Stephen Booth - Dancing With the Virgins

‘And Leach was in a good position to spot Jenny when she came back to the moor again.’

‘That’s pretty much what we think. And we found a whole range of knives and other implements in his workshop. Not the knife, though.’

Jepson considered the evidence. ‘So Warren Leach’s associates plan on him taking the blame for Jenny Weston’s murder. How convenient for them.’

‘And clever. They’ve all got their story straight.’

‘Well, let’s face it,’ said Hitchens. ‘It’s convenient all round.’

They all looked at Ben Cooper. But Cooper sat very still, his lips pressed together, saying nothing. Now was the time for saying nothing, if ever it had been the time. They were expecting a comment from him that would never come.

Soon, there would be another police funeral for him to attend, when Todd Weenink was buried with all the honours befitting an officer who had died in the course of duty. But for now there was nothing to be said. Nothing that Cooper could possibly hope to put into words.

Next day, there was a new notice pinned to the board in the corridor. Officers were gathered round to read it.

‘Mr Tailby’s being posted to Ripley,’ one said. ‘And the new DCI’s been named.’

‘Oh? Is it DI Hitchens?’ Ben Cooper elbowed his way closer to the noticeboard. He was aware of an odd mood among the officers around him. A dark, cynical mood.

‘No, mate,’ said someone. ‘We’re getting a new Detective Superintendent from South Yorkshire, and a DCI is transferring from B Division. More foreigners on our patch.’

Cooper read through the praise of Tailby and some indecipherable details of his new headquarters role, then skimmed through the new appointments before reaching the final pay-off line: ‘Detective Inspector K. Armstrong has been appointed Detective Chief Inspector, B Division, to succeed DCI Maddison.’

‘Armstrong’s done well for herself,’ said someone.

‘Right.’

‘Her paedophile operation got a good press. Lots of arrests.’

‘Well, what can you say?’

They looked over their shoulders, watchful for unfriendly ears, afraid of uttering a politically incorrect word.

‘It’s good news for some,’ said Cooper.

‘Yes, if you’re one of the sisters.’

‘Who do you mean?’ It was DC Gardner, trying to force herself into the group. ‘Acting DS Fry is it? Her and Armstrong? There’s more to it than that, from what I’ve heard. Sisters is right.’

‘You listen to the sound of your own voice too much, then,’ said Cooper. Then he turned and saw Diane Fry herself, standing at the corner of the corridor. He wasn’t sure how much she had heard. She was pale and drawn. The wound on her cheekbone was red and angry, the stitches stretching the flesh tight below her eye.

Before anyone else noticed her, she had slipped away, disappearing back into the shadows as if she hadn’t been there at all.

Half an hour later, Diane Fry emerged from DI Armstrong’s office knowing that she had burned her boats. It was a curiously satisfying feeling. Armstrong had not been pleased at her decision not to take the job with her team. But Fry knew it hadn’t been right for her. Not now.

Sisters. It was that one word that had finally repulsed her. She had no sisters here. Not Kim Armstrong, nor any of her associates. Not Maggie Crew, nor any of the other women she was obliged to be polite to during the course of her job. They were not sisters, not even friends — merely acquaintances, or colleagues. It was the claim of sisterhood that she could not stomach, that made the bile rise in her throat.

Fry opened her bag and slipped the creased photograph out of her credit-card holder. She had only one sister, and this was her. This young woman would now be a stranger, as unrecognizable to Fry as the homeless druggies of Sheffield were. Their relationship was a dead thing, a fragment of the past, yet still remembered and treasured.

Carefully, Fry put the photo back. The things that people craved were so strange. The longing for what would do you no good at all was utterly incomprehensible.

Sisters? Like daughters, sisters were something special, not to be taken lightly. No, ma’am. You were not Diane Fry’s sister, and you never would be.

At one time, there had been far more prehistoric remains on Ringham Moor than there were now. But local people hadn’t always seen the value of their ancient monuments. Stones from the henges and burial chambers had disappeared over the years, to be built into the dry-stone walls that separated the moor from the fringes of the farmland. It was ironic, now, to see the vast heaps of unwanted stone that lay in the abandoned quarries.

Reaching the top of the slope, Ben Cooper turned and reached out a hand. Diane Fry hesitated, then took it, accepting his help over the last bit of the hill.

‘Are you all right?’

‘A bit stiff, but exercise is what I need,’ she said.

‘If you’re sure.’

They had both needed the fresh air. Cooper had been shut up in the office for much too long, struggling to make sense of a mountain of paperwork, the grinding anticlimax that always followed the conclusion of an enquiry. He knew Fry had been imprisoned in her dismal flat, with only the walls to look at and her own thoughts for entertainment. Cooper had intended to arrange a day out walking with his friends, Oscar and Rakki. But instead he had found himself asking Diane Fry. No doubt it was another mistake. He hadn’t done much that was right recently.

‘Maggie Crew will get the appropriate psychiatric treatment,’ he said. ‘Appropriate to her condition.’

‘That’s good,’ said Fry. ‘I suppose.’

‘She had lost the ability to relate to the world. It’s just that there was nobody close enough to her to notice.’

They were two hundred yards from the Nine Virgins. Cooper could feel the first real chill of winter creeping across the moor, insinuating itself into his clothes and settling on his spirits. So many things had changed since the beginning of the month. Autumn had passed in a glance, the wind stripping the trees, baring their thin branches to the sky. The rain that had fallen in the last few days had turned the leaves underfoot into a black sludge, slippery and treacherous, full of worms and pale, wriggling insects.

‘Bloody screwed-up women,’ said Fry. And Cooper saw her smile, but he turned away quickly so that she wouldn’t see him noticing.

Mist lay in the valley below Ringham, long tendrils fading the colours of the hillsides and the trees. As the sun rose on the valley, it reflected from the surface of the mist, creating a pale bowl of light, from which the tower of the church in Cargreave emerged like the battlements of a drowned castle.

Yesterday, Cooper had heard that Owen Fox had resigned from the Ranger Service. He had decided to make way for a younger man, it was said. Cargreave Parish Council was advertising a vacant seat, but there was no competition to fill it — a candidate favoured by Councillor Salt and her ruling group would be co-opted to make up the numbers. The house in Main Street, with its wonderful view from the kitchen window, had a ‘For Sale’ sign outside.

‘What is that tower?’ asked Fry, gazing across the dying bracken to Ringham Edge.

‘They call it the Hammond Tower. It’s named after some member of an aristocratic family, the people who owned Hammond Hall. The Duke built it so that everyone could see it for miles around. A symbol of his own power and importance, I suppose.’

‘It’s where Maggie’s daughter was supposed to meet up with her on the day she was killed.’

‘And it’s where Maggie came back to. She hadn’t given up hope that Ros would reappear, even long after she was dead.’