Welcome to Cooper

Welcome to our regular feature showcasing the talents of the nation’s best writers.

She was dead and dressed for dancing. Face up, that’s how they found her. On her back and stretched out across the wet grass like the only thing being killed was time. I stood at the back door next to Joe and pulled on a pair of latex gloves. Snow drifted across her crowded backyard. I thought about that sign on the way into town. Some welcome.

Her body was lying at the foot of a tree. Don’t ask me what kind. Big and brown, with blossoms on the branches. White petals, whatever. Rachel would have known what it was.

A group of men had gathered. A murder like this, they always did. No-name men in chinos, from departments I didn’t care enough about to ask. Bureaucracy, who gives a damn. They weren’t here because they cared and I’m sure you all know something about that. As we got close I could see it in their eyes, in their bent heads, in the way they were talking, in the way they sucked back on their cigarettes, in the way they gazed down at her. Detached. Like she was a bad cut of meat. Like she was a problem.

I followed Joe across the yard and he turned to me and said he wanted me to take point on this, and I said alright. I figured he was testing me, and I guessed this was as good a way as any. I wasn’t worried. I didn’t much care what he thought of me. People sometimes say I’m emotionally closed off, but people say a lot of things. A girl once said I was an asshole and I reckon she was right. The men shifted as we approached. I caught a glimpse of a bare arm in the fresh snow. Pale white.

“Who’s your boy?” one of them asked Joe. I couldn’t tell who.

“This here is Tommy Levine,” he said. “Make him feel welcome.”

I swept my gaze around the group, got a perverse pleasure that no one bothered to try. Joe slid a cigarette into his mouth. Waved me on as he lit up.

About the author

Tariq Ashkanani is a solicitor based in Edinburgh, where he also runs Writegear, a Kickstarter company that sells high-quality notebooks for writers, and Writegear’s podcast Page One. His debut novel, Welcome to Cooper, is published by Thomas & Mercer, price £8.99. He is currently working on a follow-up thriller.