The Kill Call

you can’t escape that. Everything happens in threes .’
    Cooper wasn’t so sure about fate himself. He’d never felt that sense of an inescapable destiny waiting for him, making everything he did completely futile. Perhaps he was too young yet. It was possible that you had to reach Mr Massey’s age, before you were able to stop and look back on your life, and get that sudden terrifying perspective that convinced you it had all been in vain.
    He smiled wryly to himself. Something to look forward to, then. He supposed it was better to enjoy life while he could. Best to appreciate what he had – friends, family, his relationship with Liz, the renewed prospect of promotion.
    He felt conscious of Diane Fry’s presence on the other side of the room. Without looking, Cooper knew that she’d read the memo from Branagh now. The tension was obvious in the set of her shoulders, the jerkiness of her movements. He wondered what she would say, or whether she would say nothing at all. Perhaps she would store it up and hold it against him for ever more.
    One thing Cooper knew. Despite his best efforts, he was no nearer to understanding Diane Fry than he’d ever been.
       
    For some reason, Fry had found herself thinking about rats. In particular, the black, flea-ridden rodents that had brought the Black Death to Eyam. The image of those rats seemed to sum up the past week for her. They were a symbol of disease and death, and the dark, rustling memories that lurked in the disused corners of people’s heads. That lurked inside her own, for certain.
    Now, a dirty sediment was being stirred up in her life, a spreading black contagion that all the rain of the last few days would never be able to wash away.
    Not for the first time, Fry wondered what Ben Cooper knew that he wasn’t supposed to. There was no way he could be aware of the reason for DI Blake’s visit from the West Midlands yesterday. He couldn’t possibly understand what was going on in her mind, the continuous weighing up of pros and cons, the constant running through her head of possible scenarios. He had no idea about the struggle she would face, coping with the pressures she would come under, until she bit the bullet and made a decision.
    And, above all, someone like Cooper could never comprehend the painful attempt to balance two powerful urges. The need to keep her most terrible memories safely buried now had to be set against this urge she’d suddenly discovered growing inside – the burning desire for vengeance and justice.
    Without being aware of any conscious intention, Fry got to her feet and moved across to Cooper’s desk. What she wanted to ask him, she wasn’t at all sure. She was just aware of a need to speak to him, to make some form of contact. But the tense atmosphere in the room made her pause, and she forgot whatever it was that she might have intended to say.
    On his desk, Cooper had spread some of the items found during the search of Adrian Tarrant’s house. She watched him pick up the hunting horn in its plastic evidence bag and turn it over to read the label, its brass and copper length glinting in the light. The sight of it made Fry blurt out the first thing that came into her head.
    ‘You know, Ben,’ she said, ‘I never did hear the kill call.’
    Cooper looked up at her, his eyes intense, his face faintly flushed.
    ‘I was just thinking – we’re not even certain that the horn works,’ he said.
    ‘We could try it,’ suggested Fry, trying to sound more casual than she felt. ‘Do you know how to use one?’
    Cooper raised an eyebrow. ‘Maybe. But trying the kill call? We might contaminate the evidence. It’s a big decision to make.’
    ‘I suppose you’ve given it some thought, though. You’re the sort of man who would.’
    ‘Yes, I have.’
    ‘And what’s your conclusion, Ben?’
    ‘Well …’
    Fry waited anxiously on his words, conscious of an overwhelming need for someone to make a decision. One way or another, the decision that she had to take in the next few weeks would change her life, and she needed some guidance. Any kind of direction would be welcome right now. A sign, a portent, a few words of advice.
    ‘Actually, Peter Massey had a thought about decisions,’ said Cooper.
    ‘Oh?’
    ‘Do you want to hear it, Diane?’
    ‘Go ahead. Tell me.’
    Cooper glanced at her curiously, before turning over a page of Massey’s statement and read from the last paragraph:
    A finger on the button, or a