Fall Down Dead

by Stephen Booth

  Cooper had a flash of recollection, back to the conversation he was having with Fry as they arrived at the dojo that day and parked their cars in the middle of an area of mud-filled potholes, with the sound of dull thumps and hoarse screams filtering through the steel grilles of the warehouse windows and that scent of baking bread.

  The buildings were clustered so close together in Stone Bottom that they seemed grotesquely out of proportion from ground level as they leaned towards each other, dark and shadowy against the sky, set with long, blank rows of tiny windows. The slamming of car doors had echoed loudly against the walls and reverberated down the stone setts to the narrow bridge over the River Eden.

  He and Fry had been talking about the possible motives for murder in an inquiry they were involved in, the case of a teenage girl found dead in woods outside Edendale.

  ‘You make people sound really complicated,’ she’d said. ‘In my experience, their motivations are usually very simple and boring.’

  ‘Motivations like ambition and greed?’ he’d replied. ‘The old favourites? They can certainly make people ruthless and selfish, can’t they?’

  ‘And sex, of course,’ she said.

  ‘But sex isn’t so simple either, is it?’

  ‘For some of us, it’s very simple, I can assure you.’

  The craft workshops and software developers were still there on the upper floors of the warehouse, along with an interior designer and a photographic studio. But the martial arts centre had gone now, and so had the employment agency and the publisher.

  For a moment, Cooper wondered what had happened to his old flat in Welbeck Street. He hadn’t driven past it for a while. The house had passed to his landlady’s nephew when she died, and he’d been planning to sell both of the houses she owned. Property didn’t stay on the market for long in Edendale, especially the smaller terraced houses. He was pretty sure both of them would have been snapped up and converted into family homes.

  But he was happy about that. He felt no nostalgia about that first-floor flat, though it had been the first home of his own when he moved out of Bridge End Farm. Number 8 Welbeck Street had been an important part of his life for a while, but it was gone now.

  Diane Fry arrived quietly. Cooper didn’t notice her until she was standing over his table and putting an arm on his shoulder to make him jump. She’d never lost the ability to creep up on him like that. He wondered if she found it funny. It was hard to tell when she so rarely smiled.

  ‘Ben,’ she said simply.

  ‘You’d better sit down. Do you want a drink?’

  She held up a glass. ‘I’ve got one.’

  ‘So you have.’

  He wondered how long she’d actually been in the pub, whether she’d been watching him from some corner while he reminisced about the past, probably baffled at his ability to be content with own company.

  ‘Sit down, then. Tell me what it’s all about.’

  Fry explained what was happening to her, and he listened in silence, studying the way her demeanour changed. Behind the façade, she was genuinely worried.

  ‘I haven’t had much experience with Professional Standards,’ said Cooper, when she’d finished.

  ‘No, of course you haven’t,’ began Fry. ‘You—’ Then she stopped. Whatever she’d been about to say, she’d had second thoughts.

  Cooper watched her curiously. She had never before been so reticent about saying exactly what she thought, even if it was rude or ill-mannered. Now something was different. It was as if she was worried about rubbing him up the wrong way. That made him feel more concerned about her than if she’d come here for another argument.

  ‘So that’s why I haven’t been able to get hold of you,’ he said.

  ‘You’ve been trying to get hold of me? Why?’

  ‘Oh, nothing important.’

  ‘Good, because I’ve been a bit busy, as I just said.’

  ‘It can’t be anything too serious,’ said Cooper. ‘I know people make misjudgements now and then. They have unfortunate incidents. Remember when a drunk’s finger was severed while he was being transferred into a caged van?’

  ‘Officers were observing standard procedure with a non-compliant prisoner,’ said Fry.

  ‘Of course they were. But the guy still lost a finger.’

  She took another drink and eyed the rest of the customers in the pub. It was still early in the evening, but it would get busy later. The empty tables would soon fill up.

  Fry put her glass down with a thump.

  ‘People talk,’ she said enigmatically.

  ‘Surely they can’t believe everything they hear.’

  ‘In my case, they probably do.’

  ‘What makes you think that?’

  ‘They want me to go for a psychological evaluation,’ said Fry.

  ‘A what?’

  ‘You heard me. They want an assessment of my emotional and mental stability.’

  ‘That’s ridiculous,’ said Cooper.

  ‘Is it? I’m not so sure.’

  For the first time since he’d known her, Cooper saw self-doubt in Diane Fry’s eyes. Had she doubted her own stability all this time? He could sympathise with that. He’d gone through periods in his life when he felt he was out of control, or only just holding things together on the surface. Had the Diane he’d known only been on the surface all along? Was there so much more underneath that he’d never suspected?

  But the moment passed. Fry took a ragged breath, and her posture changed as the old veneer of confidence returned.

  ‘It’s rubbish, of course,’ she said.

  ‘I’m glad to hear it.’

  ‘But there are, you know . . . some incidents in my past.’

  Cooper frowned. ‘Nothing that they could make a case out of for gross misconduct. That’s what you’re worried about, isn’t it?’

  ‘Losing my job? Yes, that scares me stiff.’

  ‘So why have you come to me?’ asked Cooper.

  ‘I need help,’ said Fry simply. ‘And I didn’t know who else I could trust.’

  ‘Trust hasn’t always been what we had between us, Diane.’

  ‘No, you’re right. But still . . . when it comes down to it, you’re the only one.’

  Cooper fidgeted uncomfortably in his chair, while she watched him expectantly. She wanted an answer, but he didn’t know what to say. When it involved Diane Fry, he’d rarely known what the right thing was to say.

  ‘What exactly is it you want me to do?’ he said.

  ‘You know people,’ she said. ‘You’ve been in Derbyshire, like . . . for ever. I’ve always been an outsider, I know that. I bet people tell you things they would never share with me.’

  ‘You’re talking about internal organisational stuff.’

  ‘Obviously. I need to know what’s going on, who’s been telling tales about me.’

  ‘It must be someone you’ve worked with,’ said Cooper. ‘What about DC Callaghan?’

  ‘I’ve thought about him. But there was one incident just recently . . .’

  ‘What was that?’

  ‘I shouldn’t tell you. But internally, only Jamie Callaghan was aware of it.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘The PSD haven’t mentioned it,’ she said.

  ‘So you don’t think they know about it?’ said Cooper. ‘Whatever it was.’

  ‘Not so far.’

  Cooper stared at Fry.

  ‘I’m still puzzled,’ he said. ‘What do they really want from you?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Fry. ‘I don’t even know where this is all coming from, so it’s hard to tell.’

  ‘Could it be somebody in the West Midlands?’

  ‘Setting me up, you mean?’

  ‘I just wondered if you had information that might, well . . . compromise someone.’

  Fry gave a sardonic laugh. ‘Undoubtedly. How could I not have, during the course of my career here and in Birmingham? But where do I start?’

  ‘Birmingham,
’ said Cooper, ‘sounds like the ideal place to start.’

  ‘I suppose so.’

  ‘Well, go on, then. I know nothing about your time in the West Midlands.’

  ‘There was a DI in Birmingham. Gareth Blake. We worked together in Aston years ago. He was supposed to be investigating my assault case.’

  ‘Your case?’ said Cooper. He hesitated. ‘Oh, you mean your case. The . . .’ He dried up, too uncomfortable to say it out loud.

  ‘Yes, the rape,’ said Fry. ‘Blake was assigned to cold-case rape inquiries.’ She jerked her head dismissively. ‘Cold case? It didn’t seem so cold to me.’

  ‘I suppose not,’ said Cooper. ‘Though it was a long time ago.’

  He knew he’d said the wrong thing. But what was there he could say that would sound right? Probably nothing. Fry had told him about her rape years ago, when she’d first transferred to Derbyshire and they found themselves working closely together. It had been an act of unusual openness on her part, which he’d never known how to respond to.

  Fry gazed at him stonily, as if his reaction was no more than she expected. She would probably have given him a withering put-down. But for once she couldn’t. She’d come to ask him for a favour.

  Cooper remembered Fry being called back to Birmingham when the investigation into her rape was reopened. A DNA hit had presented new evidence, and she’d become the subject of a cold-case inquiry, referred to constantly as ‘the victim’. How she must have hated that.

  And he recalled that Fry had asked him for help then too. Was that connection what had made her come to him again?

  ‘OK, so DI Blake was in charge of investigating your cold case. But didn’t it fall through in the end?’ he said.

  ‘They lost a vital witness,’ said Fry.

  ‘And you did some investigating of your own.’

  ‘Thank you for calling it investigating. Sometimes it seems more like digging through dirt. The whole thing was fishy from the start – a DNA hit they didn’t tell me the real meaning of, a witness who changed her mind about testifying. And you do know who was at the centre of it all?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Cooper. ‘Your—’

  ‘No,’ she interrupted. ‘Just a corrupt lawyer.’

  ‘William Leeson. Of course I remember.’

  Cooper didn’t know what else she’d done on that visit to Birmingham, apart from enlisting his assistance to get access to the dodgy solicitor, who turned out to be a major part of her past. He hadn’t asked her too many questions, and he wasn’t about to do so now.

  ‘In reality, Blake and his partner were keeping tabs on me,’ said Fry. ‘It must have been them. They knew that I’d met with my colleague Andy Kewley before he died. Kewley was going to give me some information I needed, something that would have helped me find out what went wrong.’

  ‘The PSD can’t possibly think that you had anything to do with his death,’ said Cooper.

  ‘I don’t really know what they think,’ said Fry. ‘They might just be throwing it all out in a fishing expedition, hoping one item will stick or I’ll give something away inadvertently.’

  ‘You mean they want you to incriminate yourself.’

  ‘It looks that way.’

  ‘That’s not acceptable, Diane. You really should have someone with you in these interviews.’

  ‘I’ve told you, I don’t want that.’

  ‘Well, be careful.’

  She took a long drink, and Cooper waited. Sometimes, he felt it was what he did best.

  ‘It’s Angie,’ said Fry finally. ‘She seems to be the main problem.’

  ‘Ah.’

  ‘I’ve never really asked you,’ said Fry. ‘I mean, going back to that time when you first made contact with her.’

  ‘No,’ said Cooper. ‘To be accurate, she made contact with me. I didn’t want anything to do with it. It was your business. But Angie turned up at my flat one day. She told me she wanted you to stop trying to find her.’

  ‘But you did the opposite,’ said Fry. ‘You fixed up a meeting. You put us back in touch with each other.’

  Cooper shrugged. ‘It seemed simpler than trying to stop you looking. I don’t know she expected me to do that. I never had so much influence over you.’

  ‘What did you know about what she was doing in Sheffield?’

  ‘Not much. I do know she was picked up by someone in a BMW with a blocked registration.’

  ‘So you suspected.’

  ‘It wasn’t my business,’ said Cooper.

  ‘Oh, but you made it your business, didn’t you?’

  Cooper held out his hands. ‘I was just trying to help, Diane.’

  ‘Well, help me now.’

  ‘What is it you want from me?’

  ‘Just for you to be there if I need you. Someone to back me up, and give me a bit of support. And if you can use any contacts . . . well, I’d be grateful.’

  He could see it was hard for her to ask. Forget that she’d made things difficult for him so often over the years. It wasn’t relevant now. And it wasn’t in his nature to refuse to help.

  ‘I’ll do what I can,’ he said.

  She breathed a sigh of relief. ‘Thank you.’

  They walked back out into Market Square. Fry’s black Audi stood just a couple of spaces away from Cooper’s Toyota, its deep red paintwork standing out among all the greys and silvers of the other vehicles.

  Cooper looked at the empty spaces between their two cars. Had they been empty when Fry arrived? Did she deliberately leave that space, rather than park right next to him? It was such a small thing, yet it seemed to symbolise something about their relationship.

  ‘Diane,’ he said. ‘Just one thing.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘You’re not taking anything, are you?’

  She stared at him. ‘What?’

  ‘Well, it happens,’ he said. ‘A lot of police officers . . . they can’t cope with the stress day by day without a little bit of artificial support.’

  ‘You think I’m on drugs? What, cocaine? You’re suggesting I might snort a few lines of coke before I go to work in the morning?’

  ‘No. But . . . well, there is the matter of your sister.’

  Fry took a deep breath and seemed to calm herself down with an effort.

  ‘You’re right, Ben. Yes, you’re right. Absolutely spot on. I bet that’s exactly what the PSD are thinking. That’s why you said it, isn’t it? To make me think of the worst-case scenario. They’ve latched on to Angie connections and they think I will have been contaminated. That’s why they’re putting me through this process. They want me to reveal myself to be a junkie. A cokehead. A cocaine-sniffing cop. Jesus wept.’

  ‘Your behaviour can be a bit . . . unpredictable.’

  ‘I see we’re going for the full-frontal honesty tonight,’ she said.

  ‘Well, if you want my help, it’s best to have these things out in the open.’

  She breathed quietly for a moment, and he was reassured when she refused to turn away but continued to meet his eyes.

  ‘I’m not taking anything,’ she said. ‘Does that satisfy you?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Cooper.

  ‘You believe me?’

  ‘Absolutely.’

  The tension dropped away. Fry even managed a smile.

  ‘Have you been wondering about it all this time?’

  ‘Not really,’ said Cooper. ‘Besides, it’s not something you can go ahead and ask.’

  ‘But you just did.’

  ‘This is different.’

  A group of young men passed them, talking loudly as they headed for the pubs around Market Square. Fry unlocked her car and paused with her hand on the door.

  ‘Ben,’ she said.

  He turned. ‘Yes?’

  ‘You know this could get you into trouble, don’t you?’

  Cooper looked at her for a moment, saw in that one second everything he’d gone through with her, the times she’d been a thorn in his side and the occas
ions when she’d saved his life, or saved him from himself.

  ‘You’ve always caused me trouble, Diane,’ he said. ‘But you know that, don’t you?’

  23

  Wednesday

  Detective Superintendent Branagh was based at North Division headquarters in Chesterfield now. Since Edendale was relegated to a Local Policing Unit, most of Ben Cooper’s direct access to his boss was limited to phone calls.

  It took a couple of attempts before he could get through to her that morning. Meetings, he supposed. One of the penalties of rank.

  ‘This death on Kinder Scout,’ she said when he was able to get through. ‘Is it a murder inquiry, DI Cooper, or a suspicious death?’

  Cooper hesitated. ‘We’re not entirely sure, ma’am. The post-mortem results are inconclusive.’

  ‘Well, if and when you are sure, it’ll have to be passed to the Major Crime Unit to lead the inquiry.’

  ‘I don’t think that’s necessary.’

  ‘We’ll make sure you’re involved. But there has to be a qualified SIO in a murder case – you know that.’

  ‘Of course,’ said Cooper. ‘I’ll keep everyone informed. But there’s something I wanted to ask you.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Do you know what’s happening with regard to DS Fry? I understand there’s an internal investigation under way.’

  ‘There isn’t much I can say about it, I’m afraid. The Professional Standards Department are handling it. They do things in their own fashion. Why does it concern you, Ben? I know you’ve worked with her, but—’

  ‘I was wondering how serious it is, that’s all.’

  ‘I’m not privy to the details at this stage. In fact, I’m not sure they’ll include me, even if it comes to a case conference. I’m not currently DS Fry’s divisional commander.’

  ‘No, I understand.’

  ‘I’m sorry I can’t help any more than that,’ said Branagh. ‘I shouldn’t say this, Ben, but you could probably find out more by unofficial means.’

  ‘I’ll bear that in mind,’ said Cooper. ‘Thank you, ma’am.’

  When Cooper had finished the call, he reflected for a moment that he was glad Detective Superintendent Branagh hadn’t asked more about Faith Matthew’s death. He was reluctant to let it go, and it was an advantage to have an inconclusive post-mortem result. Branagh had probably realised that. She’d covered herself but allowed him some rope. He hoped he wasn’t about to hang himself with it.