Blood on the Tongue (Ben Cooper & Diane Fry) (42 page)

Curiously, one of her observations related to poppies. Not real poppies, but the red plastic or paper ones sold during the weeks before Remembrance Day every year to raise money for ex-servicemen. During November, many people wore them pinned to their coats. Entire wreaths of them were laid at war memorials up and down the country. And it seemed that remembrance poppies were left at the site of the Lancaster crash, too. Fry supposed the wreckage was itself a memorial, in a way. According to the report, someone had left a poppy there very recently, despite the fact that it was January and Remembrance Day was long since past.

It seemed unimportant. But Fry knew that such details, observed at the right time, could turn out to be surprisingly valuable later on. She marked the line about the poppies with a red pen and was finishing the report when her telephone rang.

She walked back to her own desk, carrying the Tennent file. The switchboard operator apologized, saying that she'd been told DS Fry was in the station and wondered if she could deal with a call that had just come in.

'Who is it?' said Fry.

'Sergeant Caudwell, from the Ministry of Defence Police.'

'OK, put her on.'

For a moment, Fry pictured Caudwell and Nash sharing a hotel with Alison Morrissey, but recalled that the MDP officers had been sent somewhere cheaper and more basic, probably the Travelodge.

'Ah, still on duty, I see,' said Caudwell when she got through to Fry. 'That's lucky.'

'What can I do for you?' said Fry.

'Well, I soon got bored in this hotel we've found, and there didn't seem to be anything else to do in Edendale, so I asked them to send up the local newspapers. I found some interesting reading.'

'They've covered the story of the unidentified body extensively,' said Fry. 'A lot of speculation as usual, I'm afraid.'

'Oh, yes. But not only that. There was the woman who froze to death.'

Fry looked down at the file still in her hand. 'Marie Tennent. But –'

'And a missing baby, and all that. Rather worrying for you, I imagine. And now there are the remains of a child, found at the site of an aircraft wreck. The papers don't say, but it seems to me you might be linking the two incidents.'

'Yes, we're sure the dead baby was Marie Tennent's.'

'I see.' Caudwell paused for a moment. When she spoke again, her voice had a different tone. Fry could picture her smiling. 'DS Fry, I'm going to ask you a favour. I'd be very grateful if you could send me over a copy of your file on Marie Tennent.'

'Why would you want that?'

'Just following a line of thought,' said Caudwell airily. When Fry hesitated, she added: 'The aircraft wreck. You realize that's Ministry of Defence property? We have an interest. We're entitled to full consultation. Strictly speaking, we should have been informed before any action was taken at the site. But I'm sure we don't need to argue about that.'

'I'll send a copy over to your hotel as soon as I can,' said Fry.

'Thank you very much. An hour would be fine.'

Fry replaced the phone and read carefully through the Tennent file again. She frowned at the line she'd marked about poppies, then shrugged her shoulders. At least it should keep Sergeant Caudwell quiet for a while.

*    *    *    *

It had only been a day since he moved out of Bridge End Farm, yet Cooper found it was the most difficult time of all. After he dropped Diane Fry off at West Street, he'd walked through the town to the Old School nursing home. He'd promised he would visit his mother nearly every day, and that was what he was trying to do, even if she didn't know that he'd been.

At the end of the visit, it was hard to tear himself away. He ought to remember that he had his own home to go back to now. But all he actually had was an unfamiliar door in Welbeck Street and a dark, empty flat. Only the presence of a fat, idle cat in the conservatory made the idea tolerable.

On his way back through town from the nursing home, Cooper found himself standing in Clappergate, on the pedestrianized area near the corner of High Street. This was a spot he normally tried to avoid. Usually, he walked further up the hill and came into Clappergate from Back Lane or through the shopping precinct. That way he didn't have to see the flowerbed where council gardeners planted daffodils to grow in the spring. It meant he didn't have to see the plaque on the wooden bench next to the flowerbed.

But today, he had other things on his mind, and the street looked different in the snow. The flowerbed was partly hidden by a layer of frozen snow into which passers-by had thrust empty bottles and McDonald's cartons, spontaneously creating a piece of modern art. That was how Cooper had found himself right by the bench, staring at the memorial plaque as if it had dropped out of the sky in front of him, like a fallen meteorite. He realized he must be only a few yards from the door of the Vine Inn and the place where the blood had settled and stained the stone setts.

The plaque looked shiny and clean today, but he'd been told it was sometimes vandalized and sprayed by graffiti artists with red paint. The paint was as difficult to remove from the plaque as the blood had been to clean from the setts. The inscription on the plaque read:
In memory of Sergeant Joseph Cooper of the Derbyshire Constabulary, who died in the course of his duty near here.
It was followed by the date – that day in November, a little over two years ago, when Sergeant Cooper had been kicked to death by a group of youths who'd objected to him attempting to make an arrest.

Cooper thought his father would actually have been satisfied with this way of dying. He would not have wanted to be one of those old men who faded slowly away in retirement, deprived of any role in life. Cooper was certain that his father must have had a deep dread of retirement. He could not have tolerated the prospect of ceasing to have any importance, of disappearing and no one even noticing he'd gone. This way, Sergeant Joe Cooper would be remembered for ever as he was when he died, because the plaque accorded him a place in posterity. His death had given him immortality.

*    *    *    *

Ben turned away from the plaque and faced back towards High Street. Four women were walking towards him on the pavement. They moved slowly and straddle-legged like cowboys, their hats pulled low over their eyes, their arms hanging by their thighs, weighted down by shopping bags bursting with booty. On the pavement in front of the women were long shadows thrown by the light spilling out of the windows of Marks and Spencer. They had been to the January sales at the stores on Clappergate that opened on a Sunday. Now they were heading to the bus station for their journey home to the Devonshire Estate or the stone terraces of Underbank.

He didn't want to be among these people. Not because they were strangers, but because they might actually recognize who he was and feel sorry for him when they saw him standing gazing at the plaque. He decided to cut through one of the lanes that ran up to Hollowgate and under the town hall clock tower into the market square. He could walk across the square and through the passages at Nick i' th' Tor to get to the traffic lights at Fargate.

The market square was almost deserted as Cooper crossed it. A scatter of pigeons wandered around the square, forlornly searching for any scraps still left from the previous day's market. A man in a yellow cagoule stood staring at the war memorial in the middle of the square, as if he had nowhere else to go. Perhaps he didn't. Edendale had its share of the homeless, and some of them would fail to survive this winter.

Cooper reached the entrance to Nimble John's Gate, where a little footbridge crossed the river before dividing left and right into Nick i' th' Tor and Rock Terrace. The setts had been re-laid near the bridge, but the passages were tilted at uneasy angles where they negotiated the steep slope across the river. The snow lay deep against the walls on either side, and no one had ever thought to provide street lighting for the passages, which were in deep darkness between the tall buildings. Below him, the River Eden was loud and roaring where it squeezed into a narrow channel between the banks. Crossing the bridge, the sound of the water was almost deafening.

He hesitated on the corner of Nick i' th' Tor, thinking he'd seen a movement ahead. But it was only the melted snow turning to water and dripping from the guttering at the back of the old cinema. The drips were creating ripples on the puddles that already lay among the cobblestones. The only light in the passage was from the street lamps behind him in the market square, reflected in the puddles and on the grey pillows of dirty snow. Cooper had never before worried about walking through the streets of Edendale, though he knew many a woman would automatically run through a mental checklist before she went anywhere at night – was her handbag safe, was the street well lit, would it be safer to take a taxi, could she run properly in these shoes?

He turned at a sound. Down at the far end of the passage, he saw a familiar figure pass in front of the lights in the market square. It was a man wearing a long overcoat, like an army greatcoat. Eddie Kemp? As if hearing his name, the figure paused in the entrance of the alley and turned his head. For a moment, Cooper almost caught his eye. He saw a woollen cap outlined against the lights. He was so sure, he could almost catch the smell.

As the figure moved on, Cooper took a step forward, then stopped. He remembered the mistake he'd made when he arrested Eddie Kemp the first time, in Hollowgate. It was wrong to assume that Kemp was on his own and would be an easy arrest. He took out his radio and reported in to Control to ask for support. Then he walked carefully down to the end of the alley and eased his way round the corner. There was no longer any sign of Kemp.

Cooper looked at the doorways on either side of the alley entrance. There weren't many shops here any more – Woolworth's and W. H. Smiths had moved into the shopping centre on Clappergate. Now, the businesses in the market square were mostly banks and building societies, estate agents and pubs. The butcher's shop, Ferris's, was starting to look like a relic, some kind of folk museum. He carefully checked the doorways of Barclays Bank and the Nationwide Building Society. Nothing. He jumped as the town hall clock began to strike seven. It sounded far too loud in the empty square, its clangs reverberating off the tall buildings. The pigeons took off and clattered together for a few seconds as they circled the square before landing again and resuming their search for food.

Cooper paused for a moment and waited for the clock to finish striking. He listened for footsteps, but he heard only the engine of a bus, which pulled into High Street and stopped. He saw the three women clambering on with their shopping bags.

Next to Barclays Bank was the Red Lion pub. The lights were on, but it had only just opened and he could see no customers inside. Nevertheless, he went in to have a look in the darker corners. Large video screens were showing MTV. The barmaid shook her head when he asked after a man in a greatcoat and a cap with fur ear-flaps.

So Kemp must have walked on into High Street. From there, he could have gone in several directions – over the river into Eyre Street, down on to the relief road, or back along the river walk towards the network of passages. Beyond them was Buxton Road and then the Buttercross, which was Eddie Kemp's way home. On his own, Cooper had to make a choice. It would be quicker to return the way he'd come, back up Nick i' th' Tor.

But after the lights of the square, the passage seemed even darker. The shops here didn't bother leaving their lights burning at night, as the big stores did. The Italian restaurant didn't open on Sundays in January, and it was in darkness. Halfway up he passed Larkin's, the bakers, which was always busy during the day. But now its windows were empty. The coffee shops and the gift shop looked faintly ridiculous in the snow. Icicles hanging from the guttering had started to thaw, and drips of icy water landed on his shoulders and splashed his neck when he walked too close to the buildings. By the morning, the water would be frozen again if the sky stayed clear.

Ahead of him, Cooper heard the noise of the river again. It sounded almost as if a dam had burst up the hill, as if thousands of gallons of water were roaring towards him down the passage. The cobbles and the walls on either side were wet enough to suggest that it had happened before, and that any second he might get swept away and washed up in the market square.

Further up, on the corner of Rock Terrace, he could see Eden Valley Books, nestling into the tall buildings around it. Starlight glittered faintly on the roof, and a light was visible in a window on the second floor. Here was someone else who didn't bother closing curtains. But up there were only the pigeons and a view of the back of the town hall clock tower. Lawrence Daley must have a good vantage point over the roofs of Edendale. He must be able to look down into all the yards and closes, passages and alleys between here and the market square. He must be able to look down on the River Eden where it passed below the bridge.

As Cooper looked up at the lighted window, a shape passed across it, then a second. The first, he was sure, was Lawrence Daley himself. But the second figure was female. Cooper couldn't quite believe who he thought it was. Then she turned towards the window to look out, and he was certain.

Cooper heard a cough. Eddie Kemp? Did he really have a delicate respiratory system?

Then his radio came to life. 'Ben, we're in Eyre Street. Which way did he go?'