heritage centres. It had meant, for once, that Liz didn’t talk only about the wedding. He cared about her deeply, of course. Yet he was already starting to feel exhausted by the subject.
Wearily, Cooper stopped for a moment to gaze out of the window of the CID room at the rooftops of the town, longing to be out there in the open. But he was stuck here for quite a while yet, head down, repeating details he’d already given several times over.
At the same time, he was waiting impatiently for something to be decided. And waiting, as everyone knew, was the most difficult thing in the world.
‘Daydreaming, Ben?’
He started, and turned to find Diane Fry at his shoulder. She had never lost that ability to creep up on him when he wasn’t expecting it. It was a trick that made him feel particularly vulnerable.
‘Oh, Diane.’ He stood up eagerly. ‘Is there any…?’
‘News? Yes, the CPS have made a decision. Quick work, for them. But they’ve established precedents in the last few years. Similar cases, with similar reasons for their decision.’
‘What decision?’
‘No prosecution,’ said Fry. ‘Not in the public interest.’
‘Oh, thank God.’
‘I’m pleased for your brother, Ben.’
‘And it’s a victory for you too.’
A shadow passed across her face. ‘A victory of sorts,’ she said.
‘No, you did a really good job at the farm,’ said Cooper.
‘Average, I thought.’
‘Well, anyway… Thanks, Diane. I just wanted to say that.’
‘I didn’t do it as a favour to you.’
‘I’m sure you didn’t. But I’m saying thank you nevertheless.’
Cooper wondered why it always seemed to end up like this between them, why even saying thank you had to sound like an argument.
‘You know, when you first came to E Division,’ he said, ‘I really thought we would be able to work together.’
‘It’s too late for that now. There’s one DS too many in Edendale. A team can only have one leader.’
‘What went wrong, Diane?’ he asked, hearing the echo of a question he’d asked Russell Edson not so long ago
‘Wrong? I couldn’t say.’
Cooper gazed at her, but she looked away. To his ears, her answer seemed to mean ‘I don’t want to say’. Perhaps she just liked to give the impression that she knew more than she was telling. On the other hand, he couldn’t resist a nagging suspicion that she did know something he didn’t.
He was sure of one thing, though. He would never find out what it was unless he asked her exactly the right question.
‘You had a tough one in this Riddings place, from what I hear,’ said Fry. ‘Too many people with malicious intent. Whether there’s a prosecution or not, it never makes for a good outcome.’
Cooper wondered if that was a subtle dig, some oblique reference to the Bridge End Farm incident.
‘Matt was a different case,’ he said.
‘I know the difference,’ said Fry. ‘There are people who think they’re doing the right thing, protecting their families. And there are others who know that what they’re doing is wrong, but don’t care. I met one of those not very long ago, in Birmingham. He was as close to me as your brother is to you, genetically speaking. In other ways, we were worlds apart. But he’s gone now.’
‘Oh, you mean your biological father. He’s still alive, though, isn’t he?’
‘Yes, as far as I know. But to be honest, I wish I’d killed him.’
‘Not really,’ said Cooper, shocked that she could even contemplate the idea.
‘Yes, really.’
He began to feel angry. ‘If both your parents had died, you wouldn’t even think of saying that.’
She looked at him then, a mixture of emotions passing across her face. He wondered which of them would win. But this was Diane Fry he was talking to.
‘I suppose I ought to apologise,’ she said.
‘Oh, don’t feel that you have to.’
‘We’re so different, you and me. I’ll never understand your world. And you, Ben, will never understand mine. I’m not going to apologise for that.’
‘That wasn’t… Oh, never mind.’
‘I am sorry about your parents, really. I imagine it must have been hard.’
‘Yes. But it’s only an effort of the imagination with you. You don’t really understand, do you?’
Fry was silent for a moment. ‘I don’t think I ever did,’ she said. ‘That’s one thing you’re right about.’
He searched for something else to say. But he saw Gavin Murfin watching them from across the room, and only one thing came to mind.
‘So were there any repercussions for you, Diane? I mean from your own, er… incident in Nottingham?’
‘I received words of advice.’
‘Lucky.’
‘Oh, yeah.’
Cooper watched Fry walk away. He hadn’t asked her whether she had been successful in obtaining a transfer, or finding another job. He knew she’d been looking for a few weeks now. If she did, though, he would be the last person she told.
Well, one thing was certain. When she did go, Fry would be remembered. Though maybe not for the right reasons. Murfin still talked about the battered chips he’d seen in the Black Country, when he was there with Fry on an inquiry. He’d been trying to persuade his local chippy to make them for him ever since. Luckily for his arteries, they’d refused so far.
Fry paused in the doorway, caught once more in the act of passing from one place to another. It was the way that Cooper would always imagine her.
‘By the way,’ she said, ‘who have you got in Interview Room One?’
‘It’s my Riddings suspect,’ said Cooper. ‘Name of Edson.’
In Interview Room One, Cooper sat down next to DI Hitchens and regarded the man across the table. He was accompanied by his solicitor, and he looked relaxed and confident.
Cooper recognised that look. It was in the eyes and mouth mostly. Without the make-up and the false beard, the similarity was obvious. His hair was dark, but swept back just like his father’s. It was the same sardonic eyebrow, the same supercilious curl to the lip.
For Cooper, the surprising thing was that he hadn’t recognised this man when he’d seen him with Adrian Summers last week. Thursday, that must have been, not long after he’d visited Riddings Lodge for the first time. He’d experienced a feeling of recognition, but it hadn’t clicked into place. It was a problem when you saw people out of context. In the end, it was only Gamble’s photograph that had made everything fall into place. But at least he’d found his missing Dave.
‘You are David Edson,’ said Hitchens, opening the interview with the tapes running. ‘The son of Mr Russell Edson, of Riddings Lodge?’
‘The same.’
‘We understand your father was a very wealthy man. A big lottery winner?’
‘He certainly was. And here I am, struggling to scrape a living.’
‘As a children’s entertainer,’ said Cooper, ‘if I’m not mistaken.’
The eyebrow lifted and the curl came to the mouth as David Edson smiled.
‘Oh, you saw me.’
‘Yes, of course. No one at Riddings Show could have missed you. The famous Doctor Woof.’
‘Well, that’s just a little hobby of mine. Not what I do to make a living.’
‘Especially when you don’t charge for your services, but volunteer to do it for nothing.’
‘True.’
