“You okay, T?”
She chewed on her lower lip. “You said I only had to stay as long as I felt comfortable, but I’ve been trying to leave for the past hour. Every time I get out of my seat, someone tells me that Grandad Ben would want me to stay.”
Cooper took Tina by the hand and walked out to the patio area, where it was a little bit quieter but twice as smokey. “Grandad Ben wouldn’t want you staying a second longer than you wanted to. If any of his friends are trying to guilt you into staying, it’s because they’re feeling helpless having suffered a loss. They’re trying to regain some control by controlling their immediate surroundings. And unfortunately, that has included you. I’m sorry I left your side for that to happen.”
Tina looked at the floor. “It’s not your fault. I figure you’re in the same boat. You don’t exactly look happy to be here. Not that you should be happy...” She shuffled awkwardly. “You know what I mean.”
“I know what you mean,” said Cooper. She took a deep breath, then wrinkled her nose at the scent of cigarettes and acidic wine. “Where would you rather be? You fancy a walk along the beach?”
“If it’s okay with you, I’d rather just go to bed. I want to give Josh a ring and go over some of my physics notes. I didn’t really take in any of my revision from yesterday.”
“I don’t blame you. But don’t give yourself a hard time if your studying is not going as well as it usually would. It’s been a tough few days and you’re out of your usual routine. Go up to bed and if anyone tries to stop you, use the self-defence moves I taught you. It’ll teach them to think twice about grabbing a teenage girl when she’s not suspecting it.” She winked at Tina.
Tina grimaced. “I’m not punching anyone in the throat, Mum.” She rolled her eyes and headed back inside the bar before scurrying through the back of the kitchen towards the alley that led to Julie and Ben’s villa.
Cooper held her glass of rosé up to the light and inspected it. There was a slight cloudiness to it that she didn’t like the look of. She put it on a table and pinched the bridge of her nose; her headache was fast becoming a migraine.
There was a lull in the music while the jukebox changed to the next track: Oops Up Side Your Head. A group of her parents’ friends – buoyed by intoxication – sat on the floor, their legs wrapped around the person in front. In time to the music – sort of – they swayed from side to side, alternating between tapping the floor with their hands and clapping their hands above their head. Cooper’s first thought was a question of cleanliness. When was the last time the floor had been disinfected?
Tiptoeing her way around the merriment, trying her best not to stand on anyone’s hands, Cooper forced her way through to the bar where her mother was sipping some awful concoction the colour of de-icer.
“How are you doing, Mum?” She opened one of the fridges and got herself a bottle of water. She reached into her pocket, found a few euros and chucked them in the till.
“Erica. I know this is going to sound ridiculous, but your father would have loved today.”
“You’re right. That does sound ridiculous,” Cooper said dryly.
“You know what I mean. He loved it when the bar was heaving like this. Everyone dancing. No one taking themselves too seriously.”
Cooper gave half a smile.
“Darling, it’s been such a serious day. You are allowed to smile. You are allowed to have fun.”
The chilled water energised her. She swallowed down almost the entire bottle in one go; such was her thirst.
A man in a red and white checked shirt approached and asked for a double rum and Coke.
He had thin lips and a slight jaundice tint to his skin. His hair was shaggy and a light shade of grey, whereas his eyebrows were perfectly trimmed and jet black. Cooper was nearest the Bacardi, so she poured him a double measure, topped it up with the supermarket cola that was labelled as Coke and added lemon slices and ice. “That’s seven euros sixty, please.”
The man looked awkwardly from Cooper to Julie and back again. “Erm... It’s an open bar. Isn’t it?”
“Mum? I know you want everyone to have a good time. For Dad’s wake to be a hit for whatever reason, but honestly, you can’t have an open bar.”
Julie looked upset. As if she was allowed a free pass to behave however she wanted today because she was grieving. And to a certain extent, she was.
Julie took the drink out of Cooper’s hand and gave it to the man in the checked shirt. She turned her back to the bar so she could look at Cooper. “Your father would have approved.”
“My father would want the bar to survive. He would want those kids, who have been working their arses off in the kitchen all day, to be paid for their work. For them to have job security.”
“Listen to yourself. Talking to me like I’m a child.”
Around them, what had been a busy kitchen had gone quiet. The staff who had been hurriedly washing dishes, refilling this that and the other, and bringing items out from storage to replenish the stocks in the fridge were suddenly still. Their ears had pricked up.
“Is this what every mother goes through? You get to a certain age and your daughter starts talking to you like you’re the baby?”
“For goodness sake, Mum. That’s not what’s going on here. But if it makes you feel any better, Tina talks to me like that all the time.”
Fresh tears emerged from Julie’s eyes; she felt behind her back until she found her sunglasses, angrily forcing them back over her face.
“I haven’t seen you in over a year and you swan in telling me how to grieve, how to run the business—”
“Erica,” someone shouted from across the bar.
“In a minute,” she shouted back. “I did not swan in, and I’m not telling you how to grieve, Mum. By all means, have a good time today, celebrate the memories, but you won’t have a business if you keep giving away drinks. There must have been...” She did some quick mental arithmetic. “Thousands of euros pissed away today. I think I’m the only one to put some money in the till.”
As Cooper said it, she slapped her hand on the till and it opened with a jolt and a chime. She went to slam it back into position, only the drawer remained lodged in place. “Everything’s falling apart, Mum.” She tried to speak in gentle tones and get the message across in the nicest way possible. “This is your responsibility now. People’s jobs depend on you.”
A loud drunken voice from across the bar carried over Blame It On The Boogie. “Erica, sweetie.”
“Not now.” Whatever they wanted, they’d have to wait. She didn’t want to play darts or pool, and she certainly didn’t want to join in another choreographed dance.
Tears rolled from beneath Julie’s shades. She grabbed a handful of flimsy serviettes and dabbed at her face, smudging her plum coloured lipstick. “I think I could do with a double Bacardi myself,” she said with a sniffle. She marched across the kitchen, opened her purse and slammed a few euros in the till. “Happy?”
Not really.
“Erica.” It was that voice again. She swallowed down all the emotions that were threatening to spill over into an angry yell and forced a polite response while her mother stomped about. “Yes? Can’t it wait?”
“Sorry, sweetheart,” said a woman with a round face, perfect teeth and a thick heavy fringe of chestnut hair. “But some geezer is looking for you.” With her hands full with what looked like two cosmopolitans, she used her elbow to point across the busy room.
What now? Cooper thought to herself. She scanned beyond the pool table until her eyes settled on a tall but slim man. He had impeccable posture, salt and pepper stubble, and an air of confidence and intellect: Justin Atkinson.
She covered the distance in seconds, her heart swelling. “What are you doing here?”
“You sounded like you could use a hug.”
She could. She really could.
- Chapter 20 -
It had been a tough day. Heck, it had been a tough few months, but as l
ong as crime didn’t stop for a break or a holiday, neither could CID.
The satisfaction they had felt after consuming a few slices of pizza much earlier in the day had quickly worn off and now Tennessee was itching for a good meal. He took long strides as he walked over to Keaton and Martin; they were chatting to a member of the public. He tilted his head towards one of the two pubs on the island: The Ship Inn. Keaton and Martin looked like Christmas had come early.
As Tennessee was driving, he could only have half a pint, but the others could relax and enjoy themselves. Heads of both staff and patrons turned and stared as the three detectives entered the bar. As was to be expected, there was a tense atmosphere in the room. People wondered how such a thing had happened in their safe, secluded community.
There was a reason there was no police station based on the island: bad things didn’t happen here. Not since the Viking raids. The fear was written on all their faces. Some had moved here to get away from the cities and the crime associated with them. If they weren’t safe here, where were they?
Keaton picked out an empty table in the corner. It was surrounded by three small stools covered in blue fabric. Tennessee went to the bar and bought himself a half, Keaton and Martin a pint each and a selection of meals. He knew the team well enough to guess what they’d want to eat. Fish and chips for Martin, mussels in white wine for Keaton, and with his vegan wife an hour and a half away, he ordered himself a beef and ale pie with extra gravy.
Martin took a gulp of lager and put his drink down with a thud. “Well, I think it’s safe to say we’re not going to get much sleep tonight. Do you think he was buried alive as well?”
Tennessee leant forward. He didn’t want any of his neighbouring diners to overhear. “We won’t know until we hear back from Margot. But she knows what to look for. Jesus...” He pushed his fingers through his blonde curls. “This is horrific. We need to find out what Eve Lynch and Charles Pennington had in common. The fact that the deaths occurred in such quick succession doesn’t make me feel good at all. Not one bit.”
“He’s gonna kill again. Isn’t he?”
Neither Tennessee nor Keaton answered. Martin shook his head and ran a finger through the condensation that formed on his glass. “Do we have any connection so far?”
“The only one I have is that Eve Lynch clearly liked art, her house was full of it, and Charles Pennington was a fan as well. He enjoyed art lessons when he was a teacher, and he named his daughter after the most famous painting of them all. But I can’t work out why liking art would get someone killed?”
Martin was already halfway down his pint. It wasn’t touching the sides. “Unless…”
“What are you thinking?”
“Could the killings be a distraction for robbery? If they both enjoyed art, perhaps they have expensive paintings that have gone missing while we’re all too busy looking at the scenes he’s created.”
“You can check with Mona. She’ll know if anything is missing from her father’s house. But as for Eve, she didn’t appear to have any family, and I don’t think she knew her neighbours well enough to invite them in regularly. Still, it’s a hypothesis worth following up on. I’ll ask someone to speak to Avani Amin again. She seemed to know her better than most. Have you heard from HQ?”
Keaton shifted her weight on the barstool; it wasn’t built for someone her size. Tennessee was a tall man, and his knees came a little higher than his hips as he sat, but he was nowhere near as uncomfortable as Keaton.
“I spoke to Whyte earlier,” she said. “Saffron has her work cut out as statement reader; reports are coming in faster than she can process them. But she’s doing a great job by all accounts. Plus, there’s all the footage and photographs that were uploaded to the site. Anything of interest is being added to HOLMES2. Basically, it’s business as usual. Except this is rather unusual, even for our standards.”
Tennessee hadn’t stopped, hadn’t paused for breath. He hadn’t really taken the time to think about if he was making the right decisions. “Would Cooper have done anything differently?” he asked.
“No,” said Keaton and Martin at the same time.
They paused while their food arrived, pushing their stools back to try and create more space for the plates, cutlery and condiments. Martin didn’t waste a second, picking up his knife and fork and diving straight into the battered cod.
“This looks piping hot,” he said as a plume of steam erupted from the cooked fish. “You’ve known Cooper longer than I have, but I don’t think she would have done anything differently. In fact, I think if she were here, she would have taken us for a pint as well.”
Tennessee’s mouth curled, but it was hardly a smile.
Keaton rolled her eyes while she dipped a chip into her white wine sauce. “For goodness sake, am I going to have to tell you to man up? You’ve done a brilliant job from the second that body was discovered on Saturday. You have this handled. So, stop doubting yourself.”
“I can always rely on you to keep it real. But I just keep thinking maybe I should check in, give her a ring see what she—”
Keaton pointed her folk in Tennessee’s face. “Don’t even think about it. She’s off duty. I’m going to say this once more because you’re clearly having a moment: You, Detective Sergeant Jack Daniel, are doing a bloody fantastic job. It was only a matter of time before you flew solo and had to lead a major investigation. So it’s come earlier than you thought? Embrace it. You’ve never been afraid of a challenge, so don’t start now. You hear me?”
She stabbed her fork into a mussel, swished it around the thick, creamy sauce and popped it into her mouth. She eyed him as she chewed. She swallowed and repeated herself. “I said, do you hear me?”
He did. Sometimes in life, you just needed a pep talk, and there was no one better to deliver those than someone who had been thirty-one down at halftime, only to come out in the second and lead her team to victory.
- Chapter 21 -
After many hours of day drinking, the mourners had begun to turn in for the night. One by one, they picked up their belongings, cheerfully hugged Julie Cooper and slurred out words of drunken compassion. They swayed and staggered, holding onto the backs of chairs and edges of tables for stability. When only the last few remained, Cooper and Atkinson started to tidy up.
Cooper turned the jukebox down to its lowest setting. It was currently playing Thunderstruck by ACDC. At last, a song Ben Cooper would have approved of. Atkinson took a tower of empty pint glasses back to the kitchen and fetched some antibacterial spray and clean cloths. Together they wiped down the tables and filled a black bin liner with used serviettes and scraps of leftover food.
After recovering a stray pool ball that had rolled under one of the patio chairs, Cooper nipped upstairs to see Tina. She knocked gently, but when there was no answer, she pushed the door open ajar. Tina lay facedown under a pile of wavy hair. Her phone and numerous school books were strewn around her. Tina was either out for the count or faking it because she didn’t want to be disturbed. If she was faking it, she was doing a good job. Cooper closed the bedroom curtains and switched the light off before quietly shutting the door behind her.
She was proud of Tina and how studying always seemed to ground her no matter what was going on in her life. Cooper would never understand how she managed to focus on her studies after some of the things that had gone on last year.
When she returned downstairs, she found the last few funeral guests huddled around a single table. Julie had pulled out her wedding album as well as a box of photos from their lives back on Tyneside. There was much pointing, laughing and reminiscing. Ben Cooper’s old mullet from the eighties was a particular source of amusement.
Cooper placed a tentative hand on her mother’s shoulder and gave it a squeeze. “Dishwasher’s stacked. Is there anything else I can do?”
Julie must have softened since Cooper’s last conversation with her. She placed her hand on her daughter’s and looked up at her with an inebr
iated smile and squinty eyes. “No dear, you go and spend time with that handsome fella of yours.”
“We’re not together, Mum. We’re just friends.” Cooper’s eyes flickered to Atkinson, and she knew that wasn’t entirely the truth.
“Well, you can say that till the cows come home, but men don’t fly two thousand miles for just friends. Besides, I saw the look on your face when he gave you that hug. I’d recognise that look anywhere.”
Cooper didn’t protest; she knew her mother wouldn’t buy any of it. Instead, she bid goodnight to her drinking buddies, suggested her mother should have a glass of water or a coffee and went to meet Atkinson on the patio.
The sun was beginning to lower, and thanks to a breeze blowing up from the marina, the air had cooled. They had walked to the end of the street before Cooper turned back. “I should have brought a cardigan.”
“You own a cardigan?” he asked suspiciously. It was a fair question; it wasn’t her usual attire.
“It’s strictly for holidays. When a leather jacket won’t really cut it.”
“Here,” Atkinson pulled his long-sleeved t-shirt off. He was wearing a regular t-shirt underneath. “Put this on.”
She gave the briefest of protests but quickly gave up the charade and gratefully took the item of clothing. It swamped her, but it did the job of keeping the night breeze off of her. Plus, it smelled of Atkinson. She liked it; there was something comforting about wearing a man’s shirt.
“I came here when I was a little kid,” said Cooper expanding her arms to gesture to the whole area. “It’s what started Mum and Dad’s dream of moving here. There was a little hole-in-the-wall place that sold ice creams. I was obsessed with them and needed at least two a day. It’s still here, believe it or not, just at the end of the road. I always ordered a Mr Whippy with red sherbet sprinkles and a chocolate flake.”
Atkinson put his arm over her shoulder and pulled her close to him. “We can talk about ice cream if you like, but if you’d rather talk about your father or the funeral...”
Northern Roulette (DCI Cooper Book 4) Page 9