Blake sighed. ‘Cold case rape enquiries.’
Gavin Murfin dipped his fingers into a paper bag for an Eccles cake he’d bought on the way into work. At least some things were back to normal, thought Cooper. Murfin had explained that he couldn’t keep the diet up. Not even with all the talk about horse-meat pies.
‘You know what?’ said Murfin, after he’d listened to Cooper talk about 1968 and the Royal Observer Corps. ‘We’ve still got one of those here.’
‘One of what?’
‘One of those… what did you call them? Carrier control points. This is where the four-minute warning came through. I remember my old sergeant showing me the equipment when I was a probationer here.’
‘And it’s still here?’
‘Right here, in the station. It’s up in the store rooms somewhere. There’s a siren up there, too. Nobody has even tested it for a long time, so far as I know.’
‘I had no idea, Gavin. Do you think we’ll get a look at it?’
‘Leave it to me.’
Murfin wandered off and came back a few minutes later with a key he’d obtained from an admin office somewhere in the building. Used his charm, presumably. He waved the key at Cooper.
‘Security clearance.’
In the base of the receiver was a small drawer containing instructions on testing, battery replacement and fault reporting, as well as how to respond to the types of message that might come through. Attack Warning Red, imminent danger of an attack. Fallout Warning Black, danger of fallout. And Attack Message White, the all- clear.
‘I don’t suppose it was ever used, except for testing.’
‘They had exercises regularly,’ said Cooper. ‘Everyone felt they had to be prepared. Or so I’m told. The ROC posts weren’t closed until 1991, after the collapse of the Soviet Union.’ He looked at Murfin. ‘Do you remember that, Gavin? You’re older than me.’
‘Are you kidding? Well, I suppose I was around in 1991, but I was more interested in Silence of the Lambs and Terminator II.’
‘I was into Sonic the Hedgehog.’
‘You’re such a baby.’
Cooper tried to imagine the awful piercing wail of the siren. The sound that had never been heard for real in the Cold War.
‘So what would you do, then?’ said Murfin suddenly.
‘What? Do when?’
‘In those last few minutes. If you knew that you had just four minutes to live, like.’
‘Blimey, I don’t know. It isn’t much time to do anything really, is it?’
‘No, you’re right. Nothing worthwhile.’ Murfin laughed. ‘It makes a joke out of all those “fifty things to do before you die” features in the papers, doesn’t it?’
‘Yes.’
Murfin thought for a moment. ‘You could pray, I suppose,’ he said.
‘I didn’t know you were religious, Gavin.’
‘Well, of course I’m not now. But if I knew I only had four minutes left to live, I might want to… you know, cover my options.’
‘I see.’
‘You could get quite a few “Our Fathers” in, couldn’t you? In four minutes.’
Cooper laughed. ‘I’m sure you could. But just one might be better, Gavin, if you could get the right amount of sincerity into it.’
‘Right.’
‘Or, instead of praying,’ said Murfin, ‘you could just do something you’d always really, really wanted to do, all your life, and never got the chance.’
‘Ye-es.’
They were both silent for a moment, Murfin chewing the last half of his Eccles cake, Cooper wondering how long he could resist asking the obvious question. It wasn’t long.
‘So what would that be, Gavin? The thing you’ve always really, really wanted to do, all your life?’
But Murfin shook his head. ‘I can’t tell you.’
‘Oh, go on.’
‘No way. You’d take the piss out of me, and I’d never hear the end of it back at the office.’
Cooper gazed at Murfin, watching him lick a few crumbs off his fingers and wipe them on his tie. He was wondering whether his colleague had some hidden psychological depths that he’d never suspected. What was this deep, seething urge that he daren’t even speak about?
‘I tell you what would be embarrassing,’ said Murfin. ‘If you just thought you had four minutes left to live, and you did… well, whatever it was you really, really wanted to do. And then you found out it was a false alarm.’
‘Well, it would depend on what it was,’ said Cooper. ‘I mean, if what you did in that time was something really awful, Gavin.’
Then it was Murfin’s turn to laugh. ‘Yeah. It could be so bad, you might have to kill yourself.’
‘No, really.’
‘Well,’ said Murfin, seeing that he was serious. ‘It would be the ideal opportunity to take the revenge you’d always wanted.’
‘Yes,’ said Cooper. ‘So it would.’
Fry could feel the sweat forming on her skin, the prickling at the back of her neck. She shifted uncomfortably in her chair, wanting desperately to get up and walk out of the room. There was something intolerable about sitting here, under the scrutiny of her superintendent and these two people from Birmingham, discussing something that for her was too deep and intimate to be spoken about, yet for them was just another case.
Gareth Blake was watching her carefully, trying to assess her reaction. And so was the woman, of course — Rachel Murchison, the counsellor, there to judge her psychological state.
‘When we get a cold case hit, we consult the CPS before we consider intruding into a victim’s life,’ said Blake. ‘The public interest consideration isn’t in doubt, because of the seriousness of the offence, but we have to take a close look at how strong a case we’ve got, and whether we can do something to strengthen it.’
‘With the help of the victim,’ said Fry.
‘Of course. And in this case…’
‘In my case. This is personal, DI Blake. Don’t try to pretend it isn’t. It’s very personal for me.’
Blake held up his hand again, a defensive gesture, as if trying to fend off an attacker.
‘In your case, we had a very credible witness report from the victim. From you, Diane. Force policy has changed since the 1990s, when we only kept files on unsolved rape cases for five years. Everything is on file for this one. We have an e-fit record in the imaging unit, and a copy of everything has been kept by the FSS. But the bottom line is, we got a DNA match.’
‘And you have to consult a counsellor before you approach the victim. Between you, you will have developed an approach strategy before you even came here.’
‘You know exactly how it works, Diane.’
‘So Rachel here — ?’
‘She’s a trained rape counsellor and support worker. She accompanies any of us when we interview a victim.’
‘I’m just here to help,’ said Murchison. ‘There’s no pressure. It’s all about support.’
Support. It was such an over-used word. Fry had already heard it too often during the past week. At least when Ben Cooper used the word, it was with some sincerity. Here, in this overheated room, looking out over the back of the football ground, it had the dead sound of a curse.
‘Diane, we’ll understand if you say you’ve moved on and you don’t want to testify,’ added Blake. ‘But there are things we can do. A victim can agree to interview without any commitment to give evidence.’
