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Back Dancing With the Virgins
Chapters (44)
  1. Dedication
  2. 1
  3. 2
  4. 3
  5. 4
  6. 5
  7. 6
  8. 7
  9. 8
  10. 9
  11. 10
  12. 11
  13. 12
  14. 13
  15. 14
  16. 15
  17. 16
  18. 17
  19. 18
  20. 19
  21. 20
  22. 21
  23. 22
  24. 23
  25. 24
  26. 25
  27. 26
  28. 27
  29. 28
  30. 29
  31. 30
  32. 31
  33. 32
  34. 33
  35. 34
  36. 35
  37. 36
  38. 37
  39. 38
  40. Acknowledgements
  41. Author’s Note
  42. About the Author
  43. Also by Stephen Booth
  44. About the Publisher

On the way out of her house in Grosvenor Avenue that night, Fry caught a glimpse of a figure lurking in the shadows under the overgrown hedges near the streetlight across the road. It wasn’t unusual. The female students and nurses staying in her own house and the ones on either side attracted a motley selection of boyfriends, some of whom wouldn’t look out of place in a cell in Derby Prison.

Fry studied the figure carefully. If she hadn’t been alert on a professional level, she wouldn’t have seen him. He was wearing dark clothes, and standing quite still, so that his movement didn’t give him away. Nine out of ten people would have passed by without noticing him at all. Fry shrugged. It was nothing to do with her. When she was off duty, she didn’t feel any obligation to concern herself about the dangerous private lives of her fellow flat-dwellers. She had plenty of concerns of her own to think about.

She fetched her car from behind the house and drove out of Edendale and through Grindleford to get on the A625 into Sheffield. She tried to keep her eyes closed to the scenery until she was into the built-up area near Ecclesall. She might live on the back of the moon, but she didn’t have to admire it. She was a city girl, and always would be.

Fry began to curse Ben Cooper. She cursed him for being the one who had revived memories she had been trying to put behind her. There was only the one reason she had chosen Derbyshire to transfer to, when she ought to have gone south, to London. They always needed officers in the Met; it would have suited her much better in a big anonymous city, where nobody cared who you were or what you did with your life. By now, she would have been well established, instead of dickering about in this tinpot rural force. She had made the decision for her own reasons, and for months now she had been pretending that those reasons didn’t exist. She had tried to let the job take over, and had hoped it would become her number one priority. No – her only priority. But it hadn’t worked. The time for pretending was over.