They watched Fry get out of the Peugeot and look around the car park. To Cooper, she still seemed thin, despite a heavy woollen jacket with a hood against the cold. She had never looked healthy – too much in need of a few good meals, and with a strength that was all sinew and technique, rather than muscle. For a moment, he wondered how she spent her time now. No one else in Edendale had taken the trouble to befriend her since his own efforts had failed. Diane Fry carried something dark and immovable on her shoulder, something that had accompanied her from West Midlands when she transferred. Cooper felt a frisson of unease at the thought of what might happen to her eventually, if she was left entirely on her own.

Finally, Fry saw them and walked directly towards Weenink. She took him aside and spoke to him quietly for a minute. Cooper could see that Todd looked unhappy. But then he walked to their car and drove away without a glance, his face set into a scowl.

Cooper stood quite still, like a child reluctant to draw attention to himself. He wanted to shove his hands in his pockets to keep them warm, but was worried about how it might be interpreted.

He found the officer safety techniques from the training manuals running through his mind – extracts from the sections on employing empathy. Don’t excite the suspect by sudden movements, they said. Show a willingness to resolve the situation by co-operation. That was fine. But there was one problem here. The manuals always recommended maintaining a verbal exchange with the suspect for as long as possible, if you were going to maintain empathy.

Cooper watched her as she took her time reading the notices in the window of the cycle hire centre, as if she were totally fascinated by the weather forecast or the penalties for returning a bike after the deadline.

‘What’s going on?’ he asked. ‘What’s wrong?’

‘Wrong?’ Fry’s stare was capable of raising the temperature of his skin until he felt his face was glowing like a red traffic light. ‘DC Weenink is required back at Division, that’s all.’

‘Why?’ said Cooper. ‘What’s so important that they pull him off the job just like that?’

‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘I can’t tell you that.’

‘Can’t? Does that mean you do know why? Or haven’t they told you either?’

‘It’s nothing to do with you, OK?’

Cooper opened his mouth, then realized it would be a waste of time trying to explain that Todd Weenink was his partner.

‘Right. OK. So now what?’

‘Well, we’re following Jenny Weston’s route, aren’t we?’

‘We?’

‘Since I’ve deprived you of your friend, you’ll have to put up with me. Sorry. Is it this way?’