‘I’d had enough. And Detective Constable Cooper wants to speak to you.’
‘I’m sorry to bother you. sir.’
V V ‘
‘You’d better come in.’
Krystyna was in the kitchen cutting carrots and parsnips with a small knife. There was a chicken soaking in cold water. In the sitting room, Peter Lukasz had automatically picked up the television remote and was fingering the buttons. ‘What is it you want?’ he said.
‘I wonder if you’ve heard from your son yet?’
‘No. But we will soon.’
Cooper shook his head. It was strange standing here in the
I C) O
Lukaszes’ home again. Over a week ago, he had arrested Eddie Kemp in the Starlight Cafe. He had never even heard of the Lukasz family then, but Kemp had just been involved in killing their son. There had been blood on the streets that dawn, in the snow. Now there was blood on Irontongue Hill.
‘Mr Lukasz,’ he said, ‘I need you to come to the mortuary again to make an identification.’
Each of the Lukasz family stopped what they were doing. Grace spun her wheelchair to face him, Peter put down the television remote, Krystyna paused with her knife in midair. Cooper turned and looked into the conservatory. Zygmunt had fixed him with his pale blue, knowing eyes. The old man raised his head, tensing his jaw as if facing a challenge. The dog was beside his chair, with a thin, pink biscuit in its mouth that it had been dragging around the floor. The biscuit w^as dirty, but a design was visible on it - a picture of a nativity scene. Cooper recognized it as a version of the opYate^ wafer.
‘Forgiveness for the animals?’ he asked.
o
Then Zygmunt Lukasz spoke in English for the first time in Ben Cooper’s hearing.
‘Of course,’ he said. ‘There were animals in the stable when Jesus was born.’
‘So there were,’ said Cooper. ‘And animals arc much easier to forgive.’
40S
Ben Cooper had never yet been next door, to the house that Mrs Shelley lived in. He had only ever met her at number 8, in his own Oat. Of course, number 6 looked identical from the outside, apart from the fact there was only the one bell.
‘She’s a bit vague/ he said. ‘She might not understand what we’re telling her at first.’
‘It’s luckv she knows who you are, then, said Diane Fry.
‘I’m not sure about that. She might not associate me with the police. She thinks of me as the young man who looks after the cat.’
‘Promotion at last, Ben.’
Cooper turned to look at her, irritated by the jibe. But he saw from her face that she regretted having said it.
‘If it’s all right with you, I want to go to the Cavendish Hotel
O ^ C”
and see Alison Morrissev alter this,’ he said.
Now Fry couldn’t meet his eyes at all. ‘She’s gone,’ she said. ‘She caught a flight back to Toronto this morning.’
‘What?’
‘I’m sorrv, Ben. We agreed it was lor the best.’
‘Who’s we?’
‘I talked to her vesterdav, after we arrested Frank Baine. I watched you take her back to the hotel. And I think she’s alreadv
y V
said goodbve.’
o ^
Cooper felt his mouth hanging open and a surge of anger flooding through him. But before he could demand an explanation, the door of number 6 opened and Mrs Shelley stood looking at them, a puzzled frown on her face.
‘Can I help you?’
They could hear the Jack Russell terrier barking from the back of the house. Even in the hallway, the noise was deafening. Cooper was glad of the thick stone walls that stopped sound travelling between the two houses. He was reminded of the walls in the row of cottages where Marie Tcnnent lived. They were just as thick as these walls — thick enough, he remembered thinking, that her neighbours would not have heard a babv crving.
V V O
Seeing Cooper speechless, Fry took the lead. ‘Mrs Shelley, we need to speak to you about Lawrence Daley.’
406
‘Lawrence?’ Mrs Shelley said, as if repeating the name might bring some meaning to the sound of it. ‘Lawrence?’
