Free The Devil's Edge by Stephen Booth Page A

a large tapestry showing figures against a background of stylised foliage and towers. There were so many items he felt as though he’d just walked into an antiques shop.
    The man he’d seen in the metallic blue Jaguar XF was sitting at a large round glass table. His image was reflected perfectly in its surface, as if he was looking out over a pool of clear, still water. Iron-grey hair swept back, a sardonic eyebrow, a loud and commanding tone of voice.
    ‘Russell Edson. This is my mother, Glenys.’
    Edson didn’t bother getting up, didn’t offer to shake hands. The gesture towards the plump lady with the blue rinse was fairly perfunctory too. He seemed supremely confident about who was important in this room, and who wasn’t. So far, he was only counting himself in the first category.
    ‘I’m sorry to trouble you, Mr Edson.’
    ‘Well, I hope you have some news, Sergeant. Made a quick arrest, have you? No, I suppose that would be too much to hope for from our local constabulary.’
    ‘It’s early days yet, sir,’ said Cooper, falling back on a stock phrase to cover what he would really have liked to say.
    ‘Early days? Of course, I expect you like to take your time. Judging from the speed that things happen around here, we’ll all be in our graves by the time you crack the case.’
    Cooper recalled the number plate of the Jag that Edson had been driving – RSE1. He could think of a few possibilities for what ‘S’ stood for. He could hear Gavin Murfin’s voice in his head. Russell Soddin’ Edson .
    ‘I just need to know if you saw or heard anything out of the ordinary last night, sir,’ he said.
    ‘Well, I suppose you’ve talked to the old man of the woods? He can’t be hard to find, at least. You only need to follow the smell.’
    ‘Who?’
    ‘Gamble, for heaven’s sake. Barry Gamble.’
    ‘Oh, Mr Gamble, yes.’
    ‘I mean, he was the only person who saw anything, so far as I’m aware. Not that he would be my idea of a reliable witness. But I suppose you have to make do with what you can get. There’s a definite shortage of evidence, from what I hear. The police are baffled, and all that.’
    Edson snorted loudly, and Cooper realised he was laughing.
    ‘How do you know about Mr Gamble being a witness, sir?’
    ‘Well, if there was going to be a witness, it would be him, wouldn’t it? It’s rather stating the obvious. Besides, he was here.’
    ‘Here? At your house? When?’
    ‘Last night, of course. The idiot came running up our drive and banged on the window. He frightened the life out of my mother, I can tell you. She can do without shocks like that at her age. So I went out to see what was going on, planning to give him a piece of my mind, and he was standing there on the drive, with the security lights on him, gibbering about Zoe Barron being injured. When I finally got a proper story out of him, I offered him the use of my mobile phone to dial 999. But it turned out the old fool had his own phone with him all the time.’
    Cooper glanced at Glenys Edson. She hadn’t spoken, but had stared at him so fixedly throughout his visit that she was starting to make him feel uneasy. When he looked more closely, he could see that she was heavily made up, and probably well over seventy. Perhaps she was afraid to speak in case the make-up cracked. Or perhaps she had tried to conceal her age with Botox treatment, and couldn’t move her face anyway.
    ‘So Mr Gamble ran to your house first,’ said Cooper, ‘before he called the police or an ambulance?’
    ‘Yes,’ said Edson.
    ‘Why would he do that?’
    Edson shrugged. ‘Why do people do anything? In his case, I’d suggest insanity.’
    ‘I don’t think he mentioned that he came here – either to me, or to the officers who took his initial statement.’
    ‘Well, Sergeant,’ said Edson. ‘If you’re going to spend much time in Riddings, you’ll find that people never tell you more than they think you need to