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

      ‘If the pain got too much,’ said Wilford, to nobody in particular. ‘Would you think of doing away with yourself?’

      Sam looked thoughtful. ‘Aye, I suppose so.’

      Harry nodded. ‘If there was nothing left for you. No hope. I reckon you’d have to.’

      ‘Depends on what you believe in, though,’ said Wilford. ‘Doesn’t it?’

      ‘How do you mean?’

      ‘Some folk don’t believe it’s right to do away with yourself.’

      ‘Ah, religion.’ Sam smiled.

      ‘Well, it’s a sin, suicide,’ said Wilford. ‘Isn’t it, Harry?’

      Then Harry lit his pipe. The others waited, sensing an impending judgement or decision. They knew Harry did his best thinking when his pipe was lit.

      ‘It seems to me,’ he said. ‘There’s different sorts of sin. Sin isn’t the same as evil. God would forgive you a sin.’

      They nodded. It sounded right and reasonable. None of them had got through almost eight decades without committing the odd sin.

      ‘It’d take a bit of courage, though. There aren’t any easy ways.’

      ‘There’s sleeping pills.’

      Harry cleared his throat contemptuously. ‘That’s a woman’s way out, Sam.’

      ‘You could throw yourself off somewhere high. Raven’s Side cliff,’ suggested Wilford.

      ‘Messy. And you wouldn’t necessarily kill yourself.’

      They shuddered. ‘You wouldn’t want that.’

      ‘I can’t stand heights anyway. They make me dizzy.’

      ‘That’s a point.’

      ‘There’s hanging,’ said Harry. ‘If you know how to tie a knot right.’

      ‘And you have to get the drop just right, else.’

      Wilford pursed his lips, ran his fingers through his white hair. ‘Else what?’

      ‘You don’t die quick, you strangle yourself. Slowly.’

      ‘I’ve read somewhere that blokes pretend to hang themselves,’ said Sam. ‘They almost hang themselves, but not quite. For a bit of fun, like.’

      ‘Bloody hell, why would they do that?’

      ‘Sex,’ said Sam solemnly. ‘They say it gives you a bloody great hard-on.’

      ‘Ah. Well, that’d be a novelty, all right.’

      ‘You never know. It might be worth it, for once.’

      ‘There was a bloke in the paper,’ said Sam. ‘Seventy-four years old, he was. He had fastened his nipples and his testicles up to electrical terminals. They called it an autoerotic experiment.’

      ‘Aye? What happened?’

      ‘He had the charge too strong. It killed him. Blew his balls off, for all I know.’

      ‘Old age doesn’t stop you wanting it. It just stops you doing it properly,’ said Harry.

      They nodded wisely, watching the three young girls from the post office cycle past, long legs whirling as their spinning spokes flickered in the sun.

      ‘That lass in the shop,’ said Sam. ‘The one with the big bum and the bolt through her tongue. That was Sheila Kelk’s girl, from Wye Close.’

      ‘Oh aye?’ said Harry, uninterested.

      ‘They live near the Sherratts.’

      The council dustbin wagon rumbled and hissed somewhere on Howe Lane. The wheelie bins still stood on the pavement waiting for it, painted with white numbers or the names of houses. Inside the bins was the accumulated debris that could tell the whole story of people’s lives.

      ‘You could do it with a car,’ said Wilford. ‘They do that all the time round here. Blokes from Sheffield and that. They drive out somewhere on the hills where no one’ll find them and gas themselves with the exhaust.’

      ‘You’re right, Wilford. They do. Bloody nuisance, they are, littering the place.’

      ‘I haven’t had a car for years,’ said Sam. ‘So that’s a waste of time.’

      He pushed himself to his feet, leaning painfully on his ivory-headed stick as Harry supported his elbow. They only had a few more yards to go to Sam’s house, but it might as well have been miles away.

      ‘But I’ve got a car,’ said Wilford.

      Cooper waited until Rennie and the other DC were out of the office before he phoned Helen Milner. Despite the events of the day, his brother’s comments had been preying on his mind, and they had re-emerged as soon as he sat at his desk. He needed to know what Helen was holding back.

      She sounded cautious when she answered, but surprised him by how readily she began to tell him about the parties at the Mount, as if she had already rehearsed what she would say.

      ‘They go to the Vernons for the food, plenty of alcohol and plenty of sex,’ she said. ‘A bit of soft drugs too, probably. There was no pretence about it. Everyone seemed to know what to expect when they went to the Mount. All except me, that is.’

      ‘Are we talking a bit of old-fashioned wife swapping?’

      ‘I guess so. Graham and Charlotte Vernon certainly seemed to swap with anyone who was available. It became their hobby, I think. Some people take up trainspotting or line dancing,’ she said sourly.