Stephen Booth - Dancing With the Virgins

‘Nice try, Calvin,’ said Fry.

He looked surprised, then deflated.

‘It is Calvin Lawrence, isn’t it? Of Benson Street, Stockport?’

‘Is it me you’re after?’

‘Depends what you’ve done.’

‘I haven’t done anything. How did you know my name?’

‘Listen, if you want to be anonymous, try taking the plates off the van. It’s still registered in your name. Bit of a giveaway, that.’

‘Shit.’

‘Not much of a mastermind, are you, Calvin?’

‘They call me Cal,’ he said.

‘Is Benson Street, Stockport, still your home address?’

‘No, that’s my parents’ house.’

‘Can we have your current address, please?’

‘Number One, Quarry Avenue, Stonesville.’

The sergeant wrote it down. ‘Where’s that?’

Cal sneered, and looked at the other officers, inviting them to share his disdain. ‘It’s here, man. I live here.’

‘In the van?’

‘You’ve got it.’

‘You’re giving that thing as your permanent residence?’

‘It’s as permanent as anything is.’

‘That might be debatable. Do the owners of this property know you’re here? Have you got permission for overnight parking?’

‘Jesus, are you real?’ said Cal. ‘Or did I just fall into an old Benny Hill Show?’

‘No? In that case, you might find your home is more temporary than you think, son.’

Cal folded his arms across the holes in his sweater. A mulish look came over his face. ‘You’ll have to drag us out of here, if you want to move us.’

‘Well, we can arrange that, if necessary.’

The sergeant looked at the girl. She had said nothing yet. In fact, her attention seemed to have wandered. She gently pushed some of the hair from her eyes as she turned to watch the movement of some home-made wind chimes hanging in a birch tree on the edge of the quarry. Cooper realized that the chimes were providing a constant background tune that made the sergeant’s voice sound curiously discordant and out of place, a meaningless animal growl against the harmonies of a distant choir. The sound of the chimes seemed to mean more to this dreamy young woman than the small army of police officers who had invaded her home.

‘And your name, miss?’ said the sergeant.

She seemed not to have heard him. Her gaze remained directed into space, oblivious to the turn in the conversation, unaware of the attention that was on her.

‘You, miss. Can we have your name, please?’

Then she turned and smiled at him, a whimsical smile, not unfriendly or sullen. She pushed back her hair again and her fingers danced across her face, fluttering on her cheeks in a curious gesture. Then Cooper saw the faint fuzz of hair on the jawline and the top lip, the Adam’s apple and wide forehead under the hair. Not ‘miss’ at all, but another male.

Cal butted in, moving slightly to impose himself between his friend and the policeman.

‘You’ve got it wrong again. We call him Stride,’ he said.

The sergeant had noticed his mistake, too. ‘OK. But I’m talking to him, not you.’

‘Just don’t talk to him like that.’

The sergeant stared grimly at the second youth. ‘Your name, please, sir.’

The silence continued. The young man’s eyes began to drift back towards the floor of the quarry, but too slowly for the sergeant. He reached out a hand, ready to grab the youth’s arm. Cal tensed angrily, and the two PCs stepped forward.

‘It doesn’t matter.’

The youth’s voice was soft. His lips barely moved, so that his words were no more than a whisper. But they all heard it clearly. The sergeant’s hand stopped short of touching him, uncertain of what he had been about to do. He looked like a man who found himself with a passing swan in the sights of his twelve-bore, with his finger already on the trigger.

‘If we don’t get some identity from you, we’re going to take you down to the station for questioning,’ he said.

‘Oh, right, here comes the harassment,’ said Cal. ‘What made you wait so long? Take him down to the station. You are so full of shit. I mean, what does it matter what name his parents gave him? What does it matter where he comes from? It’s who he is, that’s all you need to know. All anyone needs. Jesus.’

‘Religious gentleman, are you, sir? They tell me if you call Jesus’s name often enough, the Virgin Mary gets annoyed and tells you he can’t come out to play today.’

Finally, the one called Stride sighed and shook his head. ‘It doesn’t matter. Not really. It’s only a name.’

‘I’m afraid we’ll have to insist, sir. Otherwise, you can come with us.’

They waited expectantly. Finally, Stride sat down in the doorway of the van and leaned into the interior. The police began to look uneasy again. He pulled a cardboard box towards him and rummaged around inside it, reaching right down to the bottom through heaps of paper and clothes. Some of the contents he pulled out and deposited on the step, examining each one carefully as he handled them.

Cal watched him, his expression a mixture of concern and affection. Stride looked up at him, and something passed between them when their eyes met. Cooper cocked his head, listening hard for the sound of the message they were communicating, but it was something he couldn’t fathom, maybe something quite beyond his own experience.

Then Stride suddenly held out his hand with an object that glinted, sharp and metallic. The sergeant already had his baton half out of his service belt by the time Stride opened his hand and showed it to his friend.

‘Hey, that’s the can-opener we lost,’ said Cal.

The sergeant looked embarrassed, then angry. Stride smiled at him. His fingers went to his face again. They flickered against his cheek, like a repeated word in sign language. Did it mean he was laughing?

Then he produced a small enamel biscuit tin, whipping it in front of them like a conjuror producing a rabbit. The tin was a startling royal blue, with Victorian-style portraits in round, gilt frames on the lid. He popped the lid open, and showed them that the tin was crammed with small items: photographs, letters, postcards, the stub of an airline ticket, a few metal badges, a gold pen, a roll of yellowed newspaper cuttings.

‘That’s me,’ he said.

The sergeant replaced his baton and took a plastic card-holder from him. The edges were cracked and split, and one corner was turned over. Inside was a card headed with the initials NUS over a badly coloured photograph, taken against a curtain in harsh, glaring light.

‘This is your Student Union card?’ he said, comparing the face to Stride’s.

‘When I was at uni in Sheffield.’

‘The hair’s longer now, but I suppose it’s you.’

‘It’s me.’

‘Simon Bevington.’ The sergeant wrote it down, and noted the membership number. ‘This address. What is it? Is this where your parents live, like your friend? Digs? Or what?’

‘A bedsit.’

‘I see. When did you last live there?’

‘Six months ago. A year. Who knows?’

‘This union card is last year’s. When did you leave university?’

‘January.’

‘And where do your parents live?’

‘I’ve forgotten.’

‘Come off it.’

‘My life has nothing to do with them any more.’

‘I wonder if they agree with that, sir,’ said the sergeant. ‘We can trace them, you know.’

‘I wish you joy.’

The sergeant looked round at the two CID officers, and turned back to the young men. ‘We’ll need statements from you. Then we’ll see whether we have to move you from here.’

‘Jesus,’ said Cal.

‘A statement!’ said Stride. ‘Can it be any statement I like? How about: “Sergeant, I love you”?’