Cooper and Fry Crime Fiction Series Books 1-3: Black Dog, Dancing With the Virgins, Blood on the Tongue. Stephen Booth

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      ‘Took the dog for a walk,’ said Harry straightaway. ‘Six o’clock regular. Jess likes her routine. We go down the path on to the Baulk. Under the cliff on Raven’s Side, that’s her favourite spot.’

      ‘Do you always go there?’

      Harry sucked on his pipe. ‘Sometimes I vary it a bit. If I’m feeling a bit rebellious, like.’

      ‘But that night you walked towards Raven’s Side?’

      ‘That’s right.’

      ‘Go on then. What did you do while you were out?’

      ‘Do? Not much. The usual. Smoked a pipe. Let Jess off the lead for a run, and to do her business. Sat for a bit. Walked back.’

      ‘Who did you see while you were walking your dog?’

      ‘Oh, just the usual bunch of murderers,’ said Harry.

      By the old man’s chair was a little mahogany cabinet, well polished and worn with age. On the upper level was a shelf with a pipe rack, a leather tobacco pouch and the other paraphernalia of a pipe smoker. Below it was the door of a small cupboard. A tin of black shoe polish, a cloth and a shoe brush stood on the floor in front of it. Cooper glanced at Harry’s gleaming shoes and looked back up to meet his eyes again.

      ‘It was a serious question, Mr Dickinson.’

      ‘Ah, but you made an assumption. You assumed that I saw someone. Are you trying to trick me, or what? Because it won’t work, I’ll tell you that.’

      ‘No tricks, Mr Dickinson.’

      Try silence, thought Cooper. The use of silence is a powerful tool. It puts the interviewee under pressure to speak. So he waited, expecting Harry to claim that he had seen no one. But Harry puffed at his pipe, staring into the distance, shifting to a more comfortable position on his chair. The only sound in the room was the ticking of the carriage clock. Outside, a van went by. The babble of the television came from the next room, where Gwen was watching a quiz show. Cooper started getting restless. Harry looked as content and self-contained as if he were still sitting on the Baulk with his dog at his feet, gazing at the outline of the Witches, thinking perfectly calm thoughts of his own.

      ‘Did you see anyone?’ said Cooper at last.

      ‘Some hikers,’ said Harry, ‘now that you ask.’

      ‘Did they see you?’

      ‘I doubt it. They were down by the stream. Young folk, they were, larking about. The young ones don’t notice much, do they?’

      ‘How long were you out?’

      ‘Half an hour, until I came back here. Gwen had my tea ready, and I fed Jess.’

      ‘And later in the evening?’

      ‘I went out again, to the Drover. About half past seven. I met Sam and Wilford, and we had a few pints. Lots of folk there know me. Ask Kenny Lee. That’s what they call an alibi, isn’t it?’

      ‘Did you go straight there?’

      ‘Why shouldn’t I?’

      ‘You didn’t take a long way round – via the Baulk, for instance?’

      ‘Why should I do that? I’d already been once.’

      ‘Did you take the dog?’

      ‘Jess was with me. But Kenny makes you put the dogs out the back when you’re in the pub. He says they upset the tourists.’

      Cooper wondered whether Harry would get round to asking him the purpose of the questions. He decided he wouldn’t.

      ‘We have a witness who saw someone answering your description at about seven-fifteen, in the area where Laura Vernon’s body was found.’ The description had been vague enough, so he wasn’t actually being misleading.

      ‘Have you now?’ said Harry. ‘That’s handy then. That’ll help you no end.’

      ‘But you’ve just told me that you were back here in the house at about six-thirty, Mr Dickinson. Is that right?’

      ‘Aye, that’s right. My tea was ready.’

      ‘And you said you didn’t go out again until seventhirty. So, according to you, you were here in the house at seven-fifteen. Is that right?’

      ‘Yes.’

      ‘You can’t have been in both places at once.’

      Harry shrugged. ‘That’s your problem, I reckon.’

      ‘What about Sunday?’ asked Cooper, desperate for a change in the conversation.

      ‘What about it?’

      ‘Did you go out on the Baulk with your dog that day?’

      ‘Nine o’clock in the morning and six o’clock at night. Regular.’

      ‘On the same path? To Raven’s Side?’

      ‘Yes.’

      ‘And on Monday morning the same?’

      ‘Nine o’clock.’

      ‘It’s a bit odd then, isn’t it, that you didn’t find that trainer before Monday night? When you had already made four visits to the area. One about the time Laura Vernon was killed, and three afterwards. Without seeing a thing?’

      Harry tapped his pipe into the fireplace, stared at the empty grate, and looked up at Cooper. He narrowed his eyes and set his jaw. Cooper thought he was in for another uncomfortable spell of silence.

      ‘I was going to talk to Vernon,’ said Harry suddenly.

      ‘What?’ Cooper was taken by surprise, both at the information and the fact that Harry had actually volunteered it without having to have it dragged out of him with red-hot pincers.

      ‘On Saturday night. I thought I saw Graham Vernon while I was out with Jess. I was going to talk to him.’

      ‘Why was that, sir?’

      ‘I had something I wanted to discuss with him. Personal.’

      ‘What about?’

      ‘Personal.’

      ‘How well do you know Mr Vernon?’

      ‘I don’t. I’ve never met him.’

      ‘So why did you want to speak to him?’

      ‘I’ve said it twice. I’m not intending to say it again.’

      ‘I could insist, Mr Dickinson. I could ask you down to the station to help with enquiries, and we’ll conduct a formal interview and ask you to make another statement.’

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