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

‘He’s an old man,’ said Cooper. ‘An old man who’d had a shock. How do you expect him to be? Most people around here are friendly and helpful, anyway.’

‘That I remain to be convinced of.’

Her view of Harry Dickinson struck Cooper as superficial. His own feelings had been quite different. He thought of the moment when he had found the body of Laura Vernon, of Harry standing like a black mark against the sun-drenched hillside. Stroppy and unhelpful? Maybe. Deeply disturbed and afraid, definitely.

‘Anyway,’ said Fry, ‘hold on a minute. That wasn’t what you said at the briefing this afternoon. You wanted Dickinson to be pressed harder.’

‘That’s different.’

‘Yeah? An old man who’d had a shock. So what do you want to press him harder for? That sounds suspiciously like gratuitous harassment to me, pal. Where’s the caring, sharing Ben Cooper here? Come off it, you think he was unhelpful too, don’t you?’

‘I think he knows something he’s not saying,’ admitted Cooper.

‘And that’s not the same thing?’

‘Maybe Mr Tailby and Mr Hitchens didn’t ask the right questions,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘Maybe it’s not to do with Laura Vernon at all. I don’t know.’

‘Well, you could always ask your girlfriend, I suppose,’ said Fry.

‘Who?’

‘You know – the granddaughter, Helen Milner. Got the hots for you, hasn’t she? She was following you around Moorhay like a lost dog.’

‘Rubbish.’

Fry shrugged. ‘I stand by the evidence, your honour.’

Cooper refused to rise to the bait.

‘What did you make of the other two, then – Harry Dickinson’s friends?’

‘My God, don’t remind me. That place was like something medieval. When I left West Midlands, they kept telling me that the countryside was primitive. Now I know it’s true. That dead hen … How Wilford Cutts’s wife can put up with that, I don’t know. No doubt she would have had to cook it in a stew tonight.’

‘And chop off its head and legs and pluck it, and take out its innards,’ said Cooper. ‘That’s women’s work. So they say.’

‘Not this woman. I’d make him stuff his dead hen where it hurts most.’

Cooper sniffed his orange juice suspiciously, worried by the distinctly metallic tang.

‘You know,’ he said, ‘I don’t think this enquiry will get any further until Lee Sherratt is traced.’

‘He’s a fair bet.’

Cooper shook his head. ‘I’m not sure. We’re just accepting Graham Vernon’s word as gospel and hoping the evidence will turn up somehow. It’s lazy thinking.’

‘OK then, Sherlock. You obviously know better than Mr Tailby and Mr Hitchens put together. What’s your theory, then?’

‘You don’t want to hear about my gut feelings, I suppose.’

‘You’re right, I don’t. I asked for a theory. Something that relies on a few facts.’

‘I suppose you play it by the book always. Do you never follow a hunch, use your instincts?’

‘By the book,’ said Fry.

‘So you get yourself into a difficult situation. The first thing you do is call in, then sit back and wait for the back-up to arrive?’

‘Well, usually,’ said Fry. ‘That is the sensible course.’

‘The safest for you, certainly. Would you never break the rule?’

She thought about it. ‘OK, there are times when you might have to take the initiative.’

‘Eureka.’

‘I’ll let you know when that happens. All right?’

‘Sure. Send me a fax.’

A couple of rugby players walked past on their way out from the bar, smelling strongly of beer. They slapped Ben Cooper on the shoulder and ruffled his hair as they made jokes about making sure his balls were warmed up. They smirked across the table at Fry without speaking to her.

Fry was rapidly losing interest in Ben Cooper. Other police officers’ private lives were a serious turn-off, she found. Just occasionally, there was someone she felt she needed to know more about. But there was no way Ben Cooper could be one of them.

‘What do you know about DI Armstrong?’ she asked him, when the rugby players had gone.

‘Not much. I worked with her briefly when she was a DS, but B Division poached her from us. She seemed to get promoted pretty quickly. I can’t say she’s dazzled anybody with her results since she was moved up to DI.’

‘I suppose you’re going to tell me she got the job because she’s a woman.’

‘No, but … Well.’

‘And maybe she did. So what? Makes a change, doesn’t it?’

‘Not to me, it doesn’t.’

Fry drained her glass and slapped it on the table. ‘I think it’s about time we left. There’s just no atmosphere in here.’

By the time they left the club, it was dark. Cooper pressed his key fob and the Toyota flashed its lights for him in the car park. The skeletal shapes of the white rugby posts were visible standing guard over the black, deserted pitches.

‘Do you actually play rugby, then?’ asked Fry as they got into the car.

‘No, I could never see the attraction in it,’ he said.

‘Oh? I thought team sports were a boys’ thing.’

‘I don’t know about that.’

‘Especially in the force. They like team bonding and all that, don’t they?’