The two women lay in the sawdust, clutching each other like lovers. They sweated and gasped as they stared into each other’s eyes. Now she was so close, Fry could smell the cigarette smoke in Maggie’s hair, no longer masked by the perfume. She could picture the ashtray on Maggie’s desk, alongside the telephone and the letter opener, the only objects that had been important enough to earn space on that pristine surface. And Maggie Crew never had visitors to her apartment – so whose was the cigarette ash? It was a question Fry had never thought to ask.

Other armed officers had joined Cooper outside the ring. They shouted more warnings. But they couldn’t fire now. They had no clear target – the women were too closely entwined.

‘This was how you felt, that night at the Cat Stones,’ said Fry. ‘I know you, Maggie.’

Their faces were pressed against each other, Fry’s mouth touching Maggie’s disfigured cheek. But now she didn’t flinch away from the scars. Their breath mingled, and Fry felt their hearts beat hard against each other.

‘You’re going to have to give me the knife or kill me, Maggie.’

Maggie’s hand moved, and Fry felt the touch of the steel blade, sharp and cold. Maggie’s grip on her neck tightened.

It was a long moment, frightening yet exquisite, the feel of this person in her arms. Fry closed her eyes, unable to do anything to protect herself, or to prevent what might happen. She was waiting. Waiting for the knife to cut her again; waiting for it to enter her body.

37

Derwent Court still had much of its original Victorian guttering. The increasingly blustery winds that battered around Matlock had swirled heaps of wet leaves into the iron channels and downspouts, and now the rain was spilling over and cascading down the front of the building. Ben Cooper had to dodge a waterfall near the front door, wondering whether this was part of the water treatment that the Victorians had once flocked to the hydro to enjoy.

When Cooper joined the team in Maggie Crew’s apartment, they had already emptied her desk, and papers littered the surface. DI Hitchens was working his way through them, and when he saw Cooper he offered him a heap.

‘We found a rucksack back there in one of the bedrooms with Ros Daniels’ clothes and a few belongings in. She was travelling light, by the looks of it.’

Cooper began to look through some of the papers. Many of them were bills, bank statements, insurance policies, all carefully organized and filed. There were law books, a copy of Maggie’s partnership agreement, an address book packed with names. Who were all the people in the address book if Maggie Crew had been so alone? He turned over some leaflets about Hammond Hall, and showed Hitchens what he found underneath.