The Kill Call

time.’
    Well, Cooper suspected that every week was a bad time for Diane Fry in one way or another, but he let it pass.
    ‘Why particularly now?’
    ‘The word around the station is that the new superintendent has it in for her. Doesn’t think she fits in.’
    ‘How is it that civilian staff always manage to gather far more information than detectives?’ said Cooper. But he didn’t really feel like joking. What Liz was saying matched his own feeling too closely.
    He looked around the Hanging Gate. A thick brass rail and stools lined up at the bar. A trophy cabinet for the darts team. Rooms were separated by coloured glass panels. A florid-faced man with a bald head and a dark moustache came into the pub, and a young woman with unnaturally pale hair and sunglasses followed him. While he waited to be served at the bar, she walked past and found a seat near the back of the room. The bald man watched her all the way.
    It was in this pub that Angie Fry had once tried to present him with a forged death certificate, expecting him to help her in a strategy to get her sister off her back. It recorded the death in Chapeltown, Sheffield, of Angela Jane Fry, aged thirty, and had been dated just over a year previously. It was the first time he’d ever sat at a table in a pub and talked to a dead person.
    ‘ And presumably this isn’t your real address ,’ Cooper had said.

    And Angie had laughed. ‘ That isn’t even my name now. I changed it some time ago. The house was used as a squat, but the owners evicted everyone months ago .’
    And because of his refusal to be involved in that scheme to prevent Diane from finding her sister, the two women had finally been re-united and had ended up living together for months at Diane’s place in Grosvenor Avenue. Cooper still had no idea whether Diane knew the full picture. Or ever would.
    And the odd thing was, Diane Fry had been the bane of his life ever since her arrival in Derbyshire. She was the newcomer who had rejected his attempts at friendship, she was the woman who’d got the promotion he’d thought was his own. She was the supervisor who made him feel he never did anything right, who scoffed at his background and his way of life. She was the woman who looked at him as if he’d mortally offended her at some time, perhaps just by being who he was.
    Yes, she was all of those things. He surely had every reason to hate her. Yet, when it came to the point, Cooper realized that he didn’t want her to leave. Her departure would create a strange, inexplicable gap in his life that he couldn’t imagine being able to fill in any other way.
    ‘Yes, I’ll speak to her,’ he said.
    Liz nodded. ‘I think you should. You’re the closest thing she has to a friend, you know, Ben.’
    ‘You’re kidding.’
    But as soon as he said it, Cooper knew she was right. He couldn’t think of a single person who was close to Diane Fry. Some had tried. In fact, he’d tried himself, for a while. But Fry was the sort of person who didn’t want friendship. If asked, she would say she could manage without it. He could almost hear her saying it now.
    He looked at Liz. ‘I’ll see what I can do.’
    ‘Good.’

    Liz had made a special effort tonight. Her hair was brushed back, and she’d applied touches of make-up that transformed her normal healthy bloom. Although Cooper was no judge, the glitter of her bracelet looked expensive.
    He had a sudden feeling of panic that he hadn’t been treating Liz well enough. And here he was, expecting her to sit in the bar of the Hanging Gate with him. She hadn’t seemed to demand any more, but seeing her tonight, he had a nagging suspicion of a dangerous gulf between them that he’d been ignoring. What, after all, did he really know about her?
    Liz’s green eyes seemed to mock him, as if she was reading his thoughts. Was his face so transparent, that everyone could do that?
    But then her eyes slipped past him, and Cooper turned. His sister had arrived.
    ‘It’s getting really foggy out there,’ said Claire, shaking off her coat. ‘Not so bad in town, but you can’t see three feet in front of you on the hills.’
    Introductions followed, and those few awkward moments before drinks were fetched and everyone settled down again. Liz clutched at his hand and held it firmly on the table, intertwining her fingers with his. To Cooper, it felt more like a proprietary gesture in the face of a rival than a need for reassurance. He saw Claire notice