parked in New Street. Sandra came home with me and she stayed for three days. And that’s it. Can I go now?’
‘What was the purpose of your meeting?’ said Fry.
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‘That’s personal. It’s none of your business.’ He looked at the solicitor again. ‘It’s none of their business, is it? They can’t ask me about that.’
‘The officers can ask. But you’re not obliged to answer.’ ‘Were you having an affair with Mrs Birley?’ said Fry. ‘It’s not an affair,’ said Todd. ‘She was coming away with me. Well, coming to live with me. She’s leaving her husband.’ ‘She doesn’t seem to have told her husband that.’ Todd shrugged. ‘She would have got round to it.’ The tapes continued to turn in the silence as Fry struggled to contain her anger. For three days she’d been convinced that Sandra Birley had been abducted and murdered by a psychotic killer who was taunting the police with his sick phone calls. She had failed to get in touch with anyone during that time. She would have got round it made her angry. She wondered if she could learn some breathing techniques from Melvyn Hudson.
Now, this was an interesting room. On the middle shelf at about eye level was a six-sided terrarium with stained-glass panels and openings for variegated ivy to trail through. Next to it was a less elaborate container with straight sides and less vegetation, sitting among a selection of coffee-table books and Chinese vases. It wasn’t until he was sitting on the sofa that Cooper noticed the focal point of this terrarium. It was a small chameleon, vivid green and standing perfectly still.
At least, it looked like a chameleon. The only thing he knew about the species was that they were supposed to change colour to blend in with their background. If this one was real, shouldn’t it be light grey, like the material covering the floor of the terrarium? Or a dark pine colour, like the varnish on the shelving?
While Cooper watched, it didn’t so much as blink. Was it actually alive?
‘The ashes came in a plastic urn,’ said Mrs Askew. ‘We
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decided to do something a bit different and display them. He would have liked it, I think.’
At first, Cooper didn’t know what she meant. Then his gaze strayed past Mrs Askew’s head to the bookshelves. He thought the chameleon had moved, perhaps raised a front leg to allow the passage of air under its belly. It might only have been a slight shift that had attracted his attention. Or it could have been the realization that the material on the floor of the terrarium was a light grey, granular material, like fine cat litter.
Mrs Askew followed the direction of his gaze. ‘Seven pounds of ashes go a surprisingly long way,’ she said. ‘There were even a few ounces left over, so I shared them out into a set of little brass boxes that I found in an antique shop near the Buttercross. I gave a box to each of his grandchildren. That’s the best way to be remembered, I think - to have your memory passed down through the generations of your own family. Don’t you agree?’
‘Yes, I’m sure you’re right.’
Of course, Cooper had immediately thought of his own father. It was an instinctive reaction when someone mentioned keeping the memory of a family member alive. It didn’t seem to trouble him the way it once had. He found he could even think of the practicalities - whether it would have been better if Sergeant Joe Cooper had been cremated, rather than buried in Edendale Cemetery. And how much his ashes would have weighed, if he had. More than eight pounds, certainly. Plenty to have shared out into little boxes for everyone. And then, perhaps, his father’s memory wouldn’t have weighed quite so heavily on one pair of shoulders.
There were several Venus flytraps growing in the other terrarium. Cooper could see their thick triangular bases and the teeth on their traps. They looked capable of ensnaring something the size of a bumble bee, let alone a fly.
‘Do you know anything about carnivorous plants?’ asked
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Mrs Askew, noting his gaze and assuming interest, the way people did.
‘No. Do they catch many flies?’
‘Each leaf can catch and digest three meals before it dies,’ said Mrs Askew. ‘Leaves can open and close without catching anything, but eventually they exhaust themselves.’
‘Only three meals in their lives? No matter how big they are?’
‘If a meal is very large, the effort of digestion can be too much. Then the leaf dies without ever reopening.’
Cooper had always hated flies, but he found himself feeling sorry for them - especially the ones that ended up trapped and half-digested inside the leaves of a dying plant.
Mrs Askew pointed into the terrarium.
‘There’s a leaf at the back that caught a fly about a week ago. It’s just reopening now, look.’
Cooper peered between the teeth of the flytrap into the fleshy mouth, and saw that the plant had finished digesting its meal. All that remained on the leaf was the dried-out husk of its prey. The fly’s brittle wings and the shell of its thorax had been left intact, but its body had been sucked empty of its juices. The insect had been digested alive.
‘Interesting, isn’t it?’ said Mrs Askew with a smile.
Cooper turned, hardly daring to look at her face. He felt that sense of unease again, a discomfort in the presence of an unnatural fascination with death.
‘Mrs Askew, I have to go now,’ he said. T have other people to visit.’
She looked disappointed. ‘Oh, well, if you must. But do call back if there’s anything else you want to ask me.’
‘Thank you. I’ll do that.’
She waited on the doorstep and watched him leave. As he got into his car, Cooper looked back and waved. He wished Mrs Askew wouldn’t keep smiling quite so much. He was starting to find the sight of her bared teeth a bit disturbing.
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David Royce had his brother-in-law’s ashes somewhere, if only he could remember where he’d put them.
‘What’s in this cage?’ called Cooper as he waited in the sitting room for Mr Royce to search the cupboard under the stairs. The cage was covered completely, so it might be empty. But Cooper thought he could hear a faint clicking of claws.
‘That’s Smoky. He’s an African Grey.’
