Blood on the Tongue - Stephen Booth

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could only hope. Things might look completely different tomorrow.

      Diane Fry stayed behind in the office for a while after everyone else had gone. The night shift was practically non-existent, and the station became like a morgue. It was the time she liked most, when there were no distractions and she could think out problems without being interrupted by singing lobsters or, even worse, her colleagues. People always had their own demands to make on her.

      From a locked drawer in her desk, she took out a manila folder, which had Ben Cooper’s name on it. It contained copies of his personnel files. She knew when he had been recruited into Derbyshire Constabulary, what grades he had got in his training and where his first posting had been. She had the date of his transfer from uniform to CID, a couple of commendations from senior officers, and a special note from the Divisional Commander referring to the death in service of his father, Sergeant Joe Cooper. Ben had been given compassionate leave and counselling. A note said ‘no long-term problems’.

      There were also the results of his examinations for the rank of sergeant, all good. Then the outcome of his interview board, when he had withdrawn his application. That had been when Fry got the sergeant’s job herself. Did the change in Cooper stem from that time? It would be understandable. But she didn’t think it was quite that – although the disappointment of missing out on the promotion he had banked on could have been the cause of what she suspected he had done later. She was almost sure he had concealed evidence, or at least not reported his suspicions, all out of misguided loyalty.

      Fry touched the scar on her face, which had healed but not yet faded. She had no evidence against him – that was the problem. There was no proof. Unfounded allegations against a colleague would blight her own career as surely as anything else she could do. Especially when they were against Mr Popular, the man who had lived in the Eden Valley all his life and knew everyone. She would get no benefit from stirring up trouble against fellow officers, unless she was absolutely sure of her ground. And that was particularly true when one of them had died in the course of his duty.

      Fry knew nothing could do more damage to her relationship with her colleagues. She could imagine even now the officers drawing away from her in the corridor, the cooling of attitudes from senior staff, gradually freezing her out. Finally she would get the message and either transfer back to where she had come from, the West Midlands, or leave the police service altogether, knowing no one would care which she chose.

      She frowned at the memory of the way Ben Cooper had looked today as he went off duty. He had been wearing that ridiculous waxed coat with the long skirts and the vast inside pocket he called his poacher’s pocket. The coat was dark green, as if he were trying for a camouflage effect. It wasn’t much use in the snow – he would be a sitting duck for an angry gamekeeper with a twelve-bore shotgun. But somehow it made him look as if he belonged where he was, like a man who was at ease with himself and his own place in the world. And then there was the tweed cap. In the shadow of its peak, you could barely see his eyes.

      Fry shook herself. There was no one she could ask about Ben Cooper. Perhaps her view of him was somehow distorted. Maybe her antennae were deadened by her preoccupations with her own problems. One thing was certain, Cooper was a man orbiting somewhere beyond the reach of her detection systems. But he wouldn’t need to put a foot too far wrong before his orbit brought him right back into her sights. Maybe tomorrow.

       5

      By the next day, the skies had cleared. Overnight frost had sprayed glitter on the snow that lay on the moors, and the air crackled like static electricity.

      Ben Cooper sighed as he stumbled around his room, determined not to miss breakfast today. First thing this morning he had to attend the Chief Superintendent’s meeting with the Canadian woman. He hoped it was something that could be got out of the way as soon as possible. It was an irrelevance, and a waste of time. From what he had read of the files produced by the Local Intelligence Officer, it was more than a cold case she was asking Derbyshire Constabulary to take up – it was no case at all.

      Cooper was sure it was just another fuss being kicked up by somebody with an obsession about the past and the history of their family. The Canadian would be sent packing by Chief Superintendent Jepson pretty quickly.

      She was unimportant, anyway. At the moment, until he was fully awake, Cooper couldn’t even remember the woman’s name.

      Alison Morrissey had brought Frank Baine with her to West Street for support. Baine described himself as a freelance journalist who had researched local RAF history and the background to the aircraft wrecks that littered the Peak District. He hinted at a book yet to appear. He was also the man who had liaised for weeks now on behalf of the Canadian, pestering for information and a confirmed date and time for the meeting. Though the Chief Superintendent had at no stage spoken to Baine himself, he had already managed to become irritated by his persistence, communicated to him by his staff. That Canadian Consul must really be a valuable contact.

      The four of them met in the Chief Superintendent’s office amid a flurry of cappuccino served by the Chief’s secretary, and an offer of the Bakewell tarts that Jepson kept for the purpose of demonstrating his Derbyshire street cred to visitors. Cooper couldn’t remember when he had tasted real coffee at West Street before. He had heard they actually served it to customers in reception at the new B Division headquarters, but he wouldn’t believe it until he saw it for himself.

      The meeting opened with some half-hearted pleasantries about the health and welfare of Miss Morrissey’s uncle, his family, his dog and his golf handicap. The Chief Superintendent eventually ran out of small talk and sat looking at his visitors in silence. It was an interrogation technique that he fell back on from force of habit, from his long-past days in the CID. It worked, though. Alison Morrissey began talking almost immediately.

      ‘As you know, gentlemen, I asked for this meeting because I am attempting to clear the dishonour on the name of my grandfather, Daniel McTeague, who was an officer serving in the Royal Canadian Air Force. He was reported missing while on attachment to the RAF in January 1945.’

      ‘All of fifty-seven years ago,’ said Chief Superintendent Jepson. He was smiling amicably, but he was putting down his marker from the start.

      ‘I happen to know that your neighbours the Greater Manchester Police re-opened a case last year that was exactly fifty-seven years old,’ said Morrissey, looking him straight in the eye. ‘The length of time that has passed seems to me to be irrelevant, if there’s been a miscarriage of justice.’

      Cooper sneaked a look at her over the files he was pretending to study. He hadn’t expected her to be so young. If he had bothered to think about it, he would have been able to work out her possible age range, of course, since he knew it was her grandfather that she was here to talk about. It was mentioned in the files that Pilot Officer McTeague had been twenty-three when he went missing. His daughter, Alison Morrissey’s mother, had been born only days before he disappeared, which would make her fifty-seven now. She must have been one of those women who waited until her thirties before having children, because Morrissey could barely have been more than twenty-five or twenty-six. Cooper liked the way she had answered the Chief Superintendent. She had plenty of determination. And she knew her stuff, too.

      ‘There was never a court case,’ pointed out Jepson. ‘Justice was not involved.’

      ‘Natural justice,’ said Morrissey.

      The Chief Superintendent sighed a little. ‘Go on.’

      ‘My grandfather was the pilot of a Lancaster bomber based at RAF Leadenhall in Nottinghamshire, part of 223 Squadron of Bomber Command. He had been flying with the RAF for two years, and he had an excellent service record. He was awarded a Distinguished Flying Cross after bringing home a damaged Wellington from a successful raid on German U-boat bases near Rotterdam. He ordered his crew to bail out once they were over England and landed the aircraft single-handedly. And that was despite the fact that he had himself been wounded by shrapnel from enemy anti-aircraft fire. As soon as he

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