Dancing With the Virgins (46 page)

*

Diane Fry walked across the yard towards DCI Tailby
and DI Hitchens. They were sitting on an upturned
piece of agricultural machinery, a red steel object with
vast prongs that dug into the ground.

‘
Well, it's very unsatisfactory,' said Tailby. 'I mean, Warren Leach being dead. It makes it look as though everything we've done has been too slow. Too late.
’

‘
There was no obvious sequence,' said Hitchens. 'The
pieces didn't fit. If we just react to pressure, that's when
mistakes are made.'

‘Leach may still be a mistake,' said Tailby.

‘
Jenny Weston used to go up on the moor regularly,'
pointed out Fry. 'She must have passed by Ringham Edge Farm many times. And she was a great animal lover.'

‘So she might actually have faced up to Leach and
his friends and told them she was going to report what
was going on?'

‘
Some people feel very strongly about these things.
’

‘
It would be a really stupid thing for her to have done,' said Hitchens.

‘
But she did tell the RSPCA that she had some incrimi
nating photographs,' said Fry.

‘So where's her camera?'

‘
It wasn't in her house. There were plenty of photo
graphs - scenic views, historic houses, that sort of thing.
But no camera. It wasn't in her car either.'

‘
Her parents say they bought her an expensive auto-
focus job for her birthday last year to replace her old
camera, but there's no sign of it,' said Hitchens. 'We've
put the details out.'

‘
It would be very useful if it turned up somewhere.
Especially with a film still in it, eh?'

‘I wish,' said Hitchens. 'But if Jenny Weston had
photos, why on earth didn't she tell us about them?'

‘Didn't trust her friendly neighbourhood bobby, per
haps? Some people don't.'

‘
There's the question of Ros Daniels,' said Tailby. 'We
need to clarify the relationship between them.'

‘
Cheshire Police think they've traced Daniels' home
address to Wilmslow. Her parents are away at the
moment, but the neighbours confirm the description.
They didn't seem too impressed with her, apparently.
But it's an upmarket area - more tennis club than Tank
Girl. We'll just have to wait for the parents to come back from holiday.'

‘
Could it have been a lesbian relationship that went
wrong?' said Tailby.

Fry frowned. 'We've no evidence of that.'

‘
But why was she staying with Weston? Why did she
come to this area? And how did she get herself killed?
After all, Daniels must have been the first victim, not
Weston.'

‘You're not suggesting Jenny Weston killed her?'

‘If Mrs Van Doon confirms that Daniels died about
the same time Maggie Crew was assaulted, as seems to
be the case, then we do at least have Crew's fragmentary
memories to go on.'

‘
A big man in a blue or black anorak or cagoule,' said
Tailby, quoting from Fry's report of her interview with
Maggie Crew. 'Well, I suppose Leach fitted the descrip
tion. We could have put him into a parade.'

‘But we didn't get the chance,' said Fry.

Tailby sighed. 'I suppose all the junior officers are blaming me,' he said.

‘They don't understand the position you're in as senior investigating officer,' said Hitchens.

‘And you, Paul?' said Tailby. 'Do you understand? Or do you blame me as well?’

Fry watched Hitchens stiffen awkwardly, and she
knew he was seeking a way to avoid the direct answer.
'I'm sure you'll find all the team very supportive, sir,'
he said.

*

Later that morning, in the West Street canteen, Todd
Weenink was watching a workman in blue overalls
measuring the width of the room and checking for load-
bearing walls. Weenink looked cheerful, as if the can
teen was being redesigned entirely for his benefit. He
had loosened his tie and unbuttoned his collar, and his
shoulders bulged under his shirt as he leaned forward
to bite into a Danish pastry.

‘
Well, Tailby really screwed up big this time,' he said.
'Another body, and a potential suspect topped himself
before we could lay hands on him. Doesn't look good,
does it? They'll be saying he hesitated too long.'

‘It's not his fault,' said Ben Cooper.

‘
Let's face it, Tailby's lost it. Wasn't there some talk
about him going for an admin job?’

The workman made a few notes on the back of an
envelope and then started to put away his tape measure.
The woman behind the counter followed every move
ment he made as if she were prepared to repel him with
boiling hot tea if he came any closer.

‘Looks like we could be seeing the last of Teabag Tracy there as well,' said Weenink.

‘Probably.’

Weenink turned to look at Cooper. 'What's up with
you, then? I can't get more than one word out of you.
And you've got that look on your face again — the one
like a constipated camel.
’

‘
I'm worried about Wayne Sugden.'

‘
Come off it! Sugden? That is definitely a bloke whose
parents were wading in the shallow end of the gene pool.’

*

Half an hour later, DI Hitchens burst through Tailby's door and found him staring morosely at the ceiling, an
unlit pipe in his mouth.

‘
Forensics report,' said Hitchens breathlessly. 'We've
got a result.'

‘Already? The Leach house?’

Hitchens shook his head vigorously. 'No,' he said. 'Owen Fox.’

*

The DI set a new batch of tapes running when they
brought the Area Ranger back to the interview room.
'Tell me again what sort of cigarettes you smoke.
’

‘
I don't,' said Owen. He looked tired, his beard
tangled from constantly running his fingers through it.
'When did you give up?'

‘
I've never smoked,' said Owen. 'You've asked me this before. What's the point of this?'

‘
All right. Do you recognize these cigarette stubs?
’

‘
Of course not. You're joking, aren't you?'

‘
Do they look pretty much the same to you?
’

‘
Of course they do.'

‘
You're right, they are. Identical. The same brand, the same batch, smoked in just the same way. Look at how
exactly the same amount has been left before the filter,
how they've been pinched between the fingers in pre
cisely the same way. They could almost have come from
the same packet, Owen. Except for their age. Do you
agree?'

‘I suppose so.'

‘
We found one in the bin at your briefing centre.
’

‘
I've told you, I don't smoke. If you found it there, I
don't know how it got there.’

Hitchens nodded. 'Do you want to know where we found the other one?’

Owen didn't respond.

‘I'll tell you anyway,' said Hitchens. 'It was under Rosalind Daniels' body.’

*

Ben Cooper looked at the stack of interview reports on
his desk. His eyes were going blurred from staring at descriptions and dates, and his mind was starting to
drift.

Cooper could see all the people he would have liked
to protect becoming victims one after another - Cal and
Stride, the Leaches, Owen Fox. Even Todd Weenink
was his colleague and was owed some loyalty. So was
Cooper himself the Jonah, the curse they had in common?
He searched his heart and instincts for the source of
the problem. He knew it must be within himself. Was
it a weakness to see people like Warren Leach as victims,
just as much as the Jenny Westons and Ros Daniels and Maggie Crews were? And Owen Fox? And Calvin
Lawrence and Simon Bevington? Or had he just not realized who it was he should be protecting these people against? But then Diane Fry had tried, too.

He knew Fry didn't see things the way he did. There
was a clearer perception of black and white in the way she saw the world. It must be a huge advantage not to
have the complication of always seeing both sides of
the story. But then Fry had tried, too. She had tried to
protect Cal and Stride against the vigilantes, and she
had failed.

Cooper paused, and went over that again. There was
something wrong with his thought processes. He got to the end of the thought, and realized what it was. Diane Fry - failed? This was the woman who didn't know what failure was. No matter what the circum
stances of her life, she had risen above them, consumed by a determination to succeed. And succeed was exactly
what she had done, so far. This woman was a fourth
dan black belt, as tough as they came, and as ruthless.
Surely she was capable of tackling more than one assail
ant, even in the dark. She could certainly have deterred
an untrained and probably thoroughly scared group of
amateurs. So would Fry really have failed to prevent the worst of the assault on the two travellers?
He turned over some more reports. Then he put his
head in his hands, staring at a photo of Wayne Sugden.
Cooper knew it was his father who had made him
try too hard. And he was still doing it, from the grave;
Cooper was forever trying to live up to his expectations,
and he would be doing it long after everyone else had
forgotten him.

But things had changed since his father's day. These
days, things weren't so clear cut. There no longer
seemed to be the villains and the innocent members of
the public, the black and the white, the good and the
evil, with the police protecting the one against the other.
These days there were only shades of grey, when every
one was classed as a victim, and evil no longer officially
existed. As often as not, the law seemed to be a weapon
to be used against the police, not by them. Was there
still something called justice out there? Was it some
thing that Sergeant Joe Cooper would recognize? Would
he think that his son was doing his best to pursue justice? Or would he have growled: 'Do better, lad.’

Cooper heard the door open and a step approached
his desk. There was a familiar exasperated sigh close to
his left ear.

‘Still tilting at windmills, Sir Galahad?'

‘
Don Quixote,' muttered Cooper without looking up.
'You read too much,' said Fry. 'It's addled your brains.’

Cooper sat back and looked at her. She seemed as
tired as he felt himself. Her face was drawn, and there
were blue patches under her eyes.

‘How's it going down there?' he said.

‘
With your friend the Ranger? Badly. They've bailed
him.'

‘
Really? I thought there was some forensic evidence.
Cigarette ends -'

‘
Unfortunately, there are no traces of Fox. The saliva
samples from the cigarettes don't match. And Fox's colleagues confirm he has never smoked. They weren't his
fag ends.’

Cooper tried not to show how relieved he was. But
he suspected Fry knew his thoughts anyway.
'Anything on Leach?' he said.

Fry shook her head. 'Not yet. Maybe it'll all come
down to you and your instincts, and we'll find that Ben
Cooper is right and everybody else is wrong. Because
you seem to take the opposite view every time these
days. You even want to defend Warren Leach, for God's
sake. How can you do that?'

‘You have to look at what makes people do things. Their actions don't exist in isolation.'

‘
You should have been a social worker, not a copper.
’

‘
You've got more against social workers than most people do, haven't you?’

Cooper looked up and noticed the expression on her
face. Too late, he knew he shouldn't have said that about
social workers. He knew perfectly well that Fry and her
sister had been taken into care after allegations of sexual
abuse by their parents, and the sister had run away
and become a heroin addict. Why Fry had shared those
things with him, Cooper didn't know. There was so much about her that he didn't understand.

Now, he waited in shame and embarrassment for her
to rip into him. But she didn't do that. Her brief spasm
of rage was brought under control.

‘Do you care nothing about your own career any more, Ben? Because the way you're heading, you're
risking everything. Do you know that?' She didn't wait
for him to answer. 'That's what it's all about, isn't it?
You're never going to forgive or forget that I got the promotion. You thought you had a divine right to it,
just because you've been in the area for ever and your
balls are made of limestone or something. And now
you're going to sacrifice yourself for some self-righteous
idea that you'll probably call justice, just to prove that
you don't care about the job, that you never really had
any ambition after all. Well, go on, then — enjoy your
martyrdom.’

After she had slammed the door behind her, Cooper
read a few of the memos that were in his tray, but
without taking in what they said. He made some notes
on an assault case that was waiting to go to court. He
looked through his drawers and found a half-eaten
packet of Polo mints. He ate a mint. Then he ate another.
And then he began to wonder what Owen Fox was doing now, back at Cargreave.

Owen was a man whose life and background had not
stood up to close investigation. Whose life could? He
had heard Owen described as a good man; but what
did that mean? Was it a person who had never made
a mistake? The papers would call Owen a sex beast, if
they got the chance. But he wasn't an animal, just a
man whose circumstances had left him with a weakness.
His fallibility had contributed to an evil in the world,
it was true. But there were so many evils — too many to
count, even in Edendale. And being weak didn't make
Owen Fox a monster; it only made him human.

Cooper knew that he had failed to help Cal and Stride,
and he had failed to prevent the tragedy that had destroyed the Leach family. Maybe it wasn't too late
for him to help Owen Fox. But there would be a price
to pay, if he tried. He was aware that he was walking a fine line already; his loyalties were under question, and not just by Diane Fry. It was vital that he stayed
away from Owen Fox. There would be plenty of people
ready to throw stones after all this, and it would be
madness for Ben Cooper to put himself deliberately in
the line of fire. Absolute madness.