Stephen Booth - Dancing With the Virgins

‘Off you go, then.’

He watched them walk across the yard and down the lane without looking back. He glanced at the cows, whose heads showed over the wall of the barn. They were unsettled because they had been brought inside when there was still grass to be eaten in the fields. But they would be all right.

Leach went back into the kitchen and stared out of the window. The rain had left dirty streaks on the panes, and the world outside looked blurred and distant. The moor had retreated into low cloud. He could just make out the car parked in the trees at the top of the track, but even that held no meaning any more.

In contrast, the objects immediately around him seemed alive and weighted with unbearable significance. The colours of the boys’ clothes draped over the rail of the cold Aga were bright and painful, and the smell of the wet earth from his boots on the tiles bit so hard into the back of his nose that it made his eyes water. The clutter that pressed around him seemed to be composed of living things, like an army of rodents gathering to gnaw at his body. If he left it any longer, the vermin would start to eat him alive. But he wouldn’t give them the chance.

The number 26 to Edendale was late. It had been held up by roadworks and temporary traffic lights in Bakewell, and by an old lady who had slipped on the platform as she fumbled for her bus pass. The driver spent several minutes fussing over her to make sure that she was all right. It wasn’t because he was worried about a claim against his employers for negligence. It was because the old woman’s daughter knew his wife, and because all the other people on the bus were watching him, and a lot of them knew him, too.

Will and Dougie Leach were standing at the bus stop, carrying the rucksacks they took to school in the mornings. They had their clothes in them for tomorrow, their pajamas and toothbrushes. The driver wasn’t surprised to see the boys on their own. He had done the school run at one time, and he remembered them. When the Leach boys had first started getting on the bus, they had been accompanied to the stop by their mother, or sometimes by their bad-tempered father, who never seemed to have a good word to say to anybody. The driver thought Will was bit of a moody child, and expected he would probably turn out just like his dad in a few years’ time. He felt sorry for Dougie, though. He always looked unhappy; even more so today.

The driver took the boys’ money and watched them for a moment while they found seats. Then he released the brake and let in the clutch, and forgot about them as he accelerated towards the bend and the descent from the moor towards the A515.

Will’s face was frozen. But he saw the tears start in Dougie’s eyes. Just as the bus turned the bend, Will grabbed his brother roughly by the shoulder and pushed his own chocolate bar into Dougie’s hands.

‘Here, have mine,’ he said. ‘I don’t really like them anyway.’

The bus was only a few yards away from the stop when they heard the shotgun blast. The boys looked back towards the farm. Above the juddering of the diesel engine and the grinding of the bus’s gears as it approached the hill, they could hear the rooks that roosted in the beech trees behind the farmhouse erupt into the air, complaining raucously; they could hear the old farm dog, Molly, begin to bark hysterically in the yard.

And then they heard the silence that followed. And the silence was the loudest sound of all.

Mark Roper stopped on the path to Ringham Moor and touched his face gingerly where Leach had hit him. His lip was split, and a tooth was loose. If it was true about Owen, he knew he ought to feel the outrage that had been expressed by his fellow Rangers. But Owen’s arrest the day before had confused him. Mark knew that Owen would have been up here to check on his wall, if he could have done. Instead, Mark was doing it for him.

When he got near the top of the path above Ringham Edge Farm that afternoon, Mark saw a woman in a yellow jacket climbing towards the Hammond Tower. It was the first time he had seen a woman walking on her own for over a week. There had been plenty of warnings about the dangers for lone women. But some of them couldn’t stay away. There was something that drew them, like the women who were attracted to form relationships with convicted murderers and rapists.

He had brought a rucksack from home, because the one he usually used for patrols had been in the briefing centre, which had been closed by the police. But at least this rucksack held a pair of binoculars. He focused them on the woman, following her movements through the high bracken until she reached a clear spot. She paused, and looked around. And then Mark saw her face. He recognized the long, red scar and the disfigured cheek, the twisted eye. He had seen her photograph in the incident room at Edendale, during the briefing three days before. Even if he hadn’t recognized her, he would have had to do something. Women weren’t safe alone on Ringham Moor any more.

Mark called in. ‘Peakland Partridge Three. Put me through to the police incident room.’

Then he leaned on the wall and looked down on Ringham Edge Farm. And he saw that the police were already there.

Warren Leach hadn’t bothered to move out of the kitchen after the boys had left the house. The blast of the shotgun had shredded the back of his skull, and his body had been thrown off the chair and on to the floor, where it lay among the debris of dropped food and unwashed clothes. A dog chained near the back door was barking ferociously, driven into a frenzy by the arrival of so many strangers. No one dared go near it. Someone had called for the dog warden and a vet.

When Ben Cooper had first arrived, a middle-aged man wearing jeans and a tweed jacket had been standing in the yard next to a red pick-up, talking to Todd Weenink. He turned out to be a farmer from across the valley, and Leach had rung to ask him to milk the cows that afternoon.

‘He’s taken that way out, has he?’ said the farmer. ‘I can’t say it’s a surprise. He isn’t the first, and he won’t be the last. Some prefer to finish it cleanly, like.’

When Cooper looked at the state of the farm’s kitchen, he realized clean wasn’t the word for what Warren Leach had done. He stood in the doorway of the room, careful not to go too near. He could see a white envelope on the cluttered kitchen table. It was an official-looking envelope, with the address neatly typed. Unlike some of the others, which were obviously bills and unopened, Leach had slit the top of this envelope open with a knife, leaving a greasy butter stain on the edge of the flap. Cooper didn’t need to look at the letter inside. He guessed it was a notification to Mr Warren Leach that a prosecution was being considered under the Firearms Act 1986.

Cooper wondered whether there was anything else they could have done. They had contacted Social Services after their visit to Yvonne Leach, but that had been out of concern for the children, Will and Dougie. Who had been concerned about the fate of their father? Warren Leach had needed help, if anyone had. The evidence was there to be seen on the floor and walls.

A few minutes later, Cooper was very glad of the call that took him and Weenink away from the farm and up the hill to meet the young Ranger, Mark Roper.

Mark seemed even younger today. It wasn’t just the fact that his face was bruised and swollen. In between the bruises, he looked pale and lost, like a boy waiting for somebody to tell him what to do.

‘Are you sure it’s her?’ asked Cooper.

‘I’m sure.’

Cooper felt certain Mark was observant enough to be right. This was a situation where Diane Fry would have to be involved.

It was late afternoon by the time Diane Fry arrived at Ringham, and she was in a bad mood. She drove up the track past the farmhouse to where she could see other vehicles parked on the hill.