‘What exactly is it you want me to do?’ he said.
‘You know people,’ she said. ‘You’ve been in Derbyshire, like... for ever. I’ve always been an outsider, I know that. I bet people tell you things they would never share with me.’
‘You’re talking about internal organisational stuff.’
‘Obviously. I need to know what’s going on, who’s been telling tales about me.’
‘It must be someone you’ve worked with,’ said Cooper. ‘What about DC Callaghan?’
‘I’ve thought about him. But there was one incident just recently...’
‘What was that?’
‘I shouldn’t tell you. But internally, only Jamie Callaghan was aware of it.’
‘So?’
‘The PSD haven’t mentioned it,’ she said.
‘So you don’t think they know about it?’ said Cooper. ‘Whatever it was.’
‘Not so far.’
Cooper stared at Fry.
‘I’m still puzzled,’ he said. ‘What do they really want from you?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Fry. ‘I don’t even know where this is all coming from, so it’s hard to tell.’
‘Could it be somebody in the West Midlands?’
‘Setting me up, you mean?’
‘I just wondered if you had information that might, well... compromise someone.’
Fry gave a sardonic laugh. ‘Undoubtedly. How could I not have, during the course of my career here and in Birmingham? But where do I start?’
‘Birmingham,’ said Cooper, ‘sounds like the ideal place to start.’
‘I suppose so.’
‘Well, go on, then. I know nothing about your time in the West Midlands.’
‘There was a DI in Birmingham. Gareth Blake. We worked together in Aston years ago. He was supposed to be investigating my assault case.’
‘Your case?’ said Cooper. He hesitated. ‘Oh, you mean your case. The...’ He dried up, too uncomfortable to say it out loud.
‘Yes, the rape,’ said Fry. ‘Blake was assigned to cold-case rape inquiries.’ She jerked her head dismissively. ‘Cold case? It didn’t seem so cold to me.’
‘I suppose not,’ said Cooper. ‘Though it was a long time ago.’
He knew he’d said the wrong thing. But what was there he could say that would sound right? Probably nothing. Fry had told him about her rape years ago, when she’d first transferred to Derbyshire and they found themselves working closely together. It had been an act of unusual openness on her part, which he’d never known how to respond to.
Fry gazed at him stonily, as if his reaction was no more than she expected. She would probably have given him a withering put-down. But for once she couldn’t. She’d come to ask him for a favour.
Cooper remembered Fry being called back to Birmingham when the investigation into her rape was reopened. A DNA hit had presented new evidence, and she’d become the subject of a cold-case inquiry, referred to constantly as ‘the victim’. How she must have hated that.
And he recalled that Fry had asked him for help then too. Was that connection what had made her come to him again?
‘OK, so DI Blake was in charge of investigating your cold case. But didn’t it fall through in the end?’ he said.
‘They lost a vital witness,’ said Fry.
‘And you did some investigating of your own.’
‘Thank you for calling it investigating. Sometimes it seems more like digging through dirt. The whole thing was fishy from the start — a DNA hit they didn’t tell me the real meaning of, a witness who changed her mind about testifying. And you do know who was at the centre of it all?’
‘Yes,’ said Cooper. ‘Your—’
‘No,’ she interrupted. ‘Just a corrupt lawyer.’
‘William Leeson. Of course I remember.’
Cooper didn’t know what else she’d done on that visit to Birmingham, apart from enlisting his assistance to get access to the dodgy solicitor, who turned out to be a major part of her past. He hadn’t asked her too many questions, and he wasn’t about to do so now.
‘In reality, Blake and his partner were keeping tabs on me,’ said Fry. ‘It must have been them. They knew that I’d met with my colleague Andy Kewley before he died. Kewley was going to give me some information I needed, something that would have helped me find out what went wrong.’
‘The PSD can’t possibly think that you had anything to do with his death,’ said Cooper.
‘I don’t really know what they think,’ said Fry. ‘They might just be throwing it all out in a fishing expedition, hoping one item will stick or I’ll give something away inadvertently.’
‘You mean they want you to incriminate yourself.’
‘It looks that way.’
‘That’s not acceptable, Diane. You really should have someone with you in these interviews.’
‘I’ve told you, I don’t want that.’
‘Well, be careful.’
She took a long drink, and Cooper waited. Sometimes, he felt it was what he did best.
‘It’s Angie,’ said Fry finally. ‘She seems to be the main problem.’
‘Ah.’
‘I’ve never really asked you,’ said Fry. ‘I mean, going back to that time when you first made contact with her.’
‘No,’ said Cooper. ‘To be accurate, she made contact with me. I didn’t want anything to do with it. It was your business. But Angie turned up at my flat one day. She told me she wanted you to stop trying to find her.’
‘But you did the opposite,’ said Fry. ‘You fixed up a meeting. You put us back in touch with each other.’
Cooper shrugged. ‘It seemed simpler than trying to stop you looking. I don’t know she expected me to do that. I never had so much influence over you.’
‘What did you know about what she was doing in Sheffield?’
‘Not much. I do know she was picked up by someone in a BMW with a blocked registration.’
‘So you suspected.’
‘It wasn’t my business,’ said Cooper.
‘Oh, but you made it your business, didn’t you?’
Cooper held out his hands. ‘I was just trying to help, Diane.’
‘Well, help me now.’
‘What is it you want from me?’
‘Just for you to be there if I need you. Someone to back me up, and give me a bit of support. And if you can use any contacts... well, I’d be grateful.’
He could see it was hard for her to ask. Forget that she’d made things difficult for him so often over the years. It wasn’t relevant now. And it wasn’t in his nature to refuse to help.
‘I’ll do what I can,’ he said.
She breathed a sigh of relief. ‘Thank you.’
They walked back out into Market Square. Fry’s black Audi stood just a couple of spaces away from Cooper’s Toyota, its deep red paintwork standing out among all the greys and silvers of the other vehicles.
Cooper looked at the empty spaces between their two cars. Had they been empty when Fry arrived? Did she deliberately leave that space, rather than park right next to him? It was such a small thing, yet it seemed to symbolise something about their relationship.
‘Diane,’ he said. ‘Just one thing.’
‘Yes?’
‘You’re not taking anything, are you?’
She stared at him. ‘What?’
‘Well, it happens,’ he said. ‘A lot of police officers... they can’t cope with the stress day by day without a little bit of artificial support.’
‘You think I’m on drugs? What, cocaine? You’re suggesting I might snort a few lines of coke before I go to work in the morning?’
‘No. But... well, there is the matter of your sister.’
Fry took a deep breath and seemed to calm herself down with an effort.
‘You’re right, Ben. Yes, you’re right. Absolutely spot on. I bet that’s exactly what the PSD are thinking. That’s why you said it, isn’t it? To make me think of the worst-case scenario. They’ve latched on to Angie connections and they think I will have been contaminated. That’s why they’re putting me through this process. They want me to reveal myself to be a junkie. A cokehead. A cocaine-sniffing cop. Jesus wept.’