The Devil's Edge by Stephen Booth Read Free Book Online

sorry. He’s been like that for a while. It doesn’t seem to get any better.’
    ‘Do you have any family living here?’
    ‘We have a daughter, Bryony. She’s seventeen, nearly eighteen.’
    ‘Where would she have been last night?’
    ‘Oh, she was out.’
    Mrs Chadwick became more relaxed now that she had been steered on to a different subject.
    ‘Bryony got her A level results last week,’ she said. ‘So she was out celebrating with her friends from school. She’ll be off to uni in September.’
    ‘Good grades? All A stars?’
    ‘How did you know?’
    ‘Sometimes I think I’m the only person who never got any,’ said Cooper.
    The woman was becoming more animated as she spoke of her daughter. This was a far more comfortable topic, something to be seized on gratefully when life was going wrong.
    ‘We wanted her to do a gap year,’ she said. ‘The way we both did ourselves when we were students. It was a terrific experience for us. And, of course, it helped us to work through in our minds what we really wanted to do with our lives. I don’t think you can do that without seeing a bit of the world, do you?’
    ‘Perhaps.’
    ‘But Bryony wasn’t interested in a gap year. She says she knows what she wants to do. She’s set out her plan, and she needs to get on with it and earn her qualifications if she’s going to meet her goals. A gap year would just be a waste of time and set back her schedule. She’s very driven, you see. Very ambitious. Obviously we’re giving her all the support she needs. We’re very proud of her.’
    ‘I’m sure you are.’
    A shadow of anxiety passed across her face, and she glanced back towards the house. It was sad that a few moments of silence was enough to cause that apprehension. But she saw her husband pass in front of a window, and the concern eased.
    ‘She’s chosen her university herself, too,’ she said. ‘I went to Oxford. St Hilda’s. But Bryony wanted to go to Bristol for some reason. She insisted on putting it down as her first choice. Something about them having the best reputation in her subject. As I said, she’s very …’
    ‘Driven?’
    ‘Quite.’
    A very slim girl with long dark hair appeared round a corner of the house. She saw Cooper, and walked quickly away again.
    ‘Was that your daughter?’ he asked.
    ‘That’s Bryony, yes.’
    Mrs Chadwick escorted Cooper to his car. Usually people were only too glad to see him leave, and shut the door behind him as quickly as possible. But this woman seemed to want to linger. Did she want to talk more about the achievements of her daughter? Or was there another subject she longed to discuss, but was afraid to force on him? Something she might be ashamed of. That self-conscious, embarrassed look again. She was a person afraid of showing too much emotion, yet struggling to hold it inside any longer.
    ‘So what actually happened, Mrs Chadwick?’ asked Cooper.
    ‘Happened?’
    ‘To your husband?’
    She nodded, and her shoulders seemed to slump, as if a great weight of tension had been lifted from her.
    ‘A child pushed him too far one day,’ she said. ‘A fourteen-year-old kid. Student, we’re supposed to call them, aren’t we? Cocky little devil he was, by all accounts. Everyone knew he was trouble. He just kept pushing and pushing to see how far he could go, wanted to find out what he could get away with. You know the type. You must see them all the time in your job.’
    ‘Yes, of course. Usually when they’re a bit older.’
    ‘Well, perhaps you wouldn’t see so many of them if teachers like Bill were allowed to keep proper discipline in our schools.’
    Cooper knew that a lot of police officers would agree with this view. More than one of them had gone the same way as Mr Chadwick when they’d been pushed too far. There was only so much you could take, after all. Everyone had a breaking point.
    ‘Is your husband getting help?’ he asked.
    ‘Oh, yes. Regular counselling sessions.