Dancing With the Virgins (51 page)

*

Diane Fry watched Todd Weenink make his way
round the edge of the building, looking for their car.
DI Hitchens rolled down the window to speak to him.

‘There's not much we can do,' said Hitchens, 'if the
women don't seem to be committing any offence. They
could just be here for the auction, like anybody else. They do let spectators in, apparently.'

‘But they're not even trying to go inside,' said
Weenink. 'The town centre PC has spoken to them, but
they say they're just looking at the animals.’

Fry leaned across. 'What do you think their intentions
are, sir?'

‘No idea,' said Hitchens. 'All we can do is keep an eye on them.'

‘They're going to be in the way,' said Weenink. 'Do you want to call it off ?'

‘Oh no,' said Hitchens. 'We can't do that. We need an arrest.'

‘There is one thing,' said Weenink. He looked at
Diane Fry in the passenger seat. 'One of the women is
known to us.'

‘You recognized her?’

Fry felt a cold sensation. There was an awful inevitability about what Weenink was going to say. He was
looking at her when he spoke again, not at the DI.

‘
It's that woman who was attacked the first time. The
one who had her face cut.'

‘You mean Maggie,' said Fry.

‘
Yes, her,' said Weenink. 'Maggie Crew is with them.’

*

As Ben Cooper walked through the door of the CID
room, the phone was already ringing. It was Cheshire
Police at last.

‘
Your people are back,' said the DC in Wilmslow. `Mr
and Mrs Daniels. They had booked a midweek flight to
Ringway, so that was lucky. They've been to Hawaii,
had a great time and they've got wonderful suntans. It
makes me sick.'

‘
When can they come to make an identification?
’

‘
They're on their way. They'll be with you in a couple
of hours.'

'Have they said anything?'

‘Mainly "Aloha" and "Book him, Danno." ‘

The Cheshire DC sounded much too cheerful for
Cooper's liking. Policing must be very different in the
affluent towns on the plains between the Pennines and
Wales to make him so happy in his work.

‘
What about their daughter? Did you ask them when
they saw her last?'

‘Yes, but it was months ago. They're upset about
what's happened to her, but not too surprised, it seems
to me. They never expected her to come back home
when she left. Rosalind said as much to them, in fact.
She said she had things she wanted to do with her life, which didn't involve them. She also said she was going
off to find her real mother.’

Cooper frowned. He thought the DC was making another joke. 'Sorry? What was that?'

‘She's not the Daniels' real daughter, apparently.
They adopted Rosalind nineteen years ago. Brought her
up as their own and all that. But they finally told her
she was adopted when she came of age. And, far from
showing any gratitude, she seemed to resent them for
it, according to Mrs D. It seems Rosalind decided to opt out of the respectable life they had planned for her and
got into bad company. She got involved in all sorts of
causes, but animal rights was her latest big thing. She'd
been in trouble a few times already for her part in some demos that went too far. Direct action, they call it. Tres
pass, criminal damage – you know the sort of thing. Like
Mrs Daniels says herself, "Blood will out." I thought that
was rather an unfortunate turn of phrase myself.'

‘
So Ros Daniels was looking for her real mother?
’

‘
That's right. What do you think, mate? Do you
reckon she ever found her? It would be something at
least, before she got killed.’

*

The women had gathered in the corner of the cattle
market car park. They huddled together in a tight circle
of anoraks, bending towards each other conspiratorially, with glances towards the buildings behind them and at the PC waiting by the offices.

For a few minutes, Maggie Crew stood to one side, a
little outside the circle, hesitating, as if unsure whether
she was part of the group or not. But then the women
parted and let her in, and immediately she was absorbed
and became one of their number. Under the cover of coats
and shoulder bags, there was a surreptitious glint of
steel. And Maggie found herself in possession of a knife.

*

Diane Fry stood with Todd Weenink below the seating
of the store ring, where they could see the group in the
car park from the shadows. Fry took Maggie's presence as a personal insult. It was as if the woman were taunt
ing her.

‘It's her, all right,' she said.

‘
You can't make a mistake with a face like that,' said
Weenink.

‘What the hell is she up to?'

‘Is she a member of this animal rights group?'

‘
Not that I know of. If she is, it's another thing she
never told me.'

‘
Here comes Slasher, anyway,' said Weenink. 'TheDI wants to do it now, before the women cause any complications. You know, like women do.’

Teasdale was herding a group of brown heifers from
the outdoor pens towards the auction ring, swishing
his stick from side to side as they clattered against the
steel gates. Fry waited for Teasdale to look up. Then she
saw him glance towards the women and see Maggie. He
winced, half-closing his eyes at the sight of her scars,
stared for a moment, then went back to his job. No recognition.

As Teasdale walked past them towards the ring, he
twitched his stick against the haunches of a lumbering
heifer. He grinned up at the police officers, showing a
double gap in his teeth. Watching Fry, he gave the ani
mal an extra slap between its back legs, and it broke
into a frightened trot.

Fry looked at Maggie. She was frowning at the treat
ment of the animal, but showed no sign of recognizing
Teasdale. DI Hitchens was already waiting for Fry near
the ring, and she turned towards him to help make the
arrest.

*

Ben Cooper ran down to the control room. He needed
to get the information through to DI Hitchens and Diane
Fry as soon as possible. There were too many coinci
dences stacking up. How was it that Daniels had been
killed at about the same time and in the same place that
Maggie had been injured? And Jenny Weston, whom
Daniels had lived with for a short while? Was it really
Maggie who had been waiting to meet Jenny on the moor?
Before he could do anything, Cooper became aware that the control room sergeant was already taking an
urgent call from Edendale cattle market.

*

Suddenly, the group of women had begun to surge
forward. They surrounded a cattle transporter in which
two large dogs were occupying the cab — an Alsatian
and a Rottweiler. The dogs began to leap around on
the seats, bouncing off the half-open windows and set
ting up a loud, furious barking as the women crowded
round the lorry.

‘
Remember Ros Daniels!' one woman shouted.
'She didn't die for nothing!’

Weenink signalled to the PC and they moved towards
the women to intercept them. But Diane Fry was watch
ing Maggie, startled by the transformation in her
manner. Maggie stood transfixed as the officers moved
in. She had tilted her head to one side to listen to
something, and her nostrils flared as if at a distinctive smell. Her whole body had changed; she straightened
and stood to her full height. Her eyes widened in astonishment.

Just before the broad shoulders of DC Weenink moved in front of her, Fry saw Maggie's expression
change again. Shock was followed by fear, then anger.
Her mouth opened in a scream of rage.

Then there was a confused melee, a mass of suddenly
struggling bodies, shouting and shrieking. Fry couldn't
see what was happening, and she could tell that the women and the police officers didn't know what was
going on either. There were just a lot of bodies near to
each other, barging, stumbling and staggering, like cattle herded too close together.

Then a gap appeared and Maggie was standing in
the middle of it, with a knife in her hand. A trickle of
blood ran down the blade to the hilt and dripped on to
her finger. But Maggie didn't notice it. She looked as
though her mind was far away from the cattle market,
maybe somewhere up on Ringham Moor on a night
she had almost wiped from her memory. She seemed
oblivious to the stunned crowd close around her,
unaware of the noise of screaming women and barking
dogs. Unaware of the body of DC Todd Weenink, lying
on the concrete at her feet.

36

The voice on the radio was becoming incoherent as it
called on Control for an ambulance and back-up.
It requested officers with protective equipment, dog
handlers, and a public order team for a violent person
arrest.

Ben Cooper leaned in towards the control room sergeant.

‘Who is it?' he said.

‘Please confirm the identity of the female suspect,' said the sergeant.

‘The woman's name is Maggie Crew.'

‘OK, support is on its way.'

‘
The suspect is armed, Control. We need an ARV.'

'Understood.’

Cooper and the sergeant looked at each other. There
was no Armed Response Vehicle anywhere in E Division. The nearest would be patrolling the Ml in the Chesterfield area, nearly half an hour away. Cooper knew it could be too late.

‘Sarge, remind the Duty Inspector that I'm an approved firearms officer,' he said.

*

Diane Fry had followed Maggie Crew as far as a long,
narrow passage between the two sale rings. On one side were rows of steel pens packed with nervous
calves; on the other side, a breeze-block wall was lined
with plastic barrels of some dark liquid, stored for a later sale.

Maggie stopped and stared at her. 'Well, you've done
it in the end, Diane. Congratulations. You got under my skin, like a parasite I couldn't get rid of.'

‘
This is madness, Maggie. Put the knife down.'
Fry's voice faltered as Maggie's expression hit her like a bucket of freezing water. Though the sun that
reached them through the high windows was weak and
cold, its light was enough to change Maggie's face. It
clearly picked out the ragged edges of the scar tissue
that ran across her cheek and into her hairline. The scar
had flared angrily, marking her face like a fresh brand.
Suddenly, Fry realized she was trapped in the narrow
passage. They were alone among the rusted iron gates
and the nervous cattle.

The knife in Maggie's hand had a bright steel blade
and a black hilt. Fry could see every detail of it - the
markings on the handle, the narrow groove to channel
the blood. Maggie held the knife out towards her, as if
offering a treat for her to share.

‘
We were going to use them to slash their tyres,' she
said. She smiled then - the first time that Fry had seen
Maggie smile properl
^y
But the corner of her damaged
eye puckered and twisted her smile into a dreadful, ironic wink. 'Ros would have been pleased.'

‘Do you mean Ros Daniels?'

‘Yes, Ros,' said Maggie. 'You knew about Jenny Weston too.’

Her grip tightened on the knife. Fry tensed, and her hand began to creep towards her scabbard, where the
solid weight of her ASP sat, the foam grip protruding
slightly, ready for her fingers to grasp.

‘When I was talking about Jenny Weston, it was
because I wanted to make her a real person to you,' she
said. 'Not just another victim.'

‘Oh, Jenny Weston
was
a real person to me,' said Maggie. 'But there was one thing you didn't tell me about her. Was she my daughter's lover?'

‘Your daughter?'

‘Yes — my daughter!’

Maggie's shout reverberated around the tightly
packed pens. The calves shrieked and scattered, crush
ing each other against the furthest corners of their steel
cages. Fry's hand slipped down to her scabbard. The
handle of the ASP dropped into her palm and she
flicked her wrist. With a hiss and a click of the ratchet,
sixteen inches of steel baton suddenly shone in the arti
ficial lights.

‘Stay back.’

Maggie grew calm again immediately. 'Do you think
you need that?' she said. 'You're the great unarmed combat expert, aren't you?'

‘How do you know that?'

‘
Perhaps you're not the only one with a file. The
details of a police officer's history are well recorded.
Everything is available, if you have the right contacts.'
Maggie advanced, and Fry retreated, trying to keep
more than an arm's length between them. Her instruc
tors had always said the same thing — in a knife fight, you first had to accept that you might not avoid getting
cut.

She backed up against a gate and turned too quickly
to keep her balance. She felt her ankle twist and pain
shoot up her leg. Her foot went numb, and for a moment
she lost control of her right leg and had to drag it with
her round the corner of the pen. Maggie kept advancing,
walking steadily, until she had backed Fry beyond the
occupied pens towards the empty fatstock ring, away
from the noise and the crowd. Fry risked a glance over
her shoulder and saw that she was reversing into the
end of the passage. Behind her was the gate into the
ring. She briefly considered taking a stand and relying
on the chance of deflecting the knife with her baton. But realistically, she knew that her best hope was to gain time until support arrived.

In a ceremonial
kata,
with two opponents equally
matched and wary, you had to watch for the opportu
nity, the first opening that would enable a strike. Move
ments became rhythmic and formal, just as they did now. But for Fry, the first opening she allowed could be her last. She had to watch the knife, refuse to be distracted by Maggie's eyes. She had to keep Maggie talking.

‘Maggie, put the knife down.'

‘
You can't tell me anything about memories either,
Diane,' said Maggie. 'I know what memories are. I know
now that Ros is dead.'

‘
But how did she die, Maggie?’

Maggie lashed out suddenly with the knife, a casual
sideways stroke without even looking where she was
aiming. The blade sliced through the side of one of the
plastic barrels as if it had been paper. A sweet, sickly
smell filled the passage.

Fry glanced at the tear in the plastic for only a second
before she recognized the attempt at distraction, and
then she quickly met Maggie's eye again.

Fry remembered her 'CUT' technique. Create dis
tance. Use cover. Transmit and ask for assistance. She
had to watch her assailant's hands; stay alert, state red.
Expect to get cut. She felt behind her with her left hand
for the sliding handle of the door. She pulled it open quickly and slipped through the gap. Maggie feinted
suddenly with the knife, and Fry jumped backwards,
stumbled as her ankle sent another jolt of agony through
her. Now they were in the auction ring itself. They
moved from side to side, back and forth, manoeuvring
for advantage, reluctant to get too close, their move
ments mirroring each other's. Fry began to imagine that
Maggie was mimicking her, dragging one leg as she moved.

The first lights of approaching police vehicles
flickered through the wooden slats in the walls, bounc
ing their colours against the ceiling lights and the pen
sides. They distorted shapes in the auction ring and
created dozens of new shadows that cascaded through
the tiers of seats. It was almost as if there was an entire
crowd up there, waving, stamping their feet, cheering,
ready to give the thumbs down to the defeated.

Fry cursed herself silently. It was always the case
that you weren't wearing your stab-proof vest when
you needed it. The heavy vest hindered her movement,
and she had left it off. Uniformed officers had a side-
handled baton, a much better weapon against a knife attack. An ASP was more easily concealed, but it was
an attacking weapon, not designed for defence against
a knife. If Fry had been in uniform, she would have been better equipped. But now she was aware of the thinness of her jacket, a flimsy layer of fabric that
provided no protection at all from a blade. She felt as
though her chest and abdomen were exposed and
vulnerable. She was also aware of her bare hands, the left held out, palm facing Maggie, the classic defensive
gesture taught in the personal safety handbooks. She
imagined her palm being cut, the tendons of her fingers
severed.

‘
It's so ironic, Diane,' said Maggie. 'Because I think
that you were looking for someone, too. The search can
take you to some strange places, can't it?’

They stared at each other — Maggie cool, Fry becom
ing more angry.

‘
Who is she, Diane?' said Maggie. 'Who is
the woman
you're looking for?'

‘None of your business.’

Fry lunged forward and struck with her ASP at
Maggie's knife hand. But in that moment of anger, she
had made her mistake — she had forgotten her injured
leg. Her knee threw her off balance, enough for Maggie
to jerk her arm out of the way and let the baton hiss
harmlessly past her wrist. Before she could right herself
again, Fry glimpsed a flicker of steel as the knife came
towards her. She closed her eyes just one second before
the point of the blade carved open her skin.