Cooper and Fry Crime Fiction Series Books 1-3: Black Dog, Dancing With the Virgins, Blood on the Tongue

By the time Cooper reached the outskirts of Edendale, he knew he was going to be late for the second time in a week. Another black mark. But he found he didn’t really care. There was a dull pain throbbing at the front of his head, just behind his eyes, like the warning of an approaching thunderstorm.

At eight o’clock in the morning it seemed as though every few yards along the road there was someone clutching a dog lead. Their pets were nose down in every clump of grass, stopping to examine every lamppost and tree. It would be a rash murderer who tried to hide a body in this neighbourhood. The search parties were out permanently.

The first person he saw on the second floor of Divisional HQ was Diane Fry. She was heading for the briefing room with three other DCs. They were laughing at something, and Cooper began to flush immediately, not doubting that it was him they were laughing at. Fry, though, saw him coming and stopped to let him catch up.

‘You’re late again, Ben. You’ll be up on a charge if you’re not careful.’

‘Doesn’t matter,’ he said. ‘Have a good trip to Yorkshire?’

‘Not particularly. I’d rather have been here.’

‘Waste of time, then?’

‘Yes, as a matter of fact. There was no need for anyone to go, let alone two of us.’

Cooper sneered before he could stop himself. ‘What a surprise. Still, I suppose you had a good time together.’

Fry’s nostrils flared. ‘I don’t know what you’re getting at, but I’ll ignore it just this once.’

He inclined his head, his shoulders slumping. ‘Sorry, Diane. I shouldn’t have said that.’

‘Are you all right, Ben? You’ve got some funny ideas, but you’ve managed to restrain yourself from the snide comments so far.’

‘Yeah. I’m fine. It’s this endless heat, it’s wearing me out.’

‘Only I’ve been hearing something about some pigs …’

‘Yeah, yeah, don’t tell me.’

He saw Fry studying him. Her eyes travelled from his dull eyes to his hastily combed hair and down to his badly shaved cheeks, his crumpled shirt. He was suddenly aware of the smell of stale sweat from his body, and the way his hand shook when he rubbed his temples where the pain was beginning to throb again.

‘Ben – what I said about your father. I did apologize. If there’s anything else I can say …’

‘I told you then – if one more person calls me Sergeant Cooper’s lad … Just let me forget it, can’t you?’

Fry stood back, shocked by the venom in his voice. ‘Fine. Oh, and there’s a message for you. The superintendent wanted to see you straightaway, as soon as you got in.’

‘What about the briefing?’

‘Straightaway. That was the message. Trouble, is it?’

‘Bound to be.’

‘Hey, you haven’t forgotten our date tonight, have you?’

‘What?’

‘You’re taking me to your dojo. I’m looking forward to that challenge bout. You’re going to teach me a few things, remember?’

The walls of the superintendent’s office were lined with photographs, some of them going back many years. The faces of stiff, upright men with high collars and large moustaches seemed to glare at Ben Cooper, judging him. It was as if they were saying that he did not come up to their standards. That was certainly the message that Superintendent Jepson was trying to put across.

‘So basically, I’m saying it’s just not your turn this time, Cooper. Be patient, and your turn will come, I’m sure. Give it a bit more time, and we’ll look at things in a fresh light. There’s always hope in the future. Think about a bit of lateral development.’

Jepson studied the DC for his reaction. Hitchens was right – Cooper did look a little stressed and nervy. The dark patches under his eyes made him look older than twenty-eight, and he didn’t seem to have shaved properly this morning. His hands were shaking slightly, even before he had been told the news that he would not be on the shortlist for the DS’s job. Jepson wondered whether Ben Cooper had a drink problem. He would have to ask DI Hitchens.

‘Does it come as a shock to you, Cooper?’

‘I suppose I had wondered about it, sir. I had a psychological assessment done, you see.’

‘And what did it say in your psychological assessment report, Cooper?’

‘It said I’m not assertive enough, sir. Too inclined to interiorize and empathize in inappropriate circumstances.’

‘Mmm. And do you know what that means?’

‘Not a clue, sir.’

‘It means you’re too bloody nice, Cooper.’

‘I see.’

‘And we can’t have nice cops, can we? Not any more. Oh aye, we’ve every other kind of police now, Cooper. They’ve all got their place in the modern service. We’ve got black cops, women cops, gay cops, even psychic cops.’

Cooper took the last to be a reference to a story that had appeared in the local paper about a section officer who was a prominent member of the Spiritualist Church and had recently confessed to clairvoyant tendencies.

‘Nothing can surprise me now,’ said Jepson. ‘Next we’ll have transvestite cops, you’ll see. Some bugger in Vice Squad will turn up in a skirt one day, and then it’ll be anything goes. We’ll have midget cops, zombie cops, blue-skinned cops from the Planet Zog. Who knows? Maybe we’ll have genetically manipulated PCs with muscles like King Kong and brains like turnips. No, scrub that, we’ve got those already. But God forbid we should discriminate against any of them, Cooper. The one thing that won’t be tolerated is a prejudiced cop.’

‘Yes, sir,’ said Cooper, and tried a tentative smile, assuming Jepson was trying to cheer him up.

The superintendent looked at him suspiciously. He liked his junior officers to laugh at his jokes, but only when he was actually joking. ‘I suppose you think there’s no reason why we shouldn’t have nice cops, don’t you, Cooper? No reason at all.’

‘No, sir. Just not as a sergeant, perhaps?’

‘Well, who wants to be a bloody sergeant? It’s the dog’s arse of a job, believe me.’

They both listened for a moment, trying to catch the echoes of the insincerity from the plasterboard walls. Jepson tapped his hands on his desk to break the moment, glaring at Cooper until he was forced to speak.

‘Anyway, sir, I’m not as bothered as all that. I don’t really resent it or anything.’

‘Bollocks. If I were you, Cooper, I’d be totally pissed off. You’re just trying to be nice about it. There’s your trouble, you see,’ he said with an air of triumph.

‘I don’t suppose I’ll ever learn, sir.’

‘My advice is, go and shoot a few of those pigeons or whatever it is you do, get it out of your system. Have a few drinks. You’ll soon forget about it.’

Cooper dipped his head in acknowledgement as Jepson pursed his lips seriously for his final comment. ‘But no emotional outbursts, eh?’

He stared past the superintendent’s head. There was a large framed photograph on the wall, with dozens of solemn men sitting or standing in long rows. They were the entire uniformed strength of Edendale section, pictured during a visit to the station by some member of the royal family in the 1980s. Cooper remembered the occasion and the photograph well. On the second row, among the other sergeants, was his father.