Dancing With the Virgins

by Stephen Booth

  In some places, though, he had found the foliage of the mountain ash and of more exotic, imported species, like the Russian vines that climbed the walls of roadside cottages. These leaves were red. And they made Stride think of death – of real death. He tried to avoid them, drawing back the toes of his Doc Martens as if touching the dead leaves would contaminate him. He hated the way they spread in soft, wet layers on the ground. He hated their colour and their slithery consistency. They looked to him like ever-widening pools of congealing blood.

  21

  By Thursday, four days after Jenny Weston’s body had been found, the enquiry team were starting to dissipate their energies fruitlessly, like men urinating into a strong wind. There were no answers to be obtained any more. The morning briefing seemed to consist entirely of questions.

  ‘This young woman, Ros Daniels. Are there no indications to her whereabouts at all?’ said DCI Tailby.

  ‘We’ve got a decent description, but matching it to missing persons is hoping for a lot,’ said DI Hitchens. ‘Most of these young people who leave home are never reported missing in the first place. But Cheshire Police are still working on it. And we do have a couple of lorry drivers who saw a girl hitch-hiking out of Macclesfield towards Buxton on the A537.’

  ‘That’s the Macclesfield Forest road,’ said Ben Cooper. ‘It’s a bit isolated up there. She was taking a risk hitching, a girl like that on her own.’

  ‘That’s why the truckers remember her particularly, Cooper. But one of them said she looked as though she wouldn’t be frightened of much. He said she looked like Tank Girl.’

  ‘I don’t know who Tank Girl is,’ said Tailby, ‘but I dare say I can imagine it.’

  Hitchens smiled. ‘It was the combat trousers and the hairstyle, I suppose. And a certain aggressiveness of manner, too. Sounds like our girl, all right. In any case, she was staying at Jenny Weston’s house, at least up to six weeks before Jenny was killed. Forensics found plenty of traces in the house that didn’t belong to Weston.’

  ‘There are other possibilities. What about Warren Leach, sir?’ asked Cooper.

  ‘He was certainly in the area,’ said Hitchens. ‘He has to be eliminated. And he has a connection to Maggie Crew – his wife was the finder on that one.’

  ‘Mmm. I don’t like coincidences,’ said Tailby. ‘And is there some significance in the way that the victim’s body was arranged? Anybody had any ideas on that?’

  No one answered. Cooper wondered whether they had all shared the same thought when they saw the position of Jenny Weston’s body. He had put his own reaction down to another burst of imagination, the idea that Jenny had been made to dance at the moment of her death. It was certainly too strange a thought to be contributed to the morning briefing.

  ‘And how do we find out more about Leach?’ said Tailby, almost to himself.

  Then suddenly there were voices chiming in from all round the room.

  ‘Talk to his neighbours?’ suggested someone.

  ‘He hasn’t got any neighbours,’ said another officer.

  ‘Friends, then.’

  ‘Like who?’

  ‘There’s Keith Teasdale. The rat man.’

  ‘Is he a friend?’

  ‘The nearest thing he’s got, probably.’

  Tailby raised a hand, half-heartedly.

  ‘OK, we’ll talk to Teasdale again. Is there anything else?’

  Cooper took a breath. ‘Yes,’ he said.

  There was something about the way he said it that quietened the laughter.

  ‘Cooper?’

  ‘I checked the firearms register for Warren Leach.’

  ‘Firearms?’ said Tailby. Heads were raised, and ears pricked up. ‘Leach has a shotgun, I suppose? Most farmers have them.’

  ‘Yes, there’s a shotgun. But when I was there the other day with Owen Fox, Leach also had a captive bolt pistol.’

  ‘A what?’

  ‘A humane killer. It’s used for putting animals down. It fires a steel bolt directly into the brain.’

  ‘Do you need an FAC for that, Cooper?’

  ‘Well, not if you’re a licensed slaughterman. But Warren Leach has no licence. Farmers can get them, if they can show that they need one. But there’s no record of Leach ever even applying for one.’

  ‘So he’s in illegal possession,’ said Tailby. ‘OK, let’s interview him again. Teasdale first, then Leach. Let’s do it.’

  Somebody patted Cooper on the shoulder. And Tailby hurried to close the meeting before anybody asked any more questions.

  DI Hitchens walked over to Ben Cooper. ‘I want Diane Fry to go to the cattle market with you, not Todd Weenink,’ he said. ‘You’re too close to some of these people. That’s your problem, Ben. Diane sees things that you don’t.’

  Across the room, Fry was watching him already. Cooper couldn’t read the expression in her eyes, but then he never had been able to read her. Maybe she did see things he didn’t – but from the look on her face these days, they were things that he didn’t want to see.

  The two farmers had been just about to leave the cattle market. The sale was over for the day, and most of the vehicles had left the car parks, but for a few transporters still waiting to load. The men were dressed in overalls and flat caps and smelled as though they had spent some of their money in the bar before setting off home.

  ‘You couldn’t buy a pint of beer for those prices I got,’ said one of them.

  ‘Bastards,’ said the other. ‘All pissing in the same pot, these dealers.’

  Ben Cooper nodded sympathetically. ‘I know what you mean. The farmer has to put up with lower prices all the time when meat is still selling for the same amount in the supermarkets.’

  ‘Bloody right. There’s no justice to it. What will they do when every farmer in the country has gone to the wall? That’s what I want to know.’

  Cooper was waiting for Diane Fry to finish taking a call on the radio in the car. He was the sort of person that people always chose to talk to, especially when they had problems. Maybe there was something about his face that encouraged them.

  ‘They’ll buy all their bloody meat from abroad, that’s what,’ said the second farmer. ‘They don’t need us any more. They can get anything they want cheaper somewhere else. These prices are just a way of killing us off one by one.’ He spat into a drainage channel. ‘Bastards.’

  ‘If we had another war like the last one, they’d be buggered.’

  ‘Aye, good and proper.’

  Finally, Fry came back from the car and stood listening to their conversation in amazement. ‘Have you finished writing the script for Farming Today? If so, I wonder if any of you know where Keith Teasdale is?’

  The first farmer opened his mouth as if he might say something, then closed it firmly.

  ‘You’ll have to ask Abel Pilkington,’ said the other man. ‘He’s inside somewhere. What’s Slasher Teasdale done, then?’

  ‘Slasher?’

  The farmer said: ‘It’s a nickname.’

  ‘What does it mean?’

  ‘Ah. You’ll have to ask him that.’

  Cooper and Fry had parked at the back of the cattle market, close to where a double-decker transporter was reversed up to the loading area, its tailgate lowered on to the concrete apron. They scrambled up on to the concrete, but could see no one among the rows of steel pens. They crossed an iron platform that moved underfoot, and found themselves looking at the face of an enormous weighing scale. It recorded their combined weight at just over twenty-three stone.

  ‘You’ve put a bit of weight on,’ said Cooper.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Well, it isn’t me. I’m thirteen stone and always have been. I never change.’

  Fry stared doubtfully at the scale. Cooper wondered whether she knew he was joking. She looked genuinely worried. ‘I shouldn’t bother about it too much,’ he said. ‘They sell ’em by the kilo here, anyway. The more you weigh on the hoof, the more money you fetch in the ring.’


  Fry wasn’t amused. ‘Tell you what,’ she said. ‘You hold on here and talk to yourself about the price of beef while I find this Pilkington character.’

  ‘If you say so.’

  Cooper waited by the transporter while Fry crossed the concrete and stood on the vehicle’s steel ramp. Inside the market, the silence of the building was strange after the bellowing cacophony of Tuesday. The starlings gathered on the ledges were whistling plaintively and darting in and out of the gaps in the roof. All traces of blood and urine and the soft, green faeces of frightened animals had been hosed away into the gutters behind the pens. Here and there the floor was still wet, drying very slowly in dark, glistening patches.

  ‘Where is everyone?’ asked Fry, hushing her voice automatically at the first bounce of the echo from the breeze-block walls.

  ‘In the back, probably,’ said Cooper. ‘Near the sale rings.’

  ‘OK.’

  She set off down the passageway opposite the ramp, walking between the steel pens.

  ‘Are you sure you want me to wait here, Diane?’

  ‘Yes. Just keep an eye out.’

  ‘I might be able to show you the way,’ called Cooper, his voice getting louder and more insistent, echoing in the roof space.

  ‘For God’s sake,’ she snapped. ‘I can find my way through an empty building without your assistance.’

  Fry had hardly got halfway down the passage when a gate clanged open somewhere. She heard Cooper call something else to her, a single word that sounded like an insult. She couldn’t quite hear what he said because of the noise, a crashing of gates and the thudding of hooves on concrete. But she reacted angrily to the sound of the word, and turned to answer him.

  ‘Did you say “bollocks”?’ she yelled.

  Cooper began to shake his head and opened his mouth to shout at her again. But Fry was distracted by a vibration in the ground, the impression of an earthquake approaching from behind. She turned and saw double doors open and a great bellowing rush of animals burst through the gap into the passage where she was standing. The heaving beasts filled the entire width of the passageway as they barrelled towards her.

  Fry spun to her left and found a section of brick wall and a six-foot wide pen that had long since lost its gate. She dodged into the pen as the cattle reached her, but found one of the animals following her blindly, barged aside by the rush of its companions. It was frightened and angry, and it swung its head from side to side, catching her clothes with the sharp points of its horns. She backed against the wall, braced herself and lashed out with a kick, which landed on the animal’s heavily muscled shoulder. It hardly seemed to notice.

  Now the beast was confused. It slipped and lurched around the pen, making Fry jump to keep her feet out of the way of its hooves. She smacked it twice on the nose with her fist. It shook its head, and backed off. She took the opportunity to leap out of the way over the nearest gate and into the next pen, where she slipped on the damp floor, twisted her ankle and fell flat on her back.

  She became aware of Ben Cooper standing over her. She was infuriated to see a smile playing across his face as he looked down at her.

  ‘Actually, I shouted “bullocks”,’ he said.

  The driver of the transporter had appeared and joined Cooper on the loading bay as the cattle thundered up the ramp into the wagon. He watched in amazement as Fry clambered from pen to pen.

  ‘You could hurt yourself doing that,’ he said.

  Looking around for someone to blame, Fry saw a dark-haired youth in a pair of green wellingtons coming towards her.

  ‘I nearly got trampled by those animals then,’ she said. ‘Aren’t there any precautions?’

  The youth merely chortled, flapping uneven teeth at her as he passed. Behind him, Abel Pilkington himself glowered from the wall of the sale ring, hooking his thumbs through the braces of his overalls.

  ‘Any fool knows not to stand in the passages when cattle’s being moved. How did you get in?’ he said.

  ‘Through the loading bay.’

  ‘Well, you’ve no right. There’s signs, you know. Authorized persons only past this point, they say.’

  The dark-haired youth had connected a thick hose to a tap. A high-pressure jet began to hit the ground where the cattle had passed, and water cascaded down the passageway. Fry had to raise her voice above the noise, but Pilkington seemed used to it.

  ‘We’re looking for Keith Teasdale,’ she said.

  ‘Why didn’t you say so? He’s not here. Once we finish the sale, he goes off to his other job. Down at Lowbridge.’

  ‘Do you mean the abattoir?’ said Cooper.

  ‘That’s it. That’s where you’ll find Slasher Teasdale.’

  ‘Why Slasher?’ said Fry.

  ‘It’s a nickname. If you ask him nicely, happen he’ll demonstrate.’

  Pilkington continued to glower at them, and didn’t bother saying goodbye as they walked back towards the loading bay. By the time they reached the car, Fry was limping slightly.

  ‘Have you hurt your leg?’ said Cooper.

  ‘I slipped, that’s all. The floor’s wet in some of those pens.’

  ‘Diane, you’ve, er, got your shoes a bit messy, too. It looks like cow shit.’

  Fry looked down at her feet. ‘Bullocks’,’ she said.

  Lowbridge was called a village, but the spread of development along the valley bottom from Edendale meant there was no distinction any more between the two places – no green fields or farms to separate them, only a road sign indicating the point where one house was in Edendale and the one next door was in Lowbridge.

  The abattoir was off the Castleton Road. Unlike the cattle market, it was modern and clean, all stainless steel and white tiles, like a vast urinal, its surfaces washed constantly. The air smelled of disinfectant, and the men moving around inside sloshed about in plastic aprons and thigh boots, with white caps covering their hair. The atmosphere reminded Fry of a hospital operating theatre.

  ‘Ben,’ she said, ‘I know Teasdale claims to have a legitimate reason to be in the Ringham area when Jenny Weston was killed …’

  ‘But you’re sceptical. Maybe you’re thinking about this nickname, Slasher. But it would be a bit of a giveaway, don’t you think? Like a burglar wearing a striped sweater and carrying a bag marked “swag”.’

  ‘Look at this place he works. Don’t you think he might have some expertise with a knife – and access to a nice, sharp blade of his choice?’ She got irritated when he didn’t respond. ‘Too obvious for you, is it? I suppose you prefer to look for the inner meaning of things?’

  ‘Not necessarily. But I find keeping an open mind allows a bit of fresh air in.’

  ‘Don’t talk to me about an open mind. Your mind is so rustic it should be in a woolly coat with a sheepdog behind it.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  Fry took a deep breath. ‘Let’s have a word with Teasdale’s employer before we speak to the man himself.’

  She took a cautious peek round the wall into the building, and was relieved to see no dead animals, and no blood.

  ‘Teasdale?’ said the manager when they found him in his office. ‘Keith Teasdale? Yes, he’s on the books.’

  The office was like any other – a computer in the corner and a desk littered with paperwork. From the extent of it, it looked as though an abattoir manager might actually have more paperwork to deal with than a police officer, though it was hard to believe. The manager had his work clothes in a kind of ante-room with a washbasin.

  ‘Well, you can talk to Teasdale if you really want to. He’s around the place somewhere.’

  ‘How long has he been with you?’ asked Fry.

  ‘Oh, a year or two. I’m not sure exactly without looking it up. He’s not one of the full-time staff, you know.’

  ‘But experienced, though?’

  ‘Experienced? Well … In what way?’

  ‘Experienced in the use of a knife? For bleeding animals. Gutting, and so
on. Whatever it is you do here.’

  ‘Teasdale?’ The manager stared at Fry. ‘We are talking about Keith Teasdale?’

  ‘I believe so, sir.’

  The manager began to laugh. ‘Expertise with a knife.’ He laughed some more. Cooper and Fry looked at each other.

  ‘Could we share the joke?’ asked Fry.

  The manager pulled a tissue from a box on the desk. They expected him to wipe the tears of laughter from his eyes. But instead he began to wipe his hands, rubbing between the fingers as if to dry a sudden outbreak of sweat.

  ‘Keith Teasdale does not use a knife in his work.’ He began to snigger again. ‘As far as I know, anyway.’

  ‘So what does he do exactly, sir?’

  ‘Keith Teasdale. Old Keith, eh? Expertise with a knife? Expertise with a yard brush, more like. Teasdale is a cleaner. He shoves a wet mop about the place. Not much of a lethal weapon, surely?’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘Unless you can be charged with being in possession of an offensive mop bucket.’

  ‘But they call him Slasher at the market,’ protested Fry.

  ‘We call him that here too,’ said the manager. ‘Ah, I see. What’s in a name? Is that evidence against him, then?’

  Now another tissue had to be used. And this one did go to the face to mop up the tears. ‘Do you want me to tell you how he got the nickname “Slasher”?’

  A man appeared in the doorway of the ante-room, hesitated when he saw the visitors and began to go away again with an apologetic nod.

  ‘Hey, Chris,’ called the manager. ‘This is the police. They want to know why we call Keith Teasdale “Slasher”!’

  The other man began to laugh too. ‘Are you going to tell them?’

  ‘Of course. The truth, the whole truth, and nothing but –!’

  ‘Poor old Keith.’

  They both laughed for a while. Fry was beginning to go pink with anger.

  ‘Basically, Keith Teasdale has a bladder problem,’ said the manager.