The Kill Call

by Stephen Booth

  Cooper stopped in front of a loose box, eyeing an old horse who stared straight back at him unblinkingly.

  ‘Hello. What’s your name?’

  He glanced aside to look at a notice on the wall next to the loose box. It said: ‘This horse has been ill-treated. Watch her – she bites.’

  Cooper had been warned just in time. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw an enormous set of teeth flashing towards him. He jerked his head back instinctively. What had happened to the animal in the past that it would lunge at a complete stranger the moment his attention was distracted?

  Ah, well. That wasn’t what he was here for. He made his way to the cattery, which was at the back of the sanctuary: a couple of low buildings with concrete walkways.

  When he got there, Cooper hesitated. So how, exactly, did you go about choosing a cat? How on earth did you make a judgement when you were faced with rows and rows of felines in mesh cages? All of them were animals who’d been abandoned or mistreated in some way. All of them deserving of a good home.

  It wasn’t like buying a car, when you could look at the mileage, check under the bonnet, sit in the driving seat and try out the controls. He hadn’t even thought about what colour of cat he’d like, which was the first question that Claire had asked him when he told her. Did it matter whether it was a tabby, a tortoiseshell or a ginger tom? It was the personality that mattered, the question of whether you were compatible. And you wouldn’t discover that with a cat until you’d worked on the relationship for a while.

  So standing here in the animal rescue centre, being asked to make a choice, seemed suddenly too daunting. It was an impossible challenge, surely?

  But, in the end, it proved to be very simple. The question was resolved for Cooper beyond doubt by the time he got halfway down the first row of cages. There, he found a small, furry bundle clinging to the mesh, two bright green eyes fixed determinedly on his, and a tiny paw reaching desperately for his sleeve until claws hooked in and drew him closer. He barely noticed the colour of the fur in the intensity of the moment of communication. A pink mouth opened in an almost silent cry as the young cat spoke to him.

  And somehow, Cooper knew exactly what he was being told. He didn’t have to choose a cat, after all. His cat had chosen him.

  Dorothy Shelley was waiting for him when he arrived home in Welbeck Street. Cooper never really understood how his landlady knew everything that was going on. But he certainly wasn’t going to be able to keep a new cat secret from her. He could see her grey-haired figure in a faded blue cardigan, hovering by the window of number 6 as he pulled his Toyota towards the kerb.

  ‘She’s lovely,’ said Mrs Shelley, peering into the pet carrier before Cooper even got to the door of his flat. ‘She is a “she”, isn’t she?’

  ‘Yes, this time,’ said Cooper, with a laugh. He remembered that his landlady had not been too expert at assessing the gender of a cat in the past.

  ‘Have you decided what you’re going to call her?’

  He looked at the bright green eyes, huge and anxious, set in a face marked with perfect tabby tiger stripes.

  ‘Not yet. It’s going to take some thinking about.’

  As he went inside his flat, Cooper reflected that he might have to take some time over that decision. It wasn’t something to be rushed into. A name had to match a personality. And you didn’t really understand another person’s character until you’d got to know them properly. Sometimes, you could know a person for quite a while, and never understand them at all.

  40

  Monday

  Fry didn’t know why she had such a bad feeling as she walked up to Superintendent Branagh’s office first thing on Monday morning. Often, an urgent summons meant you were in trouble, but she was confident that she hadn’t put a foot wrong this week. She had obtained a good result, hadn’t she?

  So it ought to be good news – a commendation, or a bit of praise, at least. It had been known, even from Branagh. Perhaps she was going to apologize for having been wrong about Fry’s record. That would be a turn-up for the books, all right. Like Count Dracula turning vegetarian.

  Fry entered the corridor from the top of the stairs and saw the superintendent’s office door ahead. Actually, praise from Branagh was definitely her due. She should go in expecting it as her right, not nervously approaching the feet of an angry god.

  But, no matter how she rationalized it, she still had a bad feeling.

  ‘Come in,’ called Branagh at her knock.

  Fry entered cautiously, and glanced around the room. She realized straight away that she’d been right to be uneasy. The atmosphere in the superintendent’s office was tense, the silence that met her arrival too unnatural. Branagh’s two visitors were immediately recognizable as police officers, though they wore civilian clothes. Detectives, then? Were they from another division, or headquarters staff? Strange that they didn’t look familiar, either the man or the younger woman who now stood to greet her.

  ‘DS Fry. Thank you for coming up to see us.’

  ‘Sir.’

  Fry held out her hand automatically to take his, feeling in no doubt from the start that she was addressing a more senior officer. He wasn’t much above her own age, his hair just starting to recede a little from his forehead, grey eyes observing her sharply from behind tiny, frameless glasses.

  Then he smiled, and Fry hesitated, wanting to let her hand drop, but feeling it still clutched awkwardly in his.

  ‘It’s been a long time, Diane,’ he said.

  And then she recognized him. They’d been in uniform on the same shift years ago, but he’d got his stripes really early. Too early, some had said. But he’d been ambitious, with the right mix of ambition and ability that got you noticed in the force. Blake – that was his name. Gareth Blake. He’d matured now, dressed better and went to a decent hairdresser. He still reeked of ambition, though.

  Fry realized that he was staring at her, that smile still lingering on his face, a bit uncertainly now. She looked from Blake to the woman, and back again.

  ‘So,’ said Fry, ‘I don’t suppose this is a social call. What exactly can I do to help Birmingham CID?’

  Blake introduced the woman with him as Rachel Murchison. She was smartly dressed in a black suit and a white blouse, dark hair tied neatly back, all businesslike and self-confident. Fry cautiously shook hands, wondering why the woman was studying her so closely. She could sense that Branagh was watching her too, from behind her desk. She couldn’t still smell of horse shit, surely? She’d showered three or four times since then, and thrown everything into the wash.

  ‘Rachel is a specialist counsellor who works with us sometimes,’ said Blake.

  So she’d been wrong, then. Not a police officer. Too smartly dressed, perhaps – that should have been the giveaway. The woman was a professional, though. It was that guarded watchfulness that had given Fry a misleading impression.

  ‘What sort of counsellor?’ she asked.

  Blake and Murchison exchanged glances. ‘We can go into that shortly, Diane. There’s a bit of explanation to do first.’

  ‘So what section are you working in these days, Gareth?’

  Fry could hear her voice rising, already developing that strident tone she tried so hard to avoid. Blake raised a placatory hand.

  ‘Let’s take things one step at a time.’

  But Fry shook her head. ‘Tell me what section you’re working in.’

  Branagh looked about to interrupt, but changed her mind. Fry waited, her face set in a grim line.

  Blake sighed. ‘Cold case rape enquiries.’

  Gavin Murfin dipped his fingers into a paper bag for an Eccles cake he’d bought on the way into work. At least some things were back to normal, thought Cooper. Murfin had explained that he couldn’t keep the diet up. Not even with all the talk about horse-meat pies.

  ‘You know what?’ said Murfin, after he’d listened to Cooper talk about 1968 and the Royal Observer Corps. ‘We’ve still got one of thos
e here.’

  ‘One of what?’

  ‘One of those … what did you call them? Carrier control points. This is where the four-minute warning came through. I remember my old sergeant showing me the equipment when I was a probationer here.’

  ‘And it’s still here?’

  ‘Right here, in the station. It’s up in the store rooms somewhere. There’s a siren up there, too. Nobody has even tested it for a long time, so far as I know.’

  ‘I had no idea, Gavin. Do you think we’ll get a look at it?’

  ‘Leave it to me.’

  Murfin wandered off and came back a few minutes later with a key he’d obtained from an admin office somewhere in the building. Used his charm, presumably. He waved the key at Cooper.

  ‘Security clearance.’

  In the base of the receiver was a small drawer containing instructions on testing, battery replacement and fault reporting, as well as how to respond to the types of message that might come through. Attack Warning Red, imminent danger of an attack. Fallout Warning Black, danger of fallout. And Attack Message White, the all-clear.

  ‘I don’t suppose it was ever used, except for testing.’

  ‘They had exercises regularly,’ said Cooper. ‘Everyone felt they had to be prepared. Or so I’m told. The ROC posts weren’t closed until 1991, after the collapse of the Soviet Union.’ He looked at Murfin. ‘Do you remember that, Gavin? You’re older than me.’

  ‘Are you kidding? Well, I suppose I was around in 1991, but I was more interested in Silence of the Lambs and Terminator II.’

  ‘I was into Sonic the Hedgehog.’

  ‘You’re such a baby.’

  Cooper tried to imagine the awful piercing wail of the siren. The sound that had never been heard for real in the Cold War.

  ‘So what would you do, then?’ said Murfin suddenly.

  ‘What? Do when?’

  ‘In those last few minutes. If you knew that you had just four minutes to live, like.’

  ‘Blimey, I don’t know. It isn’t much time to do anything really, is it?’

  ‘No, you’re right. Nothing worthwhile.’ Murfin laughed. ‘It makes a joke out of all those “fifty things to do before you die” features in the papers, doesn’t it?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Murfin thought for a moment. ‘You could pray, I suppose,’ he said.

  ‘I didn’t know you were religious, Gavin.’

  ‘Well, of course I’m not now. But if I knew I only had four minutes left to live, I might want to … you know, cover my options.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘You could get quite a few “Our Fathers” in, couldn’t you? In four minutes.’

  Cooper laughed. ‘I’m sure you could. But just one might be better, Gavin, if you could get the right amount of sincerity into it.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘Or, instead of praying,’ said Murfin, ‘you could just do something you’d always really, really wanted to do, all your life, and never got the chance.’

  ‘Ye-es.’

  They were both silent for a moment, Murfin chewing the last half of his Eccles cake, Cooper wondering how long he could resist asking the obvious question. It wasn’t long.

  ‘So what would that be, Gavin? The thing you’ve always really, really wanted to do, all your life?’

  But Murfin shook his head. ‘I can’t tell you.’

  ‘Oh, go on.’

  ‘No way. You’d take the piss out of me, and I’d never hear the end of it back at the office.’

  Cooper gazed at Murfin, watching him lick a few crumbs off his fingers and wipe them on his tie. He was wondering whether his colleague had some hidden psychological depths that he’d never suspected. What was this deep, seething urge that he daren’t even speak about?

  ‘I tell you what would be embarrassing,’ said Murfin. ‘If you just thought you had four minutes left to live, and you did … well, whatever it was you really, really wanted to do. And then you found out it was a false alarm.’

  ‘Well, it would depend on what it was,’ said Cooper. ‘I mean, if what you did in that time was something really awful, Gavin.’

  Then it was Murfin’s turn to laugh. ‘Yeah. It could be so bad, you might have to kill yourself.’

  ‘No, really.’

  ‘Well,’ said Murfin, seeing that he was serious. ‘It would be the ideal opportunity to take the revenge you’d always wanted.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Cooper. ‘So it would.’

  Fry could feel the sweat forming on her skin, the prickling at the back of her neck. She shifted uncomfortably in her chair, wanting desperately to get up and walk out of the room. There was something intolerable about sitting here, under the scrutiny of her superintendent and these two people from Birmingham, discussing something that for her was too deep and intimate to be spoken about, yet for them was just another case.

  Gareth Blake was watching her carefully, trying to assess her reaction. And so was the woman, of course – Rachel Murchison, the counsellor, there to judge her psychological state.

  ‘When we get a cold case hit, we consult the CPS before we consider intruding into a victim’s life,’ said Blake. ‘The public interest consideration isn’t in doubt, because of the seriousness of the offence, but we have to take a close look at how strong a case we’ve got, and whether we can do something to strengthen it.’

  ‘With the help of the victim,’ said Fry.

  ‘Of course. And in this case …’

  ‘In my case. This is personal, DI Blake. Don’t try to pretend it isn’t. It’s very personal for me.’

  Blake held up his hand again, a defensive gesture, as if trying to fend off an attacker.

  ‘In your case, we had a very credible witness report from the victim. From you, Diane. Force policy has changed since the 1990s, when we only kept files on unsolved rape cases for five years. Everything is on file for this one. We have an e-fit record in the imaging unit, and a copy of everything has been kept by the FSS. But the bottom line is, we got a DNA match.’

  ‘And you have to consult a counsellor before you approach the victim. Between you, you will have developed an approach strategy before you even came here.’

  ‘You know exactly how it works, Diane.’

  ‘So Rachel here –?’

  ‘She’s a trained rape counsellor and support worker. She accompanies any of us when we interview a victim.’

  ‘I’m just here to help,’ said Murchison. ‘There’s no pressure. It’s all about support.’

  Support. It was such an over-used word. Fry had already heard it too often during the past week. At least when Ben Cooper used the word, it was with some sincerity. Here, in this overheated room, looking out over the back of the football ground, it had the dead sound of a curse.

  ‘Diane, we’ll understand if you say you’ve moved on and you don’t want to testify,’ added Blake. ‘But there are things we can do. A victim can agree to interview without any commitment to give evidence.’

  ‘Don’t keep calling me the victim.’

  ‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry. Look, you might not be sure about this until you re-read your own statement. That’s often what we find. A woman has tried to forget the incident, put the trauma behind her – of course. But then she goes back and reads the statement she made at the time, and she changes her mind. She agrees to go ahead and give evidence in court.’

  Blake was starting to look a bit flustered at her lack of reaction. He glanced at Superintendent Branagh, as if appealing for support. But Branagh’s face was impassive. For once, she wasn’t weighing in to put pressure on Fry.

  And there must be a reason for that. Fry knew that everything Branagh did had a reason. There might be even more going on in this room than it seemed.

  Fry wiped her palms on the edge of her jacket, then tried to disguise the gesture. Too much of a giveaway.

  ‘In court, you can have a screen, if you want,’ said Blake, leaning forward earnestly. ‘So that the accused can’t se
e you and you can’t see him. We often take victims into court to show them where they’ll give evidence from, and where everyone sits. We might not need to do that for you, obviously. But you understand what I’m saying? We bend over backwards to make it easier.’

  ‘Easier?’

  ‘Less difficult, then.’

  Rachel Murchison would be from a sexual assault referral centre. Fry knew the police would already have examined the stored exhibits for blood, saliva or semen traces, with the help of the Forensic Science Service. They might have found the tiniest speck of sperm on a tape lift from her clothing. Without statements from independent eye witnesses, the police were reliant on forensic science.

  But in rape cases, juries were the problem. They were notoriously sceptical of a rape victim’s behaviour if she didn’t put up a struggle, didn’t make her refusal absolutely clear, didn’t rush straight to the police, didn’t tell the full story straight away.

  The research said that rape trauma syndrome could make a victim seem unmoved by the experience as she gave evidence in the witness box. But the general public had never read the research. They had expectations of a rape victim – that she should resist physically, make non-consent very plain, that she should rush off to the police station, give a full and consistent account of everything that happened. Without expert witnesses, juries sometimes weren’t deciding cases on the facts, but on preconceived notions.

  ‘In every case I’ve dealt with since joining the unit,’ said Blake, ‘victims have been delighted to be approached. They say that a conviction brings closure, often after many years of torment.’

  ‘But you do need consent to go ahead.’

  He hesitated. ‘In almost one hundred per cent of cases.’

  Fry nodded. DNA techniques had advanced significantly over the last twenty years in terms of sensitivity, reliability, and speed of results. They had become really important in revisiting old cases, reviewing the evidence recovered at the time. Preservation must have been good in Birmingham, because DNA deteriorated over time if it wasn’t kept cold and dry.