Dancing With the Virgins

by Stephen Booth

  Even the identification of the body was only tentative. The victim was the right age and the right general appearance to be Ros Daniels, though the injuries to the head and the process of decomposition made it difficult to be precise about facial features. She had been dressed all in black – jeans and a sweater, with a nylon cap lying nearby. And she had been wearing a silver disc on a chain round her neck, like a military dog-tag, with a stylized symbol engraved on it of an animal behind prison bars. The body also bore tattoos that would help identification, and the dreadlocked hairstyle was unusual.

  There had once been debris under her fingernails, which might have been traces from an attacker. But as the skin of her fingers had shrunk away from her nails, the debris had loosened and fallen away. Although it reacted to tests for human blood, the sample was too small to hold any prospect of obtaining a grouping or DNA profile.

  To Cooper, it seemed that the investigation constantly took one step forward and another one back. They had already been looking for anything that might connect Warren Leach directly with Jenny Weston, or with Maggie Crew. Now they were faced with the task of establishing what had happened to Daniels, and when. Because there was one thing that was obvious even from a cursory examination of the body that Cooper had found. Ros Daniels had been dead for weeks.

  ‘What is it with you people in this area?’ said Fry. ‘Don’t you know how to adapt to civilization? I mean, dog-fighting, for God’s sake. Hasn’t the world moved on from the Middle Ages? What do people like Warren Leach get out of it?’

  ‘Maybe we should be asking what drove him to it,’ said Cooper. ‘Maybe it was people like you.’

  Diane Fry walked across the yard towards DCI Tailby and DI Hitchens. They were sitting on an upturned piece of agricultural machinery, a red steel object with vast prongs that dug into the ground.

  ‘Well, it’s very unsatisfactory,’ said Tailby. ‘I mean, Warren Leach being dead. It makes it look as though everything we’ve done has been too slow. Too late.’

  ‘There was no obvious sequence,’ said Hitchens. ‘The pieces didn’t fit. If we just react to pressure, that’s when mistakes are made.’

  ‘Leach may still be a mistake,’ said Tailby.

  ‘Jenny Weston used to go up on the moor regularly,’ pointed out Fry. ‘She must have passed by Ringham Edge Farm many times. And she was a great animal lover.’

  ‘So she might actually have faced up to Leach and his friends and told them she was going to report what was going on?’

  ‘Some people feel very strongly about these things.’

  ‘It would be a really stupid thing for her to have done,’ said Hitchens.

  ‘But she did tell the RSPCA that she had some incriminating photographs,’ said Fry.

  ‘So where’s her camera?’

  ‘It wasn’t in her house. There were plenty of photographs – scenic views, historic houses, that sort of thing. But no camera. It wasn’t in her car either.’

  ‘Her parents say they bought her an expensive auto-focus job for her birthday last year to replace her old camera, but there’s no sign of it,’ said Hitchens. ‘We’ve put the details out.’

  ‘It would be very useful if it turned up somewhere. Especially with a film still in it, eh?’

  ‘I wish,’ said Hitchens. ‘But if Jenny Weston had photos, why on earth didn’t she tell us about them?’

  ‘Didn’t trust her friendly neighbourhood bobby, perhaps? Some people don’t.’

  ‘There’s the question of Ros Daniels,’ said Tailby. ‘We need to clarify the relationship between them.’

  ‘Cheshire Police think they’ve traced Daniels’ home address to Wilmslow. Her parents are away at the moment, but the neighbours confirm the description. They didn’t seem too impressed with her, apparently. But it’s an upmarket area – more tennis club than Tank Girl. We’ll just have to wait for the parents to come back from holiday.’

  ‘Could it have been a lesbian relationship that went wrong?’ said Tailby.

  Fry frowned. ‘We’ve no evidence of that.’

  ‘But why was she staying with Weston? Why did she come to this area? And how did she get herself killed? After all, Daniels must have been the first victim, not Weston.’

  ‘You’re not suggesting Jenny Weston killed her?’

  ‘If Mrs Van Doon confirms that Daniels died about the same time Maggie Crew was assaulted, as seems to be the case, then we do at least have Crew’s fragmentary memories to go on.’

  ‘A big man in a blue or black anorak or cagoule,’ said Tailby, quoting from Fry’s report of her interview with Maggie Crew. ‘Well, I suppose Leach fitted the description. We could have put him into a parade.’

  ‘But we didn’t get the chance,’ said Fry.

  Tailby sighed. ‘I suppose all the junior officers are blaming me,’ he said.

  ‘They don’t understand the position you’re in as senior investigating officer,’ said Hitchens.

  ‘And you, Paul?’ said Tailby. ‘Do you understand? Or do you blame me as well?’

  Fry watched Hitchens stiffen awkwardly, and she knew he was seeking a way to avoid the direct answer. ‘I’m sure you’ll find all the team very supportive, sir,’ he said.

  Later that morning, in the West Street canteen, Todd Weenink was watching a workman in blue overalls measuring the width of the room and checking for load-bearing walls. Weenink looked cheerful, as if the canteen was being redesigned entirely for his benefit. He had loosened his tie and unbuttoned his collar, and his shoulders bulged under his shirt as he leaned forward to bite into a Danish pastry.

  ‘Well, Tailby really screwed up big this time,’ he said. ‘Another body, and a potential suspect topped himself before we could lay hands on him. Doesn’t look good, does it? They’ll be saying he hesitated too long.’

  ‘It’s not his fault,’ said Ben Cooper.

  ‘Let’s face it, Tailby’s lost it. Wasn’t there some talk about him going for an admin job?’

  The workman made a few notes on the back of an envelope and then started to put away his tape measure. The woman behind the counter followed every movement he made as if she were prepared to repel him with boiling hot tea if he came any closer.

  ‘Looks like we could be seeing the last of Teabag Tracy there as well,’ said Weenink.

  ‘Probably.’

  Weenink turned to look at Cooper. ‘What’s up with you, then? I can’t get more than one word out of you. And you’ve got that look on your face again – the one like a constipated camel.’

  ‘I’m worried about Wayne Sugden.’

  ‘Come off it! Sugden? That is definitely a bloke whose parents were wading in the shallow end of the gene pool.’

  Half an hour later, DI Hitchens burst through Tailby’s door and found him staring morosely at the ceiling, an unlit pipe in his mouth.

  ‘Forensics report,’ said Hitchens breathlessly. ‘We’ve got a result.’

  ‘Already? The Leach house?’

  Hitchens shook his head vigorously. ‘No,’ he said. ‘Owen Fox.’

  The DI set a new batch of tapes running when they brought the Area Ranger back to the interview room.

  ‘Tell me again what sort of cigarettes you smoke.’

  ‘I don’t,’ said Owen. He looked tired, his beard tangled from constantly running his fingers through it.

  ‘When did you give up?’

  ‘I’ve never smoked,’ said Owen. ‘You’ve asked me this before. What’s the point of this?’

  ‘All right. Do you recognize these cigarette stubs?’

  ‘Of course not. You’re joking, aren’t you?’

  ‘Do they look pretty much the same to you?’

  ‘Of course they do.’

  ‘You’re right, they are. Identical. The same brand, the same batch, smoked in just the same way. Look at how exactly the same amount has been left before the filter, how they’ve been pinched between the fingers in precisely the same way. They could almost have come from the same pa
cket, Owen. Except for their age. Do you agree?’

  ‘I suppose so.’

  ‘We found one in the bin at your briefing centre.’

  ‘I’ve told you, I don’t smoke. If you found it there, I don’t know how it got there.’

  Hitchens nodded. ‘Do you want to know where we found the other one?’

  Owen didn’t respond.

  ‘I’ll tell you anyway,’ said Hitchens. ‘It was under Rosalind Daniels’ body.’

  Ben Cooper looked at the stack of interview reports on his desk. His eyes were going blurred from staring at descriptions and dates, and his mind was starting to drift.

  Cooper could see all the people he would have liked to protect becoming victims one after another – Cal and Stride, the Leaches, Owen Fox. Even Todd Weenink was his colleague and was owed some loyalty. So was Cooper himself the Jonah, the curse they had in common?

  He searched his heart and instincts for the source of the problem. He knew it must be within himself. Was it a weakness to see people like Warren Leach as victims, just as much as the Jenny Westons and Ros Daniels and Maggie Crews were? And Owen Fox? And Calvin Lawrence and Simon Bevington? Or had he just not realized who it was he should be protecting these people against? But then Diane Fry had tried, too.

  He knew Fry didn’t see things the way he did. There was a clearer perception of black and white in the way she saw the world. It must be a huge advantage not to have the complication of always seeing both sides of the story. But then Fry had tried, too. She had tried to protect Cal and Stride against the vigilantes, and she had failed.

  Cooper paused, and went over that again. There was something wrong with his thought processes. He got to the end of the thought, and realized what it was. Diane Fry – failed? This was the woman who didn’t know what failure was. No matter what the circumstances of her life, she had risen above them, consumed by a determination to succeed. And succeed was exactly what she had done, so far. This woman was a fourth dan black belt, as tough as they came, and as ruthless. Surely she was capable of tackling more than one assailant, even in the dark. She could certainly have deterred an untrained and probably thoroughly scared group of amateurs. So would Fry really have failed to prevent the worst of the assault on the two travellers?

  He turned over some more reports. Then he put his head in his hands, staring at a photo of Wayne Sugden.

  Cooper knew it was his father who had made him try too hard. And he was still doing it, from the grave; Cooper was forever trying to live up to his expectations, and he would be doing it long after everyone else had forgotten him.

  But things had changed since his father’s day. These days, things weren’t so clear cut. There no longer seemed to be the villains and the innocent members of the public, the black and the white, the good and the evil, with the police protecting the one against the other. These days there were only shades of grey, when everyone was classed as a victim, and evil no longer officially existed. As often as not, the law seemed to be a weapon to be used against the police, not by them. Was there still something called justice out there? Was it something that Sergeant Joe Cooper would recognize? Would he think that his son was doing his best to pursue justice? Or would he have growled: ‘Do better, lad.’

  Cooper heard the door open and a step approached his desk. There was a familiar exasperated sigh close to his left ear.

  ‘Still tilting at windmills, Sir Galahad?’

  ‘Don Quixote,’ muttered Cooper without looking up.

  ‘You read too much,’ said Fry. ‘It’s addled your brains.’

  Cooper sat back and looked at her. She seemed as tired as he felt himself. Her face was drawn, and there were blue patches under her eyes.

  ‘How’s it going down there?’ he said.

  ‘With your friend the Ranger? Badly. They’ve bailed him.’

  ‘Really? I thought there was some forensic evidence. Cigarette ends –’

  ‘Unfortunately, there are no traces of Fox. The saliva samples from the cigarettes don’t match. And Fox’s colleagues confirm he has never smoked. They weren’t his fag ends.’

  Cooper tried not to show how relieved he was. But he suspected Fry knew his thoughts anyway.

  ‘Anything on Leach?’ he said.

  Fry shook her head. ‘Not yet. Maybe it’ll all come down to you and your instincts, and we’ll find that Ben Cooper is right and everybody else is wrong. Because you seem to take the opposite view every time these days. You even want to defend Warren Leach, for God’s sake. How can you do that?’

  ‘You have to look at what makes people do things. Their actions don’t exist in isolation.’

  ‘You should have been a social worker, not a copper.’

  ‘You’ve got more against social workers than most people do, haven’t you?’

  Cooper looked up and noticed the expression on her face. Too late, he knew he shouldn’t have said that about social workers. He knew perfectly well that Fry and her sister had been taken into care after allegations of sexual abuse by their parents, and the sister had run away and become a heroin addict. Why Fry had shared those things with him, Cooper didn’t know. There was so much about her that he didn’t understand.

  Now, he waited in shame and embarrassment for her to rip into him. But she didn’t do that. Her brief spasm of rage was brought under control.

  ‘Do you care nothing about your own career any more, Ben? Because the way you’re heading, you’re risking everything. Do you know that?’ She didn’t wait for him to answer. ‘That’s what it’s all about, isn’t it? You’re never going to forgive or forget that I got the promotion. You thought you had a divine right to it, just because you’ve been in the area for ever and your balls are made of limestone or something. And now you’re going to sacrifice yourself for some self-righteous idea that you’ll probably call justice, just to prove that you don’t care about the job, that you never really had any ambition after all. Well, go on, then – enjoy your martyrdom.’

  After she had slammed the door behind her, Cooper read a few of the memos that were in his tray, but without taking in what they said. He made some notes on an assault case that was waiting to go to court. He looked through his drawers and found a half-eaten packet of Polo mints. He ate a mint. Then he ate another. And then he began to wonder what Owen Fox was doing now, back at Cargreave.

  Owen was a man whose life and background had not stood up to close investigation. Whose life could? He had heard Owen described as a good man; but what did that mean? Was it a person who had never made a mistake? The papers would call Owen a sex beast, if they got the chance. But he wasn’t an animal, just a man whose circumstances had left him with a weakness. His fallibility had contributed to an evil in the world, it was true. But there were so many evils – too many to count, even in Edendale. And being weak didn’t make Owen Fox a monster; it only made him human.

  Cooper knew that he had failed to help Cal and Stride, and he had failed to prevent the tragedy that had destroyed the Leach family. Maybe it wasn’t too late for him to help Owen Fox. But there would be a price to pay, if he tried. He was aware that he was walking a fine line already; his loyalties were under question, and not just by Diane Fry. It was vital that he stayed away from Owen Fox. There would be plenty of people ready to throw stones after all this, and it would be madness for Ben Cooper to put himself deliberately in the line of fire. Absolute madness.

  33

  There was no answer at the cottage in Cargreave. Ben Cooper stood on the bottom step, his feet crunching shards of broken clay pot and lumps of soil tangled with roots. All the plant pots on the steps had been smashed and the plants uprooted. Now they lay in a wet mess of soil. The bottom step had also been used as a toilet, almost as if the entire village had stood and urinated on to the doorstep. Urinated and worse. The smell was appalling.

  All the curtains were drawn on this side of the house. Cooper walked a few yards along the road until he found a ginnel that ran between the cottages, with steep
steps at the bottom where gates led into adjacent gardens. He clambered over a wall into the field and walked along it until he reached the back garden of Owen Fox’s cottage and forced his way through an overgrown hawthorn hedge. A woman stared at him from a first-floor window next door, then turned away.

  Cooper peered through the windows, remembering the gloom of the little room at the front of the house where Owen’s computer had stood among the old newspapers and magazines. He banged on the back door, knocked on the windows, watching for a hint of movement inside. Nothing. Feeling foolish, he shouted Owen’s name. There was no reply. So where else could he be? They had taken the Land Rover off him when he was suspended, and Owen wasn’t the type to be drowning his sorrows in the pub. He would want to be somewhere quiet, where he could think about things.

  Cooper found himself looking up at the bedroom window. The line of bereavement cards still stood there, mostly white and silver, fading in the sun. They were decorated with all the symbols of religion – crosses and stained glass windows depicting the Virgin Mary. They were the usual things on bereavement cards, often meaning nothing. But, of course, Mrs Fox had believed in religion. Owen had said so himself. He had taken her to the village church until she became bedridden. And the old lady could see the tower of the church from her bedroom window.

  The graveyard at Cargreave parish church was full of local names – Gregory, Twigg and Woodward; Pidcock, Rowland and Marsden. There were lots of Shimwells and Bradleys here, and someone called Cornelius Roper – an ancestor of Mark’s, perhaps? One of the most recent headstones was down at the bottom of the graveyard, in one of the last available plots. Annie Fox, aged ninety, beloved mother of Owen.

  Even in the dusk and from the far side of the churchyard, Ben Cooper could see the red of the Ranger’s jacket in the porch. He walked up the path. Inside the porch, Owen Fox was dwarfed by a slate slab, eight feet tall, bearing the Ten Commandments. Cooper sat down next to him on a narrow stone seat.