Dancing With the Virgins (21 page)

*

Ben Cooper was back in the CID room when Diane Fry
returned from her meeting. She saw him, but she started
tidying files and brushing biscuit crumbs from an unoccupied desk.

‘
So, Diane, how have you been getting on with Maggie Crew?' he said
.

He didn't think there was anything about his tone of
voice that could have made Fry look sharply at him in
the way that she did now.

‘
What's your interest in Maggie Crew?'

‘
Just asking.'

‘
She's not one of your underdogs, you know.
’

‘
What do you mean?'

‘
I heard you at the briefing this morning. You couldn't
help putting your oar in about those two travellers in
the quarry, could you? You're turning into quite the little rebel, with this habit of sticking up for people against all odds.'

‘
That's not the intention.
’

Cooper turned to one side and picked up some papers from his desk, dropping his eyes from contact with hers.
He heard her sigh with exasperation and bang a chair
on the floor. He let a few moments of silence develop
before he spoke again.

‘
I've heard you're going to be working with DI Arm
strong,' he said. 'When your promotion is confirmed.
’

Fry didn't answer straight away. He looked up to see
her frowning at him. 'She's doing some very good work,' she said.

‘
Yes, I know.'

‘
You don't sound too sure about that, Ben,' she
said. 'What problem have you got with Kim Armstrong?'

‘
No problem, really.
’

Cooper eyed the files on his desk. The work had been
piling up since the murder enquiry started. There were
so many things for him to follow up, when he had time.
He was startled when he found that Fry had moved
suddenly nearer to him and was staring into his face.
He found her closeness intimidating.

‘
Come on, out with it,' she said. 'What are you sug
gesting about DI Armstrong?'

‘
Well, she's got her own agenda, of course. Everybody
says that.'

‘
That's a load of crap, and you know it. Kim Arm
strong is a capable woman doing a good job. She's in charge of a major enquiry, and she cares about what
she's doing. There was a little girl that was killed .
.

Fry ground to a halt. Cooper realized that he was smiling at her. The expression on his face must look
ridiculous and derisive, but it was a natural response
that had sprung from deep inside him at seeing Fry suddenly passionate in her defence of someone. He nodded at her, though the gesture barely seemed adequate
.

She backed off, baffled. She picked up a waste-paper
bin from the floor and put it on the empty desk, then began clearing out drawers. Cooper watched her hurl
the leftover possessions of the previous occupant into
the bin without looking at them.

‘
OK, Diane,' he said. 'You were telling me about this
little girl who was killed. What happened to her?'
Fry pulled out a 1999 calendar with pictures of naked
women draped over bright red sports cars. With a grim
ace, she tore it in half and thrust it into the bin.

‘
Nobody really knows,' she said. 'Nobody knows
what awful things might have happened to her before
she died.
’

15

Owen Fox felt his fingers start to tingle. He thought
about finding his gloves in his jacket pocket to protect
himself from the cold. But he knew it wasn't just the
cold that he could feel
.

There were things that had passed through his hands
during the past few years that didn't bear to be thought about. Most days, he could clear the memories from his
head. He got out on the tops of the hills and let the wind blow them out of the corners of his mind. But
somehow his hands still felt the memories of their own
accord; his fingers still touched the blood and the slack
limbs and the cold cheeks. It was as if he was forever
holding a dead body, as if he carried that child with him every day, and always would
.

Could the hands remember better than the brain?
Sometimes it took only the touch of some object, nor
mally familiar - the feel of the sleeve of a well-worn
leather jacket, the bulge of fruit in a plastic carrier bag,
a sudden spurt of warm vegetable soup from a bowl.
And a thing so mundane could bring back an instant recollection that would set him trembling and unable
to breathe, his throat twisted and knotted with anguish
.

Sometimes a smell or a sound could do the same
thing - just the familiar chemical reek of petrol on the
forecourt of a filling station, or the tick of a cooling engine. But it was the feel of things that he couldn't escape; his sense of touch tormented him until he wanted to cut off his hands
.

Owen followed the deep crease that ran across his
palm from just below the index finger to the outer edge
of his hand. He was fascinated by the way the line broke
and diverged, forked into two and was crossed by other
lines. In palmistry, it was supposed to be the life line, wasn't it? Or was that the other line, the one that ran
across the base of his thumb? It didn't matter, anyway
- both lines ended in a web of tiny creases like a smudge
of gauze; there was no sudden stop, just a fading out
in a tangle of vagueness and uncertainties
.

He forced himself to pull his gaze away. He worried
that staring too hard at his hands might make the shape
of the child reappear, bright and unforgettable in her
torn blue dress; still heavy and limp in his arms. Best
to think of something else. Maybe there was something
he ought to be doing to help Mark, to make it easier for him to get over the shock
.

Mustn't feel guilty about Mark, thought Owen. He'll
get over it, because he's only a young lad. Mustn't take
on that burden as well as everything else. No more burdens. Let others take the guilt
.

*

Mark Roper was moving cautiously across the slopes
of dying heather, placing his boots on the bare surface
of the rabbit tracks to avoid the snap of dead stems
.

The spring of the peat underfoot felt like a welcoming
response from the earth to his presence, the clutch of brittle foliage at his trousers like the touch of a friend.
He had already been waiting for an hour. But none of
the men Mark had been watching had seen him as he stood above them in the birches up the hill. Mark had
left his red jacket at home today, and he had long since
learned the art of being inconspicuous. He had also been prepared to wait as long as necessary for the policemen to leave
.

He knew the two men were detectives, because
he recognized one of them from Sunday, when they had questioned him. It was the one called Cooper.
Mark had seen him again, with a woman, when he had
talked to Yvonne Leach. This detective was young, and you could tell he was local. He was the one who
lacked the hard-eyed aggressiveness that Mark had seen
in the other policemen. In fact, he could almost have
been a Ranger. This detective, Cooper, was also the one
who had made Mark think of what his own brother would have looked like by now - if he had still been alive
.

Finally, the two policemen had driven away down
the track from Ringham Edge Farm. Perhaps they were
heading back to the cycle hire centre, where the car park was full of police vehicles this morning and the
first visitors of the day were getting an unpleasant sur
prise as they unloaded their mountain bikes and strapped on their cycling helmets
.

Just over the shoulder of Ringham Moor were the Nine Virgins. And up there, Mark knew there would
be more police, keeping the public away from the
stone circle, like priests guarding an altar from the profane
.

A hundred yards along the slope of the hill, Owen
Fox was working on the boundary wall. There was still
a lot to be done on the wall, and the Area Ranger would
probably work on right through the day until the light
started to go
.

As Mark watched, Owen pulled on his gloves and picked up the new Pennine walling hammer he had
bought only a few weeks before. It was a three-pound
hammer with a sharp cutting edge fixed at a right angle
to the shaft - a tool designed to slice the corners off the
stones, so that only blunt edges protruded from the
wall, leaving it solid and safe. Sometimes, Mark wished
he could ask Owen to use his hammer and shape the
rest of the world like that - with no sharp edges that
could pierce the skin of his emotions or rip the protec
tive veneer from his memories
.

Owen had a small rucksack on the ground, with his
radio aerial protruding from the top. Nearby, his stones
were laid out in the order he would need them, leaving
a clear work area. The ground was already levelled
and the foundation stones blocked together. Now the
building stones had to be laid, and co-ordination of
hand and eye would be needed to know exactly which
stone to choose to plug a gap
.

Silently, Mark continued to make progress, until
he was standing only a few yards from the wall. For
a while, he watched Owen's hands as he worked. He
was shaping the stones, carving them into new forms,
until he had made them fit tightly together. When the
wall was finished, it would be impossible -to move a
single stone by hand. Surely a man who could create
with such care would never think of destroying anything?
Owen hefted another stone and swung the cutting edge of his hammer, slicing the gritstone into yellow
shards that left a dusting of powder on his gloves.
'Owen?
’

The Ranger looked up, surprised. His hammer was
poised in the air, its edge catching the light, a little bit of golden stone dust trickling down the shaft on to his
red fleece. Mark was shocked by the look that he had
caught on Owen's face. He saw the Ranger start to
compose his expression into an air of normality as he
mentally rehearsed the lines he would use for a tourist.
And then Owen saw who had startled him.

‘
What are you doing here, Mark?' he said. 'You should be at home.'

‘
So should you. It's your day off.
’

Owen shrugged. 'There are things to do. This wall won't wait. The boundaries have to be maintained,
whatever else goes on. No one will do the job but me.
Certainly not Warren Leach.
’

The wall formed a boundary where the top fields of
Ringham Edge Farm met the woods. Mark had already
helped Owen to replace a stile which had collapsed
with use over the years. Its original builders had used
flat gritstone slabs instead of wooden steps, and the
structure hadn't done too badly — it had survived for
the best part of two hundred years. But the weight of
walkers' boots had proved too much, loosening the slabs until they shifted out of balance and became dangerous
.

Now Owen had worked up the hill to a stretch of
wall that had fallen. Walkers had been crossing here,
too — the ones too lazy to walk a few yards to the stile.
It was a double wall, but the topping stones had been
dislodged one by one, and the weather had got into the
centre, washing through the filling until the sides bulged and slipped
.

Mark and Owen stood together among the scattered
stones for a minute or two. Despite his proximity to Owen, there still seemed to be too much distance
between them for Mark's satisfaction. The greeting he had received was not the one he had expected. It was
not the reason he had waited in the trees until the policemen had gone. For Mark, the unfamiliar gulf between them felt like that yawning gap in the wall, waiting to be bridged by a careful hand.

‘
Did you talk to the police yesterday, Owen?' he said.
'Yes, they're talking to everybody.'

‘
What did you talk about?
’

Owen laughed. 'You'd be surprised.
’

He picked up a stone, knocked off some dirt, and
held it up to the light to study it, like a diamond dealer
examining the facets of a newly polished gem. Mark
liked to watch Owen at work. He thought Owen was
a completely different man when he was out on the
hills. He never seemed at home in the briefing centre, sitting in front of the little electric heater, hunched at
the assistant's desk scattered with paperwork.

‘
What was it they wanted to know, Owen?' Mark insisted
.

Owen had been Mark's friend and mentor throughout
his assessment and training as a Ranger and during
his first few weeks in the job itself. Mark had become
accustomed to the comforting presence of the bearded
man in the red jacket; he had glowed with pride as
people greeted Owen like an old friend, laughed at all
his jokes and bombarded him with questions on every
subject — questions he never failed to respond to with
courtesy, even when he plainly didn't know the answer.

‘
It was just questions,' said Owen. 'They want to make use of my local knowledge. Don't they all?'

‘
The time of the next bus to Buxton, then? Or the nearest all-night chemist's.
’

Owen smiled at Mark's tentative joke, a reference
to a shared memory of an encounter with two elderly
women on a remote track by a reservoir on the heights
of the Dark Peak. It was enough to provide the surge
of reassurance Mark needed, enough to ease the chill
he had felt when he had first seen the expression on
Owen's face.

‘
I wondered if the police might want to interview me
again,' said Mark.

‘
You've told them everything, haven't you?
’

‘
I think so.
’

But Mark knew he hadn't, not everything. The
policemen hadn't been as easy to talk to as he might
have hoped. There were some things you just couldn't
say when they were writing down every word. There
were things that sounded too stupid and strange. For
a start, he didn't know how to describe to the police
the way that the woman had looked to him as she lay
among the stones. The way that she had seemed to dance.

‘
Anyway,' said Owen as he handed Mark a topping stone, 'it's all over with now. You can forget about it. Get on with the job. Why would they want to start bothering you again?
’

Mark started stacking the stones to one side, lining
them up on the grass, ready to be replaced when Owen
had rebuilt the lower part of the wall.

‘
I don't know,' said Mark. 'I've never . . . well, I've
never been involved in anything like this before.
’

‘
I know, lad. Pass me the line.
’

Owen took off his thick cotton work gloves and ran
two lines between wooden pins along the damaged section of wall to mark out its alignment.

‘
But the police aren't so bad. They're just doing their
job, like you and me.
’

Owen's voice was slow and steady. Calming. It didn't really matter what he was saying, because Mark found
it reassuring just to listen to the sound. He had never
heard Owen raise his voice. There had often been
occasions when he might have done — when a mountain biker or a motorcyclist openly defied his friendly
warnings that they were breaking the law and risking
prosecution; when ill-equipped hikers ignored both
his advice and common sense and put their own and
others' lives at risk; when a farmer, now and then, chose
to be downright pig-headed. Farmers like Warren Leach
at Ringham Edge, maybe. But Owen never got angry.

‘
So there's nothing to worry about. You tell them
what you found, Mark, and that's all they need to know.
As long as it's simple for them, they won't bother you
any more. And if they do, just send them to see me, eh? I'll give them a flea in their ear.
’

Owen smiled, showing his teeth through his grey beard, his eyes crinkling at the corners. Like most
Rangers, he never wore a hat, and his hair was perma
nently windblown and untidy, curling into his ears.

‘
Owen,' said Mark.

‘
Yes?'

‘
Where were you?
’

Owen smacked his gloves together to remove traces
of mud and grit. 'When, Mark?'

‘
On Sunday afternoon. You know .
.

Mark watched Owen's puzzled smile carefully. This
time Owen smiled without showing his teeth. His eyes
narrowed, but the crinkles were absent.

‘
You had a problem with the radio, Mark.'

‘
I just thought that maybe you weren't there . .

‘
But I wouldn't let you down like that, Mark. Now, would I?
’

Mark looked past the wall and down at the farm
buildings of Ringham Edge. They were gathered defen
sively round a crew yard like a medieval settlement,
their gritstone walls turned outwards to the rest of the world. The biggest shed was much newer than the rest
of the farm. Its green corrugated steel roof was damp
from the drizzle earlier in the day, and it gleamed now
in the weak sun
.

Mark thought for a moment of the woman on Ring-
ham Moor. Her death had at least been sudden; she
had been given no time to consider, no time to reflect
on what she had done with her life, for good or evil
.

Owen had told Mark there were times when it was
best to back off, to avoid confrontation, to let something
go. He said that a soft word was better than an angry
reaction, that a cool head was better than that hot surge
of blind rage that was inevitably followed by the realiz
ation that you had made a terrible mistake
.

Mark passed another stone. It was furred dark green
with lichen, so he knew it had come from the north face
of the wall. When a wall had been built by Owen, it
was solid and reliable, the absolute symbol of stability
.