‘Yes?’
‘I’m going to talk to the Oxleys. Or try to.’
‘Good luck, then.’
‘I’ll be setting off from Glossop section station about ten o’clock.’
‘I’m working tomorrow myself,’ said Cooper, trying to puzzle out what Udall was talking about. He had only been on loan for
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the day of the raid. There was more than enough work to be done in CID at Edendale, even on a Monday morning.
Tine/ said Udall cheerfully. ‘See you around.’ And she rang off.
Cooper shook his head as he put his phone away. But it wasn’t worth worrying over. He had fruit and vegetables to think about.
He began to fill a plastic bag with apples. Just up the aisle, the man with the stick was poking a finger at some enormous oranges that looked as though they’d been pumped up with steroids. The old man liked to trail round the aisles with Cooper whenever possible, so that he could talk to him. This morning, he was deliberately lingering in the fruit section to allow Cooper to catch up. The man with the stick never bought oranges. He was a tinned peaches and pineapple chunks man.
Then Cooper’s phone rang again.
‘What now?’
He couldn’t let it ring for long this time. He saw that the number was one of the direct lines into E Division headquarters at West Street.
‘Ah, Cooper. I didn’t think you were going to answer.’
‘No, sir,’ said Cooper, recognizing DI Paul Kitchens’ voice immediately. ‘I mean, yes. I just had a bit of difficulty because my hands weren’t free.’
‘You’re not driving, are you?’
‘No, sir.’ Cooper tucked the phone between his shoulder and ear as he pushed his trolley past the apples and drew up to the dairy cabinets. He heard Kitchens take a breath.
‘Look, I’m sorry to bother you on your rest day, but something has come up, which you need to know about before you come on duty in the morning.’
‘A case, sir? Have we got an incident?’
‘Well, not exactly. We’re loaning you out again.’
‘Sorry?’
‘The Rural Crime Team were very pleased with you yesterday. They’ve asked if they can have you for a while longer. Apparently, they have some more enquiries coming to a conclusion.’
‘Oh, but sir ‘
‘The RCT are flavour of the month at the moment, you know. Rural crime has a high profile, so it’s getting priority treatment at higher levels. You know what I mean.’
‘So you’re agreeing to an abstraction, sir?’
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Tor a while, Cooper. We’ll see you back here before long, no doubt. You’ll have all this rural crime cleared up in no time. I’ve got every confidence in you.’
Cooper picked up a milk carton and stared at it blankly. The confidence of your senior officers was good. But Kitchens sounded a little too confident for Cooper’s liking.
‘How long will it be for?’
‘Well … I don’t know exactly. Not at the moment. But we’ll see how it goes.’ He paused. ‘Nothing to worry about, Ben,’ he said. ‘DS Fry will be keeping in touch.’
‘Is everybody happy with this, sir?’
‘Yes, of course,’ said Kitchens. ‘Everybody’s happy.’
Diane Fry sat stony-faced, trying not to show how the news was affecting her. Inside, she felt as though her heart had dropped suddenly into her stomach. For a moment, the clematis flickered into flames, and the cat turned yellow eyes towards her as a shadow fell across its window.
‘Well, it goes without saying that I’m not happy/ she said.
‘We all have to bear the brunt of abstractions,’ said DI Kitchens. ‘We benefit from them too, when we need them. You have to look at it from a management point of view, Diane.’
‘I can’t see the sense of this one.’
‘The Rural Crime Team say they have some major ongoing enquiries that are coming to a head. They requested assistance, and they’ve got it. End of story.’
‘I’m not happy, sir. We’re already understaffed, as you know.’
‘Of course. But what’s new?’
‘And the abstraction is in effect from when?’
‘Yesterday.’
‘Damn.’
For a while, Fry had wanted rid of Ben Cooper. She had even seen him as a threat. But that seemed a long time ago now. Instead, she was feeling aggrieved at the idea that she was going to lose him. Maybe more than
