Strange Affair

CHAPTER FIVE

Banks left his car parked in Corinne’s street, only a short walk from Roy’s, took the District Line from Earl’s Court to Embankment and walked up to the main post office behind Trafalgar Square. There he bought a padded envelope and posted both CD copies – Roy’s business files from the USB drive and the sex images – to himself at Western Area Headquarters. It was always a good idea, he thought, to have backup, preferably stored in a different location. He kept the original CD of JPEGs and the USB drive in his briefcase along with the papers Corinne had printed out for him.

After he had finished at the post office, he dropped in at the first newsagent’s he saw and bought another packet of Silk Cut.

While he was paying he noticed one of the headlines in the evening paper and looked closer. A young woman, as yet unidentified, had been found shot dead in a car outside Eastvale, North Yorkshire. No doubt if he’d been on duty he would have caught the case, but as things were, it would be Annie’s. He didn’t envy her having to deal with the media feeding frenzy guns always caused, but perhaps Gristhorpe would take care of the press, the way he usually did.

Banks lit a cigarette and started to walk. He had often done so when he worked on the Met, and sometimes it helped him sort out his feelings or solve a problem. Whether it did or not, he had always enjoyed walking around the West End at night, no matter how much it had changed in character since his early days on the beat.

Outside the pubs, knots of people stood clutching pint glasses, laughing and joking. In Leicester Square, jugglers and fire-eaters entertained the crowds of American tourists in shorts and T-shirts who milled around drinking water from plastic bottles.

It was a sultry evening and the square was bustling with people: long queues for the Odeon, metal barriers up, some premiere or other and everyone hoping to catch a glimpse of a star. Banks remembered doing crowd duty there once as a young PC in the early seventies. One of the Bond films, The Man with the Golden Gun, he thought. But that had been a cold night, not far off Christmas, as he remembered, he and his fellow PCs linking arms to keep back the onlookers as flashbulbs popped (and they were flashbulbs back then) and the stars stepped out of their limos. He thought he saw Roger Moore and Britt Ekland, but he could have been wrong; he never was much of a celebrity spotter.

Banks had loved going to the cinema back then. He and Sandra must have gone twice a week before the kids, if he was on the right shift, and sometimes, if he was on evenings or nights, they’d go to a matinee. Even after Brian was born they got a neighbor to babysit now and then, until undercover work made it too difficult for him.

These days, he hardly ever went at all. The last few times he’d been to see a film, there always seemed to be someone talking, and the place was sickly with the smell of hot buttered popcorn, the floors sticky with spilled Coke. It wasn’t so much like going to the cinema anymore as it was like hanging out in a café where they showed moving pictures on the wall. There was a new multiplex in Eastvale, an extension of the Swainsdale Centre, but he hadn’t been there yet and probably never would go.

Banks made his way into Soho. It was going on for nine now, still daylight, but the sun was low, the light fading, and he was hungry. He hadn’t eaten since that wretched curry round the corner from Roy’s place. Here the streets were just as crowded, outdoor tables at the restaurants and cafés on Old Compton Street, Greek Street, Dean Street, Frith Street overflowing. A whiff of marijuana drifted on the air, mingling with espresso, roasting garlic, olive oil and Middle Eastern spices. Neons and candlelight took on an unnatural glow in the purple twilight, smudged a little by the faint, lingering heat haze. Boys held hands as they walked down the street, or stood on street corners, leaning in toward each other. Beautiful young women in cool, flimsy clothing walked together laughing or hung on the arms of their dates.

Banks made it to Tottenham Court Road before the electronics shops closed and after little deliberation bought a laptop with a DVD-RW/CD-RW drive. It was light enough to carry easily in a compartment of his briefcase, and it would do everything he needed it to do and more. It also didn’t break his bank account, still bolstered by the insurance money from the fire. He took out the manual and various extra bits and pieces, put them in his briefcase, too, and left the packaging in the shop, After that, feeling hungry, he headed back to Soho.

On Dean Street, Banks found a restaurant he had eaten at once before, with Annie, and had enjoyed. Like all the others, the outside tables were crowded and the frontage was fully open to the street. Nevertheless, Banks persevered inside and was rewarded with a tiny table in a corner, away from the street and the noise. It was no doubt the least desirable table in the house as far as most people were concerned, but it suited Banks perfectly. It was just as hot inside as out, so location made no difference as far as that was concerned, and a waitress came over almost immediately with the menu. She even smiled at him.

Banks mopped his brow with the serviette and studied the options. The print was small and he reached for his cheap, nonprescription reading glasses. He had found himself relying on them for reading the papers and doing crosswords more often lately.

It didn’t take him long to settle on steak, done medium, chips and a half bottle of Château Musar. He sipped at his first glass of wine while he was waiting for his meal and the rich, complex flavor was every bit as powerful as he remembered it. Annie had liked it, too.

Annie. What was he going to do about her? Why had he been behaving like such a bastard after what she had done for him? She was seriously pissed off at him, he knew, but surely if he really tried… maybe he could break through the barrier of her anger. Truth be told, things had been shaky between them ever since they broke up. He had been jealous of Annie’s relationships, and he knew that she was jealous of his. That was partly what had made his curt dismissal of her in the hospital so unforgivable. But the circumstances had been exceptional, he told himself. He had not been in his right mind.

His steak and chips arrived and Banks turned his thoughts back to Roy. With any luck, he would turn up something from the computer stuff – why would Roy hide it otherwise? – a name, a company, something that would send him in the right direction. The problem was that he would more likely than not turn up too much, and Banks didn’t have a slew of DCs to send out on the streets to filter out the red herrings. Perhaps he could go back and enlist more of Corinne’s help. She had said she would be willing.

For a moment, a shadow of concern for Corinne passed over him with a chill, and he shivered. Had he brought her danger along with Roy’s business secrets? But he was sure he hadn’t been followed to her house, nor was there anyone on his tail now. She would be all right, he assured himself. He would ring her first thing in the morning, just to make sure.

He had only once had dinner with Roy, he realized as he bit into the juicy fillet. They saw each other in passing at family gatherings, of course, though there had been few enough of those over the years, and Banks had been at Roy’s first wedding, but as far as the two them sitting down to dinner together, there had been only the one occasion, and the invitation had come out of the blue, for no particular reason that Banks could gather.

It was in the mid-eighties, when the financial world was reeling under the shock of insider-trading scandals. Whatever he was now, Roy had been a stockbroker then, and in his Armani suit, with his hundred-quid haircut, he looked every inch the successful businessman, apple of his mother’s eye. Banks had been a mess, much as he was now, he thought, aware of the irony. Approaching burnout in London, career and marriage held together by threads, he was waiting to hear if his application for a transfer to North Yorkshire had been approved when Roy rang him one day at the office – he wasn’t even sure his brother knew where he lived at that time – and asked him if he was free for dinner at The Ivy.

The restaurant was packed with entertainment people and Banks thought he recognized a star or two, but he couldn’t put names to faces. They had certainly looked and acted as if they were stars. After a half hour of family chat and polite inquiries into Banks’s career and well-being over a very expensive shepherd’s pie and an even more expensive bottle of Burgundy, Roy had steered the conversation toward the recent scandals. Nothing was said overtly, but Banks went away with the impression that Roy had been pumping him. Not that he knew anything, but his brother had expressed interest in the way such investigations were done, how the police gathered information, what they thought of informers, exactly where the law stood on the issue, and so on. It was done very well, and it continued over the frozen berries and white chocolate sauce he had had for dessert, but it was definitely a fishing expedition.

There was another thing, too. Banks couldn’t be certain, but he had been around drugs enough to recognize the signs, and he was sure Roy was high. Coke, he suspected. After all, that was the drug of choice back then among successful young men about town. At one point in the evening Roy excused himself to go to the toilet and came back slightly flushed and even more animated, sniffling every now and then.

And that, Banks realized, was probably when he first started thinking of his brother as a possible criminal. Before that, he had merely been the annoying little brother, the paragon against whom Banks was matched and found wanting. Even now, when Banks looked back on their conversation that evening, he still thought he was right, that Roy had been up to something and wanted to run down the odds on his getting caught. Well, he hadn’t got caught, and now it seemed he had moved on to other things. But were they more honest?

Banks poured the last of the Château Musar into his glass. Maybe he should have ordered a whole bottle, he thought. But that was too much, and he wanted to keep a reasonably clear head for tomorrow. From what he could see through the clustered diners in the dim light, the street outside was even busier. The crowd was mostly young and they’d probably be drinking and clubbing until the early hours.

Over coffee and cognac, Banks remembered that he had nowhere to stay. He had forgotten to book a hotel room. Then he felt the pressure of the keys and the mobile in his pocket and he knew that he had decided where he was staying the minute he had pocketed them and left Roy’s house. It was useless trying to get a taxi at this hour in the maze of Soho streets, so he walked up to Charing Cross Road, where he picked one up in no time and asked the driver to take him to South Kensington.

Winsome had been patiently ringing Banks’s parents and children on and off for most of the afternoon and early evening without any luck. When it came to Banks’s friends, she was at a loss to know who they were. He had left an old address book in his drawer, but there weren’t many entries, and some were so old the numbers were no longer in service. It felt odd, searching for her boss, poring over the personal address book of someone she called “sir” and looked up to, but there was no doubt that he might be able to answer a few questions. Winsome also realized that he might be in danger. After all, a woman apparently on her way to see him had been shot, and his half-renovated cottage had been broken into. Coincidence? Winsome didn’t think so.

Consulting the list of family phone numbers, Winsome had first called the daughter, Tracy, in Leeds. When she had finally got through to her around teatime, Tracy said she had no idea where her father was. The son, Brian, wasn’t answering his mobile, so she left a message. When she phoned Banks’s parents for the third time, early in the evening, a woman answered.

“Mrs. Banks?” Winsome said.

“Yes. Who is this?”

“My name’s DC Jackman. I work with your son, DCI Banks. I’ve been trying to get in touch with you all afternoon.”

“Sorry, love, we’ve been to visit my brother and his wife in Ely. Why? What’s wrong? Has something happened to Alan?”

“Nothing’s happened, Mrs. Banks. As far as we know everything’s just fine. He’s on holiday this week, but I’m sure you know how it is with this job. I’m afraid we need him for something, and it’s rather urgent. He seems to have forgotten to take his mobile. I was wondering if you knew where he was.”

“No, dear,” said Mrs. Banks. “He never tells us where he’s going these days.”

“I don’t suppose he does,” said Winsome, “but it was worth a try. Have you spoken with him recently?”

“As a matter of fact, he rang early this morning.”

“What about, if you don’t mind me asking?”

“Oh, I don’t mind, dear. It was a little bit odd. See, he was asking about his brother, about Roy, and… well, they’ve never been very close.”

“So it was unusual for DCI Banks to be asking about him?”

“Yes.”

“What did he want to know?”

“He wanted to know if I knew where Roy was, just like you want to know where Alan is. What’s going on? Are you sure there’s nothing wrong?”

“Nothing to worry about, Mrs. Banks. We just need him to help us out with something, that’s all. Could you give me his brother’s address and phone number if you’ve got them?”

“Of course,” said Mrs. Banks. “I know his address by heart but I’m no good with numbers. You’ll have to wait a moment while I look it up.”

“That’s all right,” said Winsome. “I’ll hold.”

She heard the handset laid gently to rest on a hard surface, then the sound of muffled voices. A few seconds later, Mrs. Banks came back on the line and gave her the number. “He’s got one of those mobiles. Do you want that number, too?” she asked.

“Might as well.”

“Silly business, people having to stay in touch all the time,” said Mrs. Banks. “Makes you wonder how we managed without all these newfangled gadgets, but we did, didn’t we? Listen to me go on. You’re probably too young to remember.”

“I remember,” said Winsome, who had grown up in a shack high in Jamaica’s Cockpit Country, open to the elements, without telephone or electricity or any of the other myriad things that seemed so essential to life in twenty-first-century Britain.

Mrs. Banks gave her the number and Winsome said goodbye. For a moment she sat thinking, tapping her ballpoint on the pad, then she found DI Cabbot’s mobile number and picked up the phone again.

“Sorry about Blunt and Useless,” said DI Brooke. “They’re a right couple of prize plonkers, but it’s hard to get good help these days, and they just happened to be on duty.”

“Blunt and Useless?”

“Sharpe and Handy. Get it?”

Annie laughed. “It’s all right. We’ve got a few like that ourselves.”

They were sitting in a noisy pub on Brixton Road drinking pints of Director’s bitter. David Brooke was about Banks’s age, but he looked older and he was much more well-rounded, with a placid, moon-shaped red face that always made Annie think of a farmer, and only a few tufts of ginger hair still clinging to his freckled skull. His navy-blue suit had seen better days, as had his teeth, and he had taken off his tie because of the heat, which made him look even more like some yokel up from Somerset for a wedding or a football match.

Annie’s search of Jennifer Clewes’s room had yielded nothing of immediate interest – except that Jennifer collected porcelain figurines, mostly fairy-tale characters; liked Frank Sinatra, Tony Bennett and Ella Fitzgerald; and read hardly anything that wasn’t to do with business and commerce, apart from the occasional Mills and Boon novel. If her clothes were not for work, they were mostly casual: jeans, denim skirts and jackets, T-shirts, cotton tops. Nothing lacy or flouncy. She had one good frock and two pairs of black high-heeled shoes. The rest of her footwear consisted of trainers and sandals.

Her computer, at first glance, revealed nothing out of the ordinary. There was no diary and no personal papers, only a calendar, the days filled mostly with personal appointments. She had a dentist’s visit scheduled for the thirteenth. If there was anything else, it was for the computer experts to find. Annie did, however, acquire a much better photograph of Jennifer – alive and smiling against an ocean backdrop. Kate Nesbit told her it had been taken in Sicily the previous year, when Jennifer had gone there on holiday with Melanie Scott, her old schoolfriend from Shrewsbury.

When she had finished at the flat, Annie phoned and booked a room for two nights at a hotel by Lambeth Bridge, after first ringing Gristhorpe again and clearing it with him. Tomorrow was Sunday, so the Berger-Lennox Centre would most likely be closed. Annie would pay her visit first thing Monday morning before heading back up north. On Sunday, she would go and talk to Melanie Scott. The local police would inform Jennifer’s parents of their daughter’s death and drive them to Eastvale to make a formal identification of the body.

“So how are things going, Dave?” Annie said. “It’s been a while.”

“Too long, if you ask me. Things are fine, thanks. Actually, the big news is that I’m up for promotion at last. Chief Inspector.”

“Congratulations, Dave,” said Annie. “Detective Chief Inspector Brooke. Has a sort of ring to it, doesn’t it?”

Brooke chuckled. “It does. How did the interview with the victim’s flatmate go?” he asked.

Annie sipped some beer. “Fine. I didn’t find out much, but at least I’m building up some sort of picture of Jennifer, however vague. You know what it’s like in the early stages.”

“I do indeed. A slow business.”

“The poor woman, though,” Annie went on. “Kate Nesbit, the flatmate. She was really upset. I finally managed to persuade her to let me fetch the woman from upstairs to sit with her until her parents can come over. I phoned them and they said they’d be there as soon as possible. What’ll happen after that I don’t know.”

“I’ll have someone keep an eye on her, if you like. Drop by now and then, see how she’s doing.”

“Not Blunt and Useless.”

Brooke smiled. “No, I wouldn’t wish them on the poor lass. We’ve got some good police community-support officers.”

“All right,” said Annie. “It sounds like a good idea. Thanks.”

“No problem.”

“I don’t like to ask,” she went on, “but do you think you could also spare a couple of DCs to do a house-to-house? I’d do it myself, but I’d like to go out to Hounslow to visit one of the victim’s close friends tomorrow.”

“And what would they be asking about?”

“If anyone has noticed anything unusual or suspicious – strangers hanging about, that sort of thing.”

“I think we can manage that,” said Brooke. “Wouldn’t want our delicate DI’s feet getting sore, would we?”

“You’re a sweetheart, Dave.”

Annie’s mobile rang. She excused herself and walked outside so she could hear properly. When Winsome gave her Banks’s brother’s address and phone numbers and told her there was a possibility Banks might be there, she had to go back into the pub, take her notebook out of her briefcase and write the information down. She thanked Winsome and hung up.

“Important news?” Brooke asked.

“We may have a lead on our missing DCI,” Annie said.

“Missing DCI?”

“It’s a long story.”

Brooke nodded toward Annie’s empty glass. “Another?”

“Why not,” said Annie. “I’m not driving.”

“What about a bite to eat? Then you can tell me all about your DCI over dinner.”

“Here?”

Brooke looked around and pulled a face. “You must be joking. Let’s have one more drink here, then we’ll find somewhere decent over the river, if you’re up for it?”

“That’d be fine,” said Annie. “How are Joan and the kids?”

“Thriving, thank you.” Brooke paused. “You’re not very subtle, you know, Annie.”

“What do you mean?”

“You want to know if I’m still happily married, whether I represent any sort of threat to you. Well, I am, and I don’t. Do you behave like that whenever a man offers to buy you dinner?”

“Oh, you’re buying. I didn’t know that. That’s all right, then.”

“Now you’re hiding behind flippancy.”

“You’re right,” said Annie, “I’m sorry. I should know better. I’ve just had some bad experiences recently, that’s all.”

“Want to talk about them?”

Annie shook her head. The last thing she wanted to talk about was Phil Keane. Throttle him, maybe; hang, draw and quarter him, even better; but talk about him, no way. Brooke wasn’t the type to make a pass, and under ordinary circumstances she would have realized it. He had been married to Joan all those years ago, when Annie was a fresh-faced young DC in Exeter and Brooke was her DS. He was rather unimaginative and plodding as a detective, but he had been kind to her, and they had kept in touch sporadically over the years. Anyway, his offer of a shared meal was exactly that and no more, and it bothered her that she reacted as if she could no longer trust an old friend.

“I’m sorry,” Annie said. “I just wasn’t thinking.”

“That’s all right. And I’m secretly flattered that you still think I’m a contender.”

Annie tapped him on the arm. “I’m sure you are,” she said. “But I’m bloody starving, so how about we skip that other drink here and have one when we get where we’re going? Does your offer still stand?”

“The West End awaits us,” said Brooke.

“Any chance we can go via South Kensington?”

It was late Saturday night, Kev Templeton thought gloomily, and he was supposed to be shagging that gorgeous new redheaded clerk in Records, the one with the big tits and legs right up to her arse, but instead he was driving up the M1 in rain so heavy that his windscreen wipers could barely keep up with it.

Still, this was the next-best thing, he told himself, if not even better. The thrill of the chase. Well, not exactly a chase, but at least he was out of the office, on the road, tracking down a lead, driving through the night. This was the life. This was what he had joined the force for. Water cascaded from the windows, lightning streaked across the sky and he could hear the thunder even over the Chemical Brothers CD he was playing at earsplitting volume.

He knew they didn’t take him seriously back at headquarters, just because he was young and took a bit of pride in his appearance. They all thought he was some sort of club-crazy dandy. Well, he liked clubbing, and he liked to look good, but there was more to him than that. One day, he’d show them all. He’d pass his boards and rise up the ranks like a meteor.

Who did they think they were, anyway? Gristhorpe was due to retire any moment now, and he hadn’t done any real detecting in years, if ever. Banks was good, but he wasn’t a team player and he seemed to be quickly writing himself out of the script due to personal problems. Annie Cabbot wasn’t as shit-hot as she thought she was. Too emotional, Kev thought, like she was always on the rag. The only one that really scared him was Winsome. Awesome, as he called her secretly. She’d go far. He could see her as his sidekick when he made superintendent. Could see shagging her, too. Just the thought of it made him sweat. Those thighs.

He had first driven nonstop to the end of the motorway, then turned around, hitting Toddington and Newport Pagnell service stations on the northbound M1 already, showing Jennifer Clewes’s photo around without any success. He hadn’t eaten at either of the first two service stations – and now, as he approached Watford Gap, it was going on for midnight and he was feeling peckish. Needed a piss, too. He might as well stop there at the Road Chef. From what he had learned over the years, motorway cafés were all overpriced, and there wasn’t much to choose between them.

All the roadside cafés seemed to have a slightly seedy aura at that time of night, Templeton thought; or maybe Watford Gap services were always like that. It was something to do with the lighting and the clientele. Not many nice middle-class families on the road at that hour. Not many old folks, either. Most of them, with the odd exception of a commercial traveler or a businessman on his way home from a late meeting, looked like villains. You probably wouldn’t go far wrong, Templeton thought, if you made the occasional swoop on motorway cafés. Bound to net a few faces from the “Wanted” posters, at any rate. Maybe he’d pass on the idea to the brass. Then again, maybe not. They’d only steal the credit themselves.

A man came into the toilet and stood next to Templeton at the urinal, though there was plenty of free space elsewhere. When he started to open a conversation – the usual line about big knobs hanging out – Templeton zipped up, whipped out his warrant card and shoved it in the man’s face so hard he staggered back and lost directional control, pissing all over his shoes and trouser bottoms. “Fuck off, pervert,” Templeton said. “And think yourself bloody lucky I can’t be bothered to arrest you for soliciting. On your bike. Now!” Templeton clapped once, loudly.

The man turned pale. His hands shook as he zipped himself up and, without even pausing to wash his hands, ran for the door. Templeton washed his hands with soap under hot water for thirty seconds exactly. He hated poofters, and as far as he was concerned they’d made a bloody big mistake when they made homosexuality legal all those years ago. Opened the floodgates, they did, just as they did with immigration. As far as he was concerned, the government should send all the poofters to jail and all foreigners back home – except Winsome, of course; she could stay.

Up in the restaurant, Templeton ordered a cup of tea and sausage, eggs and beans, figuring you can’t go wrong with something as basic as that, and carried his tray to the first empty table he saw, trying to ignore the smears of ketchup on the surface. The eggs were overcooked and the tea was stewed, but other than that the meal wasn’t too bad. Templeton tucked in with as much enthusiasm as he could muster.

When he had finished, he went up to the counter and spoke to the young Asian lad who worked there. His name tag identified him as Ali.

“Were you working here last night about this time?”

“I was here,” said Ali. “Sometimes it feels like I’m always bloody here.”

“I’ll bet it does,” said Templeton, pulling the photo of Jennifer Clewes from his briefcase. “By the way, I’m DC Templeton, North Yorkshire Major Crimes. Did you happen to see this woman in here?”

“Bloody hell, is she dead?” Ali asked, paling. “I’ve never seen a dead person before.”

“The question is: Did you see her?”

“What happened to her?”

Templeton sighed theatrically. “Look, Ali, we’ll get along a lot better if I ask the questions and you answer them, all right?” he said.

“Yeah. All right. Let’s have a look, then.” Ali reached out his hand, but Templeton held on to the photograph, keeping it just within his field of vision. He didn’t want Ali’s greasy fingerprints all over it.

Ali screwed up his eyes and looked at the photo longer than Templeton thought he needed to, then said, “Yeah, she was in here last night. Sat over there.” He pointed to a table.

“What time?”

“Can’t remember. It’s all the same when you’re on nights.”

“Was she alone?”

“Yeah. I remember thinking what’s a good-looking bird like that doing all alone on a Friday night, like.”

“Did she seem upset or frightened in any way?”

“Come again?”

“How did she behave?”

“Just normal, like. She ate her sandwich – well, half of it, at any rate. I can’t say I blame her. Those ham-and-tomatoes do get a bit soggy when they’ve been sitting-”

“Did anyone approach her at all?”

“No.”

“Speak to her?”

“No. But the bloke at the table opposite was definitely giving her the eye. Looked like a bit of a pervert to me, too.”

“What do perverts look like?” Templeton asked.

“You know. Creepy, like.”

“Right. How long did she stay?”

“Dunno. Not more than ten, fifteen minutes, I suppose. Look, aren’t you going to tell me what happened to her? She was all right when she left here.”

“Anybody follow her?”

“The bloke opposite, the pervert, went out not long after her, but I wouldn’t say he was following her. I mean, he’d finished his sausage roll. Why would he want to hang around?”

Templeton gazed over the decor. “Why, indeed?” he said.

“Most people here, they’re usually in a hurry, see. Quick turnover.”

“And no one else took an interest in the woman?”

“No.”

“She make any phone calls?”

“Not that I saw.”

“This pervert, had you ever seen him before?”

“No.”

“Can you describe him for me?”

“He was wearing a dark gray suit, like a businessman, wore glasses with black rims, and he had a long, jowly sort of face, with a long, thin nose. Short brown hair, light brown. Oh, yeah, and he had dandruff. Reminded me of someone, but I can’t think who. Not the dandruff, I mean, the face.”

“How old would you say he was?”

“Old. Maybe forty or so.”

“Anything else you can tell me?”

“Don’t think so. Is this gonna be on Crimewatch?”

“Thanks for your help.” Templeton left Ali dreaming of TV stardom and walked back to his car. The rain had stopped and dark puddles reflected the lights. Before setting off back up the motorway, Templeton walked over to the garage and into the night manager’s office. There he found a sleepy young man behind the counter and showed his warrant card. The boy seemed to wake up a bit.

“I’m Geoff,” he said. “What can I do for you?”

“Were you working here last night?”

“Yeah.”

Templeton took out the photograph again. “Remember her?”

“She looks…” He frowned. “I don’t know.”

“She looks dead,” said Templeton. “Just as well, because she is. Do you remember her?”

“She was here. You don’t forget someone who looks like that in a hurry.”

“Do you remember what time?”

“I can’t say for certain, but her credit card receipt should tell us.”

“She used plastic?”

“Most people do. Petrol’s so bloody expensive and cards are convenient. Nowadays you can just swipe the card right by the pump. You don’t even have to come into the office. Not everyone likes to do it that way, mind you. Some still prefer the human touch.”

“I don’t suppose you’ve still got last night’s receipts?”

“As a matter of fact,” said Geoff, “I have. There’s no pickup till Monday morning.”

“What are we waiting for? Her name’s Jennifer Clewes.”

Geoff located the credit card receipts and sucked on his lower lip as he made his way through them. “Just give me a minute. Here, I think this is it.” He held the receipt up for Templeton to see: 12:35 A.M. Which meant she’d get to the junction with the A1 about two and a half hours later. It fit. Templeton thanked Geoff, and just on the off chance asked him about the “old” man Ali had described.

“The bloke with the dandruff? Old hatchet face?”

“That’s the one.”

“Yeah, he was here, too. Same time as her, now I come to think of it. I caught him giving her the eye when she was bending over with the pump. Can’t say I blame him, mind you. Like something out of FHM. Hey, you don’t think that-”

“Seen him before?”

“Not that I recall. But we get so much traffic.”

“I don’t suppose there’s the remotest chance that he paid by plastic, too?”

Geoff grinned, flicking through the stack again. “I told you. Most of them do. Here you are, right after hers. A Mr. Roger Cropley.”

“Do you have CCTV?”

“As a matter of fact, we do,” said Geoff.

Thunder rumbled in the distance. Geoff held up the slip and Templeton read the details. So there is a God, after all, he thought.

Back at Roy’s, Banks first checked the phone for messages. There was only one, and to his surprise it was from Annie Cabbot. Even more to his surprise, it was clearly intended for Roy because she addressed him as “Mr. Banks.” She had called around at the house earlier, she said, but he had been out. Would he please get in touch as soon as possible? Of course, Annie had no idea that Roy was missing. She sounded rather chilly and official, Banks thought, wondering what she was doing in London. Could it have something to do with the murder she was investigating in Eastvale? It was after eleven now, though, and he didn’t fancy getting into a complicated conversation with Annie so late. He’d give her a ring in the morning.

He brought the open bottle of Amarone upstairs and watched A Clockwork Orange on the plasma TV. Even with the surround sound turned low so as not to disturb the neighbors, it still filled the room. After that, he fell asleep on the sofa, the bottle still half full.

Banks didn’t hear the thunder, nor did he see the lightning, when the storm passed over the London area in the small hours of the morning. What did awaken him, however, at shortly after three, was the distinct melody of “La donna è mobile” coming from very close by.

As Banks struggled to consciousness, his first thought was that that he didn’t remember putting a CD of Rigoletto on before he went to sleep. Then he remembered Roy’s mobile, which sat on the table beside him.

He picked it up and, sure enough, that was the source of the sound. The room was dark, but with the help of the blue back-lighting, he found the right button to push.

“Hello,” he mumbled. “Who is it?”

At first he heard nothing at all except a slight background hiss, perhaps some sort of static interference. He thought he could hear someone making choking or gagging sounds, as if they were trying to hold back laughter. Then he began to think that perhaps someone had rung by accident, and the sounds came from a television playing in the background.

A similar thing happened to Banks once when he had forgotten to lock his mobile. Somehow or other he had activated one of the numbers in his phone book, and Tracy got to listen to the questioning of a murder witness. Fortunately, she couldn’t make out the conversation clearly, and she knew enough to switch off when she realized what must have happened. Still, it made Banks paranoid about locking the device after that.

Or maybe this was kids, someone’s idea of a joke?

The muffled noises went on, followed by a thud and the unmistakable sound of someone laughing. Then, as Banks looked at the display, a picture began to form. It wasn’t very sharp, but it looked like a photograph of a man slumped in a chair, asleep, perhaps, or unconscious, his head to one side. Banks couldn’t see whether there were other people around, but given the sounds, it might have been some sort of wild party.

Why on earth would anyone want to send Roy such a picture? Banks was still half asleep and not thinking at all clearly, so he saved the picture and put the phone back on the table. Whatever it was, he would be better equipped to deal with it in the morning.