‘Some people need that kind of structure.’
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‘William needed it. It was no good for him at home. He had no mates here, and no routine. It made him edgy and frustrated. Any time he came home on leave, it was obvious he couldn’t wait to get back to his regiment. He’d go out all night and drink himself silly, then sleep all day. It broke his mother’s heart. She saw so little of him, and she was always disappointed when he was here.’ Mr Thorpe seemed to have become distracted. He didn’t look at Cooper as he spoke, but at something in another part of the room. Suddenly, the old man raised the newspaper and smacked it down hard on the window sill. He lifted it again and inspected the underside: a flattened bluebottle was stuck to the paper. Mr Thorpe flicked the squashed body towards the fireplace.
‘Filthy little buggers,’ he said.
Even from his chair at the dining table, Cooper could see a new smear of blood on the sill.
‘We get a lot of wildlife in here,’ said Mr Thorpe. ‘You can’t keep nature out.’
Cooper nodded. Bridge End Farm was like that in the summer, too. If they left a window open at night, the whole of nature would end up inside the house, one way or another.
‘Your son must have had a few mates around here,’ he said. ‘He didn’t go drinking on his own, did he?’
Jim Thorpe looked at him with vague eyes, as if surprised to find somebody sitting at his table, listening to what he was saying. Cooper wondered if he, too, talked to the cat when he was alone.
‘Yes.’
‘Who were those friends, Mr Thorpe?’
‘You know who they were.’
‘Mansell Quinn and Raymond Proctor?’
‘Aye, those were the two that William drank with most when he was on leave. They’d kept in touch for years. Quinn and William acted as best man for each other when they got married.’
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‘Your son’s marriage didn’t last, did it?’
‘About eighteen months. Compared to some young folk these days, that’s a marathon.’
‘She didn’t like army life?’
‘She got bored in no time. She was working as a receptionist at a car showroom when she met William. I always reckoned she only wanted to get married so she could be the centre of attention for a day.’
‘Where is she now?’
‘Buggered if I know. She found some other bloke quick as you like, and went off with him.’
Cooper examined the biscuits. He was trying to judge which might be the least stale without having to pick them up, which he had been brought up to consider rude. Finally, he chose one from the bottom of the pile, but knew as soon as it was in his fingers that he’d made the wrong choice.
‘Why didn’t your son come home here after he was discharged from the army?’
The old man began to stroke the cat a little faster, brushing the back of its head too hard, so that the cat growled a low warning. He didn’t look at Cooper, but at the phone on the table, as if regretting the call he had made earlier. Surely he must have known he’d be asked questions that might be painful. There always came a time to face up to these things. For a moment, Cooper wondered what had made Jim Thorpe decide to make that call. But it didn’t really matter.
‘Like I told you, he was always bored here,’ said Thorpe. ‘And he had some friends in Derby, old army pals. I never met them, but I expect he would have been happier with them.’
‘I don’t think he was,’ said Cooper. ‘He went off drinking again in Derby. Only this time, he was on his own.’
‘Was he?’
‘In the end, he had no friends left.’
Thorpe lowered his head towards the cat, which purred
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more loudly. Cooper thought he had seen a faint glitter in the old man’s eye for a moment, but he couldn’t be sure.
‘And you know he’s ill? He has emphysema.’
Thorpe nodded.
‘But you wouldn’t let him come back here to live when he called you, would you?’
Jim Thorpe lifted the cat off his lap and put it down on the floor. He got up and left the room without a word, leaving Cooper chewing the last of a stale biscuit. The cat glared at him, knowing without hesitation whose fault the interruption was. Cooper put his hand out to the cat as a friendly gesture. It opened its mouth in a sharp snarl and lashed out with a paw. A set of claws whistled past the skin on the back of his hand.
‘OK, I get the message.’
A few more minutes passed, and Cooper began to feel very uncomfortable. He was about to get up and leave quietly, thinking he had already outstayed his welcome, when he heard footsteps in the next room.
‘This is William when he was a youngster, with me and his mum,’ said Thorpe.
The family photographs. Cooper groaned inwardly. He wasn’t sure what he had said or done to bring on a burst of nostalgia. But perhaps he should have got up and left while he’d had the chance. Now it was going to be more difficult to do it politely.
‘Very nice,’ he said.
‘No. You’re not looking properly,’ said Thorpe.
