the idea of revenge long enough while in prison, with no one to contradict him, for it to have festered in his mind. Cooper could even imagine the conversations with other prisoners that would have taken place, full of mutual self- pity and recriminations against those on the outside. Sugden had alibis for the day Jenny was killed. But might he have made some jail-cell pact? It seemed unlikely, though the things that went on in the minds of men in prison were far worse than that. As he walked out of the station towards his car, Ben Cooper became aware that he was being followed. He thought at first it was Diane Fry coming after him, determined to open some new argument. But then he recognized the jacket, and he saw that it was Mark Roper. Cooper stopped. ‘All right, Mark? Still here? Do you want a lift or something?’ ‘I came with Owen, but he’s stayed to have a word with the inspector. They want us to put on more patrols round Ringham.’ ‘I know.’
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I ‘There’s something I wanted to tell you. I didn’t like to say anything in the meeting.’ Cooper leaned against his Toyota, noting how ill at ease the young Ranger was. Mark took a radio handset from his pocket, fingered the buttons, flexed the aerial, and put it back without seeming to realize what he was doing. ‘Tell me about it,’ said Cooper. ‘It’s Warren Leach. We see him often at Ringham Edge. He doesn’t know we’re there - he never bothers to look up at the hills these days, only down at his boots.’ Mark paused. ‘For a while now, I’ve thought there was something going on in the big shed at the back of the farmhouse. The new one, with the steel roof. It’s always locked, and Leach doesn’t go near it during the day. I’ve seen Yvonne Leach go out there and try the doors sometimes, when Warren is out of the way. She wants to know what’s in there, too.’ ‘And at night?’ ‘People come. Vans, four-wheel drives. They all park by the shed. But only when it’s dark.’ ‘Mark, you’re not normally on patrol at night, are you?’ ‘Of course not. But I’ve been up there in my own time a couple of nights. I want to know what’s going on. It’s my patch, you see. Owen told me it’s my patch now, up there.’ Mark hesitated and looked sideways at Cooper. ‘Owen doesn’t know I go up on the moor at night.’ ‘All right, Mark.’ ‘Leach is going through a really bad time. You’ve been to see him, haven’t you?’
T ‘We took a captive bolt pistol off him the other day. It was unlicensed.’ Mark frowned. ‘Why do you think Leach would have a captive bolt pistol?’ ‘To use on his own animals, I suppose. There must be some he has to put down.’ ‘Farmers are supposed to have their fallen stock removed by a proper slaughterman. There are regulations these days.’ ‘Even so…’ ‘Would he risk getting into trouble just for that?’ Cooper waited for him to say more, but Mark looked round at the door to see if Owen had emerged. He began to edge towards the Ranger Land Rover a few places away from Cooper’s car. ‘Have there been any people coming to the farm that you recognized, Mark?’ asked Cooper. ‘Oh, one or two vehicles that were probably local. Most of them I don’t recognize.’ ‘What about a white van?’ The young Ranger nodded. ‘Ford Transit? Almost ready for the scrapyard? Front bumper held on with baling twine?’ ‘Yes, that sort of van.’ I know him, all right. That’s the rat man.’ ‘You’ve seen him down at the farm?’ ‘Several times. He gets around a bit.’ Owen Fox came out of the station. He was chatting to a uniformed officer, and they paused on the steps. When Owen saw Mark, a faint shadow slipped across his face.
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^ ‘Thanks for sharing that with me, Mark,’ said Cooper. Mark put out a hand to hold him back for a second. ‘I’d rather that nobody found out who passed that on to you,’ he said. ‘Why?, ‘I have to live and work round here. If people think I’m spying for the police, it won’t make any difference to them whether what they’re doing is right or wrong. No difference at all.’ Diane Fry had a phone call she wanted to make before she got involved in anything else. It was to Maggie Crew’s sister. Her name was Catherine Dyson, and her phone number was in the file - a number in the Cork area, in the south of Ireland. ‘Yes, I know Maggie is having major problems bringing back the memories,’ said Catherine when Fry got through to her. ‘If you’re asking my opinion, the more you press her to remember, the more she’ll bury the memories. I think it’s automatic with her now. It’s her instinct to push things away, not to dwell on the past.’ ‘She is suffering partial amnesia from the assault,’ said Fry. ‘The doctors say she may never recover memory for the period several hours either side of the incident.’ ‘Well, if they say so. But Mags was always frightened of memories coming back out of the past. She’s built up a whole system of defences. Her memories are locked up more securely than Fort Knox. Sometimes I think she barely remembers me.’ Catherine’s voice was very like her sister’s, but softer
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and more comfortable. There was even a faint hint of an Irish accent creeping into the vowels - more, anyway, than might be expected for a woman from Chesterfield. Fry conjured a picture of a white-painted cottage reflecting the sunlight on a hillside over an Atlantic fishing port, and Catherine Dyson in an armchair with a cat on her knee as she gazed out of the window. She pictured a large woman, her body allowed to run to fat after four children, her time taken up with washing and ironing, baking and tending the garden. A woman nothing like Maggie Crew. A woman who was happy.
‘Are you thinking of any particular memories from your sister’s past?’ asked Fry. ‘Apart from the assault, I mean?’
‘Yes, of course,’ said Catherine. ‘I was thinking of her daughter.’
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24
That morning, the dowser was working his way backwards and forwards across the edge of the birch wood, treading carefully as if he was walking an imaginary white line, his eyes fixed on a forked twig held in front of him. He held it strangely, with his palms turned upwards. Every now and then, the twig twitched, and the dowser would stop and scuff at the ground with the toe of his boot. Then he would move on. He looked cold and disconsolate.
Diane Fry had a copy of the latest Eden Valley Times. The attack on Karen Tavisker had come too late for the newspaper’s deadline, though it was already appearing on the local radio news bulletins. The Times did have three pages covering a public meeting and protests outside the hall, with all the old material about Jenny Weston and Maggie Crew rehashed into one big mess that somebody had to take the blame for. The guilty faces of Jepson and Tailby stared out from a crowd waving banners that said ‘We demand action’.
There was a highly speculative piece headed ‘The Sabbath Slayer?’ It attempted to make a link between
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the legend of the Nine Virgins, who had been turned to stone for dancing on the Sabbath, and the fact that the attacks on Crew and Weston had both taken place on Sundays, when the women had been out walking or cycling on the moor. The conclusion was that a religious maniac could be punishing women for enjoying themselves on the Lord’s Day. As a theory, it held plenty of tabloid drama, but little substance. Yet it had already been murmured by officers on the enquiry team, in their more desperate moments.
There was also an interesting secondary story on the third page. A reporter and photographer had found two young men living in an old VW van in an abandoned quarry at Ringham Moor, and they had scented a different angle.
‘Have you seen this photograph? Calvin Lawrence looks a mass murderer if ever I saw one,’ said Fry.
‘But they’ve made Stride look like a half-wit.’
‘That youth needs psychiatric help. Have you seen their background reports? He dropped out of university during one of his recurring periods of acute depression.’
‘That doesn’t make him a half-wit,’ said Cooper. ‘Simon Bevington tried to kill himself twice. It might mean that he shouldn’t be out and about unsupervised. The bloke’s a nutter.’
‘He isn’t a danger to anybody but himself. Besides, I think he is supervised. Cal takes care of him. I reckon
