‘Ben?’ she called.
‘Here.’
His voice sounded strange. Fry began to run, slithering on the
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cobbles as she crossed the bridge. Then she saw him. He was standing against a garage door, with his back to her.
‘Ben?’
‘Hi, Dianc.’
‘What are you doing?’
‘Nothing much.’
‘I think we got Kcmp.’
‘Good.’
‘You’re sure it was him? I didn’t get a good look at him. Have they never heard of street lights at this end of town? Or did the gas supply just run out?’
‘Yeah, it’s pretty dark all right.’
She looked at him, starting to get irritated. ‘Why are you leaning against that garage?’
‘Well, the fact is, I don’t think I’m able to move.’
Fry moved to touch him, then stopped.
‘You think? Is this some kind of joke? Because if it is, I’m going to make you drive round with DC Murfin for a week, and you can pay for his onion bhajis yourself.’
‘It’s not a joke, Diane.’
‘Jesus, you don’t sound like somebody who’s injured. Let’s take a look.’ She pulled out the torch from her pocket and shone it at his chest. ‘Where’s the problem?’
Cooper unbuttoned the front of his waxed coat with his left hand and let it fall open. ‘Round about here somewhere. I felt this -‘
‘Don’t touch it!’
‘What?’
Gingerly, Fry used the head of the torch to pull open his coat. She drew it back far enough to show him the protruding handle.
‘It looks like the handle of a bayonet.’
‘Thank God it missed me.’
‘It didn’t miss you,’ said Fry. ‘You’re bleeding. I’m calling an ambulance.’
‘No, it missed me.’
Fry shone her torch on the blood trickling into the snowr. It had pooled in the big inside pocket of his coat and there was a greasy patch where it had soaked through.
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‘Believe me now, Ben? You’re bleeding.’
‘No, it’s the rabbit,’ said Cooper.
‘What on earth are you talking about?’ She looked at him as it he were delirious.
‘There’s a rabbit in my poacher’s pocket. George Malkin gave it to me.’
‘You are joking.’
‘It’s true.’ Cooper laughed unsteadily with relief. ‘The blade of the bayonet has gone right through the rabbit. The point pinned my coat to the door, but it passed through the entrails of the rabbit. Malkin said it was fresh. He was right.’
c?
‘You’re sure vou’re not hurt?’
Cooper studied the rip where the bayonet had penetrated his waxed coat, gone through a few inches of skin and bone and embedded itself in the garage door. ‘This coat cost a
o &
fortune,’ he said.
‘As long as the only hole he made was in your credit card, and not in your guts.’
‘No, I’m fine.’
‘Get the coat off, then, and we’ll get the whole thing along to Forcnsics. God knows how we’re going to explain the rabbit/
‘It would have been rude to refuse it, Diane. Besides, I paid him, so it wasn’t a gift.’
‘You haven’t got a couple of pheasant down your trousers as well, have you?’
‘No,’ said Cooper. ‘I’m just pleased to see you.’
As soon as Peter and Grace Lukasy. got into bed that night, the argument began. It was about something trivial at first, a disagreement that Grace couldn’t even remember when it was all over. It might have been about the colour of the new wallpaper, or whether they could afford a holiday in Portugal this summer.
It had begun to change in character
