‘Might she have wanted to keep it secret?’
‘Why? She was an adult - and it’s not a sin any more. You
v v
don’t get put away in a lunatic asylum for being an unmarried mother these days. Not even in Edendale. They tell me you even stopped burning witches last week.’
‘Maybe there was one particular person she didn’t want to know about the baby.’
‘One particular person? Who?’
‘The boyfriend,’ said Cooper.
‘Him again. Mr Nobody. We know nothing about him at all.’
Cooper placed a secondhand pair of baby shoes on the table. ‘On the contrary,’ he said. “I think I’m starting to get a feeling for him.’
You were always one for empathy. You can check with her GP, when we leave here. And the hospital and Social Services. We need any clues they can give us about where to look for the babv.’
Ml
Fry was staring at the bookshelves. She touched the spines of the hooks gingerly, as if they were some inexplicable religious ieon.s. Cooper joined her and examined the mixture of modern novels, celebrity biographies, cookery books, diet books and self-improvement programmes.
‘She was a great reader, by the looks of it,’ he said.
‘Too much imagination, I suppose. It never does anybody any good.’
Cooper picked up a copy of a Danielle Steel novel that was lying face-up on the shelf. It had a well-worn cover, and it looked as though it had been through more than one pair of hands. ‘Why not?’ he said.
‘Well, look at this stuff. Half of it is about other people’s miserable lives. Let’s face it, life turns out shitty tor cvcrvbodv in the end, no matter who you are. What’s the point of reading about how bad it i.s for somebody else?’
Cooper turned the book over in his hands and read the blurb on the back. ‘Maybe it helped her to feel she could connect to other human beings in some way.’
Fry curled a glance at him from the corner of her eve. ‘Oh, my Cod. Let’s have less connecting and more detecting, please, Ben.’
Cooper smiled. ‘Eden Valley Books,’ he said.
‘What?’
He held up an imitation leather bookmark that had been nestling between chapters 26 and 27 of Danielle Steel. ‘I’ve detected where Marie bought her books from.’
‘Is it here in town?’
‘Just off the market square. Never noticed it?’
‘If I had, I wouldn’t have to ask.’
‘The bloke who owns it is called Lawrence Daley. I’ve been in there a few times.’
‘Oh? Get your Barbara Cartland fix there, do you?’
‘He found me some old song books once. For the male voice choir, you know.’
‘Lovely.’
‘Also he had a couple of burglaries at the shop, not long after I transferred to CID. God knows why there’s nothing
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in the place worth nicking. We thought it was probably some heroin-fuelled dork who’d been watching
‘And your point is?’
‘I know Lawrence Daley slightly. He’s a bit of a character, but he’s OK.’
‘Ben, I’m well aware that you know everybody round here.’
‘I was thinking — if Marie Tennent bought so many books, Lawrence might know something about her. He’s the sort who’d want to chat to his customers and find out a bit about them.’
Fry nodded. ‘Yeah, it’s worth a try. 1 can’t see that we’re going to turn up much else in here.’
‘When I’ve finished with Social Services and the hospital, I’ll call at the bookshop and have a word with Lawrence.’
‘I’ve got a meeting this afternoon. Let me know how
o o
you get on.’
They cleared up the books and put Marie’s junk mail back on the hall table.
‘What about this box?’ said Fry, pushing at the carton near the door with her foot.
‘More books.’
‘Have you had a look at it?’
