‘The police are out there,’ said Gail.
‘Who called the police? The Oxleys?’
‘No, Michael. I did.’
Dearden finally put the shotgun down. He laughed quietly, but seemed to be on the verge of tears, too, when he looked at his wife.
They came, then?’ he said. ‘For once, they actually came.’
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Lucas Oxley stood throughout Cooper’s visit. In fact, he stood near the door, which Cooper wasn’t terribly comfortable with. It meant he had already broken the first rule and lost control of his immediate environment, if a threat to his safety should develop. But Lucas didn’t look threatening, not at the moment. He had his back to the door, but more as if to stop anyone else entering than to prevent Cooper leaving. His manner was defensive, not aggressive.
‘Is Scott all right?’ said Cooper.
‘He’ll be fine. Daft bugger. I’ve told him to be more careful with that thing.’
‘No harm done.’
Cooper wiped a hand across his face and looked at the streaks of oil on his palm. The spray had hit his face from the spinning blade of the chainsaw just before it fell towards him from the tree. Scott Oxley’s face had stared down at him, shocked and white, as the branch he’d been working on snapped unexpectedly, loosening his grip on the handles. A few feet in front of Cooper, the chainsaw had dug itself into the dirt track in a spurt of mud.
‘He’d just oiled it,’ said Lucas. ‘He got oil all over the handles and didn’t bother wiping it off. He’s lucky he didn’t break his silly neck or chop his hand off.’
‘Or someone else’s,’ said Cooper.
The interior of 1 Waterloo Terrace came as a surprise. It was remarkably clean and neat, with two Laura Ashley-patterned sofas crammed into the little sitting room, matching curtains, and even a mock goatskin rug in front of the fireplace. It had a distinctly feminine feel, and suddenly both Lucas and Eric Oxley looked
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awkward and out of place. Eric was wearing worn brown slippers, while Lucas had removed his hoots on the doorstep to reveal woollen socks bunched uncomfortably at the toes.
‘You’ve been all along this terrace asking questions,’ said Lucas. It was a plain statement of fact, a preliminary laying out of the ground.
‘Yes, I’ve made no secret of it,’ said Cooper. I’m conducting enquiries in connection with a murder investigation, as I’m sure you know, Mr Oxley. The murder of your own nephew, Neil Granger.’
‘He was my wife’s brother’s lad.’
‘I know.’
‘But nobody here knows anything about that. You’ve been asking your questions in the wrong place, if that’s really what you’re up to.’
‘Why should I be up to anything else?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Oxley. ‘That’s for you to tell us.’
I’ve just explained it.’
There were no handshakes at Waterloo Terrace. And there were very few rural Derbyshire homes where Cooper would not have been offered at least a cup of tea by now, unless he had actually come to arrest a suspect. But the Oxleys seemed to think that they were automatic suspects, and they were behaving accordingly. Perhaps, Cooper thought, he should be regarding them as automatic suspects. But he’d always had a contrary instinct. If everyone else thought the Oxleys must be guilty of something, he’d find himself looking for their good side. With the Oxleys, though, he might have to look very hard.
The old man, Eric Oxley, wore striped braces beneath a knitted cardigan, but over his shirt. They weren’t the brightly coloured braces once favoured by city whizzkids of the 1980s. These braces dated from an earlier fashion, and their colours had faded with age. Besides, they weren’t for show at all - their function was to support the baggy trousers.
Eric’s body was almost swallowed by the worn armchair he sat in. The chair didn’t match the rest of the furniture in the Oxleys’ sitting room. It was much older, and wasn’t at all the right colour to match the Laura Ashley patterns or even the mock goatskin. Eric and his armchair looked like an island surrounded by a sea of encroaching modern frippery.
Cooper wondered how many battles there had been over the
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armchair when the new furniture had arrived, and whether the old man had clung to its arms with his thick fingernails as his family tried to prise him loose. There was a space two or three feet further towards the centre of the room where the armchair would have fit more neatly with the arrangement of the furniture. He could picture Marion Oxley moving the armchair into that spot every night after the old man had gone to bed, perhaps pushing it on its casters with the toe of her carpet slipper, rather than touch its grease-darkened upholstery. Equally clearly, he could see Eric sucking his false teeth as he heaved his chair back to its place by the fireside every morning. Territory was important, even if it consisted of an old armchair by a fire.
‘You know they want us out?’ said Lucas.
‘I understand it’s the empty houses they’re demolishing/ said Cooper. ‘They must be dangerous. A health hazard, at least.’
Lucas curled his lip. ‘It’s the first step. It’s us they want out, so they can sell this place and make a nice bit of money. They think we’re dirty. Our homes are unsightly. We are unsightly. We don’t fit into this world today.’
‘Aye, they want to get shut of us,’ said Eric. ‘I just hope I pop my clogs first.’
Lucas nodded. ‘They think we’re mucking up the water for folks in Manchester - all the water that comes off
