Fragile Cord (34 page)

Pulling on his dressing gown
Coupland padded down the stairs. Relief flooding through him when
he found Lynn sitting by the kitchen table, her chair turned so
that she looked out onto the unkempt garden.

Coupland’s heart sank.

‘I’m sorry.’ He whispered,
placing his hands on her shoulders, berating himself for not
getting Joe to start on the garden earlier. He’d had this notion of
surprising Lynn, seeing her face light up when he brought her home,
at her realization that he’d been listening to her all these years
after all. And so clandestine arrangements had been made: Joe was
arriving at 9 am this morning, an hour after Coupland left for the
hospital with Lynn. He’d been giddy with the planning of it, so
consumed with getting every detail right it had almost taken his
mind off the reason behind it.

Almost.

And then last night he’d begun
to focus on the futility of it, what if Lynn never got to see it at
all?

‘Sorry for what?’ Lynn asked,
bringing him back to the present.

‘For being a twat.’ He grunted,
‘For not realizing that something was wrong…’ a pause, ‘...for
getting involved with that stupid bloody woman.’

‘
Stop it
.’

‘What?’

Lynn turned her chair
to face him; her blazing eyes drilling into his own. ‘Stop
dwelling
. Forget about
the past, we can’t change any of it but we can learn from it, can’t
we? I love you Kevin. Isn’t that all that matters?’

Coupland nodded. Moving towards
the dishwasher he retrieved two cups and placed them in front of
the coffee machine, which he’d left switched on from the night
before.

He opened the fridge door,
‘there’s just enough milk….’

‘Kevin,’ Lynn said softly, ‘I’m
nil by mouth.’

A pause.

‘I knew that.’ He said chirpily, though
his hands shook all the same.

Two strides and Lynn was beside him,
shooing him out of the kitchen. ‘Go and get a shower, love, I’ll
cook you some scrambled eggs; it’ll give me something to do.’

Coupland
hesitated, shouldn’t he be the one making a fuss of her? Yet
instead here she was clucking over him, like his feelings
fucking
mattered
.
She was the one having the mastectomy. There, he’d finally said it.
The word operation didn’t even scratch the surface yet still she
worried about how she’d look.
For
him
. How could he show her that none of
that mattered, that he loved the bloody bones of her?

‘Give Amy a knock on your way
up,’ Lynn ordered, as though sensing he’d been about to protest,
‘be good for her to get some breakfast for a change.’

Amy wasn’t coming to the
hospital, they’d talked about it and agreed it was better she go to
college as normal, no point her moping when there were exams to
prepare for. She’d given in reluctantly once Coupland promised to
phone her the moment her mother’s surgery was over.

He knocked on
Amy’s door, pausing for a couple of beats before entering. She was
already awake, propped up in bed texting God know
who
at this
hour.

‘Mum’s making breakfast.’

Amy shrugged. ‘I don’t eat
breakfast.’

Coupland stepped into Amy’s
room, tiptoeing over discarded clothing until he reached her
bedside. He planted a kiss on the top of her head, taking in the
sleepy smell of her. ‘Perhaps today you’ll make an exception?’ he
whispered, letting the question hang in the air. Maybe he did have
a role to play after all. Maybe his job was ensuring Lynn got her
own way today.

He left Amy’s room and padded
into the bathroom, removing his dressing gown and boxers and
stepped into the shower. He stood beneath the jet of piping hot
water for the longest of times, as though it could in some way wash
away his fears, as though it were that simple. The water began to
cool, but he remained there motionless, head bent, his forehead
touching the cool tiled wall as the water ran over him, washing
away his tears.

Amy joined them for breakfast,
fresh faced and animated, providing a monologue that filled their
own silence. Her date the other evening had gone well it
transpired, so much so that she’d agreed to see the boy again.

‘Poor bugger.’ Coupland grunted,
winking at Lynn, the both of them remembering the dance she’d led
him when they’d first started dating.

They drove to the hospital in
silence. As Coupland approached the traffic lights at the junction
they turned to red and he slowed to a stop. They were adjacent to
the precinct where Ricky Wilson had been stabbed; a sign pasted
onto the opaque window of the Sportsman’s Bar proclaimed they were
recruiting for new doormen.

Life went on.

Coupland grimaced, wondered if
praying to a God he’d long since given up on made him a hypocrite.
Decided to take his chance anyway.

When the lights began to change
he was already off, his hand resting against Lynn’s thigh. ‘Must’ve
rained last night.’ Lynn pointed to the glistening tarmac on the
road stretched out ahead of them. There was no sign of rain now,
although the air was noticeably cooler.

‘Good day for gardening.’
Coupland said simply.

THE END

Enjoyed FRAGILE CORD? Book 2 in
the DS Coupland Series:

A PLACE OF SAFETY

is available to download now
from AMAZON

Continue reading for the opening
chapters:

He always knew one day he’d get
mixed up with guns. It was only ever going to be a matter of time,
given the company he kept and the lifestyle he aspired to. You
can’t go about in the circles he moved in without needing
protection, needing to defend your own corner once in a while, but
what he hadn’t expected was this.

‘
Go on,’ a deep voice behind
him urged as the car slowed down a second time, a hand snaking
along his thigh in case further encouragement was needed.

He’d thought it was some sort
of test, some elaborate initiation to prove he had bottle, could be
trusted to follow orders. So he’d gone along with it, waiting for
the moment they’d yank the gun away from him, pissing themselves
because he’d been daft enough to fall for it, slapping his back and
shaking their heads, telling him he’d had ‘em going for a
minute.

Only that didn’t happen.

Instead a hush descended upon
them as they watched him and waited. ‘Go on,’ the voice behind him
repeated once more, the hand gripping him harder.

Sweat dripped between his
shoulder blades as the car window lowered. His hands felt clammy
and he wished more than anything he had the balls to say no.

Oblivious to the music thumping
from the stereo, he swallowed, pausing just long enough to eyeball
his target.

Then he fired.

Chapter 1

There was nothing quite like
the anticipation of going out on a Friday night. Best day of the
week, no question. Made sense of the endless shitty filing and data
processing that filled Abby’s working days since leaving school and
joining the accountancy firm Rogers and Black as a trainee Finance
Clerk. She looked at the time on the bottom of her computer screen
and sighed; why did time drag when you had plans?

Through the office window the
early rush hour escape had begun, workers pouring out of buildings
onto the high street, eager to catch the early bus home, or failing
that get a seat on the regular one. The evenings were still light,
although cooler now; passers-by wore jackets and woollen scarves,
young girls marking the transition by wearing thick tights under
skimpy shorts. It seemed to Abby that Salford took on a life of its
own once the offices had shut, the people milling around its centre
over the next few hours did so because they wanted to, going out on
a bender they’d slogged all week to pay for, a top night out in
reward for keeping their heads down, going with the flow for
another week.

Angela, a wiry bespectacled
woman in charge of the firm’s finance staff smiled kindly in Abby’s
direction.

‘You got your tickets then?’
She asked. Abby nodded, trying not to let her eyes slide up to the
wall clock above Angela’s head.

‘Queue was massive! They
wouldn’t let you buy more than two tickets at a time, so I had to
text Dixie and tell her to get her backside down there soon as. But
yeah, got mine and Becca’s tickets OK.’

Angela pushed back from her
desk to reach down for the elegant leather bag by her feet. ‘I’ll
give you the money for Becca’s ticket now,’ she informed Abby as
she rifled through the contents, ‘she can owe it me rather than
you.’

‘You sure?’ Abby asked, already
on her feet as she made her way over to Angela’s desk. Rebecca
wasn’t the best at settling her debts, good job she had a mother
always willing to bail her out.

The older woman’s eyes twinkled
as she studied Abby. Tall and slim like Becca, but there the
similarity ended. Whereas her own daughter was quite studious
looking, some would even say plain, Abby’s shock of red hair and
dazzling smile catapulted her into a league of beauty that she
seemed blissfully unaware of. Both girls had been best friends
since primary school, virtually inseparable; she frowned as she
remembered that was all going to change. She broached the subject
once more:

‘No regrets then, Abby, about
coming to work here?’

‘You mean regrets about not
going to uni?’ Abby corrected her. She paused, her eyes staring
into space as though searching for an answer that would finally
satisfy everyone; convince them all she was doing the right thing,
that she hadn’t been influenced by the situation at home. ‘Look, I
didn’t get the grades, it happens. I wasn’t prepared to do
resits...’ She smiled at Angela’s concerned frown.

‘…don’t look like that,
Angela,’ she soothed, ‘Becca was always the bright one. I just
ambled by scraping through. But I don’t want to carry on scraping
through. A mediocre degree today is no good to anyone, besides, the
graduate route isn’t the only way into a career – you should know
that – and who knows, if I get the experience here, maybe in a
couple of years I’ll study for the diploma, see where that takes
me.’

Angela smiled sadly, ‘You know,
Becca was heartbroken at first, when you said you weren’t going
with her, wanted to turn Bristol down...if Salford had run a
similar course...’

‘I know,’ Abby conceded, ‘and
I’m cool with it, really. The way I see it is it just wasn’t meant
to be. Besides, we’ll have more to talk about when she comes home.’
A further glance at the corner of her computer screen told her it
was a quarter to five, if she didn’t catch the next bus…

Tonight was a big night in many
ways, the opening of a new nightclub in the centre of town and
Becca’s last night out before leaving for Bristol in the morning.
It had to be special; Abby had choreographed every minute of it a
thousand times in her head. They were starting out at her house for
drinks at six, which left precious little time to get ready as it
was. She turned her pleading eyes towards Angela. ‘Haven’t even
made up my mind what I’m going to wear yet.’ She confided impishly,
‘Becca’s bringing over a couple of tops…’

Angela glanced at her Longines
watch. Stifling a smile, she made a wafting motion with her right
hand. ‘I can take a hint,’ she said good-naturedly, ‘off you go
then,’ her last words carrying over to Abby as she hurried towards
the lift: ‘Just don’t do anything I wouldn’t do…’

‘You still gonna do this?’

‘Yeah, I’m still gonna do this,
what choice do I fuckin’ have?’

‘It’s drugs though bruv, Mum
brought you up better than that.’

‘Like that stopped you from
bein’ sent down?’

Aston curled his lip, sucked
air through his teeth and slapped his hand against his younger
brother’s shoulder. ‘I’m only lookin’ out for you Earl, no need to
disrespect me.’

Earl looked up at his older
brother, wondered with a pang when it was he’d actually stopped
looking up
to
him. Round the same time as Aston’s stint in
prison, he reckoned, leaving Earl to take care of their mother and
sister. Their fathers were long gone.

‘Look,’ Earl reasoned, ‘all I
need to do is pull off this last job, then Pauly’ll leave me alone
and I can go back to school.’

Aston pulled a face and smacked
his right hand against his own forehead as though he’d remembered
something crucial, ‘So that’s how it’s done…’ he muttered slowly,
‘shit man, why didn’t you say? I can see now where I went fuckin’
wrong…’ He shook his head in frustration, ‘roundabout the time I
used to believe what Pauly says and what Pauly does were the same
ting…’ he shook his head in disbelief, ‘and to think we all thought
you were the smart one in dis family.’

‘I’m smarter than you man,’
Earl retorted, ‘I ain’t been inside for handlin’ stolen motors
-’

‘That was a long time ago,
bruv, and I learned my lesson. Look at me, I’ve turned my life
around, I got a girl, a job-’

‘Yeah, under the thumb and
always broke. Smart move, man.’

‘I know what I want now. I don’
wanna be lookin’ over my shoulder for the rest of my life, and I
don’t want that for you…’

‘
Very touching
.’

The temperature in the flat
plummeted as a sinewy black man with a shaved head entered the room
behind them. ‘Why you here, Aston,’ he drawled, his Mancunian
accent peppered with third generation patois, ‘dis is no place for
a
pussy
.’ Earl suppressed a smirk. Aston was bigger than him
when all said and done. ‘Why don’tcha run off back to your mamma,’
Pauly taunted, ‘leave Earl to take up where you left off.’