notes. ‘And all we have to do,’ she said, ‘is look for “the dead place”.’
Cooper shifted uneasily. In the past, he’d been accused of developing obsessions. And he had to admit that it was true. Sometimes he got an idea into his head and couldn’t get rid of it, yet found it difficult to explain the rationale to anyone else. He was aware of the danger. But in this case, it seemed to be Fry who was developing the obsession, not him.
‘What have you got planned for us this morning?’ he said, fearing some chase around the countryside looking at graveyards.
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‘We’re going to visit a few people at home. If any of them were involved in what happened to Audrey Steele, we’re going to make them feel a little bit more uneasy.’
Fry saw straight away that Christopher Lloyd’s home was a modern detached house that was pretending not to be. Cooper turned the car between two carriage lamps on to a cobbled parking area, and they came to a halt near an imitation village pump. It was Mrs Lloyd who let them in and led them through the house.
‘Naturally, it’s all reproduction,’ she said. ‘But it’s very well done, don’t you think?’
‘Yes, very convincing, madam.’
‘It’s a great advantage to have something that looks old, but is actually new. You don’t have the same maintenance problems.’ She laughed. ‘Not to mention the insurance premiums.’
‘Of course.’
‘And if an item gets damaged, you can simply replace it with a new reproduction, and it’ll look just as old as the original did.’ Mrs Lloyd beamed proudly at them. ‘The house itself is period style, so it’s very appropriate.’
Period style? Fry wondered briefly what that meant. Probably whatever you wanted it to mean. Despite the coffee table and the TV in the corner, there was something about the mock Victorian mantelpiece and tiled fireplace, the framed hunting prints and the mustard colour of the walls below the dado rail that made her feel she was in the back room of a pub.
Christopher Lloyd himself was outside, sitting on a stone slab at the edge of an ornamental pond. In the background, water gushed from the mouth of a large ceramic frog. Fry had vague memories of a foster family in Halesowen who’d kept fish, and had given her the job of feeding them for a while. In this pond, she recognized several red-blotched koi
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carp and a few tench scavenging on the bottom. There was also a single, paler fish about two feet long, which she thought might be an albino sturgeon.
‘I hope the records I had faxed to you were what you needed,’ said Lloyd.
‘Very helpful, sir.’
‘So you’ll understand that our procedures at Eden Valley Crematorium are beyond reproach. Nothing can go wrong in our system. Nothing did in this case.’
Cooper and Fry stood by the side of the pool, drawn by their reflections and by the sight of the albino fish ghosting through the water. A few feet away, it broke the surface, and Fry glimpsed a long snout and dead eyes.
‘Are you interested in fish?’ asked Lloyd.
‘Not really,’ she said. ‘I was just being a police officer and wondering how much they’re worth. We’ve had some thefts of koi carp reported recently, and I was surprised at the value claimed for them by their owners.’
Lloyd grunted. ‘The real enthusiasts pay thousands and thousands of pounds for koi. Some of them fly out to Japan to buy direct from the breeders. I can’t see the point in it myself. These fish didn’t cost anything like that. The sturgeon is worth a couple of hundred, perhaps.’
‘An albino, isn’t it?’
‘Yes,’ said Lloyd. ‘But unfortunately the albinos don’t like direct sunlight. They’re dusk-to-dawn creatures, and much prefer the dark.’
Fry glanced at him. ‘I know quite a lot of people like that.’
‘I’m sure you do. In a way, a police officer is a bit of a fisherman, I suppose. You know where the fish are, but you can only catch them when they come to the surface.’
‘That’s an interesting comment, sir.’
Lloyd laughed. ‘I think I read it in a novel once.’
Fry shivered involuntarily.
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‘Perhaps it’s getting a bit cool out here,’ said Lloyd. ‘Come into the house. Have a cup of tea or something.’
‘No, thank you,’ said Fry. She didn’t intend to get too friendly with Christopher Lloyd, but wanted him to feel uncomfortable if possible. Lloyd seemed to read the message, too.
‘You want me to tell you I was involved in this business in some way, don’t you?’ he said.
‘We don’t want you to tell us anything unless it’s true, sir.’
Fry turned away from the fish pond and leaned towards Lloyd, until she was close enough to smell the dampness and decay from the weeds he’d been pulling out of the water.
Lloyd shook his head. ‘I think this may be the point where I insist that I’m not saying anything else until I have a solicitor present.’
‘Certainly, sir. In that case, we’ll ask you to come with us to the police station, and we’ll wait there for your solicitor to arrive. We must follow procedure, mustn’t we? No matter how embarrassing and inconvenient some of us may find it.’
She watched Lloyd swallow nervously and glance towards the house. ‘I didn’t… I wasn’t involved in anything. Not really.’
‘So what did you do? Really?’
Lloyd gulped again. ‘I told a lie. I was asked by a friend to tell a lie to help him out, and I did it. That’s all.’
