Читать книгу Cooper and Fry Crime Fiction Series Books 1-3: Black Dog, Dancing With the Virgins, Blood on the Tongue - Stephen Booth - Страница 28

‘Oh God,’ said Superintendent Jepson. ‘We’ll never hear the end of it. This is the sort of thing the division will never live down. It’ll be in the local press, the national tabloids, we’ll make the joke item on the TV news. And for certain it’ll be in the Police Review. We’ll be the laughing stock of every force in the country. I can hear the jokes about us now. It’ll go on for years. Years!’

The superintendent had DCI Tailby and DI Hitchens in his office before the morning briefing. They had faced the difficult task of explaining to the divisional commander why a dozen officers had been employed to dig up a giant compost heap, and why the pathologist had then been called to examine two dead pigs.

‘We could probably find something we could charge Cutts with,’ said Hitchens. ‘To justify the exercise, so to speak.’

‘No, no, no. That would only make it worse. Let’s just play it down and hope it passes over after a day or two. Has the press office been briefed?’

‘I did it last night,’ said Tailby. ‘They’ve got bare details, but after that they have to refer enquiries to me. I’ll stonewall them.’

‘All right, Stewart, but I can’t understand how it happened.’

‘Ben Cooper had one of his inspirations,’ said Hitchens.

‘Ah, young Cooper. We had that business with the Sherratt arrest too.’

‘It could have been a disaster if DC Fry hadn’t been there.’

‘If Cooper had got himself shot …’ Jepson shuddered. ‘It would be a total public relations catastrophe. Nobody’s forgotten what happened to his father.’

‘We can’t afford that sort of incident, no matter how you look at it,’ agreed Tailby.

Jepson turned to Hitchens. ‘You keep your ear to the ground regarding the staff in your department, don’t you, Paul?’

‘I try to, sir.’

‘You know we’ll have to be making the decision on DS Osborne’s replacement very soon. He signs off for good at the beginning of next month. DC Cooper was one we had in mind for the job, wasn’t he?’

‘He was top of the shortlist,’ said Hitchens.

‘What’s your view on that now?’

‘Frankly, he appears to be a touch emotionally unstable. He was very moody yesterday. All over something and nothing, as far as I can gather.’

‘This new DC, though. Fry …’

‘She’s got better qualifications than Cooper. And she seems very stable, despite her past history.’

Jepson nodded seriously. ‘Ah, the business in the West Midlands. Of course.’

‘A very nasty business,’ said Tailby. ‘But she’s fine now, isn’t she? Paul?’

‘A bit of a cold fish, but solid as a rock, sir. Totally in control, I’d say. Very professional. No ill effects, she says.’

‘You’ve actually discussed it with her?’ asked Jepson.

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Good man. That’s excellent management. Good relations with the staff.’

‘According to her record, she had the standard counselling. There’s a note that she packed the sessions in, though, after she split up with a boyfriend. Seems he couldn’t handle it, but she could.’

‘I suppose that sort of experience can actually make someone a stronger person,’ suggested Tailby.

‘Ah, that’s right. Baptism of fire and all that. Add Diane Fry’s name to the shortlist. Let’s see how she shapes up in the interviews.’

‘Ben Cooper, though … He’d be a popular choice, sir.’

‘Mmm. Emotionally unstable, Paul says. I don’t like the sound of that. Cooper’s a bit too immature yet for a supervisory post, I think. It’s a pity, though. A local lad, wonderful local knowledge. Dedicated, hard-working, bright.’

‘It’s not enough,’ said Hitchens.

Jepson sighed. ‘You’re probably right. Do I take it we’re agreed DC Cooper is not an option to replace Osborne?’ He waited while the others nodded. ‘In that case, it’d better be done quickly. I’ll see him this morning during the briefing and break the news. I’ll jolly him along a bit, try to soften the blow. Suggest a bit of lateral development.’

The three men sat for a moment, calmly assessing a job well done. Jepson stirred and sat upright, signalling a change of subject.

‘What’s the progress on the Vernon enquiry, then? Stewart?’

‘We don’t need to expend extra resources at this stage, sir. I expect forensic results today. They could wrap the enquiry up, I think.’

‘You’ve got two possibles, haven’t you?’

‘I’m confident forensics will tie in either Lee Sherratt or the boyfriend, Simeon Holmes,’ said Tailby. ‘That will be the breakthrough we need. We could be making an arrest soon.’

‘That sounds like a good press release,’ said Jepson hopefully. ‘If we can get that out to the media today, they might forget about the pigs.’

‘I remain hopeful,’ said Tailby.

Harry Dickinson was wearing his black-framed bifocals, which made his eyes look distorted and out of proportion, like smooth stones lying in deep water.

‘And I tell you what, lass. If you see that young copper again, you can tell him if his mates are going to try to blame the Sherratt boy, they’re wasting their time.’

Helen Milner had done some shopping for her grandmother the night before at Somerfield’s in Edendale. Things were much cheaper there than in the little village shop. Normally Gwen would be willing to catch the Hulley’s bus from the stop near the pub for the journey into town for the sake of the money she would save from her pension. But this week she had refused to do the journey, worrying about what the other women would say to her on the bus, believing that the shop assistants would talk about her behind her back, that the checkout girls would refuse to serve her. Nothing Helen could say would persuade her she was imagining things. At times, she could be just as stubborn as Harry.

‘He was the gardener at the Mount, but Graham Vernon sacked him,’ she said.

‘Lee Sherratt? He was never a gardener. He can hump a wheelbarrow, but he knows nothing.’

‘They say he had a fancy for Laura.’

‘That’s as maybe. It means nowt.’

Helen slotted tins of peas and new potatoes into the kitchen cupboards, glancing sideways out of the window, where she could see Gwen pottering in the garden, carefully deadheading roses with a pair of secateurs. She looked frail and unsteady on her feet, her skin translucent in the morning light angling from above Win Low.

‘Have you talked to Grandma yet?’

Harry was deep in his morning paper. Unlike many of the men his age, who preferred the sports coverage and sensational headlines of the tabloids, Harry took the Guardian. He said he liked to know what was really going on in the world. ‘All this stuff about TV celebrities and royal hangers-on. That means nowt to me,’ he would say.

‘What should I talk to her about, then?’

‘She’s upset.’

‘When isn’t she? The woman’s got neurotic in her old age.’

‘Granddad, she’s very worried. She thinks you’re in trouble with the police. You have to reassure her. She won’t listen to anyone else.’

‘Ah, they’re all talking about me, aren’t they?’ said Harry.

‘They’ll talk. But nobody believes you’re involved.’

‘Why not, then?’ he demanded.

Helen waved her hand, stumped for an explanation when challenged. ‘Well –’

‘Aye, I know. It’s because I’m old. You’re just like them coppers. They haven’t questioned me, you know. Not properly, not like they ought to have done, seeing as I found the body. They think I can’t have done it, you see. Because I’m old. Well, they’re wrong, and you’re wrong too.’

‘Don’t be silly, Granddad. We know you didn’t do it. Obviously.’

‘Oh aye. Obviously.’

‘Grandma knows. And Mum and Dad and me, we know that you’ve done nothing wrong. We would know – we’re your family.’

‘And that’s it? Just the few of you and no more?’

Helen felt a chill at his dismissive tone. ‘Your family has always meant a lot to you. You know it has.’

Harry sighed and folded his paper.

‘Well, hasn’t it?’

‘Of course it has, lass. But there are other things as strong as family. Stronger even. Women can’t see it, because they’re made different – family, that’s everything for them. But there are other things. Friendship. When you’ve had a bloke at your back that you trust with your life, and he trusts you the same, that’s different. That’s a bond you can’t break, not for anybody. You get so as you would do anything not to betray that trust, lass. Anything.’

Harry was looking Helen in the face, a look deep in his eye that was almost appealing, asking for her help. And she did want to help him, but she didn’t know how to. She waited for Harry to explain what he meant.

But he stared at the front page of the newspaper, where a picture of Central African refugees with desperate eyes stared back at him.

‘You’d kill to help that sort of friend,’ he said.

Ben Cooper sighted along the barrels, shifted his grip on the wooden stock and breathed in the scent of the gun oil as his fingers felt gently for the trigger. The shotgun fitted snugly into his shoulder, and the weight of the double barrels swung smoothly as he turned his body to test their balance. With that effortless movement came an eagerness to see the target in his sights, a desire for the kick and cough of the cartridge. He was ready.

‘Pull!’

The trap snapped and a clay flashed across his line of vision. As if of their own accord, the barrels swung up and to the right to follow its trajectory, and his finger squeezed. The clay shattered into fragments that curved towards the ground.

‘Pull!’

The second clay flickered overhead. Cooper carefully increased the pressure on the trigger, timing the extra squeeze as the target’s line steadied and the clay shattered like the first.

‘What do you think of it, Ben?’

‘Nice,’ he said, lowering the shotgun and breaking it open. He laid the gun across the bonnet of the Land Rover, and his brother walked across from the trap gun they used for practising. Matt was six years older than Ben, with the barrel chest and well-muscled shoulders and torso of a working farmer. He had the same fine light-brown hair and chose to hide his receding hairline under a green tractor driver’s cap with a long peak like a baseball cap and the words ‘John Deere’ on the front.

‘Those were two good shots, Ben. Who were you picturing when you hit the clays?’

‘What?’

‘From the expression on your face, you had someone you really hate in your sights. Did it help to let it out?’

‘Yes, a bit.’

Matt studied his younger brother. ‘It’s really getting you down, isn’t it? We don’t often see you like this. We will get Mum sorted out, you know. Wait till you see her this afternoon – I bet she’ll be more like her old self, and you’ll feel a whole lot better about it.’

‘Maybe, Matt. But it isn’t only that.’

‘Oh. Woman trouble, by any chance? Not Helen Milner, is it?’

Cooper stared at his brother in amazement. ‘What makes you say that?’

‘It’s obvious you must have bumped into her on this Vernon case. I put two and two together when I read about it in the paper. Her dad works for Graham Vernon, doesn’t he? And the old man, Harry Dickinson – that would be her grandfather, right? If you’ve been hanging around there, I guessed you must have renewed old acquaintances.’

Matt grinned as his brother looked at him, lost for words. ‘What do you reckon, then? Should I have been a detective?’

‘I don’t know how you worked all that out.’

‘Mmm. Helen Milner, eh? I always thought she had a bit of a thing about you, little brother, a few years back.’

‘All water under the bridge. She’s different now. You should see her.’

‘Oh, but I have seen her. She’s a teacher at Amy and Josie’s school now. We talked to her at a parents’ evening not so long ago. I hate to give away my secrets, but that’s how I know about her dad and all that. We talked for quite a long while, actually. Some of it was about old times, some about the Vernons too.’

‘Well then. You know what she looks like. She’s probably got half a dozen blokes she’s sleeping with. Why should she bother with me?’

‘Do I detect a hint of bitterness? Is it a case of a heifer in heat and too many bulls to choose from?’

‘People aren’t like cattle, Matt.’

‘It’d be better if they were sometimes. Come to think of it, it’s a pity you can’t put raddle on people like you do on rams, then you’d know straightaway who was tupping who.’

Matt looked at his brother expectantly, raising his eyebrows, but saw he hadn’t even raised a smile.

‘But there’s more still, isn’t there? Problems at work, is it?’

‘Yeah, you’re right. I’ve made a couple of bad cock-ups in the last few days.’

‘They’ll understand you’re under a lot of stress, though, won’t they?’

Cooper fished the keys of the Toyota out of his pocket and looked at his watch. It was past the time he should have been setting off for Edendale to start his shift. But the chance to try Matt’s new shotgun had been too much of a temptation.

‘You’ve told your bosses about Mum, haven’t you?’

‘No, I didn’t think they needed to know.’

‘But you have got time off this morning to go to the hospital?’

‘I just told them I had a doctor’s appointment.’

‘Bloody hell. They probably think you’re going to see a psychiatrist or something, the way you’ve been these last few days.’

‘I’d rather keep the police force out of Mum’s life, that’s all.’

‘I see. Things are a bit bad, then.’

Cooper sighed. ‘Let’s put it this way – I’d much rather stay here shooting rabbits with you, Matt, than go into the office this morning.’

Matt walked back with his brother to his car, parked in the crewyard. ‘I take it the Vernon case isn’t sorted out yet, then?’

‘It feels as though it’s running into the ground, Matt. We always dash round like mad at the beginning, of course. We collect masses of information, do dozens of witness interviews, house-to-house surveys and TIE enquiries, getting background detail. God, there’s so much in the computer after the first few days. Usually you get some clear lines of enquiry opening up that you can follow. But sometimes every one seems to be a blind alley and you get nowhere. Once a murder enquiry stalls, you can be looking at months and months before you get a result. If ever.’

‘And this is one of those, is it, Ben?’

Cooper paused with his hand on the car door. ‘I don’t know, Matt. Maybe it’s just me. But don’t you ever get the feeling that you’ve been banging your head against a brick wall and didn’t realize it?’

‘It’s a tragedy about the young girl. There’s a bloke somewhere who shouldn’t be running round loose.’

‘That’s what keeps us going, I suppose.’

He got into the driver’s seat and lowered the windows. The interior of the car was already warm, though the morning had hardly begun.

Matt rested a brawny forearm on the door. ‘Still, the Vernons are no example to anybody, are they?’

‘They’re not my idea of good company.’

‘More than that,’ said Matt. ‘They create trouble for themselves, with what they get up to. Those orgies and things up there. I’m all for a bit of fun, but that’s just sick.’

Cooper looked at his brother, frowning, wondering what on earth he was talking about.

‘Oh, I see. Well, if you don’t believe me,’ said Matt, ‘you just ask Helen Milner.’

By the time Cooper reached the outskirts of Edendale, he knew he was going to be late for the second time in a week. Another black mark. But he found he didn’t really care. There was a dull pain throbbing at the front of his head, just behind his eyes, like the warning of an approaching thunderstorm.

At eight o’clock in the morning it seemed as though every few yards along the road there was someone clutching a dog lead. Their pets were nose down in every clump of grass, stopping to examine every lamppost and tree. It would be a rash murderer who tried to hide a body in this neighbourhood. The search parties were out permanently.

The first person he saw on the second floor of Divisional HQ was Diane Fry. She was heading for the briefing room with three other DCs. They were laughing at something, and Cooper began to flush immediately, not doubting that it was him they were laughing at. Fry, though, saw him coming and stopped to let him catch up.

‘You’re late again, Ben. You’ll be up on a charge if you’re not careful.’

‘Doesn’t matter,’ he said. ‘Have a good trip to Yorkshire?’

‘Not particularly. I’d rather have been here.’

‘Waste of time, then?’

‘Yes, as a matter of fact. There was no need for anyone to go, let alone two of us.’

Cooper sneered before he could stop himself. ‘What a surprise. Still, I suppose you had a good time together.’

Fry’s nostrils flared. ‘I don’t know what you’re getting at, but I’ll ignore it just this once.’

He inclined his head, his shoulders slumping. ‘Sorry, Diane. I shouldn’t have said that.’

‘Are you all right, Ben? You’ve got some funny ideas, but you’ve managed to restrain yourself from the snide comments so far.’

‘Yeah. I’m fine. It’s this endless heat, it’s wearing me out.’

‘Only I’ve been hearing something about some pigs …’

‘Yeah, yeah, don’t tell me.’

He saw Fry studying him. Her eyes travelled from his dull eyes to his hastily combed hair and down to his badly shaved cheeks, his crumpled shirt. He was suddenly aware of the smell of stale sweat from his body, and the way his hand shook when he rubbed his temples where the pain was beginning to throb again.

‘Ben – what I said about your father. I did apologize. If there’s anything else I can say …’

‘I told you then – if one more person calls me Sergeant Cooper’s lad … Just let me forget it, can’t you?’

Fry stood back, shocked by the venom in his voice. ‘Fine. Oh, and there’s a message for you. The superintendent wanted to see you straightaway, as soon as you got in.’

‘What about the briefing?’

‘Straightaway. That was the message. Trouble, is it?’

‘Bound to be.’

‘Hey, you haven’t forgotten our date tonight, have you?’

‘What?’

‘You’re taking me to your dojo. I’m looking forward to that challenge bout. You’re going to teach me a few things, remember?’

The walls of the superintendent’s office were lined with photographs, some of them going back many years. The faces of stiff, upright men with high collars and large moustaches seemed to glare at Ben Cooper, judging him. It was as if they were saying that he did not come up to their standards. That was certainly the message that Superintendent Jepson was trying to put across.

‘So basically, I’m saying it’s just not your turn this time, Cooper. Be patient, and your turn will come, I’m sure. Give it a bit more time, and we’ll look at things in a fresh light. There’s always hope in the future. Think about a bit of lateral development.’

Jepson studied the DC for his reaction. Hitchens was right – Cooper did look a little stressed and nervy. The dark patches under his eyes made him look older than twenty-eight, and he didn’t seem to have shaved properly this morning. His hands were shaking slightly, even before he had been told the news that he would not be on the shortlist for the DS’s job. Jepson wondered whether Ben Cooper had a drink problem. He would have to ask DI Hitchens.

‘Does it come as a shock to you, Cooper?’

‘I suppose I had wondered about it, sir. I had a psychological assessment done, you see.’

‘And what did it say in your psychological assessment report, Cooper?’

‘It said I’m not assertive enough, sir. Too inclined to interiorize and empathize in inappropriate circumstances.’

‘Mmm. And do you know what that means?’

‘Not a clue, sir.’

‘It means you’re too bloody nice, Cooper.’

‘I see.’

‘And we can’t have nice cops, can we? Not any more. Oh aye, we’ve every other kind of police now, Cooper. They’ve all got their place in the modern service. We’ve got black cops, women cops, gay cops, even psychic cops.’

Cooper took the last to be a reference to a story that had appeared in the local paper about a section officer who was a prominent member of the Spiritualist Church and had recently confessed to clairvoyant tendencies.

‘Nothing can surprise me now,’ said Jepson. ‘Next we’ll have transvestite cops, you’ll see. Some bugger in Vice Squad will turn up in a skirt one day, and then it’ll be anything goes. We’ll have midget cops, zombie cops, blue-skinned cops from the Planet Zog. Who knows? Maybe we’ll have genetically manipulated PCs with muscles like King Kong and brains like turnips. No, scrub that, we’ve got those already. But God forbid we should discriminate against any of them, Cooper. The one thing that won’t be tolerated is a prejudiced cop.’

‘Yes, sir,’ said Cooper, and tried a tentative smile, assuming Jepson was trying to cheer him up.

The superintendent looked at him suspiciously. He liked his junior officers to laugh at his jokes, but only when he was actually joking. ‘I suppose you think there’s no reason why we shouldn’t have nice cops, don’t you, Cooper? No reason at all.’

‘No, sir. Just not as a sergeant, perhaps?’

‘Well, who wants to be a bloody sergeant? It’s the dog’s arse of a job, believe me.’

They both listened for a moment, trying to catch the echoes of the insincerity from the plasterboard walls. Jepson tapped his hands on his desk to break the moment, glaring at Cooper until he was forced to speak.

‘Anyway, sir, I’m not as bothered as all that. I don’t really resent it or anything.’

‘Bollocks. If I were you, Cooper, I’d be totally pissed off. You’re just trying to be nice about it. There’s your trouble, you see,’ he said with an air of triumph.

‘I don’t suppose I’ll ever learn, sir.’

‘My advice is, go and shoot a few of those pigeons or whatever it is you do, get it out of your system. Have a few drinks. You’ll soon forget about it.’

Cooper dipped his head in acknowledgement as Jepson pursed his lips seriously for his final comment. ‘But no emotional outbursts, eh?’

He stared past the superintendent’s head. There was a large framed photograph on the wall, with dozens of solemn men sitting or standing in long rows. They were the entire uniformed strength of Edendale section, pictured during a visit to the station by some member of the royal family in the 1980s. Cooper remembered the occasion and the photograph well. On the second row, among the other sergeants, was his father.

‘I understand, sir. It doesn’t matter. It really doesn’t matter at all.’

The doctor had explained that Isabel Cooper was on a powerful anti-psychotic drug. He had spelled out the name of the drug, and Cooper had written it down carefully. Chlorpromazine. It blocked the activity of dopamine and caused changes in the nervous system. These could mean side-effects, said the doctor.

As Cooper sat by her bedside, it seemed to him that his mother couldn’t stop moving her lips and tongue or the muscles of her face. She was permanently grimacing, rolling her tongue in her cheeks like someone frantically trying to remove stray bits of food from her gums. Underneath the bedclothes, her legs were in constant movement, flexing and convulsing endlessly like the limbs of a long-distance cyclist.

The doctor had been eager to point out to Ben and Matt that the drugs they were using were not curative. They could not cure schizophrenia, they could only relieve the most distressing symptoms. And those symptoms seemed unending in the mouth of the doctor – thought disturbance, paranoia, hallucinations, delusions, loss of self-care, social withdrawal, severe anxiety, agitation. The condition could only get worse. But occasionally, just occasionally, they could expect remissions, when Mrs Cooper would almost be her normal self. The doctor seemed to think they would find this reassuring.

‘I’m being a terrible nuisance to everyone,’ said Isabel, gazing with old eyes from the bed.

‘No, Mum. Of course you’re not. Don’t worry about it.’

‘Is that Ben?’

‘Yes, Mum. I’m here.’

He had been sitting there for nearly forty minutes already talking to his mother. Matt had been with him for the first half-hour, but had gone outside for a while. He needed some fresh air, he said.

‘You’re a good boy. I’m not well, am I?’

‘You’ll be fine, Mum.’

She turned her head, grinning and winking helplessly as she reached a hand towards him. There was a dribble of saliva on the neck of her nightdress. A small vase of white gypsophila stood on the bedside cabinet, the same colour as the sheets; the same colour as her skin. Cooper was sweating in the heat of the hospital room, but his mother’s hand felt cold and clammy.

‘You’re just like your dad,’ she said. ‘Such a good-looking young man.’

He smiled at her and pressed her hand, guessing what was coming, dreading the need for an answer, not knowing what he could possibly say.

‘Are you married yet, Ben?’

‘No, Mum. You know I’m not.’

‘You’ll find a nice girl soon. I’d like to see you married and have children.’

‘Don’t worry.’

He knew the words were meaningless. But in all his vocabulary there didn’t seem to be any words that would carry a meaning they could both understand and draw comfort from.

Isabel’s shoulders twitched and her legs jerked and squirmed, rustling under the hospital sheet like restless animals. Her tongue protruded over her lips as she blinked around the room with a puzzled expression. Then she focused on her son. She sought his face eagerly, her eyes desperate and pleading. She was sending out a mute appeal, begging him for some small drop of consolation.

‘Just like your dad,’ she said.

He waited. His muscles were frozen and his brain empty of thoughts. He was a mesmerized rabbit waiting for the fatal bite. His lungs hurt from holding his breath. He knew he would not be able to refuse the plea in her eyes.

‘Have they made you a sergeant yet, Ben?’

‘Yes, Mum,’ he said, though it broke his heart to lie.