Dancing With the Virgins

9

It was only an hour or so after the morning news that the first visitors started to arrive on Ringham Moor. They parked up on all the roadside verges, filling the lay-bys and blocking the field gates. Within a few minutes, the first of them began to wander up the tracks that led on to the moor. They came in ones and twos mostly, but some had brought their children for a day out.

‘Look at them,’ said the uniformed sergeant in charge of containing the crime scene. ‘Can’t you hear the conversations over the cornflakes? “Nothing much on the telly today — why don’t we all go and see where the lady got herself murdered?”’

These people had come wrapped up well, in their sweaters and anoraks and boots and hats. They brought their cameras, too, and their binoculars. They took photos of any policemen they saw, and of the crime scene tape rattling in the wind; they were excited by the sight of the small tent that the SOCOs had erected in the middle of the Nine Virgins, over the spot where Jenny Weston had lain.

Officers had been posted to block the main paths. But they were too easily visible across the moor, and soon they found that people were simply cutting across the vast expanses of heather to avoid them. They shouted themselves hoarse and got the bottoms of their trouser legs soaking wet trying to intercept the stragglers. The sergeant called in for reinforcements, but found there were no more officers available. As always, the division was short of resources.

‘“Just do the best you can,”’ he reported. ‘That’s what they always say. “Just do the best you can.”’

One young PC found himself being followed around by two old ladies who bombarded him with questions. They pulled at his sleeve and patted his arm and demanded to know whether there was a lot of blood, and how big the murderer’s knife had been, and whether the body was still inside the tent. The constable appealed to his sergeant to help him. But the sergeant was busy threatening to arrest a small, fat man in a fluorescent green bubble jacket who refused to move as he stared at the tent with feverish eyes and asked one question over and over again: ‘She was naked, wasn’t she? It said on the news she was naked.’

Finally, the officers were forced to retreat, reducing the size of the area they were trying to protect. They clustered round the clearing, abandoning the heather and birches to the intruders, like a garrison under siege.

‘Haven’t they got anything else to do?’ complained the PC to the sergeant for the tenth time. ‘Can’t they go and pester the ducks in Bakewell or something?’

‘There’ll be more of them yet, Wragg. It’s still early,’ said the sergeant, watching the green jacket constantly circling the clearing like a bird of prey.

‘Early for what?’

‘Early for the real loonies.’

‘What do you call this lot, then?’

The sergeant shrugged as PC Wragg shook off the grasping fingers of the old ladies. ‘These are just your normal, everyday members of the public. Wait till the pubs open. Then you’ll see a real circus.’

‘Christ, why don’t they leave us alone?’

‘It’s a bit of excitement for them, you see. Some of them probably think it’s a film set. They think we’re filming an episode of Peak Practice or something. In fact, I reckon those old dears have mistaken you for what’s his name, the heart-throb doctor.’

‘Let’s hope the forensics lot are finished soon over at the quarry.’

‘Shush. Don’t let on. The gongoozlers’ll be over that way too, if they hear you.’

‘I think it’s too late, Sarge.’

The old ladies had spotted a police Range Rover and the Scientific Support Unit’s Maverick parking on the roadway above the abandoned quarry. The pair set off at a brisk pace, adjusting their hats and twirling their walking sticks. A family with three children and a Jack Russell terrier had settled down on the grass under the birch trees and had begun to unpack sandwiches and flasks. One of the children got out a kite and unfurled the line. Another threw a stick for the dog to chase.

The sergeant looked around for the little man in the green jacket, and saw him crouched in the heather, his hands compulsively pulling up clumps of whinberry. He looked like a wild dog, eager and alert, sniffing the air for carrion.

‘I’m sure I know that one,’ said the sergeant. ‘I’ve seen him somewhere before.’

‘He looks as though he shouldn’t be out on his own,’ said PC Wragg. ‘I reckon there ought to be at least two male nurses with him, carrying a strait jacket and a bucket of tranquillizers.’

‘Don’t you believe it,’ said the sergeant. ‘I’ve a feeling he’s a respectable member of society. A teacher or a lawyer, something like that. I can’t quite place him, but it’ll come.’

Wragg held up his hand like a traffic policeman as he saw more walkers approaching. ‘I’m sorry, ladies. This is a crime scene. I’ll have to ask you to walk another way, please.’

‘Oh, but we always come this way.’

There were four women, all in early middle age, with their hair tied back and their faces flushed and healthy. They were in bright cagoules and striped leggings, like a gaggle of multi-coloured sheep. They had probably left their husbands at home washing their cars or playing golf.

‘Not today, I’m afraid, ladies,’ said Wragg firmly. ‘Please take another route.’

‘He’s very polite,’ said one woman.

‘Have you the right to stop us walking along here?’ asked another in a different tone. ‘It’s a public right of way, after all.’

‘That’s right — it’s marked on the Ordnance Survey map.’ The third one produced the map as evidence and pointed at it triumphantly.

‘All the same. .’ said Wragg.

The women began to turn away. But the second one paused and glowered at Wragg.

‘You’d be better off making it safe for people to go about their business rather than stopping us using public rights of way. Get the man who’s attacking women, that’s the best thing you can do.’

PC Wragg watched them go. ‘It’s not my fault,’ he said to their retreating backs.

‘You’ll have to get used to that,’ said his sergeant. ‘As far as the public are concerned, it’s all your fault.’

The man in the green bubble jacket was still manoeuvring for a closer approach, watching the officers until they were distracted by something else, then creeping a few inches nearer.

‘So help me, I’m going to thump him if he gets in reach,’ said PC Wragg. ‘Just the sight of him makes my skin crawl.’

Of course, Ben Cooper realized that the black Peugeot was familiar. It was just that he hadn’t expected to see it here. Maybe it was destined to follow him around for ever, like a kind of ghostly hearse, with a phantom undertaker at the wheel.

‘It’s Diane Fry,’ he said.

Todd Weenink cursed some more. ‘Oh great. First the Wicked Witch of West Street, DI Armstrong. Now the Frozen Bitch from the Black Country. God, we could do without this. Stand by for a laugh a minute.’

‘I thought she was already gone,’ said Cooper.

‘Fry? I wish.’

They watched Fry get out of the Peugeot and look around the car park. To Cooper, she still seemed thin, despite a heavy woollen jacket with a hood against the cold. She had never looked healthy — too much in need of a few good meals, and with a strength that was all sinew and technique, rather than muscle. For a moment, he wondered how she spent her time now. No one else in Edendale had taken the trouble to befriend her since his own efforts had failed. Diane Fry carried something dark and immovable on her shoulder, something that had accompanied her from West Midlands when she transferred. Cooper felt a frisson of unease at the thought of what might happen to her eventually, if she was left entirely on her own.

Finally, Fry saw them and walked directly towards Weenink. She took him aside and spoke to him quietly for a minute. Cooper could see that Todd looked unhappy. But then he walked to their car and drove away without a glance, his face set into a scowl.

Cooper stood quite still, like a child reluctant to draw attention to himself. He wanted to shove his hands in his pockets to keep them warm, but was worried about how it might be interpreted.

He found the officer safety techniques from the training manuals running through his mind — extracts from the sections on employing empathy. Don’t excite the suspect by sudden movements, they said. Show a willingness to resolve the situation by co-operation. That was fine. But there was one problem here. The manuals always recommended maintaining a verbal exchange with the suspect for as long as possible, if you were going to maintain empathy.

Cooper watched her as she took her time reading the notices in the window of the cycle hire centre, as if she were totally fascinated by the weather forecast or the penalties for returning a bike after the deadline.

‘What’s going on?’ he asked. ‘What’s wrong?’

‘Wrong?’ Fry’s stare was capable of raising the temperature of his skin until he felt his face was glowing like a red traffic light. ‘DC Weenink is required back at Division, that’s all.’

‘Why?’ said Cooper. ‘What’s so important that they pull him off the job just like that?’

‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘I can’t tell you that.’

‘Can’t? Does that mean you do know why? Or haven’t they told you either?’

‘It’s nothing to do with you, OK?’

Cooper opened his mouth, then realized it would be a waste of time trying to explain that Todd Weenink was his partner.

‘Right. OK. So now what?’

‘Well, we’re following Jenny Weston’s route, aren’t we?’

‘We?’

‘Since I’ve deprived you of your friend, you’ll have to put up with me. Sorry. Is it this way?’

She turned away from him towards the trail. Cooper felt as though she had reduced him to insignificance with a mere twitch of her narrow shoulder. He followed her, a step behind, staring at the back of her head, trying to figure out what exactly was going on in her mind.

He knew their relationship had got off on the wrong foot. He had tried to be friends with her when she was the new girl in E Division and no one else had bothered. It had gone wrong, of course. But there was something in Fry’s manner, something about the way she held her body when she spoke to him, that told him it was more complicated than that. Things always were more complicated than they seemed.

Throughout the drive to Partridge Cross, Diane Fry had been preparing herself for dealing with Ben Cooper by repeating a mantra to herself. ‘Just keep him at arm’s length. Don’t let him get under your skin.’ She knew the best thing was to concentrate on the job in hand and discourage conversation. But it had still taken her a few moments to bring herself under proper control when she found herself facing him, alone and with nothing to distract her attention. And as usual she found herself unable to deter him from making his infuriating small talk.

‘So has your transfer has been put back, then?’ said Cooper. ‘Did something go wrong?’

‘There’s been a delay, that’s all. Some kind of administrative hold-up. You’re stuck with me for a while longer.’

‘That’s good.’

She looked at Cooper suspiciously. But, as always, he seemed to be saying only what he meant.

‘Let’s get on with it,’ she said. ‘There’s a lot to do.’

Fry studied the cycle hire centre. With its collection of colourful bikes and the mist still hanging against the embankment, the stone building looked like a picture from a children’s story book. It typified the air of unreality about the area that she had yet to come to terms with. Back in Birmingham, they would have flattened this place long ago for a new motorway link road.

‘So this is Partridge Cross,’ she said. ‘I thought they were kidding me about the name. It sounds like something out of The Archers.’

‘It used to be a railway station on the High Peak line — ’

‘I think you can keep that sort of stuff for the tourists.’ She waited for Cooper to take offence. But all he did was raise his eyebrows.

‘Diane, I know something went wrong between us before, but it shouldn’t stop us working together,’ he said.

She hated it when he was tolerant and reasonable. She would have preferred him to show signs of resentment. She had got the promotion that everybody’s favourite detective constable had thought was owed to him by right, and surely it was inevitable that he would resent her.

Fry sighed. ‘Have we got a map or anything?’ she said.

They knew that Jenny Weston had set off from Partridge Cross an hour and a quarter before her death. She had headed eastwards on the High Peak Trail, where the strip of black compacted gravel provided easy going. Beech and elder trees overhung the trail, with nettles and brambles dying back on the verges. Jenny would have passed under the A515 before she left the trail and crossed the route of the old Roman road to begin the ascent to Ringham Moor.

The mist began to break up as they climbed away from the hire centre. A jet liner went overhead towards East Midlands Airport, leaving a white streak in the sky. A farm dog barked half-heartedly in the distance. In between the noises, it was so unnaturally quiet that when a flock of pigeons passed overhead the noise of their wings sounded as loud as the jet.

But a few people were already starting to arrive on the trail. A woman with iron grey hair jogged by. She was wearing purple Lycra and a clashing yellow bum-bag, and she had two large, shaggy dogs panting to keep up with her. Cooper stopped her and ran through the questions on his list. Had she been this way yesterday afternoon? Did she remember seeing this cyclist? He showed her the snapshot of Jenny Weston provided by her father, and described her bike and clothing. If not, who else had she seen? The woman did her best, but couldn’t help. She urged the dogs on as she crunched away again.

Walkers began to appear in pairs, and once there was a small group of half a dozen. They all said ‘hello’ to the detectives, even before they were asked to stop and answer questions.

‘Is it obvious who we are?’ asked Fry uneasily.

‘No, it’s just the thing to do, if you’re walking out here. It’s a sign of comradeship.’

Fry snorted. Then a lone man passed them, walking slowly, with his head down. He was wearing a worn anorak, and his hair was dark and greasy. Fry’s eyes hardened and her shoulders tensed. The man glanced at them nervously as he passed.

‘Morning,’ he said.

Cooper started to go through the routine with him, but he claimed not to have been in the area before. He let the man go, but Fry stopped when he was a few yards past them.

‘I didn’t like the look of him,’ she said. ‘We ought to check him out properly.’

‘Why? He’s probably just a bird-watcher or something.’

There were views across open fields on either side and the low bankings you could easily walk over. But half a mile further on, the scenery changed. The trail entered a rocky gorge with sheer faces of crumbling limestone. The rock had been hacked into sharp angles by the crude blasting methods of the railway builders. The bramble-covered slopes above them would be impossible to scramble up, and there were lots of places to hide among the tumbled rocks and deep crevices.

They were still some distance from the point where Jenny Weston had tackled the climb on to Ringham Moor. Ahead, there would be police tape and officers posted to prevent them approaching too near to the crime scene.

‘Aren’t we chasing hares?’ asked Cooper.

‘We have to go through the routine.’

‘We ought to be looking at Jenny’s life. Not where she was, but why she was here.’

‘It’s procedure.’

Up ahead was a tunnel, a black shadow across the trail. The glimpse of light and greenery at the far end only emphasized the blackness they had to walk through to reach it. As they entered, the ground underfoot became softer and carved into ruts by bike tyres. In the middle, the walls and roof were panelled with curved planks and buttressed with iron. Water ran steadily down the wooden sides and dripped from the roof. They had to watch for the gleam and flicker of it in the weak light to avoid the splashes.

‘You’re dealing with the earlier victim, aren’t you?’ said Cooper.

‘Yes, Maggie Crew.’

‘If it’s the same assailant, I suppose the main hope we’ve got is Crew herself. She’s the only witness.’

‘She’s crucial,’ said Fry. ‘If we’re ever going to get an identification, it will be from her.’

‘Only potentially crucial, I suppose.’

‘Why?’

‘She can’t remember anything. Isn’t that right?’

‘I don’t think it’s as simple as that,’ said Fry.

The tunnel had been driven through the rock face at the centre of the gorge, where pink gneiss showed through the limestone. Ferns clung in patches, and a silver birch had tried to colonize a high ledge. The only sounds were the dripping and their own footsteps, until a hissing roar began behind them. They turned to see a racing cyclist, his head down, his face invisible behind an aerodynamic helmet and wraparound shades. He was well past before they could stop him.

The original chunks of dressed stone in the tunnel walls had been filled in here and there with bricks. The number of small stones that had fallen at each side of the path looked a bit ominous, as if the tunnel was slowly crumbling around them. Behind the boarding, a mass of stone that had rolled down from the limestone face was prevented only by the damp boards and rusted iron from closing the trail completely.

‘What do you mean, it’s not as simple as that?’ asked Cooper.

‘What I mean is that she does have the memories. The current thinking is that she’s burying them, though. Her mind is suppressing them because they’re too upsetting. There’s a blank for several hours either side of the incident, caused by the trauma. But there might be certain triggers, certain circumstances in which the memories will surface. We need to find a trigger. It could just be a sound, a smell, the sight of something she recognizes. We don’t know.’

‘But how are we even going to hope for that — unless we can face her directly with her assailant? Isn’t there another way, Diane?’

She shrugged. ‘The counsellors tried to help, but she got too distressed. So we’re not allowed to pressure her into seeing a psychiatrist to take it any further.’

Now it was starting to get busier, with families out for the afternoon. Cooper and Fry crossed the road and began the ascent to the moor. They stopped to look at the field where the farmworker, Victor McCauley, had been working when he saw Jenny on her bike just after half past one.

They emerged above the remains of the mist, and Cooper stared across the expanse of heather and whinberry that covered the plateau. He wasn’t quite sure about this Diane Fry who talked about triggers and the current thinking. It sounded wrong. He wondered if she had been on a training course recently.

‘Jenny ended up at the Nine Virgins, that way,’ he said. ‘But we don’t know which route she took across the moor.’

‘Whichever way she went, it took nearly three-quarters of an hour from when McCauley saw her.’

‘Yes. So she probably took the long route. Towards the Cat Stones and the Hammond Tower. Then past the top of Ringham Edge Farm.’

‘Let’s go there, then.’

There was no escape from the wind once they started to walk across the moor. The uniformity and lack of distraction in the landscape meant there was no escape from your thoughts, either. Or from the presence of the person you were with.

As they approached the Cat Stones, the wind seemed to double in strength, battering at them from the rocky outcrops. Cooper shivered, and Fry pulled her collar up higher. There was no life on Ringham Moor, apart from the vegetation, itself already turning brown and brittle. The moor was empty right the way across to the outline of the tower, perched above the steep drop on its eastern edge.

‘Maybe it’s a test, Diane,’ said Cooper, after a while.

‘You what?’

‘Putting you on to Maggie Crew. You’ve got the hardest job. Maybe they’re just putting you through the wringer. They want to see whether you come out the other side.’

At first, he didn’t think she was going to answer. Fry walked on a few more yards, her eyes fixed ahead, concentrating on where she was going, oblivious to the fascinations of the landscape around her.

‘Which I will,’ she said. ‘I come through everything.’