where else to look. And I can’t see Zygmunt hanging on to something like that - he believes people who collect souvenirs from the aircraft wrecks are vultures. Even his own grandson, Andrew. They argued about a cigarette case that had belonged to Klemens Wach.’
Morrisscy listened to him carefully.
‘Where did Andrew Lukas/. get this cigarette case?’
‘I expect he’d bought it from a collector in London. It must be a widespread hobby, I suppose.’
‘Yes, worldwide. I found that on the bulletin board. There were a lot of US citi/ens and Canadians.’
Cooper watched her drink her cider for a while. She looked up and met his eye, and smiled at him. Cooper smiled back.
‘Did you rind out about the money?’ said Morrisscy.
‘Yes, George Malkin still had it. He’s never done anything with it.’
‘Malkin?’
‘At Hollow Shaw Larm. He was only a bov at the time, of course.’
Cooper stopped talking abruptly. He realized that Morrissey had never heard Malkin’s name until now. Of course, she had said at the Chief Superintendent’s meeting that she’d been unable to trace the boys who had seen her grandfather walk away from the crash. He searched for something else to say, before she started asking him questions.
‘Do you want dropping at the Cavendish Hotel?’ he said.
‘Yes, please. Ren, this George Malkin —’
‘How do you like it there? 1 don’t suppose Edendale’s hotels are up to Toronto standards.’
‘No, not really,’ said Morrissey, with a small smile.
Cooper looked at his watch. Time was catching up on him. If he stayed any longer here, Diane Fry would be paging him, wondering where he was, ready to give him another warning.
‘Don’t you think Zygmunt Lukas/ could tell us so much about the crash?’ said Morrissey.
Cooper shrugged. ‘I don’t know. Perhaps he’s already said all he’s going to.’
B76
He wanted to add that it was George Malkin who remembered the crash best, hut he had already said enough.
‘I really have no more time to help you now/ he said. ‘There was a meeting this morning. I don’t know exactly what’s going on, hut 1 think there’s going to he some action. The chiefs will he wanting arrests for the death of the RAF policeman, and I think the Ministry of Defence Police have come up with all the iniormation that we were waiting for.’
‘You’ll he busy, then,’ said Morrissey.
‘I expect to get called away at any moment.’
‘I want to say thank you (or what you’ve done.’
‘I didn’t do anything.’
‘But you tried hard, Ben. That’s more than anyone else did. You must have thought you were doing something that was
o
worthwhile. That was what you said, wasn’t it? That you needed the feeling you’d done something worthwhile. That drug. You said it was the only thing that could give you the buzz and make
y o o v
you feel really alive.’
Cooper looked at her, watched her push the lock of hair from her forehead, knowing he didn’t want to say goodbye to her, wanting to do something to keep the connection between them.
‘I didn’t say it was the only thing,’ he said.
Dianc Fry sat in her car with Gavin Murfm and watched the front of the Cavendish Hotel. She felt no sense of surprise when Ben Cooper’s Toyota pulled up with Alison Morrissey in the passenger seat.
‘Ben’s already talked to her, then,’ said Murhn, puzzled.
‘I don’t imagine they were talking about what we want to discuss,’ said Frv.
They had a perfectly clear view as Alison Morrissey leaned across the scats of the Toyota and kissed Cooper on the lips. They saw her hand slip behind his head, and Cooper’s arm leave the steering wheel. The kiss seemed to Fry to last lor a long time.
‘I think Ben’s a bit taken with her, like,’ said Murfin.
Fry couldn’t have said what else happened for a moment or
377
two. Her view was obscured by a kind of reel veil that rippled in front of her eyes, blurring the shape of Cooper’s Toyota and its occupants. She took some deep breaths, and the veil gradually fell away. She found she was gripping the ends of her scarf so tightly that she was in danger of strangling herscli.
MurHn popped some chewing gum in his mouth and rustled the wrapper as if he were in the cinema watching a Hollywood film.
‘He’s never had much luck with women, hasn’t Ben,’ he said. ‘Maybe I should give him some tips.’
Fry stared at him. ‘It isn’t a question of luck, Gavin. Some people have a deeply ingrained stupidity.’
