stream of red and blue insects covering the roads and car parks like insects swarming in the August heat. They were a naturally occurring phenomenon, like greenfly.
Visitors and their cars brought their own kind of problems for crime management. The mention of them reminded Ben Cooper that, right now, he should have been in the Crime Strategy Meeting.
‘We need to trace Jenny Weston’s movements exactly, particularly in the last couple of hours before she died. DCs Cooper and Weenink will start with the cycle hire centre at Partridge Cross this morning,’ said Tailby.
Weenink sat just behind Cooper in the incident room. He had a seat against the wall, his shoulders almost making a dent in the plaster. He looked as though he wanted to put his feet up on the table, but was resisting the temptation. There were only five officers in the Edendale section CID now, a closer-knit grouping since the recent reorganization. Cooper hadn’t known Weenink so well before. He had the sneaking feeling that there was no one in the division who envied him.
For a while, Cooper had been convinced that his fall from popularity had only one cause – the arrival in E Division of Diane Fry, on a transfer from West Midlands. She was ambitious; some might say ruthless. Her arrival had coincided with the moment things had started to go wrong for Cooper, when his hopes of promotion had been set back in favour of hers. Fry seemed not to have put a foot wrong so far. There were people who made all the right moves without trying; and there were others who followed their own instinct wherever it might take them, and ended up in the mire. Cooper blamed himself for being naive with Diane Fry. It took time to earn trust.
Probably his father would have been able to tell him that. His father had seen everything there was to be known about office politics and in-fighting inside the police service. He had managed to steer clear of all that; he had never fallen victim to backstabbing from his colleagues. It had been the street that had killed him, in the end.
‘There are a number of names and addresses on the list for interview this morning,’ said Hitchens. ‘Colleagues, friends, neighbours. We expect the list to increase as the day goes on. There have been several boyfriends, according to the father. They all have to be traced. Fortunately, we have the victim’s own address book from her house. And, of course, there is the ex-husband. We need to dig out the details of Jenny Weston’s life. Narrow those names down. Give us something to go on.’
‘Hey, Ben,’ said Weenink when the meeting broke up. ‘This tracing her route business – are they saying we’ve got to go by bike?’
‘Of course not,’ said Cooper.
‘Thank God for that.’
‘We’ll walk.’
DI Hitchens touched Diane Fry’s arm and kept her back while the others left the incident room. DCI Tailby looked at them both thoughtfully. Fry knew she must have had his backing to get the move up to Acting Detective Sergeant, but she wasn’t quite sure how to read him yet. She was more comfortable working with either Hitchens or DI Armstrong, both of whom she felt she understood.
‘The ex-husband, Martin Stafford …’ said Tailby.
‘Do we have an address?’ asked Fry.
‘No, but we should be able to track him down through his employment record. He was a journalist, at least while he was married to Jenny Weston. I’ve asked for somebody to visit his old employers in Derby to look at his personnel records. With luck, they should have a note of any reference they gave him when he moved on. He may be completely out of the area by now, of course. Journalists move around quite a bit.’
‘What about a current boyfriend?’
‘Nobody seems sure who the latest one was, Diane,’ said Hitchens. ‘There are one or two of the girls at the call centre that she talked to about boyfriends sometimes. But they were very vague. Obviously, we’re going through the address book. But she used phone numbers, not addresses. Results might take a little time.’
‘I see.’
‘We do have this note.’ Hitchens held up an evidence bag. ‘One of the team found it in the back of her diary.’
‘What is it?’ said Tailby. ‘A love letter?’
‘Hardly a letter. It’s only two lines. And there’s no evidence love was involved either. The note reads: “Nine o’clock Friday at the cottage. Buy some fruit-flavoured ones.”’
Tailby stared at him. Fry remembered that the DCI was a lay preacher at a United Reformed Church in Dronfield.
‘We believe it’s a reference to contraceptives, sir,’ said Hitchens.
‘Yes?’
‘Condoms. We think it’s a fair assumption that the note is from a boyfriend. There’s no date, and it’s unsigned. But it looks fairly recent. Otherwise, why would it still be in her diary?’
‘Good point.’ Tailby put down the reports and took off his glasses.
‘I take it you are to remain as SIO, sir?’ asked Hitchens.
‘Detective Superintendent Prince is tied up with this case in Derby, the double shooting,’ said Tailby. ‘A drugs territory dispute. We’re getting some stick about it down there, apparently.’
‘Yes.’
‘It means Mr Prince can only keep a watching brief on this case, I’m afraid. But he thinks we’ve got a good start.’
‘Possibly,’ said Hitchens. ‘But there is speculation about the other attack.’
Tailby shook his head. ‘They smell different to me. This Jenny Weston sounds like a woman who got involved with the wrong sort of chap. It’s an old story. You’ll see.’
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