Стивен Бут - Blind to the Bones

‘There wasn’t anyone else,’ she said. And Cooper thought she could barely keep the disdain from her voice, hardly disguise the unspoken inference that she would rather have been dealing with anybody in the world but Ben Cooper. ‘There was no one else I could find who might be called her friend.’

‘I can’t help that.’

‘The only people back in the West Midlands she keeps in touch with are our old foster parents in Warley, and I can hardly go and talk to them.’

‘It would be a bit of a shock for them,’ said Cooper.

‘Diane hasn’t kept in contact with any of her old colleagues in the West Midlands. I can’t understand it.’

‘Maybe she just wanted to put that part of her life behind her,’ said Cooper. And he listened to the silence at the other end of the phone, picturing Angie Fry screwing her face, figuring out how she should respond.

‘I’m going to have to come and see you again,’ she replied.

‘No.’

‘I have to, Ben.’

‘I don’t want you coming here again. I’m serious. You know I can cause trouble if I have to.’

Angie sighed. ‘Where then? Name a time and place, so I can talk to you properly.’

‘I’m busy this weekend. It’ll have to be Monday, when I’m off duty.’

For a few seconds, the sound of her breathing went away from the phone. Cooper pictured Angie silently consulting someone, and wondered if his conversation was being listened in to.

‘And not here in Edendale,’ he said. ‘I’m not having you at my home again. Or anywhere where I’m known.’

‘OK,’ she said. ‘But where, then?’

‘If you come out of Sheffield on the A616 past Stocksbridge, there’s a village called Midhopestones. You can catch a bus.’

‘Right.’

Cooper almost laughed. No doubt she had no intention of catching a bus, but would be getting a lift in the dark blue BMW.

‘There’s a pub at Midhopestones called the Pepper Pot,’ he said. ‘I’ll pick you up there at two o’clock, and we can go somewhere quiet to talk.’

‘Ben, you’re not planning to do anything silly, are you? It would be a mistake, you know.’

‘It’s entirely up to you,’ he said. ‘Don’t come if you don’t want to. I’m not really bothered.’

‘All right, all right. I’ll be there. No problem.’

Cooper put the phone down and shook his head sadly. It seemed that Angie Fry hadn’t changed her low opinion of him, even now.

Saturday

Tommy was killed by eleven-thirty on Saturday morning, which was a little later than planned. But on the Edendale Day of Dance, nothing ever got done on time.

Tommy died in the Market Square, just outside the Wheatsheaf Inn, with the sweet smell of Bank’s Best Bitter drifting from the doorway of the pub, and the setts underneath him still damp from the morning’s showers. He lay curled in a foetal position, with his arms clutched across his chest and his legs pulled up into his stomach.

The small crowd that had gathered on the pavement stood and stared at him for a while. They had been attracted by the noise, but had been expecting more excitement, perhaps a little more blood. When nothing else interesting happened, they gradually began to drift away, hoping to find something to look at in the shop windows in Nick i’ th’ Tor and Nimble John’s Gate.

As always when he was dead, Tommy went into his method-acting mode. You could practically see his limbs stiffening with rigor mortis and the blood draining into the parts of his body that were in contact with the ground. He was so convincing that a few flies were beginning to gather. Some of them landed on his sleeve, sniffing with interest at the beer stains and a lingering trace of chicken biryani. In a moment, they would be clustering in his available orifices, eager to lay their eggs while he was still warm.

‘Where’s the chuffin’ Doctor?’ he muttered through clenched teeth.

‘Get up,’ said one of his friends standing nearby.

‘I can’t. I’m dead.’

‘Get up.’

‘Not until the Doctor’s cured me.’

‘The Doctor isn’t here.’

‘He has to cure me with the virgin, and all that.’

‘He isn’t here. We think he’s in the pub.’

‘Is he looking for a virgin?’

‘No. Just getting pissed.’

‘Bastard.’

The morris dancer playing Tommy in the mummers’ play rolled over and sat up stiffly. The flies buzzed off him angrily.

‘It’s coming to something when you can’t trust the Doctor,’ he said.

‘That’s the NHS for you. Maybe you should go private.’

‘These cobbles get harder every time.’

A mummer helped him up off the street.

‘I could have died for real down there, and nobody would have noticed,’ he said.

‘We had quite a good crowd, but they’ve buggered off now.’

‘Did anybody get round with the hat for the money?’

‘No, we didn’t have a chance.’

‘Bastard.’

Diane Fry stood quite still as the beast came towards her. Its progress was unsteady, and there was no way of knowing which direction she should dodge to avoid it. It veered from side to side as it stumbled across the cobbles, lowering its head and snapping its jaws. Red and yellow ribbons fluttered from its neck. It lunged towards a small girl, who flinched away with her hand covering her eyes. When the beast was within a couple of feet, it darted towards Fry, its mouth gaping and red.

Fry put out a hand and tapped on its muzzle. It sounded hollow, and wooden. A pair of eyes peered up at her through the jaws. Fry saw a glint of sweat on a forehead and caught a blast of beery breath.

‘Excuse me,’ she said. ‘We’re looking for the Border Rats.’

The voice that answered her was muffled, because it came from somewhere deep inside the canvas frame.

‘Piss off,’ it said. ‘Can’t you see I’m busy?’

‘What time do you finish, then?’

‘When these prancing buggers get tired.’

The beast staggered away, roared half-heartedly at some teenage girls, and veered back towards the team of morris dancers.

‘I don’t suppose you’ve ever seen Mr Fox?’ said Gavin Murfin.

Diane Fry stared at the retreating hobbyhorse.

‘Who?’

‘They’re a group from Langsett, just over the hills from Withens. I saw them about two years ago.’

‘Two years? Is that real time or Renshaw time?’ said Fry, who wasn’t really listening.

‘They all dress up in hooded cloaks and fox masks, and they only perform at night, by torchlight,’ said Murfin. ‘And when I say torchlight, I don’t mean things powered by Ever Ready batteries, I mean flaming torches. You never quite know where they’ll turn up.’

‘Fox masks? If they turn up here, I’ll set the hunt on them.’

‘Isn’t fox hunting illegal yet?’

‘I don’t care whether it is or not.’

A group called Betty Lupton’s Ladle Laikers were taking their turn to perform in the market square, while dancers from the Norwich Shitwitches looked on. Outside the Red Lion, Fry could see yet more ribbons and bells, where Boggart’s Breakfast and Treacle Eater were taking a beer break.

‘When we were young, our dad used to tell us that morris dancers were to blame for the spread of VD,’ said Murfin.

‘Why?’ said Fry.

‘Oh, we never thought it was right. We knew it was to do with not taking precautions when you had it off with a bird, like. You know, you could catch it if your johnny burst or something. We could never quite see where bells and hankies came into it.’

‘How old were you at this time, Gavin? Thirty-two?’

‘Give over. I was very mature for my age. I had my first proper girlfriend when I was fourteen.’