‘Let me know when it is that you stop being a police: man' Ben'' said Helen. 'In the meantime' I think it would be better if I said "no" to your suggestion' don't you? In the circumstances.’

Circumstances. What a word' he thought. So often used in a pretentious and meaningless way. Yet all of life could be reduced to that one word. Difficult circumstances. The wrong circumstances. Killed by circumstances.

Around Diane Fry an admiring half-circle of dojo members had gathered' Cooper's fellow students' his second family. Sensei Hughes stood watching her' applauding when she had finished her kata. She bowed at the waist' stretched on her toes' breathing deeply' invigorating her muscles' letting the power spread throughout her body. She was ready for the next thing' ready for her kumite' her sparring bout. Ready to humiliate Ben Cooper in front of his friends.

The tall student looked on in amazement as Ben Cooper tossed down the phone' spun on his heel and lashed out with a clenched fist at the practice punching board' denting the soft wood. His scream was not the one taught at the Way of the Eagle dojo' but it came from the soul.

*

Helen had listened very carefully to Ben Cooper's voice as he ended the call. She could tell he was trying to sound calm' like a man who hadn't just been rejected and hurt. But he had never been able to conceal his feelings very well.

Sensing his suffering' she felt all the more sorry for having caused it. She felt sorry because of what he had said about Harry. And because she knew that Ben was right.

*

Fry had been chatting to Sensei Hughes for ten minutes before it occurred to her to wonder what had happened to Ben Cooper. The sensei sent one of the students to look in the changing room, but Cooper had already left.

Fry shrugged' baffled. 'He was making a phone call' so perhaps he was called away.'

‘Something urgent. Life in the police force can be very unpredictable. We understand that,' said Hughes.

She was getting on well with the instructors and the other students' who all wanted to know where she had been trained. The sensei offered to include her in the next grading night' when he felt she could rise to fifth dan grade. At the end of the session, she went with a group of students to the pub on the corner' the Millstone Inn' where they ate lasagne and chips and talked about competitive sport of all kinds.

Only when she had got outside in the street and paused to say goodbye on the corner of Bargate did the tall brown-belt student tap Fry on the shoulder and mention Ben Cooper's behaviour. He was a serious-minded young man, and felt that what he had seen in the changing room demonstrated a lack of the self-discipline and the positive attitude taught by the dojo. He had known Ben for two years' and he was worried.

Suddenly Fry grew frightened. Through her mind ran a series of scenes from the last few days. There were a series of flickering images of Ben Cooper' first as the capable' self-possessed detective whose reputed success and popularity had been rammed down her throat until the sound of his name infuriated her.

But gradually the picture changed' and Cooper turned into the morose' nervous' unpredictable man who had walked out of the dojo in an angry and violent state of mind. She knew that she had played her part in his deterioration; indeed' she had to acknowledge that she had done it deliberately. She had seen him as a challenge.

‘Do you know where he might go? A pub somewhere?’

The student shrugged. 'There are a lot of pubs he knows around Edendale. But his training's too important to him' so he doesn't drink a lot.’

*

After four or five pints' Cooper was beginning to feel that nothing mattered. After seven pints and a couple of whisky chasers' the black dogs appeared from every corner of the pub' prowling and snarling' waiting for him to turn his back on them' for the chance to pounce.

He had eaten nothing all day' and the beer sloshing in his stomach made his head dip and swell. His hands and neck were flushed with the effects of the alcohol' his hands trembled and his lips were turning numb. Now the whisky was burning its way through his system' stimulating his muscles and making him feel as though he could pull down walls.

The pub wasn't one of his regular haunts. He couldn't remember having been in it for years. As a result' though, he had not been recognized as he sat on his own' steadily deadening his thoughts and stupefying his feelings. Most people who saw his scowl and his unsteady hands would have left him alone with his personal black dog.

But nearby were a group of youths who were becoming rowdy and belligerent as the evening went on and they' too' became fuelled by alcohol. In one of those ways that Cooper had never understood' they had spotted him as a policeman. Their voices grew loud in derision when he failed to react to the mocking exchanges.

‘Pork on the menu tonight?' they shouted to the bar staff. 'Nice bit of bacon? Kill a pig for me' love.’

‘Oink' oink. I wondered what the smell was.’

‘Look at his snout in that beer.'

‘0i' pig' got an old sow at home?'

‘Oink, oink.’

The youths thought they were hilarious. Ben Cooper had heard it all before' ever since he was a young bobby on the beat' walking round the Edendale housing estates or patrolling the town centre on a Saturday night. Never before, though' had he felt such a powerful' swelling anger that threatened to burst out of him at one more provocation. Charged up by the whisky' he felt that he would actually welcome an outburst of violence. It would be a blessed release.

The youths' getting no response to their pig jokes, had switched tactics.

‘Is that a truncheon in your pocket' or do you fancy me?'

‘Ooh' put the handcuffs on me. I've been a naughty boy.'

‘Nah' he's not interested. The pigs are all too busy finding out who did for that tart at Moorhay. I don't think.'

‘What' Laura Vernon? Her?’

One of the youths guffawed and made an obscene gesture.

‘Laura Vernon? She'd fuck with anything, that one. Young blokes, old blokes' her own dad.'

‘She'd even fuck with animals.’

They thought this was totally hilarious. 'Yeah' even pigs. Get it? Pig?’

One youth pushed his face closer to Cooper' leaning provocatively across his glass-strewn table' leering in sweaty proximity. He had a ring through his left nostril and small' pitted scars round his mouth.

‘Don't you get it' then? Pig?’

Then he made his mistake. His face creased and his eyes narrowed as he peered at Cooper again, recognition dawning slowly.

‘Hey, just a minute' aren't you that Sergeant Cooper's —’

The empty glass was in Cooper's hand before he knew it' and he was on his feet' clutching at the youth's shirt front with his other hand. A chair went over' and the swinging glass smashed on the edge of the table. The youth's friends threw themselves forward' grabbing at Cooper's arms' bringing up their knees' snarling and spitting with ferocity as they reacted like a pack to a sudden threat.

Ben Cooper faced them' boiling with rage' a lethal crown of broken glass grasped tightly in his fist.

*

Becky Kelk was fourteen. She lived on Wye Close' almost next door to Lee Sherratt. She went to the same school as Simeon Holmes. She had heard all about the girls that had been attacked' the one at Buxton and the one right here in Moorhay' that girl at the Mount. It had never occurred to her until now that she could be the next victim.

The policeman still guarding the murder scene found her by her screams. She was in a hollow behind a screen of brambles' not far from the path that led on to the Baulk. Her pants had been removed and her striped leggings were torn. Her crop top and bra were disturbed' and there were grass stains on her shoulders and the imprint of a tree root in the small of her back. 'I've been raped'' she said.