Dancing With the Virgins (49 page)

*

Todd Weenink was going to the cattle market, too. He
wasn't making any preparations, though, except to eat
a quick sandwich. Bits of tomato had slipped out of the
bread and dropped on to his desk. Ben Cooper tapped
him on the shoulder and signalled with his eyes. Neither
of them spoke until they were in the corridor.

‘What's up, Ben?'

‘
Come across the road. We're going for a coffee.
’

‘
What if I don't want one?’

Weenink tried to slow down, but Cooper gripped his
elbow and kept moving. 'You're coming anyway,' he said.

‘
Ben, you're getting a bit forceful all of a sudden. I'm
not sure I like it, mate.'

‘We've got some talking to do.'

‘Oh, Christ. Do you never get sick of talking?’

May's Cafe was off West Street, in a lane running
steeply downhill to the Clappergate shopping centre. It
was comfortable, without being too appealing to the
tourists. A sign in the window said 'Ristorante Italiano',
but it was hand-painted in a bit of white gloss left over
from when the kitchen walls were last redecorated, and
it didn't look very convincing.

Cooper had been coming to May's for years. He
remembered the sign in the window first being painted
— it was just after May and her boyfriend, Frank, had
come back from a fortnight's holiday in Rome. In that
fortnight, May had discovered pasta. She arrived back
in Edendale full of stories of the most wonderful fettuc
cine and funghini. A whole range of pasta dishes had
made an appearance on the menu, scrawled in blue ballpoint that had faded with time. Now you could
search for Italian influences and find only a word that
might have been 'tagliatelle' written sideways in the
margin next to the steak and chips. But if you wanted
to be in May's good books, you could still ask for pasta.
There was only a middle-aged couple in the cafe,
drinking tea silently at a table near the counter. The woman had plastic carrier bags full of groceries from
Somerfield's; the man had a blank look, as if he wished
he were far away. They stared briefly at the detectives,
then looked away, embarrassed to be noticed.

Cooper ordered a couple of coffees — black and strong,
the way May always made it.

‘That bit of trouble of yours, Todd . . .' he said.

‘I'd prefer it if you'd just keep your mouth shut,
mate,' said Weenink. 'It's an old story anyway. You've
heard it all before.'

‘Did you fit somebody up?'

‘Just helped things along, Ben. Some would say it doesn't matter if the suspect is guilty. We can't have
them getting away on some technicality, can we? You
know what the courts are like — not to mention the bloody Criminal Preservation Society. You can see when a bloke is gearing up for a spell in Derby. So what's the problem?’

May herself was behind the counter. She was a big
woman, well into her fifties, with a face permanently
pink from the heat of the kitchen and large, widespread
breasts like upturned soup tureens that had been
pushed down the front of her blue apron. Her hair was
dyed a pale strawy colour today that reminded Cooper
of something.

‘Todd, there are people round here who have it in for you. They'd take any chance . .

Weenink threw out his arms. 'Oh, tell me about it.
That's why you need your friends to stand by you. Of
course, I'm relying on you to keep this to yourself, Ben.

As long as we stick together, they haven't got anything.
’

‘
But why do it, Todd?'

‘
Why? Can't you see they're all laughing at us? I even
got bollocked for abusing a prisoner the other week. I
called him a Scotch pillock and got my arse chewed off
by the Super for racism. But he
was
a Scotch pillock, Ben.'

‘I know it's difficult.'

‘Difficult? Have you seen the guidelines for interviews? Confrontation and intimidation are out. Exag
gerating the evidence, emphasizing the seriousness of
the crime. All out. What a load of crap. What do they
think we are? A bunch of nannies?'

‘It's only being realistic. A confession obtained like that will get thrown out by the court.'

‘Yeah, great. So we have to say, "Don't worry, it's nothing serious, and we've hardly got anything on you, anyway." That'll make them confess, all right. I can see them rolling over on their backs and spilling
their guts to help me out, just because I'm a really nice
man.'

‘I think you're over-reacting.'

‘No kidding? You were never one for over-reacting,
were you, Ben? Take the shit and don't complain, eh?
Well, that's a good boy. The management will love you.
Maybe you'll still be here putting in your thirty years
for your pension when the rest of us have got out to start
earning a clean living. Maybe you'll still be stacking
up the paperwork and processing the same old scum-
bags in and out of the custody suite while we're all
working as security guards in Woolworth's or as private
enquiry agents for that Eden Valley firm, doing nice
little divorce cases. That's if you last that long. But my
bet is they'll get to
you
in the end, too. Even you, Ben.’

Cooper found himself staring at May's hair. She smiled, and flushed a deeper pink. Her boyfriend,
Frank, stuck his head round the kitchen door and eyed
her suspiciously. He was wiry and black-haired, with
a moustache and a dark stubble. He looked typically
Italian, but he was a scrap merchant from Macclesfield.

‘
I know which case it was,' said Cooper.

‘
OK,' said Weenink. 'So you figured it out. Go to the
top of the class. Yes, it was the break-in at that little
retirement cottage at Ashford. The Westons' place.'

‘Wayne Sugden.'

‘
Sorting Sugden out was easy,' said Weenink. 'There
were some cotton fibres from an armchair that were the
clincher. I sat in the chair myself when I went round to the cottage, and I noticed how easy the fibres came off.
I had an informant who agreed he might have seen
Sugden - and bingo. And he had a handy little motive,
too - that business of old Weston's with the nephew.’

Cooper could hear the tea hissing in the urn and the
wet rattle of Frank clearing his throat in the kitchen.
May was humming behind the counter, the same snatch
of
'Nessun Dorma'
over and over again. He looked at
Todd Weenink, but Weenink stared out of the window,
as if his attention had been taken by a passing lorry.
Cooper knew that his colleagues weren't angels. Every
one of them was human, prone to emotions and acts of
folly. He had known officers driven to the most appal
ling stupidities by anger or fear, or by some desperation
in their lives that undermined their self-control. But this
was too cold, too calculated.

‘If they're guilty, Ben,' said Weenink, 'what does it matter?’

Cooper knew why it mattered. It mattered because the likes of Wayne Sugden were likely to focus their grievances not on the police, but on the people who
testified against them. In this case, Sugden's grievance
had focused on the key-holder for that cottage at Ash
ford, who had listed the damage that Wayne said he
had never done. If he needed a motive after the death
of his nephew, Sugden's resentment would have had
an obvious target.

‘And Jenny Weston?' he said. 'How did she come into it?'

‘
The fact is, I fancied Jenny something rotten right
from the start, as soon as I clapped eyes on her at that
cottage. I thought I'd be all right there. But she seemed
to need a bit of encouragement, you know. She was a
bit uptight about the burglary, about what her parents
would say when they got back. She kept on about it
ruining their holiday, so I reckoned what she needed
was reassurance. A quick arrest.' Weenink winked. 'A
hero on a white horse. It works a treat.'

‘How long did that last?'

‘
Last? It never lasts. We had a few nights, that was
all. We used the cottage, so her neighbours at Totley
didn't see me. It was a bit of fun. She wasn't interested
in anything else.'

‘
In this day and age, don't you know any better?' said Cooper.

Weenink scowled. 'You're not going to lecture me about AIDS and all that stuff, are you? You only live
once, mate, and you've to take it when you can get
it. If I die young, so what? Nobody will exactly be
breaking their hearts, and at least I'll have had a good
time.'

‘
So you didn't see Jenny Weston after that?'

‘
No, I didn't. Like I said, it was just a quick in and
out for her. Scratching an itch. She was quite honest about it. Besides . . . well, she wasn't entirely walking
the line, you know.'

‘
What?'

‘
She wasn't a hundred per cent kosher. She had a leg
either side of the fence. She swung both ways, Ben.'

‘
Todd, are you telling me Jenny Weston was bisexual?'

‘
That's what they call it when you've been to college,
I guess.'

‘Are you absolutely sure?’

Weenink stared at the muddy remains of his coffee.
'To tell the truth, I reckon she was bored with blokes
already by then. Doing it with me, it was kind of a last
try sort of thing. "Never done it with a copper before
— it might be different." I was a bit surprised at first; I thought she was good for a few more nights. But then
I realized why she had dumped me so quick — it was
because she'd already got herself a girlfriend. That was
a bit of a blow to the old pride for a while, I must admit.’

Cooper stared at Weenink. 'How do you know that?
’

‘
Ben, I made it my business to know.'

‘Do you mean to say that Ros Daniels was Jenny's lover after all?'

‘
I never heard Jenny mention her. But it's pretty damn
certain, I reckon.'

‘Todd, you've got to say something.'

‘
You must be joking. My mouth is shut tight.'
Weenink turned his stare on Cooper. But for once
there was something missing in the stare; there was a
shadow in his eyes, a doubt that dissipated the menace and exposed a naked appeal that contradicted the tone
of his voice.

‘
And what about you, Ben?' he said. 'Going to throw
me to the lions, or what?’

Cooper's eyes were drawn back to May. She straight
ened her dress and patted that strange, pale hair whose
colour he couldn't name. Frank had emerged from the
kitchen and was wiping a knife on his apron as he
studied the two police officers. Cooper knew he would have to report what had been said. Surely Todd Ween
ink would understand that. But where did that leave
the concept of loyalty to a colleague? Or the reluctance
in his heart to see one more person destroyed?
In a flash of insight, he had the answer. May's hair
was the colour of pasta.

*

Back at the station, Ben Cooper managed to find Diane
Fry in the CID room.

‘
Some proper arrests at last, then,' said Fry, rubbing
her hands. 'We should have done it before.'

‘Diane, have you looked at the file on the burglary at the Westons' cottage?'

‘Of course. It was a fairly routine case.’

Cooper knew she was right. The crime report was
adequate, nothing startling, though it had generated the
usual morass of paperwork. It wasn't surprising that
senior officers couldn't be bothered wading through it all. The important thing was that the enquiry had
been successful, and a conviction had resulted. Wayne
Sugden had a record of similar offences, and even the
Edendale magistrates had finally lost patience and
given him a twelve-month sentence. The difference was
that Sugden had pleaded not guilty to this one.

‘
The evidence was fairly conclusive,' said Fry. 'Even
the CPS were perfectly happy with the case. He had
the video recorder in his possession at his flat. That was
careless.'

‘He claimed he'd bought it in a pub car park,' said
Cooper, his memory of the details perfectly clear. 'He
seemed to expect a receiving charge. He still insists he
didn't nick the video himself.'

‘
Videos are among his favourite items, according to his PNC record. And cotton fibres found on his jacket
matched the cover of an armchair in the cottage.’

Cooper noticed that Fry's recollection of the details
was good, too, though it was much longer since she had seen the file.

‘The video was on a stand next to one of the armchairs in the Weston house,' she said. 'The evidence
indicated that Sugden had sat or kneeled on the chair,
presumably while disconnecting the video from the telly.'

‘
But all the other stuff ?' asked Cooper. 'The cash and
jewellery that was taken. None of that was ever found.
Sugden couldn't account for it. And then there's the
damage. The broken furniture, the smashed pictures,
the Tabasco sauce on the carpets. You'd think he'd have
got some Tabasco on his shoes, at least.’

Fry shrugged. 'You can't have everything. He was a
bit lucky. But the fibres were enough to establish his
presence in the house.'

‘
Of course. But now Sugden has been out of prison
for three weeks.'

‘
I know you think he might have had a grudge against
Jenny Weston. But surely
she
should have a grudge against
him,
not the other way round?'

‘
Some of these people don't think logically. If he had
a really bad time in prison, he might blame her for it,
in his own way. We've known stranger things.'

‘It's possible, I suppose.' But Fry sounded unconvinced. 'Wayne Sugden is a petty thief. He doesn't sound like a killer to me.'

‘It depends what happened to him at Derby. It
depends on who he's been mixing with. They go in as
petty villains and they come out like Reggie Kray. It's
called rehabilitation.’

Fry stared at the file in Cooper's hands as if she was hardly listening. 'Remind me — how did we manage to
get a search warrant in the first place?'

‘
The investigating officer had a tip-off,' said Cooper.
'A reliable source who placed Sugden in the vicinity of
the Weston house and acting suspiciously.'

‘
This was someone who knew Sugden by sight?
’

‘
Apparently.'

‘
The usual, I suppose. Some pal he'd fallen out with,
who decided to get his own back.'

‘
Why do we trust the information we get from these
people?'

‘
Because they're often right,' said Fry. 'This one was.
The search turned up the video recorder. He was guilty,
Ben.’

Cooper put down the file, dispirited by the echo of Todd Weenink's words.

‘
I wanted to ask you about Maggie Crew,' he said.
Fry frowned. 'What about her?'

‘
How badly damaged is she? Psychologically, I
mean.'

‘It's not for me to say. The psychiatric reports say she's recoverable.'

‘But what are the long-term effects of the trauma?
Would she be able to make an identification if we pro
duced a suspect?'

‘That's what we're all hoping, isn't it?'

‘
You're getting to know her pretty well, aren't you?'
Fry pulled on her jacket. 'Not as well as I thought.
’

‘
Why?' Cooper was surprised. 'What's the problem?
Are there things she isn't telling you?'

‘Aren't there always?'

‘Something in particular?' he insisted.

Fry sighed. 'Well, I spoke to her sister in Ireland. The
sister mentioned that Maggie had a child, when she was
a law student. She had it adopted. But Maggie never
told me that.'

‘I see.'

‘
All that time I spent telling her about Jenny Weston.
I tried to make Jenny real to her. And all the rest of it . well, I gave it my best shot. But Maggie was never
giving me anything in return. Not really.’

Fry adjusted the scabbard for her ASP, sliding it
further round the back of her belt, patting her jacket to make sure it wasn't too obtrusive. She never seemed to
go anywhere without her baton any more.

Cooper watched her tighten her belt a notch over her
hips to make it more secure. Fry had changed over the
last couple of weeks. She had always been
a
woman
with secrets, he knew that. But before, she had been all
hard shell on the surface, rejecting any contact. Now,
though, there was a faint whisper of a softening in her
manner, as though a small breach had been opened up.
Cooper didn't know how or why it had happened, but
he prayed he was right, that he could get through to the sharp brain behind her barricades of hostility.

‘
Are you not coming to the cattle market this morn
ing?' asked Fry.

‘No. I've got an interview to do. Some youth called
Gary Dawson, who's suddenly remembered that he was
on Ringham Moor the day Jenny Weston was killed. There's just an off-chance he might have seen something. Then I've got a couple of other things to do.’

Fry was already heading for the doorway when she
stopped and turned. 'OK, Ben – what are you up to?'

‘
Nothing.'

‘
Do you realize I can see straight through you?'
Cooper shuffled uncomfortably.

‘
Who are you trying to protect now, Ben? What lost
cause have you taken to your bleeding heart?'

‘I don't know what you mean.’

She watched him suspiciously. 'Let me give you a
word of advice. Be careful who you associate with, Ben.
It could affect your future in a major way.'

‘What are you talking about?’

Fry came closer. 'Your friend, Detective Constable Weenink, that's what.'

‘Todd?'

‘
I've been picking up a few things, and from what
I hear, Weenink could be in big trouble. And if you
don't watch out, Ben, he's going to take
you
down with
him.'

‘He's all right, Todd, really.'

‘All right? Are you kidding? We all know his brain drops into his testicles every time something female walks past, for a start.’

Cooper laughed. It was the wrong thing to do. Fry took him by the forearm. Her grip was painful, and very quickly his hand began to go numb.

‘
Are you involved in something with Weenink, Ben?
Tell me.'

‘Of course not.'

‘
You're lying. What's more, you're a pathetically bad
liar. You're the worst bloody liar in the police service,
and that's saying something. What have you done?'

‘Nothing.'

‘I see,' said Fry. Cooper tried not to give her the
satisfaction of showing that she was hurting him. 'But
there's something going on. I know there is. Maybe you haven't done anything yourself. But you're so bloody naive, you'll get yourself dragged in, andthat'll be the end of you. Have you been covering up for him?’

Cooper said nothing.

‘
Oh yes, you're really one of the lads these days, aren't
you, Ben? The loyal colleague.'

‘If somebody needs support —’

Fry snarled at him. 'Support? You bloody idiot! For
a prat like Weenink!’

Cooper's eyes were watering from the pain in his arm.

'If you're up to something, Ben,' said Fry, 'I'll have your balls for clothes pegs and string 'em up on the same line as your pal Weenink's. If you'll take my advice, you'll bury him. Good and deep.'

‘
OK, OK,' he said. But Fry kept her grip. 'But there's
one thing, Diane.'

‘What now?'

‘
Take a look at the Sugden file again. Do you remem
ber who his defence solicitors were? Quigley, Coleman
& Crew.’

Fry's grip tightened even more. 'You're suggesting that Maggie Crew was his solicitor?'

‘
No, it was one of the firm's juniors who represented
him in court. But don't you think she might have met
him? Don't you think she would be able to identify him? Do you think she might even have known who Jenny Weston was?'

‘Rubbish.’

Cooper rubbed his arm as Fry stalked off. If he had been hesitating over what to do about Todd Weenink,
now he had been pushed into a corner. Cooper could
report what Weenink had told him. But now, if he did,
it would be just one more victory for Diane Fry.