Already Dead

35

Tuesday

Ben Cooper had become a hero. No one quite knew how that had happened, least of all Cooper.

When he came into West Street on Tuesday morning he looked almost the old Cooper, clean shaven and upright, though he was several pounds thinner and the shadow in his eyes was still there, the way that Fry had seen it in Wirksworth a few days ago.

She watched Cooper shaking hands with everyone — Gavin Murfin, Luke Irvine, Becky Hurst. And of course Carol Villiers, though that was hardly necessary. Fry felt sure that none of them needed to be quite so enthusiastic about his reappearance.

No matter what had happened, and what anyone else said, she didn’t feel able to treat Cooper like a hero. She was aware of what had been in his heart, if not in his mind. And she knew how close it had come to ending completely differently.

But with the shotgun safely back in its locked cabinet at Bridge End Farm, there seemed to be no reason to mention it to anyone now. It felt strange to be sharing a secret with Matt Cooper, but there were stranger things in life.

Detective Superintendent Branagh came through the office to greet Cooper. Another handshake there. Branagh stopped at Fry’s elbow, and smiled.

‘It was good to have DS Cooper’s input, wasn’t it?’ she said. ‘If only unofficially.’

Fry swallowed. ‘Yes, ma’am.’

No need to ask where that intelligence came from, then.

By the time Fry finally got Cooper on his own she was fighting conflicting emotions. That always made her say the wrong thing.

‘Ben, I know you’ve been talking to members of my team,’ she said. ‘Trying to get information out of them. Don’t do it again. I don’t need to remind you — while you’re on leave, you’re just another member of the public.’

Cooper gazed back at her, unblinking.

‘If you mean Carol, she’s my friend,’ he said simply.

Fry bit her lip. For some reason, that reply hurt her more than anything else he might have said. She didn’t understand the sudden welling of pain it had caused, a confusing ache in her stomach as her diaphragm spasmed. She was overwhelmed by a desire to lash out in retaliation, as if she’d been physically attacked.

As Cooper walked away, she remembered Carol Villiers saying that it was the name of Turner’s employers Prospectus Assurance that had sparked Cooper’s interest in the first place. At the time, she’d thought it was just familiarity, that he’d heard of the firm before. They had offices in Edendale, after all. But then, Ben Cooper had heard of everybody. He was the fount of all local knowledge. The name of one specific Eden Valley firm shouldn’t have made a particularly deep impression on him. There was more to it than that. There always was.

Fry shook her head. It ought to have dawned on her before. Why hadn’t she figured this out earlier? She’d failed to see that something else might have been going on in Cooper’s mind. Something much more devious and worrying. Perhaps an indication of how close he was to tipping over the edge, how dangerously unbalanced he’d become.

Fry sat down with Luke Irvine. The job wasn’t done yet. She reminded him about the interviews they’d done with Charlie Dean and Sheena Sullivan when Dean’s BMW was first traced. There was that frightening stranger in the red, hooded rain jacket.

‘Luke — in her statement, Sheena Sullivan said something about the stranger breathing heavily.’

‘He was helping to push their BMW out of the mud,’ said Irvine. ‘It’s a heavy vehicle. I think anyone would be a bit out of breath-’

‘No,’ said Fry. ‘Before that. When he first got out of his car. And she mentioned his voice. Where are those statements? Can you dig them out?’

‘Here.’

Irvine passed across the files, and Fry flicked through them until she found the page she was looking for. It was a small detail, so apparently unimportant that it might have been left out of Sheena’s written statement altogether by another interviewing officer. But Becky Hurst had recorded it word for word.

‘And there was something about his voice,’ she read.

Irvine shrugged. ‘What does that mean? Nothing.’

He was right, of course. Hurst had done the right thing, recording the comment on the statement form, but she should have followed it up. Perhaps she’d thought it was just a bit of imaginative over-dramatisation on Sheena Sullivan’s part, trying to make the stranger sound more menacing in hindsight. But still, Hurst ought to have asked the obvious question. What was it about his voice?

‘Has Ben Cooper left yet?’

‘Yes, I’ve just seen him driving out of the gate.’

Ben Cooper had barely been in his flat for five minutes, when there was a banging on the door. He opened it and was astonished to find Diane Fry standing on his doorstep again.

‘We must stop meeting like this,’ he said.

‘Right.’

‘Do you want to come in?’

‘Just for a few minutes.’

‘I was going to ask why you didn’t phone first this time,’ said Cooper. ‘But there doesn’t seem much point. It’s not twenty minutes since I saw you.’

‘No, that’s right.’

‘I suppose you forgot something? Is there…?’

Cooper hesitated. Fry was looking at him oddly, her head cocked slightly to one side as if she was listening hard, waiting for him to speak again. He’d never known her to be so intent on his words, so eager to hear what he had to say. Normally, she treated him like an idiot. She dismissed his ideas instantly and just went her own sweet way no matter what he said.

So what had changed? Was she humouring him because she thought of him as an invalid? He could almost work out her thought processes. Poor old Ben, still on extended sick leave. You’ve got to feel sorry for him.Shut up in here, he’s probably desperate for someone to talk to. I’d better pretend I’m interested in what he has to say.

‘Diane, was there something you wanted to ask me?’ he said.

She shook her head. ‘No, it’s just good to hear your voice.’

Cooper laughed. And, as so often happened, the laugh caught the rawness in his throat and turned into a cough. It was the dry, irksome hack that made him step into the kitchen for a drink of water to ease the irritation.

‘Are you okay?’ asked Fry when he returned.

‘Fine. It’s nothing.’

‘So,’ she said, ‘you’re still suffering a few after-effects, I suppose. From the smoke inhalation.’

He nodded. ‘Yes, that’s what causes the cough now and then.’

Fry tilted her head, waiting for him to speak again, listening for his voice. Sheena had said: There was something about his voice. It wasn’t right. It made me shudder.

‘But it will pass,’ he said.

Fry opened her mouth to speak again, but her phone rang. She answered it automatically. She always did during a major inquiry. Nothing reflected more badly on you than being out of touch when you were needed. It was Gavin Murfin.

‘I thought you’d want to know, Diane. We’ve got test results.’

‘I’m on my way,’ she said.

Fry looked out of the door of Cooper’s flat. His Toyota stood at the kerb. She’d seen his car often enough. So why had she forgotten that it was red?

‘Ben, did you say that you sometimes drive around the area at night?’ asked Fry.

‘Yes. So?’

‘Even in the rain? And you don’t really know where you are, or where you’ve been?’

‘When you put it like that, it makes me sound a bit crazy.’

‘Yes.’

Fry looked down at the cat as it walked into the room. It gave her a hard stare and turned its back on her. It was time to leave.

‘Okay. Well, I suppose that’s all.’

Cooper shrugged. ‘Whatever it was.’

‘I hope we see you back permanently before too long.’

‘I think it will be soon now.’

But before she reached the street, Fry stopped in the hallway of the flat. A coat rack was fixed to the wall just inside the door. It was an unusual design, made of polished steel and shaped like the head of an upturned rake. Over the prongs were hooked jackets, a scarf, even a set of keys.

‘It was a flat warming present from my uncle when I first moved in,’ said Cooper, noticing her interest.

‘I think I remember.’

Fry had been here that day herself, briefly. She’d called in at the flat with a gift for Cooper, thinking it was something you were supposed to do, a gesture to a colleague, a minor effort to oil the wheels of social interaction. A nuisance, but not a huge commitment of her time. She’d bought him a plant, she recalled. No idea what species. She almost looked round to see if it was still there in his flat, thriving. But in the next instant it dawned on her that she couldn’t remember what she’d bought, and wouldn’t recognise it if she saw it.

‘It’s a bit of a joke, I suppose,’ said Cooper. ‘The design is called Harvest. I moved here from the farm, you see-’

‘Yes, I know.’

Still Fry hesitated, knowing she would have to ask the question that was burning in her mind. Her professional instincts wouldn’t let her leave the flat in Welbeck Street without making the inquiry. It was as if her feet were literally nailed to the floor. She couldn’t make it to the door without releasing herself with the question. She knew without turning round that Cooper was watching her curiously. She could feel the silence between them growing, becoming more and more uncomfortable until it had to be broken.

Finally, she laid a hand lightly on one of the garments hanging from the rack. She could feel the dampness still in its fabric. Her fingers came away with traces of mud.

‘Can I ask you …?’ she said.

‘What?’

‘Where did you get the coat?’

It was Cooper’s turn to let the silence develop. Fry had the feeling she sometimes got in an interview room, when a routine question struck a nerve, drew an audible gasp from the suspect, and filled the the room with a sudden charge of nervous static. The times when she’d knew she’d scored a hit.

She forced herself not to meet Cooper’s eye, though she could sense him tensing, knew that he was considering his reply, trying to steady his voice before answering.

‘It was a present,’ he said. ‘It was the last thing that Liz ever bought me.’

Fry turned the garment over and opened it. It was just what she thought. Hanging behind Cooper’s front door was a dark red rain jacket with a peaked hood and a storm flap. It had the Berghaus logo above the left chest pocket.

When Fry had gone, Cooper took down the coat. It was a Berghaus Hurricane with a two-layer Gore-Tex shell and a roll-away hood, adjustable cuffs and shock cords, with dual zip fastening to allow a fleece layer to be attached. Liz had known that he liked lots of pockets. The coat had two on the front, zipped internal and external pockets on the chest, and an internal map pocket. But best of all was its double-layered storm flap. It was vital in this weather. Especially if you didn’t want people to see your face.

Liz had bought him the Berghaus because the old waxed coat he’d worn for years hadn’t been smart enough. Perhaps it was too rustic, or too ingrained with dog hairs and the smell of cows. It had lasted him well, and would be perfectly fine for a good few years yet. But he’d put it aside without regret. It was one of the symbols of a life he was leaving behind.

But he hadn’t worn the Berghaus for a week, not since last Tuesday. It had been spattered with mud that night, and somehow he’d never got round to wiping it off. Hanging in his hallway, it hadn’t even dried properly. It didn’t seem right to wear it in that condition, so he’d reverted to the waxed coat for a few days, intending to get the rain jacket properly cleaned.

Why had Fry been so interested in it? What was she looking for? There must be lots of them around, like white vans.

Cooper looked at the cat, feeling bemused.

‘What was all that about, do you think?’

The cat seemed to shrug, but it was probably just his imagination. Perhaps a flea was bothering her. Yes, that was most likely. It was time to get out the Frontline. Sometimes it was necessary to dispose of the irritating parasites.

When he thought about Liz, he still experienced a stab of fear. It wasn’t the usual form of dread any more. It was a fear that he might be remembering her wrong.

Diane Fry had known she would have to wait until this week for test results. It was five days after the body of Glen Turner had been found in the stream. But it seemed to Fry that she’d been talking about him for much longer than that.

When she was back at divisional headquarters in West Street she stared out of the window at the sheets of rain blowing across the west stand of Edendale FC. It had been raining continuously since last Thursday, too.

On her desk were two reports, one from forensics and the other from the pathologist, Juliana van Doon. Even though the case had passed into the hands of the Major Crime Unit, Mrs van Doon had sent her a copy of the final post-mortem report. It was about the first courtesy that Fry could remember receiving from her.

‘Luke, what do forensics have to say?’ she asked.

‘They’ve been going over that BMW belonging to Charlie Dean,’ said Irvine. ‘You know they’ve been investigating the cause of the crash, looking for mechanical defects. But the first thing they found was a hand print on the boot. Sharp eyes, one of those forensic examiners has. He realised there was something iffy about the print, and ran a few appropriate tests. Lucky for us that he did. Whoever that hand print belonged to, it left traces of blood on the paintwork.’

‘Really? So someone injured themselves when they interfered with the vehicle?’

‘It doesn’t seem likely. There was enough blood scraped off the car by the examiners to get a DNA match in the database. That DNA — well, it seems it came from our earlier murder victim. It was Glen Turner’s blood.’