Already Dead(85)

He felt that shivery anticipation, his senses honed to an unusual sharpness. And there was a smell … It was something he couldn’t identify, and he wasn’t even sure it existed. So he’d better be careful that he didn’t mention it to anyone, in case they thought he was mad.

He remembered Claire telling him that she sometimes experienced phantom smells when she was about to have a migraine. But that was Claire. She was the migraine type. As far as he could remember, he’d never suffered a migraine in his life.

‘You’re looking better, Ben,’ said Carol Villiers, when she met him by his car a few minutes later.

‘Am I?’ said Cooper, surprised.

‘Definitely.’

Cooper had to admit that the tremors had gone. He’d hardly coughed this morning. The pain was still there, but subdued and in the background. As long as he kept his mind on other things, it was like an analgesic.

‘So it seems Mr Turner’s paintballing injuries were caused by his immediate boss at Prospectus Assurance, Nathan Baird, and a colleague, Ralph Edge, who was supposed to be his friend,’ said Villiers.

He smiled with a sense of anticipation again. ‘Yes, that’s right. Prospectus Assurance.’

Villiers shook her head. ‘Ben, you’re very frustrating to talk to sometimes. You always were, actually.’

‘Was I?’

‘Absolutely. But you’re worse now. You hardly talk at all. And when you do, you don’t seem to make any sense.’

Villiers was bringing him up to date on the latest information from the briefing of the previous day. Cooper listened with interest to an account of Luke Irvine’s theory about angry insurance policy holders, but then found his attention wandering. Delays in getting forensic results and threats of legal action didn’t seem relevant to him.

‘Uh-uh,’ said Cooper. Then again, when her voice stopped. ‘Uh-uh.’

Villiers looked at him. ‘You said yesterday you were really interested in this case.’

‘Oh, yeah. That’s all fascinating,’ he said. ‘I was just thinking about … something else.’

She sighed. ‘As usual.’

They’d reached the outer cordon of the crime scene, lengths of tape strung between the trees and guarded by a uniformed officer with a clipboard. SOCOs in scene suits were moving among the trees and a group of officers were picking their way up the slope.

‘They had to dam the stream to be able to pump the water out,’ said Villiers. ‘I think forensics are still working on the immediate site.’

‘There seems to be a lot of activity, though,’ said Cooper.

‘Yes, there is.’ Villiers looked round. ‘Oh, damn. Keep your head down.’

Diane Fry stepped out of her Audi and looked around the scene at Sparrow Wood. It was seething with activity. As she passed the constable on duty at the cordon, she took a glance at the scene log to see who was already present. There were the usual suspects, the same cast of characters who appeared at the scene of every suspicious death. Forensics, a few uniformed officers to secure the scene, others to conduct a search. Lots of familiar faces. Some of them too familiar.

She stopped, turned back towards the cordon. Yes – much too familiar.

Fry splashed across the verge, the remains of a path already churned to mud. A female officer grasped her arm to support her as she skidded and almost covered the last few yards on her backside.

‘Thank you,’ she said, keeping her eye on the figure she’d spotted.

She reached the cordon and faced him. He didn’t look away, didn’t try to hide his face this time.

‘What are you doing here, Ben?’ she said.

Cooper didn’t even blink at her tone.

‘I’m outside the cordon,’ he said. ‘Like any other member of the public.’

‘That doesn’t answer my question.’

‘I don’t need to answer your questions. I’m a law-abiding citizen standing on a public highway like anyone else, watching our public servants go about their business.’

She gritted her teeth, fighting a conflict within her. There was only one thing she could do if her suspicions were correct. Loyalties had to be broken. There was no other choice.

‘If you get in the way,’ she said, ‘you realise I might have to arrest you.’

Cooper raised an eyebrow. ‘Would that give you some kind of satisfaction, Diane?’ he said quietly.

She watched the rain running off his face, the lights of the vehicles reflected in the wet slickness of his coat, water droplets dripping on to his shoulders like jewels, sparkling as they caught the lights. He looked like the picture of someone else she’d been imagining. But he was just Ben Cooper.