‘What?’
‘Well, that’s what you’re starting to sound like. Or are you still a Derbyshire police officer, by any chance? If so, just file those reports away. They’re of no relevance to us. We’re not here to solve the social problems of Eastern Europe.’
But before he put them away, Cooper read one last extract again:
Finally, Cooper found a website that gave currency exchange rates and looked up how much seven thousand leva were worth. He imagined it wouldn’t be very much in sterling. But the conversion made it to be more than two thousand four hundred pounds. Surely that couldn’t be right. No one could ‘run off’ with over two and a half thousand pounds worth of sweets and chocolate bars.
Then he saw a footnote to the conversion table. In 1999, the Bulgarian lev had been revalued at the rate of one thousand old lev to one new lev. Well, that was a different story. That meant the Romani man had got himself killed for stolen confectionery worth two pounds forty-five pence.
Oh, well. It was none of his business. Cooper looked across to see what Fry was doing, and peered curiously at some stapled sheets of paper on her desk.
‘What’s this?’
‘An application form.’
‘Oh, I see. For Europol.’
‘That’s right.’
‘What happened to SOCA?’
‘It’s just another possibility to think about.’
Cooper picked up the form and flicked through it, wondering why she’d left it where he was certain to see it. He stopped at the qualifications section. Fry was a graduate, so that was OK. And she had the relevant law enforcement experience. But there was a problem here, wasn’t there?
‘How many languages do you speak, Diane?’ he asked.
‘Languages? Are you kidding?’
‘It says here candidates must be fluent in at least two languages of the European Union, including English.’
‘Oh, damnation.’
Cooper looked down, seeing that she was genuinely taken aback.
‘Sergeant Kotsev will qualify when Bulgaria joins the EU. But I think you’re going to have to do some studying if you want to get into Europol. Which language do you fancy, then?’
‘I don’t have time to learn languages.’
‘Didn’t you see that in the conditions of employment?’
‘They didn’t make it clear enough,’ said Fry.
Cooper decided to leave the subject alone. ‘You know, Henry Lowther said that one of the reasons they trusted Rose Shepherd was because she was British, like them.’
‘But she wasn’t British at all. She was half Bulgarian, and half Irish. According to the files from Sofia, her mother was a nurse from County Galway who met a Bulgarian soldier.’
‘I know.’
He couldn’t quite interpret the look that Fry gave him. Maybe she just wanted to change the subject, or maybe she really was concerned for his welfare.
‘Are you all right now, Ben? You’re not still bothered by John Lowther’s death?’
Cooper was about to say no, he wasn’t. But then he realized there were thoughts just below the surface that he hadn’t had a chance to tell anybody about until now.
‘He’d already stopped taking his medication, hadn’t he?’ he said.
‘Yes, some weeks ago. Lindsay became completely absorbed with the baby. She forgot about her brother’s needs, or maybe she thought he was well enough to cope on his own. But he wasn’t — he began to slip.’
‘I bet he knew there was something wrong. But once his thoughts became too disordered, he wouldn’t know why, or what the problem was. Unless the voices gave him an explanation.’
‘You’re empathizing with a psychotic?’ said Fry in amazement. ‘Now I’ve heard everything.’
Cooper took no notice. ‘John Lowther’s problem was that he saw too clearly, wasn’t it?’
‘What? What did he see?’
‘
‘Where on earth does that come from, Ben?’
‘I can’t remember. It’s just a phrase that stuck in my mind from somewhere.’
Fry sniffed. ‘More likely he couldn’t live with the knowledge that his father had involved him in a murder.’
‘Yes, that as well. If he really understood what was happening.’
Cooper paused, considering his own comment. Because that wasn’t what had been haunting John Lowther in those final moments, was it? His last words, as the air had snatched him from the tower on the Heights of Abraham, hadn’t referred to Rose Shepherd, but to his sister and her children.
And Cooper knew there was something else he shouldn’t mention to Fry. He couldn’t help feeling sorry for both the Mullens
‘The Mullens did it all for the sake of that third child,’ he said, because that was a safe way to say it.
Fry nodded. ‘And the child wasn’t even theirs.’
‘Not in a biological sense. But they’d gone to an awful lot of trouble to add her to the family, hadn’t they? In a way, Luanne was the child they’d put the biggest investment into — time and effort, and expense, of course. But perhaps the biggest investment of love, too.’
‘Do parents think like that?’ asked Fry. ‘I’d have thought their own children would be the most important to them. Their own flesh and blood.’
But she sounded uncertain, as if it was a subject she wasn’t qualified to speak on. Cooper remembered the few details she’d once told him about her childhood in the Black Country, when she’d been taken away from her parents and fostered. He wasn’t sure what had happened to Diane’s real parents, or whether she ever had any contact with them. She’d never mentioned them at all, and it wasn’t something Cooper felt entitled to ask her. Maybe one day — if he ever felt he knew her well enough.
‘No, Diane, I’m not sure it always works like that,’ he said, though he didn’t really feel any better qualified. It was just something she needed to hear.
‘There’s still no sign of Luanne Mullen. She’s disappeared completely.’
‘Somebody has her somewhere.’
‘She could be dead, couldn’t she?’
‘I have no idea. If you ask me, Georgi’s right and she’s back with her father.’
‘If that’s the case, it would all have been for nothing. We’d all have failed — me, you, Georgi Kotsev. What a waste of time.’
‘Let’s hope we hear something from Georgi, then,’ said Cooper.
And, as he watched Fry’s face, he thought that was one sentiment she probably agreed with.
