‘Mr Rowland?’
A tired voice answered him. A voice drowning in pain, barely managing to stay above the surface of despair.
‘Aye. Through here.’
Walter Rowland was in his front room, and at least he had some heating in his house. The old man would long since have been dead if he had lived in Hollow Shaw.
Rowland was sitting in a curious position. He had his hands resting on the table in front of him, palms upward, as if he were expecting coins to drop from the ceiling and it was important that he should catch them. Cooper was reminded of a yogi sitting in a lotus position, with his hands held on his knees. What was it a yogi expected to receive when he meditated like that? Some kind of inner peace? But inner peace surely wasn’t what this old man was expecting. Rowland’s hands weren’t relaxed at all; his lingers were curled in towards the palms like claws, and their flesh was dry and shrivelled, so that the joints of the
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fingers stood out in bony ridges. Those hands spoke so clearly of calmly accepted suffering and pain that Cooper revised his religious image from the meditating yogi. All that was missing from these hands were the nails pinning them to the wood.
I O
Rowland noticed Cooper looking at his hands. ‘It’s not so good today/ he said, apologetically. He looked pale, and his eyes had sunk further into their sockets. ‘If you want a cup of tea, you’ll have to put the kettle on yourself.’
‘Have you got anybody to help you?’ asked Cooper, as he walked through into the kitchen.
‘How do you mean?’
‘If you’re ill and can’t look after yourself, you surely have
v y ‘ v v
some kind of home help, don’t you?’
Rowland said nothing. Cooper plugged in the electric kettle and (bund two mugs with pictures of the Houses of Parliament on them. He noticed that there was a dent a couple of inches wide in the back door, and the wood was crushed. He wondered if the old man had fallen while trying to do some job in the kitchen.
Cooper glanced through into the front room. Rowland was staring at his hands. His Angers were as brown and as knotted as the pine table they lay on.
‘Have you tried Social Services? Or talked to your GP?’ said Cooper.
The old man shook his head.
‘They could send you a home help,’ said Cooper. ‘At your age, you must qualify. It would make things easier for you. I mean, how do you manage to cook yourself a meal?’
Rowland just smiled. ‘You’ll find some tea in the top cupboard,’ he said.
While he was finding the tea, Cooper looked through the kitchen cupboards, trying to slide the doors open as quietly as he could. There were plenty of tins of all descriptions steak puddings and hot dogs, new potatoes and mushy peas, peaches and pineapple chunks. He wondered if Rowland were capable of operating a tin opener. A small fridge stood in the corner, and he could hear its coolant gurgling in the pipes at the back. He found some milk in it and checked the use-by date on the plastic bottle, remembering the sour taste of the
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tea at George Malkin’s house. That taste had stayed with him fur Jays afterwards. But Rowland’s milk was OK for a day or so yet. Could that mean somebody did a bit of shopping for the old man occasionally? That was something, at least. Cooper wondered how he could ask Rowland the question, and whether he would get an answer.
He carried the two mugs of tea back through from the kitchen.
‘What are the neighbours like? Will they fetch some shopping for you?’
Rowland didn’t answer. He looked at his mug on the table. Cooper knew he was being told as clearly as he could be that it was none of his business.
‘Don’t worry about me,’ said Rowland. ‘I’ve got a routine to my day. Ivc got the telly, there. And when there s no more sex and violence on, I know it’s time to go to bed.’
Cooper sat down opposite him. The television muttered in the corner, and he didn’t bother asking Rowland to switch it off.
‘We were talking about the Lancaster crash the other day,’ he said. ‘Do you remember?’
‘Of course I remember. Sugar Uncle Victor. There aren’t all that many things happen around here that 1 wouldn’t remember.’
‘You said then that Pilot Officer McTeague was different from airmen who were sometimes in shock after a crash.’
‘Yes, I did.’
‘I want to ask you again why McTeague was different.’
Rowland breathed slowly for a while. But Cooper could sec he had less resistance today.
‘I smelled him,’ said Rowland.
‘What?’
‘When we realized there was at least one crew member missing, we looked in the wreckage as best we could. Some of it was on fire, and our sergeant shouted at us to stay away. But we couldn’t have left someone in the burning plane, could we? I went to look in the cockpit. It had broken away from the fuselage, so the flames hadn’t reached it. And when I stuck my head in there — well, I could smell the whisky. The fumes fair knocked me out.’
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‘Do you mean Pilot Officer McTeaguc was drunk?’
