Dancing With the Virgins (34 page)

*

Ben Cooper remembered very well reading and
rereading
the oath on the back of his father's warrant
card as a small boy. Whenever he had seen his father
in his uniform, he had asked to read it again. He must
have been a terrible pest. But, at the time, it had seemed
the most noble and meaningful sentence in the world,
a hero's vow of honour. He had regarded it with
the superstitious awe and respect that only an over-imaginative child can produce. Though his hero had
faded, and finally died a futile death, the power of the
words had left a lasting impression. What was he here
for, except to protect the innocent?
A potential for violence seemed to hang around the
moor like low clouds. Cooper had been dwelling too long on the fate of Jenny Weston, on the question of why death had picked her out and flung her lifeless among the stones. It was as if she had been just one
more bit of dead foliage among the masses scattered on
the moor - her veins full of toxins, her living tissue
turned brown and useless. But there was one difference.
Leaves were sacrificed for the sake of a new beginning,
the start of new life. The death of Jenny Weston had no
such justification
.

Cooper wondered about himself, too. Had he really
joined the police because of his father? Was everything
he did aimed at outdoing the memory of the Hero of
Edendale? Or were people like Jenny Weston also part
of his motivation? He hoped so. But it was hard to be
sure
.

*

Cooper wasn't surprised that his reception in the quarry
was twenty degrees cooler than the last time. Cal and
Stride had become a centre of attention since then —
they had met the press, the police, and no doubt some
of the less sympathetic elements of the public. It was
surely enough to make them shut themselves off from
the world
.

Only Cal appeared in answer to Cooper's knock. This time, there was only a crack in the door for him to peer
through.

‘
You. What?'

‘
Just a word of advice, sir.'

‘
Oh, wow. Surprise me, man.'

‘
Those things up there . . . those sculptures, or what
ever you call them. The phallus farm.'

‘
Yeah?'

‘
I don't think they're very wise, just at the moment.
Best to remove them. Put them out of sight somewhere.
’

‘
They're a tribute to Gaia. We're using her space, so
we say thank you. We make her gifts with our own hands. We wish her fertility.'

‘
Yes, fine. I'm not interested in all that. It's the appear
ance of the things that's the issue. People might get the
wrong idea. They might be considered provocative.'

‘
Provocative?'

‘
There are lots of folk around here with different views to your own. They don't understand. Think about it.
’

‘
OK, OK. We'll think about it.'

‘
It's in your own interests. For your own safety.
’

‘
Our own safety! Cool.'

‘
You should seriously —
’

Cooper found himself staring at the panel of the closed door. Directly level with his eyes, there were
scratches in the paintwork, a few letters gouged right
into the metal. They spelled: 'Perverts'
.

*

When she was back in the car, Diane Fry remembered
Catherine Dyson's sigh at the other end of the phone
line in Ireland, just after she had let slip the fact of Maggie Crew having a daughter.

‘
She'll know it came from me,' she'd said. 'But it doesn't matter. She's barely speaking to me anyway these days.'

‘
Did you say a daughter?'

‘
Yes. Maggie had a little girl. It was about twenty years ago now. It wasn't intended, far from it. Mags
was a law student then. She didn't believe in abortion
— a relic of our Catholic upbringing, I'm afraid. So she
had the child adopted — there was no way she could
have raised her. It would have interfered too much with
her plans for her career.
’

Fry recalled Maggie's comments about female police
officers, and realized that she had probably been talking
about her own situation.

‘
And Mags never even achieved what she wanted.
She reached a plateau. She ended up in a small town, instead of becoming a partner in a big city firm. And it
was a small town no more than ten miles from where
we were raised. She is never going to get any further away now. There's some strange tie that she has to
the area, though she would never admit it. She always
thought I was the one who would stay around, and I
would have agreed with her at one time. But when you
reach a certain age you learn things about yourself —
you learn that you're not quite what other people always told you.'

‘
Do you think your sister resents not getting further
in her career?'

‘
Well, I certainly think she started to realize she'd reached that plateau. Of course she did. And she
resented the fact that I'd escaped, as she saw it. That
I'd left her to look after Mum and Dad. She couldn't
move away then, you see — not without adding to her
feelings of guilt.'

‘
She doesn't strike me as someone who feels guilty,'
said Fry.

‘
Oh, she's good at blaming other people. She blames everyone but herself for her lack of real success — her
teachers, her colleagues, our parents, me. And any
friends she might have left. She was always a difficult
person to like, but she became so prickly that people
began to leave her well alone.'

‘
And the child? Do you think she feels guilty about
the child?'

‘
Well, what do you think?' said Catherine brightly.
And in that one sentence, Fry was able to fill in the back
ground around her picture of Maggie's sister — the
background was full of children hanging on to her skirt
and bringing her their latest treasures to look at. All the
children would be little copies of Catherine. Fry nodded
at the clarity of the image. The arrival of each child
must have been like salt in the wound to Maggie. What
was it she had said at Derwent Court the other day? 'Perhaps I'll wake up one day and discover I have a maternal instinct after all.'

‘
I think, you know,' said Catherine, 'that Mags must
have been wondering a great deal about the child. Wondering what she would be like now, and where she is. Wondering if she ever thought about her real mother.'

‘
And wondering what it would be like now to have
a daughter of her own, instead of being so alone?' said
Fry.

‘
Exactly,' said Catherine. 'And there's no one else she
can blame for that, is there? No one but herself.
’

Fry took a moment to readjust her assessment of
Maggie Crew. She was seeing a different person, sens
ing a greater tragedy taking place in the darkened
rooms of the apartment at Derwent Court than she had
imagined until now
.

Catherine Dyson must have wondered about the
silence at the other end of the line. It was her turn to
ask a question, and the astuteness of it took Diane Fry
by surprise.

‘
Have you been going to see my sister often?' she asked.

‘
Well, yes,' said Fry. 'You know the circumstances, don't you?'

‘
Of course. You're doing your job, I see that. But .
'Yes?'

‘
I can't tell over the phone,' said Catherine, 'but may
I ask how old you are?'

‘
What on earth difference does that make?' said Fry.
'Oh, never mind,' said Catherine hastily. 'I'm sure it
makes no difference at all.
’

*

The offices of Quigley, Coleman & Crew were on Peveril
Street. Diane Fry entered a reception area fronted by
smoked plate glass. A blonde receptionist with a fake
tan took her name without showing any interest in her
warrant card, and took her time looking at a diary on
her desk.

‘
I'm sorry, Ms Crew is not available.'

‘
What?' Fry was brought up hard. She had thought of cancelling, true. But she had never got round to it.
'What do you mean? I've got an appointment.
’

The receptionist pretended to look at the diary. 'I'm
sorry, she's cancelled it. Something came up. You know.
’

The girl could hardly be bothered concealing her contempt for someone whose appointment had been
cancelled at the last minute without telling her. She was
obviously somebody of no importance.

‘
Did she say why?' asked Fry.

‘
No. I'm sorry.'

‘
Where is she now?'

‘
I can't tell you that.'

‘
Then give Ms Crew a message. You can do that, can't
you?'

‘
I suppose so.
’

Fry leaned closer over the desk. 'Tell her one thing.
Tell her: "What if Jenny wasn't enough for him either?"
‘

The girl looked nervous. 'I don't understand that.'

‘
You don't have to. Just write it down and give it to
your boss.'

‘
I think you ought to leave.'

‘
You haven't written it down yet.
’

The girl wrote the eight words on a memo pad, her hand shaking slightly. 'There. I'll give it to Ms Crew when she's in the office.'

‘
Right. And then you can tell her to damn well phone
me.'

‘
I think I'll really have to ask you to leave now.
’

‘
You know I'm a police officer?'

‘
Yes. But that doesn't mean I have to put up with harassment.'

‘
You don't know what harassment is. Not yet.
’

*

Fry drove straight to Derwent Court. She was not surprised to get no answer from Maggie's apartment. But even here there should be a next-door neighbour with an interest in what went on. They were useful people.
She tried the next apartment and introduced herself to
a lady called Mrs Dean, who seemed quite happy to talk about Maggie Crew.

‘
I don't know where she is today,' she said. 'I thought
she'd started going back into her office to work.
’

‘
Yes, she had,' said Fry.

‘
I am glad. It's for the best, really. It'll help take her
mind off things.'

‘
But she's not in the office today.'

‘
Isn't she? She went out at her usual time.'

‘
In her car?'

‘
I imagine so. I don't know.'

‘
On her own?'

‘
She's always on her own these days.'

‘
Was there a time when she wasn't?' asked Fry.
'Well, none of us has been in Derwent Court more
than a year or two, just since the place was converted.
I don't know anything about her life before that.'
Fry looked at Mrs Dean's apartment. It looked com
pletely different from Maggie Crew's, though the layout
must have been identical. Instead of being cold and
unwelcoming, this one was full of deep-pile carpets and
light and mirrors, and a hundred little personal items.

‘
She has no family who come to see her, has she?' said Fry. 'Any children?'

‘
No, no children. She has never married, as far as I
know. But there's a sister.'

‘
Of course, yes. Does she come?'

‘
Not recently. Some people just can't deal with it —
with physical disfigurement, I mean. They're frightened
they're going to say the wrong thing, or that they won't
be able to avoid staring. I'd like to think I wouldn't be that way, if it happened to one of my friends. I'd want
to support them, wouldn't you?
’

Fry searched her heart and wasn't sure. Mrs Dean
seemed to pick up on her hesitation.

‘
Mind you, it is pretty awful to have to look at, isn't
it? I can see that it might put you off if you were invited
round for tea. Are you sure you won't sit down?' said
Mrs Dean.

‘
No, thank you.'

‘
Still. You'd think the sister would make an effort to
get here. It's at times like these that you need your family most, not just in the good times. Don't you agree?'

‘
Of course,' said Fry, though she was hardly in a
position to know. 'So you haven't seen Miss Crew since
this morning?'

‘
I heard her go out about ten o'clock,' said Mrs Dean.
'You didn't actually see her?'

‘
No. But I could tell it was her. You get to recognize
the noises when you live so close together. You can identify all the familiar sounds. I know the way she
closes her door, and the way her footsteps sound in the
corridor.'

‘
And unfamiliar ones?'

‘
Sorry?'

‘
Any unfamiliar sounds. Any sounds of anybody
visiting Miss Crew, anybody you didn't recognize?
’

‘
I don't believe so. Not that I've been aware of.
’

‘
Nobody hanging around the flats?'

‘
No.
’

Fry looked at the window. She felt drawn to it in a way she hadn't in Maggie's apartment. The view was
the same, but when she stood close to the window, she
could see down into a paved courtyard that had been
turned into a car park for residents.

‘
She leads a quiet life then, Miss Crew. Would you say so?' she asked.

‘
Oh, very quiet,' said Mrs Dean. 'Very quiet indeed.
These days.'