impossible to concentrate on the menu at the same time.
He looked out of the window, but couldn’t see much on the street. The lights from Hollowgate and the windows of the Market Square pubs reflected off the wet pavements and
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refracted through the drizzle that had started falling just before dusk. Eight o’clock, and the centre of Edendale looked deserted. The car park by the town hall was almost empty.
Cooper knew all the warnings about forming a relationship with another police officer. When it was someone of a different rank that you worked with closely, it was definitely a problem. But this wasn’t another police officer. Close, though, in a way.
Finally, the door opened and the waiter hurried over. She looked around the restaurant, saw him immediately, and smiled. Cooper waved. He put down his menu and stood up as the waiter brought her to the table. They kissed chastely on the cheek. Her skin was cool and slightly damp from the rain.
‘I’m not late, am I?’
‘No.’
She was wearing tailored cream trousers, but he was used to seeing her in trousers. She looked a lot better than when she was bundled up in one of those thick blue sweaters the SOCOs wore, or a white paper crime-scene suit. Very unflattering. ‘You look great, Liz,’ he said.
The back wall of Hudson and Slack’s vehicle compound bordered the railway line where it ran through a cutting between Fargate and Castleton Road. Later that night, after the last train had passed through Edendale, three figures in hooded sweatshirts made their way along the cutting. They moved confidently, as if sure there would be no one to observe them from the industrial units on the other side of the line. When they reached the compound, the biggest of the three men used a pair of bolt cutters to open a gap in the weld mesh fence, and they clambered over the wall. Within a few minutes, they had jemmied open a rear door of the funeral director’s, with only a splintering of wood and the occasional
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grunt of effort. Then the company’s new security system activated, and the burglar alarm began to scream. But no one was interested in committing burglary.
No one spoke as they entered a store room. Two of them kicked open inner doors, while the third swilled petrol from a plastic container on to the floor and furniture, drenching a stack of chairs and a spare desk, spraying fuel into the adjoining rooms as far as he could reach. Then he lit a petrol soaked rag and tossed it through the doorway as his companions ran out.
With a dull roar, a blaze flared instantly. Flames engulfed the store room and burst from the open door to lick at the stones of the outside wall. Windows cracked as air was sucked in and drew the blaze deeper into the building. Paintwork scorched as the building filled with billowing black clouds. A smoke alarm burst into life and added its noise to the security system. The three men moved with sudden urgency as they raced back across the compound towards the wall.
But one of the figures paused as he passed between the rows of black vehicles. The other two turned, gesturing to him impatiently. With a ferocious swing of his arm, the biggest man brought down the blades of his bolt cutters and smashed the windscreen of a hearse. The toughened glass crazed, and he jabbed at it until it fell in fragments. Then he tossed the plastic container and the remaining petrol on to the driver’s seat and dropped in a lighted match. He laughed at the heat and shock of the explosion as he ran to join the others at the gap in the fence. They clambered over the wall and sprinted back the way they’d come along the railway cutting. A car was waiting for them in a back street near Chesterfield Road.
By the time the first fire appliance turned off Fargate, the three men were long gone. In the street, people who’d come out of their houses to watch the flames had to cover their mouths as the wind changed direction, blowing acrid smoke
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and flakes of ash into their faces. Something was burning well at Hudson and Slack.
Despite his best efforts, it was inevitable they would end up talking shop. The current point of contact between them was the mystery caller.
‘Diane Fry is taking these calls very seriously,’ said Cooper. ‘Very seriously.’
The lamb curry he’d chosen was good, not too hot. With a few side dishes, the meal was living up to expectations.
‘The tapes have really upset her, you know,’ said Petty.
‘They’re pretty awful. Nobody likes listening to them.’
‘It’s more than that with Diane.’ _
‘Is it? Why?’
Petty hesitated. ‘I can’t say. She told me in confidence.’
‘Oh?’
Cooper was surprised by a surge of jealousy. There had been occasions when Fry had confided in him. But very few occasions. It was some time ago now that she’d told him about her childhood in foster homes in the Black Country, about her older sister who’d been a heroin addict by the time she ran away from home and disappeared from Diane’s life. She’d talked to him about Angie again recently, too, but only because she had to. Cooper had somehow got himself involved in events that were nothing to do with him.
But that was really all he knew about Fry’s life. Most of the time, she seemed to be trapped inside a bubble of her own, a little capsule of isolation that no one could penetrate. Had Liz Petty managed to penetrate that bubble?
Cooper looked across the table at Liz as she scooped up her curry with a poppadom.
‘Do you get on well with Diane?’ he said. ‘How long have you been friendly with her?’
‘Ben ‘
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‘I didn’t think she had any friends at West Street. What does she talk to you about?’
Petty put down her fork and gave him a quizzical smile.
‘Ben, could we talk about something other than Diane Fry?’
Cooper felt his face start to grow warm. Perhaps the curry was too hot for him, after all.
MY JOURNAL OF THE DEAD, PHASE FIVE
Tonight I went back for the last time. Moonlight filtered through the trees, glinting on steel as I crouched in the grass and took the scalpel from my pocket. I lowered my head to pray. God, give me what I need. I know it’s
