Careless Love

1

Broad ribbons of fog lingered in the valley bottom as Detective Superintendent Alan Banks drove the unmarked police car slowly along Belderfell Pass, cursing the fact that his beloved Porsche was in the garage for its MOT. Fortunately, visibility was good on the winding road, about halfway up the steep fell side. Though it was only three o’clock in the afternoon, it was already starting to get dark as the sun sank below the hills to the west.

‘Here they are,’ said DS Winsome Jackman as they came around a bend and saw a patrol car stopped by a metallic blue Megane, reducing the two lanes to one.

Banks brought the car to a halt by the tapes, and he and Winsome got out, flashing their warrant cards. One of the uniformed officers was talking to a woman beside the Megane, while his partner kept an eye on the road in order to warn any oncoming traffic to slow down.

All three looked twice at Winsome. Not only because she was beautiful, which she was, but because it wasn’t often you saw a six-foot-tall black woman on Belderfell Pass. Or anywhere else in the Eastvale area, for that matter. As usual, Winsome took it in her stride, edging to the sideline and taking out her notebook and pen.

Tucked away in a lay-by cut into the hillside, half hidden by shrubbery, was a damaged Ford Focus, the result of a minor crash. Nobody had been seriously injured, but the car was a write-off, its radiator grille crushed, bonnet buckled and the engine hanging half out of one side. Given the remote location and the weather conditions over the previous week, the attending officer must have known it would take some time to get the wreck towed to a garage, so he had placed a yellow POLICE AWARE sign in the front windscreen. That made it clear to passers-by that the police already knew about the accident and would get around to dealing with it in their own time.

‘What have we got?’ asked Banks, eyeing the Focus.

‘She’s in there,’ said the patrol officer, pointing. The woman beside him was leaning back against the Megane’s bonnet. Her arms were folded tight and she looked upset.

The Focus stood in the lay-by facing in the wrong direction. Banks edged around to the driver’s seat and glanced through the window. A young woman was behind the wheel, eyes wide open, staring straight ahead. It didn’t take a police doctor to tell him that she was dead.

Banks slipped on his latex gloves and opened the car door. The metal squealed. He bent to examine the body. Blond hair trailed over her shoulders and a ragged fringe and hoop earrings framed a heart-shaped face that must have been quite beautiful in life. She was wearing muted pink lipstick, blue eyeshadow and a fashionable black, strapless dress, the kind of item a young woman might wear for a special night out, a dinner at a fine restaurant, say, or an evening at the theatre. She also wore strappy sandals, high-heeled, but not to the point that would cause problems of balance, and some costume jewellery. Her hands were folded on her lap, a charm bracelet on her right wrist and a watch on the other. The seat belt wasn’t fastened, and there was no handbag or coat anywhere to be seen inside the car. Her skin was pale and smooth. As far as Banks could tell, there was no physical evidence of any mistreatment of the body. No bruises, cuts or traces of blood. Also nothing to offer any clues as to her identity. He checked the glove compartment and found some petrol receipts, nicotine gum and a screwdriver.

Banks turned back to the constable. ‘Any idea of the circumstances of the accident, PC...?’

‘Knowles, sir. Barry Knowles.’

‘Well, Barry, what can you tell us?’

Knowles gestured to his partner. ‘What do you want to know? Ted and me were at the original scene.’

‘You’d better start at the beginning. All I know so far is that this Focus was involved in an accident here last weekend.’

‘That’s right.’ Knowles checked his notes. ‘Friday night, it was. Incident called in from Trevor Vernon’s mobile at ten thirty-seven p.m. That’s the owner, sir. There was a bit of patchy fog and Mr Vernon ran into a white van on a tight bend. They were lucky to get away with only cuts and bruises. If one of them had gone over the edge... well...’ He gestured down at the valley bottom and swallowed.

Banks remembered arriving at a scene not far from here by helicopter when a van full of dead farm animals had gone over the side. Being close to the spot again brought back the horrific images of that day, not least of which was the sight of an improbable combination of man, steering wheel and engine block that more resembled a horror-film scene imagined by H.R. Giger than it did a human being. ‘Go on,’ he said.

‘It was all above board,’ PC Knowles went on. ‘Neither of the drivers had been drinking. The bloke in the van, John Kelly, was a builder going home late from a job. He admitted he was in a bit of a hurry but denied exceeding the speed limit. The other two, Mr and Mrs Vernon, were on their way back from a play at the Georgian Theatre in Richmond. Mr Vernon said they’d each consumed a glass of wine during the interval, and our tests showed the driver was not over the legal limit.’

‘A builder? Working until after ten thirty on a Friday night? I suppose miracles might happen, but...’

PC Knowles shrugged. ‘It’s what he told us, sir. He gave us the address of the property he was working on, too.’

‘OK,’ said Banks. ‘What happened to them all?’

‘Eastvale General. Just cuts and bruises. Shock, of course. Treated and released. Kelly’s van was still roadworthy, so he drove himself home afterwards, but the Focus... well, you can see for yourself. It can take a few days to make the arrangements with the garage. Vernon made a bit of fuss, going on about it being Kelly’s fault and all for driving too fast, but we put it down to shock.’

‘How long were you here?’

‘It was after twelve when we put the sign in the window of the Focus and left,’ said Knowles. He checked his notebook again. ‘Twelve-o-nine a.m.’

‘And what about the girl?’

PC Knowles paled. ‘Don’t know, sir. Our dispatcher got a call this morning. The lady here, Mrs Brody. She talked about an abandoned car, and Sergeant Harris was just about to tell her that we already knew about it, that’s why we had the POLICE AWARE sign in the window, but she said there was a dead girl in the car. There was certainly no girl here when we attended the scene of the accident on Friday night. Dead or alive.’

Banks smiled. ‘I should imagine not, PC Knowles, or you would have made a note of it, I’m sure.’

Knowles reddened and shuffled his feet. ‘Yes, sir.’

‘Did you examine the boot?’

‘No, sir. I mean, we...’

‘It’s all right. Was the car left unlocked?’

‘Yes, sir. I tried to lock it, but the key wouldn’t work. Too much damage to the doors.’

‘Do either of you recognise the girl?’

‘No,’ said PC Knowles. ‘Never seen her before.’

Banks turned to Mrs Brody, who was as tall as Winsome and just as statuesque, with short curly brown hair. Handsome rather than beautiful, Banks thought, in her early forties, casually dressed in black slacks, buttoned blouse and a padded zip-up jacket, wedding band on the third finger of her left hand. ‘Mrs Brody?’

‘Kirsten, please.’ She leaned forward and stretched out her hand. Banks shook it. Winsome came back from examining the car to stand beside them, notebook and pen in her hand.

‘You found the body?’ Banks asked Kirsten Brody.

Kirsten Brody touched her throat. ‘Yes. It was a terrible shock. It’s the first time I’ve ever seen a dead person outside of a funeral home. I was just so glad I managed to get a signal for the mobile up here.’ She had a lilting Scottish accent. Edinburgh, Banks guessed. Morningside, most likely.

‘It can be a bit hit and miss around these parts,’ Banks allowed. ‘Did you recognise her from anywhere?’

‘No. I’ve never seen her before.’

‘Did you touch the body?’

‘Lord, no.’

‘How did you know she was dead?’

‘Well, I don’t suppose I did, really. Not technically. But she wasn’t moving. Her eyes were open. And she was so pale. I don’t, I just... There was nothing I could have done. I didn’t open the door. I tapped gently on the window, but you can see...’

‘Yes.’ Banks paused for a moment to let Kirsten Brody collect herself, then asked, ‘What made you stop in the first place? I mean, I assume you saw the POLICE AWARE sign?’

‘Yes. I see them often enough on out-of-the-way roads like this. I work for the National Parks, so I do quite a lot of country driving. I don’t know what it was, really. It was more like a feeling. Perhaps a shadow that shouldn’t have been there, maybe a draught blowing a lock of her hair, some sort of movement? I really don’t know what it was that made me stop. I can’t explain it. I just felt there was something wrong about it.’

‘And what did you do then?’

‘Well, I pulled in as close to the side of the road as I could and went to have a look. There was no other traffic around. I remember the stillness when I got out of the car. The silence. Then, when I saw her, I got scared. I thought how foolish I was being. I mean, what if someone had done something to her? What if that someone was still around?’

‘Did you see any other cars?’

‘None. No one passed me while I was waiting, and I hadn’t seen one single car on my whole drive along the pass.’

‘Did you see anyone around or notice anything odd? A sound? Movement? A smell?’

‘No. Nobody. Nothing. I know it sounds silly, but I didn’t feel right leaving her. I knew she was dead, or I thought she was, but... I don’t know... It just wouldn’t have seemed right. I calmed myself down and called the police. They said they’d send a car up immediately and to stay where I was.’

‘What did you do in the meantime?’

‘I sat in the car and waited. I called my husband. He was expecting me back.’

‘OK,’ said Banks. ‘I think that’s all for now. We’ll get you away from here. You can make a statement at the police station in Eastvale, if that’s all right? Maybe with a nice cup of sweet strong tea? Just follow the patrol car.’ Banks gestured to Knowles, who got back into their car, leaving his partner to keep the scene secure.

Kirsten Brody nodded and smiled briefly.

After he had watched them drive away, Banks had another look at the body then turned to Winsome. ‘We’d better get Dr Burns up here,’ he said. ‘Make that the full CSI team. Peter Darby, too. We’ll need photos and video. And I’ll need Peter to prepare a suitable image of her in time for the TV’s local evening news. We’ll get prints, DNA and dental records, but they can all take time, and I doubt she’s in the system. We need to know who she is. God knows what we’ve got on our hands here. We don’t know whether she died in the car or was dead before she got there, but one thing I am pretty sure of is that she didn’t get here under her own steam.’

Trevor and Nancy Vernon lived in a Georgian-style semi-detached house just off Market Street, in the same part of Eastvale where Banks used to live with Sandra, Tracy and Brian, years ago when he first moved up north. The area hadn’t changed much since he had moved to Newhope Cottage after the divorce. Still the same bay windows, doors panelled with frosted glass, net curtains, well-tended gardens with trim lawns. And across Market Street were the same shops: the newsagent’s where Banks had picked up his morning Guardian on his way to work, a reliable butcher and greengrocer, a hairdresser Sandra had never liked, a bakery that made wonderful baguettes, and a betting shop Banks had used only on those rare occasions when he had a flutter, such as the Grand National and the Derby. There was also the dentist’s surgery on the corner, which had featured in his previous major case, and a pub called The Nag’s Head a bit further along. Banks had only been in there once during the time he had lived in the neighbourhood, and he found he would rather walk into town to somewhere with better beer, quieter music and a more convivial atmosphere.

Banks rang the doorbell and soon saw a blurred figure moving beyond the frosted glass. The man who answered had a puzzled and slightly annoyed expression on his face. He was about forty, wearing a grey V-neck jumper over a white shirt and muted tie. His hair was thinning at the front, and he was running to fat around the middle.

‘Mr Vernon?’ Banks asked.

‘Yes, that’s me. I’m afraid whatever it is, it’s not convenient at the moment. I don’t negotiate financial transactions of any kind on the doorstep.’

‘Very wise, sir, if I may say so. And I can’t say I blame you.’ Banks showed his warrant card. Winsome did likewise.

‘Police? What’s all this— Oh, it must be about the car. Of course. You’ve got it sorted? Sorry, do come in.’

They followed him into the hallway. A number of coats hung on pegs, and Vernon added Banks’s and Winsome’s to the row.

‘What is it, Daddy?’ asked a girl of about twelve, poking her head around the dining-room door.

‘Never you mind,’ said Vernon. ‘You finish your homework or your mummy will be angry with you.’

The head disappeared.

‘Come through here.’ Vernon led them into a comfortable but sterile living room. ‘I’ll just pop back in to tell Nancy what’s going on.’

‘You might ask your wife to come in here, too,’ Banks said. ‘We’d like to speak to her as well.’

‘Oh, all right. Very well. Please sit down.’

Banks and Winsome looked at one another. Winsome rolled her eyes. Banks glanced at the generic Constable-style landscape over the electric fireplace, then looked outside. It felt so strange sitting here looking at the street through the gauze curtains and remembering that he had a similar view for so many years — certainly, the houses were mirror images — and probably a similar life. The child, or children, he guessed as he heard the voices from the kitchen, the regularity of mealtimes, the domestic routine. But his life had never been exactly regular or routine. The very nature of his job prevented that, and that was one of the reasons for his expulsion from this Eden to the one where he lived now. Alone.

Vernon came back with Nancy in tow. She was wearing an apron and carrying a tea towel. She was a harried-looking woman, her hair in a mess, but she obviously kept herself in good shape, and her manner proved to be far less grating than that of her husband.

Trevor Vernon rubbed his hands together. ‘Right, where were we? Oh, yes. The car. Any progress?’

‘Progress?’ asked Winsome.

‘Yes. That idiot came tearing round the bend like a bloody maniac. And the road conditions were appalling.’

‘Well, it is Yorkshire, sir,’ said Winsome. ‘You have to make allowances for the weather.’

Vernon started at her, disbelieving. ‘Allowances? Is that all you can say? My wife and I were involved in a serious collision. Through no fault of our own, I might add. We could have died. Nancy here is a witness. And you go on about allowances. I want to know whether you’ve charged him yet. And what are the possibilities of compensation? Above and beyond the cost of a new car, that is.’

‘If you want to bring charges against Mr Kelly, sir, that’s your prerogative,’ Winsome went on. ‘But it’s not our department.’

Vernon glanced from one to the other. ‘Who’s the organ grinder and who’s the monkey here?’ Then he put his hand to his mouth. ‘Good God, that’s not what I meant. I mean to... I didn’t mean any offence. I—’

Banks looked towards Winsome, who simply raised an eyebrow. ‘Perhaps if you would just stop blathering for a minute and listen to us’ he went on, ‘then you wouldn’t put your foot any further down your throat.’

Vernon bridled. ‘Yes, of course. I assume you’re at least going to have the car moved to my garage for repairs? I can’t seem to get anyone there to commit to a pick-up time. That’s unless you need to take it in for forensic examination first.’

‘Forensic examination?’ Winsome echoed. ‘Why would we need to do that?’

‘To find proof. Evidence. Do you need me to tell you your job?’

‘Evidence of what?’

‘That it wasn’t my fault, of course. There must be something you can find, some scratch or dent that will prove his culpability.’

‘I don’t think we’ll be checking for anything along those lines,’ Winsome said. ‘But we will be taking the car in for forensic examination.’

‘But you just said... I don’t understand. Why? When will I get my car back. When can I get it fixed?’

‘We’re not a garage,’ Winsome said, ‘and we’re not in the tow-truck business.’

‘And from what I’ve seen,’ Banks added, ‘the only place that car is headed is the scrapyard.’

‘So what am I supposed to do?’

‘We’ll be in touch when our forensic experts have finished with it,’ Winsome said. ‘Then you can call your garage and make arrangements.’

‘You’re telling me now that I have to pay to get my own car back after you’ve taken it away?’

‘That’s usually how it works, sir,’ Winsome said. ‘Besides, I think you’ve got hold of the wrong end of the stick here. There’s no evidence of dangerous driving in this case and, as I tried to tell you earlier, we’re not Traffic. We’re Homicide and Major Crimes.’

Vernon’s mouth flapped open. He stared aghast at his wife, who shook her head slowly. ‘H-homicide?’

‘And Major Crimes,’ Winsome added.

‘I don’t understand. I mean, it was an accident. I don’t think the other driver intended to crash into us. He was just going too fast, wasn’t he, love? And nobody died. It wasn’t attempted murder or anything like that.’

‘We know that,’ said Banks. ‘As I suggested earlier, perhaps if you were to take your mind off the problem of your car for a moment and listen to what we have to say, we might get somewhere. Winsome.’

First Winsome got the minor details cleared up: that the car did belong to Trevor Vernon, and that he had been involved in an accident with a white van on Belderfell Pass last Friday evening at 10.37.

‘Yes,’ said Trevor Vernon. ‘We were on our way home from Richmond. A rather fine production of The Importance of Being Earnest at the Georgian Theatre, as a matter of fact. That’s what I thought you were here about, the accident, but I don’t understand now why you are here.’

‘Bear with us a while, and I’ll explain,’ said Banks. ‘Earlier today,’ he began, ‘we had a call from some patrol officers from the site where your car was left. A woman driving by noticed something she thought was odd and stopped to see what it was.’ Banks paused for effect. ‘She found a dead girl sitting in the driver’s seat.’

The Vernons looked at one another.

‘A dead girl?’ said Nancy.

It didn’t come out quite like ‘A handbag?’ but it was close enough. Their shock and surprise was certainly genuine, though, Banks thought. Trevor Vernon had turned pale.

‘Yes. You didn’t have a passenger with you at the time of the accident, did you?’

‘Passenger?’ echoed Vernon. ‘Good Lord, no, of course not. The children were at home with the babysitter. Are you suggesting that we had something to do with this?’

‘I’m not suggesting anything yet,’ Banks said. ‘Just trying to get a few things straight. Though I suppose one could say you definitely did have something to do with what happened. The dead girl was found in your car, after all.’

‘But that was just a coincidence,’ said Vernon. ‘It could have been any car, surely?’

‘Perhaps. That’s something we need to find out.’

‘There was certainly no sign of any body in or out of the car when we were taken to Eastvale General,’ said Vernon. ‘Your men were there. They can verify that.’

Banks nodded. ‘Oh, they do. When the car was moved into the lay-by and the notice put in the window by the police officers, there was definitely no body.’

‘Well, then? Doesn’t that prove it? However she got there, she got there after we’d gone.’

‘If you do know anything, it would be best to speak now.’

‘What do you mean, if we know anything?’ said Nancy Vernon. ‘How could we know anything?’

‘Something could have happened,’ said Banks. ‘Let’s just say, hypothetically, that you hit someone on the road earlier and stopped to help then realised that it was too late, the girl was dead. People get scared in these situations sometimes. They don’t always realise that the best course of action is to come to us. They panic. PC Knowles didn’t open the boot.’ Banks knew the girl hadn’t been run over — at least Dr Burns had found no obvious signs of it — but the Vernons weren’t to know that, unless they had also seen the body.

‘I don’t believe this,’ said Vernon. ‘You think we had a body in the boot all along? This is absurd. Assuming we did what you say, which we certainly did not, why would we want to move a body from the boot of our car to somewhere more open, and how do you think we got back to Belderfell Pass to do all this without a car?’

‘All I’m saying,’ Banks went on, ‘is that people tend to act irrationally in such situations. I just want to know if there’s anything you’re not telling us.’

‘We’re not criminals,’ said Nancy Vernon in a tremulous voice. ‘This is complete madness. We’ve never hurt anyone in our lives, have we, darling?’

‘We certainly have not. And I resent the insinuation.’

‘Do you have any enemies, Mr Vernon? Anyone who might want to cause trouble for you?’

‘You mean by implicating me in something like this?’

‘Yes.’

‘Then, no, I’m pretty sure I don’t have that kind of enemy. And neither does Nancy. This whole conversation is unreal. I’m a wages clerk, and Nancy works part time at Boots. Our children go to Eastvale Comprehensive. We live a quiet, ordinary life. Things like this don’t happen to people like us. We’re decent folk.’

Often the worst, in Banks’s experience, but he didn’t say anything.

Winsome showed them a photograph of the victim that Peter Darby had taken at the scene. Fortunately, she hadn’t needed any touching up, just a little help with the lighting. She still looked dead, Banks thought. ‘Do you know this girl? Have you ever seen her before?’

They shook their heads.

‘Is she the... you know... the girl in the car?’ asked Nancy Vernon.

Winsome nodded.

Nancy touched the photo. ‘Poor thing. She seems so young.’

‘Yes, she does,’ said Banks. He gave Winsome the nod to leave, and they both stood up. ‘Sorry to have bothered you at dinner time. And I apologise if some of our questions caused you discomfort. Cases like this are difficult for everyone involved. We may need to talk to you again as the investigation progresses, so please make yourselves available. There’s no need to see us out.’

When they were getting back into the car, Winsome said, ‘I don’t think they had anything to do with it, do you, guv?’

Banks shook his head. ‘No,’ he said. ‘You saw their reaction when I told them about the girl’s body. He’s an arsehole of the first order, and no doubt has a few enemies, but he’s not a killer. Let’s get back to the station and see if we get any results from the photo on the evening news.’

It was seven o’clock, shortly after Banks’s visit to the Vernons. Kirsten Brody had been and gone without telling him anything more than she had told him before. Peter Darby’s crime scene photo had made it in time for Look North and the local ITV news. There was nothing much for Banks to do now but wait and indulge in pointless speculation. He was standing at his office window in the dark looking down on the Christmas lights that glowed and twinkled in the market square. Rebecca Clarke’s viola sonata played in the background.

Kirsten Brody could have put the body in the car herself before reporting it, Banks thought. She was up there alone at the scene for long enough. But why do that, then call the police to report it? No. It didn’t make sense, and it wouldn’t until they found out more about the victim’s life. And death. The girl’s body had been transported to the mortuary in the basement of Eastvale General Infirmary, Dr Burns having pronounced death at the scene, possibly due to asphyxiation on her own vomit, he had said, which pointed to some sort of drug overdose, either accidental or deliberate. They would have to wait until the post-mortem to be certain.

Dr Burns wasn’t sure about time or place of death, putting it at two or perhaps three days earlier, which meant Saturday or Sunday, quite a window of opportunity. Banks hoped Dr Glendenning might be able to narrow it down a bit more when he got her on the table. The weather had been poor until Monday, so very few people would have used Belderfell Pass. The locals certainly knew how treacherous the winding, unfenced road could be even in the best of conditions.

But for Kristen Brody’s ‘feeling’, the body might well have remained where it was until Trevor Vernon stopped waiting for the police to do it and arranged for the garage to come to take his car away. If someone had placed the girl in the car, or dropped her off there to die, he or she must have known that her body would be discovered before too long. There were far better places nearby to hide a body than in a damaged car with a POLICE AWARE sign in its window, especially if you didn’t want anyone to find it for a long time. As yet, nobody had reported a young woman missing. If she had got there herself, then how? She couldn’t have walked, especially dressed the way she was; she was too far from anywhere for that. Someone must have given her a lift and either dropped her off or dumped her.

The telephone snapped Banks out of his stream of thought.

‘I think I know the identity of the girl whose photo they showed on the news tonight,’ the caller said. ‘I just can’t believe she’s dead.’

‘You knew her?’

‘Adrienne Munro,’ repeated the caller. ‘That’s her name.’

‘Was she a friend of yours?’

‘Not a friend. A student. I’m a lecturer at Eastvale College. Biology. Adrienne was one of my students. One of the brightest. I can’t quite believe what I just saw.’

A student. That perhaps explained why nobody had reported her missing yet. She could have been in a hall of residence, or lived alone in one of the many flats and bedsits that thronged the college area. ‘Could you please come by the infirmary and confirm that identification, Mr...?’

‘Stoller. Luke Stoller. Would I have to look at her?’

‘We can arrange for video identification. We’ll still have to go to the family for formal identification, of course, but you could really help us out here. We’d hardly want to upset the poor girl’s parents if we’re not sure it’s their daughter.’

‘No. Of course not. I can see that. Naturally, I’ll come. I don’t know why I’m being so squeamish. I teach biology, after all. I’ve dissected a frog or two in my time. It’s just... someone you know. Especially someone so vital, so young. Christ, Adrienne was only nineteen. Just starting her second year.’

‘Was she studying biology?’

‘Agricultural sciences. Biology was one of her required components.’

‘Maybe we can talk to you about her later, once we know a bit more about what’s going on? For the moment, though, the identification would be a huge first step.’

‘I can meet you in reception at the infirmary in about fifteen or twenty minutes, if that’s all right?’

‘Excellent.’ Banks hung up the phone and went down to the squad room to find Winsome. She should have no trouble tracking down Adrienne Munro’s address, and that of her parents.

Luke Stoller identified the body as that of Adrienne Munro, and Winsome came up with the necessary addresses. While Banks and Winsome waited for Adrienne’s parents to be driven down from Stockton to make a formal identification, they obtained a key from her landlord and walked down the tree-lined street of tall Victorian houses to number 27, where Adrienne Munro had a bedsit on the second floor. The bare branches stood in stark silhouette against the streetlights and above them, the clear crisp night was full of stars. Inside the building, it was warm, the stair carpet was clean and relatively new and the walls of the staircase and landings were decorated with tasteful reproductions of old masters. A smell of curry permeated the building, but that was to be expected in any student digs. Curry was cheap to make, and takeaways were plentiful.

As bedsits go, Adrienne’s was fairly spacious, though the roof did slope at quite an angle over the bed itself. You’d bang your head when you got up in the night if you weren’t careful, Banks thought, realising he was now at the age when he had to get up in the night far more often than he did as a student.

They put on their gloves and began the search.

The room came with an en suite, which consisted of a tiny walk-in shower, toilet and sink. There was barely room for towels on the narrow rack and flimsy shelves. Still, it was better than a toilet and bathroom down the hall, shared with the rest of the house. The medicine cabinet revealed nothing but a toothbrush, toothpaste, deodorant, nail clippers, a shaver, paracetamol and various cosmetics. There was no sign of prescription drugs, no contraceptive pills or devices, either in the bathroom or in any of Adrienne’s bedside drawers. Nor were there any obvious signs of vomit in the sink, toilet or bathtub.

The room itself was tidy, the bed made, dishes lying on the draining board next to the sink. Banks ran his finger over one of the plates. Quite dry. It felt like a cosy home away from home, with a certain warmth about it and an aura of being someone’s safe and special place or refuge. Above the small desk was a shelf of books, mostly textbooks on animal welfare and behaviour and wildlife conservation, along with a few paperbacks by Philippa Gregory, Antonia Fraser and Bernard Cornwell, showing a predilection for historical fiction. The ubiquitous Game of Thrones set of paperbacks was there, too, and it appeared to have been read. There was even an illustrated copy of Black Beauty, which also looked well thumbed, probably a relic from her childhood.

One drawer held a passport, issued in March of the previous year, a bank statement showing a balance of £2,342 — perhaps the residue of her student loan — and Adrienne’s birth certificate, National Health card, student rail pass and other pieces of official paper. There was no sign of a driving licence. Another held a small amount of costume jewellery. Banks handed it all to Winsome, who bagged everything for later examination. All seemed in order, and it didn’t appear as if anything untoward had taken place in Adrienne’s bedsit, but the whole place would still require a thorough forensic search by a CSI team. For now, Banks thought, it would do no harm for him to get a little ahead of the game. On the desk sat a laptop and a mobile phone, which he asked Winsome to bag.

‘It’s probably one of those smartphones that needs a fingerprint,’ he said.

‘We can do that at the mortuary.’

Banks looked at Winsome. ‘Yes, I suppose we can. It just feels sort of... I don’t know. Creepy. Like those movies where the baddies cut off someone’s finger to get access to the vault.’

Winsome smiled. ‘We don’t have to cut her finger off, guv. And if you don’t mind my saying so, you seem to watch some terrible movies.’

‘I suppose I do. Anyway, we’ll hand the phone over to the techies and see if we can get a print-out of her emails and texts by tomorrow, along with a list of her phone calls and contacts.’

The walls were painted cheerful colours, mostly yellow and orange, which Banks found a bit OTT, being more into muted blues and greens. Several posters were tacked up here and there; instead of pop stars or actors they featured National Geographic pictures showing a variety of wild animals — lions, leopards, elephants — along with a star chart and a reproduction of Breughel’s The Fall of Icarus. There were also posters advertising a recent Tosca at Covent Garden, Simon Rattle conducting Mahler’s 7th at the Barbican and Nicola Benedetti with her violin poised for a performance at the Royal Festival Hall. No Harry Styles or Justin Bieber. A serious young woman, then, or so it seemed.

Adrienne owned a Dali Klatch Bluetooth speaker, a pair of expensive Bowers and Wilkins headphones and an Astell & Kern AK70 portable music player. All expensive gadgets. Banks whistled between his teeth and picked up the AK70. He had considered buying one himself after Apple cruelly discontinued the iPod Classic. He scanned the contents. There were a few pop bands and singers he had never heard of, except for Radiohead and Parquet Courts, but the bulk of her music was classical: Beethoven, Brahms, Schubert, Bach, Tchaikovsky, Mozart, a few Verdi and Puccini operas, even violin works by some contemporary composers like Ligeti, Tavener and John Adams. He was impressed. A violin rested in its case on the armchair, a selection of sheet music beside it on a music stand: Fauré’s ‘Après un rêve’ and the meditation from Massenet’s Thaïs. A competent violinist, then, as well as an agricultural sciences student. Adrienne Munro became more interesting the more he found out about her.

The small wardrobe was filled with clothes, including distressed jeans, fashionable blazers and assorted tops as well as more formal skirts and dresses, like the one she had been wearing when they found her. They were all good quality, though not top designer labels. She also owned a row of fashionable shoes, from sandals and trainers to court shoes, high heels, strappy sandals, like the ones she had been wearing, and leather and suede ankle boots. It wasn’t hard to see where any spare cash Adrienne Munro might have had went. Clothes and gadgets. But how much spare cash did a student have these days? Did she have a part-time job? Rich parents? Banks didn’t think so.

Banks also wondered whether Adrienne had a boyfriend. Though most women balked at the idea that they dressed for anyone other than themselves, he nevertheless regarded Adrienne’s wardrobe as one at least as calculated to impress men as to please herself. But there was no evidence of a boyfriend in her bedsit. No stray socks, extra toothbrush or condoms.

Nor was there any evidence of drug use. And there wasn’t any booze at all.

‘It certainly doesn’t look as if she died here,’ Winsome said. ‘Though I’m not sure how we’d tell.’

‘If she did,’ said Banks, ‘she didn’t lie down on the bed to do it, and it’s hardly something you’d do sitting or standing, is it? Don’t you think it’s odd that there are no signs of a handbag or a purse, either here or in the car?’

‘Yes, I do,’ said Winsome. ‘I was going to mention that at the scene. Most girls her age wouldn’t go anywhere without a lipstick, money or credit cards, and keys. And a mobile, of course.’

‘That’s what I thought. But she left that here. Why? And where’s the rest of her personal stuff?’

‘I suppose if someone’s intent on committing suicide, they don’t necessarily think the way they would normally,’ she said. ‘I mean, the way most of us do. Anyway, I’ll ask around.’

‘Just another mystery to add to the list.’ Banks took a final look around the bedsit and saw nothing he had missed on first glance. He checked his watch and touched Winsome’s shoulder. ‘Come on, we’d better call the control room and get some CSIs out here asap. And someone to preserve the scene until they get here. We should head back to the infirmary now. The Munros will be arriving soon, and we owe it to them to be there to meet them.’

It was after ten o’clock when Banks got home to Newhope Cottage, having dropped off Adrienne’s phone and laptop with IT for analysis first thing in the morning. Adrienne’s parents had been too distraught to talk when they came in to identify the body, so he had arranged to drive up to Stockton and interview them the following day. He remembered how, in the cold, dreary mortuary, Mr Munro had tearfully identified his daughter’s body because his wife had been too upset to look at her. Winsome had offered them the services of a local doctor, accommodation in town and counselling, but they had insisted on returning to the family home, the only place they thought they would feel ‘right’. At least they had agreed to phone Mrs Munro’s mother, who lived in Middlesbrough, and she had said she would be waiting in the house with a pot of tea brewing when they got back.

The postman hadn’t called at the cottage before Banks had left for work that morning, but there was nothing of interest waiting for him on the mat behind the door. He had ordered no CDs recently, having gone much more digital in his listening, exploring the world of lossless downloads, and he even got his copy of Gramophone directly on his iPad. Though he liked the ability to browse the archive, he missed turning the pages, the feel of a real magazine in his hands, and thought he might change his subscription to include the print version. He thought of Adrienne’s Astell & Kern and, once again, thought it might well be worth buying one. Streaming was all well and good when you had a Wi-Fi signal, but he liked to listen in the car, and on headphones while he walked, and he was running out of space on his Classic. He could use his smartphone, he supposed, but he associated that too closely with work.

He had eaten only a ham and tomato sandwich from the police station canteen that day, so after turning up the thermostat a notch, he went through to the kitchen and found some aged cheddar and Rustique Camembert in the fridge. The crackers in his cupboard were a bit stale and tended to bend rather than snap, so he binned them. The cheese would be just fine by itself. Or rather, it would be fine with a glass of wine.

He turned on the TV on its ledge above the breakfast nook to watch the news, but quickly turned it off again. The world news had been depressing throughout most of his life, but this past two or three years, it had seemed even more so, with the parade of creepy and dangerous clowns that British and American politics had become, the nuclear threat growing and Russia up to her old habits.

Banks went through to the entertainment room and selected a CD of Chet Baker live in London, recorded in 1983. Baker was supposed to be well past his prime then, ruined by drugs, and not many years away from his mysterious demise after a fall from a high window in Amsterdam. But Banks thought it an excellent concert, and Baker was in terrific form. Music playing, he took his cheese and wine through to the conservatory.

Outside the windows, the long hump of Tetchley Fell loomed black and forbidding in the distance against the night sky, where a half moon shone among the bright constellations. Banks could recognise only Orion, with its hunter’s belt pointing towards Sirius, and the dim glow of the nebula in the bottom half. It was about the only constellation he had ever been able to recognise apart from the Plough, despite a boyhood obsession with astronomy that had lasted at least a couple of school terms. His telescope had lasted about as long as his microscope.

When he switched on the shaded lamp by his wicker chair, its reflection swallowed the view. Banks turned on the small fan heater, as it got especially cold in the conservatory on winter nights.

No matter what, he knew he was lucky to live where he did and vowed they’d have to carry him out feet first. Though he could do without the terrible winter storms that brought the county to a standstill, nowhere else could he imagine enjoying all the seasons as much as he did, from the turning leaves of autumn to the first fogs of November, the December frost, then the snowdrops and bluebells of early spring and the hot still days of summer when bees droned among the fuchsias, and tits and finches flitted around the garden all day, then the swallows and swifts took to the skies in early evening. Most of the birds remained throughout the winter, except the swallows and swifts, which flew off to South Africa. But there were plenty of robins, blackbirds and great tits. He had even seen a tawny owl sitting on the fence at the bottom of his garden early one morning the previous week, just as the light was growing. It was probably the closest he had ever seen an owl and the experience had made him feel strangely light-hearted all day.

Banks wasn’t even lonely most of the time — it had been over twenty years since he had split up with Sandra — but there were days when he ached for a companion, a lover, someone to share it all with. Time was running out for such things, he realised, and there was nothing more pathetic than an old man in a desperate search for young love. Better remain by himself than become a figure of fun or vilification.

He had come close to relationships a few times, most recently with Jenny Fuller, an old friend, almost lover, returned from overseas. But time and distance had changed them both, and it wasn’t to be. Jenny had made it clear that while she still wanted to remain friends, she had no interest in picking up from where they had left off so many years ago.

Linda Palmer, a poet he had met through one of his cases, had intrigued and attracted him enough to make him think that something more might develop between them, but there was distance about her, a strong aura of noli me tangere, which he attributed mostly to the circumstances that had brought them together in the first place — an investigation into her historical rape at the age of fourteen by a high-profile celebrity. Maybe she just didn’t fancy him, and that was all there was to it.

Penny Cartwright, the folk singer, clearly wasn’t interested, either, and she would never let him forget that he had treated her as a murder suspect in one of his first cases in Eastvale. They got along well enough. Banks admired her talent, went to listen to her sing in the Dog and Gun whenever he could, but he had given up any hope of more.

And then there was Annie Cabbot.

Banks and Annie had both been lonely of late, Annie since she had split up with her last boyfriend Nick Fleming. And it had been a few years, Banks realised, since he and his last lover Oriana had parted company. There were moments when he and Annie had almost consoled one another, but something always held them back. Whether it was fear of rejection or fear of success, neither seemed quite sure. Maybe it was the way times had changed, the way the rules that forbade abuse of power in the workplace sometimes also destroyed the possibility of love. Any relationship Banks and Annie had had in the past, they had entered into of their own free will. Mutual. Consensual. But that seemed irrelevant these days. In certain moments, Banks wondered if all this would hold them back for ever. They still flirted occasionally, and he sometimes wished it was more than that. God knew, he still had feelings for her.

But tonight he was happy with his wine and cheese and Chet Baker playing his trumpet. He settled back in the cushion of his wicker chair and mulled over the day.

He was still troubled about the dead girl, Adrienne Munro. It never went away, even after all these years, that feeling that grabbed and twisted his gut every time the victim was a young girl. He felt it every time he saw Linda Palmer, even though she was close to his own age now. He had to admit that he had no idea exactly what Adrienne was a victim of yet, but she was certainly dead, and that was upsetting enough.

As he did so often in these cases, Banks thought of his own daughter Tracy when she was Adrienne’s age, so full of hope and a sense of immortality. She had gone through a difficult period later, including an almost fatal relationship with a serious bad boy, but she had come out at the other end a stronger person with a clearer sense of where she wanted to go and how to get there. Now she was working on her doctorate in history not far away in Newcastle, teaching part time. She had a flat, a steady boyfriend, of whom Banks almost approved, and all was well for the moment. He thought of phoning her but decided it was too late. He would call her tomorrow.

Brian, his son, was away on tour with his band The Blue Lamps most of the time, endlessly on the road or in the recording studio. Fame didn’t seem to have changed him much, from what Banks had seen, though it hadn’t given him much of a chance to meet someone special and put down roots anywhere. He had once confessed to Banks, after a glass of wine too many, that he was often lonely on the road, that groupies weren’t really his scene and the rock-and-roll life wasn’t all it was cracked up to be, especially when you were in your early thirties.

Adrienne Munro, sitting in that car, staring straight ahead with her dead eyes, had got to Banks even more than some of the more obvious victims of violence he came across in his job. So far, he had nothing but questions.

A lot depended on Dr Glendenning’s post-mortem results, but as far as Banks was concerned, no matter what conclusion the doctor came to, there was a villain out there who needed catching and putting away. Even if Adrienne Munro had died from a self-administered overdose of drugs, then someone had supplied her with those drugs, and someone or something had pushed her towards the edge, and over. Even if she had died of a heart attack or a cerebral haemorrhage, someone had moved her body to the abandoned Focus, perhaps without first checking to make sure that she was dead. Why anyone had done that remained a mystery. It could have been a tasteless joke, putting her in a car marked POLICE AWARE. Or perhaps a well-wisher had wanted her to be found quickly, but hadn’t wanted to become entangled in an investigation into her death? Well, he would see about that. The unwritten rule on dealing with suspicious deaths was that it was better to err on the side of suspicion and put in place scene preservation and crime management procedures unnecessarily than fail to do so, only to discover later that the original suspicions were correct.

The Chet Baker CD had finished, and Banks’s glass was empty. He wandered into the kitchen and refilled it, then went into the entertainment room again, where he programmed the system to play ‘Après un rêve’ from the hoard of music on his computer. He had a vocal version by Véronique Gens, but he chose the violin version by Nicola Benedetti, whose poster Adrienne had on her wall. He added her Thaïs ‘Meditation’ to the mini playlist, too, and stuck on Vaughan William’s ‘The Lark Ascending’ and Arvo Pärt’s ‘Spiegel im Spiegel’ just because he liked them so much. Those four pieces, along with another glass of claret, should see him to bed, he thought, though he doubted he would enjoy a deep and dreamless sleep. They were few and far between these days.