victory for Diane Fry.
The previous night, Cooper’s sleep had been disturbed by a scene that played over and over through his mind like a clip from a horror video shot in poor light. There were figures moving slowly in a circle, leaning towards each other, slipping in and out of the mist that hung over Ringham Moor. The figures were dancing. They danced like the Nine Virgins themselves.
First, he recognized Jenny Weston. She was naked from the waist down, kicking high with her legs, her skin ghostly white and bloodless, a red streak running down the front of her blue cycling vest. Behind her came Cal and Stride, stumbling blindly as they felt their way among the birches, their faces frightened and confused. Stride’s trousers were round his ankles, and a bloodstained broom handle wagged like a tail as he shuffled after Cal.
Then there was Warren Leach. Cooper wished he could turn away from the sight of Leach’s head, a red mass that made him almost unrecognizable. He was followed by Yvonne, her wide hips giving her a distinctive waddle, one hand rubbing at her mouth, her other hand trailing the two boys, Will and Dougie. Owen Fox was close behind them, stumbling after the boys with his red jacket flapping open. And then came Ros Daniels, all in black, her dreadlocks flying, a nose ring glittering, the skin of her arms and legs split and bursting, laid open to the air as she brought up the rear of the dance.
But no - Daniels wasn’t at the rear at all. There was another figure, very dim, still shrouded in the mist so that
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Cooper couldn’t make it out. There was a ninth victim. One more who had made a mistake.
And then Cooper had gradually become aware of the faint music they all danced to. And he knew that, somewhere in the thickening mist, was the Fiddler.
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35
Despite the appeals in the paper and on TV, the youth, Gary Dawson, had been pushed into coming forward by his mum. Only a second dead body had made a difference to the potential excitement of being a witness. As a result, Gary’s evidence had been almost too late.
‘Did you know we were looking into the death of Mr Warren Leach?’ Ben Cooper asked him.
‘I heard. Did himself in, didn’t he?’ ‘You worked for him.’
‘Used to. I walked out. I told him I wouldn’t stand for it any more. He got to be such a foul-arsed bugger. But I told him. “I don’t need to put up with this hassle and abuse all the time,” I said. “I can soon get a job somewhere else.”’
Gary was wearing a red woollen cap, even indoors. He had protruding ears that he had made look even bigger by pulling his cap down over them.
‘And have you? Found another job?’ ‘Well, not yet. There’s not much about.’
Cooper produced the photographs of the three women. ‘Did you ever see any of these three near the farm?’
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Gary pointed immediately at the picture of Maggie Crew. ‘That’s the one Yvonne Leach found, isn’t it? Warren went on and on about that for days. I saw her picture in the paper.’
‘Were you there when Mrs Leach found this woman?’ ‘No.’
‘Did you see her around the farm at all?’ ‘Not around the farm, no.’
‘All right, Gary. What about the other two?’
He tipped his head on one side. ‘I’m not sure,’ he said. ‘But that one, I think I saw her.’
‘Yes?’ ‘She looked different from that picture, but I reckon it could have been her on the moor. Bird on a bike, is that right?’
‘Gary,’ said Cooper carefully, ‘what day was this?’ ‘The day I walked out on Warren Leach. I wasn’t hanging around to hear him ranting at me any more, so I walked out. Usually he gave me a lift home when I finished work, but I didn’t wait for that. I walked back over the moor. I live at Pilhough, just the other side.’
‘What day, Gary? Please be exact.’
‘It was a Sunday,’ said Gary. ‘But not last Sunday.’ ‘The one before?’
‘Yes, it must have been.’
‘And on your way back over Ringham Moor, you saw this woman?’
‘On a bike - it was her, all right. She gave me the evil eye, she did. She didn’t want someone like me hanging around. There was no one else up there that
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day - no one else at all, except her and the other woman.’
‘The other woman?’
‘The one that was waiting for her.’ Gary noticed the sudden silence and read the expression on Cooper’s face for the first time. ‘Well, she was going up there to meet someone, wasn’t she?’
‘Why do you say that, Gary?’
‘She had that look about her. Like she was expecting to see someone, only it wasn’t me. Do you know what I mean? In any case, I saw the other one a bit earlier. Up near the tower, she was.’
‘The other one? Gary? Which other one?’
‘That one, the one that Yvonne Leach found. I never saw her near the farm, but she was up near the tower that day. And you could see she was waiting. She was smoking cigarettes like there was no tomorrow.’
A herd of heifers was being sold in the cattle market. The mart men dodged and danced round them as they went through the ring. The heifers were being sent for breeding, to a suckler herd, where they would meet the bull for the first time. And the bull would be some giant Limousin or Charolais, weighing two tons and bulging with double layers of muscle so heavy and deep into his body that he could barely move, except to hoist himself into position for the thrust. It would come as a shock to them, these black and white virgins. Their white eyes showed they were already getting a suspicion of things that lay ahead.
From where they were parked, Diane Fry could see
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through the doors to the side of the auction ring, where farmers and buyers milled around, absorbed in their own conversations.
