But E Division was lucky. Their neighbours in B Division had no canteen at all. A mobile sandwich service called at the front of the building every lunchtime. Beyond that, it was a question of a kettle, a jar of Nescafé and a packet of chocolate biscuits in the corner of every office. There could be no ‘canteen culture’ when there was no canteen. Problem solved.

Ben Cooper carried a cup of coffee to a table where some of his shift were already sitting, and he arrived in the middle of a conversation that immediately made him uneasy.

‘She’s a real hard bitch,’ Todd Weenink was saying.

Opposite Weenink was Toni Gardner, a DC from another shift, who still had her straight blonde hair tied back into a ponytail in the fashion of the uniformed officers. She nodded in agreement. ‘She’s a toughie, all right.’

‘Who are you talking about?’ asked Cooper, though he felt he could have a good guess.

‘That Diane Fry,’ said Weenink.

‘A snotty cow, she is, too,’ said Gardner.

Cooper settled down on a spare chair, concentrating on not spilling his coffee so that he didn’t have to meet anyone’s eye.

‘She’s just trying too hard,’ he said. ‘She’ll settle down after a bit.’

Weenink shook his head sadly. ‘I don’t know how you can be so tolerant. I know I wouldn’t be, if it was me.’

Cooper looked at the officers round the table, and he wanted to tell them about the time that Diane Fry had reluctantly confided in him the secrets of her past, the dreadful history of her family, and the heroin-addict sister she hadn’t seen since she was sixteen. But he knew it was impossible to share this knowledge with anyone else.

‘I’d tell her where to stick her stripes,’ said Gardner. She smiled at Todd Weenink, as if willing him to notice that she was agreeing with him. Cooper realized that there was more going on here. Todd had an attraction for some women that he never fully understood. He supposed it was a kind of overt masculinity, the sense of sexual challenge in his dark smirk and the way he held his body. Yet these things were not what women said they looked for in men. Not the women Ben Cooper talked to, anyway.

Gradually, the conversation veered to other topics – grumbles about supervisors, night shifts and salaries. Every man there could have run E Division better than the Divisional Commander. Under their guidance, the clear-up rate would double. But then there were the courts to deal with, of course. Not to mention the CPS. The Criminal Preservation Society, they called it – the body of lawyers given the responsibility of prosecuting the alleged offenders the police produced for them. There was a general shaking of heads.

‘And we’re chasing up white vans tomorrow,’ said Weenink. ‘I can’t wait.’