Fragile Cord by Emma Salisbury

him
look older than his thirty years. The information the uniformed
officer who’d stayed with him had gleaned was sketchy, he’d spent
most of his time restraining him, preventing him from bolting back
upstairs to his wife and child than finding out his personal
details and that of his family. Even now the officer bounced on the
balls of his feet, ready to lunge if the poor bastard made another
move to dash out of the room.
    Coupland flicked
through the officer’s notebook. Angus had been married to Tracey
for six years; Kyle attended a local independent school. They were
happily married – Coupland noticed the PC had underlined happily several times,
as though there were degrees of happiness and each line represented
a different level. Angus and Tracey, going by the number of lines,
were extremely happy. They had no financial worries, no problems
within their marriage and Kyle was doing well at school.
    ‘Can I get you something Angus?’
    Alex crouched down on her haunches so
she was the same level as Angus, the way an adult would try to make
themselves appear non-threatening to a distressed child. He seemed
incapable of moving his head, had stared at their middles all the
while Coupland told him how sorry they were, asking if there was
someone they could call. The PC had poured him a shot of something
he’d found in the kitchen, and Angus nursed it now in his hands,
swirling the liquid round and round in his glass without taking a
sip.
    ‘Can’t face it…..’ he whispered to no
one in particular. His eyes were puffy and red-rimmed and his nose
looked as though he’d blown it several times in succession.
    ‘How about I make us a nice cup of
tea?’ Alex soothed, smiling at him sympathetically as she slipped
from the room. Coupland knew it was an act, that she was using all
her reserves to stay in control, digging deep to retain a
professional exterior in front of him. He knew that she, like
himself – like all of the officers called out to this house for
that matter – would wake up one day, maybe tomorrow, maybe the day
after, or maybe even a long time after that, and her heart would
weigh a little bit heavier, for working on this case. It was the
price they would pay for doing what they did for a living, and
there was as much chance of any of them moving on to do something
different as there was of night deciding not to follow day.
    With Alex gone the room lapsed into
silence. A carriage clock sat centre stage over an Adam-style fire
surround, the second hand tick tocking its way around the gold face
oblivious to fact that for this family time had long since ceased
to matter. A leather armchair faced towards the centre of the room,
Coupland moved it closer to Angus and sat down.
    ‘Angus,’ he began, ‘had anything been
troubling Tracey recently?’
    He was now in Angus’s eyeline, could see
the fog that had descended behind his eyes as he tried to make
sense of what he’d stumbled upon upstairs.
    ‘Was she taking any prescribed
medication for depression?’
    The cogs in Angus’s cloudy brain turned
slowly as he computed the detective’s questions.
    ‘ Here we go .’
    Alex bustled back into the room
carrying a tray laden with a matching teapot and cups, a jug of
milk and a sugar bowl. The crockery was one of the expensive ranges
in the window display at Kendals - Denby, Coupland thought – beyond
his price range anyway. Alex busied herself with the milk and
sugar, talking aloud as she took on the role of mother, prising the
glass out of Angus’s hand and replacing it with a cup of hot sugary
tea.
    ‘Drink it down,’ she instructed him,
‘like Watney’s Brown,’ and they watched as he did as he was told,
sipping the liquid slowly at first, then, as it began to cool
taking larger and larger gulps until it was gone.
    ‘Angus isn’t a Salford name.’ She
twittered, filling the void, then poured tea into two more cups
passing one to Coupland and taking one herself before remembering
the PC and