The thought of him immediately sparked the surge of anger that always bubbled somewhere deep in her stomach, churning thick and corrosive like an acid that flowed in her small intestines. It happened every time; it only took the mention of Cooper’s name, or even a burst of the wrong music. There were cassettes that she used to play often in her car which she had been forced to throw away – not just casually chucked on the back seat, but hurled into the nearest wheelie bin, with their spools of magnetic tape ripped out and shredded like the innards of a rat she had once seen killed and torn apart by a police Alsatian in a derelict warehouse back in Birmingham. If there had been an open fire in her flat, she would have burned the tapes; she would have happily watched their plastic cases crack and twist and bubble, as they melted into a greasy smear.

Fry wiped a sheen of drizzle from her face, where it was starting to make her cheeks feel damp and uncomfortable. No, she hadn’t quite managed to erase Ben Cooper from her memory yet. But she was working on it.

‘We’ve arranged for you to see Maggie Crew at six o’clock,’ said DI Hitchens. ‘You’d better get going, as soon as this lot are out of our way.’

‘Was she willing to see me?’

‘Willing isn’t a word I’d use. She’s bloody hard work.’

‘She’s uncooperative? But why?’

‘You’ll see. Form your own impressions of her, Diane, that’s the best way. We want you to get to know her. Get under her skin. Be an irritant, if you like.’

Fry knew she was being presented with a chance to do something different, to escape the routine chores that the Ben Coopers of the world would be allocated during this enquiry.

‘I’m looking forward to it,’ she said.

Hitchens nodded in approval. ‘When are they going to stop messing about down there?’ he said.

DI Hitchens was dressed casually, in denims and trainers, and he looked like a man who should have been doing something else. His cheeks were dark and unshaven, and there were specks of white paint in his hair.

‘We’ve got to keep the road open,’ said the sergeant importantly as he passed below them.

‘Yeah. You’re doing a great job. We can see that.’

‘Control reckons the cavalry’s on the way, Inspector. They tracked down a couple of your lot at the rugby match.’