Fragile Cord (3 page)

‘Ye-’

‘No!’ Were the opposing
replies, until Carl, capitulating, backed Alex up.

‘No way, Tiger! Let’s
concentrate on your breakfast and getting ready for school, eh?’
Ben’s shoulders drooped as he chewed his cereal deliberately slow.
Alex looked at him sternly before squeezing round the table to
plant a kiss on the top of his head.

‘Don’t sulk just because you
didn’t get your own way.’ She scolded him.

‘But I thought that was the
whole point of sulking.’ Carl quipped, dropping his eyes when Alex
levelled her gaze at him. She hated it when he tried to be funny in
front of their son. What he saw as a bit of fun she viewed as a
lack of respect, challenging her authority. Carl scowled as he
poured them both a coffee, banging mugs onto the counter top and
deliberately slopping milk onto the table. Ben giggled. Sheepish,
Carl mopped up the mess with his sleeve. He looked over the top of
the cereal box at Alex, taking in the new clothes.

‘You look great.’

Blushing, and feeling a bit
mean for being short with him, she smiled, ‘Now I’ve taken the
sergeant’s exams I thought it was about time to start dressing the
part too. Let the buggers know I mean business.’

Carl’s face fell.

‘
Ally
,’ he
broached carefully, aware that seven year old boys had the uncanny
ability to tune into Adult Conversations at sixty paces.

‘Mmmmm…….?’
She responded absentmindedly, taking a sip of her coffee as she
read the morning paper’s headline:
Man
critical after a family night out.
The
article showed a holiday snap of the victim relaxing on a bar stool
beaming into the camera. He was wearing a sleeveless t-shirt;
sunglasses perched on the top of his head. The picture had been
taken a few days into the trip, bright pink skin just beginning to
turn brown.

‘….so that’s a yes then?’

Shit.

Alex had missed what Carl was saying,
the hopeful tone in his voice alerted her to proceed with caution.
If she was committing herself to something she wanted all the
details first. Trying not to glance at the clock on the wall – he
hated it when she clock watched at home – she looked over at Ben
who was following the conversation with interest, a mischievous
smile playing on his lips.

‘Go and brush your teeth love.’ She
instructed him, wincing as he scraped back his chair and walked
slowly to the kitchen door, trying to eavesdrop a while longer.

‘Hurry!’ She urged, openly glancing
back at the clock and seeing it was twenty to eight.

She turned back to Carl, who was waiting
expectantly for her reply.

‘We could do with a night out.’ He
prompted, ‘Mum and Dad’ll have Ben for the night, we can go to one
of those fancy wine bars on the top road.’

‘Don’t fancy this one.’ She said
pointedly, holding open the newspaper so he could see the article
about the man who’d been stabbed outside a local bar on Swinton’s
precinct.

‘It can be anywhere you want.’ He
reassured her, ‘Let me wine you and dine you, then take you to
bed….’

Ah
.

Now she understood.

‘Carl, we talked about this already-’
she began.

‘No
you
talked,’ he
interrupted, ‘threw up a handful of reasons why another baby’s out
of the question…..’ his voice trailed off and he looked at her,
willing her to help him out a little. Her silence spurred him
on.

‘…you’ll be running out of excuses,
soon.’ He hurled at her before getting up from the table, clearing
the plates away noisily.

It was obviously his turn to sulk.

‘Look, it’s not that I don’t want
another baby, Carl,’ She countered. ‘It’s just that, well how can
we afford it?….. what with your income being unpredictable.’

It was true enough. Since he’d returned
from his voluntary work in Africa he’d had a string of low paid
jobs that he quit after a few weeks, all for a variety of reasons,
but basically because he hated the thought of being tied to a desk
somewhere, joining the commuter line each morning that snaked into
Salford Crescent exiting ten minutes later at Manchester
Piccadilly, pouring out from the confines of the station like
worker ants. ‘I’m sorry Ally,’ he placated, ‘but I get stifled
driving a desk.’

Alex’s face was impassive as he said
this, her mind wandering, counting the different ways the predators
she came into contact with stifled their victims. Carl’s voice
broke into her thoughts: ‘It’s why I put myself back through
college, Ally, set up the consultancy….so at least I can still pay
my way.’

The casual hours fitted around Ben’s
schooling too, and while Carl’d never make a fortune, it provided
him with money he could call his own. The truth of the matter was
if they both wanted another baby they would manage. Alex constantly
baulking at the idea had been an unspoken area of tension between
them for some time. Until now.

‘Is it me?’ he blurted out, ‘Do you not
want another child with me?’ he asked her, wounded. Behind him, Ben
hovered in the doorway, soaking up the atmosphere like sponge
fingers in a trifle. He looked from Carl to Alex, his brow
furrowing at the raised voices.

Every time Alex looked at her son her
heart filled with love, pride – and dread. He was the centre of her
world, was there really space for another child in their lives? She
couldn’t imagine loving anyone as much as Ben. Her feelings for
Carl were different, not a lesser love, she was sure of that, just
impossible to compare. Her love for Ben was unconditional, blind.
Having a son made her understand the mothers who shielded grown men
during police raids, giving them false alibis and turning up
religiously for prison visits no matter what they’d done. Mothers
had the capacity to stand by their sons long after their fathers
had walked away to create new lives and new offspring that didn’t
bring shame and disappointment to their door. Mothers stuck by the
sons they’d been given, for they still saw the boy and not the
man.

The enormity of such unconditional love
overwhelmed her; did she really have the capacity for more?

She pushed back her chair, picking her
car keys up from the kitchen counter. ‘I’ve got to go.’

Carl looked up at her with
surprise.

‘But you haven’t finished your
coffee.’

‘I’ll get one at work.’

Ruffling Ben’s hair as she passed him
in the doorway to let him know everything was OK, she checked her
appearance in the hall mirror before leaving their small Victorian
semi and climbing into her old Fiesta parked on the tarmac
drive.

As she turned the key in the ignition
Alex replayed their conversation. She couldn’t begin to tell Carl
the conflicting thoughts that were darting round her brain right
now; all she knew was that a night of alcohol-fuelled passion was
the last thing she needed.

Pulling up outside the newsagents on
the corner of their road she left the engine running while she ran
inside the shop buy a packet of mints, popping one into her mouth
and crunching determinedly before slipping back into the car,
indicating then pulling out into the flow of slow moving traffic
making its way towards Salford’s city centre. The coffee Carl made
her had been too strong, had left a distinctly bitter taste in her
mouth.

Coupland moved across the CID
room acknowledging the detectives already present. His bum cheeks
had just made contact with his chair when an authoritative voice
set them off twitching uncontrollably:

‘Need your report on the
stabbing within the hour, Sergeant.’

DCI Curtis didn’t wait for a
response, moving on instead to his own cramped office to sift
through the witness statements gathered at the wine bar where Ricky
Wilson had been celebrating before his attack. Coupland bit back a
retort about knowing how to do his bloody job, preferring to keep
his arse out of whipping range for now. His attention was grabbed
by a commotion going on in the corridor. An incident room was being
set up in the side room next door; two uniforms were manoeuvring a
table through the door, Chuckle Brothers’ style, negotiating the
legs through the narrow space. ‘Need a hand Jim?’ Coupland called
to the larger of the two men, a message coming from the officer’s
radio obliterated part of his response, ‘cough’ being the only word
Coupland could catch.

He’d gone home long enough to
shower and change, quietly, without waking Lynn. A sister at the
Neonatal Intensive Care Unit at Hope Hospital she’d just come off a
double shift, would castrate him in a heartbeat if he made the
mistake of waking her. A half-hearted shave had left clumps of
stubble under his chin. He’d needed caffeine, but not so badly he’d
risk clattering about in the kitchen, he was in major bad books
already. He sat now nursing a vending machine latte, the plastic
tasting liquid doing nothing to revive his enthusiasm at the
prospect of trying to decipher his own handwriting. Things hadn’t
been great between him and Lynn recently, but with luck and a
prevailing wind normal marital relations would be resumed again
sometime soon. His fingers started to skip along the computer
keyboard at the prospect of this, a smile starting to form on his
lips. He could but live in hope.

Alex Moreton walked
purposefully down the recently decorated corridor, picking an
imaginary piece of thread from her jacket lapel as she turned to
enter the lions’ den. Her confidence had grown in line with her
ambition over the last couple of years; there was no doubt in
Coupland’s mind she was destined for great things.

She waltzed into the CID room,
twirling around in a suit he hadn’t seen before to the sound of
wolf whistles and catcalls before getting down to the mundane tasks
of the day. She accepted the attention of her colleagues now in the
way it was intended: The universal piss take was the great leveller
of them all – given to anyone who looked as though they were trying
too hard - turning up in a new clothes or with salon-cut hair, even
Coupland’s visit to the dry cleaners earned a round of applause.
They hadn’t seen the light or anything, and the men still liked to
chance their arm – Coupland himself told jokes that would have him
hauled up to Complaints if Alex ever decided to get arsey but she
had her own armoury of deadly bloke jokes and wasn’t afraid to use
them.

Giving in to
his thirst Coupland got up from his seat and headed back down the
corridor to the drinks machine for his second drink of the day. The
message above the coin slot instructed:
Please use correct money as no change given.
He dug around in his pocket for coins just as
Alex popped her head into the corridor, asking if he’d shout her a
drink. Finding several fifty pence pieces Coupland held up the
coins like an exhibit in a trial.

‘No problem.’ He offered, ‘What
do you want?’

Alex knew the odds on getting
her first choice was slim. The black coffee had run out weeks ago
and the tomato soup – which had been replenished, now tasted like
Bovril. Content to relegate her choice of beverage to fate she
replied:

‘Cheers Sir, I’ll have
anything.’

‘Tea?
Cappuccino?’ Coupland enquired, his questions met by a
disinterested shrug of the DC’s shoulders. ‘
Bovril?
’ he persisted.

No reply.

He turned in
time to see Alex already had retreated into the CID Room, arms out,
palms facing upwards as if saying
whatever.

Coupland understood, fed his
money into the coin slot before punching a series of random
numbers.

Tea, Coffee, Soup. Milk or
Sugar.

They’d not be able to taste the
difference anyway.

‘Did you get dressed in the
dark this morning?’ Alex shot at Coupland as he handed her the
brown coloured liquid the machine had grudgingly spat out moments
earlier. His suit was the usual off-grey, pilled at the sleeves
ensemble he climbed into most mornings, but today the shirt was
more skewed than normal and clashed angrily with the tie knotted
tightly at his neck. An expanse of tripe-like flesh hung proudly
over the buckle of his belt.

‘I did as a matter of fact.
Trying to keep on the right side of Lynn.’

‘Things any better now?’

Coupland hesitated. He didn’t
like bringing his private life into work, didn’t even keep photos
of his family on his desk, as though their proximity to the
bastards he came in contact with would somehow taint them. But then
he’d blurred the lines between work and home when he’d gone for a
drink with a civilian call handler who brought bunny boiling to a
whole new level.

‘She still doesn’t believe
nothing happened.’ Coupland shook his head, as though he was the
injured party. ‘Can’t understand why Adele would’ve come round to
the house if there wasn’t more to it.’ he shrugged, ‘thing is,
neither can I.’

‘Perhaps her guide dog had lost
his sense of smell.’

‘Ha bloody Ha. And you wonder
why I don’t bother saying anything.’

Alex flushed, ‘Sorry…..but
let’s be honest here, you were flattered that someone else with a
pulse actually fancied you…….can you honestly say things wouldn’t
have progressed if Lynn hadn’t found out? Seems to me she’s right
to be upset.’ It seemed to Alex that Adele Gunnell was loopy in the
head for looking twice at Coupland in the first place, but then
there was no accounting for taste. Luckily the telephone operator
had been on a fixed term contract that hadn’t been renewed, but
she’d still managed to cause Coupland maximum embarrassment and
more worryingly left a fracture in his marriage he was desperately
trying to heal.

Coupland scowled, ‘I get this
at home,’ he dropped his voice as officers filed into the room for
morning prayers. ‘I don’t need it here too.’