Dancing With the Virgins

13

The lamp on the desk was tilted at an angle that directed light into Diane Fry’s eyes and made Maggie Crew’s face more difficult to see in the shadows between the lamp and the window. There was little light left in the sky over Matlock as the evening drew in, and Fry felt a creeping sense of unease in the apartment. If she had been in Maggie’s position herself, she would have felt no reassurance from the panic buttons and the extra vigilance the police had promised.

‘You understand that I need to talk to you, Maggie,’ she said.

‘You can talk as much as you like. I’ve got plenty of time.’

Fry’s reading of Maggie’s file and her discussion with DI Armstrong had convinced her that she had to be persistent if she was to get anything out of this woman. Deep inside, Maggie Crew had valuable memories locked in — memories the police needed, memories that would help them to identify a man who had now become a killer.

‘I want to talk to you about our new victim,’ she said.

Maggie waited, playing with the lamp. No sign of interest. Fry tried again.

‘The woman found dead on Ringham Moor.’

Maggie shrugged. Fry felt a spasm of irritation, but controlled it. The file said that Maggie Crew was frustrated and bitter over the failure of the police to find her attacker. She mustn’t let personal reactions get in the way of doing the job.

‘I know nothing about your new victim,’ said Maggie. ‘Nothing.’

‘Let me help you, then. Her name is Jenny Weston. She’s thirty years old. I mean she was, when she died. She won’t ever be any older now.

‘Jenny Weston was five foot six and half, and she weighed sixty kilos. That’s nine and a half stone. She had been trying to lose weight recently, but wasn’t very successful. She lived in a modernized terrace house in Totley, on the outskirts of Sheffield, and she worked as a section supervisor at an insurance call centre. She might not seem to have had much in common with you, but maybe you would have got on with her. Jenny liked cycling and classical music, Haydn and Strauss. I see you like Strauss, Maggie.’

She nodded towards the stereo. A CD of Tales from the Vienna Woods lay on the top, the one case out of place from the neat racks. It was a rare splash of colour in the dark corner.

The light dipped slightly. Maggie’s outline began to come back into focus as Fry blinked and her eyes readjusted to the darkness.

‘Somebody loaned it to me,’ said Maggie. ‘I haven’t listened to it.’

‘Jenny bought her clothes at Marks amp; Spencer and Next, where she had store cards. She banked with the NatWest, but transferred her credit card account to one that supported Greenpeace. She was a big animal lover. She was a member of lots of societies, including the RSPCA, and she helped out as a volunteer for the local Cats Protection League. She had her own cat called Nelson. Do you know why she called him that? Because when she took him in as a stray he had an infection that made him keep one eye closed. Have you ever had a cat, Maggie?’

Maggie maintained the stare. Fry had no idea whether she was getting through to her.

‘We know a lot more about Jenny. We know she borrowed show business biographies and Maeve Binchy novels from her local library. She drove a blue Fiat Cinquecento, but she didn’t wash it very often. On the back seat were her spare shoes, an orange and her mobile phone. When we rang the number, it played “The William Tell Overture”.’

Maggie’s eyes were expressionless and unblinking, though her hands fidgeted restlessly and her shoulders were tense.

‘No,’ she said. ‘I don’t listen to Rossini, either.’

Fry had all the details of Jenny’s life at her fingertips. Yet they knew almost nothing about the young woman who had stayed with her in Totley several weeks ago. Ros Daniels had disappeared as mysteriously as she had come, as far as Jenny’s neighbours were concerned. She had been seen walking up The Quadrant one day with a rucksack on her back, and she had knocked at Jenny’s door. Her hair was described as being ‘in tangles’ by an old man who had passed her on his way to the post office and who had noticed her heavy boots and the rings in her nose. He was seventy-five years old and not well up on modern fashions, but he was quite an observant old man. He had given it as his opinion that she hadn’t been wearing a bra, either.

But it was only from a colleague at the Global Assurance call centre that the police had learned the young woman’s name. The colleague had visited Jenny’s home, and had been introduced. The miracle was that she had remembered Ros’s name at all.

‘She was a girl, really. I’d say she was no more than twenty years old. A student type, you know? All dreadlocks and combat trousers she was, and sitting slumped on the floor like she’d not even been taught how to use a chair. Never had a job, you could tell. Never had to work in a call centre selling insurance, that’s for sure.’

‘Did she say much?’

‘“Hi.” That was what she said. And that was said a bit contemptuous, like. As if she’d weighed me up in a glance and thought I was too boring and respectable and hardly worth bothering with. It was a cheek, I thought. I mean, if I’m boring and respectable, then so was Jenny Weston. So what was she doing at Jenny’s house, this Ros?’

‘Did Jenny never explain who she was?’

‘Never. I did to try to ask her next day. Discreetly, like. I asked where Ros was from, and Jenny said from Cheshire. But then she changed the subject straight away, almost as if she’d said too much, though she hadn’t told me anything at all. She didn’t want to talk about her, that was plain. Well, she could be a bit stand-offish when she wanted to, could Jenny. I can’t imagine what she had to do with that girl.’

Fry watched Maggie’s hands moving impatiently. The cat had brought no response. That was no surprise. It was obvious there had never been a pet to disturb the orderly surroundings of Maggie Crew’s apartment.

‘Jenny’s next birthday would have been on the 11th of December,’ she said. ‘She was a Sagittarian. She was interested in horoscopes, too. She wore a chain with a silver star-sign symbol — the archer, half horse and half man. She had made an appointment with her dentist for next Tuesday, because she was worried about a loose filling. Jenny Weston was the sort of person who started buying her Christmas presents early. In fact, she had already bought a cashmere sweater for her mother, and a book on Peak District aircraft wrecks for her father, who used to be in the RAF. She had even bought a toy mouse with a bell on it, for the cat.’

Maggie sighed. ‘Why are you telling me all this? I don’t want to know any of it.’

‘Jenny had taken a week’s holiday from work. It seems she loved the Peak District. But you do, too. Don’t you, Maggie?’

‘I used to,’ she said. ‘Something changed my view.’

‘Well, Jenny must have loved it right up to her last breath. She never learned that disillusionment. She never had the chance.’

‘So?’

‘She was a member of the National Trust, too. We found lots of photographs she took at National Trust properties. That was another hobby of hers — photography. It seems her favourite place to visit was probably Hammond Hall. You know Hammond Hall well, don’t you, Maggie?’

‘It says so in my file, I suppose,’ she said.

‘You’re a volunteer guide there, aren’t you?’

‘I used to be.’

‘You might have met Jenny Weston, then. You might have shown her round some time, explained the history of the Tudor wall-hangings to her, or directed her to the ladies’ toilets perhaps.’

‘I never really notice the visitors, you know. They’re just an anonymous mass. I forget them all as soon as they’ve gone. Unless they ask particularly interesting questions.’

‘Jenny might have done that. She was interested in history.’

‘Lots of people are.’

The volunteers co-ordinator at Hammond Hall had been interviewed after the assault on Maggie Crew. She had described Maggie as very knowledgeable. A bit cool and austere, perhaps, but some visitors preferred her as a guide because of the depth of her knowledge.

‘Jenny may even have dealt with your car insurance,’ said Fry, ‘or the insurance on your house.’

‘I don’t think so.’

‘How do you know? I haven’t said what company she worked for.’

Maggie regarded Fry steadily from the side of her eye. ‘This is getting tiresome. What exactly is it you want from me?’

‘I want you to help us find the man who killed Jenny Weston.’

‘And why should I do that?’

She shifted in her seat as she asked the question. Fry prayed she wouldn’t turn towards her completely. She had got so far that she didn’t want her nerve to fail now. She didn’t want her face to show the reaction that made her stomach clench and her fingers tighten into tense fists.

‘Because we think he’s the same man who did that to your face, Maggie,’ she said.

A minimum number of objects were lined up in an orderly line on the desk; no more than a paperweight, an ashtray, a telephone — and a wicked-looking letter opener shaped like a dagger, with a sharp blade and imitation rubies set into its handle. The letter opener was the only item of any ostentation in the room, and it stood out like a beacon, the light from the lamp reflecting in its red stones. In a moment of thought, Maggie toyed with its handle, turning it so that the tip pointed towards Fry, then spinning it away again to line up neatly with the paperweight in a satisfying geometric pattern.

‘So tell me one more thing,’ said Maggie. ‘How was this woman killed?’

‘She was stabbed to death.’

Maggie took her hand away from the letter opener quickly, and picked up her pen instead.

‘It’s a waste of time, you know. I can’t remember any more than I have already.’

‘I don’t believe memories are gone forever, do you? They’ll come back, Maggie. But they’ll come back when you’re least expecting them. You’ll find they surprise you in ordinary things. It will be a face you see on TV that reminds you of someone. An item of clothing that you wore on the day. A glimpse of your own reflection in a window at night.’

Maggie’s mouth tightened, and the lines round her good eye flattened out in anger.

‘They will come back, Maggie,’ said Fry. ‘Better to let them come to the surface when you can deal with them than to allow them to ambush you when you least expect them. Believe me on this.’

Maggie stared at her. Gradually, her mouth relaxed. ‘Are you talking from experience?’

Fry barely managed a nod. Ridiculously, the simple question had done exactly what she had been warning Maggie against. The burst of recollection was so strong and so physical that she was quite unprepared for it. She had to look away now, and be damned to her determination to look the woman in the eye. She stared at the drapes over the window, counting the brass rings on the curtain rail while she breathed slowly and steadily, counting to three as she inhaled, holding for another count of three, exhaling and counting; holding again.

It only took a few seconds before she was fully under control. She knew there was little outward sign. Most people noticed nothing, certainly her male colleagues. But Maggie was watching her fixedly, in absolute silence. When Fry met her stare again, something had changed. There was an indefinable difference in the atmosphere, as if somebody had just turned on the central heating, and a hint of warmth was beginning to creep into the cold walls.

‘Would you like some coffee?’ said Maggie.

Fry caught a glimpse into a kitchen as Maggie opened the door at the far end of the room. While she waited, Fry looked through her notes, checking the items she had marked for raising in conversation. One thing she hadn’t mentioned yet was Maggie’s family. The closest surviving relative was a sister, who lived somewhere in the west of Ireland.

She watched Maggie pour the coffee from a cafetiere. She wore no jewellery of any kind on her hands — no rings, no bracelet. There was no make-up on her face, either, though it might have helped to hide the scars. She wore no lipstick. Her only adornment consisted of two tiny gold studs in her ears, like miniature crosses.

‘Last time you were interviewed,’ said Fry, ‘you weren’t in a steady relationship, according to the notes. Is that still the case?’

‘Yes.’ Maggie smiled, without humour. ‘They do put everything in my file, don’t they? Yes, it makes life difficult when it comes to forming relationships. Nobody wants to have to look at a face that would frighten the horses.’

‘Of course, a long-term relationship isn’t to be taken for granted these days. Not everybody wants commitment. I suppose it depends whether you want children or not, and how you want them to grow up.’

‘I’ve never wanted children anyway,’ said Maggie. ‘Some people think that’s very strange for a woman.’ She laughed, but it was a nervous laugh, at the thought of a disconcerting prospect. ‘Well, perhaps I’ll change. Perhaps I’ll wake up one day and discover I have a maternal instinct after all. What do you think? We’re all victims of our hormones, aren’t we?’

Maggie put down the cafetiere. She picked up the pen that had lain by her hand all through the interview. She scrawled some notes on her pad, filling the empty lines for the first time. Fry leaned forward slightly to try to see what she was writing. But she could see that it was some kind of shorthand. Maggie wrote for a couple of minutes, concentrating as if Fry had suddenly ceased to be present. Then she threw down her pen.

‘When will you come to see me again?’ she asked.

‘Wednesday,’ said Fry promptly.

‘Make it in the morning. Nine o’clock. My mind is fresher then.’

‘OK.’

Fry looked at the big sash window and the remnants of the autumn sun forming red streaks and dark shadows on the roofs of Matlock. The sun was setting somewhere behind her. The light must be falling on the front of the building, because it certainly wasn’t reaching the room where they sat. In the morning, it would be different. In the morning, Maggie’s mind might be fresher. But the light would also be in the south-east, shining on this window. Lighting up Maggie’s face.

Will and Dougie Leach were sitting quietly in the kitchen at Ringham Edge Farm. Their father had brought the portable television set into the kitchen, and they were watching the news, eyes fixed on the face of the newsreader as he spoke about interest rates, trade wars, and disasters in distant parts of the world.

It was well past the boys’ normal bedtime. Their mother would never have let them stay up so late. She would have hurried them off to bed with warnings about being up early for school in the morning. But their father didn’t seem to care. He forgot about them as long as they were quiet and didn’t get in his way. And Will and Dougie had learned how to be quiet.

Warren Leach was crouched over the old oak desk in the front room of the farmhouse — the room he called an office. He had a desk lamp with a dim forty-watt bulb held over a scatter of papers. The boys had no real idea what the papers were, except that they were bad news. Every night he got the papers out and looked at them again. But no matter how many times he looked, they only ever seemed to make him more unhappy.

The news finished and some incomprehensible comedy programme started, with a lot of swearing. The boys shifted uncomfortably, knowing their mother would have been angry to see them watching the programme. But without her to tell them what to do, the boys sat on, their eyes growing tired, reluctant to move or make a noise in case they were noticed.

Finally, when little Dougie was already asleep with his head on the arm of the chair, Will heard the front door bang. Their father had gone out.

Will got up to switch off the television. He shook his brother awake, and together they crept up the stairs to their bedrooms. Their beds were unmade, the sheets tangled and uncomfortable. But both of them were so tired that they didn’t notice.

But Will didn’t go to sleep straight away. For a while, he lay staring at the ceiling and wondering where it was that his father went. He prayed that he hadn’t gone near the shippon, that his father would leave Doll alone. Although people didn’t come at night any more, Will knew there was nothing good about what his father was doing.

Will had lived all his life on the farm. He knew its patterns and routines, he understood the rhythms of its activities. And there was one thing that he knew perfectly well. There was nothing that could possibly need doing around the farm at this time of night.