Stephen Booth - Dancing With the Virgins

‘Do you think your sister resents not getting further in her career?’

‘Well, I certainly think she started to realize she’d reached that plateau. Of course she did. And she resented the fact that I’d escaped, as she saw it. That I’d left her to look after Mum and Dad. She couldn’t move away then, you see — not without adding to her feelings of guilt.’

‘She doesn’t strike me as someone who feels guilty,’ said Fry.

‘Oh, she’s good at blaming other people. She blames everyone but herself for her lack of real success — her teachers, her colleagues, our parents, me. And any friends she might have left. She was always a difficult person to like, but she became so prickly that people began to leave her well alone.’

‘And the child? Do you think she feels guilty about the child?’

‘Well, what do you think?’ said Catherine brightly. And in that one sentence, Fry was able to fill in the background around her picture of Maggie’s sister — the background was full of children hanging on to her skirt and bringing her their latest treasures to look at. All the children would be little copies of Catherine. Fry nodded at the clarity of the image. The arrival of each child must have been like salt in the wound to Maggie. What was it she had said at Derwent Court the other day? ‘Perhaps I’ll wake up one day and discover I have a maternal instinct after all.’

‘I think, you know,’ said Catherine, ‘that Mags must have been wondering a great deal about the child. Wondering what she would be like now, and where she is. Wondering if she ever thought about her real mother.’

‘And wondering what it would be like now to have a daughter of her own, instead of being so alone?’ said Fry.

‘Exactly,’ said Catherine. ‘And there’s no one else she can blame for that, is there? No one but herself.’

Fry took a moment to readjust her assessment of Maggie Crew. She was seeing a different person, sensing a greater tragedy taking place in the darkened rooms of the apartment at Derwent Court than she had imagined until now.

Catherine Dyson must have wondered about the silence at the other end of the line. It was her turn to ask a question, and the astuteness of it took Diane Fry by surprise.

‘Have you been going to see my sister often?’ she asked.

‘Well, yes,’ said Fry. ‘You know the circumstances, don’t you?’

‘Of course. You’re doing your job, I see that. But. .’

‘Yes?’

‘I can’t tell over the phone,’ said Catherine, ‘but may I ask how old you are?’

‘What on earth difference does that make?’ said Fry.

‘Oh, never mind,’ said Catherine hastily. ‘I’m sure it makes no difference at all.’

The offices of Quigley, Coleman amp; Crew were on Peveril Street. Diane Fry entered a reception area fronted by smoked plate glass. A blonde receptionist with a fake tan took her name without showing any interest in her warrant card, and took her time looking at a diary on her desk.

‘I’m sorry, Ms Crew is not available.’

‘What?’ Fry was brought up hard. She had thought of cancelling, true. But she had never got round to it. ‘What do you mean? I’ve got an appointment.’

The receptionist pretended to look at the diary. ‘I’m sorry, she’s cancelled it. Something came up. You know.’

The girl could hardly be bothered concealing her contempt for someone whose appointment had been cancelled at the last minute without telling her. She was obviously somebody of no importance.

‘Did she say why?’ asked Fry.

‘No. I’m sorry.’

‘Where is she now?’

‘I can’t tell you that.’

‘Then give Ms Crew a message. You can do that, can’t you?’

‘I suppose so.’

Fry leaned closer over the desk. ‘Tell her one thing. Tell her: “What if Jenny wasn’t enough for him either?”’

The girl looked nervous. ‘I don’t understand that.’

‘You don’t have to. Just write it down and give it to your boss.’

‘I think you ought to leave.’

‘You haven’t written it down yet.’

The girl wrote the eight words on a memo pad, her hand shaking slightly. ‘There. I’ll give it to Ms Crew when she’s in the office.’

‘Right. And then you can tell her to damn well phone me.’

‘I think I’ll really have to ask you to leave now.’

‘You know I’m a police officer?’

‘Yes. But that doesn’t mean I have to put up with harassment.’

‘You don’t know what harassment is. Not yet.’

Fry drove straight to Derwent Court. She was not surprised to get no answer from Maggie’s apartment. But even here there should be a next-door neighbour with an interest in what went on. They were useful people. She tried the next apartment and introduced herself to a lady called Mrs Dean, who seemed quite happy to talk about Maggie Crew.

‘I don’t know where she is today,’ she said. ‘I thought she’d started going back into her office to work.’

‘Yes, she had,’ said Fry.

‘I am glad. It’s for the best, really. It’ll help take her mind off things.’

‘But she’s not in the office today.’

‘Isn’t she? She went out at her usual time.’

‘In her car?’

‘I imagine so. I don’t know.’

‘On her own?’

‘She’s always on her own these days.’

‘Was there a time when she wasn’t?’ asked Fry.

‘Well, none of us has been in Derwent Court more than a year or two, just since the place was converted. I don’t know anything about her life before that.’

Fry looked at Mrs Dean’s apartment. It looked completely different from Maggie Crew’s, though the layout must have been identical. Instead of being cold and unwelcoming, this one was full of deep-pile carpets and light and mirrors, and a hundred little personal items.

‘She has no family who come to see her, has she?’ said Fry. ‘Any children?’

‘No, no children. She has never married, as far as I know. But there’s a sister.’

‘Of course, yes. Does she come?’

‘Not recently. Some people just can’t deal with it — with physical disfigurement, I mean. They’re frightened they’re going to say the wrong thing, or that they won’t be able to avoid staring. I’d like to think I wouldn’t be that way, if it happened to one of my friends. I’d want to support them, wouldn’t you?’

Fry searched her heart and wasn’t sure. Mrs Dean seemed to pick up on her hesitation.

‘Mind you, it is pretty awful to have to look at, isn’t it? I can see that it might put you off if you were invited round for tea. Are you sure you won’t sit down?’ said Mrs Dean.

‘No, thank you.’

‘Still. You’d think the sister would make an effort to get here. It’s at times like these that you need your family most, not just in the good times. Don’t you agree?’

‘Of course,’ said Fry, though she was hardly in a position to know. ‘So you haven’t seen Miss Crew since this morning?’

‘I heard her go out about ten o’clock,’ said Mrs Dean.

‘You didn’t actually see her?’

‘No. But I could tell it was her. You get to recognize the noises when you live so close together. You can identify all the familiar sounds. I know the way she closes her door, and the way her footsteps sound in the corridor.’

‘And unfamiliar ones?’

‘Sorry?’

‘Any unfamiliar sounds. Any sounds of anybody visiting Miss Crew, anybody you didn’t recognize?’

‘I don’t believe so. Not that I’ve been aware of.’

‘Nobody hanging around the flats?’

‘No.’

Fry looked at the window. She felt drawn to it in a way she hadn’t in Maggie’s apartment. The view was the same, but when she stood close to the window, she could see down into a paved courtyard that had been turned into a car park for residents.