Dancing with the Virgins bcadf-2

by Stephen Booth

  ‘I would have brought you here, Maggie,’ said Fry. ‘You don’t understand. I wanted to do it on my own.’ Fry nodded. ‘Yes, I suppose I can see that.’

  ‘Can you? You wanted me to share everything with you, all my memories. But there are things I can’t share.’ Her eyes went distant again. ‘Tell me,’ she said. They were the words that Fry feared to hear from her. ‘Tell me, why did you have an abortion?’

  ‘Because I didn’t want the baby,’ said Fry. ‘Obviously.’ They stopped by the Cat Stones. They were lumbering great rocks, precariously balanced on smaller, softer slabs of gritstone that had been worn away by the weather and shaped like the back-jointed rear legs of

  447

  an animal. The rocks crouched like leaping cats - or so local folklore said. Maybe they were leaping at the tower, determined to knock it from its perch.

  ‘But there’s more to it than that, isn’t there?’ Maggie touched one of the stones gently, as if she hoped to make it move with the lightest brush of her fingers. ‘Was it rape?’ she said.

  Yes.’ But you never talk about it, do you?’ ‘Of course not.’

  ‘Bottled up. Is that the best way?’

  ‘I don’t talk about it,’ said Fry firmly.

  ‘But it’s a denial,’ said Maggie. ‘A sort of lie that you’re living.’

  They were in the right spot. This was the place they had identified as the location of the assault on Maggie Crew - the brief, horrific attack that had left her disfigured. They had found little forensic evidence, nothing that could have led them to the identity of an assailant. There were no witnesses except Maggie herself. And no trace of a motive.

  ‘You can’t live your life by lies; said Maggie.

  Then Maggie Crew began to laugh. Fry was mortified that her confession should be treated with hilarity. Then she began to get angry.

  ‘What’s so funny?’

  Maggie put her hand on Fry’s arm to support herself. Her laughter bounced off the Cat Stones and seemed to drift off down the valley towards Matlock.

  ‘It doesn’t matter, Diane,’ she said. ‘Don’t worry about it.’

  448

  She looked to be about to start chuckling again. Fry pulled away abruptly.

  ‘You’re getting a bit hysterical. Let’s go down. It was a mistake to come up here.’

  ‘Perhaps it was,’ agreed Maggie.

  ‘You’re doing yourself no good.’ Fry shivered. ‘Besides, I’m getting cold.’

  Maggie smiled and shook her head. ‘Diane, there are things I remember.’

  ‘That’s good, Maggie,’ said Fry automatically.

  ‘I remember him running. He was on me so suddenly, before I knew what was happening. I remember him breathing heavily, like a runner, or…’ Maggie hesitated. ‘I think he was frightened.’

  ‘Frightened, Maggie?’

  ‘Yes. I don’t believe he meant to attack me. I was in the wrong place.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Diane - I think I was just in the way.’

  There was a faint scuffling, and a sheep peered at them from around a rock. Its black face and staring eyes looked ludicrous. Fry noticed there were hundreds of small black pellets scattered on the bare ground around the Cat Stones, drying in the wind. The sheep gazed at them for a few seconds, seemed to register that they were living creatures, and scuttled away down the slope.

  ‘Maggie, you told me the other day there were leaves. You remembered kicking the leaves, just before you were attacked.’

  ‘Yes.’

  449

  Fry gestured at the rock face, the tumbled boulders, the bare earth. ‘There are no leaves here. There are no trees.’

  ‘But I remember it.’

  ‘All right,’ said Fry. ‘So perhaps you’re mistaken about where it happened.’

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘Some of these boulders look very much alike to me. What about a bit further up?’ Fry pointed towards the tower. Maggie didn’t move. ‘Maggie?’

  ‘All right.’

  They walked a few yards to the north. As they rounded the central boulder of the Cat Stones, a view of the valley came into sight. Traffic could be seen moving on the A6 at Darley Dale, with the houses of Two Dales climbing the hill behind to the forest plantations on Matlock Moor and Black Hill. Nearer to the tower, the beeches began to cluster together, mixed with the occasional oak. Now there were plenty of leaves underfoot.

  ‘What about here?’ said Fry. ‘Surely this is more likely?’

  ‘It could have been, I suppose.’

  ‘But it’s important, you see. If we’ve got the scene of the attack wrong, then we ought to have the SOCOs up here again, to see if there’s anything that might still be left. Though it’s so long now…’

  ‘Yes, it’s so long,’ said Maggie. ‘Too long. It can’t matter that much.’

  ‘You never know,’ said Fry. She began to cast her eyes about the area, worried now about where she and

  450

  Maggie were treading. They could be contaminating the scene. There could be a vital piece of forensic evidence waiting to be found, the one piece of evidence that would link the attack definitely with a suspect. Just one bit of evidence. If only it hadn’t blown away, or been trampled into the ground. Or eaten by a sheep.

  ‘You shouldn’t have come out here, Maggie. You’re still alone out here, you know. Just as much as you were when you were at home.’

  Maggie shrugged. Fry watched her carefully. They were close enough by now for her to gauge Maggie’s reactions without being completely misled.

  ‘Maggie, I know about your daughter,’ said Fry. She saw Maggie lift an eyebrow a fraction. It was her left eyebrow that moved, while the right one merely twitched like a facial tic and settled into its bed of red scar tissue again. ‘I know you had your daughter adopted.’

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ said Maggie. ‘I’m afraid you’ve lost me.’

  ‘Your sister told me,’ said Fry. ‘But it was a long time ago, wasn’t it?’

  Maggie walked a few yards further on, hunching her shoulders and turning up her collar when the wind cutting between the boulders caught her in the face, on her damaged side.

  ‘Do you have memories of your daughter?’ asked Fry. ,It might help to let the memories come.’

  ‘You might be right,’ said Maggie quietly. ‘It could have happened about here.’

  ‘You shouldn’t just bury it, Maggie.’

  451

  ‘I still don’t remember exactly. It’s a wonderful view. You can see forever from here. Right down the valley. Right across the hills to Chatsworth.’ ‘Maggie ‘ Maggie sighed. ‘Do you blame me?’ she said. ‘No. But does that make it any better?’ Then Maggie touched her. It was the first time they had touched each other since they had met. A week ago, that was. A lifetime away. Maggie put her hand on Fry’s sleeve and gently drew her towards the edge of the rock at the base of the tower. They stood close to the drop, with the wind whipping round their ears and stirring their hair. They were elbow to elbow, with Fry standing, as always, on Maggie’s left side. Fry’s injured leg was throbbing from climbing up the rocky slope. She knew she had done too much, pushed herself too far. Her heart and lungs were struggling with the effort of breathing in the face of the wind. She waited to hear what Maggie had to say, not knowing what she hoped for. ‘There’s the train, look,’ said Maggie. A trail of steam was emerging from the trees towards Rowsley, as the Peak Rail train ran along the far bank of the Derwent near Churchtown and the houses on Dale Road. ‘It’s the last train of the day. They’ll be shedding the engines at Darley Dale station. They don’t run as far as Matlock in November.’ Fry realized Maggie was directing her attention away - well away, towards the centre of Matlock and her

  452

  own home. The smell of smoke was strong; it seemed to reach her all the way from down in the valley. Ben Cooper’s neck was starting to get stiff from staring up at th
e moor. The overcast sky made the slopes look dark and ominous. But it was like that in the Peak the landscape could change its mood from one moment to the next as the weather shifted and the clouds blew over the tops. ‘It’s a pretty bleak place to die, really,’ he said. ‘I never saw it like that before.’ ‘It wouldn’t be my choice, either,’ said Weenink. ‘I reckon I’d like to die in bed, preferably on the job with a blonde with big tits. That’d be the way to go.’ ‘It would suit Jenny Weston, though,’ said Cooper, as if Weenink hadn’t spoken. ‘From what her father says, it sounds as though she had a pretty difficult life. It would be no wonder that she was depressed.’ ‘Is that them?’ said Weenink. Diane Fry and Maggie Crew were halfway down the path, walking close together as if supporting each other. Weenink did a double-take when Maggie Crew got close enough for him to see her face. ‘Shit.’ ‘I know it’s a bit nasty,’ said Cooper. ‘But you’ve seen worse things than that, surely? Don’t let her see how you react.’ ‘OK, don’t tell me. I’ll fetch the car.’ Cooper shrugged. ‘If you like.’ Fry put Maggie straight into her car. Maggie kept her head down, like a defendant being led into court. She

  453

  looked as though she ought to have been wearing a blanket over her head. Except that Maggie Crew was the victim, not the accused. ‘Ben, I’m not sure we have the right location for the assault on Maggie,’ said Fry. ‘Oh?’ ‘Her statement doesn’t tally with the memories she’s getting now. She told me the other day that she remembered piles of leaves underfoot. But there are no leaves at the Cat Stones. I know it sounds like a small thing, but if we’ve missed examining the proper scene…’ ‘I’ll take a look,’ said Cooper. ‘We ought to get Forensics ‘ ‘I’ll take a look first, and see if I can narrow down the possibilities before we do that.’ ‘Of course, her memories may be distorted. They seem to be coming back, but who can say whether they’re accurate or not?’ ‘It would take a psychiatrist to do that. If her evidence ever comes to court, we’ll need to back it up with expert opinion.’ Fry sighed. ‘She’s really going to love that.’ ‘If only we could produce a case without her. But we can’t.’ ‘Another thing. She says she thinks she was just in the way.’ ‘What does that mean?’ ‘That she wasn’t the intended victim, I think. She says her attacker was breathless and running, not lying in wait for her.’ ‘That doesn’t make sense.’

  454

  I ‘I’m not responsible for whether it makes sense,’ said Fry. ‘I’m just sharing information, right?’ ‘Fine.’ Cooper watched them drive off, then waited for Weenink to come back with their own car. ‘Where to now, Ben?’ he said. ‘Up there.’ ‘What? Ben, do you know it’s Monday? I’ll be missing drinking time soon.’ ‘Are you coming, or what?’ Weenink locked the car again. ‘Yes. But only because you’re not safe on your own.’ When they reached the Cat Stones, Cooper instinctively followed Diane Fry’s footsteps to the place where the attack on Maggie Crew was supposed to have taken place. He could see straight away what she meant about the leaves. No trees grew on the exposed gritstone edge. ‘Why shouldn’t it be here?’ said Weenink. ‘She might have been walking through the leaves earlier. She could have gone through them on the way up.’ ‘Possibly.’ Weenink began to get impatient. ‘Ben, there are things to do.’ ‘Let’s try this way a bit.’ ‘But bloody hell ‘ Cooper turned angrily. ‘Todd - just keep out of it!’ His face felt flushed. It was only a moment’s loss of control, but nagging doubts had made him irritable, and exasperation with himself was eating at him. He worked his way north, as Fry had done. Weenink sat on a rock and watched him, like a tolerant parent.

  455

  After a minute or two, Cooper reached the spot where the rocks parted, and he could see down to Rowsley and the railway line. The last train had gone, but he could see where the line ran. Which way had Maggie’s attacker come from? Not from the other side of the rocks, that was sure - not unless he was Spiderman. The slope behind him was steep, too, and covered in loose stones that would be noisy and difficult to negotiate. If you were going to run at someone at speed and take them by surprise, there was only one way to do it - downhill. People had known that ever since violence had been invented. That was why Iron Age forts were built on the summits of steep hills.

  There was more dead foliage on the ground near the Hammond Tower, certainly. But how much would there have been seven weeks ago?

  Then, in front of the tower, Cooper suddenly stepped into a hidden hollow filled with wet drifts of leaves. They lay in layers, where they had collected over the years. Below the surface, the older material was black and slimy and decaying into mould. You could wade through this lot, if you wanted to, and be very vulnerable to someone approaching from above.

  Skirting the edge of the hollow to reach the base of the tower, he wrinkled his nose as a trace of something acrid and familiar reached his nostrils. Could he be mistaken? Were his senses playing tricks on him again? No, the smell was quite distinct and recognizable. Cal and Stride’s van had smelled of chicken curry. Yet the Hammond Tower smelled of petrol.

  From the tower, a steep track ran down to a ledge

  456

  below the Cat Stones. Cooper scrambled down the track, puzzled at the origin of the petrol smell. But as he moved away from the tower, the smell dissipated. It was lingering around the wall of the tower itself.

  He looked at the outcrop of rocks above him. They formed one of the biggest of the cat shapes - a pile of wind-sculpted blocks of gritstone perched on a softer layer that had been worn almost completely away by wind and water. A yawning gap had been left underneath on this side - a great empty gash that made you wonder how the cat-shaped blocks stayed hanging in that precarious position. One day, the cat’s legs would give way under the weight of rock and it would topple into the dale, forfeiting all of its nine lives in one go.

  Cooper peered under the overhang. The cavity went deep under the rocks, six feet in, the height getting less as it receded to the back, a very shallow cave formed by the weathering of the stone. On the outer edge lay a handful of damp, grey feathers, where some predator had stopped long enough to dismember a wood pigeon. Cooper’s nose twitched. There was something else here. Not petrol now, but something that smelled stale and unpleasant.

  He crouched and ducked his head below the rock, then waited for his eyes to adjust to the darkness. The smell was more powerful and unmistakable. At these moments, he always remembered his first shift sergeant telling him to learn to breathe through his mouth at a death scene. If you were going to deal with dead bodies often, he said, it helped if you had a sinus problem, or chronic nasal congestion.

  457

  Cooper saw a hand, then an arm. Where the body touched the rock, the surface was stained dark with leaking fluids. The muscles and tissues had shrunk inwards away from the skin, leaving it hanging loose, like the flesh of an old, old woman. On one edge of the forearm, the skin had burst open, exposing the layers of muscle and fat underneath. Next, he noticed the dark snakes of hair that lay around the head. Although the ledge was dry, enough moisture had been supplied by the body’s own fluids to support the process of putrefaction. By now, decomposition was well advanced, despite the cool air of the White Peak autumn. The body had been lying here a few weeks.

  Cooper knew exactly what to do. It was as if the past few days had drawn him inexorably to this point, as if he had reached an inevitable conclusion without knowing any of the steps he had taken along the way.

  He looked at the decomposed arm for a while, without surprise. There didn’t seem to be any hurry to do the next thing. In a dying landscape, one more death seemed completely natural.

  458

  32

  With the forensics team already fully occupied at Ringham Edge Farm, the news of another body mouldering away among the rocks just over the hill set up a howl of complaint about the shortage of resources. Little could be done until the next morning. By then, the lock on the big shed at the farm had been cut and the doors had finally been opened to let in the light.
Leach’s chaotic kitchen was being sifted through, and it looked like a long job.

  Ben Cooper was helping the SOCOs to reconstruct the dogfighting pit. They had found a heavily bloodstained area of floor and were placing straw bales from a stack in the shed around it on the assumption the bales might have been used for spectators’ seating. They discovered that some of the straw was itself splashed with animal blood. And the trousers of the people who had sat on it must have been marked, too - here and there, you could make out the outline of their legs against the straw. It was obvious that efforts had been made to clean the place up, but the distinctive smell of blood still filled the shed, undisguised by the disinfectant.

  459

  ‘It’s positively medieval,’ said Diane Fry, appearing in the doorway behind him.

  ‘It’s fairly nasty,’ said Cooper.

  ‘The RSPCA have drawn us up a list of names -suspects they think may have been involved in this dogfighting business. There could be some action at last.’

  ‘Fine. But what about Ros Daniels? Did she come here before she died?’

  A few yards away from the shed, police tape had been used to cordon off the burnt-out pick-up. Traces of petrol found on the decomposed hands of the corpse under the Cat Stones suggested one possible connection to the farm, at least. But with the scenes of crime staff already at full stretch, it was anybody’s guess when they would get round to examining the vehicle and making comparisons.

  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.