Whatever the value of the national database, it didn’t help in this case. Mansell Quinn’s profile wasn’t on it.
Back in his sitting room, Cooper stood in front of the photograph over the fireplace. He was familiar with every face in the neat rows, even with the texture of the wall behind them and the concrete yard beneath their boots. Without looking, he could have described the way each man held his arms, which of them was smiling, who looked suspicious of the photographer, and who hadn’t fastened his tie properly that morning. He also knew the exact feel of the mahogany frame in his hands, the smoothness of the edges, the slight scratch in the glass that was almost hidden by the shadow of the chair one of the sergeants was sitting in on the front row. If you turned the picture towards the light, the scratch became obvious. He couldn’t remember how it had happened. Somehow, it had always been there.
Diane Fry had chosen the Italian restaurant on Eyre Street, Caesar’s. She had never been inside it before, but from standing on the outside, looking through the window and reading the menu, she’d assessed it as smart and interesting, without being too up-market. Now that she was sitting at a table in the far corner, with her confit of duck on its way at any moment, she thought she’d been right.
Even so, Fry felt uncomfortable. It was true that she didn’t go out often, but at least she’d made an effort. She was wearing her cord blazer over a hand-knitted alpaca cotton top that she’d bought in Bakewell and never worn before. Angie
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had made do with the usual jeans and vest; and when she reached for the butter to spread on her bread roll, Fry noticed that her fingernails were none too clean. She hoped the waiter didn’t look too closely.
The waiter was making his way from the kitchen now. Fry didn’t think he was Italian, more East European - perhaps an Albanian. But then, confit of duck wasn’t an Italian dish either, was it?
‘You never really want to talk,’ said Angie, after they had been served.
Fry paused with a forkful of duck on the way to her mouth. ‘Talk? We’ve talked a lot. Ever since you came to stay, we’ve done nothing but talk.’
‘Do you think so, Diane?’
‘I’ve told everything I’ve done since I saw you last.’
‘Yes, I suppose that’s true, in a way.’
‘In a way? I’ve given you all fifteen years of it. I’ve told you what I did at school, how I managed to get my “A” levels and scraped a place at university to do my degree.’
‘I liked the bit about you getting drunk at a student party and being sick into somebody’s window box. I can’t imagine you doing that, Sis.’
‘I didn’t do it often.’
‘No, I bet you were a real hard worker. Studious.’
‘I wanted to get an education.’
‘This steak is nice,’ said Angie. ‘A bit underdone in the middle, but I don’t mind a bit of blood. How’s the duck?’
‘Wonderful,’ said Fry, putting her fork down. ‘And I told you about our parents coming to the graduation ceremony.’
‘Our foster parents.’
‘And how they got lost in Birmingham, so they arrived late.’
‘And you didn’t think anyone was coming, I know. If the duck’s wonderful, why aren’t you eating it?’
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‘Then I went back to Warley and joined the police.’
‘Which is where you lose me a bit. You really did change somewhere along the way, didn’t you, Sis?’
‘It’s an interesting job,’ said Fry. ‘Challenging.’
Angie nodded. She poured two more glasses of wine, but Diane ignored hers.
‘And I told you about the incident - I mean, what happened to me in Birmingham …’
‘Incident? That’s a mealy-mouthed police word for it, if ever I heard one. You mean the rape.’
Fry looked around the restaurant. The other tables were a little too close for her liking. But the restaurant wasn’t full on a Wednesday night, and there were no shocked expressions to deal with.
‘Yes, I know all that,’ said Angie. ‘You told me.’
‘Don’t minimize the things that have happened in my life,’ said Fry. ‘Just don’t.’
‘I wouldn’t.’
Angie took a drink of her wine. She smiled at a man a couple of tables away, causing his wife to glower back.
Fry hesitated, watching her sister, reminded again how much of a stranger she’d become. As children they had been so close that she felt she always knew what her sister was thinking. But not now.
‘Is there something else you wanted to tell me about yourself?’ she asked.
‘Such as?’
‘I don’t know.’ Fry speared the piece of duck again with her fork. She cut it into two, then cut it again into smaller pieces. ‘I know about the heroin, of course.’
‘I’m off it now. I had treatment. It’s not an experience I recommend.’
‘I’m pleased to hear it.’
‘I’m sure you are.’
‘And there was a man?’
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Angle shrugged. ‘Quite a few
