Blood At The Root

I

The boy’s body sat propped against the graffiti-scarred wall in a ginnel off Market Street, head lolling forward, chin on chest, hands clutching his stomach. A bib of blood had spilled down the front of his white shirt.

Detective Chief Inspector Alan Banks stood in the rain and watched Peter Darby finish photographing the scene, bursts of electronic flash freezing the raindrops in mid-air as they fell. Banks was irritated. By rights, he shouldn’t be there. Not in the rain at half past one on a Saturday night.

As if he didn’t have enough problems already.

He had got the call the minute he walked in the door after an evening alone in Leeds at Opera North’s The Pearl Fishers. Alone because his wife, Sandra, had realized on Wednesday that the benefit gala she was supposed to host for the Eastvale community center clashed with their season tickets. They had argued – Sandra expecting Banks to forgo the opera in favor of her gala – so, stubbornly, Banks had gone alone. This sort of thing had been happening a lot lately – going their own ways – to such an extent that Banks could hardly remember the last time they had done anything together.

The limpid melody of the “Au fond du temple saint” duet still echoed around his mind as he watched Dr. Burns, the young police surgeon, start his in situ examination under the canvas tent the scene-of-crime officers had erected over the body.

Police Constable Ford had come across the scene at eleven forty-seven while walking his beat, community policing being a big thing in Eastvale these days. At first, he said, he thought the victim was just a drunk too legless to get all the way home after the pubs closed. After all, there was a broken beer bottle on the ground beside the lad, he seemed to be holding his stomach, and in the light of Ford’s torch, the dark blood could easily have passed for vomit.

Ford told Banks he didn’t know quite what it was that finally alerted him this was no drunk sleeping it off; perhaps it was the unnatural stillness of the body. Or the silence: there was no snoring, no twitching or muttering, the way drunks often did, just silence inside the hiss and patter of the rain. When he knelt and looked more closely, well, of course, then he knew.

The ginnel was a passage no more than six feet wide between two blocks of terrace houses on Carlaw Place. It was often used as a short cut between Market Street and the western area of Eastvale. Now onlookers had gathered at its mouth, behind the police tape, most of them huddled under umbrellas, pajama bottoms sticking out from under raincoats. Lights had come on in many houses along the street, despite the lateness of the hour. Several uniformed officers were circulating in the crowd and knocking on doors, seeking anyone who had seen or heard anything.

The ginnel walls offered some protection from the rain, but not much. Banks could feel the cold water trickling down the back of his neck. He pulled up his collar. It was mid-October, the time of year when the weather veered sharply between warm, misty, mellow days straight out of Keats and piercing gale-force winds that drove stinging rain into your face like the showers of Blefuscuan arrows fired at Gulliver.

Banks watched Dr. Burns turn the victim on his side, ease down his trousers and take the rectal temperature. He had already had a glance at the body himself, and it looked as if someone had beaten or kicked the kid to death. The features were too severely damaged to reveal much except that he was a young white male. His wallet was missing, along with whatever keys and loose change he might have been carrying, and there was nothing else in his pockets to indicate who he was.

It had probably started as a pub fight, Banks guessed, or perhaps the victim had been flashing his money about. As he watched Dr. Burns examine the boy’s broken features, Banks imagined the scene as it might have happened. The kid scared, running perhaps, realizing that whatever had started innocently enough was quickly getting out of control. How many of them were after him? Two, probably, at least. Maybe three or four. He runs through the dark, deserted streets in the rain, splashing through puddles, oblivious to his wet feet. Does he know they’re going to kill him? Or is he just afraid of taking a beating?

Either way, he sees the ginnel, thinks he can make it, slip away, get home free, but it’s too late. Something hits him or trips him, knocks him down, and suddenly his face is crushed down against the rainy stone, the cigarette ends and chocolate wrappers. He can taste blood, grit, leaves, probe a broken tooth with his tongue. And then he feels a sharp pain in his side, another in his back, his stomach, his groin, then they’re kicking his head as if it were a football. He’s trying to speak, beg, plead, but he can’t get the words out, his mouth is too full of blood. And finally he just slips away. No more pain. No more fear. No more anything.

Well, maybe it had happened like that. Or they could have been already lying in wait for him, blocking the ginnel at each end, trapping him inside. Some of Banks’s bosses had said he had too much imagination for his own good, though he found it had always come in useful. People would be surprised if they knew how much of what they believed to be painstaking, logical police work actually came down to a guess, a hunch, or a sudden intuition.

Banks shrugged off the line of thought and got back to the business in hand. Dr. Burns was still kneeling, shining a penlight inside the boy’s mouth. It looked like a pound of raw minced meat to Banks. He turned away.

A pub fight, then? Though they didn’t usually end in death, fights were common enough on a Saturday night in Eastvale, especially when some of the lads came in from the outlying villages eager to demonstrate their physical superiority over the arrogant townies.

They would come early to watch Eastvale United or the rugby team in the afternoon, and by pub chucking-out time they were usually three sheets to the wind, jostling each other in the fish-and-chip-shop queues, slagging everyone in sight, just looking for trouble. It was a familiar pattern: “What are you looking at?” “Nothing.” “You calling me nothing!” Get out of that if you can.

By midnight, though, most of the boozers had usually gone home, unless they had moved on to one of Eastvale’s two nightclubs, where for a modest entrance fee you got membership, an inedible battered beefburger, a constant supply of ear-splitting music and, most important of all, the chance to swill back watery lager until three in the morning.

It wasn’t that Banks had no sympathy for the victim – after all, the boy was somebody’s son – but solving this case, he thought, would simply be a matter of canvassing the local pubs and finding out where me-laddo had been drinking, whom he’d been upsetting. A job for Detective Sergeant Hatchley, perhaps; certainly not one for a wet detective chief inspector with Bizet’s melodies still caressing his inner ear; one whose only wish was to crawl into a nice warm bed beside a wife who probably still wasn’t speaking to him.

Dr. Burns finished his examination and walked over. Burns did on-scene examinations when the local Home Office pathologist, Dr. Glendenning, was unavailable. He looked far too young and innocent for the job – in fact, he looked more like a farmer with his round face, pleasant, rustic features and mop of chestnut hair – but he was quickly becoming conversant with the different ways in which man could dispatch his fellow man to the hereafter.

“Well, it certainly looks like a boot job,” he said, putting his black notebook back in his pocket. “I can’t swear to it, of course – that’ll be for Dr. Glendenning to determine at the postmortem – but it looks that way. From what I can make out on first examination, one eye’s practically hanging out of its socket, the nose is pulped and there are several skull fractures. In some places the bone fragments might possibly have punctured the brain.” Burns sighed. “In a way, the poor bugger’s lucky he’s dead. If he’d survived, he’d have been a one-eyed vegetable for the rest of his days.”

“No sign of any other injuries?”

“A few broken ribs. And I’d expect some severe damage to the internal organs. Other than that…” Burns glanced back at the body and shrugged. “I’d guess he was kicked to death by someone wearing heavy shoes or boots. But don’t quote me on that. It also looks as if he was hit on the back of the head – maybe by that bottle.”

“Just one person?”

Burns ran his hand over his wet hair and rubbed it dry on the side of his trousers. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to imply that. It was more likely two or three. A gang, perhaps.”

“But one person could have done it?”

“As soon as the victim was down on the ground, yes. Thing is, though, he looks pretty strong. It might have taken more than one person to get him down. Unless, of course, that was what the bottle was used for.”

“Any idea how long he’s been there?”

“Not long.” Burns looked at his watch. “Allowing for the weather conditions, I’d say maybe two hours. Two and a half at the outside.”

Banks made a quick back-calculation. It was twenty to two now. That meant the kid had probably been killed between ten past eleven and eleven forty-seven, when PC Ford found the body. A little over half an hour. And a half hour that happened to coincide with pub-closing time. His theory was still looking good.

“Anyone know who he is?” Banks asked.

Dr. Burns shook his head.

“Any chance of cleaning him up enough for an artist’s impression?”

“Might be worth a try. But as I said, the nose is pulped, one eye’s practically-”

“Yes. Yes, thank you, Doctor.”

Burns nodded briskly and walked off.

The coroner’s officer directed two ambulance attendants to bag the body and take it to the mortuary, Peter Darby took more photographs and the SOCOs went on with their search. The rain kept falling.

Banks leaned back against the damp wall and lit a cigarette. It might help concentrate his mind. Besides, he liked the way cigarettes tasted in the rain.

There were things to be done, procedures to be set in motion. First of all, they had to find out who the victim was, where he had come from, where he belonged, and what he had been doing on the day of his death. Surely, Banks thought, someone, somewhere must be missing him. Or was he a stranger in town, far from home?

Once they knew something about the victim, then it would simply be a matter of legwork. Eventually, they would track down the bastards who had done this. They would probably be kids, certainly no older than their victim, and they would, by turn, be contrite and arrogant. In the end, if they were old enough, they would probably get charged with manslaughter. Nine years, out in five.

Sometimes, it was all so bloody predictable, Banks thought, as he flicked his tab-end into the gutter and walked to his car, splashing through puddles that reflected the revolving lights of the police cars. And at that point, he could hardly be blamed for not knowing how wrong he was.

II

The telephone call at eight o’clock on Sunday morning woke Detective Constable Susan Gay from a pleasant dream about visiting Egypt with her father. They had never done anything of the kind, of course – her father was a cool, remote man who had never taken her anywhere – but the dream seemed real enough.

Eyes still closed, Susan groped until her fingers touched the smooth plastic on her bedside table, then she juggled the receiver beside her on the pillow.

“Mmm?” she mumbled.

“Susan?”

“Sir?” She recognized Banks’s voice and tried to drag herself out of the arms of Morpheus. But she couldn’t get very far. She frowned and rubbed sleep from her eyes. Waking up had always been a slow process for Susan, ever since she was a little girl.

“Sorry to wake you so early on a Sunday,” Banks said, “but we got a suspicious death after closing time last night.”

“Yes, sir.” Susan raised herself from the sheets and propped herself against the pillows. “Suspicious death.” She knew what that meant. Work. Now. The thin bedsheet slipped from her shoulders and left her breasts bare. Her nipples were hard from the morning chill in the bedroom. For a moment, she felt exposed talking to Banks while she was sitting up naked in bed. But he couldn’t see her. She told herself not to be so daft.

“We’ve got scant little to go on,” Banks went on. “We don’t even know the victim’s name yet. I need you down here as soon as you can make it.”

“Yes, sir. I’ll be right there.”

Susan replaced the receiver, ran her fingers through her hair and got out of bed. She stood on her tiptoes and stretched her arms toward the ceiling until she felt the knots in her muscles crack, then she padded to the living room, pausing to note the thickness of her waist and thighs in the wardrobe mirror on her way. She would have to start that diet again soon. Before she went to take a shower, she started the coffeemaker and put some old Rod Stewart on the CD player to help her wake up.

As the hot water played over her skin, she thought of last night’s date with Gavin Richards, a DC from Regional Headquarters. He had taken her to the Georgian Theatre in Richmond to see an Alan Bennett play, and after that they had found a cozy pub just off Richmond market square, where she had eaten cheese and onion crisps and drunk a half pint of cider.

Walking to her car, both of them huddled under her umbrella because it was raining fast and, like a typical man, Gavin hadn’t bothered to carry one, she had felt his warmth, felt herself responding to it, and when he had asked her back to his house for a coffee she had almost said yes. Almost. But she wasn’t ready yet. She wanted to. Oh, she wanted to. Especially when they kissed good-night by her car. It had been too long. But they had only been out together three times, and that was too soon for Susan. She might have sacrificed her personal life for her career over the last few years, but she wasn’t about to hop into bed with the first tasty bloke who happened to come along.

When she noticed she had been standing in the shower so long that her skin had started to glow, she got out, dried herself off briskly and threw on a pair of black jeans and a polo-neck jumper that matched her eyes. She was lucky that her curly blond hair needed hardly any attention at all. She added a little gel to give it luster, then she was ready to go. Rod Stewart sang “Maggie Mae” as she sipped the last of her black, sugarless coffee and munched a slice of dry toast.

Still eating, she grabbed a light jacket from the hook and dashed out the door. It was only a five-minute drive to the station, and on another occasion she might have walked for the exercise. Especially this morning. It was a perfect autumn day: scrubbed blue skies and only the slightest chill in the air. The recent winds had already blown a few early lemon and russet leaves from the trees, and they squished under her feet as she walked to her car.

But today Susan paused only briefly to sniff the crisp air, then she got in her car and turned the key in the ignition. Her red Golf started on the first try. An auspicious beginning.

III

Banks leaned by his office window, his favorite spot, blew on the surface of his coffee and watched the steam rise as he looked out over the quiet market square. He was thinking about Sandra, about their marriage and the way it all seemed to be going wrong. Not so much wrong, just nowhere. She still hadn’t spoken to him since the opera. Not that she’d had much chance, really, with him being out so late at the crime scene. And this morning she had barely been conscious by the time he left. But still, there was a discernible chill in the house.

Last night’s rain had washed the excesses of Saturday night from the cobbles, just as the station cleaning staff disinfected and mopped out the cells after the overnight drunk-and-disorderlies had been discharged. The square and the buildings around it glowed pale gray-gold in the early light.

Banks had his window open a couple of inches, and the sound of the church congregation singing “We plough the fields, and scatter” drifted in. It took him back to the harvest festivals of his childhood, when his mum would give him a couple of apples and oranges to put in the church basket along with everyone else’s. He often wondered what happened to all the fruit after the festival was over.

The “Dalesman” calendar on his wall showed Healaugh Church, near York, through a farm gate. It wasn’t a particularly autumnal shot, Banks was thinking, as he heard the tap on his door.

It was Susan Gay, first to arrive after Detective Superintendent Gristhorpe, who was already busy coordinating with Regional HQ and arranging for local media coverage.

As usual, Susan looked fresh as a daisy, Banks thought. Just the right amount of makeup, blond curls still glistening from the shower. While no one would describe Susan Gay as an oil painting, with her small button nose and her serious, guarded expression, her clear, blue-gray eyes were intriguing, and she had a beautiful, smooth complexion.

Not for Susan, Banks thought, the wild, boozy Saturday nights favored by Jim Hatchley, who followed hot on her heels looking like death warmed over: eyes bleary and bloodshot, lips dry and cracked, a shred of toilet paper stuck over a shaving cut, thinning straw hair unwashed and uncombed for a couple of days.

After the two of them had sat down, both nursing cups of coffee, Banks explained how the boy had been killed, then he walked over to the map of Eastvale on the wall by his filing cabinet and pointed to the ginnel where the body had been discovered.

“This is where PC Ford found him,” he began. “There are no through roads leading west nearby, so people tend to cut through the residential streets, then take the Carlaw Place ginnel over the recreation ground to King Street and the Leaview Estate. Thing is, it works both ways, so he could have been heading in either direction. We don’t know.”

“Sir,” said Susan, “you told me on the telephone that he’d probably been killed shortly after closing time. If he’d been out drinking, isn’t it more likely that he was heading from Market Street? I mean, that’s quite a popular spot for young people on a Saturday night. There’s a fair number of pubs, and some of them have live bands or karaoke.”

Karaoke. Banks felt himself shudder at the thought. The only other words that had a similar effect on him were “country and western music.” An oxymoron if ever there was one.

“Good point,” he said. “So let’s concentrate our survey on the Market Street pubs and the Leaview Estate to start with. If we draw a blank there, we can extend the area.”

“How much do we know, sir?” Sergeant Hatchley asked.

“Precious little. I’ve already had a look at the overnight logs, and there are no reports of any major shindigs. We’ve talked to the occupants of the terrace houses on both sides of the ginnel, as well as the people across the street. The only one with anything to say was watching television, so he didn’t hear anything too clearly, but he was sure he did hear a fight or something outside during the Liverpool-Newcastle game on ‘Match of the Day.’”

“What exactly did he hear, sir?” Susan asked.

“Just some scuffling and grunting, then the sound of people running away. He thought more than one, but he couldn’t say how many. Or which direction. He thought it was just the usual drunken yobs, and he certainly had no intention of going outside and finding out for himself.”

“You can hardly blame him, these days, can you?” said Sergeant Hatchley, picking gingerly at the tissue over his shaving cut. It started to bleed again. “Some of these yobs’d kill you as soon as look at you. Besides, it were a bloody good match.”

“Anyway,” Banks went on, “you’d better check with Traffic, too. We don’t know for certain whether the attackers ran home or drove off. Maybe they got a parking ticket or got stopped for speeding.”

“We should be so lucky,” muttered Hatchley.

Banks pulled two sheets of paper from a folder on his desk and passed one each to Susan and Hatchley. It showed an artist’s impression of a young man, probably in his early twenties, with thin lips and a long, narrow nose. His hair was cut short and combed neatly back. Despite his youth, it seemed to be receding at the temples and looked very thin on top. There was nothing particularly distinctive about him, but Banks thought he could perceive a hint of arrogance in the expression. Of course, that was probably just artistic license.

“The night-shift attendant at the mortuary came up with this,” he said. “A few months back, he got bored with having no one to talk to on the job, so he started sketching corpses as a way of passing the time. ‘Still lifes,’ he calls them. Obviously a man of hidden talents. Anyway, he told us this was mostly speculation, especially the nose, which had been badly broken. The cheekbones had been fractured, too, so he was guessing about how high and how prominent they might have been. But the hair’s right, he says, and the general shape of the head. It’ll have to do for now. The only things we know for certain are that the victim was a little over six feet tall, weighed eleven stone, was in fine physical shape – an athlete, perhaps – and he had blue eyes and blond hair. No birthmarks, scars, tattoos or other distinguishing features.” He tapped the folder. “We’ll try to get this on the local TV news today and in the papers tomorrow morning. For now, you can start with the house-to-house, then, after opening time, you can canvass the pubs. Uniform branch has detailed four officers to help. Our first priority is to find out who the poor bugger was, and the second is to discover who he was last seen with before he was killed. Okay?”

They both nodded and stood up to leave.

“And take your mobiles or personal radios and stay in touch with one another. I want the right hand to know what the left hand’s doing. All right?”

“Yes, sir,” said Susan.

“As for me,” said Banks with a grim smile, “Dr. Glendenning has kindly offered to come in and do the postmortem this morning, so I think one of us should pay him the courtesy of being present. Don’t you?”

IV

A lot of detectives complained about house-to-house inquiries, much preferring to spend their time in scummy pubs with low-life informers, getting the real feel of the Job, or so they thought. But Susan Gay had always enjoyed a good house-to-house. At the very least it was good exercise in patience.

Of course, you got the occasional nutter, the boor, and the lecherous creep with his Hound of the Baskervilles straining at the end of its chain. Once, even, a naked child had toddled out to see what was happening and peed all over Susan’s new shoes. The mother had thought it hilarious.

Then there were those endless hours in the rain, wind and snow, knocking at door after door, your feet aching, the damp and chill fast seeping right into the marrow of your bones, wishing you’d chosen some other career, thinking even marriage and kids would be better than this.

And, needless to say, every now and then some clever-arse pillock would tell her she was too pretty to be a policeman, or would suggest she could put her handcuffs on him anytime she wanted, ha-ha-ha. But that was all part of the game, and she didn’t mind as much as she sometimes pretended she did to annoy Sergeant Hatchley. As far as Susan was concerned, the human race would always contain a large number of clever-arse pillocks, no matter what you thought. And the greatest percentage of them, in her experience, were likely to be men.

But on a fine morning like this, the valley sides beyond the town’s western edge crisscrossed with limestone walls, slopes still lush green after the late-summer rains, and the purple heather coming into bloom up high, where the wild moorland began, it was as good a way as any to be earning your daily crust. And there was nothing like a house-to-house for getting to know your patch.

The morning chill had quickly given way to warmth, and Susan guessed Eastvale might hit seventy before the day was over. Indian summer, indeed. She took her jacket off and slung it over her shoulder. At that time of year in the Dales, any good day was a bonus not to be wasted. Tomorrow might come rain, flood and famine, so seize the moment. Children played football in the streets, or rode around on bicycles and skateboards; men with their shirtsleeves rolled up flung buckets of soapy water over their cars, then waxed them to perfection; groups of teenagers stood around street corners smoking, trying to look sullen and menacing, and failing on both counts; doors and windows stood open; some people even sat on their doorsteps reading the Sunday papers and drinking tea.

As Susan walked, she could smell meat roasting and cakes baking. She also heard snatches of just about every kind of music, from Crispian St. Peters singing “You Were on My Mind” to the opening of Elgar’s Cello Concerto, which she only recognized because it was the same excerpt as the one on the CD she got free with her classical-music magazine last month.

The Leaview Estate had been built just after the war. The houses, a mix of bungalows, semis and terraces, were solid, their style and materials in harmony with the rest of Swains-dale’s limestone and gritstone architecture. No ugly maisonettes or blocks of flats spoiled the skyline the way they did across town on the newer East Side Estate. And on the Lea-view Estate, many of the streets were named after flowers.

It was almost noon, and Susan had already covered the Primroses, the Laburnums and the Roses without any luck. Now she was about to move on to the Daffodils and Buttercups. She carried a clipboard with her, carefully ticking off all the houses she visited, putting question marks and notes beside any responses she found suspicious, keeping a keen eye open for bruised knuckles and any other signs of recent pugilism. If someone wasn’t home, she would circle the house number. After every street, she used her personal radio to report back to the station. If Hatchley or any of the uniformed officers got results first, then the communications center would inform her.

A boy came speeding around the corner of Daffodil Rise on Rollerblades, and Susan managed to jump out of the way in the nick of time. He didn’t stop. She held her hand to her chest until her heartbeat slowed to normal and thought about arresting him on a traffic offense. Then the adrenaline ebbed away and she got her breath back. She rang the bell of number two.

The woman who answered was probably in her late fifties, Susan guessed. Nicely turned out: hair recently permed, only a touch of lipstick, face powder. Maybe just back from church. She wore a beige cardigan, despite the heat. As she spoke, she held it closed over her pale pink blouse.

“Yes, dearie?” she said.

Susan showed her warrant card and held out the mortuary attendant’s sketch. “We’re trying to find out who this boy is,” she said. “We think he might live locally, so we’re asking around to find out if anyone knows him.”

The woman stared at the drawing, then tilted her head and scratched her chin.

“Well,” she said. “It could be Jason Fox.”

“Jason Fox?” It sounded like a pop star’s name to Susan.

“Yes. Mr. and Mrs. Fox’s young lad.”

Well, Susan thought, tapping her pen against her clipboard, that’s enlightening. “Do they live around here?”

“Aye. Just over the street.” She pointed. “Number seven. But I only said it might be. It’s not a good likeness, you know, love. You ought to get a proper artist working for you. Like my lad, Laurence. Now there’s an artist for you. He sells his prints at the craft center in town, you know. I’m sure he-”

“Yes, Mrs…?”

“Ingram’s the name. Laurence Ingram.”

“I’ll bear him in mind, Mrs. Ingram. Now, is there anything you can tell me about Jason Fox?”

“The nose isn’t right. That’s the main thing. Very good with noses, is my Laurence. Did Curly Watts from ‘ Coronation Street ’ down to a tee, and that’s not an easy one. Did you know he’d done Curly Watts? Right popular with the celebrities is my Laurence. Oh, yes, very-”

Susan took a deep breath, then went on. “Mrs. Ingram, could you tell me if you’ve seen Jason Fox around lately?”

“Not since yesterday. But then he’s never around much. Lives in Leeds, I think.”

“How old is he?”

“I couldn’t say for certain. He’s left school, though. I know that.”

“Any trouble?”

“Jason? No. Quiet as a mouse. As I said, you hardly ever see him around. But it does look like him except for the nose. And it’s easy to get noses wrong, as my Laurence says.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Ingram,” said Susan, glancing over at number seven. “Thank you very much.” And she hurried down the path.

“Wait a minute,” Mrs. Ingram called after her. “Aren’t you going to tell me what’s happened? After all the help I’ve given you. Has summat happened to young Jason? Has he been up to summat?”

If Jason’s the one we’re looking for, Susan thought, then you’ll find out soon enough. As yet, he was only a “possible,” but she knew she had better inform Banks before barging in on her own. She went back to the corner of the street and spoke into her personal radio.

V

Banks walked quickly through the narrow streets of tourist shops behind the police station, then down King Street toward Daffodil Rise. Beyond the Leaview Estate, the town gradually dissolved into countryside, the sides of the valley narrowing and growing steeper the farther west they went.

Near Eastvale, Swainsdale was a broad valley, with plenty of room for villages and meadows, and for the River Swain to meander this way and that. But twenty or thirty miles in, around Swainshead, it was an area of high fells, much narrower and less hospitable to human settlements. One or two places, like Swainshead itself, and the remote Skield, managed to eke out an existence in the wild landscape around Witch Fell and Adam’s Fell, but only just.

The last row of old cottages, Gallows View, pointed west like a crooked finger into the dale. Banks’s first case in Eastvale had centered around those cottages, he remembered as he hurried on toward Daffodil Rise.

Graham Sharp, who had been an important figure in the case, had died of a heart attack over the summer, Banks had heard. He had sold his shop a few years ago, and it had been run since by the Mahmoods, whom Banks knew slightly through his son, Brian. He had seen them down at the station, too, recently; according to Susan, someone had lobbed a brick through their window a couple of weeks ago.

In what used to be empty fields around Gallows View, a new housing estate was under construction, scheduled for completion in a year’s time. Banks could see the half-dug foundations scattered with puddles, the piles of bricks and boards, sun glinting on idle cranes and concrete mixers. One or two streets had been partially built, but none of the houses had roofs yet.

Number seven Daffodil Rise really stood out from the rest of the houses on the street. Not only had the owners put up a little white fence around the garden and installed a paneled, natural pine-look door, complete with a stained-glass windowpane (lunacy, Banks thought, so easy to break and enter), they also had one of the few gardens in the street that lived up to the flower motif. And because it had been a long summer, many of the flowers usually gone by the end of September were still in blossom. Bees droned around the red and yellow roses that still clung to their thorny bushes just under the front window, and the garden beds were a riot of chrysanthemums, dahlias, begonias and gladioli.

The front door was ajar. Banks tapped softly before walking in. He had told Susan Gay over the radio that she should talk to the parents and try to confirm whether the drawing might be of their son before he arrived, but not to tell them anything until he got there.

When Banks walked in, Mrs. Fox was just bringing a tea tray through from the kitchen into the bright, airy living room. Cut flowers in crystal vases adorned the dining table and the polished wood top of the fake-coal electric fire. Roses climbed trellises on the cream wallpaper. Over the fireplace hung a framed antique map of Yorkshire, the kind you can buy in tourist shops for a couple of quid. Along the narrowest wall stood floor-to-ceiling wooden shelving that seemed to be full of long-playing records.

Mrs. Fox was about forty, Banks guessed. Sandra’s age. She wore a loose white top and black leggings that outlined her finely tapered legs, with well-toned calves and shapely thighs – the kind you only got at that age from regular exercise. She had a narrow face, and her features seemed cramped just a little too close together. Her hair was simply parted in the middle and hung down as far as her shoulders on each side, curling under just a little at the bottom. The roots were only a slightly darker shade of blond.

Mr. Fox stood up to shake hands with Banks. Bald except for a couple of black chevrons above his ears, with a thin, bony face, he wore black-rimmed glasses, jeans and a green sweatshirt. He was exceptionally skinny, which made him appear tall, and he looked as if he had the kind of metabolism that allowed him to eat as much as he wanted without putting on a pound. Banks wasn’t quite as skinny himself, but he never seemed to put on much weight either, despite the ale and the junk food.

Tea poured, Mrs. Fox sat down on the sofa with her husband and crossed her long legs. Husband and wife left enough space for another person to sit between them, but Banks took a chair from the dining table, turned it around and sat, resting his arms on the back.

“Mr. and Mrs. Fox were just telling me,” Susan Gay said, getting her notebook out, “that Jason looks like the lad in the drawing, and he didn’t sleep here last night.”

“She won’t tell us anything.” Mrs. Fox appealed to Banks with her small, glittering eyes. “Is our Jason in any trouble?”

“Has he ever been in trouble before?” Banks asked.

She shook her head. “Never. He’s a good boy. He never caused us any problems, has he, Steven? That’s why I can’t understand you coming here. We’ve never had the police here before.”

“Weren’t you worried when Jason didn’t sleep here last night?”

Mrs. Fox looked surprised. “No. Why should I be?”

“Weren’t you expecting him?”

“Look, what’s happened? What’s going on?”

“Jason lives in Leeds, Chief Inspector,” Steven Fox cut in. “He just uses our house when it suits him, a bit like a hotel.”

“Oh, come on, Steven,” his wife said. “You know that’s not fair. Jason’s grown up. He’s got his own life to live. But he’s still our son.”

“When it suits him.”

“What does he do in Leeds?” Banks cut in.

“He’s got a good job,” said Steven Fox. “And there’s not many as can say that these days. An office job at a factory out in Stourton.”

“I assume he’s also got a flat or a house in Leeds, too?”

“Yes. A flat.”

“Can you give DC Gay the address, please? And the name and address of the factory?”

“Of course.” Steven Fox gave Susan the information.

“Do either of you know where Jason was last night?” Banks asked. “Or who he was with?”

Mrs. Fox answered. “No,” she said. “Look, Chief Inspector, can’t you please tell us what’s going on? I’m worried. Is my Jason in trouble? Has something happened to him?”

“I understand that you’re worried,” Banks said, “and I’ll do everything I can to hurry things up. Please bear with me, though, and answer just a few more short questions. Just a few more minutes. Okay?”

They both nodded reluctantly.

“Do you have a recent photograph of Jason?”

Mrs. Fox got up and brought a small framed photo from the sideboard. “Only this,” she said. “He was seventeen when it was taken.”

The boy in the photo looked similar to the victim, but it was impossible to make a positive identification. Teenagers can change a lot in three or four years, and heavy boots do a great deal of damage to facial features.

“Do you know what Jason did yesterday? Where he went?”

Mrs. Fox bit her lip. “Yesterday,” she said. “He got home about twelve o’clock. We had sandwiches for lunch, then he went off to play football, like he usually does.”

“Where?”

“He plays for Eastvale United,” Steven Fox said.

Banks knew the team; they were only amateur players, but he’d taken Brian to see them once or twice, and they had demonstrated the triumph of enthusiasm over talent. Their matches had become quite popular with the locals, and they sometimes managed to draw two or three hundred to their bumpy field on a few acres of waste ground between York Road and Market Street.

“He’s a striker,” said Mrs. Fox with pride. “Top goal scorer in North Yorkshire last season. Amateur leagues, that is.”

“Impressive,” said Banks. “Did you see him after the game?”

“Yes. He came home for his tea after he’d had a quick drink with his mates from the team, then he went out about seven o’clock, didn’t he, Steven?”

Mr. Fox nodded.

“Did he say whether he’d be back?”

“No.”

“Does he normally stop here on weekends?”

“Sometimes,” Mrs. Fox answered. “But not always. Sometimes he drives back to Leeds. And sometimes he doesn’t come up at all.”

“Does he have his own key?”

Mrs. Fox nodded.

“What kind of car does he drive?”

“Oh, my God, it’s not a car crash, is it?” Mrs. Fox put her hands to her face. “Oh, please don’t tell me our Jason’s been killed in a car crash.”

At least Banks could assure her of that honestly.

“It’s one of those little Renaults, said Steven Fox. “A Clio. Bloody awful color, it is, too. Shiny green, like the back of some sort of insect.”

“Where does he park when he’s here?”

Mr. Fox jerked his head. “There’s a double garage round the back. He usually parks it there, next to ours.”

“Have you looked to see if the car’s still there?”

“No. I’d no call to.”

“Did you hear it last night?”

He shook his head. “No. We usually go to bed early. Before Jason gets back, if he’s stopping the night. He tries to be quiet, and we’re both pretty heavy sleepers.”

“Would you be kind enough to show DC Gay where the garage is?” Banks asked Steve Fox. “And, Susan, if the car’s there, see if he left the keys in it.”

Steven Fox led Susan out through the back door.

“Does Jason have a girlfriend?” Banks asked Mrs. Fox while they were gone.

She shook her head. “I don’t think so. He might have someone in Leeds, I suppose, but…”

“He never mentioned her or brought her here?”

“No. I don’t think he had anyone steady.”

“Do you think he would have told you if he had?”

“I can’t see any reason why he wouldn’t.”

“How do you and Jason get along?”

She turned away. “We get along just fine.”

Susan and Steven Fox came back from the garage. “It’s there all right,” Susan said. “A green Clio. I took the number. And no keys.”

“What is it?” Mrs. Fox asked. “If Jason wasn’t in a car crash, did he hit someone? Was there an accident?”

“No,” said Banks. “He didn’t hit anyone.” He sighed and looked at the map over the fireplace. He couldn’t really hold back telling them any longer. The best he could do was play up the uncertainty aspect. “I don’t want to alarm you,” he said, “but a boy was killed last night, probably in a fight. DC Gay showed you the artist’s impression, and someone suggested it might resemble Jason. That’s why we need to know his movements and whereabouts.”

Banks waited for the outburst, but it didn’t come. Instead, Mrs. Fox shook her head and said, “It can’t be our Jason. He wouldn’t get into fights or anything like that. And you can’t really tell from the picture, can you?”

Banks agreed. “I’m sure you’re right,” he said. “He’s probably gone off somewhere for the weekend with his mates without telling you. Kids. No consideration sometimes, have they? Would Jason do something like that?”

Mrs. Fox nodded. “Oh, yes. Never tells us owt, our Jason, does he, Steven?”

“That’s right,” Mr. Fox agreed. But Banks could tell from his tone that he wasn’t quite as convinced as his wife about Jason’s not being the victim. He wondered why. In his experience, mothers often held more illusions about their children than fathers did.

“Does Jason have any friends on the estate he might have gone out with?” Banks asked. “Anyone local?”

Mrs. Fox looked at her husband before answering. “No,” she said. “See, we’ve only been living in Eastvale for three years. Since we moved from Halifax. Besides, Jason doesn’t drink. Well, not hardly.”

“When did he get this job in Leeds?”

“Just before we moved.”

“I see,” said Banks. “So he hasn’t really spent much time here, had time to settle in and make friends?”

“That’s right,” said Mrs. Fox.

“Does he have any other relations in the area he might have gone to visit? An uncle, perhaps, someone like that?”

“Only my dad,” said Mrs. Fox. “That’s why we moved here, really, to be nearer my dad. My mam died two years ago, and he’s not getting any younger.”

“Where does he live?”

“Up in Lyndgarth, so he’s not far away, in case of emergencies, like. Eastvale was the closest town Steven could get a transfer.”

“What kind of work do you do, Mr. Fox?”

“Building society. Abbey National. That big branch on York Road, just north of the market square.”

Banks nodded. “I know the one. Look, it’s just a thought, but does Jason spend much time with his grandfather? Might he be stopping with him?”

Mrs. Fox shook her head. “He’d have let us know, Dad would. He’s got a telephone. Didn’t want one, but we insisted. Besides, Jason’s car…”

“Would your father know anything more about Jason’s friends and his habits?”

“I don’t think so,” said Mrs. Fox, fidgeting with her wedding ring. “They used to be close when Jason were a young lad, but you know what it’s like when kids grow up.” She shrugged.

Banks did. He well remembered preferring the company of his grandparents to that of his mother and father when he was young. They were more indulgent with him, for a start, and would often give him a tanner for sweets – which he’d usually spend on sherbet, gobstoppers and a three-penny lucky bag. He also liked his grandfather’s pipe rack, the smell of tobacco around the dark-paneled house, the tarnished silver cigarette case with the dint where a German bullet had hit it, saving his grandfather’s life – or so his grandfather had told him. He had loved the stories about the war – not the second, but the first – and his grandfather had even let him wear his old gas mask, which smelled of rubber and dust. They had spent days walking by the River Nene, standing by the railway tracks to watch the sleek, streamlined Flying Scotsman go by. But all that had changed when Banks entered his teens, and he felt especially guilty about not seeing his granddad for a whole year before the old man died while Banks was at college in London.

“Are there any other family members?” he asked. “Brothers or sisters?”

“Only Maureen, my daughter. She’s just turned eighteen.”

“Where is she?”

“Nurses’ training school, up in Newcastle.”

“Would she be able to help us with any of Jason’s friends?”

“No. They’re not particularly close. Never were. Different as chalk and cheese.”

Banks glanced over at Susan and indicated she should put her notebook away. “Would you mind if we had a quick look at Jason’s room?” he asked. “Just to see if there’s anything up there that might help us find out what he was doing last night?”

Steven Fox stood up and walked toward the stairs. “I’ll show you.”

The tidiness of the room surprised Banks. He didn’t know why – stereotyping, no doubt – but he’d been expecting the typical teenager’s room, like his son Brian’s, which usually looked as if it had just been hit by a tornado. But Jason’s bed was made, sheets so tightly stretched across the mattress you could bounce a coin on them, and if he had dirty washing lying around, as Brian always had, then Banks couldn’t see it.

Against one of the walls stood shelving similar to that downstairs, also stacked with long-playing records and several rows of 45s.

“Jason likes music, I see,” Banks said.

“Actually, they’re mine,” said Steven Fox, walking over and running his long fingers over a row of LPs. “My collection. Jason says it’s okay to use the wall space because he’s not here that often. It’s mostly sixties stuff. I started collecting in 1962, when ‘Love Me Do’ came out. I’ve got everything The Beatles ever recorded, all originals, all in mint condition. And not only The Beatles. I’ve got all The Rolling Stones, Grateful Dead, Doors, Cream, Jimi Hendrix, The Searchers… If you can get it on vinyl, I’ve got it. But I don’t suppose you’re interested in all that.”

Banks was interested in Mr. Fox’s record collection, and on another occasion he would have been more than happy to look over the titles. Just because he loved opera and classical music in general didn’t mean he looked down on rock, jazz or blues – only on country and western and brass bands. This latter opinion was regarded as a serious lapse of taste in Yorkshire, Banks was well aware, but he felt that anyone who had had to endure an evening of brass-band renditions of Mozart arias, as he once had, was more than entitled to it.

Apart from Steven Fox’s record collection, the room was strangely Spartan, almost an ascetic’s cell, and even on such a warm day it seemed to emanate the chill of the cloister. There was only one framed print on the wall, and it showed a group of three naked women. According to the title, they were supposed to be Norse goddesses, but they looked more like bored housewives to Banks. There was no television or video, no stereo and no books. Maybe he kept most of his things in his flat in Leeds.

Steven Fox stood in the doorway as Banks and Susan started poking around the spotless corners. The dresser drawers were full of underclothes and casual wear – jeans, sweatshirts, T-shirts. By the side of the bed lay a set of weights. Banks could just about lift them, but he didn’t fancy doing fifty bench presses.

In the wardrobe, he found Jason’s football strip, a couple of very conservative suits, both navy blue, and some white dress shirts and sober ties. And that was it. So much for any clues about Jason Fox’s life and friends.

Back downstairs, Mrs. Fox was pacing the living room, gnawing at her knuckles. Banks could tell she was no longer able to keep at bay the terrible realization that something bad might have happened to her son. After all, Jason hadn’t come home, his car was still in the garage, and now the police were in her house. A part of Banks hoped, for her sake, that the victim wasn’t Jason. But there was only one way to find that out for certain.