Scared to Live

Fry was on her way home through Edendale when she took the call from Hitchens. Turning off Meadow Road, she bumped her Peugeot over a patch of rough ground in front of the old cattle market, wincing as a front wheel bounced into a deep pot hole and muddy water splashed over her offside wing.

‘Yes, I heard about the explosion in Chesterfield. What’s our interest in it? Oh, really?’

While she listened, Fry stared at the ruined buildings that had once been the premises of Pilkington amp; Son, livestock auctioneers. The demolition workers had left two rows of sheep pens standing outside, exposed to the weather. Rusty gates were falling off their hinges, iron bars had been bent out of shape by vandals, or by panicking animals.

‘The Zhivko brothers? That’s more than a coincidence … yes, I bet they are.’

Fry felt suddenly tired, and an inexplicable tremor of fear ran through her. Not at the thought of the explosion that had killed the Zhivkos in a Chesterfield street. The fear was caused by something else, closer to home.

‘Yes, of course, sir. I’ll liaise with Sergeant Kotsev.’

She ended the call, and glanced at herself in the rearview mirror, seeking a trace of that fear in her own eyes.

‘Oh, yes — liaise. That’s what I’ll do.’

Fry sat in her car for a few moments longer. A section of the main cattle market building remained, gaunt and roofless. Through the chain link fence with its Keep Out signs, she could just see the edge of the sale ring. Almost nothing was left of the tiers of wooden seats that had once formed an amphitheatre into which frightened animals had been driven for auction.

The closure of Pilkington amp; Son meant that half of the town centre was no longer brought to a halt on market days by trailers and cattle transporters. Ben Cooper said that a vital element had been taken away from Edendale. Something about its long history as a rural market town, a dislocation from its agricultural hinterland.

But the cattle market had another meaning for Fry. This was a place she had once thought she was going to die.

Instinctively, she raised a hand to her face and touched the faint bump under her skin, the remains of a scar that everyone assured was no longer visible. Maybe they were right. Yet whenever she looked in the mirror, she could see it for herself.

Fry looked at her watch, remembering how little time she had to reach home and get changed before she was due to go out again. She rolled the car slowly along the fence, strangely reluctant to tear herself away from a crowd of unpleasant memories, compelled to scan the derelict buildings for familiar doorways and walls.

Beyond the main building, she glimpsed a tangle of trees over a tunnel of dark shadows. The cattle market had been built close to the railway station, in the days before road transport became the norm. But the overgrown tracks where cattle wagons were once unloaded had been torn up now, leaving a secret back lane through this part of town.

That was something everyone needed now and then, wasn’t it? A glance down a hidden, private road that might lead to a new life.

Angie was due at her job tonight, working behind the bar at The Feathers in New Street. Yet she had that secret little smile on her face as she pulled a denim jacket over her T-shirt.

Diane was glad her sister looked so much better than when she first moved in. But there was something still there, below the surface, that she didn’t know how to deal with. It was the main reason that she sometimes had to nerve herself to enter her own flat, the way she had tonight. Yes, she had to brace herself to face her own sister. And then she had to suppress the guilt, of course.

At least the job meant Angie wasn’t sponging any more. Or not so much, at any rate. With her wages and a few tips, she ought to be able to afford some new clothes. But clothes seemed to be the last thing Angie was interested in.

The other problem was that the flat had only one bedroom. The sitting room had become a second bedroom where her sister had been sleeping for months now. Actually, quite a few months. It was funny how some people’s homes could feel too lived in.

While Angie got ready to go out, Diane looked at the wallpaper, striped in a faded shade of brown that she’d barely noticed.

‘Hey, Sis, would you like to help me re-decorate?’ she asked.

‘What?’

‘It’s long overdue. I was thinking of something modern. Off-white and charcoal grey. What would you say to that?’

Angie groaned. ‘What the hell’s wrong with you, Di? Are you turning into Carol Smillie? If so, you might as well shoot me now, because I can’t live with you any longer.’

‘Who’s Carol Smillie?’

‘Are you kidding? She used to do those TV makeover shows, re-decorating people’s houses.’

‘Why would she do that?’

‘It’s entertainment.’

Fry paced around the flat. ‘So you wouldn’t be able to live with the idea, then? A couple of off- white walls here, and a charcoal grey one there. Maybe one abstract picture in a chrome frame.’

‘It would drive me mad,’ said Angie. ‘It sounds totally cold and soulless. I couldn’t stand it for more than a day.’

‘Yes, that’s what I thought,’ said Diane.

‘You’re not really going to do it, are you?’

‘One day. One day I might.’

When Angie had left, Diane stalked the flat for a while, restless and dissatisfied with something. She seemed to have been dissatisfied ever since she came to Derbyshire.

She gave the wallpaper another glare, then realized how hungry she was. Then she thought about Ben Cooper. She imagined he was a proper little domestic god when he was tucked up securely in his home in Welbeck Street.

Later that evening, Georgi Kotsev leaned across a table at Caesar’s restaurant and raised his glass. ‘We say Nazdrave.’

‘Cheers.’

‘Yes. Cheers.’

‘Is the wine all right?’ asked Fry. ‘There isn’t much choice of places to eat in Edendale.’

‘Losho nyama. No problem.’

The last time Fry had eaten in Caesar’s, she’d been with Angie. It had been one of those futile attempts at re-creating the bond between them. She remembered that she’d only ended up feeling embarrassed by her sister. No, a bit ashamed — and therefore guilty, too.

It was the only place she’d been able to think of at short notice to bring Sergeant Kotsev. Inexplicably, she’d felt the need to give him a good impression of Edendale. As if it mattered — to him, or to her. They were both strangers passing through, except that Kotsev would be gone a bit sooner.

Though it was supposed to be an Italian restaurant, Fry had a suspicion that the waiters were East European. Judging by the shouted exchanges she overheard occasionally, probably the kitchen staff were too. It hadn’t occurred to her when she chose the restaurant and booked the table. But now she wondered whether an idea had been in the back of her mind to make Kotsev feel more at home, give him a little bit of Eastern Europe right here in this strange, foreign town.

But then, as they’d entered the restaurant, she had a momentary panic at the thought that he might be offended instead. The waiter who’d served her last time could have been Albanian or something. There were a lot of old territorial disputes and ethnic conflicts in the Balkans. Didn’t Bulgarians and Albanians have some kind of long- standing hatred between them? Might Kotsev refuse to be served by an Albanian waiter and make a terrible scene?

Oh, God. And all she’d wanted to do was make life a bit easier for someone. That would teach her to keep out of other people’s lives.

But Kotsev behaved impeccably. And she was relieved she’d chosen somewhere smart, because her guest