Dancing With the Virgins (48 page)

Owen had begun to cry; the tears crawled over his skin like tiny slugs, slow and painful. 'I'm sorry,' he said. 'I'm just glad she isn't here now.’

Cooper looked away. He looked at the headstones in
the graveyard, the yew trees and leaf-covered paths; he
studied the village street, where a delivery van was
parked outside the butcher's shop, and he looked at the
shadowed windows of the white house on the corner.
'Owen?' he said. 'Shall I fetch that key for you?’

*

The interior of the church smelled of stone flagged floors
that had recently been mopped clean. The light came
from high in the walls, fragmented by the stained glass
windows in a way that reminded Cooper of the cattle market at Edendale. The wooden pews were lined up
just like narrow holding pens for worshippers waiting to be herded into the afterlife. He half-expected to see
Abel Pilkington up there in the pulpit in his black suit,
shouting out the prices, knocking down lost souls to the highest bidder.

‘
You have to appreciate they're treating this child pornography enquiry very seriously,' said Cooper.
'There was a little girl who ended up dead at the hands
of two of these men. There may have been more we don't know about.’

Owen nodded. 'Of course, I regret what I've done.
Somehow, I didn't think of it as involving anyone else.
I was still in my own private world, where it had always
been just me and Mum, but now it was just me. And
somehow - it was strange . . .' Owen screwed his face
up in an effort to explain the inexplicable. 'But some
times those little girls, Ben . . . I thought of them as if
they were my mother. My own mother, as a child.’

Cooper lowered his eyes. There was nothing he could
say, no platitudes that slipped into his mouth to meet
the situation. His mind balked at being drawn into the
dangerous, aberrant ideas that had appeared suddenly
in front of him, like treacherous bogs across his path.

He felt guilty for stopping Owen. Being able to talk
to someone would help him. But Cooper shouldn't be
talking to him about it at all. At any moment, Owen
might make some damaging admission, and they would
both be in an impossible position.

‘The cigarette stubs,' said Cooper.

‘
They've already asked me about those. Why do they
matter?'

‘
They matter because one was found under the body
of Ros Daniels, as well as near where Jenny Weston was
killed. You know that. We think the killer smoked those
cigarettes and dropped them - the one careless thing
he did. And the one they found in the bin at Partridge
Cross was identical.’

Cooper paused. He wished he could still see the Com
mandments for inspiration. His lips moved silently. He had been about to ask Owen if he had noticed the ciga
rette stub in the bin before the police search. If nobody
smoked at the Ranger centre, it was something he ought
to have noticed.

‘
Where did the cigarette in the bin come from, Owen?
The bin had been emptied, but the ash was stuck to the
bottom. Who uses that bin for their rubbish?
’

‘
Anybody could.'

‘
And the rucksack. I know it's yours, Owen. But could
anybody else have used that rucksack?’

Owen said nothing. He stared at the high windows,
as if wondering why the birds perched in the branches
of the yew were silent, why the stained glass saints said
nothing, why the whole world was waiting for his reply.
A realization had come over him like the passing of a
cloud.

‘
Could anybody else use it?' repeated Cooper.
And then Owen said: 'Yes. Mark uses it.’

*

Owen Fox sat alone in one of the pews when Ben Cooper had gone. His head was down, his hands
clenched together until the knuckles whitened. He had his eyes closed, like a man praying. But he wasn't pray
ing - he was remembering. Remembering the little girl.

She had been about six years old, and she had been
alive at first. He had pulled her out of the back seat of
the wrecked car, with his lungs full of fumes from the
petrol pouring out of the ruptured fuel tank, and his eyes averted from the bloody and shattered bodies of
the little girl's parents, particularly the sight of her
mother, with the branch of a tree skewering her cheek
to the seat.

Owen had seen the car go out of control and hit the
tree, and a second later he had heard screams that had
died suddenly in the noise of the impact, lost in the
crumpling thud of metal and the splintering of glass.

He used his radio as he ran. But by the time he got to
the road, he had no doubt the man and woman were
dead.

The stench of the petrol panicked him when he saw
the child still alive in the back seat. He barely knew.
what he was doing as he pulled her out, clumsily drag
ging her by her leg and a fistful of her blue dress, a thin summer dress that tore in his hand.

Then he had backed away to a safe distance and held the child in his arms while he waited for the ambulance
to arrive. He seemed to be holding the girl for a long
time, and he realized straight away that she was badly
injured. He could feel the bones of her pelvis shift and
bulge under his hand, and an unnatural swelling in her
abdomen that seemed to grow and tighten under his
fingers as he waited, not knowing what else to do. The
child's body felt like a flimsy plastic bag that was no
longer able to support the weight of its contents. At any
moment it was in danger of splitting open and leaking
its liquids, spilling soft, glistening objects on the ground.

Owen had held the child gently, willing her to survive, trying to pour his own life into her through his hands to help her fight the shock of her injuries. He
found his fingers becoming extraordinarily sensitive, as all his attention concentrated on his sense of touch, on
the close physical contact with another human being.
He held a small, fragile life in his hands, and the sensations were like nothing he had ever known. He was
aware of the faint beating of her heart, the pulsing of
her blood, the slow lift and fall of her chest and the living warmth of her skin against his own.

Then Owen had become conscious of other feelings
as he held the girl. He had noticed the soft flesh of her
upper thighs where her dress was torn and pulled up
to her waist. He noticed the white smoothness of her
belly; and he saw the shape of her genitals, tiny and clear through the fabric of her knickers.

He stood frozen in confusion at his own reactions,
frightened to move, praying for the ambulance to arrive
soon and take his burden away. Yet a few minutes later
he continued to hold on to the girl, oblivious to the
sound of sirens and the voices that followed, clustering
around him, asking questions. He held the girl desper
ately to his chest, feeling her softness in his hands, her
weight pulling on his shoulders, conscious of his fingers
staining her pale innocence.

Finally, the girl had opened her eyes and focused on
his face. In a moment of consciousness, she had seen
his red jacket and his Peak Park badge.

‘
Oh, you're a Ranger,' she said. And Owen
remembered even now the rush of senseless, guilty
pride he had felt that the girl could recognize who he
was, and had felt secure in his arms.

Then the child's eyes had closed, and a trickle of blood escaped from the corner of her mouth. And a
warm flood of urine seeped from her and ran down the
front of his red jacket, as she died.

34

In the incident room, the faces of the officers were expectant. They were thinking that there had to be
something at last. After all this, there had to be some
good news.

Examination of Ros Daniels' body showed that she
had died from serious head injuries, though there were
other marks on her that awaited interpretation. The
fibres of the victim's clothing were distinctive. Forensics were sure they would have been shed on her assailant's
outer garments, if he had made contact. Vegetative traces and powdered gritstone taken from the scene
might also have adhered. Cross-matching would provide proof of contact. Now all they needed was a firm
suspect.

‘Owen Fox has been bailed in regard to a separate
matter,' said DCI Tailby. 'We have discounted any con
nection with our present enquiry.’

There were murmurs of speculation. But Ben Cooper
wasn't surprised. The cigarette stubs they had found
under Ros Daniels' body could never have belonged to
Owen Fox. Cooper could think of three people directly
connected with the enquiry who smoked cigarettes, and
Owen wasn't one of them. Forensics had found traces
of saliva remaining on the filters of the cigarettes, which
had been prevented from drying out by the girl's body lying on top of them. There was a residue of moisture
in the tobacco, too. The cigarettes had been smoked very shortly before Ros Daniels' death. And the DNA from the saliva would identify the person who had smoked them.

‘
And so far we have been unable to establish a direct
link with Warren Leach,' said Tailby. 'Though he remains a suspect.’

Leach hadn't smoked, either. Not many farmers did,
when they worked around hay and straw and agricul
tural fuel. Yet somebody had been smoking when Ros
Daniels was attacked, and again when Jenny · Weston
was killed.

Tailby's head drooped slightly. His face was tired,
and his eyes were sunk into dark sockets. 'We're still
looking for leads,' he said. 'But where?’

He spoke for the whole room. How was it possible
that they could have two bodies and a third, surviving,
victim, yet after ten days be further away than ever from identifying a suspect? A police officer had been
injured by vigilantes, and no one had been arrested yet.
Questions were being asked all the way up the line.
And the newspaper headlines said: 'How many more?’

Tailby hung his head. 'Let's think positively. Apart from the fact that Daniels stayed with Weston for a
while, the only link we have between them is that they
were both animal lovers. Paul?'

‘
OK,' said DI Hitchens. 'Examination of the shed at
Ringham Edge Farm by ourselves and the RSPCA con
firms the suspicion that it was being used for dogfighting. We know that Jenny Weston saw what was
going on there. She passed by there one evening when
she had been late on the moor. She reported her infor
mation to the RSPCA, and she claimed to have photographic evidence. Whether she went any further than
that, we don't know. Whether Daniels did the same, we
don't know either. However, with the help of the
RSPCA special investigations unit, we have drawn up
a list of known or suspected participants in the dog
fighting ring. There are some pretty unsavoury charac
ters among them, and one or two are known to us.'

‘Is one of them Keith Teasdale?' said Cooper.

‘Yes, his name is on the list. Today is Operation Muzzle. We're going to make some arrests.’

*

When Ben Cooper walked back into the CID room, DS Dave Rennie was there, looking relaxed, like a man at
home in front of the TV watching
Coronation Street.
He
should have had his slippers on. Cooper saw that there
was a stack of paper on Rennie's desk, forms filled with scrawled handwriting in ballpoint pen. Some of the writing looked almost illiterate.

‘What's all that lot, Sarge? Witness statements?'

‘
Questionnaires,' said Rennie. 'I've got all these back
already from the early and day shifts. I've just collected
them from the box in the canteen.'

‘Oh, the vending machines.' Cooper picked up a
couple of sheets. 'What sort of things are they saying,
then?'

‘I haven't looked at them yet. But I dare say they'll go for it, generally. We gave them a multiple choice,
look — hot food, sandwiches, snacks or drinks. All they
had to do was choose which they'd use. It makes it look as though the vending machines are a foregone
conclusion, but actually we're using their responses as
evidence to push the idea through. Clever, isn't it?’

Cooper's eyes widened as he read one of the question
naires. 'Amazing.’

Rennie nodded. 'It's surprising what management will come up with.'

‘Sarge, the person who filled in this questionnaire here says they'd like hot food, but hot women would be even better.’

Rennie sniffed. 'Well, you know what it's like, Ben. There are always some who have to take the piss, no
matter what.'

‘And under "other suggestions" they've asked for
condom machines and somewhere to dispose of their
used hypodermic needles.'

‘I might have to take one or two out before I show them to the DCI in Admin,' said Rennie.

‘Who wrote this one, then?'

‘They're all anonymous, Ben.'

‘Is that wise?'

‘
You know as well as I do, if people have to give their names, you don't get anything from them. Coppers are
dead suspicious of putting their names to something
that looks official.’

Cooper looked at the questionnaire again. 'Look how
this one's spelled "fruit-flavoured".'

‘
I can't believe they're so ignorant. What happened
to the education system?'

‘And the handwriting's appalling. A graphologist
would have a field day with this. He'd probably say it
was written by some homicidal psychopath.’

Rennie looked over Cooper's shoulder and frowned.
Then he began desperately flicking through the other
questionnaires. Some of them were written in garish purple ink, some had obscene drawings scribbled in
the margins. One had an insulting cartoon of the Chief
Superintendent. Another had letters cut from news
paper headlines pasted on to it to form a message. It read: 'You have ten minutes to evacuate the canteen
before the steak and kidney pie explodes.'

‘
Psychopath would describe just about everybody in
this
station,' said Rennie sourly. 'There isn't a single one
that's been filled out properly.’

Cooper didn't respond. He was staring at the ques
tionnaire form in his hand. He was holding it so tightly
that the paper crumpled and almost tore between his
fingers.

‘Er, Sarge?' he said. 'Can I keep this one?’

Rennie shrugged. 'Suit yourself. They're no use to me
at all.’