Already Dead(105)

‘Oh. Of course, I do remember you. There was the incident at the farm…’

‘Yes, the burglars. But I’d rather not think about that too much.’

Fry looked back at her computer screen and tapped a few more keystrokes, mentally dismissing the call as unimportant.

‘It all turned out well for you in the end, though, Mr Cooper,’ she said.

‘Yes, but that isn’t why I’m calling you. You left your card when you were here at the time. And I knew … well, I knew that you worked with my brother. It’s him I’m phoning about.’

She stopped typing. ‘I can’t discuss colleagues with you, sir. It’s not appropriate.’

But Matt seemed not to have heard her. His voice kept on droning in her ear. It was as if he’d wound himself up to say something, and nothing was going to stop him getting it all out now that he’d started.

‘I just can’t get through to him,’ he was saying. ‘Not in the state of mind that Ben’s got himself into now. And the doctors are no use at all. He’s going to them regularly, keeps all his appointments. Physically he’s healing, but they can’t touch what’s going on inside.’

‘Mmm,’ said Fry. She’d spotted an error on screen. It was lucky that she’d seen it. If she let herself get distracted she’d more mistakes. She needed to get off this call as soon as she could, without being too rude to a member of the public.

But Matt was still speaking.

‘And now I’m getting worried that he might do something really stupid,’ he said.

The idea of Ben Cooper doing something stupid wasn’t exactly a new one in Fry’s experience. She’d first set eyes on him when he was making a fool of himself, and his capacity for doing stupid things hadn’t diminished over the years. She could have begun to list them and still be remembering more when it was time to go home for the night. But probably his brother wouldn’t want to hear them right now.

‘Like what?’ asked Fry instead.

‘Well, you know how the death of Liz Petty has affected him. She was his fiancée. It should have been their wedding next week, and it’s all such a nightmare…’

‘Yes, I know about that,’ said Fry impatiently.

‘The thing is, Ben is all eaten up with the idea that some of the people responsible might get away without being punished properly for what they did. Obviously, he’s seen an awful lot of cases – and I’m sure you have too – where the guilty parties are let off by the courts. Not enough evidence, and all that. Reasonable doubt, some technicality in the law, a clever defence lawyer. You know what it’s like.’

‘Mmm.’

On the other end of the phone, Matt took a deep breath. He finally seemed to be winding down, or getting to the end of his speech. Not that it had been much of a speech so far. Fry remembered him as a sullen, taciturn Derbyshire farmer who didn’t say more than a few words if he could avoid it, and then only to complain about the weather and the price of milk. This call must already have used up all his available words for the rest of the year.

‘And I think Ben might be going to take things into his own hands and make a mistake that he’ll regret. That we’ll all regret.’

‘Like what?’ she said again.

But he didn’t spell out what he meant. Perhaps he couldn’t. He was a member of the public, and they were notoriously vague and unable to explain themselves. Her life would be so much simpler if she didn’t have to deal with MOPs.

‘Well, I’m wondering if we should do something about him,’ said Matt. ‘Oh, when I say we … I mean, I’ve tried and it’s all gone wrong. Not that Ben ever listened to me anyway. Not to his older brother. Oh, no. That would be much too sensible. So when I say we, I mean I’m wondering if you…’

Fry rolled her eyes to the ceiling in exasperation and banged her mouse on its mat with an angry little flash of red laser light. So after all, this was just one more person who’d decided she was the perfect choice to sort out Ben Cooper and whatever his damn problems might be. Were they all mad? In what crazy, upside down universe did everyone go rushing to Diane Fry for help in coping with their personal problems? And not even their own problems,. Ben Cooper’s, for heaven’s sake. If there was a league table of people who cared about Cooper’s psychological welfare she’d be right at the bottom of it, deep in the relegation zone and in danger of dropping into another division altogether, where she didn’t care at all.

‘I’m sorry, Mr Cooper, but I think you’ve called the wrong person,’ she said, her fingers already tensing to put down the phone.