Dancing With the Virgins (2 page)

*

In half an hour, Mark was due to go off duty. Owen
had given him exact instructions for his first solo patrol
- a pass across the face of Ringham and a descent into
the valley on the far side, where the moor turned into
farmland. There he was to take a look at the walls and
stiles and signposts for recent damage, and have a scout
around for the worst of the litter left
_.
by hikers
.

On the way back, he should have a glance at the Nine
Virgins to see that the ancient monument was no more
scarred than usual; have a word, perhaps, with any
campers foolhardy enough to have pitched their tents in
the woods. Mark couldn't imagine why anybody would
want to camp on the moor at any time of the year, let
alone in November. But still they did it. And they were
breaking the law when they did
.

Near the top of the track he noticed a crumpled Coke
can, dropped by some careless visitor. Muttering
angrily, he picked it up and slipped it under the flap
of his rucksack, where it joined a small pile of chocolate
bar wrappers, aluminium ring-pulls and an empty
Marlboro packet and some cigarette ends he had found
near the Hammond Tower, to be disposed of later. Mark
couldn't tolerate the attitude that made people think it
was OK to scatter the environment with litter. They
thought their own convenience was more important
.

If he had his way, Mark would ban these people completely from the national park. He would put tollgates on all the entrance roads and issue passes for
admission. It might come to it one day, too. The park
couldn't cope with the constantly rising numbers
.

There were tyre tracks in the sandy soil here. That meant there had been a mountain biker this way
recently. Mark knew his by-laws; he had read the regu
lations carefully, and he knew what was allowed and
what wasn't. The Peak District National Park Authority
had prosecuted mountain bikers before
.

He smiled in satisfaction, then immediately felt guilty. Owen said the main skills you needed as a
Ranger were tact and diplomacy. Why get into an argu
ment when you could achieve more with a friendly
word of advice? Mark knew he had a lot to learn. Some
times he couldn't find the right things to say to people
who appalled him with their stupidity and their disre
gard for their own safety, the property of others - and,
above all, for the environment and its wildlife. That was
their greatest crime, these people who desecrated the
moors. The last thing they deserved was diplomacy
.

Though it was only two o'clock, it would be starting
to go dark in a couple of hours' time. For a few days now, Mark had noticed that peculiar half-light, like full moonlight, that came at five o'clock in the after
noon, when all the colours seemed to change and glow
for a few minutes before fading into the darkness. The
turning back of the clocks at the end of British Summer
Time always worried the Peak Park Rangers. Walkers
were liable to miscalculate and still be on the hills when
it went dark
.

The afternoon was turning cold, but Mark didn't feel
the chill. The red fleece jacket he wore proudly, with
its silver Peak Park insignia, kept him warm. It was also a reassuring sight for the visitors a Ranger came across
- those who were lost and bewildered, exhausted or
injured, or simply inadequately dressed and too poorly
equipped for walking the moors. The sight of the red jacket was like a friendly beacon. It meant a Ranger approaching
.

*

Jenny Weston had been in the act of smiling when she
died. Her smile had stiffened and shattered, twisting
into a grin of fear as the knife slipped under her
ribs
.

The blade was sharp, tungsten coated, and with a
lethal tip. It slit the cotton of her T-shirt and sliced easily
through her skin and a layer of subcutaneous fat as it
thrust towards her heart. A small patch on the front of
her T-shirt turned red and a single spurt of blood splashed on to the handlebars of the Kokomo
.

As soon as the knife was withdrawn, the wound
closed and ceased to bleed on the outside. Jenny looked
down, astonished, and pressed her hand to the red patch. Inside her ribcage, her heart sac was already
filling with leaking blood; the pressure of it squeezed
her heart and constricted its movement. Then her left lung deflated and a gush of fluids filled the cavity. She
began to feel light-headed; her hands and feet turned numb, and her legs lost the strength to hold her body
upright
.

She made no resistance as she was grasped under
the armpits and dragged across the clearing, with her
heels leaving trails in the sandy soil. As fresh blood
failed to reach her brain and extremities, her skin turned
a dirty white; her legs and belly looked like lumps of boiled fish as they were deliberately exposed to the light
.

The blade of the knife left a red smear where it was
wiped on the grass. From the handlebars of the bike, a
small trickle of blood had run down on to the front
wheel. It dripped slowly from spoke to spoke, already
darkening and thickening in the air, until it was absorbed into the ground
.

By the time her attacker had finished, or not long after, Jenny Weston was dead
.

*

Mark knew it happened sometimes, but it was such a
pointless thing to do. Mindless and irresponsible. Now
and then the Ranger briefings mentioned a bike that
had not been returned to the hire centre. Hirers had to
give proof of their identity and leave a name and
address, as well as a £20 deposit, so it was hardly worth
trying to get away with a mountain bike, considering
how easily you would get caught. But sometimes there
was one who took the bike away with them. Occasion
ally, they simply abandoned it on one of the tracks, in
a car park, or up here on the moor, like this one. None
of it ever made sense to Mark
.

The sight of the Kokomo under the gorse bush angered him unreasonably. Its presence was like a
violation — the evidence of selfish humanity intruding into his world, like children pawing his most precious
possessions with grubby fingers. The bike had been treated as just so much rubbish
.

Then Mark looked more closely. A streak of red had
stained the canary yellow paintwork of the front stem
and left rust-like spots on the spokes. He shivered with
misgiving and fingered the radio in his pocket. Suddenly he wished he hadn't come out alone, after all.
There was no reassuring presence alongside him, no
Owen there to know exactly what to do
.

With a shaking hand, Mark made a note of the colour,
model and number of the bike, crumpling the pages of
his notebook in his haste to get it out of his pocket. The
act of writing made him feel better, more in control, as
if the ink marks on the page had magically brought a
familiar voice from the air: 'Observe, keep a note, report
back.'

‘
Yes, Owen,' whispered Mark
.

Feeling the sweat drying on his forehead and the back
of his neck, he forced himself to walk past the bike
to where the stones were clustered among the spindly birches. Somebody had lit a fire here recently, leaving
scorched earth and a pile of white ash. People were
always lighting fires near the Virgins, as if they thought
the flames might melt their stony hearts. At the mid
summer solstice, there were hundreds of folk up here
at night, and they did a lot more than light fires
.

Mark stopped abruptly as he looked into the circle.
The sensations that came reminded him of the terrors of his puberty, the physical sickness and the guilt. He
tried to concentrate on studying the ground, to look for
evidence of bike tracks or footprints. He tried to think
about casting around for telltale objects that might have
been dropped by someone who had been in the area.
I'm observing, he told himself. I must observe. Be
professional and calm, and don't rush into anything
.

But he couldn't keep up the pretence for long. His
eyes just wouldn't focus on anything else. With shame
ful fascination, Mark found his attention drawn to the centre of the stone circle, where the white shape lay in
such startling, rousing incongruity.

‘
Oh, Jesus.
’

The body of the woman sprawled obscenely among
the stones. Her half-naked torso had been flung on the
rough grass, her arms and legs twisted in provocative gestures. Her right knee was lifted high, to the level of
her waist, and her left leg was stretched taut, as if she
might be about to spring into the air
.

Mark could see every detail of the muscles in her
legs, the tendons rigid under the skin at the top of her
thigh, the faint crinkling of cellulite on her hips. Her
pose was a caricature of life, a cruel parody of flamboy
ance and movement. Her hands were tilted at the wrist,
her toes pointed downwards, and her head nodded to silent music. She was spread against the ground in a
final arabesque, in a fatal pirouette, or the last fling of
an abandoned tango
.

Mark wondered whether to write it down. But it
sounded too strange, and his hand wouldn't write any
more, anyway. Instead, he repeated it to himself, over
and over, in his head. A dead woman dancing. She looked like a dead woman, dancing
.

2

Fifteen miles to the north, in the town of Edendale,
the battle had been going on for an hour and a quarter
already. The police officers in the front line were battered
and breathing hard, their faces swollen with exertion,
and their hair stuck to their foreheads with sweat. One or
two had their shirts ripped. Another had blood trickling
from a cut on his eye
.

Detective Constable Ben Cooper could see his col
league, Todd Weenink, deep in the thick of it. Weenink
had two PCs from the Tactical Support Unit close on either side of him, and there were more men coming
in from behind to assist them. They looked exhausted,
their expressions grim, but determined. They were
struggling against the odds, fighting a battle of contain
ment that they were constantly in danger of losing
.

The students were charging forward in a solid mass,
forcing the police to give ground under the onslaught.
In the melee, close up, anything could be happening —
a poke in the eye, a boot in the crutch, teeth sinking into an ear. The police had not been issued with riot
shields or helmets today; there was no body armour,
no snarling Alsatians or horses to keep the students at
bay. There had been no authority given for the use of
special weapons, no tear gas canisters held nervously
in reserve
.

In addition, the police had to face a ceaseless barrage
of noise — chanted slogans, shouts of abuse and a con
stant stream of profanities from a hostile crowd
.

Cooper pulled his hands out of his jeans pockets and
turned his coat collar up to try to shut out the cacophony. If he could, he would have closed his eyes, too, to
avoid seeing the slaughter, to stop himself from imagin
ing the consequences if the police line collapsed. In
another moment, the day could end in total humiliation
for Derbyshire Constabulary E Division. And not a single arrest made so far.

‘
What are we going to do, Sarge?' he said
.

Detective Sergeant Rennie was an old hand. He had
seen it all before. He rubbed his jowls, pulled his anorak
closer around his shoulders, and winced as a PC went
down and was trampled underfoot.

‘
Conduct a survey,' he said. 'We'll send out a ques
tionnaire.
’

Cooper nodded. 'I suppose so. But it's a bit pathetic,
isn't it?'

‘
We'll make sure there are lots of tick boxes to fill in.
’

‘
Even so
.

Rennie shrugged and sighed. 'It's all we can do, Ben.
Otherwise, we just have to sit back and let it happen.
’

The police formed a wall and turned to face their attackers again. Beyond the opposing lines, Cooper
could see the main buildings of the High Peak College
campus, set on the lower slopes of the hill. They looked
down on Edendale like benign giants, the educational
heights of the Eden Valley
.

He began to search his pockets for a packet of mints
to take the taste of nausea from his mouth. He had a
lot of pockets — in his jeans, in his checked shirt, on the
inside and the outside of his waxed jacket. But all he
found was a scatter of cashpoint receipts, two empty shotgun cartridge cases and half a packet of dog biscuits
.

Cooper knew there was more than just education that
went on in those college buildings on the hill. He had
been there himself, for long enough to collect the A-levels he needed to get into the police service. His fellow students had accused him of being single-
minded, as if his determination made them guilty about
their own pursuit of parties and casual sex. But there
had been a demon driving Ben Cooper that his contem
poraries would never have understood — a jealous God
who would not have tolerated parties
.

Dave Rennie sat back comfortably in his seat and
unscrewed the top of a vacuum flask. He offered Cooper
a plastic cup, which he refused as soon as he got a
whiff of the metallic tang of the coffee. The sergeant's
expression was serious, his forehead creased with anxiety, like a man with a great responsibility on his mind.

‘
You see, if they get rid of the kitchen and sack the
canteen staff, that means they'll put vending machines
in instead,' he said. 'And then what would happen? I
mean, would anybody use them? There's no point in
spending money on vending machines if they don't get
used. It would look bad in the budgets, wasting money
at a time like this.
’

Cooper watched Todd Weenink duck his head and
drive his shoulders forward to meet a wiry-haired youth
who'd been tormenting him all afternoon. There was a thud as their skulls connected and a scuffing as their
feet lashed out
.

The crowd behind Cooper began yelling. Then the police back-pedalled. Officers fell and were trampled as they lay on the ground. But Weenink broke away
and looked around, bemused. His eyes were dazed, as
if he might have taken a knock on the head. Then he
looked up and caught sight of a student running past him, and made an instinctive grab. The student's legs
folded beneath him under the impact of Weenink's sixteen stone, and they both sprawled in the mud, exhausted and gasping
.

Cooper smiled. Quite by chance, it had been the right
student Weenink had flattened. The High Peak College wing-three
quarter happened to be in possession of the
ball, and had been racing for the touchline, within
seconds of scoring the winning try of the match. Even
while the two opposing players were struggling to get
up again from the tackle, the referee blew the final
whistle. The match had been saved: 12-10 to Edendale
Police.

‘
Thank God for that,' said Cooper.

‘
Honour preserved, I suppose,' said Rennie, putting
away his flask.

‘
I don't know about that, Sarge. But our lot always
trash the bar if they lose.
’

Cooper left the touchline and headed for the club
house. In his early days in E Division, they had tried
to recruit him to the rugby team. They had thought he
looked tall and fit enough to be an asset, but had
accused him of lacking ruthlessness in the ruck. Now his
job was to order the jugs of beer for the changing-room
celebrations. Loyalty to your colleagues meant doing such things on a Sunday afternoon, even when you would rather be at home watching videos with your nieces
.

After ten years, Cooper was able to look back on his
days at High Peak College with some nostalgia. His life
had possessed a definite purpose then. Succeeding in
his exams had been his role in life, and joining the police
his destiny. The feeling had stayed with him through his time as a uniformed constable on the beat; it had
followed him as he moved into CID and began to learn
a different way of policing. His progress had been watched every inch of the way, and mostly approved
of. Mostly. The times when he had made mistakes or
expressed doubts were still imprinted in his memory
.

Then, two years ago, everything had changed. With
the violent death of his father, Police Sergeant Joe
Cooper, a prop had been knocked from under him, and
a great weight had been lifted from his back. His guid
ing hand had been taken away, and his life had been
given back to him. But it had already been too late for
Ben Cooper. He had become what his father made him.

‘
So that's why we have to do this Vending Machine
Usage Survey,' said Rennie, pronouncing the capital
letters carefully as he walked at Cooper's shoulder. 'To
get an idea of the possible take-up on the proposed new
refreshment facilities. It's so that somebody in Admin
at HQ can make an informed decision. A decision sup
ported by constructive feedback from the customer base.
’

Cooper could practically see the internal memo that
Rennie was quoting from. The sergeant had coffee soak
ing into his moustache. He was wearing knitted woollen
gloves, for Heaven's sake. He looked like somebody's
granddad on an off-season outing to Blackpool
.

Cooper was conscious that his own thirtieth birthday
was approaching next year. It loomed in the distance
like a summer storm cloud, making him feel his youth
was nearly over before he had got used to being in his twenties. One day, he could be another Dave Rennie.

‘
I think Todd might have got a bit of concussion,
Sarge.'

‘
He always looks like that,' said Rennie.

‘
He got a knock on the head.'

‘
Don't worry – Weenink doesn't let anybody mess with him. He always gets his revenge.
’

Todd Weenink was different, of course. During the
last couple of months Cooper had found himself thrown
together with Weenink in the latest round of restructuring in the division. In these circumstances, the relationship became almost like a marriage. The issue of 'them
and us' became focused on a single individual. But there
were times when you needed another officer at your
side
.

Without the man or woman at your side, you could
find yourself looking the wrong way at the wrong time
.

You had to have a person you could put your trust in. They supported you; and you supported them. Cooper
knew it was a law written in invisible ink on the back
of the warrant card they gave you when you were sworn in as a constable. It was sewn into your first
uniform like an extra seam; it was the page that they
always forgot to print in the Police Training Manual
.

Only a couple of weeks earlier, Weenink had been
the man at his side when they had raided a small-scale
drugs factory in a converted warehouse on the outskirts of Edendale. One of the occupants had produced a pick
axe, but he had been too slow, and they had executed
a takedown between them, with no one injured
.

Cooper reassured himself by thinking of his date with
Helen Milner later on. Within an hour, he would be
out of the rugby club and away. He and Helen hadn't
decided where they would go yet. Probably it would
be a walk to get the noise out of his head, then a drink
or two at the Light House before a meal somewhere. The Light House was where they had gone the very first time they had gone out together. It was hardly
more than two months ago that they had met again at
Helen's grandparents' house in the village of Moorhay
and resumed a relationship that had started when they
were schoolfriends. But their new beginning had not been without difficulties. Nothing ever was
.

The clubhouse corridor smelled of sweat and mud
and disinfectant, with a permanent underlying essence
of embrocation. Dave Rennie helped Cooper carry the
jugs of beer to the players in the visitors' changing room.
Then the sergeant's pager began to bleep.

‘
Oh, God damn it. What now?
’

Cooper watched Rennie go to the phone in the corri
dor. He looked back over his shoulder at the changing-
room door, which swung open with the constant passing to and fro of players and supporters. Todd Weenink was out of the shower, towelling himself in
the middle of a raucous mob, his naked bulk perfectly
at home in a melee of pink male flesh and echoing laughter
.

Weenink already had a beer in front of him. It was
amazing that he could keep up the pace. He had arrived
for the match only at the very last minute, when every
one else was changed and ready to go out on the pitch,
thinking they were going to have to play a man short,
and cursing him for letting them down. No doubt Weenink had been out on the booze the night before
and had woken up in someone else's bed many miles
away, with rugby the last thing on his mind
.

Cooper shook his head at the intrusive thoughts that came to him — the contrast between Weenink's muscu
lar, hairy nakedness and the picture he carried in his
mind of the last colleague he had worked so closely with. Todd's open, up-front, relaxed maleness was a world away from Detective Constable Diane Fry.
Former Detective Constable, he should say. Now Acting
Detective Sergeant
.