Cooper and Fry Crime Fiction Series Books 1-3: Black Dog, Dancing With the Virgins, Blood on the Tongue. Stephen Booth
‘I was asking if you were in for the night now. I’ll make some supper for later, if you are.’
He couldn’t admit that he found the idea of staying in the farmhouse for any length of time unbearable. There was a constant urge to go up the stairs and open the door of his mother’s room, knowing she wouldn’t be there. An urge to relive the worst moments of her illness as if it was some penance he had to go through.
‘Er, no. I thought I might go out for a drink. Do you fancy coming, Matt?’
He didn’t fail to see the quick squeeze that Kate gave to his brother’s arm, which communicated her feelings sufficiently.
‘No, thanks, Ben. I’ll stay in tonight. I’m getting up early in the morning to shoot some of those rabbits in the south field. Maybe tomorrow, eh?’
‘Fine.’
Cooper got in the car and drove automatically towards Edendale. There were a handful of pubs in town which he went to regularly. But on the outskirts of town, when he saw the familiar landscape of stone gables and slate roofs spread out before him in the dusk, he changed his mind. He turned the Toyota into a side road and went over the hill into Moorhay.
The village looked peaceful once more. There were no tourists to be seen on the street, and no noticeable police activity, only a line of green wheelie bins along the roadside. The residents had retreated again behind their doors, some of them clutching their individual secrets, he was sure.
He drew up a few yards short of Dial Cottage and sat in the car for a while watching the doorway. It might have been the confusing light of the growing dusk, or the stress of his experiences during the day, or just his secret hopes acting on his senses. But he felt as though he could see Helen Milner emerging from the door of the cottage, just as she had done that morning – a warm, living glow against the inner darkness. He remembered that fleeting expression of disappointment when she realized she was not the one he had come to see. He remembered Gwen Dickinson’s words – ‘She’s been talking about you, you know.’ Could that be true? Had Helen been thinking of him, as he had thought about her?
Cooper repeated to himself the last few sentences that had been spoken between them. ‘So aren’t you a policeman all the time?’ she had asked. ‘What are you like when you’re just being Ben Cooper?’ ‘You’ll have to find out one day, won’t you?’ And then finally she had said: ‘Maybe I will.’
He turned the words over in his mind, assessing the tone of voice she had used, trying to recall the exact expression on her face, the precise movement of her head as she turned away, seeking the subtle meanings. There would be a day, he promised himself. Definitely there would be a day, one when he wasn’t being a policeman. But not just now.
He started the Toyota and drove a hundred yards further along the road to pull up on the cobbles outside the Drover. Inside, the pub was busy for a Wednesday night. But in their usual corner were the three old men – Harry Dickinson, Wilford Cutts and Sam Beeley. Their heads turned as he came in and their eyes followed him to the bar. As he was ordering, he heard a comment from one of them produce a cackle of laughter. He felt his jaw clench, and the blood start to flow into his cheeks, but controlled himself with an effort. He was not going to let the old men wind him up.
The landlord, Kenny Lee, tried to make conversation, but sniffed and turned away when he was ignored. Having paid for his pint of Robinson’s, Cooper walked over towards the table in the corner. The three old men watched him come, their eyes expectant, but their mouths tight shut. Harry stood up from his chair.
‘Looking for me?’
‘Not particularly. I just called in for a drink.’
Harry looked disappointed, and sat down again. Cooper looked round for a seat and found a worn wooden stool. He could feel them following his movements as he pulled the stool up to the table, sat down and took a long draught of his beer.
‘That’s good stuff,’ he said. ‘I thought it would be. But I couldn’t try it while I was on duty.’
The old men nodded cautiously. Sam coughed and offered him a cigarette, which Cooper refused politely.
‘Not many tourists in tonight, then?’
‘It’s Wednesday,’ said Sam.
He sensed the unspoken messages passing between the three men in the flicking of their eyes and the tapping of their bony fingers on the table. They were like a group of poker players about to take the shirt off the back of a stranger in town. But Cooper wasn’t interested in what they weren’t telling him. Not just now.
He let a silence develop, waiting for the old men to break it. Normally they would probably sit together for hours without saying a word, if there was nothing much to say. But he was a guest at their table, and they were the hosts. He was banking on their courtesy.
‘How’s it going, then?’ asked Wilford at last.
‘What’s that?’
‘You know what, lad. The murder case.’
‘It’s not,’ said Cooper, and lifted his glass to his face again.
‘Eh?’
‘You’ve got suspects,’ said Sam. ‘You’ll be questioning them. There’ll be bright lights, the good copper and the bad copper. Wearing ’em down.’
Cooper shook his head. ‘We can’t do much of that these days. It’s all the new regulations. They’ve got rights.’
‘Rights?’
‘Unless we’ve got enough evidence to charge them, we have to let them go.’
‘And haven’t you? Got evidence?’ asked Wilford.
‘Not enough. Not by a long way.’
‘That’s a shame.’
‘It’s very discouraging. Sometimes you feel like giving up.’
Harry had said nothing so far. His eyes were fixed on Cooper as he spoke, watching his lips, studying his face as if trying to see behind his words.
‘It wasn’t our fault about the pigs, lad.’
‘No, I know it wasn’t.’
‘Did you get in trouble?’ asked Wilford.
Cooper shrugged. ‘I’ll be very unpopular for a bit.’
‘It wasn’t our fault,’ echoed Sam.
‘We told you about the blood and bone.’
‘The heap rots ’em down, as long as they’re not too big. Otherwise the knackerman charges you for taking ’em away.’
‘And you don’t want to be paying the knackerman when you can dispose of ’em natural, like,’ said Sam.
‘They weren’t big enough for porkers yet, I suppose,’ said Cooper.
‘No, no. Nowhere near. You couldn’t have sold ’em.’
‘Funny thing about pigs, though,’ said Wilford. ‘Their skin is a lot like ours.’
‘It certainly gave those police mates of yours a fair turn,’ said Sam, starting to smile again.
‘They thought they’d found a dead body or two,’ said Cooper. ‘For a while.’
‘Bloody hell, that doctor woman wasn’t very pleased when she got there.’
‘The pathologist. That was a mistake.’
‘I’ve never heard language like it,’ said Wilford.
‘Not from a doctor.’
‘And a woman too.’
‘Do you know they get sunburnt, just like us?’ asked Wilford. ‘Pigs, I mean. You can’t leave ’em out in hot sun.