Стивен Бут - Blind to the Bones

‘How did you find out where I live?’ he said at last.

Angie Fry brushed a strand of hair from her forehead in a familiar gesture that he saw almost every day. ‘Oh, they told me at the police station.’

‘I see. They gave you my address?’

‘Yes. I hope you don’t mind. It’s important, or I wouldn’t have come here bothering you.’

Cooper realized his mouth was hanging open. He could neither believe what he was seeing, nor what he was being told. But the person standing in the middle of his rug was too like Diane Fry to be anybody except who she said she was. And his upbringing prevented him from blurting out what was in his mind.

Angie looked at him and smiled briefly. Cooper thought for a moment that it was a mocking smile, but it disappeared from her face too quickly for him to be sure.

‘Well, aren’t you going to offer me a coffee or something?’ she said. ‘You might even ask me to sit down, rather than leaving me standing here.’

‘Of course. Would you like coffee? Or would you prefer tea?’

‘Coffee would be great,’ she said. ‘White, no sugar.’

‘Just the way Diane has it. No sugar.’

‘Like they say, we’re both sweet enough already.’

‘Maybe.’

The kitchen of the flat was near enough for Cooper to continue holding a conversation with Angie while he made the coffee and lifted down a pair of Simpsons mugs from the dresser.

‘Did you call in at the station, or did you phone?’ he said.

‘Oh, I phoned.’

‘Who did you speak to?’

‘Does it matter?’

‘Just wondering. Did you get put through to CID, or did you talk to someone on the enquiries desk? Male or female?’

He got no answer. Eventually, he went back into the room with two mugs of coffee and found Angie Fry sitting on the floor with her back against his sofa, staring at the ceiling. She’d taken off her rucksack and jacket, and he could see she was wearing an old sweatshirt with lettering that might have been the name of a university or a rock band, but was too worn to read.

‘Are you all right?’

‘Questions and more questions,’ she said. ‘I knew you’d treat me like this. You are a copper, after all. Suspicious lot, aren’t you?’

‘We’re trained to be. But, whether as a copper or just as another human being, I prefer to be told the truth.’

‘I am telling you the truth,’ she said.

‘I don’t think so.’

She said nothing, but sat and looked at him for a moment. He was relieved that she didn’t try to bluff it out, to bluster and lie barefaced, as he had heard so many people do in the interview rooms at West Street. So he didn’t hesitate in explaining what he meant.

‘They would never give out a police officer’s home address at the station,’ he said. ‘It’s the number one rule. You really ought to have known that.’

For a second, he thought she might laugh. But that mocking half-smile flitted across her lips again, then vanished. She nodded, lowering her eyes. Her shoulders slumped a little inside the sweatshirt.

‘I’m not a very good liar,’ she said. ‘I should have known not to try to lie.’

‘We get plenty of experience of hearing good liars,’ said Cooper.

‘Yes, I expect you do.’

‘So?’

‘So what?’

‘Are you going to tell me the truth?’

‘Perhaps I’d better,’ she said. But Cooper, listening carefully to the intonation of her voice, thought she might as well have shaken her head and said ‘no’. Unlike some of the regular customers they had to interview at West Street, Angie Fry had learned to lie only through her words. She hadn’t mastered the techniques of controlling her voice and the expression on her face, of disguising the tension in her body and the look in her eyes. He had listened to scores of much better liars than Angie Fry. Much better.

‘I heard you were a farm boy, Ben. So I looked in the local Yellow Pages for farmers called Cooper. Though I can’t imagine Di ever having any interest in farming.’

‘Di?’

The mocking smile was there this time, definitely. Cooper felt himself go a little pink in the neck. ‘Of course. Diane.’

‘We were always Di and Angie to each other, when we were little.’

Cooper nodded. ‘Go on.’

‘Well, I was lucky for once. The first number I tried was the wrong Cooper, but the second was right. Bridge End Farm, was it?’

‘Yes.’

‘And was that your dad I spoke to?’

Taken by surprise, Cooper tensed painfully, his fingernails stabbing into his palms as his hands clenched. The physical reaction to any unexpected mention of his father never failed to embarrass him.

‘I think it would have been my brother,’ he said.

‘Oh, right.’ She raised an eyebrow slightly. ‘An older brother, is he? Interesting.’

That smile was starting to become annoying. Each time it appeared, it seemed to linger a bit longer, and looked a little more openly mocking.

‘Yes, an older brother. What’s interesting about that?’

‘I don’t know really. Just the older brother/older sister thing. It can be complicated, can’t it?’

‘I wouldn’t know,’ said Cooper, who had decided he wasn’t going to give away even the slightest detail of his private life that she didn’t know already.

‘Anyway, I made out I was an old college friend of yours who’d lost touch with you. I asked if you still lived there, at the farm. And your brother told me you’d moved out, and he gave me your new address. He’s not like you, is he? He wasn’t suspicious of me at all. I take it he’s not a copper.’

‘Of course not. He’s a farmer.’

That part of the story, at least, would be easy enough to check out with Matt. Bridge End Farm was certainly in the Yellow Pages, but Angie could have thought that through. As for where she had heard that he was a farm boy in the first place, it seemed to Cooper that there was only one person who might have told Angie Fry that. And it made no sense at all.

‘What else did you hear about me?’ he said.

‘Not very much.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Yes. What else is there to know about you?’

‘Not very much. But I’m curious where you heard anything about me at all.’

She hid her face in her coffee mug, lowering her eyes. ‘I asked around. Everyone knows you.’

That last bit was true, at least — Cooper could hardly deny that. There were far too many people in Edendale who knew all about him. Diane had told him he was mad to move into this flat in the centre of town, where he would be so close to so many people who knew exactly who he was and might have reason to bear a grudge. But it had caused no problems for him. Not until tonight, anyway.

‘You’re looking happier,’ said Cooper.

‘What?’

‘You’re smiling a lot. You weren’t smiling like that when you arrived.’

‘It must be because I feel at ease with you.’

‘Really?’

‘Well, you’re a good listener. But then, I suppose you’d say you’re trained to be.’

Cooper put down his mug. ‘You’d better get to the point and tell me what it is you want from me.’

‘Oh...’

He could feel himself starting to lose patience then. Angie was intruding into his private life uninvited and without a proper explanation, and he really didn’t have to be polite to her all evening, if he didn’t feel like it.

‘There’s no point in pretending you don’t want something,’ he said. ‘I’m sure you wouldn’t have gone through all that business with the Yellow Pages and phoning up farmers called Cooper if you didn’t want something from me, Angie. So I don’t want to hear any more of this rubbish. Just cut to the chase, and tell me what you want. Then I can say “no” and go back to my own life.’