Cooper Cold Hillside

1. Auflage 2011
ISBN: 978-1-61792-238-1
Verlag: Stiltjack
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: Adobe DRM (»Systemvoraussetzungen)

E-Book, Englisch, 312 Seiten

Simon Coltraine is a professional songwriter and musician. His brother Giles - market trader, rogue and amiable bully - is a crook. When Giles is killed in a car accident Simon returns to their childhood home to confront his memories and his own complicity in his brother's schemes. The Devil has all the best tunes.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Cooper, Martin

Leseproben

CHAPTER ONE
1   Two birds are strutting across the grass. One for sorrow, two for - not joy, certainly. These are crows, birds of ill omen, roadside carrion eaters with scabby beaks and a knowing look. One for trouble, two for more trouble. The collie launches itself from the path, its claws scrabbling for a purchase on the gravel, but the birds hop into the air and in a couple of beats lift their dangling feet clear. The dog slows to a canter and circles as the crows drift downwind, then lunges at them again. Still no joy. The sun is throwing long horizontal shadows across the grass and the chilling air smells of wood smoke and rot. Fallen leaves are already collecting under foot. In the valley below mist is gathering along the river, while the downs rear up again green and blue on the far side. The path curves away past a clump of birches, towards a parking area half hidden among the trees. A man is leaning against the bonnet of a car. He hears us coming and turns his head. The dog trots up to him, tail fanning furiously, and sniffs his trouser cuffs. "Mr Coltraine." Not a question. He knows who he is speaking to. "I'm DI Randall." "Identification?" He produces a leather wallet, flips it open and returns it to his pocket. I pat my own pockets, fumble in my jacket and locate my reading glasses. I put them on and hold out my hand. He hesitates then takes out his warrant card again and passes it over. The DI's ID. Photo booth likeness. Face the camera, chin up: mid-thirties probably; close-cropped hair, greying early; wide-spaced, deep-set pale eyes, the surrounding sockets rather dark. Adam's apple sticking out. No spare flesh, skin stretched tight over prominent cheekbones. "So you are." He retrieves the wallet, pockets it. "You wanted to talk about your brother, Mr Coltraine." "I've wanted to talk about my brother for some time. Several of your colleagues have been too busy to do more than go through the motions." "Well, I'm sorry if it has seemed that way, sir. It's a question of resources and priorities." A car lies upturned in the dark on the grassy verge of a country road. The roof on the driver's side has been crushed leaving the machine's mud-streaked underside canted at an angle. A wheel spins to a halt and liquid puddles under the engine. Fragments of glass glitter in the beam of one undamaged headlight. Resources and priorities. But this is nonsense. Imagination. I did not get to see the place until a couple of days after the accident and by that time the remains of the car had been winched onto the back of a truck and hauled away for scrap. My brother's remains likewise. 2   Even then I was not sure I had the right spot. All I had to go by were a couple of black skid marks on the road. But how many accident sites could there be? I parked my own car opposite and got out for a closer look. There were muddy gouges in the sides of the ditch, a few shards of broken glass and a black patch where oil had soaked into the grass. Not much to mark the passing of a life. There was some light traffic. A Land Rover slowed and I caught the pale flash of the driver's face looking in my direction. Further on it slowed again, did a sudden U turn and rolled back on the opposite side of the road, coming to rest nose to nose with my own car. That stretch ran dead straight for a couple of miles, flanked by an avenue of beeches, huge mature trees meeting overhead and slicing the sunlight as you drove between them. 'B' road, nothing special; the link between two market towns, a bit of a rat run on school days. The chief hazards were unexpected dips every few hundred yards, each one big enough to hide an oncoming lorry. "Need any help, mate?" The driver of the Land Rover had got out and was standing by his open door looking across. "What?" "The car. Need any help?" "Oh. No, no. The car's fine. Just stretching my legs. Thanks though." "OK. No problem." He got back into the vehicle but did not pull away immediately. I knelt to examine the ditch again. It was deep, with vertical sides. Enough to flip a car over if it put a wheel in at speed. At the bottom, a few small puddles with a sheen of oil on the surface. The pickup truck had torn up the grass alongside - almost gone in itself, by the look of things, trying to get close to the wreck. Some yards away were more tyre tracks. Police? Ambulance? I looked up and saw my would-be rescuer talking on a mobile phone. I straightened, then stood at the edge of the verge, looking at the road. Giles must have been travelling fast, judging by the tyre marks. He had braked hard, but with the car under control, leaving two long, straight tracks of rubber on the tarmac. Then he must have hauled the wheel over because the tracks veered to the left. I crossed to the Land Rover. The man sitting in the driver's seat watched me approach, still talking into his phone. When I tapped on the window he spoke a few last words and pressed the End Call button. I could hear his voice, though not what he was saying. He wound down the window. "Sorry to interrupt. Do you know anything about the accident? Last Friday night, it would have been, about eleven. Car turned over round here." "No... No, not me, mate. Sorry." "Ah. It's just that I thought you might have driven by the next day or something." "No. I'm not often down this way." He looked past me along the road, the way he had come. "Right. Well, sorry to bother you. And thanks for stopping earlier." "What? Oh... Any time." I nodded and walked the few yards along to my own car, where I reversed up until I could clear his wing and pull away. I lost sight of the Land Rover almost immediately but when I came up out of the first of the dips I could still see it in the mirror. Another car had drawn up alongside it and my friend was leaning out of his window talking to somebody inside. Then I plunged into the next hollow. I came back that night. The road was deserted and I accelerated up to and through the speed limit exactly as Giles would have done. It was cold, dry and clear. No moon, no cloud cover to scatter back distant street lighting. The beech trunks glowed in the headlamps. From time to time a side wind blew leaves across the cones of light. It was like driving through the bleached rib cage of an immense whale. I caught a glimpse of skid marks, then darkness until the outskirts of the next town. 3   The dog has disappeared among the trees, off on a mission in a world of smells. Randall is looking at me oddly. "Well..." I grope back for his last comment. "Resources and priorities. But now the police call me. Does that mean priorities have changed?" "It means that if you have any new information relating to the accident, we would like to hear it." "And why should I suddenly have new information?" "Your brother telephoned you shortly before he died." "Nothing new there. I told your colleagues." "Where were you at the time?" "Salisbury Arts Centre." "Can anyone confirm that?" "Don't mobile phone records include location?" "Yes, they do. And yours confirm that your mobile was in Salisbury that Friday evening. I was wondering whether you were there too. Did anyone see you?" "About 300 people. I was playing - we were about to go on, in fact, when he caught me." "A musician." He sounds as if he is scraping something off the sole of his shoe. "Yes, a musician. As I am sure your colleagues told you. What are you after, exactly? A fortnight ago nobody wanted to know. A token WPC to empathise with the grieving relatives, but don't clutter up our nick for too long. Now you're checking phone records." "You seem to be coping well with your brother's death." Yes. Well enough. Except that when I wake every morning he is the first person I think of. I am shocked that after so short a time I can barely remember his face, but his voice on the phone is as clear as ever. How's things little brother? This is his dog and his county. His house, his woodland, his shoreline. A small part of it literally so, the rest resonant with his life. I laid a fire last night, first one of the year. Sitting by it I thought: "Must tell Giles next time I speak to him". Then I heard the wind rattling the window. 4   The downs ended where we lived, only half a mile from the sea. I remember how astonishing the discovery seemed. The chalk that swept along the whole of the south coast finally gave way to crumbling cliffs and shingle, right outside our house. I could look out of my bedroom window and see the tip of the coiling roots of England. The downs were on my personal map long before I became aware of their place in...