Blood on the Tongue (Ben Cooper & Diane Fry) (63 page)

In the end, the secret of getting through life was to achieve the right perspective. At moments like these, all his own concerns seemed trivial. Back in Edendale, there were difficulties to face, pain to be dealt with, hard things to explain and a lot of work to be done to achieve any kind of reconciliation and forgiveness. But for as long as he could stand here listening to the rain on the moor, those problems and anxieties were so small in the scale of things that they could easily be overcome. They could even be washed away in the rain. Out here, life was simple and painless.

Cooper nodded to himself. Then he pulled up his collar and turned away from Hollow Shaw Farm. And the sound of the rain on the peat moor slowly faded behind him as he walked back to the car.

*   *    *    *    THE END    *   *    *    *

Author's note
:

The origins of BLOOD ON THE TONGUE might be regarded as luck or coincidence - except that's exactly how the creative process works!

I was out walking in the Peak District one day, on my own, with a thick mist coming down on the hills above the Snake Pass. I suddenly found I was walking through a mass of aircraft wreckage scattered across hundreds of yards of peat moor.

I was aware of the many air crashes that have occurred on these hills, particularly during the Second World War. Bad weather and primitive navigational instruments made it was all too easy to go off course and encounter an unforgiving rock face. But I didn't realise until then how much of the wreckage might still be left. Seeing it made me think about the people who died in those crashes. I soon discovered that many of the airmen weren't British, but other nationalities, including a large number of Poles.

Soon afterwards, I was on a street in nearby Chesterfield, when I turned back to look at a sign on a door I'd just passed. It said 'Dom Kombatanta' - the Polish ex-servicemen's club. It dawned on me that many of the Poles who came to Britain during the war stayed on, rather than return to Poland. What's more, they were still among us, raising families, following Polish customs, speaking their own language. Indeed, Derbyshire had its own thriving Polish community, decades before the recent influx of migrants from Eastern Europe.

So that was when I knew I had a story. I found myself writing about two subjects I'd known nothing about until then - not only the Polish community, but Second World War aircraft, specifically Lancaster bombers.

There are very few Lancasters left in existence, and only five of them in the UK. One is based at the Lincolnshire Aviation Heritage Centre at East Kirkby. I happened to be doing a signing for DANCING WITH THE VIRGINS at a bookshop in Lincoln one Saturday, and I noticed the aviation heritage centre was having an open day. Since I was close by, I thought I might just have time to call in after my signing.

I was therefore a last-minute visitor to the open day. As I arrived, I was sold the very last ticket for the raffle, just before it was drawn. Amazingly, my ticket was pulled out as the winner. Astonishingly, the prize turned out to be a ride on their prime exhibit - the Lancaster bomber
NX611 'Just Jane'. This gave me the unexpected opportunity to sit in all the positions occupied by the crew of my fictional Lancaster at the time of their crash on Irontongue Hill in 1945. There's even a photograph of me sitting at the controls of the aircraft.

But the biggest impression was made on me by the rear gunner's position. It was cramped, isolated, yet terribly exposed. And Sergeant Dick Abbott came into my mind. Just eighteen years old, but already the father of a child. Known by the crew as Lofty because he was only five feet six. Dick Abbott, the rear gunner of Sugar Uncle Victor,
whose haunted look in a photograph made him look as if he was already a ghost...

For a writer, each of those experiences was a gift. Coming so close together, they look uncannily as though I was being steered! I hope you enjoy the book.

Stephen Booth

If you enjoyed BLACK DOG, why not try more novels in the Cooper & Fry series? Links indicate Kindle editions currently available in the USA:

1.  
BLACK DOG

2.  
DANCING WITH THE VIRGINS

3.   BLOOD ON THE TONGUE

4.   BLIND TO THE BONES

5.   ONE LAST BREATH

6.   THE DEAD PLACE

7.   SCARED TO LIVE

8.  
DYING TO SIN

9.  
THE KILL CALL

10.
LOST RIVER

11.
THE DEVIL'S EDGE

12. DEAD AND BURIED (2012)

There's also a Ben Cooper novella:

CLAWS

And a standalone crime novel by the same author:

TOP HARD

The most recent title in the Cooper & Fry series is THE DEVIL'S EDGE:

In his most gripping case yet, newly promoted Detective Sergeant Ben Cooper investigates a series of lethal home invasions in the Peak District. During the latest attack, a woman has died in an affluent village nestling close under the long gritstone escarpment known as the Devil's Edge. Despite seething enmities between neighbours in the village of Riddings, the major lines of enquiry seem to lead to the nearby city of Sheffield. But before Cooper and his team can crack the case, the panic spreading throughout the area results in an incident that devastates the Cooper family. And the only person available to step into the breach is Ben's old rival, Detective Sergeant Diane Fry...

Here's a sample to give you a taste:

THE DEVIL'S EDGE

Stephen Booth

CHAPTER ONE

Tuesday

A shadow moved across the hall. It was only a flicker of movement, a blur in the light, a motion as tiny and quick as an insect's.

Zoe Barron stopped and turned, her heart already thumping. She wasn't sure whether she'd seen anything at all. It had happened in a second, that flick from dark to light, and back again. Just one blink of an eye. She might have imagined the effect from a glint of moonlight off the terracotta tiles. Or perhaps there was only a moth, trapped inside and fluttering its wings as it tried desperately to escape.

In the summer, the house was often full of small, flying things that crept in through the windows and hung from the walls. The children said their delicate, translucent wings made them look like tiny angels. But for Zoe, they were more like miniature demons with their bug eyes and waving antennae. It made her shudder to think of them flitting silently around her bedroom at night, waiting their chance to land on her face.

It was one of the drawbacks of living in the countryside. Too much of the outside world intruding. Too many things it was impossible to keep out.

Still uncertain, Zoe looked along the hallway towards the kitchen, and noticed a thin slice of darkness where the utility room door stood open an inch. The house was so quiet that she could hear the hum of a freezer, the tick of the boiler, a murmur from the TV in one of the children's bedrooms. She listened for a moment, holding her breath. She wondered if a stray cat or a fox had crept in through the back door and was crouching now in the kitchen, knowing she was there in the darkness, its hearing far better than hers. Green eyes glowing, claws unsheathed, an animal waiting to pounce.

But now she was letting her imagine run away with her. She shouldn't allow irrational fears to fill her mind, when there were so many real ones to be concerned about. With a shake of her head at her own foolishness, Zoe stepped through the kitchen door, and saw what had caused the movement of the shadows. A breath of wind was swaying the ceiling light on its cord.

So a window must have been left open somewhere - probably by one of the workmen, trying to reduce the smell of paint. They'd already been in the house too long, three days past the scheduled completion of this part of the job, and they were trying their best not to cause any more complaints. They'd left so much building material outside that it was always in the way. She dreaded one of the huge timbers falling over in the night. Sometimes, when the wind was strong, she lay awake listening for the crash.

But leaving a window open all night - that would earn them an earful tomorrow anyway. It wasn't something you did, even here in a village like Riddings. It was a lesson she and Jake learned when they lived in Sheffield, and one she would never forget. Rural Derbyshire hadn't proved to be the safe, crime-free place she hoped.

Zoe tutted quietly, reassuring herself with the sound. A window left open? It didn't seem much, really. But that peculiar man who lived in the old cottage on Chapel Close would stop her car in the village and lecture her about it endlessly if he ever found out. He was always hanging around the lanes watching what other people did.

Gamble, that was his name. Barry Gamble. She'd warned the girls to stay away from him if they saw him. You never knew with people like that. You could never be sure where the danger might come from. Greed and envy and malice - they were all around her, like a plague. As if she and Jake could be held responsible for other people's mistakes, the wrong decisions they had made in their lives.  

Zoe realised she was clutching the wine bottle in her hand so hard that her knuckles were white. An idea ran through her head of using the bottle as a weapon. It was full, and so heavy she could do some damage, if necessary. Except now her finger prints would be all over it.

She laughed at her own nervousness. She was feeling much too tense. She'd been in this state for days, maybe weeks. If Jake saw her right now, he would tease her and tell her she was just imagining things. He would say there was nothing to worry about. Nothing at all.
Relax, chill out, don't upset the children. Everything's fine
.

But, of course, it wasn't true. Everyone knew there was plenty to worry about. Everyone here in Riddings, and in all the other villages scattered along this eastern fringe of the Peak District. It was in the papers, and on TV. No one was safe.

Still Zoe hesitated, feeling a sudden urge to turn round and run back to the sitting room to find Jake and hold on to him for safety. But instead she switched on the light and took a step further into the kitchen.

She saw the body of a moth now. It lay dead on the floor, its wings torn, its fragile body crushed to powder. It was a big one, too - faint black markings still discernible on its flattened wings. Was it big enough to have blundered into the light and set it swinging? A moth was so insubstantial. But desperate creatures thrashed around in panic when they were dying. It was always frightening to watch.

But there was something strange about the moth. Zoe crouched to look more closely. Her stomach lurched as she made it out. Another pattern was visible in the smear of powder - a section of ridge, like the sole of a boot, as if someone had trodden on the dead insect, squashing it onto the tiles.

Zoe straightened up again quickly, looking around, shifting her grip on the bottle, trying to fight the rising panic.

"Jake?" she said.

A faint crunch on the gravel outside. Was that what she'd heard that, or not? A footstep too heavy for a fox. The wrong sound for a falling timber.

This was definitely wrong. The only person who might legitimately be outside the house at this time of night was Jake, and she'd left him in the sitting room, sprawled on the couch and clutching a beer. If he'd gone out to the garage for some reason, he would have told her. If he'd gone to the front door, he would have passed her in the hall.

So it wasn't Jake outside. It wasn't her husband moving about now on the decking, slowly opening the back door. But still she clung on to the belief, the wild hope, that there was nothing to worry about.
I'm perfectly safe. Everything's fine
.

"Jake?" she called.

And she called again, louder. Much louder, and louder still, until it became a scream.

"Jake? Jake?
Jake!
"

*    *    *    *

Six miles from Riddings, Detective Sergeant Ben Cooper turned the corner of Edendale High Street into Hollowgate and stopped to let a bus pull into the terminus. The town hall lay just ahead of him, closed at this time of night but illuminated by spotlights which picked out the the pattern in its stonework which had earned its nickname of the Wavy House. Across the road, the Starlight Cafe was doing good business as usual, with a steady stream of customers. Taxis were lining up for their busiest time of the day. It was almost ten o'clock on an ordinary August evening.

The pubs were even busier than the Starlight, of course. Cooper could hear the music pounding from the Wheatsheaf and the Red Lion, the two pubs on either side of the market square. A crowd of youngsters screamed and laughed by the war memorial, watched by a uniformed PC and a community support officer in bright yellow high-vis jackets, the pair of them standing in the entrance to an alley near the Raj Mahal.