Dancing With the Virgins (4 page)

3

Diane
Fry had never seen Detective Chief Inspector
Stewart Tailby quite so agitated. The DCI loomed over
his group of officers like a head teacher with a class
full of pupils in detention, and he was shouting at
the Senior SOCO from the Scientific Support Unit.
Tailby's strangely two-tone hair was trembling in
the wind as he turned and paced around the crime
scene.

‘
We've got to hit this area fast,' he said. 'We can't
possibly seal it off - we'd need every man in E Division.
We need to get what we can before the public get up here and trample over everything.'

‘
Well, we
could
do it in a rush, but it won't be very selective,' said the SOCO.

‘
Sod being selective,' said Tailby. 'Take everything. We'll worry about being selective later.
’

A few yards away, DI Hitchens manoeuvred to keep
his senior officer within distance. Other officers ebbed
and flowed awkwardly around them, like extras in a
badly staged Gilbert and Sullivan opera, who had just
realized that nobody had told them what to do with their hands.

‘
The light's failing fast,' said Hitchens, gazing at the
sky.

‘
Well, thanks for that,' snapped Tailby. 'I thought I was going blind.
’

The DCI strode over to the side of the stone circle and looked down into the disused quarry beyond it. There was a barbed wire fence, but it was too low to
keep anybody out. On the other side could be seen the
last few yards of an access road, which ended on the lip of the quarry. Diane Fry stretched her neck to see
what Tailby was looking at. Someone had been fly-
tipping from the roadway. She could just make out tyre
marks, and a heap of bulging black bin liners, some yellow plastic sheeting and a roll of carpet that had
been heaved off the edge. The rubbish lay scattered on
the slope like the debris of a plane crash.

‘
Find out where the entrance to that quarry is,' said Tailby. 'And somebody will have to go down there. We
need to find the rest of the clothes. Top priority.
’

Hitchens had to dodge as Tailby wheeled sud
denly and strode back towards the stones, avoiding the
lengths of blue tape twisted together between birch
trees and metal stakes. In the centre of the circle, the
pathologist, Mrs Van Doon, still crouched over the
victim under makeshift lighting. Tailby's face contorted.
He seemed to find something outrageous and obscene
in the posture of the body.

‘
Where's that tent?' he called. 'Get the tent over her
before we have an audience.
’

He turned his back and walked on a few yards
from the circle, where a single stone stood on its
own. DI Hitchens trailed after him at a safe distance.
'There's an inscription carved on this stone,'
announced Tailby, with the air of Moses coming down
from the mountain.

‘
Yes. It looks like a name, sir.'

‘
We'll need a photographer over here. I want that name deciphering.'

‘
It's well away from the path,' said Hitchens. 'We
think the assailant probably brought his victim from
the other direction.'

‘
So?'

‘
The inscription has probably been there for years.
’

‘
Do you
know
that? Are you familiar with these stones?'

‘
No, sir.'

‘
Ever seen them before in your life?'

‘
No, sir.
’

Tailby turned. 'No point asking you, Fry, is there?
’

Fry shrugged, but the DCI wasn't waiting for an answer. He looked around to see who else he could
find. 'You lot, there! Anyone seen these stones before? They're a famous landmark, they tell me. A significant
part of our ancient heritage. They're an attraction. Visit
ors flock to see them. What about you?
’

The officers shook their heads. They were the sort of
men who spent their free time in the pub or in front of
the telly, doing a bit of DIY or visiting the garden centre.
The ones with kids went to Alton Towers and Gulliver's
Kingdom. But this thing in front of them wasn't a theme
park. There were no white-knuckle rides or ice-cream
vans. Tailby turned back to Hitchens.

‘
OK, see? We know nothing about it. We're all as
ignorant as a lot of monkeys. This stone circle might as
well be a Tibetan yak compound, for all we know about
the place.'

‘
Yes, but -'

‘
Just see that it's done,' snarled Tailby
.

Then the DCI looked back to where Mrs Van Doon
was working. Fry could see that more inscriptions had been scratched into the dirt in the centre of the circle,
close to the body. The letters were big and bold, and they spelled out 'STRIDE'. Whoever had made these
was less interested in leaving a long-term record of his presence, though. The drizzle was hardly touching the
marks, but a couple of heavy showers would wash them
clean away.

‘
What about those, then?' said Tailby. 'You're not going to tell me those have been there for years?'

‘
No,' admitted Hitchens. 'They've got to be more recent.'

‘
When did it rain in this area last? Properly, I mean?'
Tailby stared around him. The officers gathered nearby looked at each other, then up at the sky. Fry
sympathized. They were detectives - they spent all their
time buried in paperwork or making phone calls in
windowless offices; occasionally they drove around in
a car, shuttling from pub to crown court and back again.
How were they supposed to know when it had rained?
It was well known that DI Hitchens had just bought
a new house in Chesterfield. Tailby himself had a ranch-
style bungalow in a desirable part of Dronfield. Most
of the other officers lived miles away, down in the lower
valleys and the dormitory villages. Some of them were
from the suburbs of Derby. It could be blowing a bliz
zard up here on the moor, piling up six-foot drifts of
virgin snow, and all these men would see was a faint bit
of sleet in the condensation on their kitchen windows.

‘
Does it matter?' said Hitchens
.

Tailby smiled like a fox with a rabbit. 'It matters,
Inspector, because we can't say whether the inscriptions
were written in the last twenty-four hours or the last
two weeks.'

‘
I suppose so, sir.
’

Teeth bared, Tailby glared round for another victim.
There was a shuffling and looking away, a lot of thoughtful glances at the grey blanket of cloud.

‘
You useless set of pillocks! Doesn't
anyone
know? Then find me someone who does!
’

*

Mark Roper finally opened his eyes as Owen Fox parked
the Land Rover behind the Partridge Cross briefing
centre. The cycle hire staff had closed up for the night,
but there were still a few visitors' cars left outside. A
couple were securing their bikes to a rack. It occurred
to Mark Roper that one of the cars that still stood dark
and unattended probably belonged to the woman whose body lay on the moor.

‘
Come on, Mark. Let's get you inside,' said Owen
.

For a moment, Mark didn't move. Then, slowly, he unfolded his legs and got out. He felt stiff, like an old
man with arthritis. His jacket was crumpled, there were
grass stains on his knees and black marks on his hands.
He couldn't think where the marks had come from, but
his hands felt unpleasant and greasy, as if there was something on his skin that would take a long time to
remove
.

He swayed and supported himself on the side of the
Land Rover. Owen moved nearer, not touching him but
hovering anxiously.

‘
We have to wait while the police come to speak to you, Mark,' he said.

‘
I know.'

‘
Are you up to it?'

‘
I'm all right.
’

Owen Fox was a large man, a little ungainly from
carrying too much weight around his upper body. His
curly hair and wiry beard were going grey, and his face
was worn and creased, the sign of a man who spent his
life outdoors, regardless of the weather. Mark wanted to draw reassurance from his presence, to lean on his
comforting bulk, but an uncertainty held him back
.

Owen finally took Mark by the arm. But the reassur
ance failed to come. The contact was safe and impersonal, Owen's fingers meeting only the fabric of the young Ranger's red fleece jacket. Mark shivered violently, as if his only source of warmth had suddenly been withdrawn.

‘
Let's get inside,' said Owen. 'It's cold out here. You,
look to me as though you need a hot drink. A cup of my tea will bring some colour back to your cheeks, won't it? Green, maybe — but at least it'll be colour.
’

Mark smiled weakly. 'I'm fine.'

‘
You're probably suffering from shock. We ought to
get a doctor to look at you.'

‘
No. I'll be all right, Owen.
’

The briefing centre was empty, but warm. The black
board on the far wall contained white chalk scrawl that gleamed in the sudden light. The words meant
nothing to Mark now. In the corner, the assistant's desk
was scattered with papers — reports and forms, the encroaching paperwork of the modern Peak Park Ranger. Soon, a computer would arrive, even here
.

Mark needed no encouragement to collapse into a
chair near the electric heater. Owen watched him, his
face creased with concern, then turned to switch on the
kettle.

‘
Plenty of sugar in your tea, for the shock.
’

Sugar, and a reassuring voice, thought Mark. The
things that people needed were simple, really — such as
stability and their own part to play in life. But it was
Owen he had learned to look to for stability. Now he
had an inexplicable fear that it would be snatched from
his life again.

‘
The things people leave on the moor,' said Owen.
'Litter and rubbish. You'd think they'd at least take their
dead bodies home with them.
’

This time Mark couldn't smile
.

Owen looked at him. 'I did tell you to keep in touch,
Mark,' he said.

‘
I tried, Owen. But I couldn't get an answer.'
Owen grimaced. 'Those radios.
’

I mustn't make him feel guilty, thought Mark. Don't
make him take this burden on himself as well as every
thing else. Mark was aware that there were things he
didn't know about Owen, that in their relationship
he only saw the surface of the older man. But there was one thing he did know. Owen needed no more burdens
.

*

Ben Cooper jumped at the hand on his shoulder and
tensed his body for trouble. He cursed himself for having allowed someone to find him on his own in a vulnerable position
.

The hand felt like a great weight. The tall student was
massively built, with a red, sweaty face and a squashed nose. He leaned down and spoke into Cooper's ear with
a voice that growled like a boulder in a landslide. At first, Cooper had no idea what he was saying. He thought the noise in the bar must have damaged his
hearing permanently. He shook his head. The student
leaned closer, breathing beer fumes on his neck.

‘
You
are
Constable Cooper, aren't you?'

‘
Yes.'

‘
I said there's someone on the phone for you. Some
daft bastard who wants to know when it rained last.
’

*

Ten minutes later, Cooper slid into the passenger seat
of a Ford Mondeo as it scattered gravel on the sports ground car park.

‘
It's a what, Todd?'

‘
A cyclist from Sheffield,' said Weenink. 'She was
found in the middle of the stones on Ringham Moor.
’

‘
You mean the Nine Virgins?'

‘
That's the place. You got it in one. I can see why the
DCI loves you.'

‘
Everybody knows the Nine Virgins,' said Cooper.

‘
I wish you'd introduce me, then. I can't find even one virgin where I live.
’

Cooper could detect the sweet smell of beer in the
car. He wondered if Weenink was fit to drive. It would
be ironic if they got stopped by a Traffic patrol. Todd could lose his job, if he was breathalysed.

‘
Is Mr Tailby in charge up there?'

‘
He's SIO until they manage to pull a superintendent
in from somewhere,' said Weenink. 'He's not a happy
man. He's got a wide-open scene, public access, SOCOs
scattered over a space as big as four football pitches.
Also, he has a temper on him as foul as my breath on
a Saturday night. But we have to report to DI Hitchens.
And let me tell you, we're bloody lucky Hitchens arrived.'

‘
Yeah?'

‘
Earlier on, it was DI Armstrong at the scene. The Wicked Witch of West Street.'

‘
Don't say that.'

‘
The Bitch of Buxton, then.'

‘
Shut up, Todd.
’

Weenink stopped at the junction of the A6, and
seemed to spend a long time waiting for distant traffic
to pass on the main road. Finally, he pulled out behind
a tanker carrying milk for Hartington Stilton.

‘
You don't understand, Ben,' he said. 'That Kim Arm
strong, she's so scary. I'm frightened she'll put a spell
on me and turn me into a eunuch.'

‘
Will you cut it out?'

‘
No, seriously, Ben. They reckon she cursed Ossie Clarke in Traffic one day, and his balls shrivelled up
like cashew nuts. The doctors are baffled. He's been off
sick for weeks.'

‘
Todd—'

‘
Well, he has, hasn't he? Eh?'

‘
Ossie Clarke is one of the bad-back brigade. He has
a slipped disc.'

‘
That's the official line. Don't let it lull you into a false
sense of security. Anyway, we're in luck. They couldn't
spare Armstrong from this paedophile enquiry. Appar
ently it's warming up for some arrests. There was the
little girl that was killed —'

‘
Yes, I know.'

‘
So Hitchens has had to come in off leave. And you know he's just moved into a new house with that red
headed nurse? So
he's
not happy, either. It's a barrel of laughs up there, all right. Couldn't wait to get away for
a bit, myself.
’

Weenink was taking the back road past the fluorspar
works to avoid the bottleneck in Bakewell. He took the
bends gently, as if he was just one more pensioner on
a Sunday afternoon outing.

‘
Todd? Can't we go a bit faster?'

‘
Mmm, the roads are a bit slippery with all these leaves,' said Weenink. 'Can't be too careful.
’