parapet of the footbridge, though the vehicles themselves weren’t visible behind the fencing. The hum of traffic reminded him of the garden of remembrance at the crematorium. He shivered, and went back to the ward and let the others take a break.
Ben Cooper held his mother’s hand for a long time, until he finally fell asleep in the chair by her bed. He must have dozed for only a short while. Yet he woke feeling as if a long time had passed and the world had changed while he slept. He’d been dreaming about being lost in great, echoing caves where water ran all around him. But the dream slipped rapidly away as he opened his eyes and remembered where he was.
He was still holding his mother’s hand, but her fingers felt limp and cold.
‘Mum?’
Her eyes were closed - as if she, too, were asleep. He wondered what she’d be dreaming about. Ben put his palm against her forehead. It was smooth - smoother than her skin had been for years. And much cooler, too.
He looked at the unnatural whiteness of her still face, and at first he thought that she must have been replaced with a marble statue of herself while he slept. A beautiful statue, finely sculpted, but lacking the vital spark of life.
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‘Mum?’
But he’d seen it often enough to know the truth. His mother’s stillness was beyond sleep, beyond the slightest trace of breathing.
Ben laid his mother’s hand gently on the cover, making sure it was in a comfortable position. Then he patted it twice and looked up at the window. He wasn’t quite sure what he was supposed to feel at this moment. He’d expected to go through all kinds of emotions, but none of them seemed to come. There was only a spreading numbness, a sort of emptiness waiting for something to fill it.
Finally, he got up from the bed and opened the door. He turned once and took a last look at his mother. She seemed peaceful, for which he was grateful. And her bed had recently been made, so that she looked neat and tidy, clean and comfortable. That seemed to be important, too.
Slowly, Ben walked the few yards down the corridor to the nurses’ station. A young nurse in a blue uniform looked up at him, and smiled.
‘Yes, sir? Is there anything I can do for you?’
‘It’s my mother,’ he said. ‘I think she’s dead.’
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37
Although it was two days after his mother had died, Diane Fry was still being unusually attentive. It made Cooper nervous. Like an efficient supervisor, she’d been concerned for his welfare, tentatively asking the usual questions to test his state of mind, his ability to do the job, and wondering whether she should send him home, in case he embarrassed his colleagues. And now she’d left a message asking him to meet her here at the sculpture trail in Tideswell Dale, if he felt up to it. What was all that about?
In the end, she’d even agreed to collect Cooper at his flat, since his foot had stiffened up and was making it impossible for him to drive.
‘We’ve had a busy two days,’ Fry said in the car.
‘I’m sorry I missed them.’
‘We’ve had a whole mass of interviews to do. Not just Abraham Slack - who still won’t talk, by the way. But we’ve also had Melvyn Hudson in, and Billy McGowan again. And your friend Tom Jarvis. He’s a straight talker, isn’t he? Mr Jarvis, I mean?’
‘Yes, you could say that.’
‘I quite liked him.’
Cooper’s eyebrows rose at that. Fry never liked anybody.
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‘And he speaks highly of you, Ben.’
‘I don’t know why. I never did much for him.’
‘They were a mixed bunch, those three. But they had one thing in common. They all hated Richard Slack.’
Fry stopped to fumble for change and put some money in the machine for the car park. The gate was unlocked, allowing them to drive through on to the track that led up to the picnic area above the sculpture trail.
‘It doesn’t surprise me,’ said Cooper. ‘They all knew Vernon’s history, I suppose. And none of them wanted to put him through any more than he’d suffered already at the hands of his father.’
‘Clannish people in the funeral business, aren’t they?’
‘It’s “them and us”. Remember?’
‘Don’t I just?’
Fry got out of the car to close the gate. The choked stream moved sluggishly just below the track.
‘Look down there in the water,’ said Cooper.
‘What? I can’t see anything.’
‘Look at the plants.’
‘The giant rhubarb?’
‘That’s Gunnera manicata, from the South American swamps. But that wasn’t what I meant. I was looking at the other stuff, the giant hogweed.’
‘Oh, yeah. And where does that come from?’
‘The Caucasus, I think.’
‘I never knew the vegetation of Derbyshire was so cosmopolitan.’ ‘Be careful you don’t touch it,’ he said, as Fry took a step closer to the edge of the stream.
‘Why?’
