Stephen Booth - Dancing With the Virgins

‘What about a current boyfriend?’

‘Nobody seems sure who the latest one was, Diane,’ said Hitchens. ‘There are one or two of the girls at the call centre that she talked to about boyfriends sometimes. But they were very vague. Obviously, we’re going through the address book. But she used phone numbers, not addresses. Results might take a little time.’

‘I see.’

‘We do have this note.’ Hitchens held up an evidence bag. ‘One of the team found it in the back of her diary.’

‘What is it?’ said Tailby. ‘A love letter?’

‘Hardly a letter. It’s only two lines. And there’s no evidence love was involved either. The note reads: “Nine o’clock Friday at the cottage. Buy some fruit-flavoured ones.”’

Tailby stared at him. Fry remembered that the DCI was a lay preacher at a United Reformed Church in Dronfield.

‘We believe it’s a reference to contraceptives, sir,’ said Hitchens.

‘Yes?’

‘Condoms. We think it’s a fair assumption that the note is from a boyfriend. There’s no date, and it’s unsigned. But it looks fairly recent. Otherwise, why would it still be in her diary?’

‘Good point.’ Tailby put down the reports and took off his glasses.

‘I take it you are to remain as SIO, sir?’ asked Hitchens.

‘Detective Superintendent Prince is tied up with this case in Derby, the double shooting,’ said Tailby. ‘A drugs territory dispute. We’re getting some stick about it down there, apparently.’

‘Yes.’

‘It means Mr Prince can only keep a watching brief on this case, I’m afraid. But he thinks we’ve got a good start.’

‘Possibly,’ said Hitchens. ‘But there is speculation about the other attack.’

Tailby shook his head. ‘They smell different to me. This Jenny Weston sounds like a woman who got involved with the wrong sort of chap. It’s an old story. You’ll see.’

The Partridge Cross cycle hire centre was in a converted railway station. Past it ran what had once been the Cromford amp; High Peak rail line, now the High Peak Trail, a smoothly tarmacked stretch of track perfect for walkers and cyclists.

There was still a morning mist lingering in places, and the old railway cuttings seemed to have drawn it down on to the trail. It gave a damp nip to the air that hit Ben Cooper and Todd Weenink as soon as they got out of the car. But there were already vehicles in the car park. Some had cycle racks on their tailgates and mountain bikes hoisted high in the air. A family with three small children were strapping on their safety helmets ready to hit the trail. There were no traces of Jenny Weston left here now.

The day’s weather forecast from the Met Office was posted on a board outside the hire centre, next to a notice warning hirers that bikes had to be returned by 6 p.m. in the summer, or by dusk in the winter. At the other end of the building a counter concession was selling ice cream, sweets and canned drinks. In a compound, they saw at least one Dawes Kokomo among the tandems and trailer cycles. Before they went into the hire centre, they stopped and looked at the bikes.

‘You wouldn’t get me on one of these,’ said Weenink, immediately sitting astride a tandem and looking like a cowboy trying to mount a donkey. ‘Unless it was with the right bird on the back, of course. Preferably the local bike, up for a quick pedal in the woods.’

Across the car park was the Ranger centre, a two-storey converted barn. They had passed it on the way in, and Cooper had noticed Owen Fox’s silver Land Rover parked in the yard.

They found Don Marsden, the cycle hire manager, leaning against a wooden counter, wiping his hands on a cloth. He had been tinkering with one of the hire bikes, checking the tightness of the forks on the wheels, testing the brakes and adjusting the saddle. Now he was waiting for his first customer of the morning, a blank page of the log book in front of him.

Marsden wore a red sweater like a Ranger, but with a different logo on the breast pocket. He didn’t look like a cyclist himself — he had a heavy paunch pushing out the front of his sweater and a goatee beard covering part of his double chin. Behind the counter, the office he worked in was crowded. It contained everything from a microwave oven and a personal computer with drifting parabolic shapes filling its screen, to displays of maps and route guides. It was just gone nine thirty and the centre had been open only a few minutes. Marsden gave them a cheerful greeting, and his cheerfulness didn’t falter even when he discovered they were police officers.

‘I was told you’d be back,’ he said, offering his hand.

‘We’ve got your earlier statement,’ said Cooper. ‘We’re just trying to establish the victim’s exact movements yesterday.’

‘Fair enough.’ Don leaned on the counter with an expectant smile.

‘Is this the woman you remember seeing?’ Cooper produced a copy of the photograph provided by Eric Weston, a picture of Jenny at her cousin’s wedding two years before. Jenny was dressed in a dove grey suit. Unlike the others in the wedding group, she was not wearing a hat, and her dark hair curled round her face, the strands of it echoing the curve of her smile. She looked as though she had been enjoying herself for once.

‘Oh, yes. I don’t need to see the photo either,’ said Don. ‘I remember her. Weston, that’s right. She’s here in the book. She took out a mountain bike at twelve forty-five. It was what she always had. She was a regular, you see.’

‘A regular? How often did she come?’

‘About once every two weeks in the summer. I think she probably went to some of the other hire centres on the weekends in between. Winter, it depended on the weather. But we’re open every day of the year here, except Christmas Day.’

‘So you knew who she was.’

‘I recognized her, of course. And you get to know the names of the regulars, after a bit. You have to enter it in the book, see, and on the computer. They have to show me some ID and put a deposit down on the bike. Twenty quid, it is. She gave me cash. Do you know. .?’

‘Somebody else will sort that out, I expect,’ said Cooper.

‘Right. Only it’s not something that’s happened to me before, the customer dying before they can reclaim their deposit. It’s not in the regulations.’

Weenink had been flicking through leaflets advertising the local attractions of Lathkill Dale and Carsington Water. Now he seemed to take notice for the first time of what Marsden was saying.

‘Did she chat to you, then?’ he asked. ‘I mean, did she just come in, pay the money and take the bike, or did she pass the time of day a bit?’

‘She didn’t say much really,’ admitted Don. ‘She was pleasant, you know. But I wouldn’t have said she was the chatty type. Not with me, anyway. Women on their own are a bit distant these days. They learn not to be too friendly.’

He sounded regretful. Cooper wondered what his prospects were as an interviewee when the reporters and TV crews arrived, as they surely would. It was lucky they had got to Don Marsden before the cameras. He had a feeling the story might get embellished along the way later on.

‘So what else do you know about her?’ suggested Weenink.

Don shook his head. ‘Just where she came from. I’ve got her address, look. The Quadrant, Totley, Sheffield. I’ve been through it once or twice, I think. She normally showed me her driving licence for ID. We have to go through the procedure every time. Can’t make exceptions. But as for knowing anything about her — not really. Except I don’t think she was married.’

‘Oh? What makes you say that?’

‘Dunno really. Just the way she was. Friendly, yeah. But it was more like she seemed to be able to please herself what she did. I had the impression there probably wasn’t a husband and kids at home waiting for her to get back. Do you know what I mean?’