Fragile Cord (13 page)

Coupland shook
his head vigorously, found it no longer hurt. ‘You’re missing the
point, Alex.’ he said. ‘We’re not looking for reasons to justify
her actions – that’s not our job – what we’re involved in is the
removal of doubt. The
how
and the
when
and an attempt at the
why,
so her family and the community
can be reassured that she
did
in fact commit the crime and it’s not an
elaborate murder. And yes, the reasons behind it helps reassure the
rest of us it’s not catching,’ he glanced once more at the
pock-ridden youth, frowning, ‘that if the wind changes direction
one day we’re not all going to go out and do the same thing that
she did.’

Alex looked unconvinced.

‘You studied Psychology didn’t
you?’ He asked as he finished the dregs of his coffee.

‘Not so as you’d notice.’ She
replied, pushing her cup away, unfinished. ‘I was only there long
enough to write my name inside the course books.’

‘More than I ever did.’

Coupland wondered whether he should
take her off the case. He thought again. Ricky Wilson’s assault was
tying up the bulk of his officers; he didn’t want to start messing
around with the teams this late in the day.

‘I don’t think
this is so much about the way we perceive the case, as the
way
you
perceive
it,’ he said as gently as he could. ‘Maybe you’d find it helpful to
talk this through with someone more experienced in this field? One
of your old professors, maybe?’

Alex reacted as though he’d
leaned across the table and squeezed her breast.

‘Well if that isn’t the most
long winded way of saying I should get my head looked at,’ she
stormed, ‘I don’t know what is.’

She stomped to her feet,
sending him a withering look not unlike the one Lynn had given him
when he’d asked where she’d been the previous evening. He listened
to Alex’s footsteps as she tap-tapped across the polished floor,
groaning inwardly for thinking he could help.

He stood and turned to push his
seat under the table, noticed he still had an audience. The canteen
staff had all but pulled up a chair to watch the both of them and
they smiled back at him now, enjoying his discomfort. He singled
out a plump middle-aged woman, smirking as she wiped enormous hands
on a tea towel.

‘Tables need wiping,’ he
snapped, then pointed to the pimply youth. ‘And get him to cover up
those bloody arms.’

After fishing around in his
trouser pocket Coupland located the key to his desk and unlocked
it, pulling the rope Tracey Kavanagh had tied around her throat out
of the top drawer, still inside the evidence bag. He held the
plastic packet gingerly by the edges, reluctant to hold it for too
long in case his senses went into overdrive again.

‘There’s an
element of hanging that strikes me as being completely
cold-bloodied.’ He paused, glancing
at
Alex, who’d turned up at his office door minutes earlier
apologising for her outburst, assuring him that she was
alright
really.
Her makeup was smudged around the eyes, as though she’d
swiped at it with her hand, and she’d looked a little shaky while
she’d stood in front of him waiting for a response. The fact was
she was a bloody good cop and he needed her on the case as much as
she needed to stay on it, exorcising her demons, so he’d asked her
to stay.

He’d wanted her to look at the
ligature Tracey had used in more detail. She’d flinched only
slightly when he’d brought it out of his drawer, and her reaction
reminded him sharply that she was already far more familiar with
the noose than either of them cared to remember.

‘What I mean is that unlike
throwing yourself from a bridge you have to gather the equipment
you intend to use, assemble it, check that it works. Hanging isn’t
a knee-jerk reaction to a crap day.’

There was a sharp knock on the
open door, the police photographer waited in the doorway until he’d
been given right of entry. Coupland beckoned him with his hand.

‘All set?’ he asked.

The man nodded in reply,
setting down the case he was carrying onto the office floor and
lifting out a collapsible tripod and video camera, which he
expertly assembled in a matter of minutes. Coupland turned back to
Alex. ‘I wanted to record the motion required to undo the knot, so
we have a reference that may come in useful later on.’

He lifted the bag containing the
tied rope, tipped it so that the contents fell onto his desk before
nodding towards the cameraman.

‘Will we be able to rewind it as
it plays?’ Alex asked, ‘played backward it’ll show us how the knot
was tied surely?’

Coupland smiled and shook his
head. ‘It doesn’t quite work that way, but at least we’ll be able
to see how each loop was constructed, so that we can be absolutely
certain that Tracey could have physically created this
ligature.’

‘Are you saying she might not
have done it to herself after all?’

Coupland
sighed impatiently. ‘No, that’s
not
what I’m saying.’

During the
post mortem Harry Benson had showed them that there’d been no
scraping or friction marks on Tracey’s skin beneath the rope, which
there would have been if the knot had been tied under her chin,
then twisted until it was in position behind the back of her neck
to make it
look
like a suicide.

‘She had an accomplice, then?’ Alex
persisted.

‘I’m not saying that either.
Stop trying to put words into my mouth.’

Alex shot Coupland a filthy
look.

‘Look, I
didn’t mean to jump down your throat.’ He smiled weakly, ‘I just
need to absolutely certain that she was capable of tying the noose
where she was.
Could
she tie this knot while holding her hands behind her head? I
don’t even know what type of knot it is.’

‘It’s a bowline knot, Sir.’

They halted their conversation
and stared at the photographer who’d finished assembling his
equipment in silence and now stood behind them, waiting for their
attention. Coupland squinted at him, mentally working his way
through the list of civilian personnel.

‘Sorry,’ he said, embarrassed,
‘I can’t remember your name.’

‘No one ever does,’ the man
said, flushing, ‘It’s Johnson, Sir.’

‘You were in the scouts were
you?’ Alex quipped, nodding towards the twisted rope. She’d always
been slightly envious of the local cub pack when she was a child;
never saw the appeal of Guiding.

‘Actually no.’ Johnson broke
through her thoughts. ‘I’m a member of the Yacht Club at Sale Water
Park. I’m studying to get my Skipper’s Licence.’

Clearly unused to any form of
attention the man’s face was beetroot. ‘I’m sure my instructor
could help you with the knot, Sir.’ He stammered. ‘I could show him
the prints if you like, see what he’s got to say?’

Coupland looked at Alex, then
nodded. They had nothing to lose, and since he knew bugger all
about sailing knots, any advice gleaned from an expert would be
gratefully received.

They stood quietly looking at
the rope. It was a medium weight, twisted twine. ‘What did they use
it for?’ Coupland wondered aloud. The door closed quietly behind
them and he realised guiltily that Johnson had gone. One of life’s
invisible men, he thought. Happier to spend his life behind the
spotlight, rather than under it.

Alex turned to leave too and Coupland
suddenly remembered something that had troubled him since seeing
her earlier that morning, when she’d been sat at her desk making
calls.

‘
Alex
.’

She paused at the door and turned,
raising her eyebrows for him to continue.

‘
Is
everything alright?’

Her mind whirred into action as she
tried to work out what he was talking about. She thought they’d
been through all this in the canteen, wondered if he was ever going
to forgive her earlier criticism of the case. That was the problem
when you let your guard down. She cursed her emotions that seemed
to be all over the place recently.

‘Yes…’ she faltered, ‘…why?’

Coupland glanced around the CID room to
make sure their conversation couldn’t be overheard: ‘When I walked
in earlier you were on the phone, scribbling onto a pad.’ He
cleared his throat. ‘What were you drawing?’

Perplexed, Alex cast a look towards her
desk; saw the writing pad covered with cartoons she’d doodled
whilst she’d been kept on hold. She could scarcely remember what
she’d scribbled down absent-mindedly.

‘Er…..faces, trees, I can’t remember,
really.’

‘But the last thing you drew,’ he
persisted, ‘when I asked you to come over?’

For a moment her forehead creased in
concentration, wondering if it really sodding mattered. ‘Oh,’ she
said, relieved as the image came back to her, ‘leaves,’ she said,
reddening, ‘why?’

Now it was Coupland’s turn to flush.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said awkwardly, mentally kicking himself. ‘No
reason.’

It must have been the
angle he’d seen them, or the mood she was in. The mood
he
was in for that
matter. Perhaps the problems in his marriage were sending him off
kilter. Either way when he’d seen the droplet shaped patterns on
Alex’s pad an entirely different image had come into his
mind.

He’d thought they were tears.

When Alex
returned to her desk there were two scribbled Post-it notes left at
the side of a coffee cup she’d long since forgotten about. The
first one read:
Charlie Preston returned
your call – no message.
The second:
The Kavanagh’s have landed
. Dialling the number she’d called earlier – she recognised
the code as a local number – she drummed her fingers on the top of
her desk as she waited for the person on the other end to pick up.
Charlie’s name had not been entered into Tracey Kavanagh’s Filofax,
just scribbled on a post it-note and stuck on the inside cover so
Alex was none the wiser if this was a casual acquaintance or
friend. She could’ve waited until she spoke to Angus again she
supposed, but she didn’t want to bother him until she had something
concrete to say, so she’d decided to press on.

If she was honest with herself
there was another reason she was in no hurry to see Angus again, an
altogether selfish one. Put simply, she couldn’t bear to see him in
so much pain. She’d felt the same with Roddy Lewisham, after his
daughter’s murder. Both men had suffered every parent’s nightmare
and whenever she looked at them all she could see was herself in
their shoes, all she could imagine was how it would feel if it was
Ben……Thinking like that scared her, as though in some superstitious
way just imagining their misfortune could make it happen and then
she’d feel guilty, for this wasn’t about her but rather the loss
suffered by two ordinary men who were fathers one day and the
next….displaced, their identities wiped out in the blink of an
eye.

After several rings the answer
machine picked up – one of those automated American voices telling
her to leave her message after the beep. At least Charlie checked
his messages regularly, she thought, so she left him another one,
suggesting they meet up. She looked at her watch, reckoned it would
take her half an hour to drive to the airport, another half an hour
to take Angus’s parents to the Copthorne Hotel where they’d made an
open ended reservation. She calculated she’d be back in an hour and
a half tops; spoke softly into the answer machine, suggesting
Charlie come into the station just after five. Replacing the
receiver she looked back at the Filofax bookmarked at T-Z, saw
there were still several calls to be made. It looked like she’d be
making another night of it.

Reaching for her car keys it occurred
to her that she should ring Carl, let him know she’d probably be
late home again. Last night had been tense. She’d returned home
later than planned, missing Ben’s bathtime which always put her in
a bad mood. To top it all, she’d picked at the dinner Carl had
eagerly cooked for them, listening to his reasons why The Time Was
Right for Another Baby.

He’d cooked them a steak.
Pushing the boat out in her view, but she’d had the sense to keep
quiet, not air unasked-for views.

Isn’t it great
having Ben around?
He’d asked
her.

No question about that.

Hadn’t he brought them closer
together?

No argument there either.

A photo on the landing wall in
Tracey Kavanagh’s home materialised in her mind’s eye: Kyle at
Disney. She and Carl had taken Ben there the year before; he’d been
terrified of Captain Cook, refused point blank to go on the Peter
Pan ride.

You’re such a great mother.

Tracey’s house had
been warm and inviting.
Kyle was clearly
well-nourished. A pile of soft toys had lain scattered on his bed;
a bookmark had been placed inside the latest Horrid Henry; an empty
glass of milk beside it. His pyjamas had been folded neatly on his
pillow.

He’d been well cared for.

Alex cut into her steak, stared
in horror as the blood oozed around her plate, reminding her of the
drain beneath Benson’s post mortem table.

A child is a blessing.

She’d found
herself visualising Kyle’s hollow torso, his organs laid out for
the pathologist to measure and weigh.
The
sound of cutting and slicing echoed around her head.