Already Dead by Stephen Booth Page B

possibility he’d rather not think about just now.
    Cooper walked a few yards to the entrance. Across the valley, he could see Edendale District General Hospital, a complex of white buildings on the far edge of town. It seemed an immense distance away. The hospital was too far away be any use to him now. And it always had been.
    Cooper turned, recollecting what he’d come to do, and walked through the gates of the cemetery. The newer graves were at the far end of the site, and he had to walk a hundred yards or so on fine gravel that crunched like autumn leaves under his feet. Cooper knew the route well. He’d trodden this path every day for the last three months. Every day that he’d come to visit Liz.
    And then the fire came again, Through the mask, he could smell the reek of petrol. He saw flames around the door, floorboards reduced to ashes, black smoke rolling across the ceiling, hanging like a curtain, sinking steadily downwards. Carbon monoxide. Two or three lungfuls would kill him.
    He was in the passage again. A floor scorched where the carpet had singed through. Burning plastic and fibres. Blazing curtains falling on to furniture, glass shattering as picture cords snapped and frames crashed to the floor. When the flames reached the ceiling, they would cause flashover. It could reach five hundred degrees Fahrenheit in here. Boards over the windows were alight, reflecting the glow of the inferno inside. Fire mirrored itself, a vast furnace every way he turned.
    And the smoke. He was peering through smoke. Pungent and choking, full of lethal particles. The heat was becoming too intense to bear. The exposed skin of his hands was roasting. Like a joint of meat in an oven.
    And then came the moment. The moment he looked round to make sure she was still there. That she was still wearing her mask too.
    But with an awful lurch in his heart, he saw that she was gone. He saw it again and again. He saw that she was gone.

7
    With the Vietnamese connection still elusive, and the Edendale youth admitting that his iPod had been taken from him by his own brother, Diane Fry found herself winding down the day by wading through the volume crime reports. They were all finished and signed off by the time her shift came to an end. If she had to do this job, no one would be able to say that she didn’t do it well.
    Becky Hurst approached her as she was checking her latest emails. It was always wise to clear your inbox at the end of the day. Otherwise, it would just be twice as full in the morning, so you’d never catch up. And you never knew when you might have missed something that required a response yesterday.
    ‘Yes, Becky?’
    ‘Diane, we’re meeting up in the pub after shift tonight. The Wheatsheaf. It’s just off the Market Square, near the Town Hall.’
    ‘I know where it is,’ said Fry.
    ‘So, obviously, if you want—’
    ‘Yes, if I need you, I’ll know where to find you.’
    ‘Oh, yeah. But I didn’t mean that. We were thinking you might … well, unless you’ve got something better to do, of course?’
    ‘I probably have.’
    ‘Right.’ Hurst nodded curtly and turned away.
    Fry began to relax again. The knots of tension had instantly begun to build up in her shoulders. She never quite knew how to deal with social situations. She’d never had any interest in drinking with the more junior ranks. It tended to make them think she was their friend, which was wrong. If she was going to drink, she’d rather do it on her own. At least she could relax then, instead of being constantly on edge and struggling to dredge up the right small talk without too many awkward silences. Although she was only in her thirties, the younger generation of officers like Hurst and Irvine made her feel like a dinosaur. Outside the job, she had no idea what they were talking about half the time.
    She kept an eye on Hurst as Murfin joined her and they spoke quietly for a moment. Despite the difference in their sizes, Becky always