Blood on the Tongue (Ben Cooper & Diane Fry)

by Stephen Booth

  Cooper looked at the heaps of snow piled up outside on Woodland Crescent. The snow was becoming stained with car exhaust fumes and soot from central-heating flues. It didn’t say much for the air quality in the Crescent.

  ‘Mrs Lukasz, do you mean that your son just disappeared?’

  ‘Well, in a way.’

  ‘Did he have any luggage with him?’

  ‘Yes, of course.’

  ‘Have you reported him missing?’

  ‘He isn’t missing,’ said Peter Lukasz. ‘He left a little suddenly, that’s all. I presume somebody came for him. A taxi, whatever.’

  ‘He promised he would phone me,’ said Grace. ‘I’ve called his home in London several times, but there’s only an answering machine. He said his wife is away in America, and we don’t have his mobile number.’

  ‘He probably has some urgent business to deal with,’ said Peter. ‘Andrew is regional sales manager for a medical supplies company.’

  Cooper began to get exasperated. People could sometimes be so slow to accept that tragedy could intrude directly into their own comfortable lives.

  ‘Could you describe your son, please? How old is he? How tall? Is he dark or fair? What was he wearing?’

  ‘Well, Andrew is dark, like me,’ said Peter Lukasz. ‘He’s thirty-two. I don’t know what he was wearing. What’s this all about?’

  But his wife’s face was already growing pale. ‘The man found dead on the Snake Pass,’ she said. ‘But that’s the man who called here at the bungalow on Monday, isn’t it?’

  ‘Is it?’ said Cooper.

  They both stared at him wordlessly. A faint sheen of sweat glistened on Peter Lukasz’s forehead. He seemed to find it too warm in his own bungalow.

  ‘I’m afraid I’ll have to ask you to come in and have a look,’ said Cooper. ‘In case you’re able to help us identify him.’

  Grace Lukasz shook her head. ‘But that wasn’t Andrew,’ she said. ‘Surely that’s not what you’re saying?’ She gave a short laugh. ‘I know my own son.’

  Peter Lukasz seemed to understand better. ‘It’s ridiculous,’ he said. ‘Quite ridiculous. But I’ll do it, if it helps to get the idea out of your head.’

  ‘Thank you, sir. However, I think we’ll need both of you. Your wife was the only one who saw the man who came to your door.’

  Cooper got ready to leave the bungalow. The sky was looking heavy again outside. Peter Lukasz saw him out, but paused on the doorstep in his slippers. Lukasz seemed as though he might have something else he wanted to say, but Cooper didn’t know what question he should be asking him.

  ‘How long has your father been working on his story?’ said Cooper.

  ‘About a week.’

  ‘Is that all? What made him decide to start it now?’

  ‘Oh, I think that’s because he knows he’s dying,’ said Lukasz. ‘He has advanced liver cancer, and all that can be done for him now is to control the pain. We’ve been told that he’ll be dead within a few months.’

  Cooper stood in the CID room as he stripped off his coat and stared at his shoes, which were turning a strange grey where they had once been black. He flicked though the messages and memos on his desk, allocating them to three piles in order of priority. He’d learned the technique on a time-management course. Important and urgent, important but not urgent, urgent but not important. In this case, only the first would get dealt with. Towards the bottom, he stopped and read a telephone message more carefully. There was no pile this one would fit into. It didn’t fit into his duties at all.

  He put the message aside carefully on his desk while he dealt with the important and urgent tasks. A CPS lawyer needed a report for an assault case that was due before the magistrates first thing on Monday morning. A family in Edendale whose burglary he was supposed to be investigating had been burgled again and needed calming down. A superintendent had invited him to volunteer for a farm security working group and wanted an answer yesterday.

  Fry watched Cooper going through the ritual. She wasn’t sure why it was that she found him every bit as irritating as Gavin Murfin. Murfin was stupid and lazy, but she could understand that. Ben Cooper was neither of those things.

  ‘Ben, you took a long time at the Snake Inn,’ she said.

  ‘Sorry.’

  ‘Do you realize how stretched we are here?’

  ‘Of course,’ he said.

  ‘I’m not asking you to cut corners,’ she said, ‘but I need you to be making the best use of your time. So let me know where you are in future, if you’re going to be delayed.’

  ‘Listen, Diane, I’ve asked Peter and Grace Lukasz to try an identification on the Snowman.’

  She stared at him. ‘Have you now? Ben, are you working this enquiry on your own?’

  ‘No, but –’

  ‘So how come you talked to the Lukasz family again? Was that on your list of actions?’

  ‘No. I used a bit of initiative.’

  ‘Well, don’t.’

  ‘They don’t know the whereabouts of their son. They haven’t seen him since Sunday.’

  Fry stopped and stared at him. ‘Have they reported it?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Description?’

  ‘It’s a rough match with the Snowman. Besides, Grace Lukasz is the only one who saw this man who’s supposed to have visited Woodland Crescent on Monday.’

  ‘Supposed to have?’

  ‘I don’t think she’s telling the entire truth,’ said Cooper. ‘Her husband wasn’t home, and her father-in-law is in some world of his own. As for the neighbours, it seems the man who called at the Lukasz bungalow didn’t visit anybody else in the street. That doesn’t sound like any salesman I ever heard of. It will be interesting to see what she makes of the Snowman, anyway.’

  ‘All right,’ said Fry. ‘But for God’s sake let me know what you’re doing in future, Ben.’

  ‘There’s another thing,’ said Cooper.

  She sighed. ‘Go on.’

  ‘The staff at the Snake Inn remember no four-wheel drives. Is it possible the Snowman’s body was left in that lay-by overnight, before the snow started?’

  ‘Not possible. There was snow underneath the body. And take another look at the video of the scene. It’s perfectly obvious that the body would have been visible to traffic coming up the hill. Even in the dark, you would see it in your headlights.’

  ‘It wouldn’t be the first time people had just driven on by.’

  Fry tapped her fingers. ‘That would mean we’d have to do roadside checks on motorists. That’s more time and more staff.’

  ‘Sorry.’

  ‘I’ll let the DI know. Anything else?’

  ‘Not for now.’

  ‘Clear up your messages, then.’

  Fry watched him for a few minutes longer as he began to make phone calls. She listened to him placating people who were becoming more and more anxious that nothing had been done on their enquiries. He was good at that – people on the other end of the line started off angry or upset and went away feeling that they had his full attention and sympathy. Fry wondered how she could get Cooper’s full attention. Maybe she ought to get angrier herself, or more upset. Nothing else seemed to work.

  Cooper picked up the message form he’d put aside. Urgent or important? Neither, of course. Yet, of all of them, this was the call he most wanted to make. He put it into his pocket, pulled on his coat and carried his cap as he followed Fry to the car park.

  He found the cold air outside refreshing. To get to his car, he had to cross a treacherous rink of compacted ice where dozens of police vehicles had spun their wheels on their way in and out of the compound. Someone would have to clear the ice soon, or there would be members of the public falling and breaking their legs, and the county court would be full of negligence cases against the police. That would play hell with the budgets, all right.

  Cooper supposed he ought to make an effort not to get himself into trouble with Diane Fry. Not only was she hi
s supervisor, but she already had a hold over him, a suspicion that had never been mentioned between them, only ever hinted at, so that it might only have been his own delusion that she knew his secret. But one thing was sure. One more wrong move could blight his career. He could end up one of those embittered old warhorses who’d given up hopes of promotion or recognition. He could end up like Gavin Murfin, who no longer cared whether everyone thought he was a joke.

  But there was something about the way Fry approached it that rankled. Every time she gave him the benefit of her advice, it made him want to do entirely the opposite. It was exactly what he heard married men say about their nagging wives.

  Cooper looked again at the message form he’d put in his pocket. Miss Alison Morrissey had called to speak to him and would like him to phone her back. It was an Edendale number, so he guessed she was still staying at the Cavendish Hotel. He hadn’t yet decided whether he was going to talk to her. He wanted to be sure of his ground before he had the confidence to face her.

  But Alison Morrissey needed his help. Fry didn’t need him at all – in fact, she would be better off without him, because she could get on and organize everybody the way she wanted them. The contrast between the two women couldn’t be clearer.

  The Snowman looked as though his eyes might open at any moment. The colour of his skin reminded Cooper of the real snowman that someone had built in the churchyard at All Saints. It was close to the road, and over the last few days the fumes from passing traffic had turned it grey and unhealthy.

  He looked at Peter and Grace Lukasz. They’d already seemed upset when they arrived at the hospital mortuary.

  ‘Are you sure you’re all right?’ he said. ‘We can do this tomorrow morning, if you prefer.’

  ‘No, it’s all right,’ said Lukasz.

  The mortuary assistant drew back the plastic sheet fully from the face of the corpse. Cooper watched the couple carefully. Lukasz actually seemed to become calmer when he saw the face. But his wife was riveted by the sight. She edged her wheelchair a little nearer to study the details of the Snowman’s hair and skin.

  ‘Well, it certainly isn’t our son,’ said Lukasz. ‘I’ve never seen this man before in my life.’

  ‘Mrs Lukasz?’ said Cooper.

  ‘Of course it isn’t Andrew.’

  ‘But have you seen him before? Do you think this is the man who called at your home on Monday?’

  ‘It’s difficult to tell,’ she said. ‘Seeing him like this … and, well, I met him for only a moment or two. But I think it could be him.’

  ‘Have you thought of anything else that might help us to identify him? Any little detail at all?’

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘Thank you.’ Cooper nodded at the attendant and watched him cover the Snowman’s face. The Snowman had been travelling, and he seemed to be unknown locally or in neighbouring areas. He wondered whether Gavin Murfin had contacted Europol yet.

  ‘Mrs Lukasz, did you happen to notice whether this man had an accent at all?’

  Grace Lukasz rubbed her hands on the wheels of her chair and looked up at her husband. ‘He didn’t say much, so I couldn’t tell.’

  ‘What did he say exactly?’

  ‘He asked if Mr Lukasz was at home. That was all.’ She turned away, and they began to head for the exit.

  ‘But which Mr Lukasz did he want?’ said Cooper.

  Grace stopped. Her back was towards him, her shoulders tense. Her husband stepped behind her to push the wheelchair. ‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘But Peter wasn’t home, and I couldn’t let him bother Zygmunt.’

  Cooper frowned at their backs, irritated by their apparent lack of imagination, their readiness to ignore the possibilities.

  ‘It didn’t occur to you that he might be looking for Andrew Lukasz?’ he said.

  ‘But Andrew had already gone,’ said Peter.

  ‘Exactly.’

  On her way home to her flat in Grosvenor Avenue, Fry called at the shop on the corner of Castleton Road. It was run by a Pakistani family, who were unfailingly polite to her, whatever mood she was in. Some days she left the shop feeling guilty that she’d failed to respond to their kindness. But those were the days when Edendale was the last place she wanted to be, anyway.

  Fry had bought a bottle of milk and a frozen pepperoni pizza. Near the counter, she picked up some newspapers, in case there was nothing on TV tonight that she could bear to watch. She’d lived alone for a long time, but she was hardened to it. She was able to hold back the tide of loneliness quite easily now, as long as there were no people around. The difficult times were when she heard the students who lived in the other flats laughing and calling to each other, coming back from the pub with their friends and playing music as they sat around putting the world right. That was when she needed all her strength. It was clear to her that Ben Cooper would not be able to cope with living alone. He had no idea what it was like.

  When she reached the flat, Fry glanced at the local papers while she heated up the pizza and boiled the kettle. The first thing she realized was that the Canadian woman, Alison Morrissey, had been to the newspapers. In fact, she must have contacted them in advance of her arrival with information on the purpose of her visit.

  The Eden Valley Times had done a full-page feature on her. So had the Buxton Advertiser. There had been items in the city papers, too, the Sheffield Star and the Manchester Evening News. Each of them carried pictures of the woman herself. Fry recognized her immediately as the woman she’d seen talking to Ben Cooper at Underbank.

  20

  Cooper awoke on Saturday morning thinking of Marie Tennent. He’d been dreaming that his limbs had frozen together, that frostbite had eaten through the membranes of his ears and nose, and that his eyes would never open again. But finally they did open, and he saw his bedroom. It was the same bedroom he’d slept in nearly all his life.

  He pulled back a corner of the curtain at his window. The room looked out on to the yard at the back of the farmhouse, and above it a steep hill that was covered in dark conifers until the top hundred feet, where the moors burst through. In his childhood, he’d peopled those wooded slopes with all sorts of imaginary beasts and adventures. He’d followed his brother Matt into many scrapes that had been terrifying and exciting in equal measures. The memory gave him only a small pang of regret at the thought of leaving it behind.

  Though the yard was pitch-dark, Cooper could see there would be no more snow this morning. The black sky was full of stars that were piercingly bright. There would be ice lying on the moors, just as there was on the night Marie Tennent died. For a moment, he tried to put himself inside Marie’s mind, struggling to grasp the compulsion that had driven her up to the top of Irontongue Hill in the worst possible weather. Had it really been a need to cover the bones of a long-dead baby, wrapping it against the cold that it would never feel?

  Cooper shook his head. He knew it was one of those things he would never be able to understand, even if Marie had been here now to explain it to him in her own words. There was too much emotion in it, and too little logic.

  On Monday, Marie Tennent would not be his first priority, though a copy of her file still sat on his desk. How much time was he likely to get to spend on her? Maybe he would have to shelve her altogether, until there was more time, or her baby was found, or the pathologist got round to a postmortem examination. He added Marie to a long list of frustrations, cases where he was powerless to help. On Monday morning, the Snowman would again be the main priority, because postmortem results had identified him as a murder victim. He was urgent and important.

  Today, though, it was Saturday, and Cooper was off duty. Today it was time for him to leave Bridge End Farm. It didn’t take him long to pack his possessions.

  ‘I’ve got the pick-up ready,’ said his brother Matt over breakfast. ‘I’ll give you a hand to load up.’

  ‘There isn’t all that much to take,’ said Cooper. ‘The flat’s furnished, so I don’t need muc
h furniture. And it’s surprising how little stuff I’ve collected over the years, when I look.’

  ‘What about your guns?’

  ‘I’ll have to leave them behind. They’ll have to stay in the cabinet here. I’ve got nowhere to keep them.’

  ‘It’ll be the competition again soon, Ben. You should be practising.’

  ‘I know.’

  Matt sat and looked at him helplessly. Neither of them knew what to say. Matt got up from the table so that he wouldn’t have to struggle to find the words.

  ‘Give me a shout then, when you’re ready.’

  All Cooper needed were his clothes, his computer and stereo, a few books, CDs and pictures. He felt like a student setting off for his first term at university, his anxious parents insisting on ferrying him to his halls of residence to settle him in. There were some things he could leave behind at Bridge End Farm. So it would still, in a way, be his home.

  The first picture he took down was the one that hung on the wall opposite the foot of his bed. He realized he hadn’t looked at the picture for a while. But then, he didn’t need to – he knew every detail of it. He was familiar with every face on each of the rows, even with the patterns and texture of the wall behind them and the concrete yard beneath their boots. Without looking, he could have described the way each one held his arms, which of them was smiling, who looked suspicious of the photographer, and who hadn’t fastened his tie properly that morning. He knew exactly the feel of the mahogany frame in his hands, the smoothness of the edges, the slight ridge in the wood near one corner that his finger always found, like a necessary flaw. He remembered the slight scratch in the glass that was almost hidden by the shadow of the chair one of the officers sat in on the front row. If you turned the picture towards the light, the scratch became obvious. He couldn’t remember how it had happened. Somehow, it had always been there.

  He put the photograph in the box first, wrapping it up carefully in tissue paper, then several layers of newspaper. Several less important prints went in after it. Perhaps the photograph would have been better protected if it had been on top. But it felt right for it to be at the bottom, deep in the accumulated objects of his life. It would have to take pride of place in the sitting room of his new flat, though. It would give a sort of tacit approval to the place. Cooper already had in mind the exact spot where it would go.