale rings, meeting rooms, an IT centre and conference facilities. Since it opened, Pilkington & Son had merely been counting the days.

As a result, a bare minimum of maintenance had been done on the buildings in Edendale during the past ten years. There were gaps in the roof and missing sections of corrugated iron in the walls, rusty gates falling off their hinges, and pens whose steel bars had been bent out of shape by vandals. At night, youths rode their motorbikes through the aisles like rodeo cowboys. On the street side, the windows were full of jagged holes where the panes had been used for target practice.

Outside, the open-air pens were surrounded by parked Land Rovers, muddy livestock trailers and transporters slewed on to the pavements. Ben Cooper and Todd Weenink had difficulty finding a space for their car, and ended up parking across the front bumper of a wagon owned by a haulier from Lincolnshire.

The main building held cattle, and two smaller ones across the road were for pigs and sheep. Many of the sheep pens were empty, but there were some Derbyshire Gritstone ewes crammed together between wooden hurdles. A man was trying to drive a group of piglets up a strawed ramp into a lorry with nothing but a wooden board and a mouthful of curses. Once in the lorry, the pigs clattered and squealed hysterically, before emerging back down the ramp as the man dodged and screamed, rapidly losing his temper.

A patrol car was blocking one of the side roads, with its hazard lights on and the stripes on its rear glowing bright red. A uniformed officer ran back to speak to them.

‘It’s bloody chaos here,’ he said. ‘No wonder Traffic have hysterics every time it’s market day.’

‘Where’s the van?’ said Cooper.

‘Over there.’ He pointed to one of the cobbled areas crammed with vehicles of all kinds. ‘It’s right at the back, so I’d say it won’t be leaving for a while.’

‘Have you got the details?’

‘This is the registration.’ The officer passed him a page from his notebook. ‘It’s registered to a Mr Keith Teasdale. An Edendale address, as you can see.’

‘Thanks a lot.’

‘We’ve been told to hang around for a bit, in case you need us.’

‘OK. But don’t make yourselves too obvious. Hide your baboon’s bum, for a start.’