Blood on the Tongue (Ben Cooper & Diane Fry) (8 page)

Cooper listened as Fry explained the details they knew, which weren't many. There had been no obvious identification on the man, though they would have his clothes to work on when the body was dealt with in the mortuary. There was also the overnight bag that had been lying nearby. Like the body itself, the bag had been scraped along the ground by the blade of the snow plough. It was scuffed and ripped, and it was soaking wet from the time it had spent underneath the snow. Worst of all, it was empty. Even a toothbrush and a can of anti-perspirant could have helped them to build up a picture that would identify the Snowman.

'What we need are some mispers,' said Fry.

Cooper had only that afternoon been dealing with some reports relating to a missing person. It was easy to refer to them as 'mispers' when they were merely a set of details in a computer database. But when you started to look into an individual case, they suddenly turned into people. They sprang out of the screen and became unhappy teenagers or abused wives, confused old women or businessmen who had hit fifty and decided to recover their youth with the girl from the marketing department.

'What age are we talking?' he said.

'Early thirties. Good physical condition. Well dressed.'

'Mmm. Right profile anyway.'

'For what?'

'Well, for going missing.'

'You need to be a particular type of person?'

'Apart from youngsters, the people most likely to go missing are men aged between twenty-seven and thirty-four.'

'That puts you right in the frame, then, Ben.'

'Are we talking death by misadventure? Or suicide, or what?'

Fry hesitated. 'Don't know,' she said.

'If it's murder,' said Cooper, 'you don't need a profile for that. Anybody will do for a victim these days. Have we got any evidence? I thought he was hit by the snowplough?'

'He was already dead before then.'

The Snowman's priority rating depended on the pathologist. If he had merely suffered a heart attack by the roadside, then he would be likely to stay on ice for some time before he was claimed. But Fry wasn't taking that line.

'An instinct, Diane?' he said.

But Fry ignored the question. 'So you and Gavin have got work to do. Let's have a list of possibles, soon as you can. Neighbouring forces, obviously. Don't forget he was found on the A57. Greater Manchester must have a whole book full of missing persons.'

'No doubt.'

'Get on to the Missing Persons Helpline. And don't forget the national forces – Transport Police, Ministry of Defence. Oh, and the Royal Ulster Constabulary.'

'Oh, great. Terrorist execution by snowplough.'

'You never know.'

*    *    *    *

E Division's commander, Chief Superintendent Colin Jepson, had agreed to see Alison Morrissey himself. But of course he demanded support from his junior officers. There was strength in numbers, he said – as if the visitor were the advance party for an enemy horde about to invade E Division. But numbers were something they didn't have at the moment. The duty inspector had said she was too busy, and nobody from the community safety department was available, either. Ben Cooper's name had been mentioned.

'Here are the files the Local Intelligence Officer has put together for the Chief,' said DI Paul Hitchens after telling Cooper the news, just before he went off duty that night.

'If the LIO produced the files, why can't he go to the meeting?' asked Cooper.

'He's got flu. So it'll have to be you, Ben.'

'Why?'

'The Chief is afraid he'll be asked questions that need a bit of local knowledge. You know he's never quite managed to work out which county he's in since he transferred from Lancashire. He has you marked down as the local lad who can answer all the difficult questions the rest of us can't – you know, like how to spell "Derbyshire".'

'No, I meant – why?' said Cooper. 'It sounds as though this Alison Morrissey is on some kind of holy mission to clear her grandfather's name. All ancient history, isn't it?'

'That's about right,' said Hitchens.

'So why are we doing this at all?'

'Ah. Political reasons.'

'Political? What's political about it?'

'We owe favours,' said Hitchens.

'We do?'

'When I say "we", I mean the Chief, of course. Maybe you don't remember the big fraud case a few years back, Ben. The main suspect got out of the country and ended up in Canada, masquerading as a lumberjack or whatever. The Mounties weren't too co-operative at first, but the Chief talked to the consul in Sheffield. They'd played golf together once or twice, and the consul pulled some strings. Anyway, the net result was that our Chief Superintendent made some new bosom buddies over there in Ottawa. They discovered they had similar handshakes, if you know what I mean. And one of them turns out to be this Morrissey woman's uncle. That's what I mean by politics.'

'So we're putting on a show.'

'Up to a point. We're not actually going to
do
anything.'

'How do you know that, sir, if we haven't even talked to her yet?'

'Oh, you'll see,' said Hitchens. 'Even political influence can't produce resources out of nowhere.'

*    *    *    *

Finally, Cooper went off duty and made his way directly across town to the Old School Nursing Home. In one of the lounges, he found his mother waiting. She was sitting up in an armchair, tense, staring at the wall, her thoughts far away in some world of her own making.

'Do you remember what I said, Mum?' he asked. 'About moving out of the farm?' He tried to say it casually, to make it sound as though he were only planning to pop out to the shop to buy some tea bags.

Isabel Cooper didn't say anything, though her eyes shifted from the wall to his face. Cooper took her hand. It felt limp and lifeless.

'I've decided I've got to live in my own place for a bit,' he said. 'It'll only be in Edendale. I'll still come and see you every day, don't worry.'

Her eyes remained distant, not focused on him at all. But a momentary shadow seemed to pass across her face, a faint echo of the expression she always used when she thought she'd caught him out in a lie.

'You'll never know any difference, Mum,' he said. 'You'll see as much of me as you always have. Too much, as usual. That's what you always used to say, whenever I got under your feet.'

He wished she would smile at him, just once. But her face didn't move. Part of that was the drugs. The drugs were doing their job, controlling the involuntary spasms, suppressing the facial twitches that had so often turned her into someone else, nothing like the mother he'd known.

He patted the back of her hand, leaned forward and kissed her. Her cheek was cold, like the face of a statue. He heard her release her breath in a long sigh, and felt her relax a little. It was the only response he was likely to get.

For a moment, Cooper thought of going back on his decision. But it didn't matter to his mother now, did it? It didn't make any difference to her where he lived, now that she was in the nursing home and not likely to return to Bridge End Farm. It was his own reluctance that he was having to deal with, his own sense of leaving a large part of himself behind.

He'd promised to call at the nursing home to see his mother every day, and so far he'd done it. It meant he could keep telling her every day about his decision to move out, until they both believed it.

*    *    *    *

Cooper had left the farm too early that morning to collect his mail when the postman came. It was usually approaching nine o'clock by the time the post van made it out as far as Bridge End. So the estate agent's details were waiting for him when he arrived home that evening. Everyone could tell what the envelope contained. He'd told his family that he planned to move out, but he could see they hadn't really believed it until now. One of his nieces, Josie, handed him the envelope without saying a word, but with a reproachful look. She almost seemed to be about to burst into tears.

'Anything interesting?' said Matt, watching his brother open the envelope from the estate agent.

Cooper could see straight away that there was nothing suitable. All the agents had available were a couple of three-bedroom semis in Buxton and a furnished first-floor apartment in Chapel-en-le-Frith. Apart from the fact that they were too far away, the rent for each of them was well outside the limit of his resources. But it seemed like an admission of failure to tell his family there was nothing. Worse, it might raise expectations that he'd never find anything, and that he'd be forced to stay on at the farm. Once that idea became accepted, it would be all too easy to fall in with it himself. And that would be that. He'd be here until he retired, or until Matt decided to sell the farm, which would be a disaster in itself.

He looked at Matt. He wasn't altogether sure how his brother felt about the prospect of him moving out. It was a big step, to be sure. But wouldn't it leave more room for Matt and Kate and the girls to live their own life? Even inside the estate agent's, though, he'd felt embarrassed to explain what he was doing. He was nearly thirty years old, and it wasn't an age where you could comfortably announce that you were thinking of leaving home for the first time. He imagined the sideways glances at him, the speculation about his relationship with his mother.

'I might have a look at one or two of these places tomorrow,' he said.

He could only hope. Things might look completely different tomorrow.

*    *    *    *

Diane Fry stayed behind in the office for a while after everyone else had gone. The night shift was practically non-existent, and the station became like a morgue. It was the time she liked most, when there were no distractions and she could think out problems without being interrupted by singing lobsters or, even worse, her colleagues. People always had their own demands to make on her.

From a locked drawer in her desk, she took out a manila folder, which had Ben Cooper's name on it. It contained copies of his personnel files. She knew when he'd been recruited into Derbyshire Constabulary, what grades he got in his training and where his first posting had been. She had the date of his transfer from uniform to CID, a couple of commendations from senior officers, and a special note from the Divisional Commander referring to the death in service of his father, Sergeant Joe Cooper. Ben had been given compassionate leave and counselling. A note said 'no long-term problems'.

There were also the results of his examinations for the rank of sergeant, all good. Then the outcome of his interview board, when he'd withdrawn his application. That had been when Fry got the sergeant's job herself. Did the change in Cooper stem from that time? It would be understandable. But she didn't think it was quite that – although the disappointment of missing out on the promotion he'd banked on could have been the cause of what she suspected he'd done later. She was almost sure he'd concealed evidence, or at least not reported his suspicions, all out of misguided loyalty.

Fry touched the scar on her face, which had healed but not yet faded. She had no evidence against him – that was the problem. There was no proof. Unfounded allegations against a colleague would blight her own career as surely as anything else she could do. Especially when they were against Mr Popular, the man who'd lived in the Eden Valley all his life and knew everyone. She would get no benefit from stirring up trouble against fellow officers, unless she was absolutely sure of her ground. And that was particularly true when one of them had died in the course of his duty.

Fry knew nothing could do more damage to her relationship with her colleagues. She could imagine even now the officers drawing away from her in the corridor, the cooling of attitudes from senior staff, gradually freezing her out. Finally she would get the message and either transfer back to where she'd come from, the West Midlands, or leave the police service altogether, knowing no one would care which she chose.

She frowned at the memory of the way Ben Cooper had looked today as he went off duty. He'd been wearing that ridiculous waxed coat with the long skirts and the vast inside pocket he called his poacher's pocket. The coat was dark green, as if he were trying for a camouflage effect. It wasn't much use in the snow – he'd be a sitting duck for an angry gamekeeper with a twelve-bore shotgun. But somehow it made him look as if he belonged where he was, like a man who was at ease with himself and his own place in the world. And then there was the tweed cap. In the shadow of its peak, you could barely see his eyes.

Fry shook herself. There was no one she could ask about Cooper. Perhaps her view of him was somehow distorted. Maybe her antennae were deadened by her preoccupations with her own problems. One thing was certain, Cooper was a man orbiting somewhere beyond the reach of her detection systems. But he wouldn't need to put a foot too far wrong before his orbit brought him right back into her sights. Maybe tomorrow.

5

By the next day, the skies had cleared. Overnight frost had sprayed glitter on the snow that lay on the moors, and the air crackled like static electricity.

Ben Cooper sighed as he stumbled around his room, determined not to miss breakfast today. First thing this morning he had to attend the Chief Superintendent's meeting with the Canadian woman. He hoped it was something that could be got out of the way as soon as possible. It was an irrelevance, and a waste of time. From what he'd read of the files produced by the Local Intelligence Officer, it was more than a cold case she was asking Derbyshire Constabulary to take up – it was no case at all.