by close-mouthed pride.
‘You wouldn’t understand,’ he said. ‘It’s obvious to a blind man, you’ve not got an ounce of love in you.’
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It’s only a do?.’ said shee.
o’ ^
Ben Cooper turned away. ‘Well, maybe.’
‘What did he mean, Ben? What he said in the interview.’
‘He was just trying to wind you up, Diane. Take no notice of him.’
He regarded her with concern, worried that she seemed unduly disturbed by Harry Dickinson’s jibe. He had been in the middle of a call to a motorist whose car had been stolen the previous night when Fry had stormed back into the CID room, anxious to talk about the interview. Cooper had barely had time to finish the call before she had been repeating the conversation word for word.
‘But it’s only a dog.’
‘Let’s go down to the canteen,’ he said.
o ‘
It was obvious there was something about the old man that was totally foreign to her. Cooper thought he could almost get on Harry’s wavelength sometimes. Almost, but not quite. It was still not possible to predict what he might do next. But to Diane Fry, he seemed to be some kind of alien.
A few minutes later, they were sitting at a table on their own, clutching two mugs of coffee, ignoring the noise from a group of uniformed officers nearby.
‘They’ve had to release him, of course,’ said Fry, calming as the caffeine reached her bloodstream. ‘No charge.’
‘Go on, surprise me.’
‘By the time they got round to interviewing the alleged victim in the rape suite, she admitted she’d made the story up. She’d let her boyfriend go all the way without protection, and when it proved a bit disappointing she suddenly remembered things like pregnancy and AIDS. Not to mention irate parents.’
‘She panicked?’
‘Yes, inspired by half-digested sex-education lessons and a vivid imagination. And with all the stories that have been
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in the papers, the first thing that occurred to her was to shout rape.
‘Not the first time that’s happened.’
Fry shrugged. ‘We all know there are more false rape allegations than there are actual rapes. The boyfriend’s fifteen, by the way.’
‘But why did she claim it was Harry?’
‘Apparently the two of them had some sort of encounter in the village shop earlier in the day. Harry must have come out of it best, because she hadn’t forgotten it. And she’d heard all the talk in the village, so she reckoned she’d be believed. Anyway, she said he was a miserable old bugger and he deserved anything that
OO J O
happened to him. Funny how their minds work sometimes.’ ‘And what was it she said, exactly, when the PC found her?’ ‘As I recall, her words were: “It was the old man.”’ Cooper nodded, not surprised. ‘It was the old man.’ He thought of the old lead miners’ saying, their hushed stories about the spirit they called ‘t’owd mon’, who lurked in the unlit shafts of the mines. ‘The old man’ was blamed for everything that
J o
went wrong in the mine, from unexplained sounds in the dark to unproductive veins and fatal accidents. But he was also its guardian, a collective spirit of long-dead miners and of the mine itself. What the girl had said was an echo of the myth. ‘It was the old man, the old man.’ An ancient mantra of superstition.
‘She’ll be on the False or Persistent Rape Allegation file now. Silly little cow. They’ve sent her home too, with a “morning after” pill. A WPC went to talk to her parents. Let them sort her out, if they can.’
‘What about Harry?’ asked Cooper.
‘What about him?’
‘Was he all right?’
‘Him? He’ll be all right. Tough as old boots, if you ask me. And too proud by half as well. What are you worrying about him for?’
‘It’s not a pleasant experience, being pulled in as a rape suspect.’
Fry shrugged. ‘Tough.’
‘Did anybody explain it to Gwen?’
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‘He can explain it himself, can’t he?’
1 don t lliink he will, said Cooper thought!ully. 1 don t dunk he’ll be making any excuses.’
‘Like 1 said, too damn proud.’
‘It’s not just that. I think he wants as much attention as he ran got. According to one of the team who went to pick him up, he seemed to be expecting them. He was waiting for them to arrive. He said: “It didn’t take you long.” Now why would he say that?’
