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

‘It’s your job, I suppose,’ she said.

The local postman was working his way down the road in his van, stopping every few yards to deliver his handfuls of mail. The radio in his van was tuned to Peak FM, and every time he opened the driver’s door, the village was treated to a blast of relentlessly lively pop music. But the chances were that the messages he was delivering were not so bright or so cheerful as the music.

Helen had unlocked the door of her red Fiesta, which stood at the kerb near the cottage. Cooper leaned on the roof of the car, trying not to flinch as the hot metal burned his arm through his shirt.

‘It’s a good job. But it can get in the way sometimes.’

‘How do you mean, Ben?’

‘It comes between you and other people.’

Helen nodded. ‘Everybody sees you as a policeman first and foremost, I suppose.’

‘All the time. But you didn’t, did you?’

‘What?’

‘On Monday. When I came here, to Dial Cottage. You saw me first as Ben Cooper.’

Helen laughed. ‘No. I saw you as the teenager I remembered at Edendale High. I would barely have recognized you if it hadn’t been for the photograph in the paper the other week.’

‘But you said I hadn’t changed much,’ he protested.

‘It’s what you say, isn’t it?’ Helen studied him. ‘Yes, I suppose at first it didn’t occur to me you were the police, Ben. I just remembered you as you were.’

Cooper smiled. ‘It brought memories back for me, too,’ he said.

The post van coasted past them and pulled into the kerb in front of the Fiesta. The postman emerged in a burst of Abba and stared at them curiously as he passed. But he had no letters to deliver to Dial Cottage.

Helen wound down the windows of her car, trying to let out the stifling air. Cooper straightened, sensing he would be unable to keep her any longer.

‘So aren’t you a policeman all the time, then?’ she said. ‘What are you like when you’re just being Ben Cooper?’

‘You’ll have to find out one day, won’t you?’

‘Maybe I will.’

Helen turned away and walked back to the door of Dial Cottage. Cooper watched her red hair swinging on her bare shoulders and admired the movement of her calves. He met her eyes hastily when she glanced over her shoulder as she pushed open the door.

‘Grandma! You’ve got a visitor,’ she called.

Gwen appeared in the passage, her face lighting up at the sight of Ben Cooper standing next to Helen. She was wearing an apron, and her hands, which she was trying to wipe on a towel as she came to the door, were covered in flour. She patted Cooper’s arm.

‘Come in, and I’ll put the kettle on again. Won’t you stay for a bit, Helen?’

‘Sorry, must go.’

Gwen stood on the step waving and smiling conspiratorially at Helen as she walked to her car. Cooper waited hopefully while Helen started the engine and fastened her seat belt. He was rewarded with a quick glance and a flash of her smile. The warmth that spread over his skin was due to more than the sun and the hot pavements.

He was roused by Gwen Dickinson tugging his arm. ‘Are you coming in then, or are you going to stand out here gawping all day?’

Cooper was embarrassed by her knowing twinkle and tried to slip back into his professional role. ‘Is your husband not at home, Mrs Dickinson?’

‘No, he’s not in,’ she said. ‘He’ll be up at Wilford Cutts’s place, if you want him. He’s always there, or at the pub.’

‘Perhaps I could have a few words with you, since I’m here.’

‘As long as you sit down for a bit and have a cup of tea.’

Cooper followed her into the kitchen, feeling again the coolness of the cottage, with its thick stone walls to keep out the heat. On Monday, he had thought the chill was partly due to the circumstances, the sensation he had had of the close presence of death. But even today the inside temperature was enough to make him shiver as he left the sun behind.

Gwen Dickinson boiled the electric kettle and heated a teapot. She opened a cupboard and emptied half a packet of digestive biscuits on to a plate.

‘I’m sorry they’re not chocolate ones,’ she said. ‘Young men like chocolate biscuits.’

‘That’s all right.’

‘Is Harry in trouble?’ she asked, turning to Cooper and looking him directly in the face.

Cooper shook his head. ‘He’s an important witness,’ he said.

‘Because he found the shoe.’

‘The trainer, yes. But we have reason to think he may also have been on the Baulk at the time that Laura Vernon was killed.’

Gwen stared at him, clutching the plate of biscuits. The kettle boiled unnoticed behind her, releasing a cloud of steam around her head, until it switched itself off.

‘What does that mean?’

‘He might have seen something,’ explained Cooper. ‘Or someone.’

‘Oh, I see.’

She gazed absently at the kettle and at the plate in her hand. She put the biscuits down, switched the kettle back on, poured the boiling water into the teapot and picked the plate back up.

‘Won’t you sit down?’ she said. ‘Take one of the armchairs.’

‘Let me carry the tray,’ said Cooper, noticing the unsteadiness of her hands.

‘Has somebody said they saw him?’ asked Gwen, when they were seated opposite each other on either side of a small glass-topped coffee table. ‘Did they see Harry?’

‘Yes. At least, we think it might have been Harry. On the Baulk.’

‘But he goes there every day,’ she said, looking more comfortable. ‘To walk Jess. Every day.’

‘Does he go at regular times? That’s normal for a responsible dog owner, isn’t it? A regular routine.’

‘Yes, regular. Nine o’clock in the morning, after his breakfast, and six o’clock at night.’