Dancing With the Virgins

22

Out of tradition, Ben Cooper and Todd Weenink started their evening at the Wheatsheaf. There were three pubs that stood close together around the market place, and three or four more down the side streets that they could take in without walking more than a few yards. But the Wheatsheaf had a whole range of guest beers on the bar, strong ales with names like Derbyshire Black and Old Sheep Dip. Weenink was the one drinking harder and faster, and he soon reached the stage where he wanted to share his personal insights.

‘There’s just no excitement in the job any more,’ he said. ‘Every day you come into work and they tell you to go and detect a burglary or something.’

‘Several burglaries,’ said Cooper.

‘Six burglaries and four car break-ins. Every morning.’

‘And a criminal damage or two, as well.’

‘That’s it. The same day after day. It’s mind numbing. We don’t even get a good ram-raid now. Not for ages.’

Weenink had spilled some beer on his leather jacket, and his sleeve stuck to the table when he moved his arm. Cooper was struggling to keep up with his consumption. He hadn’t seen Weenink drink quite so hard since his marriage had broken up after less than two years. Weenink’s wife had said she hadn’t realized what she was tying herself to. And she hadn’t just meant Todd. She had meant the police service.

‘Ram-raiding has pretty well been designed out in the town centre,’ said Cooper.

‘Well, it’s a shame. They were a bit more exciting than the other crap. All you get now is shoplifting. Where’s the fun in that, Ben?’

They moved on to the Red Lion, a comfortable pub with somebody’s choice of seventies pop music piped discreetly into the bar, and a row of computer games. The landlord knew them both, and they got the first round on the house. It disappeared too quickly for Cooper’s peace of mind.

‘The CCTV cameras have cut out a lot of the other stuff, too,’ he said.

‘Bloody cameras. It’s a bit too much like Big Brother, if you ask me.’

Cooper was impressed by Weenink’s literary knowledge. He wouldn’t have put him down as a George Orwell fan. 1984 was one of Cooper’s favourite novels, along with Lord of the Flies.

Then he frowned. ‘We are talking about George Orwell, aren’t we?’

‘Never heard of either of him,’ said Weenink, and belched. ‘Is he from another division? I suppose you’ve met him at Police Federation meetings, or something.’

Cooper took another sip of beer. So Todd Weenink only read the TV pages in the Eden Valley Times, after all.

The third pub was the Station Hotel. They were heading downmarket now. There was no piped music here, no TV screens or bar meals — only a pool table and salt-and-vinegar crisps, and a jukebox full of heavy metal CDs. The customers all seemed to be wearing old Iron Maiden T-shirts. A woman walked past towards the bar in a pair of leather trousers.

‘Eat my pants, look at the arse on that,’ said Weenink.

‘Don’t say that. It’s disgusting.’

Over the next beer, Weenink studied Cooper with exaggerated care.

‘You’re a fucking poofter, you are, Ben. Do you know that? A fucking poofter. But I love you. You’re my mate.’

They nodded at each other, bleary-eyed. There was no need for words, really. The beer fumes drew them together in a warm, sentimental embrace.

Weenink took out a packet of cigarettes and offered Cooper one. Cooper took it. He hadn’t smoked since he was sixteen years old. He looked at it for a minute. Weenink tried to give him a light, but Cooper shook his head and laid the cigarette carefully on his beer mat, lining it up alongside his glass. This particular mat had a picture of a female pop singer on it. Cooper laughed and laughed. It looked as though she had a cigarette up her nose.

‘You know, Ben,’ said Weenink after sufficient silence. ‘You and me, we won’t take any shit from anybody.’

‘Right.’

‘Am I right?’

‘You’re right, Todd.’

Weenink watched the woman with the leather trousers walk back across the room and took a drag of his cigarette. ‘What was I saying?’

‘Let’s go somewhere else, shall we?’

Cooper and Weenink walked out of the pub, across the street and through Market Square, staggering slightly as their feet slithered on the cobbles.

‘Here, we can play leapfrog on these,’ said Weenink, swinging on the black cast-iron street furniture, not noticing when he banged his shin on the metal. His voice sounded unnaturally loud in the square. A middle-aged couple getting into their car turned to look at them. Cooper could almost hear them tutting. For once, there were no noisy groups of youths in the square to distract attention.

‘Come on,’ he said.

Weenink allowed himself to be led away from the square, down the passage by the Somerfield supermarket. They came out on the riverside walk under the nineteenth-century bridge across the River Eden.

‘Not much life down here,’ said Weenink. ‘Isn’t there a night club open or something?’

‘Night club? On a Thursday?’

‘I need another drink.’

‘It’s closing time.’

‘But we’ve missed some pubs out.’

Weenink slowed down and stared at the river. Dark shadows lurked just below the surface of the slow-moving water. They were only stones, though. The water was too shallow here for them to be anything else. You could walk across and barely get your feet wet.

‘Those ducks are asleep,’ said Weenink. ‘Let’s wake them up.’

‘What for?’

‘It’s too quiet.’

Weenink picked up a handful of gravel and began to throw it at the mallards resting in the reeds with their beaks under their wings. His actions were totally uncoordinated, and the stones fell harmlessly into the water with small plops.

‘I need something bigger.’

Cooper looked round, a vague anxiety creeping through the haze of alcohol. There was little traffic passing over the bridge. The only lights were those that burned in the supermarket. There were probably staff on the night shift in there, stacking shelves and taking deliveries. At any moment, one of them might come outside for a fag break.

‘Let’s move on a bit,’ he said.

‘What for?’

‘We have to get home.’

‘I thought we were going to a night club.’

‘No.’

‘That’s what we want. Have another drink, a bit of dancing. Let’s go to Sheffield. We could go to a casino.’

‘You can go on your own.’

‘Oh, Ben.’

Cooper wasn’t impressed by the sudden wheedling tone. But he knew that he wouldn’t be able to leave Todd to go anywhere on his own, all the same. Weenink sat down suddenly on a bench. The wooden slats creaked under his weight.

‘God, I’m knackered,’ he said. ‘Totally knackered. I could just go to sleep right here, Ben.’

‘Come on, Todd. We’ve got to keep going.’

‘Sit down, Ben.’

Cooper sat reluctantly. He was cold, and he could feel the first spots of rain. The insulating alcohol was wearing off already.

‘Ben,’ said Weenink in a suddenly different voice. ‘I’ve done something really stupid.’

Cooper’s heart sank. Not now, please, he thought. Any time except now. He was tired. He had to get home.

‘Really, really stupid,’ said Weenink. ‘And I think I’m going to be found out.’

On the way out of her house in Grosvenor Avenue that night, Fry caught a glimpse of a figure lurking in the shadows under the overgrown hedges near the streetlight across the road. It wasn’t unusual. The female students and nurses staying in her own house and the ones on either side attracted a motley selection of boyfriends, some of whom wouldn’t look out of place in a cell in Derby Prison.

Fry studied the figure carefully. If she hadn’t been alert on a professional level, she wouldn’t have seen him. He was wearing dark clothes, and standing quite still, so that his movement didn’t give him away. Nine out of ten people would have passed by without noticing him at all. Fry shrugged. It was nothing to do with her. When she was off duty, she didn’t feel any obligation to concern herself about the dangerous private lives of her fellow flat-dwellers. She had plenty of concerns of her own to think about.

She fetched her car from behind the house and drove out of Edendale and through Grindleford to get on the A625 into Sheffield. She tried to keep her eyes closed to the scenery until she was into the built-up area near Ecclesall. She might live on the back of the moon, but she didn’t have to admire it. She was a city girl, and always would be.

Fry began to curse Ben Cooper. She cursed him for being the one who had revived memories she had been trying to put behind her. There was only the one reason she had chosen Derbyshire to transfer to, when she ought to have gone south, to London. They always needed officers in the Met; it would have suited her much better in a big anonymous city, where nobody cared who you were or what you did with your life. By now, she would have been well established, instead of dickering about in this tinpot rural force. She had made the decision for her own reasons, and for months now she had been pretending that those reasons didn’t exist. She had tried to let the job take over, and had hoped it would become her number one priority. No — her only priority. But it hadn’t worked. The time for pretending was over.

A couple of hours later, she returned from Sheffield tired and frustrated. Pain was shooting up her leg, and she could feel her ankle had swollen to twice its size where she had twisted it at the cattle market. She had walked the streets of the city centre, hunting out the dark corners and following the sounds of the uneasy silences that lay beyond the bright lights around the pubs and night clubs. She had explored all the subways, lit and unlit, walking in areas most women would have avoided after six o’clock in the evening. She had visited a shelter for the homeless she had located north of the university.

But Sheffield was a big place. She might even have to widen her search to Rotherham and Doncaster. Fry knew it could go on for months or years, without success. But once she’d started, she would never be able to give it up.

When she reached Grosvenor Avenue, she noticed that the same figure was opposite the house again. He seemed to be watching a lighted window on the first floor. A peeping tom, no doubt about it. It was time to give him a nasty surprise.

Fry unlocked the front door and went into the hallway. She waited a minute, then switched off the hall light and took the bulb out of the fitting, in case one of the students came downstairs. Then she walked straight through the house and stepped out of the back door. She clambered over the garden fence and moved silently down the alley between the houses until she could emerge on to the road again.

She could see the man’s back now. His shoulders were hunched in a black or dark blue jacket, his hands in his pockets. He was totally unsuspecting. A pushover.

When she touched him, he jumped like a startled rabbit and tried to turn round.

‘What the — !’

But she already had him in a wrist hold, with her other hand above his elbow and his arm held straight out. From this position, she could force him easily to his knees, cuff him, do what she liked with him. The thought gave her a surge of satisfaction.

‘What’s your business?’ she said.

He kept very still. Now she was close to him, Fry could see he wasn’t a big man, though he was well wrapped up and wore a peaked cap. He said nothing, but kept his mouth tight shut and rolled his eyes towards her. She applied a bit more pressure to her grip.

‘Whatever it is, I suggest you go and do it somewhere else, mate.’

He was so still that she knew he was going to try to take her by surprise and break free. If she had too firm a grip on him when he tried it, one of them would get hurt — and she knew which of them it would be. Fry didn’t want to find herself responsible for a suspect with a broken arm at this time of night; maybe ending up on the wrong end of an ABH charge in the morning when the suspect got to talk to a lawyer.

She increased the distance between them slightly and relaxed her grip just enough so that he would notice. Suddenly, he jerked his arm free, put his head down and legged it as hard as he could for the corner of the road. Probably he had a car parked somewhere out of sight.

Fry let him go. There was no point in chasing him, even if her leg hadn’t been hurting. She had definitely given him a scare, though. That was one weirdo who would think twice about following women in the future.

Ben Cooper managed to get Weenink moving again and they turned left at the top of the path and emerged on to Bargate. There was still some traffic passing across the lights a few yards away, where the pedestrianized area began.

‘Uh-oh, got to have a piss,’ said Weenink.

‘You’ll have to hold on.’

‘Can’t.’

Weenink began to unzip and stumbled into the doorway of Boots the Chemists.

‘Oh, Jesus.’ Cooper stood with his back to the doorway, watching the cars cross the end of Bargate, praying that none of them would turn down the street. The sound of a trickle turned into a steady stream, and a pool of urine began to run past his feet on to the pavement.

‘Hurry up.’

Weenink just grunted. Cooper swore under his breath as a patrol car appeared at the lights and stopped on the red signal. The car had the distinctive green and yellow checkerboard pattern on the side that indicated it belonged to Traffic division. Cooper wasn’t even likely to know the crew. Not that knowing them would help in the least.

He recalled travelling on the M1 one day with his father, back at the time of the year-long miners’ strike — 1984, it must have been. Ben had been fourteen years old, and he had gone with his father and Matt to a football match. Derby County had been playing Aston Villa at Birmingham in the FA Cup. He remembered the match well. But he remembered the incident on the motorway, too.

On the way back, they had come up at the rear of a long convoy of coaches, one behind the other, travelling in the inside lane of the motorway. They all carried the name of a coach operator in London and they were packed with men, like some factory outing. When the Coopers’ car was close behind the last vehicle, every man on the coach stood up on the seats and dropped his trousers. There was a sudden blooming of white buttocks like exotic lilies in a pond as the men mooned through the windows at passing motorists.

Ben and Matt had laughed, until their father became angry, then pulled out and began to overtake the coach. Maybe he had intended to pull the driver over, Ben wasn’t sure. But Sergeant Cooper was off duty, and they weren’t even in Derbyshire. This had been Nottinghamshire, somewhere south of Junction 27.

At some point, Ben had sensed his father change his mind. His foot had slipped off the accelerator. He had fallen back momentarily, then accelerated again and passed the convoy as quickly as possible. The boys said nothing. As they passed, they could see the uniforms. They could see the stickers in the front window of every coach. Ten coaches there were — they counted them as they passed. ‘Metropolitan Police’, the stickers said. They realized that the men were reinforcements arriving to help control the mass pickets of Yorkshire miners then threatening Nottinghamshire pits. Law and order was on the road.

The lights changed and the patrol car had moved on by the time Weenink reappeared.

‘Have you got any beer back at your place?’ he asked.

‘What is it you’ve done, Todd?’

Weenink’s mood was changing again, the cold air sharpening his tone. ‘It happens all the time, Ben. You’re not so innocent as you make out. You must know. I bet you’ve done it yourself.’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

‘I’m talking about a little bit of evidence being improved here and there. It happens. Everybody knows that it happens. Where’s the harm? As long as you don’t get caught.’

‘But — ’ Ben Cooper struggled to capture all the reasons that ran through his mind why this was inconceivable. He thought of words like justice and integrity, like responsibility and honour. He thought of concepts like loyalty to your service, like honesty and truth. And self-respect. And he looked at Todd Weenink and knew that it wasn’t worth mentioning even one of them.

‘I can’t believe that you’re telling me this.’

‘I’m telling you because you asked me. And because I know you won’t shop me.’

‘How do you know I won’t?’

Weenink winked at him. ‘Because you’re so loyal and principled. You won’t betray me, will you, Ben? No, I know you won’t. It’s against your morality. It’s not what they tell you in the Bible of Bullshit, is it?’

‘I’m surprised you’ve even read it.’

Cooper hadn’t read the Police Training Manual much recently, either. Who did, when you had been on the job a while and had learned the realities of the situation? Todd Weenink had certainly been doing the job far too long for that. The Bible of Bullshit was read only by wet trainees and senior managers.

‘You know what’ll happen, Todd. In the public’s eyes, you’ll get lumped in with the worst there are. A copper gone wrong is never forgiven.’

‘But all I did — ’

‘I don’t want to know.’

‘You just asked.’

‘I’ve changed my mind.’

‘Fuck you, then.’

Cooper watched Weenink weave away for a few yards along Bargate, then stumble and put out a hand to support himself on a lamp post. He was beyond hope, of course. Breaking the rules was one thing, but breaking the law was another. There was no way that Cooper or anyone else could help Weenink. It didn’t matter how much you owed a colleague out of loyalty, or how close you knew other people were to being in the same situation — or even how close you had come to it yourself, at times. Weenink had made his mistake, and he would have to be abandoned to his fate. The wolves would be circling soon enough.

With a sigh, Cooper propped Weenink up and let him drape his arm round his shoulder. Despite the weight, he managed to make it to the lights at the corner of Bargate. Then he began to look for a taxi to get them out of there. The night threatened to stretch out endlessly ahead of him.

By eight o’clock the next morning, it was already obvious from the sky that it was going to be a good day for a walk on the moors.

The two women had a second cup of coffee together, leaning their elbows comfortably on the kitchen table among the toast crumbs and the cereal bowls. Karen Tavisker’s husband Nick had already gone off to work and left them in their housecoats, still chatting, so absorbed in each other’s company that they had barely noticed him go.

‘We’d better get ready, if we’re going,’ said Karen.

‘Of course. But not for a minute yet.’

‘This is so decadent.’

‘I don’t care,’ said Marilyn.

‘Nor me.’

Marilyn Robb and Karen Tavisker had been friends for years. Twelve months previously, Marilyn and her husband had moved away to Herefordshire when Alan had been transferred to a new financial services centre at Ludlow. Now Marilyn was back for a visit with her old friend at Karen’s home in Mickleover — and the first thing she wanted to do was go for a walk in the Peak District, as they always had done before she moved away.

‘Where shall we go?’

‘Have you still got the OS maps?’

‘Of course. They’re right here. Dark Peak or White Peak?’

‘Hmm. Normally I might be feeling a bit dark. But today. .’

She looked out of the kitchen window. A brisk wind was tossing the dead leaves of the sycamores around the garden.

‘Yes, you’re right,’ said Karen. ‘It’ll be pretty wild up there today. Best to play safe.’

It might seem bright and breezy now, here in the leafy streets of Mickleover, but by the time they reached Buxton they would have climbed fifteen hundred feet and the climate would be totally different. On the tops, anything could be waiting for unwary walkers. In November, the hills of the Dark Peak could be merciless, with wind, rain and sleet ripping furiously across the shelterless stretches. Both women shivered as they contemplated it.

‘Somewhere in the White Peak then. It’s nearer, anyway.’

‘Why don’t we just set off and see where the car takes us?’

‘Why not? We’re ladies of leisure, after all.’

‘And a nice pub for lunch.’

‘Perfect.’

Like everyone else, Karen had heard of the women attacked on Ringham Moor. The Jenny Weston case had been in the papers for a few days, but other stories had replaced it now. There were always other, more newsworthy murders taking place somewhere around the country. Karen knew the police had been warning lone women to stay off the moor. But time had passed, and it had begun to feel safe again. And two women together? Surely they would be all right.

By the time they were dressed and had collected their boots and anoraks, they were becoming quite silly, like two schoolgirls on an outing. They found an old Bruce Springsteen tape at the back of the glove compartment in Karen’s car, and they sang along to the familiar tunes from fifteen years before, when they had been much younger and had enjoyed life together. They deafened each other with the chorus of ‘Dancing in the Dark’.

Marilyn began to talk about the people they had both known, years ago. Karen laughed, her spirits lifted by the company of her friend. She hadn’t decided consciously where they would go. But when they reached Ashbourne, she indicated left and turned on to the A515 towards Ringham Moor.