Cooper said nothing. He’d heard a lot of officers express the opinion that Derbyshire Constabulary was a victim of its own success. The crime rate in the county had been reduced by about 15 per cent in the past year. And this was despite the fact that all the neighbouring forces had higher rates of crime and larger urban centres of population, with the result that Derbyshire was often a target for travelling criminals from Greater Manchester, Nottinghamshire or South Yorkshire. If your crime rate was falling, even in those circumstances, then clearly you didn’t need so many police officers. It seemed counter-intuitive and very short-term thinking.

But Superintendent Branagh had probably heard that view plenty of times. There was no point in Cooper repeating it now.

Branagh pushed her list to one side. ‘But what about you, DS Cooper? How are you doing yourself?’

That was a question he couldn’t hesitate in answering. Not for even a second.

‘I’m absolutely fine, ma’am,’ said Cooper firmly.

‘Good. Excellent. That’s what I like to hear. But could I suggest, perhaps…’

‘Yes?’

‘That you need to push yourself forward a bit more. You’re in danger of getting overlooked.’

‘Overlooked?’

‘For promotion.’

‘Oh.’

Cooper hadn’t really thought about further promotion yet. There didn’t seem much point. There was already a log-jam in human resources since promotions were frozen by budget cuts.

‘You’ve talked up all the DCs in your team,’ said Branagh. ‘Even DC Murfin, who we all know about. But you don’t talk yourself up at all.’

‘I suppose that’s true,’ admitted Cooper.

Since he’d been promoted to Detective Sergeant, Cooper had concentrated on taking the trouble to bring his DCs on. He wanted to let them take responsibility and get some credit for their work. Not everybody did that. But it was true what Branagh said. The police service had become a competitive business. Like lots of people working in private sector businesses, you had to be able to justify your job these days.

‘You can be too self-effacing, you know,’ emphasised Branagh. ‘In this profession you have to get yourself noticed if you want to get on. Otherwise they’ll just bring somebody in over your head. People who lie down get walked over.’

‘Yes, I do know that,’ said Cooper.

Branagh watched him carefully, then nodded. Her shoulders relaxed slightly.

‘Well, if it does happen, Ben,’ she said, ‘let’s hope it’s a police officer at least, and not someone brought in from managing a supermarket.’

‘Yes, ma’am,’ said Cooper.

He realised the interview was over and got up to leave. Branagh was exaggerating, of course. But only a bit. The government’s new scheme would soon bring in twenty direct-entry police superintendents from other businesses and professions, along with eighty fast-tracked inspectors, graduates on a three-year scheme taking them straight from constable rank to the first rung of the management ladder. Many were already on training courses at the College of Policing.

There were very few police officers who didn’t believe that experience working on the frontline was essential for anyone holding a senior management position on the operational side. How could you expect someone to make high-pressure decisions in an emergency situation when they’d never had to respond to an emergency themselves? Surely they needed first-hand knowledge.

But it was too late to fight the changes. The new scheme would allow outsiders to leap over thousands of officers who’d spent years building experience, working in a variety of roles across the force. One day a chief constable would be appointed who had never made an arrest.

Those new inspectors had to be graduates with good degrees, but would at least have spent a short time as constables and sergeants. But neither of those was a requirement for a direct-entry superintendent, though that was two ranks above inspector. The new batch of supers might be from the armed forces or the intelligence services. They could be prison governors or existing members of civilian staff. But the guidelines said they could equally be ‘people with experience of running private sector operations’.

So Branagh’s half-joking reference wasn’t quite accurate. A newly appointed inspector couldn’t come straight from being a supermarket manager. But a new superintendent could.

It’s time to get out.

Cooper had heard those words said more and more often over the past few months. And it wasn’t just from Gavin Murfin either.

‘By the way,’ said Branagh as Cooper left her office.

‘Yes, ma’am?’

‘Detective Sergeant Fry is with us for the briefing. Representing the Major Crime Unit, of course.’

‘Yes.’

Cooper waited, sensing that Branagh had something else to say. If it was in connection with Diane Fry, it might be something he didn’t want to hear.

‘It would be good,’ said Branagh, ‘if we could manage without the assistance of the MCU on this occasion.’

He nodded, not sure what she expected him to say in response to that.

‘I feel it would be good for the division,’ she said. ‘And especially … Ben, it would be especially good for you. It would be wonderful if we could fill a vacancy at inspector level before those direct entrants start to arrive.’

Cooper swallowed at the enormity of the challenge he was being presented with. Was he ready for this? But Branagh was waiting for an acknowledgement of some kind.

‘Ben, remember what I said, won’t you?’

‘Yes, ma’am,’ he said.

18

The briefing room wasn’t as full as it ought to have been. Cooper remembered it being packed out in the past, with standing room only for those at the back. Superintendent Branagh led the briefing herself, with Detective Inspector Dean Walker alongside her. Walker was relatively inexperienced, but Branagh had many years as a senior investigating officer.

Currently, the Sandra Blair inquiry was treated as a suspicious death. Results of the post-mortem examination were expected later today and would surely raise the classification to a murder case when the cause of death was established.

The details known about the victim were already familiar to Cooper. He and Luke Irvine had obtained most of them over the weekend. But forensic examination of the scene at the bridge had been continuing for the past forty-eight hours. So had the search of the woods on either side of the river, the search area gradually expanding to cover most of the hillside and the tracks leading down to the bridge. Witness statements had been taken from the young man who discovered the body, Rob Beresford, as well as from Geoff and Sally Naden, and Jason Shaw.

Now there would be an assessment of what lines of inquiry could be followed up and which would be most urgent.

‘According to the forensic medical examiner, the victim died somewhere between 6 p.m. and midnight on Friday,’ said Branagh. ‘That’s an estimate based on body temperature and the extent of rigor mortis and lividity. As usual we can’t get a more specific timeframe. No witnesses have come forward who had contact with the victim between those times. The body was found at around 1 a.m. by a young man called Robson Beresford, whose statement we have. The other witness statements are vague, but I think we can take them as indicating the presence of at least two people in the woods near the scene earlier that night. One of them may have been our victim. But we can’t be sure of that.’

Becky Hurst raised a hand to get attention.

‘Yes, DC Hurst?’

‘These statements suggest that someone was being chased,’ said Hurst. ‘Were there any signs on the victim that she’d been running?’

‘Such as?’

‘Scratches on her hands and face from the undergrowth, mud splashes on her clothing. She might have been sweating from the exertion.’