‘What?’
‘Take care, sir.’
Cooper turned to walk away from the house. He passed the maintenance man, who had stopped raking the gravel and was giving a cursory wipe to the windows on one of the Westmorlands, well within earshot of the house. He met Cooper’s eye for a second, smiled, then went back to his work. Perhaps the opportunities for entertainment were rare when you were employed by Raymond Proctor.
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18
‘Anger-management training,’ said Diane Fry. ‘It’s a bit of an American idea, isn’t it? It seems to go with botox and prenuptial agreements.’
Ben Cooper looked up and noticed her sniffing and rubbing her eyes, which seemed a bit red today. He had been getting ready to go out of the office again when she came to his desk. She was carrying a file, too, but he couldn’t quite see what it was.
‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘Maybe it works for some people.’
‘Not in Mansell Quinn’s case, obviously.’
‘I imagine Quinn to be quite an intelligent man,’ said Cooper.
‘Why?’
‘Well, you’d need to have some power of concentration to stay angry for so long. When most people get angry, they just flare up for a short while, and then it’s all over. A few minutes later, they can hardly remember what they were angry about.’
‘I know what you mean. The blessings of a short attention span.’
‘But to stay angry for thirteen or fourteen years - that’s quite some achievement.’
‘Yeah.’
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Fry sneezed and pulled out a tissue from a pocket. Cooper noticed her eyes were not only red but watering.
‘Hay fever?’ he said.
‘Full marks. I’ll probably be like this for weeks. Should give you a good laugh, anyway.’
She pulled the file from under her arm and looked for a place to put it on his desk, which was crammed with overdue paperwork as usual.
‘Well, I hope you feel better soon.’
‘Don’t worry, I won’t be going off sick and leaving you to your own devices. That’s much too risky.’
‘I didn’t mean that, Diane. I ‘
Fry ignored him. ‘Anyway, if we can get back to the business in hand; I don’t think what Mansell Quinn is doing right now is the behaviour of an intelligent man, do you?’
‘I’m not sure I agree,’ said Cooper. ‘I think he’s an otherwise intelligent person doing something extremely stupid. Like we all do sometimes in our lives.’
With an exasperated sigh, Fry snatched up the report again. ‘Point taken.’
‘Hold on,’ said Cooper. ‘I didn’t mean anything.’
‘No?’
‘Diane, wait. I was just wondering what sort of books Quinn reads. Did you check with the prison library what he was interested in?’
‘Books?’ said Fry, as if he’d suggested checking the sewers for evidence of what Quinn had been eating.
Cooper couldn’t help smiling. ‘You don’t read many books, do you, Diane?’
‘I’m a graduate, damn it,’ she said. ‘I’ve read more books than you’ve ever dreamed of. I just don’t bother with fiction I can’t see the point.’
But Cooper still smiled. He wasn’t impressed by this graduate business. All right, he’d never gone to university himself, but he knew plenty of people with degrees. And he’d
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noticed that it was possible to be a graduate and still be ignorant.
‘What was the last book you remember reading?’ he said. ‘I mean, really remember. The last book that changed your life.’
‘No book has ever changed my life,’ said Fry. ‘People have messed up my life for me often enough. But not books.’
That wasn’t quite I meant,’ said Cooper. He already knew he was going to regret mentioning the subject. Everything he said to Fry these days seemed to be taken as an intrusion into her private life. But when he asked her what book had changed her life, he’d assumed there must have been one that changed it for the better.
He looked at Fry hopefully. Did she understand at all? What subject had she taken her degree in, anyway? It wasn’t something she talked about very much, and he’d never thought to ask her. It would have to be some kind of legal subject, he guessed. Criminal Justice, perhaps? Something that focused on rules and procedures and didn’t involve dealing with real people.
‘There is one book I remember,’ said Fry.
‘Really?’ Cooper looked at her hard, suspecting she was about to make some cutting remark.
‘I can’t say it changed my life, though.’
‘No - but you remember how it made you feel?’ he said.
‘Yes. It made me feel filthy.’
