The Kill Call

he would.’
    ‘Just as Patrick Rawson always did.’
    ‘I suppose so.’
    Cooper thought back to the hunt saboteurs’ report of hearing the kill call on the morning of the hunt. Earlier, there had been the phone call from Naomi Widdowson to Patrick Rawson, the call that had brought him to his death. That was a kind of kill call in its own way. And there had been the call from Deborah Rawson to Adrian Tarrant, too.
    ‘The argument Mr Wakeley heard …’ said Cooper.
    ‘Yes?’
    ‘I was assuming he’d heard Naomi Widdowson shouting at Patrick Rawson, and perhaps Rawson arguing back. That doesn’t fit with the story, though, does it?’
    ‘Not quite,’ said Fry. ‘Naomi must certainly have shouted at him about Rosie. But Rawson didn’t stand there and argue with her. He ran.’
    ‘Yes. So the rest of the argument must have been between Naomi and Adrian, mustn’t it?’
    Fry nodded. ‘Of course. She didn’t want Tarrant to go back to the hut, she was trying to make him come away with her. I think Naomi was telling the truth on this point – that she only wanted to give Patrick Rawson a scare. But Adrian had another job to do.’
    ‘He wasn’t much of a hit man, though. Too fond of unnecessary showiness – I mean, the business with the hunting horn and all that. The kill call.’
    ‘Well, he enjoyed the work too much,’ said Fry. ‘That was his problem. It doesn’t do to get emotionally involved.’
    ‘So I’ve heard.’
    Then Cooper remembered David Headon’s almost casual reference to Attack Warning Red, the recognized alert to an imminent nuclear attack during the 1960s. Attack Warning Red? That would have been the kill call on a massive scale.
       
    They had lunch at the Miners’ Arms, a pub boasting that it was old enough to be pre-plague. Fry ate bacon-wrapped chicken breast stuffed with leeks and mushrooms, while Cooper had the home-made venison and orange pie.
    As they ate, Cooper tried to close his ears to the voice of a man at a nearby table, boasting to two women that he kept a loaded pistol on his bedside table, in case of burglars. ‘ If I caught a burglar in my house, I’d shoot him. It’s the way I was trained .’
    ‘I heard your cat died,’ said Fry, draining half a glass of the house white.
    As small talk, it wasn’t a brilliant opening. Cooper looked at the rapidly disappearing wine and wondered if Fry could really be as nervous as she seemed, so unaccustomed to a purely social situation.
    ‘How did you hear that?’ asked Cooper, genuinely curious about her sources of information.
    ‘Oh, it was mentioned around the office,’ said Fry vaguely. ‘Becky Hurst said something, I think.’
    Office gossip, then? He didn’t think she ever noticed it, let alone paid any attention to it.
    ‘Yes, it’s true. Though I’m not entirely sure he was mine. He kind of came with the flat, and adopted me.’
    ‘Shame, though.’
    ‘You’re not a cat person, are you?’ said Cooper. ‘I’m sure you can’t be.’
    ‘Why shouldn’t I be?’
    ‘Well … no, you’re just not, Diane.’
    Fry swallowed some more wine. ‘Can’t stand ’em,’ she admitted. ‘Aren’t you going to get a new one?’
    ‘I’m going to look this afternoon.’
    ‘From a sanctuary?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘I thought it would be.’
    Despite his best intentions, Cooper felt himself bridle at her tone. ‘What do you mean?’
    ‘Human or animal, it has to be a lost cause with you. You have to be able to ride in like a knight in shining armour and perform the noble rescue. It’s what you get off on. I’ve seen it often enough.’
    Her accusation was so unfair that Cooper didn’t know what to say. How had she known that he would choose a sanctuary? He’d been thinking only the other day of Cats Protection, who had a centre somewhere near Ashbourne. But there was a sanctuary closer than that, just outside Edendale, and he’d decided to give them a try first. That wasn’t wrong, was it? Anyone would do the same, rather than leave all those animals abandoned in cages.
    Fry put down her glass for a moment.
    ‘Can I ask you something?’
    Cooper could feel the mood change, like a cold draught blowing through the bar. He almost looked round to see who’d left the door open.
    ‘Go ahead.’
    ‘Did you ever really understand why I came to Derbyshire from Birmingham?’
    ‘Well, there was your sister,’ said Cooper cautiously, remembering a particularly difficult period between them, and