Dancing With the Virgins

Tailby smiled like a fox with a rabbit. ‘It matters, Inspector, because we can’t say whether the inscriptions were written in the last twenty-four hours or the last two weeks.’

‘I suppose so, sir.’

Teeth bared, Tailby glared round for another victim. There was a shuffling and looking away, a lot of thoughtful glances at the grey blanket of cloud.

‘You useless set of pillocks! Doesn’t anyone know? Then find me someone who does!’

Mark Roper finally opened his eyes as Owen Fox parked the Land Rover behind the Partridge Cross briefing centre. The cycle hire staff had closed up for the night, but there were still a few visitors’ cars left outside. A couple were securing their bikes to a rack. It occurred to Mark Roper that one of the cars that still stood dark and unattended probably belonged to the woman whose body lay on the moor.

‘Come on, Mark. Let’s get you inside,’ said Owen.

For a moment, Mark didn’t move. Then, slowly, he unfolded his legs and got out. He felt stiff, like an old man with arthritis. His jacket was crumpled, there were grass stains on his knees and black marks on his hands. He couldn’t think where the marks had come from, but his hands felt unpleasant and greasy, as if there was something on his skin that would take a long time to remove.

He swayed and supported himself on the side of the Land Rover. Owen moved nearer, not touching him but hovering anxiously.

‘We have to wait while the police come to speak to you, Mark,’ he said.

‘I know.’

‘Are you up to it?’

‘I’m all right.’

Owen Fox was a large man, a little ungainly from carrying too much weight around his upper body. His curly hair and wiry beard were going grey, and his face was worn and creased, the sign of a man who spent his life outdoors, regardless of the weather. Mark wanted to draw reassurance from his presence, to lean on his comforting bulk, but an uncertainty held him back.

Owen finally took Mark by the arm. But the reassurance failed to come. The contact was safe and impersonal, Owen’s fingers meeting only the fabric of the young Ranger’s red fleece jacket. Mark shivered violently, as if his only source of warmth had suddenly been withdrawn.

‘Let’s get inside,’ said Owen. ‘It’s cold out here. You look to me as though you need a hot drink. A cup of my tea will bring some colour back to your cheeks, won’t it? Green, maybe – but at least it’ll be colour.’

Mark smiled weakly. ‘I’m fine.’

‘You’re probably suffering from shock. We ought to get a doctor to look at you.’

‘No. I’ll be all right, Owen.’

The briefing centre was empty, but warm. The blackboard on the far wall contained white chalk scrawl that gleamed in the sudden light. The words meant nothing to Mark now. In the corner, the assistant’s desk was scattered with papers – reports and forms, the encroaching paperwork of the modern Peak Park Ranger. Soon, a computer would arrive, even here.

Mark needed no encouragement to collapse into a chair near the electric heater. Owen watched him, his face creased with concern, then turned to switch on the kettle.

‘Plenty of sugar in your tea, for the shock.’

Sugar, and a reassuring voice, thought Mark. The things that people needed were simple, really – such as stability and their own part to play in life. But it was Owen he had learned to look to for stability. Now he had an inexplicable fear that it would be snatched from his life again.

‘The things people leave on the moor,’ said Owen. ‘Litter and rubbish. You’d think they’d at least take their dead bodies home with them.’

This time Mark couldn’t smile.

Owen looked at him. ‘I did tell you to keep in touch, Mark,’ he said.

‘I tried, Owen. But I couldn’t get an answer.’

Owen grimaced. ‘Those radios.’

I mustn’t make him feel guilty, thought Mark. Don’t make him take this burden on himself as well as everything else. Mark was aware that there were things he didn’t know about Owen, that in their relationship he only saw the surface of the older man. But there was one thing he did know. Owen needed no more burdens.

Ben Cooper jumped at the hand on his shoulder and tensed his body for trouble. He cursed himself for having allowed someone to find him on his own in a vulnerable position.

The hand felt like a great weight. The tall student was massively built, with a red, sweaty face and a squashed nose. He leaned down and spoke into Cooper’s ear with a voice that growled like a boulder in a landslide. At first, Cooper had no idea what he was saying. He thought the noise in the bar must have damaged his hearing permanently. He shook his head. The student leaned closer, breathing beer fumes on his neck.

‘You are Constable Cooper, aren’t you?’

‘Yes.’

‘I said there’s someone on the phone for you. Some daft bastard who wants to know when it rained last.’

Ten minutes later, Cooper slid into the passenger seat of a Ford Mondeo as it scattered gravel on the sports ground car park.

‘It’s a what, Todd?’

‘A cyclist from Sheffield,’ said Weenink. ‘She was found in the middle of the stones on Ringham Moor.’

‘You mean the Nine Virgins?’

‘That’s the place. You got it in one. I can see why the DCI loves you.’

‘Everybody knows the Nine Virgins,’ said Cooper.

‘I wish you’d introduce me, then. I can’t find even one virgin where I live.’

Cooper could detect the sweet smell of beer in the car. He wondered if Weenink was fit to drive. It would be ironic if they got stopped by a Traffic patrol. Todd could lose his job, if he was breathalysed.

‘Is Mr Tailby in charge up there?’

‘He’s SIO until they manage to pull a superintendent in from somewhere,’ said Weenink. ‘He’s not a happy man. He’s got a wide-open scene, public access, SOCOs scattered over a space as big as four football pitches. Also, he has a temper on him as foul as my breath on a Saturday night. But we have to report to DI Hitchens. And let me tell you, we’re bloody lucky Hitchens arrived.’

‘Yeah?’

‘Earlier on, it was DI Armstrong at the scene. The Wicked Witch of West Street.’

‘Don’t say that.’

‘The Bitch of Buxton, then.’

‘Shut up, Todd.’

Weenink stopped at the junction of the A6, and seemed to spend a long time waiting for distant traffic to pass on the main road. Finally, he pulled out behind a tanker carrying milk for Hartington Stilton.

‘You don’t understand, Ben,’ he said. ‘That Kim Armstrong, she’s so scary. I’m frightened she’ll put a spell on me and turn me into a eunuch.’