‘That wasn’t what I meant. She wasn’t even in the country
y
at the time. She arrived after Easton was found.’
‘Are you sure? Have you confirmed the time of her Might from Canada? Have you checked she was on the passenger list?’
‘No.’
‘Perhaps it’s about time you did, then.’
Cooper stayed silent.
‘It shouldn’t be a problem,’ said Fry. ‘As long as you don’t feel any personal involvement, that is. And I’m sure you don’t feel that, do you, Ben? It wouldn’t be like you at all. Not a competent and dedicated detective like yourself.’
Cooper felt himself flush. It was a habit he hated in himself, a ridiculous thing for someone approaching thirty years of age. Diane Fry had the uncanny knack of doing it to him. But, of course, it was usually because she was right.
‘The connection is there,’ he said. ‘The link is the Lukasz family. Sergeant Caudwell knew the name — and I bet it’s on the list she gave us.’
‘Yes, it is.’
‘I think Nick Easton was looking for Andrew Lukasz. though.
o ‘ o ‘
not Zygmunt.’
‘Why?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Cooper. ‘But it seems more than a coincidence that Andrew disappeared the day before Easton
2S3
arrived. Ant) something upset Zygmunt. His family have been worried about him. They say he’s stopped speaking English. Personally, I think he’s being damned awkward. But then, he hasn’t got long left to live, they say.’
‘Is his son very close to him?’
‘They’re all close. Yes, very close.’
‘Peter Lukasz — what docs he do (or a living?’
‘He’s a doctor, works in the A&E department at the hospital.’
Fry opened a folder full of postmortem photographs of Nick Easton. Cooper still thought of him as the Snowman, since Easton had arrived in Derbyshire with the snow.
‘According to Mrs Van Doon, the fatal wound on Easton was caused by a small, very sharp instrument. It could have been a scalpel.’ ‘OK, I can sec what you’re thinking. But Peter Lukasz is supposed to have been on duty at the hospital. We can easily check if he was where he ought to have been at the time Easton was killed.’
‘Do it, then. What sort of car does Lukasz drive?’
‘A blue BMW, three or four years old.’
‘Good in snow?’
‘I doubt it.’
‘But there’s a close little community there, you said.’
‘It doesn’t mean they’d conspire together to murder somebody. That would take a serious shared motive.’
‘Yes.’ Fry thought about it for a while, looked at the lists in front of her. and thought again.
‘ o o
‘Ben, where else have you been?’ she said.
‘What do you mean?’
‘On this business of Alison Morrissey’s. Who else have you been to see? There was Zygmunt Lukasz, and the old RAF rescue man, Rowland. Who else is there? Tell me.’
‘Well, there’s George Malkin.’
Fry’s face was grim. She looked as though she wanted to grab the lapels of his coat and shake him.
‘Tell me who George Malkin is, Ben.’
‘He was a farmworker, but he’s been retired for years. The
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place he lives in at Harrop was his father’s farm in those days, but there’s only the old farmhouse left now. He was a child at the time of the Lancaster crash, but he went up to the site with his brother that night. Malkin is a lonely old man solitary, going a bit strange, but he remembers the crash all right.’ Cooper paused, thinking of Zygmunt Lukasz and Walter Rowland. ‘Well, Malkin is not so old, reallv. Only in his sixties. It just happens that he remembers the crash very well.’
Fry continued to stare at him. ‘It just happens?’ she said. ‘It just happens?’
‘Well, yes.’
‘This would be George Malkin, of Hollow Shaw Farm, Harrop?’
‘Yes. What’s all this about?’
