Matt could intensify the dairy herd, or leave part of the land unfarmed, in return for environmental grants. On the other hand, he could abandon the idea of running a profitable farm altogether and get himself a job stacking shelves in a supermarket.
On his way through the market square, Cooper pulled out his mobile and chose a number from his phone book. His call was answered almost straightaway.
‘Hi, it’s me. How are you this morning?’
She sounded pleased to hear from him, and the sound of her voice alone made him feel better. He didn’t know how she did it; perhaps it came of being a civilian.
‘Oh, I’m fine, too,’ he said. ‘No, really. There’s nothing wrong at all. I just wanted to find out how you were.’
He listened to her talk for a while, neither of them saying much, but enough to put a smile on his face as he crossed Hollowgate towards the Raj Mahal and the pedestrianized area.
He had to end the call when a couple of acquaintances stopped to say hello. Cooper couldn’t place their names at first. But he knew so many people around Edendale that it wasn’t surprising. Faces from his childhood haunted him constantly. He’d see an old schoolfriend passing in the street, then immediately another and another. It was like the way a phrase he’d heard for the first time suddenly seemed to be repeated everywhere, as if someone was trying to send him a message. What sort of message could these familiar faces be trying to convey? This is where you belong, perhaps.
Later that morning, Cooper found himself watching a man in a grey sports jacket approaching a cash machine outside Somerfield’s supermarket. Running his finger along the edge of the card slot, the man glanced over his shoulder with an apologetic smile. He wasn’t sure whether he liked being watched or not.
There were two ATMs at Somerfield’s, both set into the outside wall near the trolley park, about fifteen yards from the main entrance. A small queue of shoppers had formed at the other machine, fidgeting with their carrier bags and purses.
‘If you feel an obstruction of any kind, don’t use it. That’s the best advice. Usually there are a couple of tiny prongs. Here, see?’
With a flick of the finger, the man pulled out a thin, clear sleeve of rigid plastic. He held it up to reveal a loop at the back.
‘This is the old Lebanese Loop trick. The loop retains a card when it’s inserted. Since the machine can’t read the magnetic strip, it keeps asking you to re-enter your PIN. Someone standing behind you watches you tap your number in. When you walk away, the suspect removes the card and empties your account. Bingo.’
‘Surely that type of device is easy to detect?’ said someone in the watching group. ‘We just saw you do it.’
‘But I know what to look for.’
PC Steve Judson had greying hair, a little longer than favoured by most police officers. He worked with the Plastic Crime Unit, a team struggling to deal with a mounting wave of cash and credit card fraud. According to the latest figures, it was big business – worth at least forty million pounds a year across the country.
Judson looked at the queue for the adjacent cash machine. ‘This is a typical location. The ATMs would be more secure inside, but the store isn’t open twenty-four hours. Some customers want to use them late at night, when this car park is probably deserted.’
‘Is that when the biggest risk is, rather than when the cash machines are busy?’ asked a female DC, one of two who’d driven over the hills from B Division for the plastic crime session.
‘The risk is different. If you look at the people in the queue there – they’re close enough to each other to make shoulder surfing easy. But at night, when the place is empty, you’d be pretty damn suspicious of somebody who came and peered over your shoulder, wouldn’t you?’
There were other officers present in the car park who’d come from Nottinghamshire and even from Leicestershire. Strangers, but probably future colleagues. No one was talking about their future this morning, but it must have been in everyone’s minds when they greeted each other.
‘It isn’t so long ago that the NCIS bulletins were warning of cash machine gangs spreading out of London down the M4 to the West Country. Did they get it wrong?’
‘No, not at all. Those gangs did good business in the West Country, so they decided to go nationwide. Now they operate in any place they can recruit enough illegals.’
‘Illegals?’
Cooper could hear a few sets of antennae going up, alert for derogatory remarks. It was always a tough call, knowing when to report a colleague for political incorrectness. If you tolerated it, your own career could be on the line.
But PC Judson seemed not to have noticed the reactions from the group.
‘Some illegals are being trained for cash machine work within twenty-four hours of coming off the boat. That way, they can pay back the traffickers. It’s better than slogging your guts out in a carrot field in East Anglia for two quid an hour, I suppose.’
Nobody laughed, or even dared to nod in agreement. A Nottinghamshire detective next to Cooper shuffled his feet in the shredded tree bark around the roots of an ornamental birch.
Somebody at the front asked a question about identity theft, which set Judson off on a new tangent. The Nottinghamshire officer leaned towards Cooper.
‘Are you Derbyshire?’ he said quietly.
‘Yes, I’m based right here in Edendale. DC Cooper.’
‘Ross Matthews. Hi. What’s it like working here?’
‘It’s OK,’ said Cooper defensively.
Matthews nodded. ‘I’m at St Ann’s, and it’s a nightmare. I might put in for a transfer when we go global.’
He didn’t need to explain what he was talking about. Everyone knew that the number of regional police forces would soon be reduced dramatically. A government commission had concluded that any force with fewer than four thousand officers was too small to deal with serious crime. So Derbyshire was certain to disappear. Even its bigger neighbour, Nottinghamshire, had suffered highly publicized problems that had led its chief constable to admit his detectives couldn’t cope. Within a few months, all the officers here this morning might be working for one huge East Midlands Constabulary.
‘Why not?’ said Cooper. ‘We can always do with some help here.’
He realized that Judson had finished speaking and was looking at him over the heads of the group, waiting for his attention.
It was then that Cooper’s mobile rang. Probably he should have switched it off. He bet everybody else had put theirs on to silent vibrate, but he’d forgotten this morning.
He looked at the number on the display, and saw it was Diane Fry. His DS shouldn’t be calling him, not when she knew he was on the plastic crime exercise. Cooper looked at Judson and shrugged apologetically, then walked a few paces away from the group.
‘Yes, Diane?’
‘Where are you right now, Ben?’
‘Somerfield’s supermarket.’
‘I suppose that makes sense, does it?’
‘They have ATMs,’ said Cooper. ‘You know – cash machines.’
‘Yes, I know what an ATM is. Wait – you’re on the plastic crime initiative.’
‘Did you forget?’
‘No, I’ve been a bit busy this morning, that’s all.’
‘Something on?’
He heard Fry hesitate. ‘Don’t get excited. Just something I’d like you to take a look at when you’re finished. Get away as soon as you can, will you?’
‘Are you going to tell me what it’s all about?’
‘A house fire last night. Multiple fatalities.’
‘Where?’
‘One of the Edendale estates. The Shrubs, I think they call it.’
‘I know where you mean.’
For all the time she’d served in E Division, Fry still didn’t seem to know the area all that well. Perhaps she didn’t think it was worth the effort because she wasn’t intending to stay long enough. Yes, that was the impression she gave. A visitor caught in a depressing stop-over while she waited for a connection to somewhere better.