She had been finding the task of reliving the night’s events painful and humiliating. She was in physical pain, too, from the bruises on her leg. But she wasn’t about to make that an excuse for anything. And then she had to run into Ben Cooper hovering near the top of the stairs. He was the last person she wanted to see; it was entirely because of Cooper and his stupid ideas that she had been in the quarry in the first place, listening to the ravings of those two travellers. But she couldn’t avoid him. He moved straight in on her, thrusting himself into her personal space.

‘You did your best, Diane,’ he said, with that infuriating habit of reading her mind.

‘Oh, sure I did.’

She turned away from him too suddenly. Her injured knee gave way and her foot slid off a step. Cooper grabbed her jacket to stop her falling back down the stairs and yanked her towards him. Fry found herself nose to nose with him. She felt his breath on her face and saw his eyes, big and brown and concerned, like the eyes of one of Warren Leach’s Jersey cows.

‘What the hell do you think you’re doing, Cooper? Get your hands off me.’

‘Look, I know how you feel,’ he said.

‘No, you bloody don’t.’

‘Diane – even you couldn’t fight them all.’

‘They neutralized me in seconds,’ she said. ‘I hardly tried.’

Fry kept remembering that she hadn’t even drawn her ASP. It had been in her scabbard, readily to hand. But she had not used it.

Cooper held on to her for a moment longer than he needed to, steadying her with a hand on her back. She could feel his fingers against her spine through the cloth. He was pressing gently but insistently on her vertebrae, triggering a small nerve that sent sensations running down into her abdomen. For a second, it even seemed to ease the pain in her leg.

Then Fry yanked herself free and straightened her jacket. ‘Isn’t this supposed to be your rest day?’

‘Yes.’

‘Then what the hell are you doing in the station? Haven’t you got anything better to do?’

She watched Cooper’s face crumple and the flush start to creep up his neck. He was the only detective she knew who blushed when he was spoken to sharply.

‘As a matter of fact, I have,’ said Cooper.

‘Enjoy your day then. I’ve got a meeting with Mr Tailby and the Super.’

Chief Superintendent Jepson laid his hands flat on the desk and looked from one officer to the other. ‘OK, who’s going to start? Put me out of my misery. Let me know what this is all about.’

As Diane Fry expected, it was DI Hitchens who took the bull by the horns.