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'That Kim Arm strong, she's so scary. I'm frightened she'll put a spell on me and turn me into a eunuch.'
    ‘ Will you cut it out?'
    ‘ No, seriously, Ben. They reckon she cursed Ossie Clarke in Traffic one day, and his balls shrivelled up like cashew nuts. The doctors are baffled. He's been off sick for weeks.'
    ‘ Todd—'
    ‘ Well, he has, hasn't he? Eh?'
    ‘ Ossie Clarke is one of the bad-back brigade. He has a slipped disc.'
    ‘ That's the official line. Don't let it lull you into a false sense of security. Anyway, we're in luck. They couldn't spare Armstrong from this paedophile enquiry. Appar ently it's warming up for some arrests. There was the little girl that was killed —'
    ‘ Yes, I know.'
    ‘ So Hitchens has had to come in off leave. And you know he's just moved into a new house with that red headed nurse? So he's not happy, either. It's a barrel of laughs up there, all right. Couldn't wait to get away for a bit, myself. ’
    Weenink was taking the back road past the fluorspar works to avoid the bottleneck in Bakewell. He took the bends gently, as if he was just one more pensioner on a Sunday afternoon outing.
    ‘ Todd? Can't we go a bit faster?'
    ‘ Mmm, the roads are a bit slippery with all these leaves,' said Weenink. 'Can't be too careful. ’
    *
    The atmosphere on the moor was gloomy. It made Ben Cooper feel almost guilty about the buzz of anticipation that had stayed with him even in the car with Todd Weenink. The entire stone circle had been taped off, and lights were being set up to illuminate a small tent in the centre. More tape created a pathway as far as a gorse bush a few yards away. The tape twisted and rattled in the wind with a noise like a crowd of football supporters half-heartedly encouraging their team.
    ‘ There was an inch or two of rain during Thursday night, but it had dried up by morning,' said Cooper. Several faces turned to stare at him. Hitchens raised an eyebrow, but Tailby nodded.
    ‘ Well, the ground was fine for lifting the sugar beet that morning,' explained Cooper. He drew a finger through a hollow on the top of one of the stones. 'On the other hand, there hasn't been enough sun since then to dry the moisture out where it's sheltered from the wind. ’
    He became suddenly aware of the nature of the looks he was being given. 'It's what you asked me,' he said .
    Hitchens shrugged. He was wearing an old rugby jersey over his jeans, and might once have played for the divisional XV until he became senior enough to be more at risk of injury from his own side than from the opposition.
    ‘ Could Stride be a name?' he asked.
    ‘ What kind of man would leave his name written in the dirt when he had committed a murder, anyway?' said Tailby. 'And these stones . . .'
    ‘ The Nine Virgins,' said Cooper.
    ‘ What are they all about?'
    ‘ They're the remains of a Bronze Age burial chamber. But local people call them the Virgins because of the legends . . .'
    ‘ How old? ’
    ‘ Three and a half thousand years, give or take.'
    ‘ The last virgins in Derbyshire, then,' said Hitchens .
    Cooper kept his mouth shut. He watched a SOCO scoop up a tiny patch of bloodstained earth where the body had lain, while he listened to the faint laughter drop hollowly into the wind and disappear with a scat ter of dead leaves .
    *
    In a short while, no doubt, a detective superintendent would arrive from another division to take over as senior investigating officer. He would be grumbling about the continuing vacancy in E Division that meant he had to be dragged away from his own patch, where there would be several other major incidents to be dealt with as well .
    But this was the second attack on a woman in a small area, and this victim was dead. Panic would be setting in at higher levels, and those being kicked by the chiefs would soon- be kicking the dog .
    Though he knew Ringham Moor well, Ben Cooper found the area around the Nine Virgins disturbed him in a way it had never done before. The