‘It’s nearly three years since Florence went into the home.’
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‘Long enough when you’re on your own/
‘Aye, if you’re not used to it. It’s thirty-eight years since we were wed. When you And yourself alone, you start to get into tunny little ways. You don’t realize it after a while, unless somebody points it out.’
‘Like living without any heating, perhaps?’ suggested Cooper.
Malkin laughed. The sound was like someone shovelling loose gravel. A trickle of spittle formed at the corner of his mouth.
‘I don’t need it,’ he said. ‘Not for myself. And I’m not about to start a blazing fire, just in case I get visitors the likes of you. I suppose you live in a town, do you?’
Cooper was about to say ‘no’, then remembered that he did, in fact, live in a town. He had lived in a town since Saturday. He was touched by Malkin’s concern for his comfort, but strangely oHended by the man’s assumption that his visitor was some kind of soft townie.
‘You don’t get the weather the same, not in a town,’ said Malkin. ‘If you’re a bit ncsh, lad, you should put on an extra sweater when you go out. That’s what our mam always used to tell us.’
Cooper had never thought of himself as ‘nesh’ - soft, too sensitive to the cold. It was the sort of term normally reserved for southerners in the ironic way that local people had of winding them up. But he wasn’t a southerner he was local himself. Being nesh was for townies.
But Cooper could sec that his way of living was a couple of steps away from that of George Malkin these days; his comfort level was several notches up the central heating thermostat. He
1 O
had a low er degree of tolerance to discomfort and deprivation. So perhaps he was ncsh, after all, in the eyes of the George Malkins of the world. Perhaps he had lost the link with these people that he once thought he had. In the end, the bond between them wasn’t genetic but a social link that could be broken if it was stretched too far.
‘I dare say Florence would be ashamed of how I live now, if she knew,’ said Malkin.
Cooper (elt a surge oi sympathy. He recognized a man cut o(l from the support that had kept him on a normal course.
3SS
Alone, it was too easy to fall into a way of living that seemed abnormal to everyone else.
‘Detective Constable Cooper had a long talk to Mr Walter Rowland yesterday,’ said Fry. ‘DC Cooper is very good at getting information out of people. They seem to trust him/
Malkin looked from Fry to Cooper, and his stare lingered. Cooper fidgeted uneasily.
‘You and your family have always been known for collecting aircraft souvenirs,’ said Fry. ‘Is that correct?’
‘I suppose it might be. A lot of things came our way over the years. My dad was a terror for it, I don’t mind admitting. Us lads learned it from him. I picked up my share of souvenirs here and there.’
‘More than just a broken watch, then.’
‘I’m not saying 1 kept them. I’m not a collector - I can’t see the point. But some folk will pay cash for stuff like that, you know/
‘Yes, we know/
Cooper wondered if the souvenirs had brought a steady trickle of cash in for Malkin over the years. It would hardly have been enough to pay for private medical care for Florence. Perhaps she had heard her husband talk about his sideline and got the wrong idea about the value of the items. Poor woman — her husband had not lived up to her expectations.
‘But we’re enquiring into something more than just a few souvenirs,’ said Fry.
‘There was the money,’ said Cooper. ‘The wages for RAF Bcnson/
Malkin took off his cap for the first time. It was such a surprise that it seemed to indicate better than anything his emotional response. His hair was remarkably thick, though going grey.
‘Poor old Walter Rowland,’ he said. ‘He must be in a bad way now. He wasn’t well last time I saw him/
‘No, he isn’t too good/
‘If Walter knew about the money, he’s kept quiet about it for fifty-seven years. I wonder what made him say something now/
‘He didn’t. Not exactly,’ said Cooper.
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‘Oh?’
‘So you admit that you took the money that was on board the Lancaster?’ said Fry.
Malkin turned his attention back to her. ‘You’ve got good timing, you folk. You know when to ask your questions, all right. It doesn’t matter to me now, you sec. Not at all. So you might as well know everything.’
‘Go on, sir.’
‘Yes, it was me and my brother Ted who took the money. We were only lads at the time. I was eight years old, so I didn’t really know what I was doing. But I don’t suppose there’s much point in me saying that now.’
‘I think it’s unlikely there will be a prosecution after all this time,’ said Fry. ‘Not for something you did when you were eight years old.’
‘Oh, well,’ said Malkin. ‘It doesn’t matter.’
‘There was a lot of money,’ said Cooper. ‘We’d like to know what you did with it. What did you spend it on?’
