Dancing With the Virgins (16 page)

1
1

Mark Roper had watched the police walk away from
the farmhouse at Ringham Edge. They hadn't got into
the house, no more than anybody ever did. At first,
he had thought the woman with Detective Constable
Cooper might have been a social worker. Yvonne Leach
had looked nervous when she opened the door, but it
had soon become clear they had no knowledge or power
that she might be afraid of. They hadn't even glanced
at the big shed behind the farmhouse, either
.

For Mark, the choice was impossible. If he went to
the police with his suspicions, it would be obvious where the information had come from. Obvious to
Warren Leach, at least. It would be bad for farmers
to get the idea that Rangers were spying on them, reporting them to the police, to social workers, or to
the RSPCA over things that were none of the Rangers'
business. That would do nothing for relationships with
landowners, which Owen said were so important to
the Peak District National Park. There was no point in
antagonizing Leach any further, so Owen said
.

The source of the information would be obvious to Owen, too. And that would be even worse
.

Mark moved slightly as Yvonne Leach crossed the
yard. He knew his outline was camouflaged by the trees behind him on the hillside, and his red jacket was below
the level of the stone wall. Mrs Leach wouldn't see
him, anyway. The woman was too absorbed in her own
troubles to see what went on around her. Leach himself
had gone out an hour before. There had been police parked up the hill under the beeches, but they had
ignored the farmer. They had nothing on Warren Leach,
then. Not yet. Mark would have to wait a bit longer
.

He wondered what Owen would do in the same situ
ation. Probably he would recommend patience. But how
long could you be expected to wait? How long could Mark be patient?

*

Cautiously, Ben Cooper put his ear to the cold metal. It felt damp and uncomfortable. Fry looked as though
she was about to speak, but he hastily held up a hand
to silence her. He could hear vague stirrings from inside
the van; he could even feel a slight movement in the side panel as the springs of the suspension shifted
.

He gestured to Fry, and they both walked away from
the van until they were out of earshot.

‘
There's definitely somebody in there. What do we do?
’

Fry had no hesitation. 'We get some back-up before
we do anything. No heroics. Not even from you, understand?'

‘
Fair enough,' said Cooper, and held his hands up like a man pleading for a truce
.

Fry called in, and they waited, watching the van. They
knew there were officers not far away, up on the moor. They had no more than a few minutes to wait — but it
could seem like a long time
.

*

Finally, a uniformed sergeant and two PCs in stab-proof
vests, with their hands on their side-handled batons,
walked up to the van. As Cooper and Fry watched, the
sergeant banged on the side door.

‘
Police! Open up!
’

The sergeant had a heavy fist and his pounding made
a noise that must have reverberated deafeningly inside
the van. There was a sudden scuffling and muffled curs
ing, a moment of silence, then a clunk as the latch on
the side door went down. The door began to move,
screeching as its runner stuck, then sliding slowly open.
The officers near the van tensed and took a couple of
steps backwards.

‘
What do you want, man? Oh, shit.
’

When the door was open about a foot, a face
appeared, masked by a straggly beard and a woollen
hat. The face was low down towards the floor of the
van, with a bare arm stretched up to the handle. The
rest of his body was wrapped up in a sleeping bag. All
that was visible was the head and one arm.

‘
Step out of the van, please,' said the sergeant.
'You what?'

‘
Step out of the van, please, sir. Let me see your hands
as you come out.'

‘
I'm in fucking bed. What do you want?'

‘
We need to talk to you. Is there anyone else in there?
’

The sergeant ducked his head through the door, well
clear of possible contact with the figure on the floor,
and quick enough to avoid the door being slammed on
his head.

‘
Right. Let's have both of you out. Sharp, now.
’

Standing behind the sergeant, Cooper breathed deeply. A whole miasma of smells had been released
by the opening of the door — not just the aroma of the
chicken curry that had been eaten recently, but a small
army of scents that competed with it for attention. Some
of the smells were dark and musty, others sharp and
metallic. Cooper longed to get inside the van and absorb
the sensations. But he stood waiting patiently while the
sergeant urged the occupants out into the welcoming
arms of his constables.

‘
Come on, come on. Let's have you, son.'

‘
Oh God, hang on then.
’

The face disappeared for a few seconds, and there was a heaving as a body was hauled from a sleeping bag. The sergeant kept a hand causally on the door.
Finally, a young man emerged, bundled in clothes and
muttering. He sat on the step of the van until one of the PCs helped him up.

‘
And your girlfriend as well. Out here.
’

A second figure came out of the gloom, a slight, narrow-shouldered figure, moving more slowly, like
someone still half-asleep. No — more than half-asleep,
an actual sleep walker, with eyes that were barely aware
of what was around them, as if they were focused on
a dream world that no one else could see. This one said
nothing, merely peering from a mass of tangled blond
hair at the watching faces with faintly inquisitive eyes.
Not angry or nervous, thought Cooper. Not frightened
or aggressive. Just slightly puzzled, as if she had noticed
an unfamiliar noise or spotted an animal she didn't
recognize. She was clutching a blanket to her chest with
thin, pale hands
.

Cooper left Fry's side and moved a step closer to the
van and took another sniff. There was no scent of drugs
that he recognized. If they had been smoking cannabis
inside the van, it would be detectable to the nose. But
that didn't mean they hadn't been taking something
else. He looked at the sergeant, who nodded in agree
ment. It might be an excuse for searching the van, if they wanted it. They could get a dog down here and take the vehicle apart in no time.

‘
Are you the owner of this vehicle?' the sergeant asked the youth with the straggly beard.

‘
Yes, it's mine,' he said. 'And it's not nicked.
’

‘
Right. Let's have your names.'

‘
We're not doing anything wrong.'

‘
Names. You first.' The sergeant pointed at the youth.
'Homer Simpson,' he said
.

Cooper and Fry smiled. At first, the youth might actu
ally have thought they were appreciating the joke. But
advance information was very useful.

‘
Nice try, Calvin,' said Fry
.

He looked surprised, then deflated.

‘
It is Calvin Lawrence, isn't it? Of Benson Street, Stockport?'

‘
Is it me you're after?'

‘
Depends what you've done.'

‘
I haven't done anything. How did you know my name?'

‘
Listen, if you want to be anonymous, try taking the plates off the van. It's still registered in your name. Bit
of a giveaway, that.'

‘
Shit.'

‘
Not much of a mastermind, are you, Calvin?
’

‘
They call me Cal,' he said.

‘
Is Benson Street, Stockport, still your home address?
’

‘
No, that's my parents' house.'

‘
Can we have your current address, please?
’

‘
Number One, Quarry Avenue, Stonesville.'
The sergeant wrote it down. 'Where's that?
’

Cal sneered, and looked at the other officers, inviting
them to share his disdain. 'It's here, man. I live here.
’

‘
In the van?'

‘
You've got it.'

‘
You're giving that thing as your permanent
residence?'

‘
It's as permanent as anything is.'

‘
That might be debatable. Do the owners of this prop
erty know you're here? Have you got permission for overnight parking?'

‘
Jesus, are you real?' said Cal. 'Or did I just fall into
an old Benny Hill Show?'

‘
No? In that case, you might find your home is more
temporary than you think, son.
’

Cal folded his arms across the holes in his sweater.
A mulish look came over his face. 'You'll have to drag
us out of here, if you want to move us.'

‘
Well, we can arrange that, if necessary.
’

The sergeant looked at the girl. She had said nothing
yet. In fact, her attention seemed to have wandered. She
gently pushed some of the hair from her eyes as she turned to watch the movement of some home-made
wind chimes hanging in a birch tree on the edge of the
quarry. Cooper realized that the chimes were providing
a constant background tune that made the sergeant's
voice sound curiously discordant and out of place, a
meaningless animal growl against the harmonies of a
distant choir. The sound of the chimes seemed to mean more to this dreamy young woman than the small army
of police officers who had invaded her home.

‘
And your name, miss?' said the sergeant
.

She seemed not to have heard him. Her gaze re
mained directed into space, oblivious to the turn in the conversation, unaware of the attention that was on her.

‘
You, miss. Can we have your name, please?
’

Then she turned and smiled at him, a whimsical
smile, not unfriendly or sullen. She pushed back her
hair again and her fingers danced across her face, flut
tering on her cheeks in a curious gesture. Then Cooper
saw the faint fuzz of hair on the jawline and the top
lip, the Adam's apple and wide forehead under the hair.
Not 'miss' at all, but another male
.

Cal butted in, moving slightly to impose himself between his friend and the policeman.

‘
You've got it wrong again. We call him Stride,' he said
.

The sergeant had noticed his mistake, too. 'OK. But
I'm talking to him, not you.'

‘
Just don't talk to him like that.
’

The sergeant stared grimly at the second youth. 'Your
name, please, sir.
’

The silence continued. The young man's eyes began
to drift back towards the floor of the quarry, but too
slowly for the sergeant. He reached out a hand, ready
to grab the youth's arm. Cal tensed angrily, and the two PCs stepped forward.

‘
It doesn't matter.
’

The youth's voice was soft. His lips barely moved, so that his words were no more than a whisper. But they
all heard it clearly. The sergeant's hand stopped short
of touching him, uncertain of what he had been about
to do. He looked like a man who found himself with a
passing swan in the sights of his twelve-bore, with his
finger already on the trigger.

‘
If we don't get some identity from you, we're going to take you down to the station for questioning,' he said.

‘
Oh, right, here comes the harassment,' said Cal. 'What made you wait so long? Take him down to the station. You are so full of shit. I mean, what does it
matter what name his parents gave him? What does it
matter where he comes from? It's who he is, that's all
you need to know. All anyone needs. Jesus.'

‘
Religious gentleman, are you, sir? They tell me if you
call Jesus's name often enough, the Virgin Mary gets
annoyed and tells you he can't come out to play today.
’

Finally, the one called Stride sighed and shook his
head. 'It doesn't matter. Not really. It's only a name.
’

‘
I'm afraid we'll have to insist, sir. Otherwise, you can come with us.
’

They waited expectantly. Finally, Stride sat down in
the doorway of the van and leaned into the interior. The police began to look uneasy again. He pulled a cardboard box towards him and rummaged around inside it, reaching right down to the bottom through
heaps of paper and clothes. Some of the contents he
pulled out and deposited on the step, examining each
one carefully as he handled them
.

Cal watched him, his expression a mixture of concern
and affection. Stride looked up at him, and something
passed between them when their eyes met. Cooper cocked his head, listening hard for the sound of the message they were communicating, but it was something he couldn't fathom, maybe something quite beyond his own experience
.

Then Stride suddenly held out his hand
with
an object
that glinted, sharp and metallic. The sergeant already
had his baton half out of his service belt by the time Stride opened his hand and showed it to his friend.

‘
Hey, that's the can-opener we lost,' said Cal
.

The sergeant looked embarrassed, then angry. Stride
smiled at him. His fingers went to his face again. They
flickered against his cheek, like a repeated word in sign
language. Did it mean he was laughing?
Then he produced a small enamel biscuit tin, whip
ping it in front of them like a conjuror producing a
rabbit. The tin was a startling royal blue, with Victorian-
style portraits in round, gilt frames on the lid. He popped the lid open, and showed them that the tin
was crammed with small items: photographs, letters,
postcards, the stub of an airline ticket,
a few metal
badges, a gold pen, a roll of yellowed newspaper cuttings.

‘
That's me,' he said
.

The sergeant replaced his baton and took a plastic
card-holder from him. The edges were cracked and
split, and one corner was turned over. Inside was a card
headed with the initials NUS over a badly coloured
photograph, taken against a curtain in harsh, glaring
light.

‘
This is your Student Union card?' he said, comparing
the face to Stride's.

‘
When I was at uni in Sheffield.'

‘
The hair's longer now, but I suppose it's you.
’

‘
It's me.'

‘
Simon Bevington.' The sergeant wrote it down, and
noted the membership number. 'This address. What is
it? Is this where your parents live, like your friend? Digs? Or what?'