‘Oh, dog-fights take place every week, somewhere. And it’s on the increase. The RSPCA have made a few prosecutions, and a few fights are broken up now and again. The thing that’s most difficult for these people to find is a safe venue. There’s money in dog-fighting – a lot of cash changes hands in bets on the dogs. Just by renting his shed and keeping his mouth shut, Leach could have been doing quite well out of it, whether he joined in or not. The winning dogs are worth something, too. But the losers – sometimes the losers just die from their injuries.’

‘How do you know about this sort of thing, Mark?’

‘There’s a Rangers’ liaison group with the RSPCA. They showed us a video once that had been seized by their Special Operations Unit. It was sickening. These people film the fights so that they can show off the success of their dogs to buyers, you see. This one had been filmed in the attic of a house somewhere, with armchairs and an awful blue carpet and a colour TV in the corner. They normally use pit bull terriers. Those things are bred for fighting, and nothing else.’

‘It’s illegal to breed pit bulls,’ said Cooper. ‘Since the Dangerous Dogs Act, they all have to be neutered. The breed should be dying out by now.’

‘Oh, sure. And is cancer dying out, too? How much time have your people got to go round the Devonshire Estate checking whether anybody’s breeding pit bulls in the kitchen or out the back in the garden shed?’

‘Not a lot.’

‘And the police in Sheffield and Manchester have even less time, I suppose.’

‘So you think they’re using Ringham Edge for dog-fights? Are these local people involved?’

‘They come from all over the place. A lot from the Manchester area, I think. If Warren Leach has a dog-fighting pit in there, he’ll be mixing with some pretty unpleasant people. And they won’t take kindly to anyone sticking their nose into what’s going on.’

A Peak Park Ranger’s Land Rover pulled into the car park for a few minutes. Mark looked at the driver, but didn’t seem to recognize him. The thin red stripe on the silver side of the vehicle could have been a streak of drying blood, caught in Cooper’s headlights.

‘It was the captive bolt pistol that made me think I was right,’ said Mark.

‘What do you mean?’