‘Yes, with me,’ said Cooper.
‘No, I don’t recall the occasion, then.’
‘Never mind.’
Cooper remembered it, though. He recalled sitting in the conservatory after driving up here from Fry’s flat in Edendale one summer evening, when it stayed light long enough for them to enjoy the spectacular views for an hour or two. It had been busy at the Light House that night, but they’d managed to get a table in the conservatory, just as the first drops of rain began to fall on the glass roof. He remembered being surprised when he offered to buy the drinks and Fry asked for a vodka. When he thought back, he could still recall the clatter of those raindrops on the roof, sounding much too loud in the awkward pauses in their conversation. The memory was so firmly lodged in his brain that the sound of rain had become a sort of musical accompaniment to the history of their relationship.
And Fry said she didn’t remember it. Well, he wasn’t surprised. She was capable of erasing him from her life as easily as she might wipe away a splash of rain.
It was amazing to think now that he’d once considered … well, it was probably best not think about it at all. He was marrying Liz Petty in a few months’ time. That was what he was put on this earth for. Diane Fry had just been an irritant, sent to make him appreciate better things. He ought to be thankful that she’d existed. If only he could bring himself to be thankful that she had gone.
Fry seemed to be gazing at something, but not the nearby scene. She was staring into the distance, where the smoke was still billowing towards them across the moor. The wind must have changed again.
‘We might have to move,’ said Cooper.
‘Possibly.’
But then he realised that she was gazing in the direction of the Light House, even though it wasn’t visible from here. He wondered what it was that fascinated her. Had she perhaps dredged up a fragment of memory? But if he knew Diane Fry, she would have pushed any memories she didn’t want right to the back of her mind, where they would never be found.
‘Why did it close?’ she said.
‘The pub? Lots of reasons.’
Cooper knew there were several factors contributing to the closures of rural pubs. The traditional lunchtime trade had been dying on its feet. The crackdown on drinking and driving, the ban on smoking in public places, the availability of cheap alcohol in supermarkets – they’d all played their part in the slow erosion of pub business. For many licensees, the increase in VAT to twenty per cent had been the last straw, a sudden hike in their quarterly bills too much to cope with at the wrong time.
In addition, the Light House had always been one of the places worst affected by spells of bad weather in the winter. Prolonged periods of snow meant no one could reach the pub for weeks. Over Christmas and New Year, that was a disaster. The holiday period was the one time of the year when a pub could expect to make a profit. Cancelled bookings and an empty bar turned a bad situation into a catastrophe beyond recovery.
He started to tell Fry this, but soon ground to a halt. Not for the first time, he had the distinct impression that she wasn’t listening to him, that she was just letting him talk as a form of noise to fill the void, the way you might play familiar music on a long car journey. It allowed your thoughts to be elsewhere.
‘Is there … anything I can do, Diane?’ he said instead.
She looked at him then, as if he’d just appeared at her side.
‘No. You’ve done well.’
‘Oh, thanks.’
Cooper turned aside, hoping to get more sense out of Wayne Abbott. At least he wouldn’t be so patronising.
‘Who was that?’ said Fry suddenly.
Cooper stopped and turned back in surprise. ‘Where?’
‘Didn’t you see them? Running across the moor.’
‘Towards the fire?’
‘Into the smoke, anyway. It was only a second, then I lost sight of him again.’
‘Him?’
‘Well … I can’t be sure. It was so quick it could have been anybody, I suppose.’
Cooper had automatically taken a step towards the hill, but she grabbed his arm and held him back.
‘There’s no point, Ben. Let’s warn the firefighters to keep an eye out for them.’
He stopped, accepting her decision without question, and surprised at himself for it. He looked at her hand on his arm, wondered why he was so struck by her use of his first name. It sounded odd after all these months.
Fry dropped her hand.
‘You’re getting married soon,’ she said.
‘Yes.’
Small talk now? Surely not.
‘Good.’
Gavin Murfin appeared, trudging up the track in his green anorak with an armful of files. He wheezed, dropped the files on the ground and threw a mock salute.
‘Messenger boy reporting, ma’am. They said you wanted these.’
‘Thanks,’ said Fry. ‘But I don’t know why they sent you. Any uniform would have done. A PCSO could have managed the job.’
Murfin smiled cheerfully. ‘In view of my vast experience as a detective, they thought I might be of some use to you.’
‘I doubt it.’ Fry picked up the files and began to turn away.
‘So how’s life at the East Midlands Special Operations Unit?’
‘Interesting,’ said Fry sharply.
‘Have you got an acronym for yourselves yet? EMSOU – MC doesn’t have much of a ring to it, does it?’
Fry turned to him with a sour expression on her face. At one stage in their relationship, a look like that from her would have quelled Murfin without a word being spoken. It didn’t seem to have any effect now.
‘Don’t you have work to do?’ she said. ‘I heard you had an urgent inquiry involving stolen postboxes to deal with. Or has that proved beyond your capabilities?’
Murfin chewed thoughtfully.
‘You know they’re giving me a medal, don’t you?’ he asked.
‘They ought to give you a brain scan,’ said Fry over her shoulder.
‘Why?’
‘Well, someone needs to carry out a proper examination of your pathological behaviour.’
‘Hold on,’ called Murfin as she walked away. ‘Are you calling me a pathologist?’
Fry gritted her teeth, told herself to hang on. Her own DCI would be here in the morning to take charge as senior investigating officer. Until then, it was a question of holding the fort. Grin and bear it. Except she didn’t feel much like grinning.
It would actually be a whole lot better if she could just get rid of some of these people cluttering up the scene. Almost all of them, in fact.
She looked at the firefighting operation still continuing on the moor, the road closure below. There was only one road in, and one road out. That was good. The crime scene was protected, and the evidence collected. Nothing was going anywhere until morning. She knew DCI Mackenzie would back her up.
Alistair Mackenzie was also on a transfer from Derbyshire’s D Division. He was the reason she’d landed the job with EMSOU – MC. She’d worked with him on a case last year – a case she probably shouldn’t mention to Ben Cooper. Well, not unless he started to annoy her, anyway. It had involved Cooper’s brother, and they were all lucky that the outcome hadn’t been much worse.
She looked at the people around her at the scene. Dusk was starting to fall. That was good, too.
‘Okay, I think we can call it a day,’ she said. ‘We’ll pick it up again tomorrow morning. Full daylight, a complete team, a proper scene examination.’
‘All right.’
She could see Cooper was reluctant, but he didn’t argue. In fact he didn’t say anything as the others began to drift slowly away. Perversely, Fry felt the need to provoke some kind of response from him, even if it was a negative one.
‘Can I leave you to organise a scene guard for tonight?’ she said.
Cooper met her eye calmly. ‘Yes, of course. Whatever you want.’
And for some reason,
when Fry gazed at him, the thought that came into her head was: And that was your first mistake.
5
An hour or so later, Ben Cooper was standing uncomfortably in the middle of a room. He was used to entering people’s homes, studying their furniture and bookshelves, getting an idea of the way they lived from an observation of small details. But this was different. He was being asked to examine things he wasn’t really interested in, and which seemed to have no significance. The size of the windows, the height of the ceilings, the decorative stonework on the exposed lintels. It was making him feel uneasy – especially when he was aware that he was being closely observed himself.
‘And look at this. We installed this ourselves.’
He found he’d been ushered into a bathroom. There was something very odd about four people crowding into a bathroom all at once, the whole lot of them gazing at a free-standing claw-footed bath with whirlpool effect, as if it was the prime exhibit at a crime scene.
The thought sent Cooper’s imagination spinning out of control. He began to picture a dead body lying in that bath, a head sprawled against the taps, blood pooling around a claw foot on the laminate flooring as it dripped from a slashed wrist. The wrist would be his if he didn’t escape soon. This house was making him feel suicidal.
‘Lovely, isn’t it?’
‘Oh … yes.’
Actually, it wasn’t this house, but all the other houses that had come before it. Number fifteen Meadow Drive was just the latest in a long series of properties he’d looked at this week, not to mention all the others last week and the week before. If he’d been asked, he would have suggested there were far too many homes for sale in the Edendale area right now. If it was a difficult time for the housing market, then surely some of these vendors should be holding off putting their properties on the market for a while. That would make the list shorter, at least.
Not that anybody was likely to ask him, of course. But he’d obediently turned up for the viewing appointment. He’d even taken the opportunity presented to him by Diane Fry to escape from the scene on Oxlow Moor. Normally he’d never have done that. Deep down, Cooper felt as though he’d abandoned a job half done. He hoped Liz appreciated the compromises he made for her.
‘Perhaps you’d like to talk about it.’
That was the estate agent. She was one of a long line of anonymous salespeople with a folder full of glossy brochures and a mouthful of misleading terminology. He’d learned that ‘easy to manage’ meant ‘not enough room to swing a cat’ and ‘full of period features’ meant ‘needs knocking down and completely rebuilding’.
Cooper nodded, and stepped outside. As soon as they were out of earshot, Liz leaned closer.
‘What do you think, Ben? I love it.’
‘We can’t afford it.’
‘But look at the size of the kitchen, and those fireplaces. Look at the garden, and the view. We won’t find anything better than this.’
‘But we can’t afford it.’
The estate agent looked round the edge of the door with a bright, artificial smile.
‘How are you getting on?’ she asked.
Liz smiled at her. ‘We need to talk about it a bit more.’
But as they walked back through Edendale town centre towards his flat in Welbeck Street, the one thing they didn’t do was talk about it.
Liz was good at this. She could detect his mood with great accuracy, and know exactly how to respond to it. She instinctively saw that it wasn’t the right time to discuss the subject most on her mind. He supposed this was how couples were when they knew each other very well. It had been a new experience for him over the last year or two, one which he would gladly get used to.
Instead, they chatted away about inconsequential things – the weather, their families, the gossip in the office, and of course the wedding arrangements. Well, perhaps not all so inconsequential.
‘This new evidence in the Pearson case,’ said Liz. ‘I suppose DS Fry is hoping to make it into a murder inquiry.’
‘Why?’
‘Well, it helps to justify her existence, doesn’t it? There’s no point in having a Major Crime Unit without major crime.’
‘You’re so cynical sometimes,’ said Cooper.
‘Come on, Ben. We all have to justify our existence these days.’
He had to admit that was true. They were all looking over their shoulders, wondering whether their job would be the next to be declared surplus to requirements in this time of austerity. When police stations were being closed and the most experienced officers forced into retirement, the concept of front-line policing was becoming less and less clear. No role or department was really safe from the cuts. There was no such thing as job security, not any more. If you couldn’t make a good case for the importance of your role, then you shouldn’t expect anybody else to be doing it on your behalf during all those meetings going on at headquarters in Ripley. Even for Liz, there was no immunity from cuts in her job as a civilian crime scene examiner.
They passed the little baker’s shop in Clappergate, which during the day had wicker baskets standing outside on the pavement and an ancient delivery boy’s bicycle strung with onions. A few doors down, the New Age shop was still there, though it wasn’t so new any more. Its rich smells of aromatherapy oils and scented candles and the glint of crystals in its window were strangely redolent of the 1970s.
On the corner of Hulley Road, near the market square, they stopped automatically in front of one of the estate agents and gazed at its darkened display of properties.
Most of their searching for a home was done online, just like everyone else. Liz had set up email alerts on all the main property sites. Rightmove, Primelocation, Findaproperty. Her search parameters were way out, in Cooper’s opinion. She’d set the maximum price too high, the minimum number of bedrooms too many, the requirements for a garden and double garage too ambitious. But it meant that suggestions were flooding in, without any effort on their part. Everything was found on the internet now. And yet there was something irresistible about an estate agent’s window when you were house-hunting.
Properties in the more desirable parts of old Edendale were well out of their league. The picturesque lanes of Catch Wind and Pysenny Banks, where the River Eden ran past front gardens filled with lobelias and lichen-covered millstones. Those were just a dream. The properties they were looking at were smaller, newer, less full of period features. But still too expensive.
‘Why would anyone visit an estate agent’s at night?’ said Liz. ‘Who would do that?’
‘We would,’ said Cooper.
She squeezed his arm. ‘So we would. We must be mad.’
‘I don’t think so. It’s nice to dream sometimes.’
‘That’s one of the things I like about you.’
In fact they’d looked at this estate agent’s window before, in daylight. It was very upmarket, handled high-end properties for equestrian interests and buyers with plenty of spare cash. If he looked, he knew he would see plenty of nice properties displayed on those boards. Old farmhouses full of character, with stable blocks and pony paddocks. But he wasn’t looking too closely, and he never would. The prices made his eyes water. They rose to seven figures and just kept on going.
‘We ought to have a list of estate agents,’ said Liz. ‘There might be some we’ve missed.’
‘Oh, of course. Why not?’
There was a list for everything. So many choices to be made before the day. Which photographer, what sort of music, whether to have a video made. If it wasn’t on a list, it didn’t exist.
Liz squeezed his arm.
‘Everything’s going to be perfect,’ she said.
‘Of course it is. Perfect.’
And he so wanted it to be perfect. For himself, he would be happy just to be married to Liz, no matter whether the ceremony was in the local register office or Westminster Abbey. To be married and planning the rest of their lives – that would be enough.
But
he knew how important the wedding was for her. The bride’s big day and all that. And he aimed to make it absolutely perfect.
She was a little tired now, he could tell by her voice. It was such a warm voice, soft and caressing. He loved to hear that familiar sound, the intimate touch on his arm.
Cooper remembered standing right here once before, and catching their reflections in the glass of the estate agent’s window. It didn’t surprise him any more how well matched they looked. Being with Liz felt comfortable, as if it was what he’d always been destined for.
‘What are you looking at, Ben?’ she said.
‘Oh, nothing.’
‘Not that very, very expensive house, then?’
‘Er, no.’
‘Shame. I thought you might be having the same dream that I do when I see a property like that.’
Liz always looked small at his side, her dark hair shining in the street lights, her face lit up with a simple, uncomplicated pleasure. It delighted him that she could respond this way whenever they spent time together. Who wouldn’t love to have that effect on someone?
‘Kiss?’ she said, as if remembering the same moment that he was reliving.
He kissed her. And it was only then that he remembered it was her way of making him agree to anything.
Later, after he’d parted from Liz, Cooper entered his ground-floor flat at number eight Welbeck Street, just by the river near Edendale town centre.
He was only a tenant here, but it had been home for some time now. The flat carried its own significance in his life. It marked his break away from the family, the first place he’d lived in apart from Bridge End Farm, where he’d grown up. The day he moved into Welbeck Street had been the first real step towards independence. It was only after he left the farm that he realised quite how stifling the constant proximity of your family could be. He loved them all, of course. But it was such a relief not to have them around all the time.
But the flat would have to go soon. His landlady, Mrs Shelley, who lived next door at number six, was aware of his approaching marriage and the fact that he and Liz were house-hunting. She’d expressed her regrets about losing him, twisting her ancient cashmere sweater about her shoulders with hands that were becoming increasingly arthritic. The old lady found a lot of advantages in having him living right next door. She’d considered him available to call on in an emergency, even if it was nothing more urgent than changing a light bulb she couldn’t reach herself. And she appreciated the reassurance, she said. Young Ben was in the police, after all.
Dead And Buried (Cooper and Fry) Page 5