Cooper looked at the photograph again. He could recognize Jim Thorpe without any difficulty, though he must have been about forty years younger. The long, bony nose and morose expression were distinctive, even under the flat cap he wore. He was standing in front of the farmhouse with his arm round a dark-haired woman in a flowered dress. She was a well-built, cheerful-looking woman, a woman that his
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mother would have described as ‘bonny’. This was no scrawny receptionist from a Buxton car showroom. She was made to be a farmer’s wife. Standing in front of the couple, and looking rather shy at having his photograph taken, was a boy of about six with soft, dark hair falling on to his forehead in a fringe. He was smiling and leaning into his mother with a look of contentment.
‘William?’ he said, tapping the picture of the boy.
‘Of course. We never had any other children.’
There was nothing unusual about the photograph, as far as Cooper could see. They were an ordinary family group a little old-fashioned for the middle of the 1960s, but that wasn’t surprising for a farming family. The latest trends didn’t reach Derbyshire hill farms for a decade or two. He could see nothing worth commenting on. Yet Thorpe waited impatiently for him to notice something.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I don’t know what you’re trying to tell me.’
Thorpe jabbed a finger. ‘There, look. A cigarette.’
Cooper had to squint to see the faint trail of smoke caught by the camera as it drifted across the sleeve of Thorpe’s jacket towards his wife.
‘You smoked. But I still don’t see …’
He looked around the room he was sitting in. It hadn’t been decorated for years, yet the paintwork and the ceiling were merely dusty, not stained yellow with nicotine. There was no sign of an ashtray, not even a plant pot with a pile of butts stubbed out in its compost. And Mr Thorpe himself smelled slightly of cat hair and hay, which wasn’t particularly unpleasant.
‘You don’t smoke any more,’ said Cooper.
‘Not for years. Not since she died.’
‘Who? Your wife?’
‘She got lung cancer.’
‘I’m sorry.’
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‘Sometimes it’s very quick. But it took Sylvia a long time to die.’
‘Did she smoke as well?’
‘No.’
Thorpe took the photograph from him. He looked at it for a moment, then he drew another from the envelope and passed it over.
This one showed only father and son. Cooper wondered for a moment who had taken the photographs, but guessed it was some visiting relative insisting on a snap of the occasion. It was obvious that this time neither of the subjects had wanted to be photographed. And certainly not together.
William Thorpe might have been in his mid-twenties by then. He was tall and upright, and he looked tough and smart in his soldier’s uniform. Perhaps he had just arrived home on leave that afternoon, and his relatives had been so impressed by the uniform that they’d had to get a snap. And, of course, his proud father had to be in the picture, too.
The family resemblance between the two Thorpes was noticeable this time, in a way that it hadn’t been when the boy was six years old and smiling. This young man looked as though he didn’t know how to smile and had never smiled in his life. He was frowning and serious. No, not serious angry. ‘That was the last time he came here,’ said Thorpe.
‘He looks very smart,’ said Cooper, knowing how inane the comment sounded. But the old man didn’t seem to notice.
‘She was dead by then.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘And William said it was me that killed her.’
Diane Fry reached Derby again by the late afternoon. The address she’d been given by the Worcestershire and Sherwood Foresters regimental office was in an area of Victorian terraced housing close to the city centre. Most of the people on the
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street were Asian, and an old Methodist church had been converted into a Hindu temple.
The original sandstone lintels and door jambs had been cleaned and brick chimney pots added at some time. But the northern facade of the entire row had been rendered with cement. The render had turned grey and somebody had chipped it off in several places, as if to check what was underneath. A few tufts of grass were pushing their way through cracks at the base of a chimney, where seeds dropped by birds had germinated in the warmth and a thin covering of soot.
‘Oh yeah, Will was in a state,’ said the friend, Eddie Berrow. ‘I mean, the bloke ought to have been able to pull himself together. He was a soldier, for God’s sake. He fought in the Balkans. He must have seen some shit go down in his time.’
‘It’s different when the shit is happening to you,’ said Fry.
‘Oh, yeah? Know about that, do you?’ said Berrow, giving her a sharp stare.
‘Why did he leave?’ she said. ‘Did you kick him out?’
‘We didn’t have any choice. He lay in bed for the first few days, then went out on a bender. Well, that was OK, we all like a drink and a bit of a laugh. But for Will, the party just went on and on. He didn’t want it to end. I reckon he had decided he never wanted to be sober again. He spent his money on booze, drugs, gambling, women - bloody hell, he went through it like water.’
‘Women?’ Fry hadn’t imagined Thorpe forming relationships.
