Stephen Booth - Dancing With the Virgins

Cooper was beginning to feel light-headed with claustrophobia and the intensity of the noise. Most of the audience seemed to be shouting and chattering constantly to each other all around the ring, ignoring the auctioneer, while weighing up the animals from the corners of their eyes. There was a continuous bellowing of animals waiting to be driven into the ring or marshalled back into their pens. Gates clanged and cattle transporters started up outside. At times, the auctioneer could barely be heard above the din.

The sun came out and shone through the Perspex roof. The heat in the ring rose several degrees as it hit the dirty floor and sweaty bodies.

‘How do we get him out of there?’ said Weenink. ‘I’m not going in that ring. Not without body armour and a riot shield.’

Cooper tapped one of the attendants on the shoulder and showed him his warrant card.

‘We need to speak to Keith Teasdale. Tell him we’ll see him in the car park, where his van is.’

They stood and watched as the man exchanged a few words with Teasdale. The bullocks in the ring circled, sniffing at the hands of the spectators. Even three feet away, Cooper could feel the blast of the breath from the animals’ nostrils. One lumbered too close to the buyers, and they stood back, pulling their arms in to avoid getting them trapped against the steel bars. One bullock released a stream of green diarrhoea that hit the concrete and splashed an old farmer’s trousers. He seemed not to notice.

Teasdale looked up at the detectives when the other man pointed. His face was expressionless, but he nodded briefly. Cooper and Weenink were glad to get out into the open air. While they waited, they read the signs on the outside wall of the office, which advertised farm sales. Farmers seemed to be selling off everything — their stock, their equipment, their land, their homes.

Back at the ring, the next lots were going in. Two-week-old calves that could barely walk were being sold for the price of a couple of pints of beer.

DCI Tailby turned over the interview reports from the officers who had dragged themselves round a series of pubs in the back streets of Edendale. He suspected there would be some expense claims following the reports soon.

‘So it looks as though Sugden’s alibis will stand up,’ he said.

‘I’m afraid so,’ said DI Hitchens.

‘Typical. Motive, but no opportunity.’

‘A bit like fish and no chips.’

‘If you say so, Paul.’

‘Do you want the latest news on Martin Stafford?’ asked Hitchens.

‘Fire away.’ When Hitchens and Fry had entered his office, Tailby had been sneaking a crafty smoke of his pipe, to ease the ache in his head from staring at the computer screen. He waved his hand at the cloud of smoke to see the DI better.

‘We’ve been following a bit of a long trail,’ said Hitchens. ‘Diane has the details.’

‘Martin Stafford left Jenny Weston four years ago,’ said Fry. ‘And while the divorce was going on, he left his job too. He moved from the Derby Evening Telegraph to the Leicester Mercury . But he was there only eighteen months, then had a spell on a small weekly in Cheshire. I tracked one of the reporters down there. She said he drank too much, had affairs in office hours, boasted about his talents as a journalist but never bothered to put them to use. He generally seemed to give the impression he was too good for the place.’

‘I can’t say I’m warming to him yet. I don’t suppose he lasted any longer at the Cheshire paper?’

‘Less,’ said Fry. ‘Twelve months. He had a couple of blazing rows with the editor, then announced one day that he was going freelance.’

‘Damn. End of employment trail, then.’

‘His last employers have an address in Macclesfield, so I asked Cheshire to chase him up. But there’s a Punjabi family living there now. Mail still arrives for Stafford, but they just throw it away.’

‘What about the electoral register?’

‘He’s still registered at the Macclesfield address. The register is taken in October, of course.’

‘Is that it, then?’

‘Not quite, sir. I reckoned if he had been trying to set himself up as a freelancer, he ought to have tried some of the bigger papers in the region for work. So I checked with a few, just in case any of them had him on their books. The Features Editor at the Sheffield Star was very helpful and dug out a proposal letter from Martin Stafford from a few months back. The address was a flat in Congleton. That’s as fresh as we’ll get. And it’s not too far away.’

‘Phone number?’

‘Got it, but we haven’t tried it yet,’ said Fry.

‘You think he’s still there?’

DI Hitchens took over. ‘I think if he’s getting no work as a freelance, he’ll either have moved to another area, found some other kind of job entirely, or ended up on the dole. My money’s on the second or third. Because he hasn’t gone far from the district at any time, has he?’

Tailby looked pleased. ‘I think you’re probably right. Have we been in touch with Cheshire again?’

‘I asked them to keep a discreet eye on the flat and see if anybody answering Stafford’s description was around,’ said Hitchens. ‘We faxed them his picture from Jenny’s wedding photo.’

‘And?’

Hitchens smiled. He looked particularly satisfied with himself, as if he were the first man to bring good news all year. ‘Stafford arrived home fifteen minutes ago,’ he said.

The DCI regarded him with a mixture of emotions flickering across his face. Fry could see that Hitchens really got under his skin sometimes. But it was undoubtedly good news.

‘How long will it take you to get to Congleton?’ asked Tailby.

‘Not long. If we drive fast.’

‘Drive fast then.’

Keith Teasdale smelled as though he had spent all his life in close contact with cattle. But in the market car park, it was Ben Cooper and Todd Weenink who were out of place, with their alien smell of clean cars and offices.

‘What’s wrong with the van, then?’ said Teasdale. ‘It’s got its MoT, look. It’s taxed and insured. What’s the problem?’

Cooper explained what they wanted to know, and watched to see whether Teasdale relaxed. But he remained defensive.

‘Can’t I drive where I want to? Without some nosey old biddy reporting me?’

Teasdale had brought his stick with him. He tapped it on the side of the Transit as he spoke, loosening some flakes of rust that dropped off the wheel arch.

‘I’m sure we could find something wrong with it, if we looked,’ said Weenink.

‘We need some help, that’s all,’ said Cooper. ‘If you were in the area, we need to eliminate you. If it wasn’t you, we keep looking. It’s quite simple.’

Teasdale looked at his boots and scratched the heavy black stubble on his cheeks. The gesture was intended to suggest that he was thinking.

‘I get around a lot,’ he said. ‘I do little jobs for people. Farmers mostly.’

‘What sort of jobs?’

‘Anything I can get. There’s only a couple of days’ work here. The rest of the time I do a bit of fencing or ratting. That sort of stuff.’

‘Ratting?’ said Weenink.

‘I clear rats out of barns and grain sheds.’

‘You use terriers, I suppose?’ said Cooper.

‘That’s right. Lot of rats around this time of year. They start looking for somewhere warm and dry to live when the fields are harvested and the weather turns colder.’

‘Is Warren Leach at Ringham Edge Farm one of your customers?’

‘I know Leach.’

‘Were you there on Sunday?’

‘I was up that way.’ Teasdale hesitated. ‘I was thinking of calling in at Ringham Edge, but I didn’t.’