.t
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She moved with a cool deliberateness, not meeting his eye, but glancing from side to side as she walked past the desks and filing cabinets, as if searching for evidence of misdemeanours among her absent colleagues. Cooper half expected to see her stoop to check for footprints in the carpets, or turn over an envelope to i-x.imine the address. She had a lean face and short fair hair, and she was very slim — slimmer than he had grown up to expect vomrn tn be. His mother would have said she was sickening for something. But she had a certain wiry look that suggested she was no weakling. No wilting violet, this one.
0 O ‘
He had worked out who she was, of course. She was the one PC Garnett had told him about, the new DC who had come from the West Midlands with a reputation. Garnett had been almost right in his description. The only surprise was that she was actually quite attractive — though a smile, he thought, would help to relax her face and do something about the dark shadows in her eves.
j
‘Yes, Matt. Yes, you’re right, I know. Two days, then. And we can talk about it properly on Thursday, OK? It just seems a long time to wrait.’
The new DC had reached Cooper’s desk. She stood looking at the mess of papers, idly tapping the Moorhay file against her thigh. He turned away, shielding the phone. He knew it was obvious that the call was nothing to do with work. She would
o
recognize a personal call when she heard one. She probably thought he was discussing a girlfriend.
He watched in amazement as she calmly took a seat and booted up his computer terminal, still without looking at him.
‘Hold on a minute, Matt.’
He saw her start to smile as the computer came to life and she logged into the database. It allowed her into the first two
oo
screens, but then threw up a dialogue box when she tried to extract some data.
‘You need a password,’ said Cooper.
‘What’s that?’ said Matt in his ear.
‘Nothing.’
o
‘What is it then?’ she asked.
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‘I can’t just give it out. You need authority.’
‘Yeah? I’ll rind a way past it then.’
She started tapping keys to get into the terminal settings, looking for the security program and the password function. A silver stud glinted in her ear where it wras exposed by a recent trim.
‘You’ll never get anywhere without knowing the proper password.’
‘Ben, if vou’re busy —’
‘Yes, look, Matt, I’ll have to go,’ said Cooper. Till speak to you tonight.’
J O He replaced the phone, and didn’t look up for a moment, as if he was adjusting himself to something, preparing to face a whole new challenge.
‘Damn!’
A ‘fatal error’ message was frozen on the computer screen. The terminal had objected to the unauthorized tinkering and had crashed.
‘I did tell you you’d get nowhere without the password,’ he snapped.
‘You’re my new partner,’ said Fry. ‘When you’re available, that is.’
Cooper took a deep breath. ‘OK. Hi, I’m Ben Cooper. You must be DC shee.’
He waited for her to say something else. He didn’t know her first name yet.
‘My friends call me Diane.’
He nodded cautiously, noting the ambiguity of the message. ‘What are we up for?’
‘House-to-house with some woodentops.’
‘Don’t let them hear you call them that.’
Fry shrugged. ‘We could get going, if you’re ready. I’m only the new girl, but I understand murder enquiries are usually considered quite important.’
‘All right, I’m ready.’
In the corridor, DI Hitchens called them back.
‘I’ll be out for another briefing and to take your reports myself at the end of the morning,’ he said. ‘There’s a pub in Moorhay, isn’t there, Cooper?’
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‘The Drover, sir.’
‘MarsLoa’s, I seemed to notice when we went through the village yesterday.’
