Part 29 (2/2)

And children. Cooper took another swallow of his beer. He liked children. He was very fond of his two nieces, Amy and Josie. But having your own was surely quite a different matter. You couldn't just leave them for someone else to look after when you decided you'd had enough of them. Becoming a parent took a bit of thinking about. And a lot of planning. He supposed he should really start thinking about it now.

'Hey up, don't rush so much,' said Murfin as they entered the pub. 'You're going to get to the bar before me.'

'It's my round anyway.'

They found a table and ordered their food. Steak and kidney pie was on the menu at the Hanging Gate, and Murfin hadn't taken long over his choice.

'Just think, it'll be one long pub lunch for me in a few weeks' time,' said Murfin, relaxing with a sigh over his pint. 'I bet all you youngsters are getting jealous.'

'Gavin, what are you going to do with yourself when you've retired?' asked Cooper.

'I'm hoping someone will take pity on me. All I need is food, shelter and the basic Sky Sports package.'

He hoped Gavin really did have something lined up to occupy his time in retirement. Too many men went off the rails, gave up trying or died of a heart attack within the first couple of years of finding themselves adrift, without the anchor of a job. It was especially true where they'd done pretty much the same job all their lives.

It wasn't as if Murfin had a sideline or hobby. All he knew was police work, his experience was in his familiarity with the local villains, his conversation was about incidents from his past as a uniformed bobby or as a green young recruit to CID. And it would all be totally worthless once he walked out of that door for the last time.

His behaviour was becoming more and more odd lately, though. It was almost as if he wanted to get himself disciplined. That didn't make sense.

'Well, it's nice to have Diane Fry back with us for a while,' said Murfin cheerfully. 'It gives us another chance at sorting out the Wicked Witch of the West.'

'Just ignore her, Gavin. That's the best policy.'

Murfin smiled. 'Oh, I don't think so.'

Then Cooper realised what it was. Deep down, Murfin had become desperate to provoke a reaction, to make sure everyone was aware that he still existed. He wanted his name mentioned to the bosses at headquarters, even if it was for all the wrong reasons. Gavin was telling the truth when he said it didn't matter any more. Nothing mattered, really a except that the world should acknowledge his existence.

'Looking forward to the retirement party, Gavin?' he asked.

Murfin's expression changed.

'It'll be full of miserable, moaning old sods,' he said. 'I've worked with enough of them over the years. They'll be coming out of the woodwork in droves when they get a sniff of a free sausage roll.'

'Yes, I bet,' said Cooper.

He smiled at the irony of the complaint. The other day he'd come across Murfin reminiscing with a few of the other old stagers, remembering the golden age when PC stood for police constable, and not 'politically correct'. In fact Gavin would be one of the last to benefit from the old pension arrangements. Police officers were paying more into their pensions now, and senior officers were affected the most.

Cooper wondered how he would cope when his own retirement came round. His early days with Derbys.h.i.+re Constabulary already felt as though they belonged to a different era. A Jura.s.sic period, when dinosaurs ruled the earth. Dinosaurs not unlike Gavin Murfin, in fact.

He remembered a spell when he'd started working lates and found himself on drunk patrol. It was that time of the s.h.i.+ft cycle that put him and a few colleagues on foot outside the pubs and clubs of Edendale town centre from ten at night until four in the morning. Each night it was a question of how many groups of young men would walk past and spot the police officers, with one lad grabbing his mate in a headlock and shouting, 'I've got him, I've got him.' How many times would he hear the words 'My mate is pregnant, can she wee in your hat?' or: 'You can smile, you know'? How many times would he hear his sergeant say, 'Just walk away, mate, and enjoy your night. You don't want to spend it in the cells.' Yet they didn't walk away, of course. There were always the ones who took it as a challenge, rather than good advice. Oh yes, he'd really enjoyed watching people get drunk as he stood in the rain.

He told Gavin this memory of his early career. In a way, it seemed to be the sort of thing they should be talking about in this manly heart-to-heart over a pint of beer.

'You're right,' said Murfin. 'Being the bloke who has to pick up the drunks every night after they've vomited on the pavement and urinated in shop doorways ... well, it isn't as glamorous a job as it sounds.'

Cooper recalled that Murfin had been with Diane Fry at the Light House on Tuesday. Murfin was by far the most experienced of his team. Over the past few years he would have been the one to turn to for a bit of old-school wisdom. Down-to-earth, seat-of-the-pants, good old copper's instinct. Not politically correct, of course. No, rarely that. But he was often right, all the same.

'Gavin, can I ask you something?' he said.

'Ask away.'

'What was your first thought when you arrived at the Light House on Monday, after Aidan's Merritt's body was found?'

Murfin scratched the back of his head.

'My first thought? To be honest, it was ”Where the heck am I going to get a brew from in a place like this?”'

A little while later, Murfin set off to visit the gents, staggering slightly as he crossed the room. Cooper began to think about how he was going to get Gavin home.

'Now then, Ben. How's it going?'

He turned gratefully to the man who slid on to the stool next to him.

'Oh, fine. Thanks.'

He looked a bit closer, realising that he knew the face but for a moment was unable to place the name.

'As you can see, I'm on the other side of the bar tonight.'

'Ah, of course.'

Yes a Roddy, that was it. He had no idea of the surname. A genial, sandy-haired youth, he was a part-time barman right here at the Hanging Gate. Cooper didn't see him all that often. Perhaps his s.h.i.+fts were mostly during the day. But he knew the face well enough. Funny how difficult it was sometimes to recognise people when you saw them out of their usual context.

When a casual acquaintance wanted to start up a conversation with him, it was usually because they were angling for information. And Roddy was no exception.

'I was hearing about this business up at the Light House,' he said. 'That's a bit of a shocker.'

'Did you know the victim, Aidan Merritt?'

'Not him. But we all know the Whartons.' He laughed. 'Well, everyone knows Mad Maurice. It was sad that no one could help him save the pub from closing. A place like the Light House, too. Tragic.'

'I heard that the quality of his beer had been deteriorating for some time.'

'I think that's right. Hygiene problems, I would imagine. The boss here takes a lot of trouble over hygiene. Take line cleaning a it's always a ch.o.r.e, but it has to be done every week without fail. If you get dirty lines, you have yeast build-up. I wonder what Maurice's cellar temperature was like.'

Cooper looked at him, his mouth falling open slightly. Perhaps it was the effect of the beer on his brain, or the fact that he hadn't recognised Roddy straight away, but he was starting to feel particularly stupid tonight.

'His cellar?' he said.

'It has to be cool,' explained Roddy. 'Always between eleven and thirteen degrees Celsius, and constant. Sometimes people leave the cellar door open, or switch off the cooling at night, if they want to save money.' He shook his head. 'There are lots of nasties in a cellar that you don't want getting to your beer. Bacteria, oxygen, moulds, flies, wild yeast, dirt ...'

'I get the picture,' said Cooper, though in fact his mind was flailing wildly in an attempt to form an image that just wasn't coming.

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