apartment. If she had been in Maggie’s position herself, she would have felt no reassurance from the panic buttons and the extra vigilance the police had promised.
‘You understand that I need to talk to you, Maggie,’ she said.
‘You can talk as much as you like. I’ve got plenty of time.’
Fry’s reading of Maggie’s file and her discussion with DI Armstrong had convinced her that she had to be persistent if she was to get anything out of this woman. Deep inside, Maggie Crew had valuable memories locked in -memories the police needed, memories that would help them to identify a man who had now become a killer.
‘I want to talk to you about our new victim,’ she said. Maggie waited, playing with the lamp. No sign of interest. Fry tried again.
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‘The woman found dead on Ringham Moor.’ Maggie shrugged. Fry felt a spasm of irritation, but controlled it. The file said that Maggie Crew was frustrated and bitter over the failure of the police to find her attacker. She mustn’t let personal reactions get in the way of doing the job. ‘I know nothing about your new victim,’ said Maggie. ‘Nothing.’ ‘Let me help you, then. Her name is Jenny Weston. She’s thirty years old. I mean she was, when she died. She won’t ever be any older now. ‘Jenny Weston was five foot six and half, and she weighed sixty kilos. That’s nine and a half stone. She had been trying to lose weight recently, but wasn’t very successful. She lived in a modernized terrace house in Totley, on the outskirts of Sheffield, and she worked as a section supervisor at an insurance call centre. She might not seem to have had much in common with you, but maybe you would have got on with her. Jenny liked cycling and classical music, Haydn and Strauss. I see you like Strauss, Maggie.’ She nodded towards the stereo. A CD of Tales from the Vienna Woods lay on the top, the one case out of place from the neat racks. It was a rare splash of colour in the dark corner. The light dipped slightly. Maggie’s outline began to come back into focus as Fry blinked and her eyes readjusted to the darkness. ‘Somebody loaned it to me,’ said Maggie. ‘I haven’t listened to it.’
‘Jenny bought her clothes at Marks & Spencer and
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I Next, where she had store cards. She banked with the NatWest, but transferred her credit card account to one that supported Greenpeace. She was a big animal lover. She was a member of lots of societies, including the RSPCA, and she helped out as a volunteer for the local Cats Protection League. She had her own cat called Nelson. Do you know why she called him that? Because when she took him in as a stray he had an infection that made him keep one eye closed. Have you ever had a cat, Maggie?’ Maggie maintained the stare. Fry had no idea whether she was getting through to her. ‘We know a lot more about Jenny. We know she borrowed show business biographies and Maeve Binchy novels from her local library. She drove a blue Fiat Cinquecento, but she didn’t wash it very often. On the back seat were her spare shoes, an orange and her mobile phone. When we rang the number, it played “The William Tell Overture”.’ Maggie’s eyes were expressionless and unblinking, though her hands fidgeted restlessly and her shoulders were tense. ‘No,’ she said. ‘I don’t listen to Rossini, either.’ Fry had all the details of Jenny’s life at her fingertips. Yet they knew almost nothing about the young woman who had stayed with her in Totley several weeks ago. Ros Daniels had disappeared as mysteriously as she had come, as far as Jenny’s neighbours were concerned. She had been seen walking up The Quadrant one day with a rucksack on her back, and she had knocked at Jenny’s door. Her hair was described as being ‘in
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tangles’ by an old man who had passed her on his way to the post office and who had noticed her heavy boots and the rings in her nose. He was seventy-five years old and not well up on modem fashions, but he was quite an observant old man. He had given it as his opinion that she hadn’t been wearing a bra, either. But it was only from a colleague at the Global Assurance call centre that the police had learned the young woman’s name. The colleague had visited Jenny’s home, and had been introduced. The miracle was that she had remembered Ros’s name at all. ‘She was a girl, really. I’d say she was no more than twenty years old. A student type, you know? All dreadlocks and combat trousers she was, and sitting slumped on the floor like she’d not even been taught how to use a chair. Never had a job, you could tell. Never had to work in a call centre selling insurance, that’s for sure.’ ‘Did she say much?’ “‘Hi.” That was what she said. And that was said a bit contemptuous, like. As if she’d weighed me up in a glance and thought I was too boring and respectable and hardly worth bothering with. It was a cheek, I thought. I mean, if I’m boring and respectable, then so was fenny Weston. So what was she doing at Jenny’s house, this Ros?’ ‘Did Jenny never explain who she was?’ ‘Never. I did try to ask her next day. Discreetly, like. I asked where Ros was from, and Jenny said from Cheshire. But then she changed the subject straight away, almost as if she’d said too much, though she hadn’t told me anything at all. She didn’t want to talk about her, that was plain. Well, she could be a bit stand-offish when she wanted to, could
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Jenny. I can’t imagine what she had to do with that girl.’ Fry watched Maggie’s hands moving impatiently. The cat had brought no response. That was no surprise. It was obvious there had never been a pet to disturb the orderly surroundings of Maggie Crew’s apartment. ‘Jenny’s next birthday would have been on the 11th of December,’ she said. ‘She was a Sagittarian. She was interested in horoscopes, too. She wore a chain with a silver star-sign symbol - the archer, half horse and half man. She had made an appointment with her dentist for next Tuesday, because she was worried about a loose filling. Jenny Weston was the sort of person who started buying her Christmas presents early. In fact, she had already bought a cashmere sweater for her mother, and a book on Peak District aircraft wrecks for her father, who used to be in the RAF. She had even bought a toy mouse with a bell on it, for the cat.’ Maggie sighed. ‘Why are you telling me all this? I don’t want to know any of it.’ ‘Jenny had taken a week’s holiday from work. It seems she loved the Peak District. But you do, too. Don’t you, Maggie?’ ‘I used to,’ she said. ‘Something changed my view.’ ‘Well, Jenny must have loved it right up to her last breath. She never learned that disillusionment. She never had the chance.’
‘She was a member of the National Trust, too. We found lots of photographs she took at National Trust properties. That was another hobby of hers - photography. It seems her favourite place to visit was probably
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T Hammond Hall. You know Hammond Hall well, don’t you, Maggie?’ ‘It says so in my file, I suppose,’ she said. ‘You’re a volunteer guide there, aren’t you?’ ‘I used to be.’ ‘You might have met Jenny Weston, then. You might have shown her round some time, explained the history of the Tudor wall-hangings to her, or directed her to the ladies’ toilets perhaps.’ ‘I never really notice the visitors, you know. They’re just an anonymous mass. I forget them all as soon as they’ve gone. Unless they ask particularly interesting questions.’ ‘Jenny might have done that. She was interested in history.’ ‘Lots of people are.’ The volunteers co-ordinator at Hammond Hall had been interviewed after the assault on Maggie Crew. She had described Maggie as very knowledgeable. A bit cool and austere, perhaps, but some visitors preferred her as a guide because of the depth of her knowledge. ‘Jenny may even have dealt with your car insurance,’ said Fry, ‘or the insurance on your house.’ ‘I don’t think so.’ ‘How do you know? I haven’t said what company she worked for.’ Maggie regarded Fry steadily from the side of her eye. ‘This is getting tiresome. What exactly is it you want from me?’ ‘I want you to help us find the man who killed Jenny Weston.’
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‘And why should I do that?’ She shifted in her seat as she asked the question. Fry prayed she wouldn’t turn towards her completely. She had got so far that she didn’t want her nerve to fail now. She didn’t want her face to show the reaction that made her stomach clench and her fingers tighten into tense fists. ‘Because we think he’s the same man who did that to your face, Maggie,’ she said. A minimum number of objects were lined up in an orderly line on the desk; no more than a paperweight, an ashtray, a telephone - and a wicked- looking letter opener shaped like a dagger, with a sharp blade and imitation rubies set into its handle. The letter opener was the only item of any ostentation in the room, and it stood out like a beacon, the light from the lamp reflecting in its red stones. In a moment of thought, Maggie toyed with its handle, turning it so that the tip pointed towards Fry, then spinning it away again to line up neatly with the paperweight in a satisfying geometric pattern.
