Instead she looked Cooper directly in the eye without smiling, and asked for a Diet Coke when he offered her a drink.
He looked at her questioningly.
‘I am driving,’ she said.
‘So am I,’ he responded. ‘One glass of something won’t do you any harm, Karen.’
‘Diet Coke, please, Phil,’ she repeated. She wasn’t sure enough of herself to take any chances with this man. She watched him amble to the bar in that gangly way of his. It felt strange to be with him again. He had been so very important to her.
‘And dinner,’ he said, when he returned from the bar, dropping a couple of packets of crisps onto the table alongside their drinks. ‘Smoky bacon flavour,’ he said, grinning his familiar crooked grin.
She felt very slightly irritated. Smoky bacon was her favourite, in fact the only crisp-flavouring that she liked. Had Cooper deliberately set out to remind her of how well he knew her? She wasn’t sure. And, in any case, she had neither the time nor the inclination to waste on such considerations. She made herself concentrate on the job in hand.
‘Look, Phil, like I told you, I think I might have stumbled across something very big indeed,’ she began. ‘And Harry Tomlinson certainly thinks it’s too hot to handle. It’s military, and it’s sensitive, and if we don’t do something about it pretty smartish, I reckon the whole thing is going to blow up in our faces and we’re going to look extremely stupid. A number of deaths are involved. At least some of them could be murder. And all but one, that I know about so far, has happened on our patch, albeit mostly on army premises.’
She realised from the way the expression on his face changed that she’d caught his attention. But then, whatever else he was, Phil Cooper was a good copper, and that little build-up would have had any good police officer on the edge of his seat. Phil’s manner had been vaguely flirtatious before, she thought. But not any more.
‘Army, eh?’ he remarked, the curiosity strong in his voice.
She nodded. ‘Yes. And I can’t handle it alone.’
He raised both eyebrows.
‘I don’t think I’ve ever heard you admit that before, Karen,’ he said.
‘I’m not sure it’s ever been true before,’ she said. ‘Well, not about the job, anyway.’
As she spoke, she realised that the latter part of her remark could be taken in all kinds of ways she would prefer it not to be, and certainly not by Phil Cooper, of all people. But he appeared to be far too intrigued by what she was telling him to have even noticed.
She continued then, with the whole story, grateful that probably the one good result of her otherwise disastrous affair with Cooper was that she had become close enough to him to really learn the kind of man he was, and the kind of police officer he was. She knew absolutely that she could trust him, at least in a professional sense.
‘Shit,’ he said, when she had finished. ‘That’s big, all right. And how like Kelly to be involved.’
‘Could you imagine him not being? A story like that breaking on his patch. He’s not supposed even to be a journalist any more, but his nose started twitching before he even had a clue what it was twitching about.’
Phil giggled. He had always been a giggler.
‘So, what do you want from me?’ he asked.
‘I’d like MCIT to get involved, but I want you guys to come in from a different direction. I don’t want the information coming from me. Hopefully, we’ll have double the impact that way.’
‘I think I see.’
‘I’m sure you do, Phil. If someone from your team were to call on the chief constable to get a police investigation authorised, based on information that has come his way from sources totally independent to mine, then I think it would add an immense amount of weight. Even Harry Tomlinson can’t take us all on.’
‘That’s the trouble, though, isn’t it?’ remarked Phil. ‘He doesn’t take anyone on, does he? He just sort of wriggles until it all goes away.’
Karen laughed. Phil had always made her laugh.
‘With this one, though, what we have to do is to make sure it doesn’t go away,’ she said. ‘It’s too important, I’m sure of it.’
‘Yes.’ Phil was thoughtful. ‘I’m not usually a great one for conspiracy theories. All too often the truth is something quite simple and straightforward. But you might have begun to uncover something quite extraordinary here, Karen, and I must admit I’d really like to have a crack at solving it. It’s intriguing, isn’t it?’
‘It certainly is.’
‘Yeah, well, you know something, Karen, I reckon I’ll probably get an anonymous call tomorrow, from some frightened young soldier giving me almost all the information on Hangridge and the Devonshire Fusiliers that you’ve just given me.’
‘Really, Phil? Now wouldn’t that be an amazing coincidence?’
‘Absolutely amazing, Karen.’
‘Thanks, Phil.’
‘My pleasure.’ His eyes were fixed on hers and there was no mistaking the look in them.
‘I’ve missed you,’ he said.
‘And I’ve missed you too,’ she replied honestly. ‘But that’s life, isn’t it?’
‘Well, I suppose so, but...’
‘Look, Phil, I’m sorry. But I do have to go.’
‘Right.’ He finished his drink and stood up. ‘I’ll call you, then, as soon as I have any news.’
‘Do that.’ She stood up too. ‘And thanks again.’
They left the pub together and it wasn’t until she was back behind the wheel of her car that she was able to reflect on the personal implications of her meeting with her former lover.
Something extraordinary had happened. Something she found she was extremely glad about. She hadn’t felt anything. She really hadn’t felt anything.
She realised then that when she had arranged to meet Phil, she had actually been much more worried about her reaction to him than his to her. She had not only fancied him rotten, she had loved him to bits. But she doubted he had ever really considered making the kind of commitment to her that she had wanted.
And now she didn’t want it any more. She took a deep breath. She felt a huge sense of relief. It was over. She neither loved not lusted after him any more.
And she supposed she’d had to see him again to know that.
Suddenly, she was overwhelmed by the feeling of being at peace with herself for the first time in a long while. She so wanted her life back. And in a strangely insidious sort of way, her affair with Phil Cooper had taken it from her.
Eighteen
Karen arrived home just before 9 p.m. and embarked on her usual round of last-minute tidying before Kelly’s arranged visit half an hour or so later. However, most of her flat was already moderately clean and tidy. After all, her recently acquired cleaning lady, Shirley, an out-of-work actress whose impecunious state had forced her to move in with her mother a couple of streets away, had made her weekly visit only the day before.
The bedroom, however, was its usual tip. Although Shirley was undoubtedly a good and thorough cleaner, and had even informed Karen that she was going to convert her house-cleaning activities into a proper business which would transform her finances, Karen was not entirely sure she was cut out for the job. Shirley — who had taken to wearing black T-shirts with the words DUST BUST emblazoned in white across her ample bosom, in order, she said, to attract attention to her new enterprise — had attitude. A lot of attitude. Unless Karen’s bedroom was in at least some kind of order, Shirley wouldn’t even go into it.