to open the hinge. In fact, she flinched at the thought of even trying to open it. No, she wouldn’t dare to touch the shotgun, in case it was loaded, after all. She was sure to touch the wrong thing, and it would go off in her hands. She would fire it into the wall, or through the window. Probably the lead shot would shred the pair of thrushes pecking about on the bird table. She almost laughed. It would be one way of establishing whether the gun was loaded or not.
Most of all, she wished that Michael would come back and take the shotgun away, out of her sight, and out of her kitchen. But at the same time she hoped that he would never touch it again. She wondered fleetingly whether she could hide it before he came back, in the hope that he might then forget it had ever existed.
And who would leave the gun in the pick-up truck? A neighbour? What neighbours did they have? No one that would give them the time of day. Someone who knew the problems they were having? Or was Michael really lying to her about where he had got it? She didn’t think so. She could usually recognize when he was telling the truth. He didn’t have the wit to make up a story like that. His imagination would fail at the effort. And she didn’t think he would know how to go about buying a shotgun for himself, either. As far as she was aware, he was almost as ignorant as she was herself about guns.
That was the only thought that gave her any reassurance. He surely wouldn’t know how to use the shotgun.
Michael Dearden took the shotgun from the chair and held it in front of him like a shield. The position felt wrong. He tried to remember the way he had seen the shooters carrying their guns when they went up after the grouse. He thought they carried them in the crook of their arm, with the barrels pointing downwards for safety. He tried that, but it still didn’t feel right. If the gun were to go off accidentally while he was walking with it, he would shoot his foot off, surely.
Dearden settled for holding the shotgun clutched across his chest at an awkward angle, with the barrels pointing upwards. An accidental shot would now go through the ceiling of the kitchen into the bedroom above. He thought of Gail lying in bed immediately above him, and he put the gun down hastily. But
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then he remembered that the gun wasn’t even loaded, and he felt ridiculous and useless.
What sort of a man was he that he had no idea how to hold a gun? Boys were supposed to pick it up by instinct, turning any handy bit of wood into an imaginary rifle to play at shooting people. He hoped it was just a matter of getting used to the thing. Maybe he ought to practise firing it. Dearden glanced up at the ceiling again. Perhaps when Gail was out.
Ben Cooper waited in by his phone that night. He was nervous about the call he was expecting from Angie Fry. He had decided what he was going to say to Angie, but couldn’t quite settle on the words he would use.
He poured himself a beer while he waited, sat down in an armchair, got up again, turned on the TV and used the remote to reduce the volume. Randy put his head round the door from the kitchen, hoping that Cooper might be in a suitable position for settling down with for the evening. But the cat seemed to sniff the air suspiciously, turned away and went back towards the conservatory to sleep by the central-heating boiler instead.
When the phone rang, Cooper jumped as if it had been completely unexpected. He grabbed for the remote, remembered the volume was already down, and reluctantly picked up the receiver.
‘What have you decided?’ said Angle’s voice.
‘I’m not going to do it.’
She let out a long breath that sighed intimately down the phone into his ear. ‘Ben, don’t you care about what happens to Diane?’
‘Yes, I do. And that’s the reason I won’t do it. You’ve picked the wrong person, Angle.’
‘There wasn’t anyone else,’ she said. And Cooper thought she could barely keep the disdain from her voice, hardly disguise the unspoken inference that she would rather have been dealing with anybody in the world but Ben Cooper. There was no one else I could find who might be called her friend.’
‘I can’t help that.’
‘The only people back in the West Midlands she keeps in touch with are our old foster parents in Warley, and I can hardly go and talk to them.’
‘It would be a bit of a shock for them,’ said Cooper.
‘Diane hasn’t kept in contact with any of her old colleagues in
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the West Midlands. I can’t understand it.’
‘Maybe she just wanted to put that part of her life behind her/ said Cooper. And he listened to the silence at the other end of the phone, picturing Angie Fry screwing her face, figuring out how she should respond.
I’m going to have to come and see you again/ she replied.
‘No.’
1 have to, Ben/
‘I don’t want you coming here again. I’m serious. You know I can cause trouble if I have to.’
Angie sighed. ‘Where then? Name a time and place, so I can talk to you properly.’
‘I’m busy this weekend. It’ll have to be Monday, when I’m off duty/
For a few seconds, the sound of her breathing went away from the phone. Cooper pictured Angie silently consulting someone, and wondered if his conversation was being listened in to.
‘And not here in Edendale/ he said. ‘I’m not having you at my home again. Or anywhere where I’m known/
‘OK/ she said. ‘But where, then?’
‘If you come out of Sheffield on the A616 past Stocksbridge, there’s a village called Midhopestones. You can catch a bus/
‘Right/
Cooper almost laughed. No doubt she had no intention of catching a bus, but would be getting a lift in the dark blue BMW.
