Stephen Booth - Dancing With the Virgins

‘Bamber Gascoigne was never on Mastermind ,’ said Tailby wearily. ‘In fact, Mastermind hasn’t been on TV for years.’

‘So? Pick some other quiz. It doesn’t matter.’

‘These days contestants get to phone a friend or ask the audience.’

‘Well, we can’t ask our audience,’ said Jepson. ‘If we admit that we know sod all, they’d be down on us like vultures.’

‘And we haven’t got any friends either, have we?’

Jepson sighed deeply. ‘That’s true.’

Tailby stared at the files on Jenny Weston and Maggie Crew. He didn’t need to read them again. He knew them practically by heart. But he turned over the pages anyway.

In the Weston file was the report from the officer who had first responded to the call from the Rangers. The call had come from the Rangers’ TIP at Bradwell, not directly from Mark Roper, nor from Owen Fox at the Ranger centre at Partridge Cross. Maybe this was standard procedure — it was worth checking. There was a detailed witness statement from Roper himself, as well as further statements from the cycle hire centre manager, Don Marsden, and the farmworker, Victor McCauley, who seemed to have been the last people to see Jenny Weston alive. No one had come forward to say they had seen her once she had reached the moor.

The vast amount of forensic material that had been collected was confusing rather than helpful. Even Jenny’s pants and cycling shorts, found in the quarry by a SOCO who had been lowered down the rock face, had yielded no positive traces. The only item still missing was the pouch she had normally worn round her waist when cycling.

‘The injury to Bevington suggests punishment for a sexual assault,’ said Jepson. ‘But there was no such assault on Jenny Weston.’

‘There was no evidence of sexual intercourse, no body fluids or traces of DNA. But the profilers talk about a “disorganized” killer, and for that type the killing is a sexual act in itself. On the evidence, the profile was definitely that of the disorganized type, with a sudden attack, and no attempt being made to hide the body — on the contrary, it seems to have been put out on display. That might also explain the stripping of the lower half of the body. A symbolic sex act.’

‘That’s rather academic for the average vigilante to figure out, Stewart.’

Tailby sighed. ‘I know.’

‘Bevington does have a history, though. Can he be linked to Weston?’

‘It must have been Bevington who wrote his name on the ground in the stone circle. But that could have been days earlier. It means nothing.’

‘And what about Ros Daniels?’

‘Oh, she’s long gone from the area. That kind of person — she could be anywhere. Using a different name by now, probably.’

‘Do you think so?’

‘Certainly,’ said Tailby. ‘Remember, the last time she was seen anywhere in the area was six weeks before Jenny Weston was killed.’

‘Yet an unknown man was seen hanging around Weston’s house and workplace. Someone made a phone call to her, claiming to be a police officer.’

‘We’ve ruled out the ex-husband, Martin Stafford. All the old boyfriends in Jenny’s address book have been eliminated. If there was a more recent one, she didn’t bother to put his number in the book. It would have been unlike her, though. She was well organized in other ways. And there’s the note we took from her house. “Buy some fruit-flavoured ones,” it said. That had to be a boyfriend, surely.’

‘Perhaps the man the neighbours saw wasn’t looking for Jenny Weston, but for Ros Daniels,’ said Jepson. ‘She had already disappeared by then.’

‘Whoever the killer was, he was very audacious,’ said Tailby. ‘And very lucky.’

There had been a number of public appeals during the past week. But no one had come forward to say they had seen a man on the moor at the right time.

‘We have a partial footprint and a smear of sweat on the bike frame. We have the shape of a knife blade. But it’s really nothing at all. Nothing — without evidence to place a suspect at the scene.’

Tailby paused, as if unsure how his next statement would be received. Jepson noticed the hesitation and fixed the DCI with his sharp blue eyes.

‘Yes, Stewart? What are you going to say? Is it something I don’t want to hear?’

‘Could be.’

Jepson sighed again. ‘I didn’t really think things could be worse. But go on.’

‘If you don’t mind,’ said Tailby, ‘I’d like to wait for Paul Hitchens and Diane Fry to join us at this stage.’

Diane Fry limped up the stairs towards the incident room. Earlier, she had been writing up her report on the attack on Calvin Lawrence and Simon Bevington the previous night, and her mind was still full of images from the moments immediately after the mob had scattered in the quarry. She saw the scene that PC Taylor’s headlights had illuminated. She saw the rain glittering like knives in the twin beams; she saw the bright, jagged holes in the windows of the VW van, and the walls of the quarry black outside the range of the lights. And she saw Stride sprawled half-naked in the mud on his face, with the broom handle still bloodily protruding, his body writhing like a worm cut into pieces.

She had been finding the task of reliving the night’s events painful and humiliating. She was in physical pain, too, from the bruises on her leg. But she wasn’t about to make that an excuse for anything. And then she had to run into Ben Cooper hovering near the top of the stairs. He was the last person she wanted to see; it was entirely because of Cooper and his stupid ideas that she had been in the quarry in the first place, listening to the ravings of those two travellers. But she couldn’t avoid him. He moved straight in on her, thrusting himself into her personal space.

‘You did your best, Diane,’ he said, with that infuriating habit of reading her mind.

‘Oh, sure I did.’

She turned away from him too suddenly. Her injured knee gave way and her foot slid off a step. Cooper grabbed her jacket to stop her falling back down the stairs and yanked her towards him. Fry found herself nose to nose with him. She felt his breath on her face and saw his eyes, big and brown and concerned, like the eyes of one of Warren Leach’s Jersey cows.

‘What the hell do you think you’re doing, Cooper? Get your hands off me.’

‘Look, I know how you feel,’ he said.

‘No, you bloody don’t.’

‘Diane — even you couldn’t fight them all.’

‘They neutralized me in seconds,’ she said. ‘I hardly tried.’

Fry kept remembering that she hadn’t even drawn her ASP. It had been in her scabbard, readily to hand. But she had not used it.

Cooper held on to her for a moment longer than he needed to, steadying her with a hand on her back. She could feel his fingers against her spine through the cloth. He was pressing gently but insistently on her vertebrae, triggering a small nerve that sent sensations running down into her abdomen. For a second, it even seemed to ease the pain in her leg.

Then Fry yanked herself free and straightened her jacket. ‘Isn’t this supposed to be your rest day?’

‘Yes.’

‘Then what the hell are you doing in the station? Haven’t you got anything better to do?’

She watched Cooper’s face crumple and the flush start to creep up his neck. He was the only detective she knew who blushed when he was spoken to sharply.

‘As a matter of fact, I have,’ said Cooper.

‘Enjoy your day then. I’ve got a meeting with Mr Tailby and the Super.’

Chief Superintendent Jepson laid his hands flat on the desk and looked from one officer to the other. ‘OK, who’s going to start? Put me out of my misery. Let me know what this is all about.’