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

‘Fourteen-three. Game point.’

Fry had given up trying to make conversation during the game. Her comments brought no response, other than another crushing serve. Those that she managed to return resulted in an exhausting rally, during which she ran herself ragged backwards and forwards across the court, while Ben Cooper kept control of the ‘T’. He would thrash the ball time and again against the front wall, now just above the tin, now curving high into the air over her racquet. She could see that her arms and legs had turned lobster-red with the exertion, and the perspiration was trickling past her sweat band to run down the sides of her face and soaking into the elastic of her sports bra between her breasts.

Cooper served again, and she managed to get her racquet under the ball, lobbing it towards the near corner. He darted across court and collected the shot with ease, ready to bounce his return to the far side. Fry stretched to reach it, ducking low and hitting the ball straight and hard back along the side wall. Glad to have made a return, she spun round, almost off balance, in an effort to get back to the ‘T’, and collided with Cooper on his way to return the shot. Their racquets clashed and their hot limbs tangled sweatily for a moment before they could separate themselves. Fry breathed hard and rubbed her knee where she had knocked it against some part of Cooper’s body that felt like rock.

‘Obstruction,’ he said.

She nodded. ‘OK. Game, then.’

‘And match. Unless you want to play three out of five.’

‘Oh no. I think I’d be safer conceding.’

‘Whatever.’

Cooper collected the ball. For the first time, a small smile touched his lips.

‘I win, then. Thanks for the game.’

‘I’d say it was a pleasure, Ben, except that you play like a machine.’

‘I take that as a compliment from you.’

‘I’m absolutely wrecked.’

Cooper shrugged. ‘You tried hard.’

At another time, Fry might have found his tone a bit patronizing and reacted quite differently. But just now she was in placatory mood. She tucked her racquet under her arm and held out a hand.

‘Shake, then.’

Cooper looked at her, surprised, but shook automatically. His hand felt as hot as her own, and their perspiration mingled in their palms as their swollen fingers fumbled clumsily at each other. Fry held on to his hand when he tried to pull it away again.

‘Ben – I’m sorry,’ she said.

‘What for? Playing so badly?’

‘For the things I said about your father today. I didn’t know.’

‘I know you didn’t,’ he said. She felt the muscles in his forearm tense. The beginnings of a smile had vanished again, and his face was set, revealing no emotion. She saw a trickle of sweat run through his fair eyebrows and into his eyes. He blinked away the moisture, breaking her stare, and she let his hand go.

‘DI Hitchens told me tonight. He sent me to look at the plaque in reception at the station. Your father was killed arresting a mugger, wasn’t he? He was a hero.’

Cooper seemed to study the squash ball, turning it over in his hand to find the coloured spot and squeezing against the warm air trapped inside.

‘It wasn’t the mugger who killed him. A gang of youths were standing around outside a pub, and they joined in to try to get the mugger free. It was them who killed him. There were too many of them. They got him on the ground and kicked him to death.’

‘And what happened to them?’

‘Nothing much,’ he said. He pulled a handkerchief from the pocket of his shorts to wipe his eyes and his forehead. ‘Oh, they found out who they were, all right. There was a big enough outcry about it in Edendale. But there were seven or eight of them, all telling different stories when it came to court, with the usual set of defence solicitors looking for the get-outs. It could never be proved which ones actually kicked my father in the head. I mostly remember that it came down to a debate about the bloodstains on their boots. Their argument was that they just got splashed because they were standing too close.’ He paused, his eyes distant and full of remembered anger and pain. ‘Three of them got two years for manslaughter, the others were put on probation for affray. First-time offenders, you see. Of course, they were all drunk too. But that’s a mitigating circumstance, isn’t it, as far as the courts are concerned? An excuse.’

‘I really didn’t know, Ben.’

‘Do you think I would have asked you to play squash tonight if I thought you knew? I’m not that desperate for company.’ He ran the handkerchief round the back of his neck. ‘I’m not sure it was a good idea to play in this weather anyway.’

‘You should have said something about your father. Why didn’t you tell me?’

Cooper looked down at his feet.

‘If you really want to know, I get fed up of hearing about it. It’s been constantly rammed down my throat for two years now. I have to look at that bloody plaque every time I walk through reception. Do you know there’s even a little brass plate screwed on to one of the benches in Clappergate? That’s so that the Edendale public don’t forget either. I’ve got so that I avoid walking down that part of Clappergate. I go round by another street to avoid seeing it. And then all those people who remember him. Thousands of them. Even those who’d never heard of him before he died, they knew all about him by the time the papers had finished with the story.’

‘Like in Moorhay –’

‘Yeah. Like in Moorhay. “It’s Sergeant Cooper’s lad.” “Aren’t you Sergeant Cooper’s son?” It hurts every time. Every time I hear somebody say it, it’s like they’re twisting a knife in an old wound to keep it fresh. My father’s death devastated my life. And people are never going to let me forget it. Sometimes I think that if one more person calls me Sergeant Cooper’s lad, it’s going to be too much. I’m going to go berserk.’

He squeezed the squash ball in his fist, bounced it off the floor and smacked it almost casually against the back wall with his racquet, so that it flew high into the air and dropped back into his hand.

‘Were you working in E Division when it happened?’

‘I was already in CID. In fact, at that very moment I’d just arrested a burglar, a typical bit of Edendale lowlife. I heard the shout on the radio while I was sitting in the car with him. It’s not a moment I’m likely to forget.’

‘And it didn’t put you off the police service?’

He looked surprised.

‘Of course not. Quite the opposite. It made me more determined.’

‘Determined? You’ve got ambitions?’

‘I have. In fact, there’s a sergeant’s job coming vacant soon,’ he said. ‘I’m up for it.’

‘Good luck, then,’ said Fry. ‘You must have a good chance.’

‘Oh, I don’t know any more,’ he said doubtfully. ‘I thought I had, but …’

‘Of course you have.’ She glared at him, irritated by the sudden slump in his shoulders. He had talked about his father with anger and passion, but he had changed in a few seconds, and now he had the air of defeat.

‘You reckon?’

‘You seem to be very highly regarded. Everybody knows you round the division. Not to mention the general public.’

‘Oh yeah, the public,’ he said dismissively.

‘If they had a vote on it, you’d be mayor by now.’

‘Yeah? Well, we all know how much we can trust them.’

But Fry had done her apologies now and was getting fed up with his reluctance to shake off whatever was making him so moody and morose. She watched him bounce the ball again and swing his racquet at it, hitting a slow lob that curled back towards them.