Fragile Cord (12 page)

He slumped forwards in his
chair, cradling his head in his hands as he tried to understand
what made Tracey certain she was making a bad situation better. He
waited for his breathing to return to normal, though little could
be done for his emotions which seemed to be running all over the
place.

The overhead light panel
snapped on, a vacuum cleaner hummed in the distance, invading his
thoughts.

‘Enough.’ He said aloud,
scraping back his chair. He stumbled over to the AV unit and
switched it off, his legs unsteady, scooping the knot back into its
plastic cover, before returning it to his desk and locking it.

‘Where’s your mum?’

‘Dunno.’

‘What time did she go out?’

‘Dunno.’

Coupland resisted the urge to
yank the earphones from Amy’s ears, reminding himself he’d have had
the same response if they’d been sat across from each other at the
dinner table where mp3 players and mobile phones where banned. Amy
simply couldn’t be bothered to speak to him.

She was lying across her bed,
thumbs speeding across the keyboard of her mobile phone like they’d
taken on a life of their own. An incoming beep and the grin that
met it told Coupland some boy was on the warpath, accessing his
daughter by invisible means. Lighting up her face in a way Coupland
hadn’t managed since she was five years old. How the hell could he
compete with that?

Amy’s smile faded when she saw
him in the doorway, her face adopting the look that signified if he
was in the doghouse with her mother, he was in the doghouse with
her too. He was unsure how much Lynn had told their daughter, but
the semi’s thin walls combined with the radar skills of teens –
when it suited them – would have flagged up something was seriously
wrong between her parents right now.

‘Shall I make us some dinner?’
he asked, his voice all over the place as his throat constricted at
the sight of her. A beautiful, confident young woman. Ready to cut
him down with one cruel remark. Better that than the alternative,
he told himself, grateful for small mercies.

‘Mum made me something before
she went out.’ Amy replied belligerently, as though the idea of
eating with him would be preposterous. Shoulders sagging, Coupland
returned to the kitchen weighed down by guilt and anger in equal
measure. He opened the fridge door, half hoping there’d be a plate
of something covered in cling film, an indication that Lynn might
not want to share a meal with him but she didn’t want him to starve
either. The shelves were empty. It was as though she’d cleared the
fridge of food just to make her point. A solitary bottle of milk
stood in the fridge door, a mouldy piece of cheddar on the cheese
shelf.

Sighing, Coupland picked up the
cheese, pinching off the green bits with his forefinger and thumb.
The bread bin contained a stale loaf, which toasted would be
bearable, and in the cupboard above the kettle he located a half
bottle of brown sauce. He went into the dining room, returning with
a generous glass of whisky, and set about making dinner for
one.

The CID room was empty bar Alex
who’d spent the morning on the telephone working through the last
few names in Tracey Kavanagh’s Filofax that she hadn’t been able to
get through to the night before. She was hunched forward in her
chair, cradling the phone to her ear with her shoulder while
doodling onto a pad on her desk. Flowers and concentric circles,
cowboy hats made out of a sideways number eight. A tortured tree.
She was nodding into the phone drawing pear-shaped leaves when
Coupland entered glancing briefly in her direction. He walked
quickly on, as though not wanting to draw attention to himself,
patting down the back of his hair and dabbing at the corners of his
mouth with his middle finger and thumb.

‘What’s up with you?’ She
called out as he moved around the room like a bear with a very sore
head.

‘Leave it, eh?’ She could smell
his breath from across the room. Retrieving a packet of mints from
her bag she ventured over to his desk where he was rifling through
his top drawer, pausing when he found a packet of paracetomol,
pushing two tablets from the blister pack before dry swallowing
them.

‘Suit yourself.’ She retorted,
‘but there’s no reason to shoot yourself in the foot. If Curtis
gets one whiff of you you’ll be suspended.’

Coupland slammed his drawer
shut and took the proffered mints.

‘Top girl.’ He said sheepishly.
Alex patted her jacket pocket for change, ‘I’ll shout you a
coffee,’ she informed him, ‘while you decide whether or not you
want to talk about it.’

She returned with a black coffee
and a chocolate bar to make up for the fact the vending machine had
run out of sugar, placed them in front of him like a Druid offering
up a sacrifice.

‘Sorry I snapped.’ Coupland
mumbled. He had a dejected air about him: eyes red rimmed through
lack of sleep, breath reminiscent of a drayman’s apron.

‘I think Lynn’s seeing
someone.’ He said quietly, unwrapping the chocolate bar and
breaking off a chunk. Breakfast so far had consisted of a Silk Cut
and last night’s untouched coffee reheated in the microwave. He
popped the chocolate into his mouth, politely offering Alex the
next chunk, which she declined.

‘What makes you say that?’

‘Last night she didn’t come
home till midnight. Seemed to think it was funny that I might have
been worried. Refused point blank to tell me where she’d been, or
who she’d been out with.’

It certainly didn’t sound like
Lynn, Alex agreed. Coupland’s wife hardly ever went out on her own.
They were a close family, doing everything together, certainly when
Amy was small. Now of course, their daughter was at the stage where
she preferred the company of her friends, and Coupland was getting
used to having Lynn all to himself in the evenings once more.

‘Maybe she’s trying to rekindle
her social life,’ Alex suggested, ‘you know, so it doesn’t always
revolve around you.’

He considered this. ‘So why
now?’

‘You’re kidding, right?’

‘So it’s a punishment?’

‘Not entirely, maybe she reckons
not always being at your beck and call will make you value her
more…..’ Alex shrugged, ‘Maybe she’s just trying to make you
jealous.’

Coupland snorted. ‘It’s working
then.’

‘Have you talked to her?’

‘Have you tried having a
sensible discussion when your partner’s half cut and you’ve been
working towards it yourself for the best part of the evening?’

‘Didn’t go well then.’ It was a
statement not a question. There was something inevitable about the
outcome of a midnight row, both parties tired and unwilling to
concede a point, neither ready for the proximity of bed and the
premature intimacy it brings.

‘Look, you need to talk to her,
but not when you’re both exhausted. Can’t you go away for a couple
of days, neutral territory. Might even relight old fires?’

‘You’re joking, she’s avoiding
being in the same room as me.’

‘A meal then. Book somewhere as
a surprise, surely she can’t wriggle out of that?’

‘Maybe not.’

He gulped the remainder of his
coffee, nodding as though he’d come to a decision. ‘Ok,’ he
shrugged, ‘I’ll sort something out.’

‘Any luck with the address
book?’ he asked, moving on to a more comfortable topic.

‘Well, yes and no. Many of the
names are Angus’s business associates, people Tracey and Angus had
gone out with occasionally to secure a deal, rather than close
friends.’ She replied.

‘I’m going through everyone
listed though,’ she paused, ‘just hadn’t realise there were so
many.’

‘What about old work friends,
school even?’

‘Well there’s the thing,’ Alex
said acidly, ‘Mommy Dearest wasn’t too hot on the social
front.’

She looked away quickly,
ignoring the look Coupland shot at her. ‘People vary when it comes
to keeping in touch.’ He reasoned, ‘You can’t read too much into
the fact she wasn’t some sort of social butterfly.’ Some people
gathered friends from cradle to grave, the friends they palled on
with had attended the same school, sat a few desks along from them
in the same class. Coupland was on the other end of the spectrum,
shedding acquaintances like a snake sheds its skin, counting his
friends on one hand. Lynn was his best friend.

Until now.

‘Only recent acquaintances
seemed to be listed’ Alex continued, ‘Committee members on the PTA,
that sort of thing. None of them described themselves as pals
either, just a small number of mums who shared the school run,
baby-sitting circle, that sort of thing.’

Out of all the
names she’d contacted so far, those that knew Tracey tended to have
children in the same class, but that was all they really had in
common. They’d earned their place in her address book because they
were the parents of Kyle’s friends, rather than acquaintances of
Tracey’s. None of the mothers that Alex spoke to could say
they
knew
Tracey,
she certainly didn’t confide in any of them. It wasn’t that they
hadn’t tried to include her either, several were keen to stress
they’d invited Tracey into their homes whenever she came to collect
Kyle after school, but she always declined.

‘They thought she was a bit
stand-offish.’ Alex concluded.

While Alex had been talking
Coupland had finished off the bar of chocolate, tossing the wrapper
into the wastepaper basket in the corner of the room. He laid his
hands face down on the top of his desk, splayed out his
fingers.

‘What about her family?’ he
asked, without looking up. ‘Parents? Brothers and sisters?’

‘A brother she’s estranged
from. Both parents are dead.’

He opened and closed his
fingers, as though checking they still worked.

‘Sounds as though she was pretty
isolated then.’

Alex wondered if she’d heard
him right.

‘You mean, “Sounds as though
she was pretty isolated” as in ‘Reasons to justify wiping out your
kids’?’ Her voice trembled as she spoke; she hoped he hadn’t picked
up on it.

Coupland looked at her sharply.
‘If this case is too much….’ he said harshly, startling them
both.

‘It isn’t!’ she protested,
dragging her fingers through her hair and wiping an eye with the
heel of her hand. The back of her eyelids began to sting.

Gingerly Coupland got to his
feet. His stomach rumbled. He felt nauseous, the chocolate sitting
uncomfortably on last night’s scotch. He belched bile into his
mouth then swallowed it away. He glanced around the Goldfish Bowl,
which was now beginning to fill up.

‘Let’s take a walk.’ He said.
‘I think we could both do with lining our stomachs.’

They headed back along the
corridor towards the main reception area, snaking left in the
direction of the new canteen.

After fishing around in the
pocket of his jeans for change he bought two mugs of coffee and two
bacon barmcakes, Alex asking for the lid of her roll to be dipped
into the bacon fat. As vices go it was pretty harmless, she’d
justified, and he couldn’t argue with that.

They sat in
silence for a moment as they ate, Coupland mulling over how much of
his job now was about managing other people, not just solving
crimes. It was obvious, he supposed, he wasn’t a one man band,
couldn’t be everywhere and do everything at once, and though at
times he found it hard to believe there were officers out there
just as dedicated, and experienced – in fact more so – than he, he
had to face facts he wasn’t indispensable. It made sense that his
role was about passing on his experience, mentoring, coordinating.
Made him realise he didn’t want to go any higher though –
not,
he reminded himself
ruefully, that it looked like that might ever be an
option.

The brown coloured liquid that
masqueraded as coffee seemed to be doing the trick. His stomach was
settling, accepting without resistance his tentative mouthfuls of
bacon. He’d not taken his eyes off the acne-ridden youth who’d
served them, was confident that only coffee, water and milk had
entered the cup, although the angry spots up both the boy’s arms
were worrying. He shifted his seat so the offending limbs were out
of his eyeline as he concentrated on keeping his breakfast down,
and turned to face Alex. He understood her anger, he just worried
she was unable to channel it. At least focussing on her for the
moment stopped him dwelling on his own problems.

‘Sometime they’re just shitty
cases.’ He observed, using his finger to mop up brown sauce that’d
dribbled onto the table from his roll.

‘They’re
all
shitty cases. That’s my point.’

‘Are you saying we’re not
treating this one seriously then?’

She shook her head.

‘No, it’s not
that.’ She scrabbled around for the right words, plunged headlong
in anyway. ‘Just not
as
serious.’

As she said it she realised it
had come out like a criticism, as though she was knocking the way
he’d been handling the investigation. She held her breath, waiting
for the rebuke.

‘Alex, it’s not a case of
treating an investigation like this less seriously – c’mon, half
the team including yourself have got families. But treating it
differently – yes, I mean, we already know who the killer is, it’s
more about filling in the blanks.’

‘But why?’ she
persisted. ‘So we can justify her actions? How far back will we
have to go to find the moment we’re looking for, the exact moment
that we can point to and say
Yeah, that’s
the reason she did it
.’

Her voice had risen slightly,
the canteen was almost deserted and the staff behind the counter
were watching them with interest, the spotty boy scratching his
arms absentmindedly.