‘Damn it, Alison,’ he said. ‘You’d better get in.’
‘Thanks, Ben.’
He unlocked the Tovota to let her in and threw his boots and cagoule in the back. He slammed the tailgate a little too hard, and she looked at him reproachfully through the back window .
‘Is there a heater in here?’ she said, as he opened the driver’s door. ‘I’ve lost all the feeling in my legs.’
‘Why did you come?’ he said. ‘Did you know that we’d be up here this morning?’
‘Frank did.’
‘How?’
‘A lot of people know Frank. I think the pilot phoned him last night to get the exact location of the crash site.’
‘Damnation.’
326
‘When he told me this morning. I asked him to bring me.’ said
cv o ‘
Morrissey. ‘I wanted to know what you were doing.’
‘I can’t tell you that.’
Cooper wasn’t sure what he was so angry about. He turned the heater up full and revved the engine before he pulled out into the road. He was determined he wasn’t going to speak to Alison on the way back into Edcndale. She was deliberately putting him in a difficult position. Rut he knew she wouldn’t be able to last all the way into town without asking questions. They drove in an uneasy silence for a few moments. When Morrissey spoke, it wasn’t the question he had expected.
‘Don’tyou Hnd your job frustrating?’ she said. ‘AH this grubbing around for evidence. A lot of it must be futile. A waste of time and effort, I guess.’
Cooper was taken by surprise at how she had thrust straight to what he had been thinking himself. It made it impossible for him to refuse to respond.
‘Yes, it’s very frustrating at times,’ he said.
‘So why do you carry on with it?’
‘Why not?’
‘That’s no answer, Ben. You’re a man who has to have a reason for doing things. You have to believe that it’s the right thing to do. So why do you carry on?’
Cooper frowned. He had never been able to explain it to himself, but now the words started to come when someone else asked him.
‘Sometimes, just occasionally, I feel that I’ve done something worthwhile,’ he said.
‘And is that enough? Just occasionally?’
‘Oh, yes,’ said Cooper.
They passed the Snake Inn, where the staff had neither heard nor seen any cars on the night that Nick Easton had been killed, only the snowploughs. They passed the lay-by where the plough crew had found Easton’s body. Rut Cooper wasn’t thinking about Easton, or even Marie Tennent. Alison Morrissey knew exactly when to keep quiet. It was a skill that would make her useful as a police interviewer.
‘You see,’ he said, ‘when it happens, when I feel as though I’ve
327
done something worthwhile, it’s like the world suddenly settles
o ‘ ^
into place and loolt as it ought to do lor once, the way it was created, before we messed it up and made it cruel and dirty. It’s hard to explain. It’s not that anything in particular happens to the world, of course, not so that you would notice. It’s something that happens to me. But whatever it is, it feels … real.’
Out of the corner of his eye, he could see her nodding. Still she said nothing. They were on the long descent into the Derwent Valley. Glittering ribbons of water stretched ahead and alongside them as they drove into the long arms of Ladybowcr Reservoir.
‘It’s a sensation that isn’t like anything else I’ve ever known. I suppose it’s like taking a powerful drug. It gives me a buzz, makes me feel alive. It’s good, for a while.’
She nodded again, and he felt her watching him. He was glad that she said nothing. He needed another moment to Hnish the thought, to get the words out that were suddenly jostling among themselves somewhere in his subconscious, waiting to be let out.
‘Butit’slikeany other drug,’ he said. ‘It does something to your mind. It leaves you always craving more. It leaves you willing to do anything, anything at all, to get that feeling again.’
They were soon through Bamford and approaching Edcndale. Morrissey had left him alone with his thoughts. He was starting to feel embarrassed again that she was able to get him to say such things, vet he was glad he had articulated it to himself. It had made
&
a kind of sense of his own feelings that he had never been able to grasp before.
‘I’ll drop you at your hotel,’ said Cooper. ‘Please don’t do anything like that again.’
‘OK,’ said Morrissey. ‘I’m grateful for the lift.’ She sounded meek now, no longer provocative. ‘I wanted the chance to say I’m sorry for getting annoyed with you yesterday. You’re right to be sceptical about what people tell you. So I apologize.’
