Cooper was conscious that his own thirtieth birthday was approaching next year. It loomed in the distance like a summer storm cloud, making him feel his youth was nearly over before he had got used to being in his twenties. One day, he could be another Dave Rennie.

‘I think Todd might have got a bit of concussion, Sarge.’

‘He always looks like that,’ said Rennie.

‘He got a knock on the head.’

‘Don’t worry – Weenink doesn’t let anybody mess with him. He always gets his revenge.’

Todd Weenink was different, of course. During the last couple of months Cooper had found himself thrown together with Weenink in the latest round of restructuring in the division. In these circumstances, the relationship became almost like a marriage. The issue of ‘them and us’ became focused on a single individual. But there were times when you needed another officer at your side.

Without the man or woman at your side, you could find yourself looking the wrong way at the wrong time. You had to have a person you could put your trust in. They supported you; and you supported them. Cooper knew it was a law written in invisible ink on the back of the warrant card they gave you when you were sworn in as a constable. It was sewn into your first uniform like an extra seam; it was the page that they always forgot to print in the Police Training Manual.

Only a couple of weeks earlier, Weenink had been the man at his side when they had raided a small-scale drugs factory in a converted warehouse on the outskirts of Edendale. One of the occupants had produced a pickaxe, but he had been too slow, and they had executed a takedown between them, with no one injured.

Cooper reassured himself by thinking of his date with Helen Milner later on. Within an hour, he would be out of the rugby club and away. He and Helen hadn’t decided where they would go yet. Probably it would be a walk to get the noise out of his head, then a drink or two at the Light House before a meal somewhere. The Light House was where they had gone the very first time they had gone out together. It was hardly more than two months ago that they had met again at Helen’s grandparents’ house in the village of Moorhay and resumed a relationship that had started when they were schoolfriends. But their new beginning had not been without difficulties. Nothing ever was.

The clubhouse corridor smelled of sweat and mud and disinfectant, with a permanent underlying essence of embrocation. Dave Rennie helped Cooper carry the jugs of beer to the players in the visitors’ changing room. Then the sergeant’s pager began to bleep.

‘Oh, God damn it. What now?’