Dying to Sin

enough.’

Palfreyman smiled slyly. ‘Oh, aye — your dad. Sergeant Joe Cooper. Did you think I didn’t know who you were? Joe Cooper was my shift supervisor for a while.’

Cooper felt the anger rising, and knew he was changing colour, the red flush rising uncontrollably into his cheeks.

‘He would never have tolerated a copper like you on his shift,’ he said.

Palfreyman smirked. ‘That’s what you think.’

Fry put her hand on Cooper’s arm. ‘Ben,’ she said, warningly. She was probably just in time.

Palfreyman shook his head. ‘Anyway, Joanne wanted to go on living there, didn’t she? It wouldn’t have done her any good with the neighbours to kick off a burglary enquiry. Someone might have been arrested and charged, and she’d never have lived easy in Rakedale after that. As it was, she was left alone with her cats and her herbs, thanks to me. Nobody talked to her much, of course. But if you’ve seen some of the characters round here, you’d reckon that was a blessing.’

‘But she’s been here more than twenty years now.’

‘Aye. She’s married and she has children, and they’re all considered respectable enough. Alex Brindley seems to have done very well for himself. But don’t think that means people forget.’

‘Mr Farnham, now — he seems quite a different individual.’

‘You’ve talked to Tom Farnham as well, eh?’

‘Yes.’

For a moment, Palfreyman weighed her up, as if taking her seriously for the first time.

‘I hope you know how to tell when someone is lying, Sergeant,’ he said.

‘Of course. We’re trained these days.’

Palfreyman rolled his eyes. ‘Psychology seminars? Body-language recognition techniques? I thought so. Well, we didn’t need training. In my day, any good copper learned to develop an instinct for when someone was telling the truth.’ He slapped his stomach. ‘My gut always told me when I was hearing a lie. It was never wrong.’

‘If your instinct was never proved wrong, it was only because you were allowed to hide your mistakes,’ said Fry.

Palfreyman tried to laugh, but couldn’t get the right shape to his mouth.

‘What do you know? You know nothing. You don’t belong to this part of the world, and you don’t belong in the job, if the truth be known. I bet you were a graduate entrant — am I right?’

‘I’m not ashamed of that.’

Cooper watched Fry and Palfreyman as they faced each other across the room, with the light from the window falling on them both equally. Fry looked slight and brittle, perched on the edge of her chair in an attitude that was both tense and belligerent. In contrast, PC Palfreyman was enormous — twice Fry’s size at least, but soft and heavy, his weight crushing the sofa in a more passively hostile manner.

From where he sat, Cooper could see the outside world going on beyond them: birds flicking across the sky, lorries moving slowly up the hill into Rakedale. He was struck by how different these two were, the former village bobby and the ambitious DS. Not only physically different, but psychologically and technically, and in the way they’d been trained. Well, different in every way he could think of, in fact. Watching them was like seeing the past and future facing each other across a green rug and an IKEA coffee table.

There was no question that policing had changed. It had been transformed in the few years since Palfreyman retired, and it was changing still. There weren’t any beat bobbies any more. In fact, there weren’t any beats, except under a different name. In Derbyshire, they were called Safer Neighbourhood police teams — a combination of police officers, special constables, PCSOs and local authority wardens, even some Neighbourhood Watch volunteers.

Meanwhile, just across the border, Nottinghamshire had become the first force in the UK to have armed officers on routine patrol. In parts of Nottingham, officers were issued with Walther P99 pistols, just like the one James Bond used, and had Heckler and Koch semi-automatic carbines in their patrol cars for back-up.

And that was before September eleventh and July seventh, and all the other landmark dates of terrorism. Cooper found the development worrying, an ominous sign for the future of policing in this country. But he couldn’t ally himself with the Palfreymans of the world, either.

‘Yes, I do have the training to spot a liar,’ said Fry as they walked back down Palfreyman’s drive to the car.

‘I’m sure you do, Diane,’ said Cooper.

‘I know all the indications to watch for.’

‘You don’t need to tell me. You know David Palfreyman was just trying to wind you up back there, don’t you?’

‘Bastard.’

Cooper looked across the road. ‘Hold on a minute, Diane. I won’t be long.’

‘Where are you going?’

‘There’s a Range Rover parked at the Brindleys’ house. Is it theirs?’

‘Yes, I think it’s Mr Brindley’s. Why?’

‘It’s a TD model.’

‘So? You’re not that interested in cars, Ben.’

‘Do you know what TD stands for, Diane? It means Turbo Diesel. I want to ask Mr Brindley if he’s ever been offered cheap illegal fuel.’

When Cooper came back, Fry was sitting in the car, still fuming.

‘They’re called the Ten Signs,’ she said. ‘Lack of eye contact, a change in the pitch of the voice, clearing the throat. And then there’s the body language — tapping the foot, fidgeting with the hands, blinking too much.’

Cooper got behind the wheel. ‘Turning the head or body away, changing the subject, attempting to deflect questions using humour or sarcasm.’

Fry looked at him. ‘Have you done the same course?’

‘Er, I sort of picked it up on the job,’ he said, trying not to sound too much like Palfreyman.

‘What did Mr Brindley say?’

‘He’d never even heard of illegal diesel.’

Fry watched the landscape going by as Cooper drove over the plateau towards Edendale. On the highest points, the drizzle and mist became almost indistinguishable from low cloud, and Cooper had to put the headlights on. Spray from passing lorries made visibility even worse.

‘Ten Signs,’ said Fry. ‘Put all those techniques together, and only a really good actor can get away with an undetected lie. And PC David Palfreyman is not that good an actor.’

Back at the office, they found DCI Kessen in the CID room with Hitchens. He had put in an appearance from his other major enquiry and was catching up on progress.

Kessen studied Fry as she entered the room.

‘Ah, DS Fry, glad you could join us.’

Fry seemed to go stiff and awkward, as if she’d been caught out doing something she shouldn’t. But that wasn’t the case, was it? She’d been following a reasonable line of enquiry that might have produced some useful information. Cooper wanted to speak up in her defence, but no one would have appreciated that, least of all Fry.

‘Your DI has brought me up to speed on the Rakedale enquiry. You did a good job recovering the crucifix from the grave site.’

‘Thank you, sir.’

Hitchens held up the evidence bag containing the cross. ‘Examination reveals scratch marks on the back, near where the arms and the upright meet. They’re probably initials, Diane. We think they look like an “N” and possibly an “H”.’

‘The owner’s initials?’

‘Could be. They do match a set of initials from the list of employees at Pity Wood, but unfortunately that doesn’t help us to make an identification. Not yet, anyway.’

‘But it might do,’ said Fry.