Stephen Booth - The Devil’s Edge

‘Possibly.’ Branagh picked up a memo. ‘But there’s a small matter of a Leicestershire officer with a broken nose.’

‘What does that have to do with anything?’

‘Well, like DS Fry, this officer is also a member of the Implementing Strategic Change working group. And it seems Fry was the only, er… witness to the incident in which he suffered his injury.’

Hitchens smiled. ‘I imagine it was self-inflicted.’

‘According to his own statement, he tripped over the kerb in a pub car park and struck his face on the bonnet of his own car.’

‘It’s easily done,’ said Hitchens. ‘I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve seen that happen.’

Branagh replaced the memo on her desk. ‘It used to be suspects who fell down the stairs on the way to the cells,’ she said. ‘Even when the custody suite was all on one level.’

‘So I’ve heard. Those were the days, eh?’

‘Mmm. But now it seems to be our own officers who suffer mysterious injuries.’

‘Times change,’ said Hitchens. ‘But there are accident-prone individuals in every walk of life, I imagine. Besides…’

‘What?’

‘I thought you said he was from Leicestershire?’

Branagh’s lips twitched, the closest she came to a smile. For her, it was practically a belly laugh.

‘Good point,’ she said.

‘Anyway, we’ve been asked to withdraw DS Fry from the working group.’

‘She was never right for it,’ said Branagh.

‘About as right as a pit bull in a poodle parlour.’

‘Perhaps we’d better find her something more meaty to get her teeth into, then.’

‘You’re going where tomorrow?’ Gavin Murfin was saying.

‘Riddings Show,’ repeated Cooper. ‘Do you fancy coming?’

‘Look,’ said Murfin, pointing at his chest. ‘This is me. Add Saturday afternoon, plus the start of the football season. And what do you get?’

‘Pride Park,’ said Cooper.

‘Correct.’

The new season had started, and Murfin was a hardcore Rams fan. So dedicated that he’d even recovered from relegation and the arrival of American owners. His threats to transfer allegiance to Nottingham Forest had never translated into action. It was inconceivable, anyway. He was a true Derby County fan.

‘Take Carol with you,’ said Murfin. ‘Why not?’

Cooper looked at Villiers, and saw her expression immediately become eager.

‘You don’t have to come,’ he said. ‘There’s no overtime, remember.’

‘What else would I be doing?’ she said. ‘I haven’t been back in the area long enough to get a social life sorted out for myself yet.’

Murfin opened his mouth to make a suggestion.

‘And I don’t like football,’ said Villiers.

‘Riddings Show it is, then. I’ll buy you a choc ice.’

In a corner of the CID room, a TV news programme was replaying a clip from Superintendent Branagh’s earlier press conference, following the incident at Fourways.

‘Yes, we are connecting the inquiries,’ she was saying. ‘We believe the people who carried out this attack are the same offenders currently being sought for a series of previous incidents in other villages in this part of the county.’

Listening to her words, Cooper couldn’t help shaking his head.

‘You still think they’re wrong,’ said Villiers.

‘I can see why they’re thinking this way,’ said Cooper. ‘But it feels wrong to me.’

‘But you can’t go to Hitchens or Branagh and say you have a feeling, right?’

‘No.’

Villiers smiled. ‘I think I’m getting the hang of the way things work here. I thought there might be a bit more freedom to use your own initiative, but maybe not. It’s okay, it’s what I’m used to. But still

…’

‘You think I ought to do something about it,’ said Cooper.

‘It’s not for me to say. You’re a newly promoted DS, you want to keep your nose clean. At least until you’ve got your feet properly under the table. I understand that.’

Cooper looked at her. ‘It was one of the things that held me back for so long, my tendency to act on feelings, to follow an instinct when all the evidence pointed in a different direction. Otherwise I might have been a DS long before now.’

Villiers said nothing. But he could see from her face that she was disappointed in him. He couldn’t help that. This case was starting to irritate him.

‘One thing I really don’t understand is this obsession with Sheffield,’ he said. ‘Why does everyone keep talking about Sheffield? It’s as if they might be able to shift responsibility for a problem by pointing a finger at the nearest city. I’m telling you, Sheffield is just a distraction. It means nothing.’

Down the room, Luke Irvine had answered a phone call, and looked across at Cooper.

‘Ben, there’s a reporter downstairs from the local paper.’

‘The Eden Valley Times?’ he said. ‘They want a press officer, then. There’s someone in the building, Luke. Try the incident room.’

‘No, she wants to speak to a detective involved in the Riddings case. She thinks she might have some useful information to pass on.’

‘Oh, really?’

‘That’s what she says.’ Irvine pointed at the phone. ‘Does the address Sheffield Road mean anything to you?’

As she passed through the corridors of E Division head quarters towards the end of Friday afternoon, Diane Fry felt like a ghost. It was as if there were people here but she couldn’t see them. And, of course, they couldn’t see her. She was only a dim memory to them, a presence forgotten in every way but for her fading signature on a file.

In the CID room, she saw a woman talking to Ben Cooper. A woman who seemed at home, occupying a desk that had once been hers. She guessed this must be the new DC.

At least Cooper had tidied himself up a bit. Maybe becoming DS had done that for him, or perhaps the serious girlfriend, the little SOCO with the dark hair. When she’d first worked with Cooper, Fry had stifled a constant urge to tell him to straighten his tie, push his hair back from his forehead, get rid of that boyish look.

She’d always thought of Cooper as the social-worker type of police officer – the sort who thought there were no villains in the world, only victims; that people who did anything wrong must necessarily be in need of help. When she arrived in Derbyshire, he had obviously been well settled and popular, with friends and relatives around him, helping him out, smothering him with support. And preventing him from standing on his own two feet, the way she did herself.

But when she looked at him now, from beyond the doorway, Fry could see that the change in him went deeper than she’d thought. There was a different set to his shoulders, a firmer tone to his voice, and a new confidence in his eyes as he gazed around the room. He had the air of a prince surveying his domain. So he was maturing. She’d never really noticed it before.

And another thing. What was it that she detected in his manner when he spoke to the new woman? A fleeting expression, an exchange of glances, a suggestion of familiarity in the body language.

Fry’s eyes narrowed. She’d known there was a fresh addition to the E Division CID team. No one had bothered to tell her, of course. That was so typical. Before she’d gone to Nottinghamshire for the working group, she’d just overheard their DI, Paul Hitchens, say something like when the new DC arrives. And he’d given a meaningful nod towards one of the empty desks.

Now the new DC was here. Fry managed to hold her tongue for a while so that she didn’t look as if she was desperate to know about her. Then she turned to Gavin Murfin.

‘So who’s the new girl?’