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Cooper and Fry Crime Fiction Series Books 1-3: Black Dog, Dancing With the Virgins, Blood on the Tongue. Stephen Booth
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‘I’m being a terrible nuisance to everyone,’ said Isabel, gazing with old eyes from the bed.
‘No, Mum. Of course you’re not. Don’t worry about it.’
‘Is that Ben?’
‘Yes, Mum. I’m here.’
He had been sitting there for nearly forty minutes already talking to his mother. Matt had been with him for the first half-hour, but had gone outside for a while. He needed some fresh air, he said.
‘You’re a good boy. I’m not well, am I?’
‘You’ll be fine, Mum.’
She turned her head, grinning and winking helplessly as she reached a hand towards him. There was a dribble of saliva on the neck of her nightdress. A small vase of white gypsophila stood on the bedside cabinet, the same colour as the sheets; the same colour as her skin. Cooper was sweating in the heat of the hospital room, but his mother’s hand felt cold and clammy.
‘You’re just like your dad,’ she said. ‘Such a good-looking young man.’
He smiled at her and pressed her hand, guessing what was coming, dreading the need for an answer, not knowing what he could possibly say.
‘Are you married yet, Ben?’
‘No, Mum. You know I’m not.’
‘You’ll find a nice girl soon. I’d like to see you married and have children.’
‘Don’t worry.’
He knew the words were meaningless. But in all his vocabulary there didn’t seem to be any words that would carry a meaning they could both understand and draw comfort from.
Isabel’s shoulders twitched and her legs jerked and squirmed, rustling under the hospital sheet like restless animals. Her tongue protruded over her lips as she blinked around the room with a puzzled expression. Then she focused on her son. She sought his face eagerly, her eyes desperate and pleading. She was sending out a mute appeal, begging him for some small drop of consolation.
‘Just like your dad,’ she said.
He waited. His muscles were frozen and his brain empty of thoughts. He was a mesmerized rabbit waiting for the fatal bite. His lungs hurt from holding his breath. He knew he would not be able to refuse the plea in her eyes.
‘Have they made you a sergeant yet, Ben?’
‘Yes, Mum,’ he said, though it broke his heart to lie.
It was the first time Diane Fry had visited the Mount. She was not impressed by the mock porticos and the triple garage and the wrought-iron gates. She found the whole thing tasteless, a white box that was out of place set against the scenery of the valley behind it and the rows of stone cottages a few yards down the road. It could have been plonked down here from a suburb of Birmingham. Edgbaston or Bournville, perhaps. It gave no impression of being part of the landscape.
She had been allocated the task of talking to Charlotte Vernon, following DCI Tailby’s interview with her husband and son. Charlotte had been saying little so far, and attention had not been concentrated on her. But now there were other questions that needed to be asked, particularly questions about Lee Sherratt. The boy was still Mr Tailby’s favoured option, though Fry could see he had always kept in mind a second line of enquiry centred on the family. It was possible Charlotte Vernon might hold the key, one way or the other.
Fry was shown in by Daniel. He seemed subdued and sullen, rather than the angry young man she had read about in the reports. But when she told him what she wanted, he took her through the house without a word or a backwards glance, finding no necessity for politeness. It was a pity his alibi had checked out so thoroughly.
Charlotte Vernon had been described by the officers who had seen her as an attractive woman; some had said very attractive. Fry had expected to find a rich man’s spoilt wife, with nothing to do all day but look after her appearance, keeping her body in perfect condition, her hair expensively styled, her cosmetics flawless. But she found a woman in her late thirties, tired and resigned. The cosmetics were certainly there, and might have fooled a man. But Fry recognized that they had been applied without conviction.
Charlotte was wearing cream slacks and a silk shirt. She looked elegant – but then any woman wearing so many hundreds of pounds’ worth of clothes on her back ought to look stylish. Fry had come prepared to feel sympathy for the woman, who had just lost her daughter. She was willing to put the son’s story to the back of her mind, to listen to Charlotte’s version of events. But there was something in the tilt of the woman’s head as she lit a cigarette and settled herself into an armchair; something in the curl of her lips as she looked her up and down critically. In the end, Fry did not get a chance to show sympathy, as Charlotte Vernon opened the interview aggressively.
‘Don’t bother to treat me with kid gloves. I’m all right now.’
‘There are a few questions, Mrs Vernon.’
‘Yes, I’ve been expecting you. Dan’s been to see you, of course. I couldn’t stop him. The poor boy – he gets so mixed up about sex. Some men take a long time to mature, don’t they? I think Dan has got a bad case of delayed puberty.’
‘Your son has made a statement about your relationship with Lee Sherratt, Mrs Vernon.’
‘You mean he found out I was having it off with the gardener, don’t you, dear?’
Fry stared at her without expression. They were in a room full of beautiful old furniture with clear, tidy surfaces. There were three or four large watercolours on the wall, and an expanse of woodblock floor led towards French windows and a flagged terrace with stone balustrades. Fry would have liked to explore the bathroom and the kitchen, to examine the whirlpool bath, the automatic oven, the fitted wardrobes, the self-defrosting fridge and the digital microwave.
‘Is that the way it was, Mrs Vernon?’
‘Certainly. Oh, only a couple of times, but we both enjoyed it. He was unsubtle, but enthusiastic. And an excellent body. It’s so good for morale at my age when you can still make the young men come running.’
‘Did you initiate the relationship?’
‘I suppose I seduced him, yes. It didn’t take much doing.’
‘When did your husband find out what was going on?’
Charlotte shrugged. ‘I don’t really know. Does it matter?’
‘I would have thought so.’
‘Why is that?’
‘Presumably he objected.’
‘You presume wrong, dear. He gets a turn-on from it, old Graham. That’s convenient for both of us, really. It means I’m free to take what lovers I like without any complications. Graham, of course, is quite free to do the same as far as I’m concerned.’
‘But he did object, didn’t he? He sacked Sherratt from his job.’
‘True.’ Charlotte blew a slow smoke ring which hovered in the air between them. ‘But didn’t Graham tell you that was because of Laura.’
‘And was it?’
‘If that’s what Graham says, it must have been, mustn’t it?’
‘Were you aware yourself of Lee Sherratt’s attitude to your daughter? In view of your own relationship with him?’
‘Do I call you Detective Constable?’
‘If you like.’
‘Detective