he knew it would, just telling Fry about it all helped him to get things clear in his mind. He could detect the weaknesses in his own arguments by watching her face and reflecting on his words. When he’d finished, he knew what he should be doing next, what questions he should be asking. And Fry had hardly needed to say anything.
‘Thanks, Diane,’ he said.
‘I didn’t do anything.’
A woman stepped out from behind the van. Cooper wondered if she’d been there all the time. Fry introduced her as Rachel Murchison, a member of DI Blake’s team. But he could see that she didn’t really look like a police officer.
‘I’m sorry, I couldn’t help overhearing,’ said Murchison. ‘You were talking about interference theory, which is an interest of mine.’
‘I didn’t mean to suggest that the witnesses had been deliberately interfered with,’ said Cooper, wondering if he’d said too much in public.
‘No, I know. It’s just a name for it.’
‘Are you a psychologist?’ he asked.
Murchison smiled. ‘Let’s just say, I know the theory.’
‘I’ve been wanting to ask someone about this — the way witnesses perceive things. Why their memories of an incident might contradict each other.’
‘Well, our memories of what we’ve seen are often inaccurate. I mean, they might not actually be what happened. Everyone knows this. When it comes to a court case, your witnesses always contradict each other. Some of them are better left out of the witness box, because they only muddy the water, and then no one knows what to believe.’
‘But they’re not lying,’ said Cooper.
‘No, of course. They’re not lying, just mistaken. Some witnesses see what they want to see. Or they remember what they think you want to them to remember. In a nutshell, that’s interference theory.’
‘So the interference is self-imposed?’
‘In a way,’ said Murchison. ‘As with all memories, our eyewitness memories can be distorted by what we previously knew, which is pro-active interference, or what we subsequently learn — retroactive interference. The distortion of memories has been widely studied. Retroactive interference can result from police questioning, which is well intentioned but can lead to difficulty in accurate recall. Unfortunately, poor interview techniques are all too common.’
‘Yes, I’m aware of that,’ said Cooper.
He looked at Fry, then looked away again, hoping she didn’t think that he was referring to her abilities.
‘If you’re interested,’ said Murchison, ‘the classic study on this subject is Loftus and Palmer. They showed eyewitness memory was vulnerable to post-event distortion. In their experiment, it came down to a difference between the questions “How fast were the cars going when they smashed into each other?” or “How fast were the cars going when they hit each other?” Participants asked the first question were convinced they’d seen broken glass. The use of the word “smashed” affected their recollection.’
Cooper nodded. ‘It makes sense. It was what I was thinking anyway.’
‘And you,’ said Murchison. ‘How is your short-term memory?’
‘Now Cooper was taken aback. He hated being so transparent. But people often said his feelings were written on his face.
‘Not good,’ he admitted. ‘Not during these past few days. I get confused about what I saw and what I didn’t.’
‘It’s the result of trauma — that is, of experiencing the child’s death in the river, and being helpless to save her. Short term, you may have re-experiences — flashbacks. You may also get adverse reactions to anything your brain associates with the traumatic event. In this case, water, perhaps?’
Cooper remembered his reluctance to go too near the river in Dovedale. He nodded cautiously, wary of admitting a weakness.
‘It’s perfectly common,’ said Murchison. ‘It should pass in time.’
‘Does it always pass?’
‘Well, not always. If left unacknowledged and untreated, it can develop into full-blown PTSD, and the effects of that can last for years. Occasionally, serious psychological disturbances may result from traumatic experiences in the past. But that’s quite rare.’
‘Now Cooper was interested.
‘Tell me,’ he said. ‘Would it be more common in a child?’
‘Oh, yes. Certainly.’
A few minutes later, Murchison took Fry aside for a quiet word. They stood at the corner of the cemetery, just outside the cordon.
‘Diane, your colleague has a problem,’ she said.
‘You noticed?’
‘There are a lot of small signs.’
‘It’s the incident earlier this week that he just mentioned. The death of the little girl he tried to rescue from drowning.’
Murchison nodded.
‘There should be early intervention after a traumatic incident like that. It can prevent acute stress reaction from developing into full-blown PTSD. What was the level of your critical incident stress management?’
‘I don’t know. I wasn’t there.’
Murchison shook her head. ‘Someone should have taken responsibility. Isn’t this officer part of your team?’
Fry looked across the cemetery at Cooper.
‘Do I still have a team?’ she said.
When Fry was released by the Major Incident Unit, she took Cooper back to her hotel. He looked as though he needed a cup of coffee or two, maybe some food.
‘Ben,’ she said, as they parked their cars in the Brindleyplace multi-storey, ‘how much do you remember of your childhood?’
Cooper turned to her in surprise as he keyed the locks on his Toyota. ‘I remember lots of things.’
‘I mean, what are your earliest memories? How old were you at the time?’
‘Oh, well. There’s a vague memory of crossing a street somewhere in town, with Mum and Matt. It must have been during the summer, because Matt had a wasp land on his hand. I have this picture of him standing there, with his finger out as if he was pointing at something. And he was screaming. He was terrified of getting stung by wasps as a child. I think it’s probably the sound of him screaming that impressed the memory on me.’
‘Matt was a child? But he’s five years older than you, isn’t he?’
‘Yes.’
‘So you must have been…?’
‘Well, Mum was standing behind me. I was in a pushchair.’
‘You weren’t even walking? That means you were, what…two or three years old?’
‘I suppose so.’
‘My God.’
Cooper stopped in the exit to the car park and looked up at the office blocks in Brindleyplace.
‘Why are you asking something like that, Diane?’
‘Well, I realized a strange thing. I don’t have any early memories at all. Nothing as early as you. I don’t even remember my first day at school. That’s a bit odd, isn’t it?’
He shrugged. ‘Not necessarily. I think you remember things that were particularly traumatic or especially enjoyable. I don’t remember my first day at school either. But I remember the second day — I didn’t want to go, and I kicked up a real fuss at home that morning. But Mum tricked me into walking past the gates so we could look at all the other children who were having to go in, and then she pushed me into the arms of a teacher. I cried then. That was a real trauma, I can tell you. But I can’t actually remember why I didn’t want to go in the first place.’
‘I can’t picture you crying because you didn’t want to go to school.’
