Dancing With the Virgins. Stephen Booth

       5

      Since Diane Fry had arrived, the woman had kept her face turned away towards the window. The light from the desk lamp fell only on her left side, outlining her profile, delineating a high cheekbone and a straight nose. It highlighted the gold in a strand of hair tucked behind her ear, and it threw unmerciful shadows on the fine lines etched into the skin of her neck.

      The apartment she lived in was austere, with minimal modern furniture, scrupulously clean, and cold, harsh lighting that created stark lines between light and shade. It was as if the rooms had been designed so that someone moving around in their cool spaces could know precisely where the shadows fell, where details were distinct and where they were not. Fry pictured the woman rehearsing her positioning in these rooms like an actress walking about a stage, seeking the best angle, presenting her most favourable side to the audience. On the other hand, perhaps she moved through the shadows by instinct alone – the instinct of a wounded animal. Because there was no mirror in this room to examine the effect in. No mirror, but a pale patch on the wall where one had once hung.

      Maggie Crew sat behind a desk, as if conducting a formal interview with a client. On the desk, there were only a few items – a telephone, an ashtray, a paper knife. Along the side wall were a couple of shelves of law books and journals and a stereo system, finished in matt black, with neat racks of CD cases, their titles too small for Fry to make out.

      Behind Maggie was a big sash window looking out over the roofs of Matlock. It had a view down the Derwent Valley to the point where it narrowed into a high gorge, with a hill above it that had been hacked and blasted into pieces by quarrying. Heavy green drapes hung from a brass rail over the window, capable of shutting out the natural light entirely during the day. Apart from that, there was little ornamentation in the room. The furnishings spoke to Fry of pretension without showiness, a subtle statement of the owner’s disregard for the comfort of her surroundings. According to the reports, Crew spent all her time in this apartment now, shut away from the world. It wasn’t difficult to understand why. She had been an attractive woman once.

      ‘My name is Diane Fry, Maggie.’

      Maggie nodded. She wore a man’s Calvin Klein cube-design watch, all minimalist straight lines. A pad of A4 ruled paper lay near her hand, with a silver ballpoint pen. But she made no move to write down Fry’s name.

      ‘I’ve been asked to work with you for a while, Maggie. If that’s all right with you, of course.’

      ‘You know I’ve already agreed to this. Although I don’t know what good it will do.’

      ‘I want to go through with you again anything you can remember. Any little detail may help us.’

      Where you might have expected Maggie Crew to have let her hair grow long to cover the disfigurement, it was cut short, trimmed clear of her forehead. The left side of her face was smooth and white, her cheeks like the skin of someone who had spent too long in the dark. Her hands, too, were pale, the backs of them flat and shapeless. Fry wondered if Maggie was a woman who struggled against gaining weight. But she was not fat now. Her cheekbones were visible in her face, her shoulders were prominent under the fabric of a black jacket. Fry herself liked to wear black. But on Maggie it seemed to be more than practicality or an attempt to make herself look slimmer; more, even, than a fashion statement. There was an emotion in the blackness, a dark outer show to match her feelings, to fit the atmosphere of the room. It was a sort of mourning.

      ‘What happened to the last one?’ said Maggie.

      ‘We just thought a change of personnel might help. A new approach …’

      ‘A fresh face.’ Maggie smiled. She had small, white teeth, but her upper lip drew back a fraction too far, exposing a strip of pink gum and removing the humour from her smile.

      ‘So.’ She stared at Fry, measuring her like a potential employee, a candidate for a domestic’s job. ‘Diane Fry. What is different about you, then?’

      ‘There’s nothing different about me. I’m just here to talk to you.’

      ‘Do you know how many people have said that?’

      ‘It’s all in your file,’ said Fry. ‘I know your history.’

      ‘Ah, yes. You’ve read my file. So you have the advantage of coming here knowing absolutely everything about me. How helpful that must be. Perhaps you think you know more about me than I do myself. Perhaps you think you know how my mind is working, exactly how you might manipulate my subconscious?’

      ‘Nobody wants to manipulate you, Maggie.’

      ‘Then what do you want? What is it you all want with me? Don’t you know by now that I can’t give it to you? Isn’t that in my file?’

      ‘If we keep trying –’

      ‘You think you might be able to make me remember. Then what? My memories might be able to help you, yes. But what will they do to me? What if I don’t want to remember? What if my subconscious has wiped out the memories?’

      ‘Do you think that’s the case?’

      ‘The doctors say there is no physiological reason for the memory loss. There is no damage to my brain. They tell me it’s probably shock; they call it trauma. They say it’s a safety device, which shuts down memories that the brain doesn’t want. Wipes them out.’

      Fry watched her, trying to hide the scepticism in her face. She heard the words, and recognized some of the phrases from the medical reports. But she didn’t believe that you could wipe out memories completely, no matter how unpleasant. They left their traces everywhere, in the overlooked corners of your mind, and in the sensations of your body – the touch of your skin against your clothes, the sudden devastating echo in a sound, or the malignant resonance of a smell. Memories were cancerous growths, secretive and spiteful; sometimes you didn’t know they were there until it was too late. Diane Fry knew all about memories.

      ‘This is just an introductory meeting,’ she said. ‘I’ll come back to talk to you again tomorrow, Maggie. If that’s all right with you.’

      ‘If you must.’

      ‘It’s very important now.’

      ‘Ah.’ Maggie hesitated. ‘Does that mean you have another victim?’

      ‘Yes, Maggie. And it’s vital we catch this man before he kills again.’

      Maggie stared at Diane Fry out of her good eye, assessing her sharply, staring with the unblinking curiosity of someone who rarely saw a new visitor.

      ‘Kills?’

      ‘Yes, it’s murder this time. This victim died.’

      Fry watched for a reaction. The trembling in Maggie’s hands and the draining of the colour from her face gave Fry a small measure of satisfaction.

      ‘We also want to put you on a witness protection programme. You know what that means?’

      ‘Of course. Remember I’m a lawyer.’

      ‘We’ll ask you to consider finding somewhere else to stay, if possible, Maggie, until we think it’s safe. In the meantime, a technician will call to install alarms in your apartment. You’ll be given a phone number you can call at any time.’

      Maggie took a moment to recover her composure. ‘Is all that necessary?’

      ‘Maggie, we’re looking for a killer now. And you’re the only person who can identify him.’

      ‘I won’t go away. I’m staying here.’

      ‘But