Cooper was still smarting from an early-morning dressing down by Hitchens for his total disregard of proper procedures, for not letting anyone know what he was doing, and for his criminal foolishness in putting himself and a fellow officer at risk. Words like ‘rash’, ‘irresponsible’ and ‘foolhardy’ had been used, and in his heart Ben Cooper could not deny that they were justified. But Lee Sherratt was in custody.
The DCI was still talking. ‘There was an initial interview with Sherratt last night, and the tapes are already transcribed. He will be interviewed again this morning by myself.’
Cooper put his hand up. Tailby’s eyes swivelled towards him.
‘Let me guess, Cooper, you’re going to ask about Harry Dickinson.’
‘Yes, sir.’
Tailbv shuffled some papers.
‘He was unavailable last night, but there’s an action allocated
o
this morning to ask him about the bird-watcher’s sighting on
ooo
Saturday night.’
JO
‘We ought to press him,’ said Cooper. ‘He hasn’t been cooperating so far.’
‘We shouldn’t be wasting too much time on him,’ protested Hitchens. ‘He’s just an awkward old sod.’
‘With respect, sir, I think it was more than that. He was upset about something.’
‘Upset? Bloody rude, more like.’
‘No, there was something else.’ Cooper shook his head.
Tailby frowned. ‘Justify it, lad. Where’s your evidence?’
‘I can’t really explain what it was, sir, but I could feel it. It’s … well, it’s just a feeling.’
‘Ah. For a moment there, Cooper, I thought you were going to say it was feminine intuition.’
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Several of the officers began to fitter, and Cooper flushed. ‘We could check Mr Dickinson’s movements out more care
fullv. lust in case.’ j j
Tailby nodded. ‘All right, that sounds thorough. Do you want to action this yourself, Cooper?’
‘Of course.’
As Tailby finished the briefing, Hitchens got up and came uer to I-ry.
‘Off to sunny Yorkshire then, Diane. Call home and pack an overnight bag for when we get the call. These students can be elusive, so it might not be until tonight.’
Cooper waited until Hitchens had moved away.
‘You should be in on the interviews with Sherratt,’ he said. ‘It was your arrest.’
‘It doesn’t matter,’ said Fry. But Cooper could see that it did. He wasn’t comfortable, either, with the idea of her being away with Dl Hitchens. But it was her own business, of course. Nothing to do with him. If she wanted to take the opportunity of sleeping her way to the top, let her get on with it.
Tn the hut there, with Lee Sherratt …’he said.
‘Yes, Ben?’ She turned to him, ready to brush aside the thanks.
‘That was a lucky blow. He walked right into it. But a side-handed strike would have been better.’
‘Oh really? You know that, do you?’
T’m a shotokan brown belt,’ he said.
Fry gave a chilly smile. ‘Well, hey, that’s great. I’ve been looking for a dojo round here. I’m falling behind in my training. Can you suggest somewhere?’
‘Come along with me. I can get you in at my club. Maybe
OOJJ
we can have a friendly bout. It’ll be a bit of practice for you.’
‘In case I have to pull you out of the shit again, do you mean?’
Cooper grinned. ‘It’s always worth learning a bit more, getting your techniques right. Will you come along? When you get back from Yorkshire?’
She stared at him — an appraising stare, as if she were weighing
185
up an opponent, measuring his capabilities, judging how murh of a threat to her he could be.
‘Do you know, I’d really love to do that, Ben. And I’ll keep you to that bout, don’t you worry.’
Lee Sherratt sat sullenly 111 an interview room, staring at the two cassette recorders and twin video cameras. His skin was faintly swarthy, as if he had a fading suntan or hadn’t washed for a long
J ‘Oto
time. His hair was black, and the stubble on his cheeks made his complexion look even darker. His eyes wandered around the room, looking at anything rather than the detectives facing
‘oJtoo
him. He was a well-built youth, but at the moment his muscular shoulders were held high, betraying his tension.
Tailby knew it wasn’t Sherratt’s first experience of being interviewed in a police station. There were minor offences on his record — juvenile car crime, but no violence, not even a drunk-and-disorderly. Yet Graham Vernon had called him a violent yob. Of course, there was the gun.
DI Hitchens started the tapes and checked the cameras were running. ‘Interview commenced nine-fifteen a.m., Wednesday twenty-fifth August. Present are Detective Inspector Hitchens …’
‘Detective Chief Inspector Tailby …”
Hitchens nodded at the two men across the table.
‘Lee Sherratt.’
‘And John Nunn.’
Somehow the duty solicitor looked more uncomfortable than Sherratt did. Probably he was not used to being involved in a murder enquiry. But Lee Sherratt had no solicitor of his own, and right now he had the sense to know he needed
‘o
one.
Hitchens was leading, after consultation with Tailby. He had a transcript in front of him of the initial interview conducted the previous night, without the benefit of a solicitor.
‘Lee, a few hours ago you told us that you had no intimate relationship with Laura Vernon.’
Sherratt nodded, staring at the table.
‘For the tape, please.’
186
That’s right.’
‘If you wouldn’t describe your relationship with Laura as intimate, how would you describe it?’
Sherratt looked uncertainly at the solicitor and back at Hitchens. ‘We didn’t have a relationship. Not what you mean.’ You knew her, didn’t you, Leer”
‘Well, yeah. She lived there, at the Mount.’
‘So you must have had a relationship with her.’
‘Not really.’
Hitchens sighed. ‘Would you say your relationship with Laura Vernon was one of friendship?’
‘No, she wasn’t friendly.’
‘But you weren’t complete strangers. You had met several times. You knew her name, she knew yours. You had spoken to each other.’
“Course I’d met her.’
‘So how would you describe that relationship, if it wasn’t friendly?’
The youth frowned, struggling for the right sort of word to offer. He looked at his solicitor again, but Mr Nunn had no words to suggest. Sherratt rubbed his cheek with a broad hand, scraping the stubble.
‘She was a stuck-up little cow,’ he said at last. Mr Nunn jerked as if he had been kicked awake and looked at the cassette recorder.
‘Perhaps my client might like to reconsider that remark,’ he said.
‘Certainly,’ said Hitchens generously. It wasn’t an answer to his question anyway. ‘Let’s try another question. Why did you hate her, Lee?’
Mr Nunn shook his head. ‘No comment,’ said Sherratt proudly, relieved to have been given a clear signal at last.
‘Did you like her?’
‘Detective Inspector, this line of questioning —’
‘I’m merely trying to establish the nature of the relationship between Mr Sherratt and the victim,’ said Hitchens genially. ‘Shall we agree, Lee, that if you thought Laura was a “stuck-up little cow”, then you didn’t like her very much?’
187
‘No, I didn’t like her,’ said Sherratt. His eyes fell again, and his chair creaked as he shifted his bulk.
‘Right. But did you fancy her?’
‘No comment.’
&nbs
p; ‘Come on, Lee, she was an attractive girl. Mature for her acre, they saw. Sexv, even. You must have noticed. Didn’t you
Ł> ‘./Jj ‘j
fancy her? I’m sure other lads would have done.’
‘She wasn’t my type,’ said Sherratt, with a smirk.
‘Ah. I see.’
Hitchens turned over a few sheets of paper. They were interview reports. He read a few paragraphs, taking his time as the tapes whirred.
‘According to Mr Graham Vernon,’ he said at last. ‘That’s Laura’s father, Lee, your former employer. According to Mr Vernon, you had been pestering his daughter. Trying to chat her up, he says. Ogling her. Spying on her in the house. Following her around. And, he says, you tried every chance you had to touch her. And that your attentions were unwelcome.’
‘It’s not true,’ said Sherratt, before Mr Nunn could decide whether to shake his head.
‘Why would Mr Vernon say things like that if they weren’t true?’ asked Hitchens, raising his eyebrows.
‘He’s weird,’ said Sherratt dismissively, as if it needed no further explanation. His eyes began to roam around again. He studied the clock on the side wall as if wondering how long he had to last out.
‘Weird, how?’
‘Well
‘Weird because he didn’t like you pestering Laura?’
‘No comment.’
‘Did it make you angry that he thought you weren’t good enough for his daughter?’
‘No comment.’
‘You were just the gardener after all, Lee. A servant. And
not a very good gardener, by all accounts.’
y oo‘ j
There was a flash of anger in Sherratt’s face now as he glared
oo
at Hitchens. ‘I worked hard,’ he said sullenly. ‘I’m as good as them. Why shouldn’t I be?’
188
‘Did Laura look down on you too?’
‘You what?’
‘Did she treat you like a servant. Lee?’
‘She was a stuck-up little cow.’ Sherratt looked defiantly at his solicitor. He was starting to get more confident now. Tailby saw the change in his manner and tapped Hilchens’s leg. It was time for him to come in, to change tack.
‘Some of these stuck-up cows like a bit of roucrh, don’t
ito ‘
they, Lee? They’re desperate to get it from a proper man, aren’t they?’
Sherratt turned round to face Tailby, a knowing leer slipping on to his face before he could think of controlling it. Nunn
o
coughed and shook his head several times.
o
‘I bet you’re the man to give it to them, aren’t you, Lee?’
‘Chief Inspector, I don’t think that is a relevant question.’
‘Did you have sex with Laura Vernon?’
“I didn’t,’ said Sherratt.
‘Just a bit of heavy petting, then.’
‘No.’
‘So how would you describe your relationship?’
Sherratt leaned across the table. The veins stood out in his neck as his chin jutted forward. ‘I told him already. We didn’t have one.’
‘But you met Laura when her parents didn’t know about it, didn’t you?”
‘No.’
‘So her parents did know about it?’
‘What? No, I never met her.’
‘But you’ve already said, Lee, that you met her during the course of your job at the Mount.’
‘Well … yes.’
Even the solicitor was looking confused now. Tailby leaned forward.
‘Now we’ve cleared that up, would you like to clarify your other statement?’
‘What was that?’
‘You’ve told us that you didn’t have sex with Laura Vernon. Would you like to change that statement?’
189
‘No. I didn’t do it with her. I told you.’ ‘Lee, when you were taken into custody last night you agreed to provide samples for forensic examination and DNA testing.’ The dark eyes wavered nervously. ‘Yes.’ ‘Do you understand what a DNA test is? Do you understand
JJ
that this will enable us to match those samples we took with evidence found at the scene?’
‘I wasn’t at no scene.’
‘For example,’ said Tailby, ‘I mean the used condom we found in the greenhouse in the garden at the Mount.’
oo
Sherratt blinked and his face went a shade of yellow under the dark colour. His solicitor shook his head.
Tailby merely smiled, his eyes colder than ever. ‘A used condom contains semen. A good source of a DNA sample. Will we find that it’s yours, Lee?’
Cooper called first at Dial Cottage. Before he could knock, the front door was opened by Helen Milner. She was looking over her shoulder, calling to her grandmother.
‘I’m off now!’
She was taken aback when she saw him standing on the step. She was back in her shorts and a sleeveless cotton top, and her limbs seemed to glow in the brightness pouring through the doorway from the street.
‘Oh, hello, Ben.’
‘How are you?’
‘Fine. Have you come to see me?’
‘Your grandparents, actually.’
Was that a flash of disappointment that passed across her face? Intrigued, Cooper studied her expression. But it quickly became a friendly smile.
‘Grandma is in. She’ll be pleased to see you.’
‘Hold on. Do you have to rush off?’
‘I’ve got a few things to do. But — well, they’re not desperate.’ Faced with Helen again, Cooper found himself searching for what it was he wanted to say to her.
‘I’m sorry it had to be like this when we met again.’
J&
190
‘It’s your job, I suppose.’ she said.
The local postman was working his way down the road in his van, stopping every few yards to deliver his handfuls of mail. The radio in his van was tuned to Peak FM, and every time he opened the driver’s door, the village was treated to a blast of relentlessly lively pop music. But the chances were that the messages he was delivering were not so bright or so cheerful as the music.
Helen had unlocked the door of her red Fiesta, which stood at the kerb near the cottage. Cooper leaned on the roof of the car, trying not to flinch as the hot metal burned his arm through his shirt.
‘It’s a good job. But it can get in the way sometimes.’
‘How do you mean, Ben?’
‘It comes between you and other people.’
Helen nodded. ‘Everybody sees you as a policeman first and foremost, I suppose.’
‘All the time. But you didn’t, did you?’
‘What?’
‘On Monday. When I came here, to Dial Cottage. You saw me first as Ben Cooper.’
Helen laughed. ‘No. I saw you as the teenager I remembered at Edendale High. I would barely have recognized you if it hadn’t been for the photograph in the paper the other week.’
‘But you said I hadn’t changed much,’ he protested.
‘It’s what you say, isn’t it?’ Helen studied him. ‘Yes, I suppose at first it didn’t occur to me you were the police, Ben. I just remembered you as you were.’
Cooper smiled. ‘It brought memories back for me, too,’ he said.
The post van coasted past them and pulled into the kerb in front of the Fiesta. The postman emerged in a burst of Abba and stared at them curiously as he passed. But he had no letters to deliver to Dial Cottage.
Helen wound down the windows of her car, trying to let out the stifling air. Cooper straightened, sensing he would be unable to keep her any longer.
‘So aren’t you a policeman all the time, then?’ she said. ‘What are you like when you’re just being Ben Cooper?’
191
‘You’ll have to find out one dav, won’t you?’
‘Maybe I will.’
Helen turned awa
v and walked back to the door of Dial
J
Cottage. Cooper watched her red hair swinging on her bare shoulders and admired the movement of her calves. He met her eyes hastily when she glanced over her shoulder as she pushed open the door.
‘Grandma! You’ve got a visitor.’ she called.
o‘
Gwen appeared in the passage, her face lighting up at the
sight of Ben Cooper standing next to Helen. She was wearing
oroo
an apron, and her hands, which she was trying to wipe on a towel as she came to the door, were covered in flour. She patted Cooper’s arm.
‘Come in, and I’ll put the kettle on again. Won’t you stay for a bit, Helen?’
‘Sorry, must go.’
Gwen stood on the step waving and smiling conspiratorially at Helen as she walked to her car. Cooper waited hopefully while Helen started the engine and fastened her seat belt. He was rewarded with a quick glance and a flash of her smile. The warmth that spread over his skin was due to more than the sun and the hot pavements.
He was roused by Gwen Dickinson tugging his arm. ‘Are you coming in then, or are you going to stand out here gawping all day?’
Cooper was embarrassed by her knowing twinkle and tried to slip back into his professional role. ‘Is your husband not at home, Mrs Dickinson?’
‘No, he’s not in,’ she said. ‘He’ll be up at Wilford Cults’s place, if you want him. He’s always there, or at the pub.’
‘Perhaps I could have a few words with you, since I’m here.’
‘As long as you sit down for a bit and have a cup of tea.’
Cooper followed her into the kitchen, feeling again the cool
r‘o o
ness of the cottage, with its thick stone walls to keep out the heat. On Monday, he had thought the chill was partly due to the circumstances, the sensation he had had of the close presence
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