One last breath bcadf-5

by Stephen Booth

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  killer at large in the area. What if a tourist got killed? Or a child? It would be a disaster for the tourism trade - worse even than the foot and mouth outbreak.

  Watching his senior officers fretting, Cooper shook his head. Surely the chiefs were worrying more than necessary? It was obvious that Quinn had specific targets in mind, and he wasn’t about to start attacking strangers. And this man was no predatory paedophile or child killer. He could have no possible reason to harm a child.

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  Mansell Quinn’s hands trembled slightly as he ran the sights of the crossbow back across the same stretch of undergrowth, looking for the movement. He focused on the base of a tree and gripped the shaft in his other hand. Despite its lightness, he knew it had the power to bring down an animal the size of a deer, if necessary. It was silent and deadly, too. He could even retrieve the bolt from the body with his knife, and no one need ever know how his quarry had died.

  Despite the trembling, his motions were slow and steady. He made another sweep across the ground. There was the movement again. Now it had come into the open, and he could see what it was. A little girl was running down the slope. She was no more than eight years old, wearing a bright blue dress, with brown hair tied into bunches and her feet shoved into over-sized trainers. Her face was screwed up in concentration as she ran. Quinn noted every detail - her thin white legs, a scab on her left knee, an imitation gold bracelet around one wrist.

  Of course, her mother wouldn’t be far away - she’d be among the other adults and children enjoying the sunshine. But this child was independent. She’d decided to go exploring on her own, tempted away from the safety of the adults by

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  a glint of water through the trees, or just an urge to run down the slope in the sun. Quinn liked independence. He thought it was one of his own best characteristics.

  Quinn tried to imagine what people would be saying about him now. They’d be judging him, and he couldn’t stand the thought of that. Everyone had always judged him when he was inside. Prisoners were each other’s jailers, in a way. If you weren’t guilty when you went in, you soon convinced yourself you were. It was too easy to turn that anger on to yourself.

  He was glad to have got the chance to wash in the stream. Sometimes, he thought he’d never get the smell of prison off his skin - that stale stink of a place filled with too many bodies, where fresh air never blew. Now and then, he’d taken the chance to inch a bit closer to a prison visitor, to see if he could detect the smell of someone who’d stroked their pet dog, or walked in their garden that morning, or touched a child. The tiniest whiff of a remembered smell could bring the outside world back. It kept the connection from breaking entirely.

  The girl stopped at the bottom of the slope, poised on the edge of the water. She looked up at the hillside, staring directly at where Quinn was positioned. He held his breath and didn’t move; there was no way she could see him. Her child’s eyes weren’t good enough to pick him out, and she couldn’t yet have learned to recognize danger so easily.

  Then, inexplicably, the girl smiled. Quinn’s heart gave a lurch. She must have been smiling at a particularly pleasing pattern of trees, or a bird glimpsed in the branches above him. After a moment, she lost interest in whatever it was and began to poke around among the small stones at the edge of the stream. He could see her white trainers beginning to turn darker at the edges as the water soaked into them. When her mother found her, the girl would be in trouble for getting her feet wet.

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  Quinn lowered the crossbow for a moment. Where was her mother? The girl shouldn’t have been allowed to wander off alone like that. It was dangerous.

  The girl suddenly broke into a run. Quinn watched her trot along the slope, her arms waving to keep her balance, and her blue skirt blowing in the breeze. The girl’s bare legs were white and streaked with dirt, and she stumbled as she dodged the bigger stones. She was moving fast now and changing direction, heading diagonally across in front of him. In another thirty seconds she would reach the flat area of grass and be into the trees, and then he’d no longer be able to see her clearly.

  Quinn squinted against the low sun, focusing on the blue skirt, assessing the trajectory of the bright scrap of colour as it travelled across his range of vision. Slowly, he lifted the crossbow back to his shoulder, and slid a bolt into place.

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  Isabel Cooper was waiting in the lounge of the Old School nursing home, wearing her best coat and her best shoes, and looking expectant. Somebody had joked with her that she must be going to a wedding, and now she wasn’t quite sure whether she ought to be wearing a hat.

  The staff of the nursing home knew Ben. He visited regularly, and more than one care assistant had been ticked off for spending too much time talking to him. And today Cooper’s mother recognized him, too. She got up to greet him, and he bent to give her a hug and a kiss.

  ‘I need to find a hat before we go,’ she said.

  ‘No, Mum, you’ll be fine as you are.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘We’re only going to Bridge End.’

  She didn’t answer, and he knew she’d noticed the careful way he referred to the farm. It was awkward trying not to say ‘home’. He would always think of it as her home, and he was sure that she must, too. But the family had an unspoken agreement that it was a word they should avoid saying out loud.

  She brightened up when they got into the car and drove out of Edendale. After they passed through a shower, the

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  evening sun broke through again and lit up the fields and wet trees, revealing fresh colours in the landscape. In town, Cooper quite liked the odour of hot pavements dampened by rain. But on some days, after it had rained, parts of the valley would steam like a tropical swamp as water vapour rose through the trees.

  ‘I’ve got you a present, Ben,’ said his mother. ‘It’s your birthday.’

  ‘Yes, I know. Thank you, Mum.’

  He was aware of her opening her handbag and rummaging among the tissues and spare glasses, Polo mints, family photographs, and whatever else she kept in there.

  ‘I think we’ll have to go back,’ she said. ‘I’ve forgotten to bring it.’

  ‘No, you haven’t, Mum. It’s at the farm. Matt and Kate have got it. You can give it to me when we arrive.’

  ‘Oh, yes. I remember.’

  Kate was very good at organizing these things. She planned ahead so that they could anticipate what Mum might do and make things easier. Most things were accepted without question, or any need for lengthy explanations. His mother knew that she forgot things a lot.

  ‘Your Dad and I can give it you together,’ she said.

  Cooper’s heart sank. ‘What, Mum?’

  ‘It’ll be nice to see Joe. He hasn’t managed to visit me this week. I suppose he’s too busy.’

  He didn’t answer. A moment later, she began to hum quietly to herself. She was happy as they passed familiar landscapes the houses of friends she remembered, the old cottage hospital where she’d worked for a while, the stone bridge over the river where Joe had once scraped the side of the car against the parapet and she hadn’t been able to open the door to get out.

  And then something brought out another memory. Cooper had no idea what it was - a glimpse of a particular hill, or

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  the look of someone’s face in a car going the other way, or maybe just something floating to the surface of his mother’s mind, like a rotting leaf disturbed from the mud on the bottom of a stagnant pond.

  ‘I heard that Mansell Quinn is out,’ she said.

  Cooper almost lost control of the car and steered into a field full of Friesians. They’d have got as big as a shock as he’d just had.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Mansell Quinn. Do you remember, Ben?’

  ‘Yes. Yes, I do, Mum.’

  Isabel frowned. ‘You must have been quite youn
g at the time. We tried to keep it from you.’

  ‘You didn’t keep as much from me as you thought.’

  ‘Oh.’

  Cooper hesitated, but couldn’t resist asking the question. ‘How did you know he was out?’

  ‘Somebody at the Old School mentioned it.’

  ‘Do you remember the case? I mean, the murder?’

  ‘Murder?’

  ‘Mansell Quinn killed a woman. Do you remember, at the time, did Dad … ?’

  Cooper turned to look at his mother as he spoke, and saw a look of terrible anguish on her face. He could have been looking at a child facing some unseen terror in the darkness.

  ‘Ben,’ she said, ‘your dad’s dead.’

  Ashamed, he faced towards the road again and took the next bend a little too fast, forgetting to brake, or not bothering.

  ‘Yes, Mum,’ he said. ‘I know.’

  Two minutes later, Cooper swung the car up the hill towards Bridge End Farm. On the upper slopes, the leaves of the limes and sycamores shone almost yellow against the background of dark clouds still shouldering their way

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  across the moors. He thought it would probably rain again later.

  When they arrived in the farmhouse, Cooper was immediately surrounded by a scrum of family. There seemed to be more of them than he remembered. His sister Claire was there with a new boyfriend who said he was a doctor but looked more like a car salesman. Uncle John and Aunt Margaret were there with a whole gaggle of cousins. And of course there were Matt and Kate, and Kate’s parents. But it was his nieces, Josie and Amy, who insisted on crowding in first to deliver their presents.

  When Cooper had made all the right noises and a birthday cake had been cut, the fuss finally died down and he found himself sitting among a pile of wrapping paper and cards with a glass of beer in his hand. One of those momentary quiet spells had descended, allowing him a second or two to think. But Cooper looked up and found Josie standing at his elbow, waiting patiently for him to notice her.

  ‘Uncle Ben, I’ve got the poem,’ she said.

  ‘What poem, Josie?’

  ‘The one the man was talking about at Peak Cavern. It’s by Ben Jonson.’

  Cooper smiled when he heard Josie call the place Teak Cavern’, hoping that he would notice she’d used the polite name. Her sister Amy took pleasure in saying ‘the Devil’s Arse’, for the opposite reason. Or perhaps it was for the same reason - to get his attention.

  ‘What was the poem called again?’

  ‘Well, the man said it was The Gypsies Metamorphosed, but that’s the name of a book, not the poem. Anyway, the poem’s called “Cock Lorrel”. Do you want to read it?’

  ‘Er …’ Cooper looked at the book Josie was holding, and then at her face. ‘OK. Thank you.’

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  He took it and read the first verse of the poem aloud:

  ‘Cock Lorrel would needs have the Devil his guest, And bade him once into the Peak to dinner, Where never the fiend had such a feast Provided him yet at the charge of a sinner.’

  He began to read the second verse, then paused. ‘Did you read this, Josie?’

  ‘Yes. It’s a bit gruesome, I think.’

  ‘Yes, it is a bit.’

  Silently, Cooper scanned the rest of the poem. It seemed to be a catalogue of the dishes enjoyed by Cock Lorrel and the Devil during one of the notorious cannibalistic feasts in the cavern - the Beggars’ Banquets. There was: ‘A rich, fat usurer stewed in his marrow,/ And by him a lawyer’s head and green sauce’ and ‘Six pickled tailors sliced and cut,/Sempsters and tirewomen, fit for his palate.’

  ‘What are tirewomen?’ said Josie, effortlessly following his progress through the poem.

  ‘I don’t know. You’ll have to look it up.’

  Then Cooper wondered whether that was the right thing to have said. For all he knew, tirewomen could be some kind of prostitute. Matt would be thrilled if he thought his brother was encouraging his daughters to do that sort of research.

  But the passage that made Cooper stop was roughly halfway through the poem. Ben Jonson had really managed to hit a nerve with this one:

  Then carbonadoed and cooked with pains, Was brought up a cloven sergeant’s face: The sauce was made of his yeoman’s brains, That had been beaten out with his mace.

  With an effort to appear calm, Cooper handed the book back

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  to his niece. He smiled, knowing as he did it that she’d be able to read every emotion on his face.

  ‘You did a great job finding the poem, Josie,’ he said. ‘A really great job.’

  At West Street that night, Diane Fry was working late. A shift had gone off duty, and another had come on without her noticing. The noise and chaos of changeover would normally have irritated her, but tonight it passed her by. She was sitting at a desk in the CID room with a pile of papers on either side of her, turning over pages with one hand and making notes with the other. Occasionally, Fry looked up, slightly disorientated. Nobody who came into the room even tried to speak to her, though they looked at her curiously. The expression on her face was enough to deter them from asking her why she was sitting not at her own desk, but at Ben Cooper’s.

  If anyone had dared to ask, Fry would probably have said that she was reading the documents from the Carol Proctor case because she had nothing better to do. Earlier, Angie had surprised her by phoning her at the office.

  ‘Hi, are you busy?’ she’d said.

  T’m always busy.’

  ‘Right. You never stop trying to climb that slippery ladder, do you, Sis?’

  ‘What do you want?’ said Fry. ‘Is something wrong?’

  ‘No. It’s just that I didn’t see you this morning before you went out. How did you get on with nice Constable Cooper last night?’

  ‘Angie, I haven’t time for this ‘

  ‘OK, OK.’ Angie’s tone had changed. ‘I want to let you know I’ll be out tonight. Just in case you start getting worried about me.’

  ‘Where are you going?’ said Fry, conscious that she was sounding like a fussy parent again.

  ‘I’ve got people to see, that’s all. I do have a life of my

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  own, Diane. It went on without you for fifteen years, and it doesn’t just stop.’

  Fry hadn’t pressed her any further, though she knew she’d spend the night worrying. She wanted to ask Angie what time she’d be home, but she managed to hold back the words.

  So tonight, Fry needed something else to think about, to take her mind off her sister. The hay fever was making her feel rough enough without the extra stress. The trouble was, the material that she was reading on the Carol Proctor case wasn’t making her any happier.

  Mansell Ouinn smiled. He released the pressure on the trigger and swung the sights of the crossbow past the running girl and back to the windows of the house. The more he handled the weapon, the more confident he felt with it. The perfect balance and the feel of its stock in his hands helped to counter the pain in his side.

  Quinn slid his hand inside his shirt to check the bleeding. Will Thorpe had taken a three-inch gouge out of his skin with the bolt he’d fired in the field barn. It hadn’t been too bad a shot - not in the dark, at a moving target, with no time to aim properly. Quinn knew he was lucky to be alive.

  He looked for movement in the downstairs windows one by one, then raised the sights of the crossbow to the first floor, watching the play of light and shadow carefully as the evening light faded. He shifted slightly on the grass, conscious of several small stones lying against his ribs. The movement sent a stab of pain through his side that made him wince and catch his breath.

  The wound would slow him down, of course, and that might have been a problem when he was going to be faced with someone much younger than himself. But now he had the crossbow it wouldn’t matter so much. If he’d wanted to, he could have killed the girl. If he’d missed the first time, he

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  could have fire
d two or three bolts into her, and no one would have known where they came from.

  He froze for a moment, focusing all his attention on one of the windows. But the movement he could see was only the lengthening shadows of the trees on the opposite hill, outlined by the low sun.

  Quinn let out his breath. Of all the things he’d worried about until now, he had never doubted that he would recognize the moment when it came, and recognize the man. Despite the difference in age, he would know him. Like father, like son. Wasn’t that what they said?

  Shortly after one o’clock in the morning, Ben Cooper decided he needed some fresh air. The party was still going strong, though only members of his family were left, his friends and Matt’s in-laws having sensibly set off for the drive home.

  The serious drinkers had moved into the kitchen among the rows of empty bottles and stacks of washing up that would be left for the morning. The conversation had drifted into unlikely areas. Matt was trying to get everyone to recite their favourite funny lines from TV comedy shows, while Uncle John had startled a few people with his imaginative solutions to the country’s asylum problem.

  Meanwhile, those who were up past their bedtime and were beginning to flag had propped themselves up in the sitting room with a jug of coffee and the remains of the birthday cake, and were watching an old Star Wars video. The girls had been watching it the day before, and they’d left it in the video player. It hadn’t occurred to anyone to change it for something quieter, and now the older members of the family were having difficulty nodding off because the sound effects were so loud. His mother had long since been helped to bed and was sleeping in her old room.