Careless Love

2

While Banks was attending the post-mortem of Adrienne Munro and Winsome was following up on the forensic results from the Belderfell Pass crime scene the following morning, DI Annie Cabot and DC Geraldine Masterson were at the scene of another suspicious death.

Annie and Gerry parked next to the patrol car in the tourist car park at Tetchley Moor and struggled against the wind as they made their way through the twisted heather and gorse roots towards the stunned group of ramblers. Had last week’s mist still been shrouding the moors, it would have been easy to mistake them for an ancient druids’ stone circle, Annie thought, but a sharp wind had finally arrived, especially on the heights, and it dispersed the low-lying cloud and drizzle that had been plaguing the Dales for weeks, replacing it with significantly lower temperatures. Now the sun shone bright and the sky was robin’s egg blue, with only the merest hint of white gossamer clouds twisting in spirals like DNA high above.

The wind moaned and whined and Annie’s winter coat flapped around her legs. Gerry’s long red hair whipped around her face, however much she tried the hold it back. When they got closer to the group, Annie recognised one or two of the faces from folk nights at the Dog and Gun she had attended with Banks.

Police Constable Ernie Garrett, who had been first officer on the scene, was standing guard over the gully, hands clasped over his groin like a footballer in the wall waiting for the free kick. Annie and Gerry approached, watched closely by the stationary walkers. One of the members held a handkerchief to her mouth, pale with shock.

When Annie leaned over the edge, she saw why. It looked as if the man had lost his way in the mist and fallen down the chasm, perhaps tripping over one of the heather or gorse roots that snaked all around the moors. He lay on his back, and his neck was twisted at an awkward angle. Annie guessed that the fall had probably broken it. There was also a fair amount of blood, which appeared to have come from where the back of the man’s head had hit a sharp stone. That he was dead was obvious enough, even to the layman. Small animals had clearly been nibbling at him, too, leaving marks on the exposed flesh of his face, ears and hands.

But there was another feature odd enough to snare Annie’s interest: the man was wearing an expensive slate grey suit, white shirt, striped tie and black brogues. Hardly the latest trend in walking gear, and certainly not the kind of clothing anyone in his right mind would have worn for a hike on Tetchley Moor at any time of the year.

But then, Annie thought, nobody in his right mind would have been walking in any sort of gear on Tetchley Moor over the past week or so.

Nobody, that is, except for the dead man in the grey suit.

Drinks in The Unicorn after a post-mortem was fast becoming a tradition. The pub was conveniently located opposite Eastvale General Infirmary, and it was usually quiet enough that he could hear himself think and have a private conversation.

Banks hadn’t seen any reason why he should inflict Adrienne’s post-mortem on Winsome, so he had texted her and asked her to walk down from the station to meet him afterwards. While he waited, he read again through the report the IT specialist had handed him after their brief chat that morning. They were still working on Adrienne’s laptop, and probably would be for some time, but they had been through the mobile without having recourse to go to her corpse for a fingerprint, and they were finished with it. He had her phone records before him.

The emails all seemed innocuous enough, mostly to or from family and friends, as far as Banks could gather. There was no evidence of cyber stalking, sexting, bullying or the myriad other offences social media had made it easier to commit. Adrienne also received a lot of automatic notifications of forthcoming classical concerts in the area along with regular newsletters from the Sage, Wigmore Hall and other music venues.

As far as apps were concerned, Adrienne had subscribed to the streaming and downloading services Idagio and Qobuz, and most of the downloaded music on her phone was classical. She had also bought an app for live screenings of the Berlin Philharmonic concerts which, Banks knew, cost around €150 a year. It was something Banks had thought about subscribing to himself, but felt that he wasn’t at home often enough to enjoy the luxury of the live broadcasts. Maybe he’d do it anyway. They all appeared in the archive eventually, and he could watch them at his leisure. The lure of seeing Patricia Kopatchinskaja dancing barefoot around Simon Rattle as she played the Ligeti violin concerto was almost too hard to resist.

Adrienne also had both Facebook and Twitter accounts, along with Instagram, Snapchat and WhatsApp, but there was nothing unusual about their content: a few photos of her and her college friends acting silly or formally dressed at a ball or wedding, wearing funny hats at a birthday party, holiday photos from a pal in Spain, along with Twitter feeds from her favourite classical musicians and scientific thinkers. There was certainly nothing risqué, no nude images, or even sexy poses. Nor did she have Tinder or any more sinister dating apps. It would all have to be sifted through in detail, of course, along with the contents of her laptop. There might be a clue to what happened to her among all the detritus of her private life. There usually was. There is no privacy for the dead.

The pub was almost empty, as usual. The landlord didn’t serve food, which discouraged the tourist trade, so the place survived on a clientele of serious drinkers and hospital shift workers, and sometimes the one was inseparable from the other. Truant pupils from Eastvale Comprehensive School down the road sneaked in now and then, and The Unicorn was well known as the pub where many an underage drinker had his or her first alcoholic drink.

The Unicorn certainly wasn’t the Queen’s Arms, being a rather shabby and rundown Victorian street corner pub, but at least it served a decent pint of Timothy Taylor’s, which was what Banks was drinking. As he sat in his corner and shivered, he also realised that another technique the landlord used to drive prospective customers away was keeping the heat turned low.

Winsome arrived and came over with her Britvic orange, keeping her fleece jacket on. She wasn’t drinking alcohol at all these days — not that she ever had drunk much — and Banks wondered whether that had any connection with her marrying Terry Gilchrist last March. If Winsome had an announcement to make, he was sure she would make it in her own time. Marriage seemed so far to have agreed with her. It had given her more confidence and encouraged her to speak her mind more freely. Before, she had often kept her own counsel, and Banks had had to coax ideas out of her, but now she tended to say what was on her mind. She had also lost much of her prudish aura and sometimes surprised him with a bawdy comment or even, God forbid, by swearing. Terry, the ex-soldier’s, influence, no doubt.

‘Anything on the mobile, guv?’ she asked as she sat down beside him at the corner table. It had been there so long it was still scarred with cigarette burns from the days when smoking was permitted in pubs.

‘Not as far as I can tell,’ said Banks. ‘Just the usual personal and college stuff. Nothing stands out. We’ll get the phone number from her call log and contacts checked.’

‘So what’s the doc’s verdict?’

‘That it seems very much as if Adrienne took enough sleeping pills to kill her.’ Banks remembered vividly the moment when Dr Glendenning had opened Adrienne Munro’s stomach. He took a gulp of beer to stem the rise of bile at the memory. The whole thing, her pale, beautiful, naked body on the stainless-steel slab, seemed a travesty of what her life should have been. On the one hand, she was nothing but an empty shell with no more personality or allure than a life-size doll, but on the other, she should have been pulsing with vitality and hopes and dreams and music. He thought of the beautiful melody of ‘Après un rêve’. ‘But, as it happens,’ he told Winsome, ‘she did a Jimi Hendrix before the sleeping pills could kill her, as Dr Burns suspected at the scene. Choked on her own vomit, too drugged to wake up. Jazz Singh is going to get to work on the toxicology.’

Winsome pulled a face. ‘What a horrible way to go,’ she said. ‘Though I suppose she would have been unaware of what was happening.’

‘Yes. And it could hardly have been an accident. She took a far larger dose than anyone might take for recreational purposes. And on an empty stomach.’

‘Suicide, then?’

‘Looks that way. Or she just didn’t understand what powerful stuff she was playing with.’ Banks shook his head slowly. ‘Where was she, and what did she see or experience that scared her so much she killed herself?’

‘We don’t know that she did it because she was scared, guv,’ said Winsome.

‘No, you’re right. She may have been depressed or unhinged.’

‘There was no vomit in the car, was there?’

‘No. Meaning?’

‘Maybe someone cleaned her up.’

‘Good point. We’ll bear it in mind.’

‘Anything else of interest?’ Winsome asked. ‘Body art, birthmarks, distinguishing features?’

‘No tats or piercings. Small birthmark high on her right arm.’

‘Maybe someone could have forced her to take the pills?’

‘I suppose so. But that’s pushing it a bit, isn’t it? Besides, the doc went over every inch of her skin, and he found nothing suspicious. Not a bruise, not a needle mark, nothing. In addition, he couldn’t find any of the physical or medical problems that might have pushed Adrienne towards taking her own life. She wasn’t pregnant, was in general good health, no eating disorders, no signs of a heart attack, aneurysm, incurable cancer, debilitating nervous system disease, cerebral haemorrhage, stroke, seizure or anything like that. As far as mental-health problems go, we just don’t know yet. Or whether she had any problems with her love life.’

‘Every girl her age has some problems, guv, believe me,’ said Winsome. ‘Even if they’re not immediately apparent.’

Banks gave her a sharp glance. ‘Aren’t we the cynical one?’

‘Not cynical, just realistic. Put it down to experience. Late teens can be a tough time for girls.’

Banks nodded. ‘Sorry. You’re right, of course. Boys, too, if I remember correctly. I had no idea where my life was heading at that age, what I wanted to do. I was in business college, but I spent most of my time hanging around with the art and music students, going to rock festivals. I certainly never saw a police career in my future. But Adrienne had everything going for her — looks, education, brains, the lot.’

‘There’s always something. Even when it appears good from the outside. The things we think are so wonderful are often superficial.’

‘So you think she reached some sort of crisis point?’

‘Just that it’s possible, that’s all.’

‘What do you think would suddenly drive an otherwise normal girl like Adrienne Munro to commit suicide, if that’s what happened?’

Winsome shrugged. ‘Love? Loss of love? Clinical depression? Despair? Loss of faith? I don’t know, guv. We don’t even know that it was sudden.’

‘What do you mean? That something was happening to her that she couldn’t live with any more? Something ongoing?’

‘Possibly.’

‘Like what? Rape? Sexual abuse?’

‘But there’s no evidence of anything like that, is there?’ said Winsome.

‘Not in the post-mortem, no. No rape, anyway. Or physical abuse. But if it happened some time ago, and she was keeping it all inside, not confiding in anyone or seeing a counsellor... Who knows? It’s just another thing to consider when we’re questioning her friends. The doc says Adrienne wasn’t a virgin, but there were no signs of recent sexual activity or rough sex of any kind. And no signs of sexually transmitted disease. What about blackmail? That can be harder to pin down.’

‘But what could she possibly have been blackmailed over?’ Winsome asked.

‘Who knows? Maybe it was because of something she did.’

‘Somebody must know what happened.’

‘Well, the only way we’ll find out is by digging deeper into her life,’ said Banks. ‘By talking to people who knew her. What about your inquiries? Any forensics on the car?’

‘Just what you’d expect,’ said Winsome. ‘Plenty of fingerprints, inside and out. None of them on file. And none were the deceased’s. Hair. Coffee stains. Fast-food wrappers. Still no sign of any of Adrienne’s possessions.’

‘So she was in the car but she didn’t touch it?’

‘So it appears. If she’d opened the door herself, we’d have found her prints somewhere. She wasn’t wearing gloves. And if someone had wiped it down, the other prints would be gone, too.

‘The doc also says the pills were washed down with alcohol, whisky by the smell of it, and you say forensics didn’t find anything interesting around the car. I assume that includes an empty whisky bottle?’

‘Right,’ said Winsome. ‘There was no sign of a bottle or any trace of alcohol. But someone could have removed them. Could Dr Glendenning tell whether she died in the car or before she got there?’

‘She didn’t die in the car. He says there was no way she could have walked the ten miles from her bedsit to Belderfell Pass, but I think we already knew that. He also said that, according to the post-mortem lividity, it seems very much as if Adrienne died elsewhere and her body was moved. She was sitting up when we found her, but the lividity showed she’d been lying on her back for a while after death. At least, that was where some of the blood had settled after her heart stopped beating. But the evidence is contradictory.’ The problem was, Dr Glendenning had pointed out, that liver mortis, or hypostasis, begins twenty to thirty minutes after death, but the purplish red discolouration is not observable by the human eye until about two hours later. It increases over the next three to six hours and it reaches its maximum in eight to twelve hours. ‘He thinks she may have been moved quite soon after death, not left lying down long enough for liver mortis to take place completely, and the rest of the time she was in a sitting position. As he can’t accurately pinpoint time of death, given the amount of time that’s gone by, it’s a bit of a quandary.’

‘There was no trace of another vehicle at the scene.’

‘We’ll check with the taxi companies, but it’s looking very much as if someone took her there. Maybe someone she knew. The way it appears is that she died somewhere else, lying down, then maybe an hour or two later someone drove her to Belderfell and dumped her in the Ford Focus. All we need to know now is who and from where.’

‘Maybe an ex-boyfriend?’ Winsome suggested. ‘I mean, if they’d been having problems and she killed herself because of him, perhaps even at his house or flat, then he wouldn’t want to get involved, but he’d probably feel guilty enough to want her body found quickly.’

‘We’ll certainly be talking to any boyfriends. Past and present.’

‘I still can’t get over what a curious place it is for someone to dump a body,’ Winsome said. ‘I suppose it’s possible that she committed suicide in a place that was very inconvenient for someone, so they had to move her. We know she didn’t do it in her bedsit.’

‘We know it doesn’t seem like she did,’ Banks said. ‘The CSIs might find traces of drugs or vomit someone thought they’d cleaned up.’ Banks paused. ‘The doc also said something about Adrienne possibly having been in water some time before or after death. Apparently, there were traces of certain substances on her skin.’

‘There was no water in her lungs though?’

‘No. She didn’t drown.’

‘A bath, perhaps?’

‘Possibly. But there’s no bath in her bedsit, remember. Just a walk-in shower.’

‘Would that be enough to produce the effect Dr Glendenning noticed?’

‘I don’t know. He wouldn’t commit himself as to how or where, just to the indication of her having been in water. She could have just taken a shower before she went out, for example.’

‘Dumping her where she was found would certainly guarantee she’d be discovered fairly quickly, so whatever the reason, it can’t have been to hide the body. More to put it in plain view. And POLICE AWARE? I mean, was that meant to be some sort of sick joke?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Was it some kind of message from a killer? You know, rubbing it in our faces, like saying, “Be aware of this, then.” What are we supposed to be aware of? That Adrienne committed suicide? Of something she did? Is her death an example of something we’re aware of and ignoring, supposed to be doing something about? I mean, why tell us that?’

‘You’ve got a point there,’ Banks admitted. ‘Maybe it is supposed to mean something and we haven’t figured it out yet. I don’t know. Maybe we’re just reading too much into it, grasping at shadows. But we’ll keep it in mind.’

Winsome glanced at her watch and knocked back the remainder of her orange juice. ‘Come on, guv, sup up. Time to go and visit the parents. Maybe they’ll be able to enlighten us.’

There had been no other vehicles parked in the moors car park from which Annie and Gerry had just walked except the walking club’s minivan and the police patrol car, and Annie doubted very much that the dead man had walked all the way from Eastvale, or even Helmthorpe. The surface of the car park was tarmac, and if any other cars had pulled up there recently, no traces would remain, especially after the weekend’s rain and today’s wind. Unless, of course, the driver/killer had flicked a cigarette end out of his window, which had become caught in the weeds and would lead to an immediate DNA match. Dream on, Annie told herself. That only happened on television and in books. Besides, not even killers smoke these days.

Annie gestured towards the body. ‘Anyone recognise him?’ she asked, conscious that her words were almost ripped away from her lips by the wind before she uttered them.

The members of the walking club mumbled and turned away or shook their heads.

There wasn’t much else to do but question the walkers one by one as they all waited for the mountain rescue team to lift the body out of the gully. That would not be done, of course, until Peter Darby had arrived and extensively photographed and videoed the scene, then Dr Burns would have to pronounce death before the body was released to the coroner.

The preliminary questioning of the walkers didn’t take long, so as she waited, Annie took a few snaps of her own with her smartphone. It wouldn’t be long before Peter Darby was made redundant, she thought sadly. These days it seemed anyone could be a photographer, even a crime-scene photographer.

When the experts started to dribble in, Annie arranged for the walkers to be escorted out of the wind and back to their minivan by the uniformed officers. In the relative comfort of the nearest police station, in Helmthorpe, they could give their official statements and leave their names and addresses.

As Annie stood at the edge of the moors and watched the green van drive away, she looked at the valley spread out below her. She could pick out Banks’s isolated cottage easily enough, just a couple of miles to the north, next to the terraced falls of Gratly Beck, and below that the square tower of Helmthorpe church, with its odd turret attached. Beyond lay the meandering River Swain, then slowly, the dale side rose on the other side, a patchwork of drystone walls marking fields where sheep grazed, all the way to the sheer limestone curve of Crow Scar, like a grinning skeleton in the winter light.

Annie fastened her coat high around her neck and made her way back to the scene.

Peter Darby did his work, even going so far as to scramble down the gully from a nearby access point to get pictures he claimed he couldn’t get with his telephoto lens. The drop was only about fifteen or twenty feet, Annie reckoned, but certainly enough to break a man’s neck and crack open his skull if he fell at the wrong angle. On the other hand, it would have been quite possible for someone to survive the fall with only a broken leg and lie there screaming for help until some came, or until he died of exposure.

When Peter Darby had finished, Annie gave the signal for the rescue team, who had been fixing up their winches and slings, to bring the body up to the surface, which they did quickly and smoothly in as fine a coordinated and choreographed operation as Annie had ever witnessed.

Now the body lay on a stretcher at their feet, ready for Dr Burns’s examination before being shipped to the mortuary. The man was of average height, Annie noted, and definitely overweight, though somewhat short of obese. He was in his mid-sixties, with thinning grey hair, a grey Van Dyck beard, wrinkles and a few liver spots on his wrists and the backs of his hands.

Dr Burns knelt before the broken figure, touching the skin here and there, checking front and back, taking the body temperature, making calculations and recording observations on his notepad. After a while, he stood up with some difficulty and massaged his knees.

‘Getting old,’ he said, with a fleeting grin.

‘Aren’t we all?’ Annie agreed.

‘You two speak for yourselves,’ Gerry chipped in.

Annie rolled her eyes. ‘Ah, yes, the mere child.’

Gerry gave her a look. ‘Well...’ she said. ‘Don’t count me in as a member of your old fogeys’ club. Not yet.’

Annie smiled and turned to Dr Burns. ‘So, what have you got for us, old fogey?’

‘Not a lot, I’m afraid. Probably not much more than you could see for yourself. Neck’s broken at C five.’

‘Would that cause paralysis?’

‘More than likely. There certainly wasn’t much chance of his crawling out of there once he’d gone in.’

‘Is that what killed him?’

Dr Burns shook his head. ‘No. I’d say it was the blow to the back of the head, and the blood loss it caused.’

‘From the fall?’

‘Almost certainly. No doubt in his post-mortem Dr Glendenning will be able to match the wound more closely with the rock it hit, but the impact certainly fractured the skull, and it would have caused definite brain damage and severe bleeding, as you can see for yourself.’

‘He bled out?’

‘More or less.’

‘Would he have been conscious?’

‘Unlikely. Not for long, at any rate.’

‘Thank heaven for small mercies,’ said Annie with a shudder, imagining what it must be like being trapped all alone at the bottom of a gully where no one was likely to venture for some time, with a broken neck, paralysed, aware of your life’s blood leaking away. ‘Now for the question you hate most of all.’

‘Time of death?’

‘That’s the one.’

‘Going by body temperature, rigor and the extent of damage done by the local fauna, I’d say at least three days, no longer than four. That’s allowing for the low temperatures we’ve had since the storm last week. Probably sometime last weekend, in fact. But don’t quote me on that.’

‘So what happened?’ Annie asked, mostly of herself. ‘He wanders up here in his Burton’s best, for whatever reason, trips over a heather root, tumbles down the gully, breaks his neck and smashes his skull and dies.’

‘Something like that,’ the doctor agreed. ‘From what I could see, the blood has gathered where you expect it to be if he fell and died in the position he was found in. When Dr Glendenning gets him stripped off on the table, he should be able to give you an even better idea whether your man died here or was transported from elsewhere and dumped, but I’d say it happened here. Dr Glendenning will also be able to tell you whether a stroke or a heart attack or drug overdose was involved. But unless you want me to strip him right down here and now and open him up, I’ve told you all I can for the moment.’

‘No, that’s OK,’ said Annie. ‘Best leave it for the post-mortem.’ She paused and pushed some strands of hair behind her ears. The wind soon whipped them out again. ‘But it doesn’t make much sense, does it?’ she asked. ‘Where did he wander from? Why? Was he drunk? How did he get here? Where’s his car? He surely can’t have walked here, can he?’

Banks lived in Gratly, and he had a fine view of Tetchley Fell from the back of his cottage. Though Annie knew that he liked walking and thought himself reasonably fit for someone who wasn’t an exercise fanatic, she also knew that he had never so much as thought of attempting the two-mile walk up to the moors. Like most people, including the walking club, if he fancied a ramble on the moors he would have driven and used the car park.

‘That I can’t tell you,’ said Dr Burns. ‘But I will agree that he’s not in the sort of shape to be doing much climbing and walking.’

Annie put on the latex gloves she had carried from the car and knelt by the body. ‘Let’s at least see if we can find out who he was without disturbing things too much.’

Deftly, Annie searched through the dead man’s pockets. All she found was a fob of keys in his side jacket pocket, which she held up for Gerry to see. Then she turned to the men from the coroner’s van who were standing by with a gurney. ‘All right, lads,’ she said. ‘He’s all yours now.’

Stockton-on-Tees was only about an hour’s drive from Eastvale, though the traffic around the Scotch Corner roadworks on the A1 added at least another ten minutes on that particular afternoon. The problem was, as Banks understood it, that the workers kept digging up more Roman ruins as they widened the road, and therefore had to bring in more teams of archaeologists, thus slowing progress. Whatever the reason, the 50 MPH zone seemed to go on for ever. Banks took the Darlington exit, then carried on along the A66 heading east.

Much of the manufacturing Stockton had been known for was in decline these days, and as a result, there were some tremendously depressed and depressing areas, which often rubbed shoulders with more affluent neighbourhoods. Banks wouldn’t have called the terraced street where Adrienne’s parents lived either affluent or depressed. It was part of a slightly shopworn early sixties council estate. Each house had a small unfenced garden, but there were no garages or driveways. The road was filled with parked cars, and none of them were Beemers or Mercs.

Mrs Munro, wearing jeans and a navy jumper, recognised Banks and Winsome from the previous evening and invited them in. She was an attractive woman in her early forties, with wavy fair hair, long legs and a waspish waist, but today her eyes were red-rimmed with grief, and there was a pile of used tissues on the low coffee table between the sofa and the electric fire. The wallpaper was a simple striped pattern, the furniture IKEA, from TV stand to small bookcase, which was mostly filled with souvenirs from Greek and Spanish holidays: figures in peasant dress, a bulbous empty wine bottle, a plastic model of the Acropolis.

‘Excuse the mess,’ Mrs Munro said, immediately grabbing a handful of tissues and taking them into the kitchen to put in the bin. ‘I don’t know whether I’m coming or going. Jim’s just having a lie down upstairs. He didn’t get a wink of sleep last night, poor lamb. I’ll get him if you want.’

‘No need yet, Mrs Munro,’ said Banks. ‘Let him sleep. We can talk to him some other time if we need to.’

‘Brenda, please.’

Banks and Winsome sat on the sofa. ‘Brenda, then,’ said Banks.

‘Can I get you both a cup of tea or something?’

‘No, thank you,’ said Banks.

But Brenda Munro was already on her feet. ‘It’s no trouble,’ she said and disappeared back into the kitchen.

‘She seems jumpy,’ Winsome mouthed, when Brenda had left the room.

Banks nodded. ‘Still in shock, probably.’ As far back as he could remember, people seemed nervous when the police came to call, and Brenda Munro had just lost her daughter. Banks felt more than a little guilty for intruding on her grief so soon, especially with so little evidence other than a vague sense of something being out of kilter.

When Brenda came back with the tea and cups on a tray, Banks said, ‘We’re really sorry to be bothering you at a time like this, but there are one or two questions you might be able to answer for us. As yet, we know very little about Adrienne or her life.’

Brenda clasped her hands on her lap and wrung them together, an unused tissue tearing between them. ‘What can I tell you? She was just a normal girl. Maybe a bit shy and quiet. I’m her mother. I loved her very much. We both did.’

‘Did you get along well?’

‘As well as any mother gets along with her teenage daughter.’ She shook her head slowly. ‘I like to think we were close.’ Her eyes filled up and she reached for a tissue. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘It’s all right,’ said Banks, leaving a brief pause for Brenda Munro to compose herself. ‘We all have secrets. She was nineteen, is that right?’

Brenda sniffled. ‘Yes, just starting her second year at Eastvale College.’

‘Any brothers or sisters?’

‘Mari. She’s married. They live in Berwick. She’s on her way down right now. She’ll be devastated.’

‘Close, were they?’

‘Like twins, though Mari’s three years older than Adrienne.’

Banks remembered the chatty emails to and from Mari on Adrienne’s mobile. ‘Did Adrienne confide in her big sister?’

‘She did when she was younger, but they don’t see one another quite so often, not now Mari has baby Nadine and Adrienne has her studies. Had.’ She shook her head slowly. ‘I can’t believe I’ll have to get used to saying that.’

Banks saw Winsome make a note and guessed she was jotting a reminder to have a chat with Mari. ‘Did Adrienne always want to study agriculture?’

‘Yes. She was crazy about animals and the countryside, and she was one of those keen environmentalists. Vegetarian and everything. We can’t have any pets because Jim’s allergic to just about everything that moves, except people, but she had a part-time job at an animal shelter in Darlington, for the RSPCA, like, taking care of mistreated pets and so on, and she’d watch just about any documentary on animals and environmental issues that came on. David Attenborough, all that sort of thing.’

‘Is that why she chose Eastvale College, the agricultural connection?’

‘Yes. Partly. It has an excellent reputation. And Adrienne loved the Dales. I think it was reading all those James Herriot books when she was a little girl. They inspired her. And she was very bright. She got good A level results. She had her heart set on Eastvale, and she wouldn’t hear of going anywhere else.’

‘What about the music? We noticed a violin and some music in her bedsit.’

‘She started learning at school. She was very talented musically. Everyone said so. We were able to afford violin lessons for her for a while. We even harboured dreams of her going to a music academy or somewhere a few years ago. But it’s not a career, is it, music? More of a hobby, really. She just loved that classical stuff. We couldn’t afford to keep up the lessons, but she played in a youth orchestra. At least she did until she started university. She had a good singing voice, too. She used to sing in a choir.’

‘Why did she give it up?’

‘Too busy, she said. Too big a course load. But she told us she still practised the violin when she had a few spare moments. Kept her hand in, like.’

‘Was she a party girl? Nights on the town, that sort of thing?’

Brenda managed a weak smile. ‘Like I said, Adrienne was a normal teenager. A bit shy, but she liked being with her mates. I’m sure they all liked to get dressed up and go out for drinks and dances. I know they went to Leeds clubbing from time to time. But she wasn’t a binge drinker or anything, and I have a really hard time believing she took drugs. She was a hard worker, and she loved her studies.’ Brenda Munro paused. ‘What happened to her?’ she asked. ‘Nobody ever did tell us what happened. Why she died. The newspaper said that it was an overdose of drugs. I just can’t believe it.’

Under his breath, Banks cursed the local newspaper for running the story half-cocked, and Adrian Moss, the police media liaison officer, for letting them get away with it. The papers were already headlining the story, ‘The Girl in the Car’.

‘I’m afraid it looks very much as if she died of an overdose of sleeping tablets,’ Banks said, sparing her the gruesome details of the asphyxiation. ‘I’m sorry if anyone gave you the impression it was a drug-related death. I mean, I know that sleeping tablets are drugs, but Adrienne wasn’t involved in any illicit drug activity as far as we know.’

Brenda put her hand to her mouth. ‘Sleeping tablets! But where would she get something like that? Why on earth would she want them? What happened?’

‘That’s something we were wondering, too. Do you know if she ever had a prescription for anything like that, had any problems sleeping?’

‘Never. Not that I knew of. Even though she’d moved away, she was still on Dr Farrow’s list. He’s our local GP. You can ask him, if you like, but I’m sure she wasn’t taking anything like that. Where could she have got them from?’

‘That’s something we’d very much like to know, Mrs Munro,’ said Winsome.

‘Sleeping tablets,’ Brenda Munro repeated quietly, as if to herself. ‘That means she took them herself, doesn’t it? That she committed suicide?’

‘We don’t know what happened,’ said Banks. ‘Just that the doctor found that she had taken enough to be unable to wake up.’

‘Suicide. Our Adrienne. No.’

‘Had Adrienne been depressed or anything lately?’ Banks pressed on. ‘Any weight loss, eating problems, anything like that?’

‘No,’ said Brenda. ‘She wasn’t anorexic or bulimic, if that’s what you mean. She never had any eating problems in her life. And she wasn’t depressed. That’s why what you’re suggesting is such a shock.’

‘Were there any traumatic events in her life that might have weighed on her mind?’

‘None that I can think of,’ said Mrs Munro. ‘Not as far as we know.’

‘Would you have known?’

‘I think so,’ said Brenda.

‘Sometimes people can hide these things very well.’

‘Oh, I know that. But no. Our Adrienne was never the life and soul of the party. If people talked to her she’d chat back happy as anything, but she wasn’t good at making approaches. She could be withdrawn occasionally, too. And she did get stressed out sometimes. But I think I’d have known if something was really bothering her, yes. I like to think she would have told me.’

‘Did she ever talk to you about any problems she might have had?’

‘No. I mean, nothing serious. She was a bit strapped for cash in her first year, and we tried to help her as best we could, but it’s hard. And uni’s so expensive these days. You know what young girls are like, with their clothes, make-up, music and what have you.’

Banks smiled. He remembered Tracy when she was that age. Clothes mad, he used to call her. But university life was a lot less expensive then. He also remembered Adrienne’s wardrobe, the mix of casual student wear, and the more formal, expensive outfits. ‘Did Adrienne take out student loans?’

‘Yes. They all have to, don’t they? It seems a terrible thing to me, starting out your working life so deep in debt, but I suppose most people do, one way or another, with mortgages, hire purchase and the like. And all these money marts you see on the high streets these days. Jim and I have never been able to afford to buy our own home. The first year was very difficult for us all, but Adrienne did really well, and she got a scholarship this year. It didn’t cover everything, of course, but it’s made her life a lot easier. And not only hers, but ours, too. Not that we minded helping her, you understand, but you can only stretch what you have so far.’

‘Which scholarship was this?’

‘I don’t know what it was called. Just something you get if you do well.’

‘She won it, like a prize?’

Brenda frowned. ‘I think so. You’d have to ask the people at the university. We don’t know the details. All we know is that it was a godsend.’

‘How much was it?’

‘I don’t know that, either.’

‘When was the last time you saw Adrienne?’

‘When she went back to Eastvale to start the second year. She’d got a bedsit and was very excited for us to see it, so Jim drove us all down and we made a day of it. We went to see the castle, had a nice pub lunch in the market square.’

‘And how was she? Was there anything on her mind at the start of this academic year? Are you sure you didn’t notice any subtle changes in her behaviour or mood?’

‘No, nothing. She was fine. Same as she’d been over the summer holidays. Like I say, she was excited about her bedsit. She’d been in halls her first year and didn’t really like it. She was supposed to be coming home for Christmas.’ Brenda reached for a tissue and wiped her eyes. ‘Sorry.’

‘Did you talk to her recently?’

‘Only on the phone.’

‘Did she phone this week?’

‘Not since the weekend. Saturday morning was the last time we heard from her.’

‘What did you talk about?’

‘Not much. You know. The sort of things you do talk about. College, Mari and baby Nadine, her work, that sort of thing.’

‘How did she sound?’

‘Fine. Maybe a bit distracted.’

‘Distracted?’

‘Yes. You know, as if she had something on her mind.’

‘Did she give you any idea what it might be?’

‘I just thought it might be her studies.’

‘How was she doing at college?’ Winsome asked.

‘Oh, Adrienne always played herself down rather than up,’ Brenda answered. ‘She was never one to blow her own trumpet. She’d tell us she thought she was doing all right, and then when she came out with a star or distinction or whatever, she’d be surprised. Obviously, there must have been something bothering her, but whatever it was, she didn’t tell us.’

‘Children don’t always confide in their parents,’ said Banks. ‘I know I didn’t always, and I doubt you did, either.’

‘No,’ said Brenda, clutching her tissue ‘Her friends from college might know more. She spent more time with them than she did with us.’

‘What about boyfriends?’

‘No,’ said Brenda. ‘She had someone in her first year. Nice lad. She brought him up for tea once or twice.’

‘What happened?’

‘I don’t think anything much happened. They saw each over the summer a few times then they just sort of drifted apart, like you do. Adrienne told me she wanted to concentrate on her studies this year. She didn’t have time for boyfriends.’

‘What was his name? Do you remember?’

‘Colin. Colin Fairfax.’

‘Was he in the same department as Adrienne?’

‘I don’t really know... I don’t think so. I think he was studying languages. French, German and so on.’

‘Did Adrienne still keep her job at the animal shelter after she was awarded the scholarship?’

‘Oh, yes. But that was never really for the money — they hardly paid more than a pittance — it was just to help the poor animals, and to be with them. She’d have done it for nothing. And it was only on weekends.’

‘Would you happen to have a recent photograph of her we could borrow? It may help us when we’re talking to people.’

Brenda Munro walked over to the rows of framed photographs on a table beside the TV set and picked one out. ‘This was taken just last year,’ she said, as she took the photograph from its frame. It showed Adrienne leaning against a farm gate with Crow Scar in the background. She was wearing jeans and trainers, and her blond hair didn’t hang quite as far over her shoulders as it had when she died. But she was clearly an attractive young woman with a shy smile. Banks thanked Mrs Munro and slipped it in his briefcase.

‘We’ll take good care of it,’ he said.

‘Don’t worry too much’, said Brenda. ‘Jim can always print another copy. I’m sorry he’s not up yet.’

‘Never mind. We’ll leave you be for now,’ Banks said. ‘Thanks for your time. And let me say again how sorry I am about Adrienne.’

‘You’ll find out who did it, won’t you?’ Brenda said, grasping his arm.

Banks extricated himself gently. ‘We don’t know that anyone has done anything to anyone yet,’ he said, ‘but you can take my word for it, we’ll do our best to find out what happened.’

Brenda nodded.

Banks gave Winsome a quick glance and she put away her notebook. They said their goodbyes, offered more condolences, then left.

‘Anything in it, guv, the father not appearing?’ Winsome asked as they drove along the A66.

‘I doubt it,’ said Banks. ‘Bloody exhausted, I should imagine. We’ll talk to him later.’

Wherever they went next, he thought, it would have to be tomorrow. When he looked at his watch, he realised he’d just about have time to get home, phone Tracy, then shower and change before Annie stopped by to pick him up and drive him over to Ray and Zelda’s for dinner.