‘Not yet.’ Cooper pulled out a penknife and cut the tape. ‘I think they call this Chick Lit, don’t they?’ he said, opening the box to reveal books with bright pink and yellow covers, the sort of book no man would ever willingly be seen reading. ‘Looks
o v o
like thev’rc from a book club.’
y
‘Is there a delivery date on the box?’ said Fry.
Cooper inspected the delivery company’s label. ‘Monday.’
The day she went walkabout.’
‘She signed for the delivery herself. But she never opened the box/
‘No/
‘If it were me/ said Cooper, ‘I would have opened it straight away, to see what I’d got/
143
‘But if she wasn’t intending to read them, why should she bother?’ said Frv.
‘Good point. But she must have been intending to read them when she ordered them.’
‘Right. So something happened between her placing the order for the books and getting the delivery. Something changed her view of things. Her books had suddenly become an irrcl
&’
evance.’
Cooper flicked through the pages of one of the books and turned to the back cover. According to the blurb, it was a hilarious, sexy account of a thirty-something woman’s search for Mr Right and her disastrous encounters with a series of Mr Wrongs. The cover showed discarded underwear among a scatter of wedding confetti and a bride’s bouquet.
‘There’s always the possibility,’ said Cooper, ‘that they were all too relevant.’
When they had finished, they locked Marie’s front door on the way out.
‘If only she’d made it a bit easier lor us,’ said Fry. ‘If the binmcn left a note, why couldn’t she?’
Cooper looked at the boarded-up windows of the other houses, at the high wall to the side of Marie’s garden, and finally at the dark expanse of stagnant water that shut off the
J JO
end of the street like an icy wall. ‘A note?’ he said. ‘Who to?’
After they had spoken to the staff at the estate agent’s, Diane Frv called in and reported their failure to locate the missing
J I O
baby. While she was using the radio, Cooper irritated her by standing outside the estate agent’s office to look in their display windows. It was on the corner, with one window looking on to Fargate that was full of photographs of houses, with their prices and details alongside. Fry could never understand what it was about these windows that seemed to distract so many people. Maybe it was the fascination of seeing the price of properties that other people lived in, of weighing up the unattainable and working out the mortgage that would be involved if they were ever to achieve their dream. It was
144
another form of living out a fantasy, much like reading Danicllc Steel novels.
She watched Cooper become absorbed in something towards the bottom corner of the display.
‘What arc you looking at?’ she said, when she finished her call.
‘Mm? Oh, they’ve got some properties to rent, look.’
‘So? Why are you interested?’
“I told you a while ago, didn’t I? I’m going to move out of Bridge End Farm. Tt’s just a matter of finding somewhere to live that 1 can afford.’
‘You’re really going to do it, then?’
‘Of course.’
‘I never thought you would, Ben.’
‘Why not?’
Frv shrugged. ‘You’re too much of the home bov. Too much
V OO v
of a man for having his family round him, all cosy and smug at night.’
txr t w ‘
You mean snug .
‘Do I?’
Cooper bent to peer at the properties lower down, at the cheaper end of the display. It was funny how estate agents’ windows were designed so that rich people didn’t have to bother bending to look at suitable houses.
‘No, I didn’t think you would ever move out,’ said Frv. ‘Not until you had a wife of your own to settle down with and have kids. Then you’d be looking for one of those little executive semis over there. Something like that one —’ She pointed to the other side of the window. The houses displayed there were made of stone, but were newly built.
