Stephen Booth - Dancing With the Virgins

Cooper had begun to drowse when there was a knock on the door and his sister-in-law Kate’s voice called: ‘Ben? Phone.’

He turned down the music and went out on to the landing, where there was a telephone extension.

‘Yes?’ he said.

‘It’s Diane Fry.’

‘Oh.’

‘Don’t sound so disappointed. I’ll try not to hog the phone line too long if you’re expecting one of your girlfriends to ring.’

‘Did you want something, Diane? As you pointed out before, it’s my rest day.’

‘Sorry, were you doing something important? I don’t know why, but I pictured you sitting in your bedroom on your own like a sulky teenager, with some awful music turned up too loud.’

Cooper felt certain she could tell that he was going red, even at the other end of the line. ‘If you’ve rung up just to take the piss, I’m going to put the phone down.’

‘Oh well, I thought you might be interested in the news, that’s all.’

‘What news?’

‘We’ve just pulled in your friend. Owen Fox.’

Cooper stared at the wallpaper. Its green swirls seemed to run together in a blur. He became aware of movements behind the door of his mother’s room, faint sounds like the stirring of an animal emerging from its nest.

‘You’ve got to be joking,’ he said.

Shortly into the meeting, DI Hitchens began to find himself on the defensive. He looked sideways at Tailby, as if wondering why the DCI had let him take the lead.

‘Cooper, the fact is that HOLMES was already showing up a link,’ said Hitchens.

‘But that’s just one of those things.’

‘With only one correlation, it wouldn’t be worth mentioning. But his name also came up in the earlier case. Look at this. There were plenty of vehicles seen in the area at the time Maggie Crew was attacked. But three witnesses reported seeing a silver Land Rover. Two of them were specific that it belonged to the Peak Park Ranger Service. We checked with the PPRS and identified the vehicle. It was the one that Owen Fox drives.’

‘It means nothing.’

‘It couldn’t be ignored when his name also cropped up in the paedophile enquiry.’

Ben Cooper had checked the action forms for the last few days. The allocator hadn’t followed up the Owen Fox link from HOLMES. So he must have taken the same view — that it was just like a police officer’s name cropping up more than once in an enquiry. It was inevitable; it meant nothing. Owen Fox was right there, on the spot, and he was bound to appear in the system.

‘We had to bring him in,’ repeated Hitchens. ‘We have to let people see us doing something.’

‘What about Roper?’ asked Tailby.

‘We’ll have him here in a few minutes.’

‘And have we let the Ranger Service know what’s happening?’ said Tailby.

‘Of course. Fox is suspended from duty, as from this morning. They’re arranging a solicitor for him.’

‘That job is his life,’ said Cooper.

‘If the allegations are true, he’s abused his position,’ pointed out Diane Fry.

‘Owen Fox and Mark Roper were in the area at the time Jenny Weston was killed,’ said Tailby. ‘They were there .’

‘Fox knows the area better than anybody,’ said Hitchens.

‘Yes, everyone would expect to see him around. They might even be glad to see him. They would trust a Ranger, wouldn’t they?’ said Fry.

‘And Jenny Weston was killed by someone who got close to her. We said from the start it was someone she knew or trusted.’ Hitchens looked as though he felt he had made his point sufficiently. ‘Fox has a suspended sentence for an assault on a woman ten years ago. If it hadn’t been for his address turning up in the intelligence gathered by DI Armstrong’s enquiry, his background would never have been checked out. It’s unbelievable. The sort of thing that trips us up every time.’

‘He’s very highly regarded,’ said Cooper. ‘Very highly.’

‘He’s never been married,’ said Hitchens. ‘He’s a loner.’

‘He seems to get on well enough with his colleagues.’

‘With other men, you mean.’

‘For Christ’s sake!’

‘That’s enough, Cooper,’ said Tailby. ‘Let’s calm down.’

Cooper flushed. ‘But Owen Fox. .’

Tailby sighed. ‘Yes, Cooper?’

‘Well. .’ Cooper struggled for the words with the eyes of the DCI on him. ‘It’s just that I always thought. . he’s on our side, sir.’

But Cooper was remembering the drawing that Helen Milner had shown him, the one by little Carly. Fathr Chistmass. But a Father Christmas who had grey trousers.

Tailby looked at him with a mixture of contempt and bewilderment. ‘On our side?’ he said. ‘Cooper, there’s no such thing.’

Ben Cooper was seething as they walked back down the corridor.

‘It’s crap, Diane,’ he said. ‘It stinks. It’s scapegoat time.’

‘Oh God, here we go. Stand by for a lecture on righteousness.’

Cooper felt his face glowing red. His hands trembled in the way they always did when he felt that surge of anger and outrage. He knew his feelings had no place at all in the rigid procedures laid down by computer packages like HOLMES.

‘It isn’t right.’

‘It doesn’t suit you , obviously,’ said Fry. ‘Did you know about Fox’s conviction for assault? No, of course you didn’t. Well, face the facts, Ben. You chose the wrong friend again.’

‘Not Owen Fox.’

‘Have you got a better idea?’

Cooper stared at Fry, started to speak, but closed his mouth. He felt his face flushing even more.

‘Ben,’ she said, ‘you look as guilty as hell. What are you up to?’

‘I think all of you are wrong,’ he said. ‘This time you’ve picked the wrong scapegoat.’

Owen Fox’s house was cluttered and warm. There was a stunning view out of the back window, casting light into the back rooms. But the rooms at the front of the house, below street-level, must have been permanently dark.

There were a couple of cats somewhere — black, elusive shapes that slunk out of the way when the police appeared. They darted in and out of a cat flap on the back door and peered malevolently through the windows from outside. Maybe they just wanted feeding, but it was a job they would have to delegate to the neighbours.

Between thick walls, the rooms were crammed with old furniture. A lot of the pieces might have been items Owen had inherited from his parents, or even his grandparents. They looked to be full of history, an integral part of their surroundings. A solid-fuel Raeburn stove stood in the kitchen, the plaster above it covered in a layer of red dust.

‘It’s weird,’ said Hitchens. ‘The computer looks really out of place.’

‘Computer?’

‘In there.’

The computer stood among heaps of books, with a used coffee mug on the mouse mat and Friday’s Buxton Advertiser draped over the printer. One of the detectives working with DI Armstrong’s team had arrived and booted it up. He already had a Microsoft Windows image on screen.

On a small shelf behind the desk there was a framed photograph of Owen. He was standing against the side of a Land Rover in his Ranger uniform. The photo was a few years old, but Owen’s hair and beard were already grey.

‘Apparently the kids call him Father Christmas,’ said the detective cheerfully.

‘So I’m told.’

‘Plug the printer in for me, mate. I’m going to print some log files out.’

Cooper looked for the leads, found a whole tangle of them at the back of the table, and tried to trace the power and data leads for the printer.

‘What’s this one?’

‘That’s the phone connection.’

‘I can’t see a modem here.’

‘It’s an internal.’