Dancing With the Virgins (10 page)

*

Now, with the lights on again, Tailby was forced to
admit that all they knew so far about the circumstances
of Jenny Weston's death was the situation they had found on Ringham Moor, and a bewildering array of items recovered by the SOCOs.

‘
These camp fires — are they recent, sir?' asked some
one.

‘
Some are clearly quite old,' said Tailby. 'A couple of months anyway, dating from the summer, when there
is most activity up there. But others are more recent,
with ash still present — we would expect it to be washed
away into the ground after a few spells of rainfall. But
the Peak Park Rangers for that area tell us there are
often people camping on Ringham Moor, even in
September and October. Right through the middle of winter sometimes. Even in the snow.'

‘
We've got some right little Sir Edmund Hillarys, haven't we?
’

It had to be Todd Weenink who couldn't resist. He
looked as crumpled as the rest, perhaps even more so.
He had almost certainly had more to drink the night before than the average man could take. Casual flip
pancy seemed to seep out of him like sweat from a ripe
Stilton. Cooper watched Tailby's grey eyes warm as he
glanced at Weenink, grateful for the response.

‘
Of course, there's no indication so far that anybody
camping out on the moor is necessarily a suspect for
the attack on our latest victim, or even a witness. However . .
.’
Tailby pinned a photograph to a big cork board. 'By a stroke of luck, we also have this.
’

The photo showed a patch of grey ash, with a few
black sticks of charred wood poking through it. The ash
looked as though it had been roughly brushed over. And there, to one side, was the partial imprint of the sole of a boot or shoe.

‘
It's early days, yet,' said the DCI. 'But we're hopeful
of an identification on the footwear. There's sufficient
impression from the sole to get a match, we think.'

‘
But was it made at the time, sir?'

‘
Ah.' Tailby pointed to a small, dark smudge on the
photograph. 'This is a trace of the victim's blood. The
significant thing about it is that the print was made on
top of the blood stain while it was still fresh.
’

He nodded with some degree of satisfaction. Early forensic evidence was exactly what everyone prayed
for. A boot print that would connect its wearer to the
scene at the time of the offence — what better could they
ask for at such an early stage? Well, a suspect with footwear to compare the boot print to, that's what.

‘
Read the preliminary crime scene report,' said Tailby
.

There was another shuffling of papers. Cooper looked
down at his file. There was a computer-printed list of items retrieved from the area around the Virgins, but it was a long one, difficult to take in. The SOCOs had taken samples of vegetation, including heather, whin-berry, gorse and three types of grass. They had taken sections of bark from the trunks of the birches where
they had been cut by a knife or splashed with an
unknown substance. They had brought in stones, half-
bricks, bags of ash and cinders, sheets of corrugated
iron, a small metal grille like a fire grate, a burnt corner
of the
Sheffield Star
where half a dozen screwed-up
pages had been used to help light a fire, a British Midland Airways refresher tissue wrapper, a whole pile of
aluminium ring-pulls, several cigarette butts, a Findus
crispy pancake packet, and a selection of used condoms
.

The forensic team had covered a wide area — all of
the clearing around the stones, right into the birches
and as far as the fence around the edge of the quarry.
The SOCOs must have balked at the view to the east,
towards the edge of the plateau. Cooper could remem
ber a sea of bracken — damp, endless acres of it, stretch
ing to the Hammond Tower and beyond, flowing over the edge of the cliff, dense and almost impenetrable.
Beyond the bracken was a low wire fence with wooden
posts, then beyond it a precipitous drop. From there,
an object would plummet a thousand feet into the trees
that grew at acute angles on the lower edges of the slope into the dale
.

Scrapings had been taken from a pool of white wax that had solidified in the hollow of a rotten tree, while
digging in what at first appeared to be a rubbish hole
turned up the bones of an animal. There were latent prints collected from the handlebars, saddle, front
wheel and crossbar of the Dawes Kokomo Jenny Weston
had been riding, and more samples of blood had been
scraped from the frame of the bike.

‘
We think the names on the stones are just old graffiti.
The inscription scraped on the ground is more recent.
It looks like "STRIDE". If it means anything at all to anybody, speak up.
’

Nobody spoke. They were looking at two more photographs on the board behind Tailby. There were two women, alive and smiling at the camera, though the one on the left looked guarded, maybe a little bit
haughty, as if the photographer were taking a liberty
getting her in the shot.

‘
Are we looking at the same assailant in both cases?'
said Tailby. 'Someone who was practising, as it were, on the earlier victim, Maggie Crew? Are we looking at
someone who has succeeded in perfecting his technique
with Jenny Weston?
’

It was a very strange idea of perfection. Ben Cooper
looked to see whether the other officers were reacting
the same way. But most of them showed no surprise at
the irony of the thought. Then something made him
glance towards the far side of the room. Leaning casu
ally against a desk was Diane Fry. She'd had her fair
hair cut even shorter, and it gave an angular look to
her lean face. He was sure she had lost weight, too. She
had been slim before, but now there was a suggestion
of something taut and thinly-stretched.

‘
Don't let ideas like that distract you,' said Tailby.
'We are treating this incident as an entirely separate
enquiry, until the evidence proves otherwise. At this
stage, we're concentrating on collecting information. All
right?
’

His audience seemed to take this as a cue to start shuffling their papers again, looking for what information there already was. Cooper dragged his eyes away from Fry and did the same. At this stage, the information was pretty thin. Forensics results were
awaited. Initial witness reports were sparse. True, they
had details of Jenny Weston — who she was, where she lived, what she had done for a living. The minute details
of her life were starting to emerge. But there was noth
ing to show what had made her go cycling on Ringham
Moor on an early November afternoon, and why she had ended up dead among the Nine Virgins.

‘
Somebody must have seen Jenny before she was
killed. Maybe, just maybe, somebody also saw her killer.
So have we got any leads so far? Paul?
’

DI Hitchens stood up, straightening his jacket, look
ing much smarter this morning in his dark grey suit.

‘
We're looking at the likelihood that the killer arrived
at Ringham Moor by car,' he said. 'We've already visited
the houses close to the parking places on the edges of
the moor, and we've collected a list of vehicles that were
noticed around the time of the incident. It goes without
saying that the vast majority of those vehicles will be
totally impossible to trace. We're lucky, though. If it
had been the height of summer, it would be a lot worse.
’

There were sighs and nods. It was a problem nobody in E Division needed telling about. The number of cars
from out of the area greatly outnumbered the locally
registered ones, especially in summer. Many of the Peak
District's twenty-five million visitors a year drove
through Edendale and its surrounding villages at some
time. Most were just passing through and were no dif
ferent from a million other tourist cars. Nobody took any notice of them individually — they were just an anonymous mass, a crawling stream of red and blue insects covering the roads and car parks like insects swarming in the August heat. They were a naturally occurring phenomenon, like greenfly
.

Visitors and their cars brought their own kind of
problems for crime management. The mention of them
reminded Ben Cooper that, right now, he should have
been in the Crime Strategy Meeting.

‘
We need to trace Jenny Weston's movements exactly,
particularly in the last couple of hours before she died.
DCs Cooper and Weenink will start with the cycle hire
centre at Partridge Cross this morning,' said Tailby
.

Weenink sat just behind Cooper in the incident room.
He had a seat against the wall, his shoulders almost
making a dent in the plaster. He looked as though he
wanted to put his feet up on the table, but was resist
ing the temptation. There were only five officers in
the Edendale section CID now, a closer-knit grouping since the recent reorganization. Cooper hadn't known
Weenink so well before. He had the sneaking feeling
that there was no one in the division who envied him
.

For a while, Cooper had been convinced that his fall
from popularity had only one cause — the arrival in E
Division of Diane Fry, on a transfer from West Mid
lands. She was ambitious; some might say ruthless. Her
arrival had coincided with the moment things had
started to go wrong for Cooper, when his hopes of pro
motion had been set back in favour of hers. Fry seemed
not to have put a foot wrong so far. There were people
who made all the right moves without trying; and there
were others who followed their own instinct wherever
it might take them, and ended up in the mire. Cooper blamed himself for being naive with Diane Fry. It took
time to earn trust
.

Probably his father would have been able to tell him
that. His father had seen everything there was to be
known about office politics and in-fighting inside the
police service. He had managed to steer clear of all that;
he had never fallen victim to backstabbing from his
colleagues. It had been the street that had killed him,
in the end.

‘
There are a number of names and addresses on the
list for interview this morning,' said Hitchens. 'Colleagues, friends, neighbours. We expect the list to
increase as the day goes on. There have been several
boyfriends, according to the father. They all have to be
traced. Fortunately, we have the victim's own address
book from her house. And, of course, there is the
ex-husband. We need to dig out the details of Jenny Weston's life. Narrow those names down. Give us something to go on.'

‘
Hey, Ben,' said Weenink when the meeting broke
up. 'This tracing her route business — are they saying
we've got to go by bike?'

‘
Of course not,' said Cooper.

‘
Thank God for that.'

‘
We'll walk.
’

*

DI Hitchens touched Diane Fry's arm and kept her back
while the others left the incident room. DCI Tailby
looked at them both thoughtfully. Fry knew she must
have had his backing to get the move up to Acting Detective Sergeant, but she wasn't quite sure how to
read him yet. She was more comfortable working with
either Hitchens or DI Armstrong, both of whom she felt
she understood.

‘
The ex-husband, Martin Stafford . . .' said Tailby.
'Do we have an address?' asked Fry.

‘
No, but we should be able to track him down through
his employment record. He was a journalist, at least
while he was married to Jenny Weston. I've asked for
somebody to visit his old employers in Derby to look
at his personnel records. With luck, they should have a note of any reference they gave him when he moved
on. He may be completely out of the area by now, of course. Journalists move around quite a bit.'

‘
What about a current boyfriend?'

‘
Nobody seems sure who the latest one was, Diane,' said Hitchens. 'There are one or two of the girls at the
call centre that she talked to about boyfriends sometimes. But they were very vague. Obviously, we're
going through the address book. But she used phone
numbers, not addresses. Results might take a little time.
’

‘
I see.'

‘
We do have this note.' Hitchens held up an evidence bag. 'One of the team found it in the back of her diary.
’

‘
What is it?' said Tailby. 'A love letter?'

‘
Hardly a letter. It's only two lines. And there's no evidence love was involved either. The note reads: "Nine o'clock Friday at the cottage. Buy some fruit-flavoured ones."
‘

Tailby stared at him. Fry remembered that the DCI
was a lay preacher at a United Reformed Church in Dronfield.

‘
We believe it's a reference to contraceptives, sir,' said
Hitchens.

‘
Yes?'

‘
Condoms. We think it's a fair assumption that the
note is from a boyfriend. There's no date, and it's unsigned. But it looks fairly recent. Otherwise, why would it still be in her diary?'

‘
Good point.' Tailby put down the reports and took
off his glasses.

‘
I take it you are to remain as SIO, sir?' asked Hitchens.

‘
Detective Superintendent Prince is tied up with this
case in Derby, the double shooting,' said Tailby. 'A
drugs territory dispute. We're getting some stick about
it down there, apparently.'

‘
Yes.'

‘
It means Mr Prince can only keep a watching brief
on this case, I'm afraid. But he thinks we've got a good
start.'

‘
Possibly,' said Hitchens. 'But there is speculation about the other attack.
’

Tailby shook his head. 'They smell different to me. This Jenny Weston sounds like a woman who got
involved with the wrong sort of chap. It's an old story.
You'll see.
’