The Kill Call

reluctant to open up any old wounds. ‘You thought she was living in this part of the world. Sheffield, right?’
    ‘Yes. And?’
    Fry gazed at him challengingly, waiting for a reply. It made Cooper feel as though he was a suspect in an interview room, forced to fill that uncomfortable silence with some confession of his own.
    ‘Well, I heard you had a bad time in Birmingham,’ he said.
    ‘A bad time?’ Fry tossed back the rest of her wine and looked around for another. ‘What does that mean?’
    ‘There was the assault case.’
    ‘Oh, you heard about that? Who told you?’
    Cooper shifted nervously. He recalled mentioning it himself, to Liz Petty.
    ‘I don’t know, Diane. It was a story that went around the office, not long after you arrived.’
    ‘I’d like to know who spread the story.’
    ‘I honestly don’t know. Are you saying it isn’t true?’
    ‘No, it’s quite true.’
    ‘I appreciate it’s something you might not want to talk about.’
    Fry stared at her empty glass. For a moment, Cooper thought she was going to start talking to him about it, that she wanted to tell him about the rape that had blighted her career in the West Midlands and had followed her to Derbyshire, like a shadow.
    But if the thought had crossed her mind, she decided against it. Cooper realized that she wasn’t going to say more. Though he’d barely touched his own drink, he fetched her another glass of wine, and after a while the conversation moved on.
    ‘Lies,’ said Fry. ‘Casual disregard for the truth. Why do people always feel the need to lie, even about the smallest things?’
    ‘It’s an occupational hazard in our business,’ said Cooper, watching her attack her full glass.
    Fry nodded. ‘My sister called me this week.’
    Cooper froze. Not only at the unexpected turn of the conversation, but at Fry’s sudden change of tone. Just when he thought she was about to thaw a little, she produced a knife to stab into his guts.
    ‘Angie?’ he said, knowing that he sounded completely feeble.
    ‘I don’t have any other sisters.’
    ‘Is she …?’ Cooper didn’t know what he meant to ask.
    ‘Much the same as the last time you talked to her,’ said Fry. ‘Probably much the same as the first time, too.’
    ‘Diane, I know we never talked about that –’
    ‘You’re damn right we didn’t.’
    ‘Is there anything I can say that would help?’
    ‘You can tell me why you went to all that trouble to find my sister and plot with her behind my back. It’s something you should have explained to me a long time ago, Ben. A long time.’
    ‘I didn’t,’ said Cooper.
    ‘What?’
    ‘I didn’t find her. She found me.’
    He was starting to feel a bit more confident now. None of it had been his fault, really. He knew that. But Diane was right – he’d never explained it to her. He’d been afraid to.
    Fry stared at him. ‘Are you saying it was all Angie’s idea?’
    ‘Yes.’
    That didn’t make her look any happier. Cooper searched for the right words to use that would get him past this moment. But Fry was too impatient, and she couldn’t wait for him to make his mind up.
    ‘More lies,’ she said. ‘It gets depressing.’
    ‘Diane –’
    She held up a hand. ‘No, that’s enough. I shouldn’t have asked. I ought to have known better.’
    There was an awkward silence. Cooper fidgeted, wishing for an excuse to get up and move away. He exchanged glances with the people at the other table, who’d been staring at Fry. They turned away in embarrassment.
    To his immense relief, it was Fry who broke the silence. She seemed to have two distinct halves to her brain, the way she could switch from one to the other so easily. But there was no doubt about it, thought Cooper – the professional part of her brain was the one that assumed dominance most easily.
    ‘Lies,’ she said again, and took a long breath, as if inhaling the fumes from her wine. ‘You know, the first person to deceive us in the Rawson enquiry was the manager at Le Chien Noir,’ she said.
    ‘How is that?’ said Cooper, eager to encourage this time.
    ‘He was so vague about the man that Patrick Rawson was having dinner with that Monday night. He couldn’t give a completely misleading description, in case we asked anyone else and their version contradicted his. So he was deliberately vague. He knew perfectly well who the other man was – Maurice Gains, Rawson’s partner in R & G Enterprises.’
    ‘Oh. They were trying to