deskbound personnel didn’t start until nine.
‘Keen, Ben?’
Diane Fry was unwinding her red scarf from her neck, pulling her hair out from under a high collar and shaking it like a dog emerging from water. When she took her coat off, she looked
o o
half the six.e. Cooper’s mother would have said she was too thin, that she needed a layer of fat to keep out the winter cold.
‘I thought 1 might as well make a start,’ he said. ‘There’s no time to lose, is there? Considering the shortage of manpower we keep hearing about.’
‘Take a gold star. But actually, you’re not alone. Even the Chief Super is in. And I just saw DI Hitchens on his way up to the top floor.’
There wasn’t really much among the actions to be done. Not surprising, really, since the Snowman had still not been identified. But one form stood out. It related to a woman who had phoned in last night when she had heard about the body on the news. Most of the phone calls had been discounted, or the details filed for later reference. But this one had sounded to the operator as if it might be worth following up and it had been passed on to the incident room. The woman claimed to have seen a man who answered the description of the Snowman, right down to the smart clothes and polished shoes, though minus the blue overnight bag.
a
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Cooper also thought the woman sounded worth talking to. Her name was Luka.s/,.
Cooper showed the form to Diane Try.
‘Look at this,’ he said. ‘This call came from a woman called Mrs Grace I.ukas/, Woodland Crescent, Edendale.’
‘So?’
‘Lukas/ …’he said. Then he remembered that Fry knew nothing about Alison Morrissev, Pilot Officer Dannv McTeague, or the crew of Sugar Uncle Victor. ‘Well, it was a name mentioned in the meeting with the Chief yesterday.’
‘What? Oh, the Canadian woman. What on earth was all that about, then? Some old wartime story, people have been saving. Why does she think she has the right to waste our time?’
‘Somebody in Edendale sent her a medal belonging to her grandfather, who went missing in 1945. He was a bomber pilot, and he was supposed to have deserted after his aircraft was wrecked near here.’
‘Yeah?’
He could tell Fry had lost interest already. And why should she be interested? There was nothing in the story to concern the police. Not unless Morrissev produced some evidence of a crime. A lost medal that turned up after fifty-seven years was far from that.
‘It’s a bit of a coincidence, that’s all. It’s an unusual name.’
‘You know what it’s like,’ said Fry. ‘You notice an unfamiliar word or name for the first time, then you seem to keep hearing it again lor days afterwards. It’s just that you never noticed it before.’
‘If it was a common name in Hdendale, I think I would have noticed it before now.’
‘Oh, I forgot — you’re Mr Local Knowledge. You probably have the phone book memorized.’
She took the action form from him and studied it. The name of Lukas/ meant nothing to her she was assessing the action purely on its merits. Cooper found himself silently willing her to hand it back. But then she began to look through the rest of the forms.
‘OK, but take these others as well,’ she said. ‘Kill several
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birds with one stone. Then I can justify you missing the morning meeting. I dare say we’ll cope without you, for once.’
‘All right, then. You know I still have several enquiries outstanding?’
‘Haven’t we all?’
Before he went out, Cooper checked the electoral register tor the address given by Grace Lukasz. The entry for 37 Woodland Crescent showed three registered voters living in that household — Piotr Janusz Lukasz, Grace Anne Lukasz and Zygmunt Henrvk Lukasz. So he had tracked down the survivor of the Lancaster crash without even trying. Maybe Diane was wrong about their luck — it looked as though it might be changing.
Not that he had any reason for wanting to find Zygmunt Lukasz. Not that there was anything he could ask the old man. Not officially. But on a personal level, he would be interested to hear Lukasz’s version of the crash of Sugar Uncle Victor and of what happened to Pilot Officer Danny McTeague. It might put his mind at rest, settle down the uneasiness that had been aroused by seeing the photographs of the crew, particularly the young airman who seemed to have had death written on his face.
Besides, he personally thought that Alison Morrissey was justified in searching for answers about the fate of her grandfather. I le could sec she was hoping beyond reason that the medal sent to Canada had come from Canny McTeague himself and therefore meant he was still alive somewhere in the area. It almost certainly meant someone knew more about McTeague than had ever been told. Cooper knew he would have wanted to do the same in her position. It was a little hard that he wasn’t able to help her when he was ideally placed to do so. If only he didn’t have so much else to do.
Cooper wrote the names of the Lukasz family in his notebook. He would leave them until after he had visited the other addresses. He liked to save the best until last.
Chief Superintendent Jepson was standing at the window of his office on the top floor of divisional headquarters, looking down on to the car park at the back of the building. Some of the snow
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had been swept to the sides to clear a hit of space, hut cars and vans were parked at all sorts of angles, making the place look untidy. He watched a figure cross the car park. It was dressed in a long waxed coat and a peaked cap.
‘Hen Cooper is a good lad,’ said Jepson. ‘I don’t want him left out in the cold for long.’
1)1 Paul Hitchcns was in early because he had hecn told to he. He was standing in the middle of the room waiting for the Chief Super to get round to saying whatever it was that he had on his mind. So far, they had touched only on the weather.
“I must admit, there’s been some muttering in the ranks,
