‘If we could show some inconsistencies in the stories of the two Rangers, it could be just the opening we need.’

Jepson said gently: ‘Don’t you think you’re getting a bit carried away here, Fry? What about Maggie Crew? Are you forgetting her? Besides, the Rangers have been helping us. Suddenly you’re suggesting they’re public enemy number one.’

‘But Roper was there. If only there was something . . .’

‘Stewart, have you spoken to Alistair Prince recently?’

‘Yes, sir,’ said Tailby. ‘He suggested a re-enactment.’

‘But there was nobody there. You have no witnesses. The place was deserted.’

‘Superintendent Prince says it works very well in central Derby.’

Jepson chewed his lip. ‘So that’s it. You think we’re going to have to admit defeat on this one otherwise, Stewart?’

‘To be honest, I’m not very hopeful, sir. We thought we had a stroke of luck with Darren Howsley. But that was a poisoned chalice.’

Jepson folded his fingers together and stared at the ceiling for a while. The others waited expectantly. Fry knew only too well that what they were suggesting was a difficult thing, a politically sensitive issue. ‘Somebody had better talk to DI Armstrong, then,’ said Jepson.

Fry blinked and looked at Hitchens, who shrugged. It wasn’t what he had expected either.

‘Why?’ he said. ‘Kim Armstrong is engaged on the paedophile enquiry. They’re about ready to make some arrests, aren’t they?’

While they waited for more, the Chief Superintendent tapped his pen on the desk and looked at the broken end of it sadly, like a man contemplating something particularly unpleasant.

‘Go and talk to her,’ he said. ‘And tell her I said it’s a need-to-know situation.’

Ben Cooper particularly liked the narrow lanes and arcades in the oldest part of Edendale, between Eyre Street and Market Square. There were shops that sold decorated wooden elephants and pencil boxes, pine furniture, chocolates and malt whisky; there was an Italian restaurant and several coffee shops. And halfway up Nick i’th Tor, the steep alley off Market Square, was the window of Larkin’s, a traditional bakery. During the day the window was full of pastries and cheeses – apricot white stilton, homity pies, pasties, and enormous high-baked pork pies. Cooper came down to Larkin’s as often as he could at lunchtimes if he was in town. He was happy to queue with the tourists and listen to the assistants explaining one more time that Bakewell tarts should be called Bakewell puddings.

But today the window of Larkin’s was completely empty. It might as well have been selling picture frames, like the shop next door. All the shops here had been cleaned and painted up, and the stone setts had been relaid into the footpaths, while new arcades had been created in what had once been warehouse yards. Now the coffee shops sold exotic coffees – Jamaican Blue Mountain, Monsoon Malabar Mysore and Yemeni Mocha Ismaili.