Blood on the Tongue (Ben Cooper & Diane Fry)

by Stephen Booth

  ‘Ah, Ben, at last,’ said Fry, beating her hands together.

  ‘I’ve been here all morning.’

  ‘Got much done?’

  ‘I’ve worked my way through most of the daffodils.’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘Yes, I’ve done quite a bit of work.’

  ‘Oh well, whatever. I’ve got some jobs for you.’

  ‘Fine.’

  But Cooper got that sinking feeling again. No job that Fry had for him would ever be something he could get excited about. He suspected he’d be spending the rest of the afternoon chasing phone calls and shifting yet more paperwork.

  ‘We need to put a name to the Snowman,’ said Fry.

  ‘The Snowman?’

  ‘One white male, unidentified.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘And dead,’ said Murfin.

  Cooper listened as Fry explained the details they knew, which weren’t many. There had been no obvious identification on the man, though they would have his clothes to work on when the body was dealt with in the mortuary. There was also the overnight bag that had been lying nearby. Like the body itself, the bag had been scraped along the ground by the blade of the snow plough. It was scuffed and ripped, and it was soaking wet from the time it had spent underneath the snow. Worst of all, it was empty. Even a toothbrush and a can of anti-perspirant could have helped them to build up a picture that would identify the Snowman.

  ‘What we need are some mispers,’ said Fry.

  Cooper had only that afternoon been dealing with some reports relating to a missing person. It was easy to refer to them as ‘mispers’ when they were merely a set of details in a computer database. But when you started to look into an individual case, they suddenly turned into people. They sprang out of the screen and became unhappy teenagers or abused wives, confused old women or businessmen who had hit fifty and decided to recover their youth with the girl from the marketing department.

  ‘What age are we talking?’ he said.

  ‘Early thirties. Good physical condition. Well dressed.’

  ‘Mmm. Right profile anyway.’

  ‘For what?’

  ‘Well, for going missing.’

  ‘You need to be a particular type of person?’

  ‘Apart from youngsters, the people most likely to go missing are men aged between twenty-seven and thirty-four.’

  ‘That puts you right in the frame, then, Ben.’

  ‘Are we talking death by misadventure? Or suicide, or what?’

  Fry hesitated. ‘Don’t know,’ she said.

  ‘If it’s murder,’ said Cooper, ‘you don’t need a profile for that. Anybody will do for a victim these days. Have we got any evidence? I thought he was hit by the snowplough?’

  ‘He was already dead before then.’

  The Snowman’s priority rating depended on the pathologist. If he had merely suffered a heart attack by the roadside, then he would be likely to stay on ice for some time before he was claimed. But Fry wasn’t taking that line.

  ‘An instinct, Diane?’ he said.

  But Fry ignored the question. ‘So you and Gavin have got work to do. Let’s have a list of possibles, soon as you can. Neighbouring forces, obviously. Don’t forget he was found on the A57. Greater Manchester must have a whole book full of missing persons.’

  ‘No doubt.’

  ‘Get on to the Missing Persons Helpline. And don’t forget the national forces – Transport Police, Ministry of Defence. Oh, and the Royal Ulster Constabulary.’

  ‘Oh, great. Terrorist execution by snowplough.’

  ‘You never know.’

  E Division’s commander, Chief Superintendent Colin Jepson, had agreed to see Alison Morrissey himself. But of course he demanded support from his junior officers. There was strength in numbers, he said – as if the visitor were the advance party for an enemy horde about to invade E Division. But numbers were something they didn’t have at the moment. The duty inspector had said she was too busy, and nobody from the community safety department was available, either. Ben Cooper’s name had been mentioned.

  ‘Here are the files the Local Intelligence Officer has put together for the Chief,’ said DI Paul Hitchens after telling Cooper the news, just before he went off duty that night.

  ‘If the LIO produced the files, why can’t he go to the meeting?’ asked Cooper.

  ‘He’s got flu. So it’ll have to be you, Ben.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘The Chief is afraid he’ll be asked questions that need a bit of local knowledge. You know he’s never quite managed to work out which county he’s in since he transferred from Lancashire. He has you marked down as the local lad who can answer all the difficult questions the rest of us can’t – you know, like how to spell “Derbyshire”.’

  ‘No, I meant – why?’ said Cooper. ‘It sounds as though this Alison Morrissey is on some kind of holy mission to clear her grandfather’s name. All ancient history, isn’t it?’

  ‘That’s about right,’ said Hitchens.

  ‘So why are we doing this at all?’

  ‘Ah. Political reasons.’

  ‘Political? What’s political about it?’

  ‘We owe favours,’ said Hitchens.

  ‘We do?’

  ‘When I say “we”, I mean the Chief, of course. Maybe you don’t remember the big fraud case a few years back, Ben. The main suspect got out of the country and ended up in Canada, masquerading as a lumberjack or whatever. The Mounties weren’t too co-operative at first, but the Chief talked to the consul in Sheffield. They’d played golf together once or twice, and the consul pulled some strings. Anyway, the net result was that our Chief Superintendent made some new bosom buddies over there in Ottawa. They discovered they had similar handshakes, if you know what I mean. And one of them turns out to be this Morrissey woman’s uncle. That’s what I mean by politics.’

  ‘So we’re putting on a show.’

  ‘Up to a point. We’re not actually going to do anything.’

  ‘How do you know that, sir, if we haven’t even talked to her yet?’

  ‘Oh, you’ll see,’ said Hitchens. ‘Even political influence can’t produce resources out of nowhere.’

  Finally, Cooper went off duty and made his way directly across town to the Old School Nursing Home. In one of the lounges, he found his mother waiting. She was sitting up in an armchair, tense, staring at the wall, her thoughts far away in some world of her own making.

  ‘Do you remember what I said, Mum?’ he asked. ‘About moving out of the farm?’ He tried to say it casually, to make it sound as though he were only planning to pop out to the shop to buy some tea bags.

  Isabel Cooper didn’t say anything, though her eyes shifted from the wall to his face. Cooper took her hand. It felt limp and lifeless.

  ‘I’ve decided I’ve got to live in my own place for a bit,’ he said. ‘It’ll only be in Edendale. I’ll still come and see you every day, don’t worry.’

  Her eyes remained distant, not focused on him at all. But a momentary shadow seemed to pass across her face, a faint echo of the expression she always used when she thought she’d caught him out in a lie.

  ‘You’ll never know any difference, Mum,’ he said. ‘You’ll see as much of me as you always have. Too much, as usual. That’s what you always used to say, whenever I got under your feet.’

  He wished she would smile at him, just once. But her face didn’t move. Part of that was the drugs. The drugs were doing their job, controlling the involuntary spasms, suppressing the facial twitches that had so often turned her into someone else, nothing like the mother he’d known.

  He patted the back of her hand, leaned forward and kissed her. Her cheek was cold, like the face of a statue. He heard her release her breath in a long sigh, and felt her relax a little. It was the only response he was likely to get.

  For a moment, Cooper thought of going back on his decision. But it didn’t matter to his mother now, did it? It didn’t make any difference to
her where he lived, now that she was in the nursing home and not likely to return to Bridge End Farm. It was his own reluctance that he was having to deal with, his own sense of leaving a large part of himself behind.

  He’d promised to call at the nursing home to see his mother every day, and so far he’d done it. It meant he could keep telling her every day about his decision to move out, until they both believed it.

  Cooper had left the farm too early that morning to collect his mail when the postman came. It was usually approaching nine o’clock by the time the post van made it out as far as Bridge End. So the estate agent’s details were waiting for him when he arrived home that evening. Everyone could tell what the envelope contained. He’d told his family that he planned to move out, but he could see they hadn’t really believed it until now. One of his nieces, Josie, handed him the envelope without saying a word, but with a reproachful look. She almost seemed to be about to burst into tears.

  ‘Anything interesting?’ said Matt, watching his brother open the envelope from the estate agent.

  Cooper could see straight away that there was nothing suitable. All the agents had available were a couple of three-bedroom semis in Buxton and a furnished first-floor apartment in Chapel-en-le-Frith. Apart from the fact that they were too far away, the rent for each of them was well outside the limit of his resources. But it seemed like an admission of failure to tell his family there was nothing. Worse, it might raise expectations that he’d never find anything, and that he’d be forced to stay on at the farm. Once that idea became accepted, it would be all too easy to fall in with it himself. And that would be that. He’d be here until he retired, or until Matt decided to sell the farm, which would be a disaster in itself.

  He looked at Matt. He wasn’t altogether sure how his brother felt about the prospect of him moving out. It was a big step, to be sure. But wouldn’t it leave more room for Matt and Kate and the girls to live their own life? Even inside the estate agent’s, though, he’d felt embarrassed to explain what he was doing. He was nearly thirty years old, and it wasn’t an age where you could comfortably announce that you were thinking of leaving home for the first time. He imagined the sideways glances at him, the speculation about his relationship with his mother.

  ‘I might have a look at one or two of these places tomorrow,’ he said.

  He could only hope. Things might look completely different tomorrow.

  Diane Fry stayed behind in the office for a while after everyone else had gone. The night shift was practically non-existent, and the station became like a morgue. It was the time she liked most, when there were no distractions and she could think out problems without being interrupted by singing lobsters or, even worse, her colleagues. People always had their own demands to make on her.

  From a locked drawer in her desk, she took out a manila folder, which had Ben Cooper’s name on it. It contained copies of his personnel files. She knew when he’d been recruited into Derbyshire Constabulary, what grades he got in his training and where his first posting had been. She had the date of his transfer from uniform to CID, a couple of commendations from senior officers, and a special note from the Divisional Commander referring to the death in service of his father, Sergeant Joe Cooper. Ben had been given compassionate leave and counselling. A note said ‘no long-term problems’.

  There were also the results of his examinations for the rank of sergeant, all good. Then the outcome of his interview board, when he’d withdrawn his application. That had been when Fry got the sergeant’s job herself. Did the change in Cooper stem from that time? It would be understandable. But she didn’t think it was quite that – although the disappointment of missing out on the promotion he’d banked on could have been the cause of what she suspected he’d done later. She was almost sure he’d concealed evidence, or at least not reported his suspicions, all out of misguided loyalty.

  Fry touched the scar on her face, which had healed but not yet faded. She had no evidence against him – that was the problem. There was no proof. Unfounded allegations against a colleague would blight her own career as surely as anything else she could do. Especially when they were against Mr Popular, the man who’d lived in the Eden Valley all his life and knew everyone. She would get no benefit from stirring up trouble against fellow officers, unless she was absolutely sure of her ground. And that was particularly true when one of them had died in the course of his duty.

  Fry knew nothing could do more damage to her relationship with her colleagues. She could imagine even now the officers drawing away from her in the corridor, the cooling of attitudes from senior staff, gradually freezing her out. Finally she would get the message and either transfer back to where she’d come from, the West Midlands, or leave the police service altogether, knowing no one would care which she chose.

  She frowned at the memory of the way Ben Cooper had looked today as he went off duty. He’d been wearing that ridiculous waxed coat with the long skirts and the vast inside pocket he called his poacher’s pocket. The coat was dark green, as if he were trying for a camouflage effect. It wasn’t much use in the snow – he’d be a sitting duck for an angry gamekeeper with a twelve-bore shotgun. But somehow it made him look as if he belonged where he was, like a man who was at ease with himself and his own place in the world. And then there was the tweed cap. In the shadow of its peak, you could barely see his eyes.

  Fry shook herself. There was no one she could ask about Cooper. Perhaps her view of him was somehow distorted. Maybe her antennae were deadened by her preoccupations with her own problems. One thing was certain, Cooper was a man orbiting somewhere beyond the reach of her detection systems. But he wouldn’t need to put a foot too far wrong before his orbit brought him right back into her sights. Maybe tomorrow.

  5

  By the next day, the skies had cleared. Overnight frost had sprayed glitter on the snow that lay on the moors, and the air crackled like static electricity.

  Ben Cooper sighed as he stumbled around his room, determined not to miss breakfast today. First thing this morning he had to attend the Chief Superintendent’s meeting with the Canadian woman. He hoped it was something that could be got out of the way as soon as possible. It was an irrelevance, and a waste of time. From what he’d read of the files produced by the Local Intelligence Officer, it was more than a cold case she was asking Derbyshire Constabulary to take up – it was no case at all.

  Cooper was sure it was just another fuss being kicked up by somebody with an obsession about the past and the history of their family. The Canadian would be sent packing by Chief Superintendent Jepson pretty quickly.

  She was unimportant, anyway. At the moment, until he was fully awake, Cooper couldn’t even remember the woman’s name.

  Alison Morrissey had brought Frank Baine with her to West Street for support. Baine described himself as a freelance journalist who had researched local RAF history and the background to the aircraft wrecks that littered the Peak District. He hinted at a book yet to appear. He was also the man who’d liaised for weeks now on behalf of the Canadian, pestering for information and a confirmed date and time for the meeting. Though the Chief Superintendent had at no stage spoken to Baine himself, he’d already managed to become irritated by his persistence, communicated to him by his staff. That Canadian Consul must really be a valuable contact.

  The four of them met in the Chief Superintendent’s office amid a flurry of cappuccino served by the Chief’s secretary, and an offer of the Bakewell tarts that Jepson kept for the purpose of demonstrating his Derbyshire street cred to visitors. Cooper couldn’t remember when he’d tasted real coffee at West Street before. He’d heard they actually served it to customers in reception at the new B Division headquarters, but he wouldn’t believe it until he saw it for himself.

  The meeting opened with some half-hearted pleasantries about the health and welfare of Miss Morrissey’s uncle, his family, his dog and his golf handicap. The Chief Superintendent eventually ran out of small talk and sat looking at
his visitors in silence. It was an interrogation technique that he fell back on from force of habit, from his long-past days in the CID. It worked, though. Alison Morrissey began talking almost immediately.

  ‘As you know, gentlemen, I asked for this meeting because I’m attempting to clear the dishonour on the name of my grandfather, Daniel McTeague, who was an officer serving in the Royal Canadian Air Force. He was reported missing while on attachment to the RAF in January 1945.’

  ‘All of fifty-seven years ago,’ said Chief Superintendent Jepson. He was smiling amicably, but he was putting down his marker from the start.

  ‘I happen to know that your neighbours the Greater Manchester Police re-opened a case last year that was exactly fifty-seven years old,’ said Morrissey, looking him straight in the eye. ‘The length of time that has passed seems to me to be irrelevant, if there’s been a miscarriage of justice.’

  Cooper sneaked a look at her over the files he was pretending to study. He hadn’t expected her to be so young. If he’d bothered to think about it, he would have been able to work out her possible age range, of course, since he knew it was her grandfather that she was here to talk about. It was mentioned in the files that Pilot Officer McTeague had been twenty-three when he went missing. His daughter, Alison Morrissey’s mother, had been born only days before he disappeared, which would make her fifty-eight now. She must have been one of those women who waited until her thirties before having children, because Morrissey could barely have been more than twenty-five or twenty-six. Cooper liked the way she’d answered the Chief Superintendent. She had plenty of determination. And she knew her stuff, too.

  ‘There was never a court case,’ pointed out Jepson. ‘Justice was not involved.’

  ‘Natural justice,’ said Morrissey.

  The Chief Superintendent sighed a little. ‘Go on.’

  ‘My grandfather was the pilot of a Lancaster bomber based at RAF Leadenhall in Nottinghamshire, part of 223 Squadron of Bomber Command. He’d been flying with the RAF for two years, and he had an excellent service record. He was awarded a Distinguished Flying Cross after bringing home a damaged Wellington from a successful raid on German U-boat bases near Rotterdam. He ordered his crew to bail out once they were over England and landed the aircraft single-handedly. And that was despite the fact that he had himself been wounded by shrapnel from enemy anti-aircraft fire. As soon as he recovered from his injuries, he retrained on Lancasters and was posted to RAF Leadenhall.’