Читать книгу Dancing With the Virgins - Stephen Booth - Страница 12

The Partridge Cross cycle hire centre was in a converted railway station. Past it ran what had once been the Cromford & High Peak rail line, now the High Peak Trail, a smoothly tarmacked stretch of track perfect for walkers and cyclists.

There was still a morning mist lingering in places, and the old railway cuttings seemed to have drawn it down on to the trail. It gave a damp nip to the air that hit Ben Cooper and Todd Weenink as soon as they got out of the car. But there were already vehicles in the car park. Some had cycle racks on their tailgates and mountain bikes hoisted high in the air. A family with three small children were strapping on their safety helmets ready to hit the trail. There were no traces of Jenny Weston left here now.

The day’s weather forecast from the Met Office was posted on a board outside the hire centre, next to a notice warning hirers that bikes had to be returned by 6 p.m. in the summer, or by dusk in the winter. At the other end of the building a counter concession was selling ice cream, sweets and canned drinks. In a compound, they saw at least one Dawes Kokomo among the tandems and trailer cycles. Before they went into the hire centre, they stopped and looked at the bikes.

‘You wouldn’t get me on one of these,’ said Weenink, immediately sitting astride a tandem and looking like a cowboy trying to mount a donkey. ‘Unless it was with the right bird on the back, of course. Preferably the local bike, up for a quick pedal in the woods.’

Across the car park was the Ranger centre, a two-storey converted barn. They had passed it on the way in, and Cooper had noticed Owen Fox’s silver Land Rover parked in the yard.

They found Don Marsden, the cycle hire manager, leaning against a wooden counter, wiping his hands on a cloth. He had been tinkering with one of the hire bikes, checking the tightness of the forks on the wheels, testing the brakes and adjusting the saddle. Now he was waiting for his first customer of the morning, a blank page of the log book in front of him.

Marsden wore a red sweater like a Ranger, but with a different logo on the breast pocket. He didn’t look like a cyclist himself – he had a heavy paunch pushing out the front of his sweater and a goatee beard covering part of his double chin. Behind the counter, the office he worked in was crowded. It contained everything from a microwave oven and a personal computer with drifting parabolic shapes filling its screen, to displays of maps and route guides. It was just gone nine thirty and the centre had been open only a few minutes. Marsden gave them a cheerful greeting, and his cheerfulness didn’t falter even when he discovered they were police officers.

‘I was told you’d be back,’ he said, offering his hand.

‘We’ve got your earlier statement,’ said Cooper. ‘We’re just trying to establish the victim’s exact movements yesterday.’

‘Fair enough.’ Don leaned on the counter with an expectant smile.

‘Is this the woman you remember seeing?’ Cooper produced a copy of the photograph provided by Eric Weston, a picture of Jenny at her cousin’s wedding two years before. Jenny was dressed in a dove grey suit. Unlike the others in the wedding group, she was not wearing a hat, and her dark hair curled round her face, the strands of it echoing the curve of her smile. She looked as though she had been enjoying herself for once.

‘Oh, yes. I don’t need to see the photo either,’ said Don. ‘I remember her. Weston, that’s right. She’s here in the book. She took out a mountain bike at twelve forty-five. It was what she always had. She was a regular, you see.’

‘A regular? How often did she come?’

‘About once every two weeks in the summer. I think she probably went to some of the other hire centres on the weekends in between. Winter, it depended on the weather. But we’re open every day of the year here, except Christmas Day.’

‘So you knew who she was.’

‘I recognized her, of course. And you get to know the names of the regulars, after a bit. You have to enter it in the book, see, and on the computer. They have to show me some ID and put a deposit down on the bike. Twenty quid, it is. She gave me cash. Do you know …?’

‘Somebody else will sort that out, I expect,’ said Cooper.

‘Right. Only it’s not something that’s happened to me before, the customer dying before they can reclaim their deposit. It’s not in the regulations.’

Weenink had been flicking through leaflets advertising the local attractions of Lathkill Dale and Carsington Water. Now he seemed to take notice for the first time of what Marsden was saying.

‘Did she chat to you, then?’ he asked. ‘I mean, did she just come in, pay the money and take the bike, or did she pass the time of day a bit?’

‘She didn’t say much really,’ admitted Don. ‘She was pleasant, you know. But I wouldn’t have said she was the chatty type. Not with me, anyway. Women on their own are a bit distant these days. They learn not to be too friendly.’

He sounded regretful. Cooper wondered what his prospects were as an interviewee when the reporters and TV crews arrived, as they surely would. It was lucky they had got to Don Marsden before the cameras. He had a feeling the story might get embellished along the way later on.

‘So what else do you know about her?’ suggested Weenink.

Don shook his head. ‘Just where she came from. I’ve got her address, look. The Quadrant, Totley, Sheffield. I’ve been through it once or twice, I think. She normally showed me her driving licence for ID. We have to go through the procedure every time. Can’t make exceptions. But as for knowing anything about her – not really. Except I don’t think she was married.’

‘Oh? What makes you say that?’

‘Dunno really. Just the way she was. Friendly, yeah. But it was more like she seemed to be able to please herself what she did. I had the impression there probably wasn’t a husband and kids at home waiting for her to get back. Do you know what I mean?’

Weenink simply stared at the cycle hire man. This was his principal interrogation technique, the intimidatory stare. He had perfected the art of silent disbelief.

‘You’re quite observant really, Don,’ said Cooper.

‘I think so. You see all sorts here, you know. You get to recognize the types.’

‘It was a quarter to one when she came in, you said.’

‘That’s right. It’s in the book.’

‘You saw her arrive, did you?’

‘Yeah. I was standing in the doorway there, as it happens. It was quiet, like now. Maybe not so quiet as this, but quiet anyway. I saw her car pull up. A Fiat, right? So I came back in, and I had a bike ready for her. I knew what she’d want.’

‘Where did she park?’ asked Weenink, though he knew exactly where the Fiat had been found.

‘Just over there, the first bay on the left.’

‘Were there any other cars here?’

‘One or two. Three or four, maybe. I didn’t really count them.’

‘Anybody else that you knew? Any other regulars?’

‘No. But the ones who hired bikes are in the book here. The other policemen took their names and addresses. Of course, there are some folk who bring their own bikes. They don’t come in here at all unless they want a map or something, or they want to ask directions. Some walk or go jogging. Them I don’t notice so much.’

Cooper turned the book round to look at it. The next bike hire recorded after Jenny Weston’s entry was nearly half an hour later, when a tandem had been signed out to a couple called Sharman, from Matlock. Other hirers weren’t his concern, for now. Checking them out was somebody else’s job.

‘Did Jenny Weston ever tell you where she was heading?’ he asked.

‘No,’ said Don. ‘But she usually set off eastwards, down the trail towards Ashbourne.’

‘Is that what she did yesterday?’

‘That’s right. It’s sensible for somebody on their own to tell me where they’re going. In case they have an accident or something, you know. There are times when people get lost and are really late back with the bikes. You start to wonder whether something’s happened to them. But there’s not much you can do, if you’ve no idea where they’ve set off to.’

‘Jenny’s bike was overdue for being returned, wasn’t it?’

‘Yeah, it was. She had a three-hour ticket. It should have been back here by a quarter to four, by rights. You have to pay extra if you go over – two pounds more. Or you can lose your twenty quid altogether. We’re supposed to close at dusk anyway.’

‘Did you worry about the fact she wasn’t back?’

‘I thought it was unusual, that’s all. There’s plenty of folk late back. But it was odd for her. She’d never been late before, so I did wonder. But when it came time to close, I would have been reporting in. Head office would have made a decision whether to call you lot. But, of course, young Mark Roper found her before that, didn’t he?’

Cooper pricked up his ears. ‘How did you hear that?’

‘Owen Fox told me. He came through from the Ranger centre when he heard. It’s practically next door, see.’

‘Do you work closely with the Rangers?’

‘We help each other out a bit. I’ve known Owen Fox for years. Good bloke, Owen.’

Weenink had wandered past the wooden barrier and was examining the bikes stacked in the back of the building.

‘Hey, look at this.’ He had found a machine that looked like a wheelchair with a unicycle welded on to the front. It had no pedals, but there were two handles in front of the rider, attached to a gear wheel. Weenink squeezed himself into the seat and waggled the steering from side to side.

‘They’re hand-cranked,’ said Don, watching him cautiously. ‘For disabled people, you know.’

‘Brilliant.’

Cooper felt Weenink was starting to become an embarrassment. It always happened when he got bored.

‘Well, thanks for your time, Don.’

‘No problem. As you can see, I’ve got no customers.’

‘You might find it gets busier later on.’

‘Doubt it. Not at this time of the year, on a Monday. And half-term isn’t until next week.’

‘No, you don’t understand. Once people see the news about the murder, it’ll be crowded down here.’

Don looked shocked. ‘You’re kidding, aren’t you? Why should people want to come here?’

Cooper shrugged. ‘I can’t explain it. But they will.’

‘Oh, they’ll be running coach trips,’ said Weenink, grinning from the doorway. ‘Tours for Ghouls Limited.’

‘Not to mention the newspapers and the TV cameras.’

‘Blimey.’ Don looked nervously out of the doorway at the bike compound. ‘I didn’t expect that,’ he said. ‘I didn’t expect people would be like that. Perhaps I’d better ring the boss and ask if I can close up for the day.’

‘Close? Why would you want to do that? You could be a TV star, mate,’ said Weenink.

Don smiled uncertainly. As they walked away, he was watching the car park entrance. He still wasn’t sure whether they were joking.

Diane Fry always forgot. It slipped her mind every time how hopeful the family of a victim were when they saw the police on their doorstep in the early stages of an enquiry. They had such confidence, so often misplaced. An early resolution was their main hope, an end to the nightmare. They believed the police were doing their best, but rarely was a detective able to bring them hope.

Mr Weston was in the front garden of his house in Alfreton, raking leaves with an absorbed expression. He looked up sharply when he heard the police car pull into the drive. But DI Hitchens simply shook his head, and Weston turned back to his driveway and attacked the leaves with his rake as if he wanted to stab them into the ground.

‘Was there something else you wanted to ask?’ he said, when they reached him.

‘A few things, Mr Weston,’ said Hitchens. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘Can’t be helped, I suppose. It’ll go on and on, won’t it?’

The Westons’ house was a large semi in a style that might have been called 1920s mock Tudor, with stucco above and brick below. The Tudor effect was achieved by a few stray bits of black wood, which supported nothing, inserted into the walls.

But the house was substantial and well cared for. The front door was of some oak-like wood, and through the bay window Fry caught a glimpse of a lounge with cast-iron wall lights in the shape of flaming torches, a wheel-shaped chandelier supporting electric candles and a log basket on a brick hearth.

‘I’ve taken compassionate leave for a few days,’ said Weston. ‘I need to look after Susan. The head of my school has been very understanding.’

Fry became aware of Mrs Weston standing in the background, listening. She was pale and looked tired.

‘Have you found Martin Stafford?’ she asked.

‘Not yet, Mrs Weston,’ said Hitchens.

‘So he’s got away.’

‘We’ll locate him, eventually.’

‘He always had a violent tendency.’

‘We want to eliminate him from the enquiry, obviously.’

Mrs Weston stared at him as if she didn’t understand what he was saying.

‘Susan –’ said her husband.

‘I always said he was no good,’ she said. ‘I was always afraid it would come to this.’

‘I don’t think we know any more about Martin Stafford than we’ve told you already,’ said Mr Weston. ‘There might be something at the house in Totley, I suppose. I mean Jenny’s house. He might have written to her or something.’

‘Trying to creep back,’ said his wife.

‘We’ve already looked there,’ said Hitchens. ‘We found this –’

The Westons examined the photocopy that he showed them. It was a note rather than a letter – just a few lines about an arrangement to meet somewhere. But it was addressed to Jenny, and it was written in terms that suggested a close relationship.

Mrs Weston coloured faintly when she reached the line about fruit flavours. ‘There’s no name on it,’ she said.

‘No,’ said Fry. ‘That’s why we’re showing it to you. In case you recognize it.’

‘You think it might be from Stafford?’ asked Mr Weston. ‘There’s no date on it, either.’

‘Unfortunately not.’

‘I can’t really remember what his writing was like. Susan?’

‘No,’ said Mrs Weston. ‘I mean, I don’t know. It could be.’

‘Did he ever write to you? Might you have something that we could compare it to?’

The couple looked at each other. ‘Have we still got that postcard?’ said Mr Weston.

His wife went to a mahogany dresser and opened a drawer. It was one of those drawers that were always full of things that you never wanted. But Mrs Weston soon located a plastic wallet of the kind that usually contained holiday snaps.

‘I don’t know why we kept it,’ she said. ‘But you can see what sort of man he is.’

Fry studied the postcard. It showed a view on one side of a beach lined with tourist hotels.

‘Hawaii,’ she said. ‘Very nice.’ She turned the card over. It was addressed to the Westons and signed ‘Martin (your former son-in-law)’. The rest of it seemed fairly innocuous – a few lines about how hot the weather was, how luxurious the hotel, how stimulating the nightlife. ‘Spent nearly £2,000 already!’, it said, as if it was a boast.

‘I’m not sure what it tells me,’ said Fry. ‘This holiday was presumably after the divorce.’

‘Not only after the divorce – paid for by the divorce,’ said Mrs Weston. ‘He spent his share of the proceedings from the sale of their house in Derby. He never seemed to want for money, I don’t know why. While Jenny had to spend all of her share and borrow more to buy that little place in Totley, Stafford went on this holiday in Hawaii. The postcard was to rub it in. No other reason.’

‘Apart from Martin Stafford, we’d also want to try to trace any boyfriends that Jenny had recently,’ said Hitchens.

‘We’ve been asked that before,’ said Mr Weston. ‘I gave you some names that we knew. We didn’t know of anyone else. Not recently.’

‘She didn’t talk to us about things like that,’ said Mrs Weston. ‘Not since Stafford.’

‘Not even then,’ said her husband. ‘We had to work it all out for ourselves, what was going on. She didn’t want to say anything against him. Can you believe it?’

‘She was loyal,’ said Mrs Weston. ‘I tried to teach her always to be loyal to her husband. No matter what.’

Mr Weston looked down at the teacups. His wife continued to stare straight ahead, past Fry’s shoulder. It was an aggressive and challenging stare, but it wasn’t directed at Fry at all. It was hitting the wall behind her and ricocheting with unerring accuracy into the back of the seat next to her, passing through Eric Weston’s heart on the way.

‘No matter what,’ repeated Mrs Weston.

Diane Fry was always fascinated by those little secret means of communication that passed between couples without the need for explanation. You had to be very close to someone to be able to do it, very familiar with each other’s thoughts.

‘But she divorced him, in the end,’ said Hitchens.

Mrs Weston nodded. ‘Young women are less tolerant. They have higher expectations of what marriage should be like. They come to a point where they can’t tolerate it any more. You can’t blame them, I suppose. But it isn’t something I could do. My generation was brought up differently. We always believed that we had to grin and bear it, to accept our lot in life. To accept life’s burdens.’

Mr Weston was looking more and more uncomfortable in his seat. He rattled his teacup in its saucer and cleared his throat.

‘Can we take this postcard?’ asked Fry.

‘The writing doesn’t look anything like the note,’ said Mrs Weston.

‘No, it doesn’t,’ admitted Fry.

‘Well, that’s that, then.’

Back in the car, Diane Fry called in for an update on the other lines of enquiry. The teams canvassing neighbours in Totley had found someone who remembered a man looking for Jenny two weeks’ previously, asking for her by name. The man was described as being of medium height and ordinary. He had been quite respectably dressed, and had spoken in a local accent. Very useful.

A second neighbour, who lived nearly opposite Jenny’s house in The Quadrant, recalled a strange car parked in the road one night. A man had been sitting in it, but he had driven off at about the time that Jenny had left her house.

A third witness reported a light-coloured van, possibly an old Ford Transit or something similar, which had passed slowly along the road twice. At the time, the neighbour had thought it might be gypsies – ‘totters’, he called them – looking for scrap, or anything they could steal.

Several neighbours recalled female visitors to Jenny’s home, including a girl with dark dreadlocks who had attracted particular attention in The Quadrant for a while. Dreadlocks were rare in Totley.

All the fragments of information had been passed to the officers interviewing Jenny’s colleagues at Global Assurance. But none of the colleagues could remember Jenny ever complaining of being harassed by a disgruntled boyfriend. If it had been her ex-husband trying to get back in touch, Jenny had not confided the fact to anyone. But the incident room staff would put the information into the HOLMES system. Correlations might be thrown up. Just one detail could send the whole enquiry in a new direction.

DI Hitchens had been on the mobile phone to the DCI back at Divisional Headquarters in West Street. When he finished the call, Hitchens turned to Fry and told her what they wanted her to do next.

‘You’ve got to be joking,’ she said. But he wasn’t.

Mark Roper rattled a fork against the plastic bowl. Three cats appeared from the shrubbery at the end of the garden – a grey one and two tabbies. They ran with their tails in the air and brushed themselves against Mark’s legs until he put their bowls on the ground and they began to gnaw at their chunks of meat.

While they ate, Mark went to clean out the bedding for the rabbits and freshen the water in their cages. The rabbits stared at him through the mesh, twitching their noses as they sniffed his familiar smell. For a while, Mark sat on an upturned milk crate to watch the cats feed.

Normally, he would have been at work, but he had been told to take a day off. He couldn’t understand what they expected him to do at home, except to sit and think, to relive the moment he had found the body of the murdered woman, and to wonder about the events that had led up to her death among the Nine Virgins. Mark would have much preferred to be with Owen, to be busy with jobs that would take his mind off things. But he hadn’t wanted to argue, in case they thought his reaction was strange.

He could think of nothing worse than sitting in the house all day, as some people did. He soon became claustrophobic and restless, and angry at the untidiness – the dirty clothes draped over chairs, the empty beer cans and overflowing ashtrays left on the floor.

In any case, the house contained nothing of his father any more. His clothes had gone, and so had his books, his walking stick and his stuffed Tawny Owl. The man who lived with Mark’s mother now had removed every remaining trace of her husband from the house. But he had never thought to bother with the garden. Here, Mark recognized every item that his father had collected over the years – every lump of wood, and every stone. This milk crate was one that his father had found by the roadside and had thought might be useful one day. Mark had helped his father make these rabbit cages; the frames still bore the marks made by a saw and a plane held in his father’s hands. Their relationship still lived on in these little things. These, and the nightmares that Mark suffered now and then, when he would wake up in the night, calling for his dad like a child.

Mark sat on the crate for a while and thought about the woman on the moor; and then he thought about Owen Fox. He had started to get used to relying on Owen for an element of stability in his life. The fear that the stability might be taken from him once again made Mark swear abruptly, so that the cats were startled and scuttled away from their bowls. The rabbits lifted their ears and gazed at him with their strange pink eyes. Like Mark, they were suddenly terrified of the unknown things that might lie beyond their cages in the outside world.

Todd Weenink looked up towards the road at the sound of a car approaching the cycle hire centre. Ben Cooper saw his partner stiffen, and heard him start to curse, low but vehemently. Spurts of Weenink’s breath were hitting the air, swirling ominously. Cooper could almost see the curses forming into dark, solid lumps in the mist.

‘Don’t look now, Ben, but the weather just got a few degrees colder round here,’ said Weenink.

The car that splashed through the puddles and pulled up in front of the hire centre was a black Peugeot. When it stopped, the headlights were turned down to sidelights, but its doors remained closed and no one got out. It sat there with traces of steam rising from its bonnet and mingling with the mist. And with each tick of its cooling engine, Cooper felt his heart chill a little more.