by Robert Innes
“DS Harte? A word please.”
Blake barely registered he had been spoken to until Angel cleared his throat loudly.
“Now, please?”
Blake followed him into the office and sat down as Angel closed the door behind them and sat down at his desk opposite Blake, before opening a folder and turning it around so Blake could see the contents.
“Would you care to cast your eye over this report of the incident at the beginning of the week?”
Blake leant forward and read through the report, immediately realising why he was sitting in Angel’s office. It was a report that he had filled in himself and now he was reading through it, he could see it was filled with sparse details, spelling mistakes and some aspects of it had been completely left out. Blake glanced up at Angel, slightly embarrassed.
“Anything to add?” Angel asked. “Apart from any of the correct information required in the report, that is.”
Blake sighed as he read through the report. He could not believe he had even considered for a moment that it was in an acceptable condition to hand in.
“I’m sorry, Sir,” he said simply.
Angel lent back in his chair and narrowed his eyes. “I would like to think I know you well enough by now, DS Harte, to be able to say that this is not like you. I have noticed that you have seemed extremely distracted and out of sorts recently. You’ve been snappy, your mind hasn’t seemed to be on the job. Is there something wrong?”
Blake looked up at Angel and briefly considered telling him everything, but just as quickly, decided against it. “I’ve just not had a lot of sleep the past few days, Sir, that’s all.”
“Why not?”
“We all have nights like that.”
“Not to the extent where it’s affecting our work,” replied Angel sternly, clasping his hands together and studying Blake intently. “If there’s something wrong, DS Harte, then I’m giving you the opportunity to tell me. Are you saying that everything is okay with you?”
Blake bit his lip. “Yes, Sir.”
“In that case, this report should not be handed to me in this condition. This is not a conversation that I expect to be having with a detective sergeant. The errors in this document are the sort I would expect from a young constable.” He picked up the folder and passed it to Blake, then stood up and opened the office door again. “I want that report complete and looking the way it should be by the end of the day.”
He stood by the open door and stared expectantly at Blake, who exhaled to calm himself, picked up the report and stormed out of the office. As the door closed behind him, Blake went back to his desk, slammed the report down and put his face into his hands. He needed to get a grip. It was true that he had barely slept the past few nights and the tiredness was clearly starting to take an effect.
He sat down at the desk and opened the report, taking in the mistakes. Around him, the rest of Harmschapel police station were also busy at work. On the desk opposite him, he could hear Patil telling the others about how unwell she had been feeling recently.
“Honestly, I keep waking up and having to rush to the loo. I can’t seem to keep anything down. I shouldn’t be in today really.”
“Then why are you?” Gardiner asked, sounded extremely uninterested.
Patil shrugged. “Dedication? I’ll tell you one thing, it’s the last time I let Matti cook for me.”
Mattison looked up from his computer. “Don’t blame me. If it was food poisoning, you wouldn’t be able to get out of bed at all. I should know. I got food poisoning from that dodgy burger van at the fair last year. I thought I was going to die.”
“You better hope it’s nothing contagious,” Gardiner snapped. “The last thing I need at the moment is getting ill. I’ve never been able to understand why ill people feel the need to spread their germs about everywhere.”
Blake glanced across at him, before attempting to carry on rectifying the report.
“It’s just the height of inconsideration,” Gardiner went on. “If you’ve got something contagious, stay away from people. It’s common decency! Just because you’ve gone and got yourself ill with some indescribable bug, doesn’t mean everybody else should have to suffer.”
Blake could hear no more. He slammed the report shut, picked his coat up from his chair and stormed towards the door.
“You alright, Sir?” Mattison asked, frowning.
“Fine. I’m going out,” replied Blake sharply. “I won’t be long.”
Before any of the officers could reply, Blake had left the room, slamming the door behind him.
As Blake stormed through the village, his heart hammered in his chest. He knew that he could not go on like this for any longer. As often as Gardiner annoyed him, Blake knew that the conversation he had been having had been completely innocent, and yet he had been unable to hear it. Even the very mention of illness was enough to trigger an emotional response from him.
He reached the top of the hill near where Jai Sinah’s corner shop resided. He could just make out Harrison through the window with his back to him, standing behind the till to serve a customer. Blake sat on a bench, which partly obscured him from view should Harrison turn around and put his head in his hands, staring ahead of him. He could not remember ever feeling worse than he did at this moment, and the most awful part of it all was that there was every chance that this could only be the beginning.
He pulled his phone out of his pocket and began writing a text message to Nathan.
“Have you had your results back yet?”
He stared at the words on the screen, fully aware that his life could change forever depending on the reply, but, doing what he was fully aware was the most sensible thing he had done since he had first spoken to Nathan, he clicked ‘send.’
He looked up at the shop again and was surprised to see that the customer Harrison had been serving was Angela Coopland. She had her arm in a sling and was struggling with a carrier bag. Blake immediately stood up and hurried across the road towards her.
“Angela?”
She looked up and Blake felt an immediate pang of sympathy as his own problems suddenly felt completely eclipsed. Angela looked awful. Her huge mass of hair was stuck up everywhere, giving the impression of someone who had recently been electrocuted. She had huge bags under her eyes, telling Blake that he was not the only one who had not been sleeping. She looked up at him with the expression of someone who was begging him not to say anything that would make her life any more difficult.
“Do you need a hand with that?” Blake asked gently, glancing down at the carrier bag.
Angela gave him the weakest of smiles and nodded. “Thank you. I can’t carry more than one bag at the moment, and I needed to get a few bits in. Most of the stuff we got at the supermarket had ran out of date by the time I got back from hospital.”
Blake took the carrier bag out of her hands. “I’ll help you home. It’s no problem.”
“That’s so kind, thank you,” Angela said quietly. “Though I don’t want to hold you up if you’re busy?”
Blake was not sure how to respond to that, so he just shook his head. “I’ve got time to help you.”
They began walking down the road in the direction of the undertakers. For a few minutes, they walked in silence, which Blake had no problem with. He had dealt with enough grieving relatives over the years to know that sometimes all they needed was silence with someone other than themselves for company. Eventually though, Angela sighed and said “I can’t quite believe it’s been a week. I suppose the days have a habit of all merging into one when you haven’t slept for more than an hour.”
“They can do that, yes,” Blake said. “Do you mind me asking when you met Patrick?”
“Thirty-two years ago,” Angela replied wistfully. “Sometimes I look back at those times and I don’t even feel like the same person. I was so young and carefree and naive. Patrick was sweet and kind and thoughtful. How things change, eh?”
Blake nodded. “Ye
ah. Don’t they just?”
They walked in silence for another few moments before Blake asked “I’m sorry if I made things difficult for you that day at the supermarket. Believe it or not, I was trying to help.”
“I actually really appreciated it,” Angela replied, smiling. “Patrick got very fond of giving me dressing downs like that in public. You’d be amazed at how many people choose to ignore it.”
“How long was he treating you like that for?”
Angela shrugged instinctively causing her to wince slightly in pain. “I stopped counting the years in all honesty. Certainly for quite a long time. He could turn at the drop of a hat. I think the phrase is ‘Jekyll and Hyde.’”
“I imagine you still loved him though. It doesn’t make it any easier.”
“Sometimes I did. There were times when he was the sweetest, kindest man you could ever wish to meet. Days where I genuinely thought I was the luckiest woman on Earth for meeting him. Then other times, he could just be vile. You never knew what you were going to get.”
“You’re free of that now though,” Blake said gently.
“Well, that’s the thing, Detective,” Angela said as they arrived at the undertakers. “I’m not entirely sure I am.”
Blake frowned as he watched Angela unlock the door. “What do you mean?”
“Oh, it doesn’t matter,” she replied. “Here, let me have my bag, thanks so much for helping me.”
“Angela, you can talk to me,” Blake told her, holding the carrier bag out of reach. “What do you mean you’re not free?” He studied Angela’s hesitant expression. “You may find it feels better to talk, it might even be a relief. You don’t have to deal with this on your own.”
Angela sighed and looked around them. Despite the fact that there was nobody about she said “Not out here. Come in.”
Blake nodded, fully aware of his own hypocrisy of what he had said about talking to someone and followed her inside.
The interior of the undertakers was clean and sleek looking. Blake placed the shopping bags down and followed Angela through to a large room that looked like an extremely comfortable waiting room. Two sofas stood opposite each other, with a table in the middle filled with an array of glossy brochures containing, Blake assumed, all the details mourners could want to know about Coopland’s Undertakers.
“Take a seat,” Angela said to him. “I’ll just get us some tea. David?”
She poked her head around one of the doors leading out to a corridor. A few moments later, Blake could hear the sound of heels clipping towards them as a tall, thin faced man with long grey hair tied up in a neat ponytail appeared from the doorway. He had a large hooked nose and narrow eyes that gave the impression of someone who was forever looking down on those around them.
“Yes, Mrs Coopland?” he said in a velvet smooth voice.
“Would you mind getting some tea for myself and the detective?”
“Of course, my pleasure. And perhaps some biscuits? I do believe we still have some raspberry shortbread lurking at the back of the cupboard.”
“That’d be lovely, thank you,” Angela told him.
David nodded and with a brief but tight smile at Blake, he vanished down the corridor, the heels from his shoes clip-clopping along across the wooden floor.
“I wish I had someone like that to make me tea and bring me biscuits,” Blake said lightly as Angela sat down opposite him.
“Oh, David’s worked here for years,” Angela replied. “Patrick surprised me with him one day. Someone to help me around the house and with my side of the business. Obviously, that was on one of his nice days.”
“So, you were saying?” Blake asked. “What did you mean when you said you weren’t free? There’s clearly something bothering you, aside from the tragedy of losing your husband I mean?”
Angela sat down, massaging her arm in the sling slightly. “You’ll think I’m mad.”
“Go on.”
Angela hesitated, looking unsure of how to phrase what she wanted to say. “I’m sure there’s a perfectly logical explanation for it. There must be. People can’t rise from the dead, can they?
Whatever Blake had been expecting her to say, it certainly was not that. “What are you talking about?”
“Even as I’m saying it, I know it doesn’t make any sense,” Angela murmured. She looked up from where she had been staring at the floor. “I’ve seen Patrick.”
“Seen him?”
“Twice now. I’m sure of it.”
“You think you’ve seen Patrick after he died?” Blake clarified.
“I’ve heard about you and your detective skills,” Angela said with a slight chuckle, though Blake was sure it was more out of nerves than amusement. “You know how gossip goes around Harmschapel. It sounds like you’ve had some real puzzles. That’s the only reason I’m even telling you this to be honest. Because you’re the only one who might be able to make me feel like I’m not going mad.”
“I don’t think you’re going mad,” Blake said gently. “Perhaps a little traumatised by events.”
“The first time was when I was talking to you before they put me into the ambulance,” Angela told him. “And I mean you’re probably right. I was in shock after the crash, and my vision was probably impaired by all the smoke coming from the car. But I’m sure I saw him. Just standing there in the crowd.”
Blake thought back to the evening of the crash. He remembered Angela staring out to the crowd that had gathered to watch her being pulled from the wreckage. He had assumed she had just been in shock.
“And when was the other time?”
Before Angela could answer, David returned carrying a silver tray with two dainty cups on top of it. A blue china teapot stood in the middle, steaming slightly from the spout. With his other hand, he placed down the biscuits and gave Angela an icy smile. “Will there be anything else?”
“No, no, we’ll be alright now, David.”
The man nodded and glided out of the room, closing the door behind him. Angela held a finger up and waited until they heard the sound of David’s heels fading away before speaking again.
“The second time was the day after I arrived in hospital. The doctor came in, prodded me about a bit to make sure there wasn’t anything else wrong, and then gave me some really strong painkillers that knocked me out. I don’t know how long I was asleep for or even if I actually woke up when I thought I saw him, but I have a memory of waking up in that hospital bed and seeing him standing there. No cuts, no bruises, nothing. Just looking exactly as he had been before the crash.”
“Did he say anything to you?”
“No, I don’t think so. Anyway, I must have fallen asleep again and obviously when I woke up properly, he was gone. I mean, logic is telling me I must have dreamt it, or the drugs were making me see things or something. But it all felt so real. I can vividly remember seeing him standing there. But, of course, I can’t have. Patrick is dead. And even now, he still has the ability to mess with my head.”
Blake frowned in confusion. There was no possible way that Patrick Coopland could have survived the crash and subsequent explosion. Angela was lucky not to have been killed herself. He had no answer to what she had just said to him, so instead he leant across the table and took a firm hold of her hand.
“I promise you that Patrick can’t get to you anymore. It’s completely understandable for your head to feel a little bit twisted after everything you’ve been through, especially this week, but he’s gone, Angela. I swear.”
Angela nodded, appearing to be holding in tears. “I’m sure you’re right. Besides, I can look at his body whenever I like until tomorrow.”
Blake glanced at the door leading to the corridor. “You mean he’s here?”
“He is. In his coffin as we speak. David will be putting the finishing touches to him now.”
Blake placed the biscuit he had been about to put into his mouth down gingerly on the table.
“Have you got anybody to be with
you? Any family? Friends?”
“No, not really,” Angela replied. “Patrick never let me go out without him. The whole point in living in a village is that you’re supposed to be part of a community. Not me though. There’s only my sister, but I barely speak to her.”
“What time is the funeral?”
“Midday,” replied Angela. “I shall be glad when it’s over. This evening, I plan to get him looking his best. As you can imagine, he specified a lot of details over his own funeral. I think he was one step away from rehearsing the bloody thing. We’ve got horses, the finest coffin, and he has a beautiful spot in the churchyard to be buried in. Will you be there at the funeral tomorrow? I’d like for him to have a good send off.”
“I’m sure he will. Midday tomorrow? Of course.”
Despite the fact that he had just agreed to attend a funeral for a man he neither liked or knew particularly well, by the time Blake left Coopland’s Undertakers, he was feeling slightly more relaxed. It had done him good to hear somebody else’s problems and be able to forget his own for a short time, but just as he was enjoying a slight relief from the heaviness his mind had been feeling for the past week, his phone vibrated in his pocket. At first, he assumed it would be Angel trying to find out where he had disappeared to, but instead it was a message from Nathan. His reply did nothing to alleviate Blake’s worries.
‘Not yet. Should be within the next few days. Have you been tested yet?’
Blake immediately locked his phone screen and pushed it back into his pocket and set off towards his car and more specifically, the pack of cigarettes waiting for him in the glove compartment.
5
“I don’t know why I have to come,” Harrison moaned as he stood in front of the mirror attempting to put on his tie. “I didn’t know the guy. Plus, he nearly killed me and Tom before he crashed.”
“I know, and I’m sorry,” Blake told him from across the bedroom as he pulled a shirt out of the wardrobe. “I told Angela that I’d try and get as many people as I could to come. She’s just lost her husband, Harrison. And he wasn’t exactly the friendliest of types. Not to put too fine a point on it, but you should know what that’s like.”