Cooper and Fry Crime Fiction Series Books 1-3: Black Dog, Dancing With the Virgins, Blood on the Tongue. Stephen Booth

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      ‘Oh really?’

      ‘Well, it’s right. She wanted to do it all the time. We used to go into the park, or we’d get on the bike and drive out somewhere into the country. Up on the hills. She liked that.’

      ‘So you had sex often?’

      ‘All the time – well, every time we met, if we had long enough. And sometimes when we didn’t have long enough, too, if you know what I mean. Yeah.’

      Fry thought if Holmes grinned again she would have to slap the cuffs on him and read him his rights on a charge of offensive behaviour.

      ‘Was she a virgin before she met you?’ she asked.

      ‘No way.’

      ‘Are you sure?’

      ‘Well, look, for one thing you can tell when you do it the first time, you know. By how they react and other things.’ He hesitated, looking sideways at Fry. ‘Anyway, she knew what it was all about, all right. In any case, the lad that she’d asked about me, he’d already had her himself. He told me about her. Reckoned there had been others too.’

      ‘Plenty of boyfriends, then.’

      ‘Yeah. She was dead keen on the blokes.’

      ‘Were there other boyfriends while you were seeing her, perhaps?’

      ‘Dunno really. Could have been, I suppose. She never mentioned to me if she had.’

      ‘It wouldn’t be unusual, for the sort of girl you seem to be describing. She might even do it deliberately, to make you jealous.’

      ‘I’m not the jealous type,’ said Holmes. Then his smile shrank and faded, and he looked at Fry again. ‘Oh yeah, I see what you’re getting at. You’ve got an idea that I got jealous of some other bloke and bashed her, right? Well, you can forget that right off. She was OK, Laura, good fun. But things like that don’t last, you know? We all move on. It’s what I would have expected, for either her or me to find someone else and it’d be over. A good few weeks together, and that’s it. It wasn’t a problem. I didn’t see her as much in the holidays anyway – she couldn’t get away from the parents, you know.’

      ‘We have a witness who saw Laura talking to a young man on the path behind the Mount shortly before she was killed on Saturday night,’ said Hitchens.

      ‘It wasn’t me, mate. I’ve already told the other bloke where I was. I was at Matlock Bath with about fifty other bikers.’

      ‘Yes, so you said.’ Officers were already busy checking out the names and places Holmes had given to DS Morgan. Depending on what they came back with, the youth might have to be sent home for now.

      Fry would be pleased to get out of the interview room soon to get some fresh air, because the smell was becoming overpowering. She noticed Hitchens pull out a handkerchief as if to wipe his nose, but keeping it there a long time.

      ‘Besides,’ said Holmes, ‘I’ve never been near her place. Did someone say it was me they saw?’

      ‘Not specifically,’ said Hitchens.

      ‘There you are then.’

      Holmes was relaxing now. Fry hated to see him relaxing. He might start to grin again. ‘When you had sex with Laura,’ she said, ‘did you like to bite her?’

      He stared at her with distaste. ‘Get lost,’ he said.

      ‘You refuse to answer?’

      ‘It’s none of your business.’

      ‘Would you be willing to let us take a mould of your teeth?’ asked Hitchens.

      ‘What the hell for?’

      ‘To help eliminate you from our enquiries, Simeon. If you didn’t harm Laura Vernon, then you have absolutely nothing to worry about.’

      Simeon Holmes wasn’t quite so stupid as he pretended. Fry could see him figuring it out. A question about his sexual techniques, and a request for a mould from his teeth. They hadn’t exactly been subtle with their questions. Because of his casual manner, Holmes might be easy to underestimate. But he had a choice now. He could work out that a mould might prove his guilt, if he was guilty. But if he was innocent, it might also clear him and get the police off his back. Fry and Hitchens both waited patiently to see which way he would jump.

      ‘OK,’ he said. ‘No problem.’

      Hitchens’s face fell in disappointment. But before he could say anything else, there was a knock on the door and DS Rennie stuck his head into the room. He did a quick double take at the fetid atmosphere and his face screwed up in disgust. Hitchens announced a break in the interview, switched off the tapes, and went out into the corridor to speak to Rennie.

      Left alone with Simeon Holmes, Fry was able to study him afresh. The young man met her eyes directly. But a layer of affectation seemed to have dropped away from him in the last few minutes, the final shreds of some assumed role dissipating as DI Hitchens left the room. Fry couldn’t quite figure out what it was. She didn’t think he had been lying during the interview. And yet … How old was Holmes? Seventeen?

      ‘You must be in the sixth form at the Community School now, Simeon,’ she said.

      Holmes raised his eyebrows, saying nothing, but looking meaningfully at the motionless tape machines.

      ‘Just asking,’ she said.

      He grinned slowly – that annoying, self-satisfied grin he had. But still nothing.

      ‘Only I was thinking,’ said Fry, ‘that I bet you’ve got a bit more brain than most of your mates.’

      ‘Dead right.’

      ‘And I bet you do quite well at school when you turn your mind to it. What are your best subjects? Let me guess – mechanical engineering? Car maintenance, perhaps?’

      Holmes sneered. ‘Chemistry and biology, actually. I take my A levels next year.’

      Intrigued, Fry found herself looking at a new Simeon Holmes, one who even sounded quite different.

      ‘Not much use for stripping a bike, surely?’ she said.

      The guarded look began to fall back across the youth’s face. Fry could almost see the transformation taking place in his features as he reverted to his role with a dismissive snort.

      ‘Perhaps you were thinking of going on to university,’ she said. Then she held herself quite still, tingling with satisfaction, as she saw the beginnings of a blush seep into Simeon’s neck and across his cheeks. She had found something that embarrassed him. Something that he wouldn’t want to talk about with his biker mates.

      ‘With good grades in chemistry and biology you could study – what? Medicine?’

      His mouth opened, moving compulsively. Deep in his eyes there was a small spurt of pain and distress, as if Fry had struck close to the most vulnerable part of his anatomy. She hurried to press home her advantage.

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