them that they were distinctive, and local people had nicknamed their town hall ‘The Wavy House’.
He found he was looking at the noticeboard on the wall of the town hall. The building hosted far more than just council meetings. There were notices announcing line-dancing classes, a slimming club, the WI market, Darby and Joan sessions, bridge nights, a book fair, and t’ai chi lessons. He tried to imagine the old ladies doing t’ai chi, just to keep himself amused.
Finally, the bus set off and wound its way through the streets of Edendale town centre before emerging on to Greaves Road and going north. Cooper tried to appear interested in every single thing that they passed. The old ladies gathered their belongings and got off, casting reluctant glances back.
‘Next stop Wembley Avenue,’ said the driver.
Cooper stood up and waited by the doors. ‘Thanks a lot. You’ve been very helpful.’
‘No trouble. Are you sure you don’t want his name?’
Cooper paused on the step of the bus as the doors folded open. ‘Whose name?’
‘The chap with the walking stick, of course. The one you’ve been asking about.’
‘You know his name?’
“Course I do. He’s an OAR He has to show me his bus pass every time he gets on. His name’s Jim Revill.’
‘I was going to walk up and down Wembley Avenue knocking on people’s doors asking for a man with a stick,’ said Cooper.
359
‘Well/ said the driver, ‘that would have been a bit daft, wouldn’t
it?’
Jim Revill was totally baffled to find Ben Cooper standing on his doorstep. It was obvious that at first he didn’t recognize him at all. Cooper was used to that feeling himself. He had often seen someone walking down the street and felt sure that he knew them, but from an entirely different context. The woman who served him in the petrol station twice a week was very familiar, but she was unrecognizable when she had come out from behind the counter and was dressed up to the nines, having a drink with her boyfriend in Yates’s Wine Bar. It was a bit unsettling. People should stay in their contexts, safe and familiar.
‘Detective Constable Cooper, Edendale Police,’ he said.
‘Eh?’
‘Sunday mornings at Somerfield’s supermarket.’
‘Ah! Chinese meals for one.’
‘Yes/ said Cooper, with a sigh. That’s me.’
‘But what are you doing here? This is where I live.’
‘Yes, I know, Mr Revill.’
‘Did you follow me?’
‘In a manner of speaking/
Mr Revill’s face took on a stubborn look. ‘I don’t let people in without seeing their identification and checking up on them.’
‘Quite right/
Cooper showed his warrant card again, and had to wait while Mr Revill phoned the station. But while the old man made the call, he left the front door open, so that Cooper could easily have walked into his house and pulled the phone right out of the wall, if he had wanted to commit a robbery.
But, to be honest, there was very little that looked worth stealing. The shopping bag on wheels stood against the wall near the door. Its handle had worn a bare patch in the wallpaper and its wheels had scuffed the skirting board. There were some cardboard boxes stacked against the wall further along the passage. According to the printing on them, they had once contained tins of cat food and baked beans, though presumably not any more - not unless Mr Revill was stocking up to survive an emergency. If those were the extent of his supplies, Cooper thought the cat would be all right, if it didn’t mind a permanent diet of Whiskas beef and lamb. But Mr Revill would be in danger of spontaneous combustion.
360
‘They say you’re all right.’
Thank goodness for that.’
‘So is it about the burglaries that you’ve come?’
‘Well, yes.’
‘I didn’t see anybody. But I’ve got some registration numbers.’
‘You have? Suspicious vehicles? Have you passed them on to the station?’
‘They weren’t interested/ said Mr Revill. ‘Like I told you, nobody bothers coming out for us.’
‘Can I have a look?’
‘In the front room.’
Cooper followed him through a doorway and into a room full of furniture. A dining table and four chairs dominated the space, and there was hardly enough room to walk around them, because of the sideboard and display cabinets against the walls. And there were more boxes in the far corner. Fairy Liquid and Utterly Butterly.
‘Here. I keep a notebook by the window, so that I can write them down straight away. Otherwise, I would forget them, and that would be no use to anybody.’
Cooper looked at the notebook he was offered. He saw a page of car registration numbers, written in large
