Blood on the Tongue (Ben Cooper & Diane Fry) (43 page)

'Diane? I think he's in one of the alleys between you and the market square. Somewhere near the bookshop.'

'Which ways shall we cover?'

'He'll come out either on to Eyre Street or up Rock Terrace on to Buxton Road. I'm at the market square end of Nick i' th' Tor.'

'OK.'

Slowly, Cooper began to move forward again. It was steep here, and the setts were slippery if he walked too near the walls. He passed Larkin's and one of the coffee shops and was almost at the bridge. Even if there had been footsteps, he wouldn't have heard them now because of the noise of the river under the bridge.

Where a broken remnant of stone wall concealed a delivery door to one of the shops, there was a sudden a movement, and a dark shape on the edge of his vision. Before Cooper could turn towards it, he felt himself pushed heavily, and he fell hard against the door. Along with the sudden jolt of pain from the impact, he heard a thud of something hitting the door alongside him. Then there were feet clattering on the setts as someone ran off down the alley.

Cooper tried to push himself away from the door to run after them, but found he was unable to move. There was a strange tightness in his right side, and he couldn't force his body away from the door. It was as if he'd lost all the strength down his right side. There was no real pain, except from his shoulder where it had collided with the door. He tried to raise his right arm above his head. It wouldn't move all the way, but was held back by the tightness in his side, so that his arm hung ridiculously in mid-air. He felt like a man patting an invisible small boy on the head.

Feeling ridiculously embarrassed, he lowered his arm again. Then he concentrated on each part of his body in turn, wondering if there was a serious, major pain somewhere that he'd missed. Perhaps his brain had suppressed it, and the agony would hit him in a moment. Perhaps he was in a state of shock. He'd heard of badly injured people who carried on moving for several minutes before their wounds overwhelmed them and they collapsed.

Cooper clearly remembered an impact. And he knew, too, that he'd heard a faint crunching of flesh and bone. Now his body refused to allow him to move to pursue his assailant. Something was definitely wrong.

He bent his head to look down at his side. Blood was soaking through the lining of his coat. A thick drop of it trickled from the hem and landed in the snow, splashing on the frozen surface. The blood was very dark, so dark that it was almost purple.

As the adrenalin drained away from his limbs and icy water dripped on him from the guttering, Ben Cooper began to feel very cold.

26

Fry hadn't seen Eddie Kemp before. But when the man coming up the alley dodged back into the shadows as soon as he saw the light of her torch and the uniform of the officer next to her, she had no doubt who he was.

She used her radio as she ran. 'Ben – he's headed back downhill towards Eyre Street. We've got him boxed in. Ben?' She got no reply, but assumed he was too busy closing in from the other direction. Cooper was never a man to use more words than necessary when communicating with other people.

Round the corner Fry ran headlong into the man she'd been chasing. He'd stopped suddenly on the bridge when he saw the other uniformed officer approaching from Eyre Street.

'Edward Kemp?'

The man stepped back and swung a punch at her. Fry deflected it easily. He was far too heavy and slow, and she'd kept her
tae kwon do
skills sufficiently honed to make her responses good. Within a few seconds, she had his arm behind his back and his face against the stone wall.

'Edward Kemp or not, you're under arrest.'

The two uniforms got the cuffs on and took the man away. Fry looked round. Still no Ben Cooper.

'Damn it, Cooper, are you doing your shopping again, or what?'

Her voice had risen on the last few words and echoed in the alley. The only answer was the noise of the river running under the bridge and the dripping of water from the roofs. Up on the road, the door of the patrol car slammed.

He'd said he was at the market square end of Nick i' th' Tor. Somewhere over the bridge then, past the bookshop and round the corner.

'Ben?' she called.

'Here.'

His voice sounded strange. Fry began to run, slithering on the cobbles as she crossed the bridge. Then she saw him. He was standing against a garage door, with his back to her.

'Ben?'

'Hi, Diane.'

'What are you doing?'

'Nothing much.'

'I think we got Kemp.'

'Good.'

'You're sure it was him? I didn't get a good look at him. Have they never heard of street lights at this end of town? Or did the gas supply just run out?'

'Yeah, it's pretty dark all right.'

She looked at him, starting to get irritated. 'Why are you leaning against that garage?'

'Well, the fact is, I don't think I'm able to move.'

Fry moved to touch him, then stopped.

'You
think
? Is this some kind of joke? Because if it is, I'm going to make you drive round with DC Murfin for a week, and you can pay for his onion bhajis yourself.'

'It's not a joke, Diane.'

'Jesus, you don't
sound
like somebody who's injured. Let's take a look.' She pulled out the torch from her pocket and shone it at his chest. 'Where's the problem?'

Cooper unbuttoned the front of his waxed coat with his left hand and let it fall open. 'Round about here somewhere. I felt this –'

'Don't touch it!'

'What?'

Gingerly, Fry used the head of the torch to pull open his coat. She drew it back far enough to show him the protruding handle.

'It looks like the handle of a bayonet.'

'Thank God it missed me.'

'It didn't miss you,' said Fry. 'You're bleeding. I'm calling an ambulance.'

'No, it missed me.'

Fry shone her torch on the blood trickling into the snow. It had pooled in the big inside pocket of his coat and there was a greasy patch where it had soaked through.

'Believe me now, Ben? You're bleeding.'

'No, it's the rabbit,' said Cooper.

'What on earth are you talking about?' She looked at him as if he were delirious.

'There's a rabbit in my poacher's pocket. George Malkin gave it to me.'

'You
are
joking.'

'It's true.' Cooper laughed unsteadily with relief. 'The blade of the bayonet has gone right through the rabbit. The point pinned my coat to the door, but it passed through the entrails of the rabbit. Malkin said it was fresh. He was right.'

'You're sure you're not hurt?'

Cooper studied the rip where the bayonet had penetrated his waxed coat, gone through a few inches of skin and bone and embedded itself in the garage door. 'This coat cost a fortune,' he said.

'As long as the only hole he made was in your credit card, and not in your guts.'

'No, I'm fine.'

'Get the coat off, then, and we'll get the whole thing along to forensics. God knows how we're going to explain the rabbit.'

'It would have been rude to refuse it, Diane. Besides, I paid him, so it wasn't a gift.'

'You haven't got a couple of pheasant down your trousers as well, have you?'

'No,' said Cooper. 'I'm just pleased to see you.'

*    *    *    *

As soon as Peter and Grace Lukasz got into bed that night, the argument began. It was about something trivial at first, a disagreement that Grace couldn't even remember when it was all over. It might have been about the colour of the new wallpaper, or whether they could afford a holiday in Portugal this summer. It had begun to change in character when Peter had told her not to nag, that he had other things on his mind that were more important.

Grace had looked at him lying next to her. His face was turned towards her, but was in shadow because of the bedside lamp behind his head. She'd turned off her own lamp already, and had taken off her reading glasses. Peter's face was too close to hers, too blurred by the shadows, for her to read his expression. His eyes were open, but she could sense that his face was closed. She touched his arm, and she could feel that his muscles were tense.

'What's the matter?' she said.

'Nothing.'

'There's something wrong.'

'Nothing at all. What do you mean?'

'Tell me, Peter.'

'Leave me alone – I'm tired.'

He rolled over on to his back, thumping his pillow with the back of his head as if to beat it into submission. Now Grace could make out his profile, outlined by a halo of light from the bedside lamp. His expression was set into a determined scowl. It was the expression that reminded her most of his father, Zygmunt, the one that made her think of the old man as a warrior still. The same determination was there in Peter's face. And the implacable hatred, too.

'The Canadian woman coming here has upset you, hasn't it?' said Grace.

'She's not important.'

'She didn't want to go away, did she?'

'I think I made it plain,' said Peter.

'It was strange, though, about the policeman. I thought that was strange, didn't you?'

Peter didn't reply. Watching him, Grace felt a sudden surge of irritation.

'Why don't you talk to me?' she said.

He sighed. 'Yes, it
was
strange. I thought it was strange she'd already met him, strange that he knew what she'd come for. It was very strange. But it was
you
that invited him into our house in the first place.'

'Oh, it's my fault, is it?'

'No, I didn't mean that.'

'Is that what it is? You're sulking because you blame me.'

'Not at all.'

'But all I did was to ring the police because of the description they gave of the man who died.'

'I know. That's all you did.'

Now it was Grace's turn to shift on to her back. She stared at the bedroom ceiling, not really seeing it at all, just more shadows. She was silent, waiting for Peter to speak, wondering if he would bother, willing him to feel her hurt.

'You did it because of Andrew,' he said.

Grace was surprised to find tears suddenly leaking down her face and on to her pillow. She fumbled for a tissue in the pocket of her nightdress.

'I couldn't bear to think of him lying dead somewhere,' she said.

'Who? Andrew? Or some strange man you've never seen before in your life?'

'You don't understand.'

'Andrew has gone back to London. You have to accept that,' said Peter.

'How can I, until I hear from him? Why isn't he answering his phone? Why hasn't he been in touch to tell us where he is?'

'All right. But what did you think you were achieving by phoning the police and telling them you recognized the man they found on the Snake Pass? That was stupid. More than stupid. You brought the police here, as well as that bloody woman.'

'Don't swear at me.'

'Well, it
was
bloody stupid. That was the last thing we needed. What do you think it would have done to Dad if the policeman had insisted on seeing him? I can't believe you didn't think about that. But, no, you were only thinking of yourself. Somehow you had to feed your obsession. It's always been Andrew, Andrew, Andrew – it's turning your mind. Can't you see that?'

Grace held the tissue to her face. She tried to control a small, spasmodic sob that rose in her throat, not wanting to show Peter her weakness.

'I want to protect Zygmunt as much as you do,' she said.

'You have a funny way of showing it.'

'But it's true – I do.'

'I can't stand this, I really can't.' He turned over on to his other side, crushing his pillow and dragging the bedclothes almost away from her.

'Don't turn away from me, please,' said Grace.

Without even touching him, she knew his body was knotted with tension. Peter was frightened, of course. But he would never admit it. It was a difficult time for him, since he was so close to his father. She accepted that. The last thing she wanted to do was make it worse for them both. She wiped her eyes and put her hand on his shoulder. He felt cold and resisting. She tried to pull him back towards her so that she could see his face.

'Peter –'

Then he rolled on to his back again. 'Look, Grace, for God's sake forget about Andrew for now. He's not worth it. There are far more important things to worry about. Do you understand what I'm saying?'

'Yes, Peter. I understand.'

Suddenly, the tension went out of them both. Peter rolled on to his side. He sighed deeply, as if overwhelmed by tiredness, and within a minute or two he was asleep. Grace smiled in the darkness and patted his shoulder gently. Then she turned over and pressed her body against his, for the sake of the warmth.