Cooper and Fry Crime Fiction Series Books 1-3: Black Dog, Dancing With the Virgins, Blood on the Tongue

‘It might help him, but it wouldn’t do me any good!’

‘Or the business?’

‘Well, obviously. I can’t afford things like this, this sort of damage to my reputation. You know, Charlie, it’s critical.’

‘And what about me?’

‘Sorry?’

‘Would it be good for me? That’s what I’m wondering. Would it change you, Graham? Would it change things between us? To get it all out into the open, I wonder?’

‘Charlie – do you want things to change?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘For God’s sake, what do you want? I turned a blind eye to what you were doing, didn’t I?’

‘A blind eye? Is that what you call it?’

‘Well? Didn’t I?’

‘Yes, I suppose you did. And you thought that was what I wanted, did you? Really?’

Graham sighed with exasperation. ‘I never will understand you.’

Charlotte was back on the cigarettes and Bacardi with a vengeance, having come out of the artificially calm state induced by the doctor’s sedatives. Everywhere in the house there were ashtrays filled with butts, which were only emptied three times a week when Sheila Kelk came to clean. Graham hoped that Mrs Kelk hadn’t been frightened off by Daniel. But then, on second thoughts, she was far too nosey to stay away just now.

He looked at his wife’s hair and glimpsed the darkness at the roots. She looked tired, despite the amount of sleeping she had done under sedation. When she looked at him now, it was with open hostility and distrust. The death of their daughter had come between them like a wedge.

‘Has anybody been here while I was out of the way?’ she asked.

‘What do you mean?’

‘Has anyone been to the house?’

‘Policemen. You know they want to search the garden? A fingertip search, they call it. God knows what they expect to find there.’

‘Apart from those policemen. Apart from Daniel. Has anybody been that I didn’t see?’

‘Mrs Kelk, of course.’

‘Not Frances Wingate.’

‘No, Charlie.’

‘Not Edward Randle.’

‘No. I told them all not to come. All our friends. It’s what you said you wanted. I asked them to stay away until you felt like seeing people.’

‘So Frances hasn’t been.’

‘I’ve told you.’

‘And no one else.’

‘No.’

Charlotte lit another cigarette, pouting her lips to suck on it and narrowing her eyes.

‘I don’t know why I ever trusted you,’ she said.

‘Why do we have to do this now, Charlie?’

‘While I’ve been lying there,’ she said, ‘I’ve been thinking. You’re not completely unconscious, you know, when you’re sedated. Your mind keeps working. And without any distractions, you seem to see things more clearly. All the memories came back to me. All the memories of Laura.’

She walked to the cabinet, and her groping fingers found the empty frame again among the photographs.

‘When will they let us have the photo of her back?’

‘I’ll ask,’ said Graham.

‘I need to get back whatever I can of her.’

‘I understand.’

Charlotte turned towards him, tears glittering in her eyes, anger twisting her mouth into an ugly shape.

‘I blame you, you know, Graham. Do you realize that? When I think about … everything. All this. I’ve lost my little girl, and now they’re taking away my memories of her. How could you let it happen?’

Graham moved to put his arms round her when he saw the tears, but she pushed him away roughly.

‘Keep away from me. How can you think about it at a time like this? You’re an animal.’

‘I wasn’t, Charlie. I wasn’t.’

‘Laura told me everything,’ she insisted desperately. ‘She didn’t keep secrets from me.’

The phone was ringing. Graham moved to answer, then changed his mind and left it. The answering machine switched in. It would be another client, anxiously wondering what was happening. When would Graham be back in operation? When could they expect him to be at their beck and call again? He didn’t resent them. Their businesses had to go on, even if Vernon’s didn’t. Graham thought for a moment of passing everything on to Andrew Milner, letting him take all the responsibility permanently. But he dismissed the thought as soon as it came. He would be back in harness soon enough – surely it wouldn’t take the police too long to sort things out, to come up with someone they could charge. As long as he could stop Daniel from stirring up trouble.

‘We have to hold together somehow, Charlie. Will you talk to Daniel?’

She raised her head, dabbing at her eyes. They both listened for the sounds of their son, heavy-footed on the stairs, getting ready to go out. But she answered with another question.

‘There isn’t anything that I don’t know, is there, Graham?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘About Laura. I need to know exactly what happened, and why. Are there things that you’re keeping from me?’