Careless Love

12

When Anthony Randall entered the interview room late that Wednesday afternoon, he was wearing a well-tailored grey suit, complete with buttoned waistcoat. He brought with him his solicitor, a hunched, shiny-domed fellow of about his own age, called Brian Liversedge. Annie had never come across him before, and had no idea why Randall should think he needed a lawyer, but she bade Liversedge courteously to sit down.

‘You know,’ she said to Randall, ‘you’re not under arrest or being charged with anything. You’re not even under caution. You’re merely here as a courtesy to help us with our inquiries.’

‘Yes,’ said Randall. ‘I’m well aware of that. All the same, I feel more comfortable with Mr Liversedge present, if that’s all right with you.’

‘Of course,’ said Annie, giving Gerry a sideways glance. Gerry shuffled the papers on the table in front of her. ‘Do you mind if we record this interview?’ Annie asked.

‘I have no objection,’ said Randall. He pulled at his trousers before crossing his legs, so the creases would hold, and clasped his hands loosely in his lap.

He seemed perfectly at ease, Annie thought, which made her feel more convinced that he knew something. He ought to be more nervous that they had asked for an official interview at the station after their last chat at his home. She decided not to offer coffee or tea.

After the formalities for the recording, she began, ‘When we spoke on Monday, you admitted to calling Laurence Hadfield three times on the Saturday he disappeared. Am I correct?’

‘Yes,’ answered Randall. ‘But your use of the term “admitted” implies that I had been somehow previously withholding this information, or that the omission is in some way blameworthy.’

‘Not at all,’ said Annie. ‘A simple matter of fact.’

‘Then yes. I informed you that I had telephoned Larry on Saturday. I had no way of knowing that he had disappeared. I had no reason to think anything was wrong.’

‘Yes, you mentioned that before. One of your reasons for calling was to confirm a round of golf for the following day, right?’

‘Sunday. Yes.’

‘Did you do that?’

‘Yes we did.’

‘Which phone call?’

‘I’m not sure what you mean.’

‘There were three. Remember? 3.59 p.m. 8.02 p.m. and 11.26 p.m.’

‘Oh, I see. I honestly don’t remember. Probably the first one. Does it matter?’

‘We’re simply trying to work on the timing here.’

‘Then I’m sorry. I don’t know for certain, only that it was mentioned.’

‘And Mr Hadfield agreed to play.’

‘Yes.’

‘But he didn’t turn up.’

‘That right. I’ve already told you this.’

‘Why did you call him at eleven twenty-six, Dr Randall, if you had already arranged to play golf with him the following morning?’

‘I don’t know. I suppose I had something to tell him.’

‘What?’

‘I don’t recall.’

‘You didn’t leave a message.’

‘No.’

‘Why not?’

‘I dislike leaving messages.’

‘I see. You just wanted to chat?’

‘No. There was something I — that’s right. Now I remember! I had the time wrong earlier. I had told him we were teeing off at nine-thirty, but it was actually nine o’clock. I didn’t want him to be late.’

‘So you phoned him back at eleven twenty-six to tell him that?’

‘Yes.’

‘But when he failed to answer, you didn’t leave a message to give him that simple piece of information because you don’t like leaving messages?’

‘That’s right.’

Gerry slid her pad over so Annie could read what she had scribbled on it, though they had agreed on this strategy before the interview began. It helped unnerve a complacent interviewee sometimes. After a moment’s thought and a frown, Annie asked, ‘What was your first thought when Mr Hadfield didn’t answer your eleven o’clock call?’

‘Thought? Nothing really. I mean, he clearly wasn’t there so I hung up. Maybe I was a bit annoyed.’

‘You weren’t worried? You didn’t think something might have happened to him?’

‘Why would I think that?’

‘It was quite late. There could have been a break-in, something like that. He could have been hurt.’

‘That may be the way you think, but it never crossed my mind.’

‘Surely a few possibilities must have run through your mind?’

‘Well, certainly not that he was dead.’

‘Was he?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Was Laurence Hadfield dead by eleven twenty-six on that Saturday night? You see, that’s one of the things we’re trying to find out. We don’t know for certain exactly when he died.’

‘I don’t see why you should expect me to know. You’re just playing games.’ He glanced towards the solicitor. ‘Brian, do I have to sit here and answer these stupid and insulting questions?’

‘No,’ said Liversedge. ‘But I’d advise you to be patient a little longer, Tony. I’m sure these ladies will be finished very soon.’

‘We’ll do our best,’ said Annie, smiling. Then she looked back at Randall, who didn’t seem quite so complacent. She noticed he was playing with a ring on one of his fingers. ‘Any other reason he might not have answered his phone?’

‘I suppose he might have been asleep,’ said Randall.

‘But surely he would have taken his mobile up to the bedroom with him? A businessman like Mr Hadfield would hardly want to be too far away from it, would he?’

‘I wouldn’t know about Larry’s sleeping habits. I suppose he might have done. But maybe he took a sleeping pill or...’ Randall stopped. His expression said he would take back his last words if he could, but he couldn’t. Instead, Annie sat there silently and let him blunder on. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I know the poor girl you found in the car is said to have died of an overdose of sleeping pills. That was insensitive of me. But this whole thing is ridiculous.’

‘Was Mr Hadfield in the habit of taking sleeping pills?’ Anne asked, as casually as she could. They hadn’t found any during their search of Hadfield’s house.

‘I think he did on occasion. He mentioned he had trouble sleeping, mostly because he was often travelling from one time zone to another, so he took a pill from time to time.’

‘Did you prescribe any sleeping pills for Laurence Hadfield?’

‘Good Lord, no. That would hardly have been appropriate. I probably told him to be careful with them. I don’t trust the things myself. I assume he would have got them from his GP.’

‘Mandrax?’

‘What?’

‘Mandrax. Methaqualone.’

‘Yes, I know what Mandrax are. I just haven’t heard the term for a long time. I very much doubt that was what he took. They’ve been banned here for years.’

Gerry passed her pad over again. Annie looked at her and nodded. ‘Almost done, Mr Randall,’ said Annie. ‘Just a few more questions.’

Randall grunted.

‘Have you ever heard of a girl called Adrienne Munro?’

Randall frowned. ‘Munro. No. Hang on, isn’t that the... you know, the girl you mentioned earlier?’

‘Yes,’ said Annie. ‘The one who was found dead in an abandoned car.’

‘Mandrax?’

‘I didn’t say that, sir, and you’d be ill-advised to tell anyone I did.’ Annie had known she was flying a bit close to the wind mentioning Mandrax, but she had to see if she could get a reaction out of him. He was a doctor, after all, and he might have had access. The last thing she, or Banks, wanted was for that to become public knowledge.

Randall smirked ‘Well, to answer your question, no, I didn’t know the dead girl.’

‘You never met her?’

‘Not that I know of.’

‘And your friend, Mr Hadfield?’

‘If he had, he never told me.’

‘And Sarah? Sarah Chen?’

‘No.’

Did he hesitate, Annie asked herself, just for a second? ‘Did Mr Hadfield ever mention her?’

‘Not that I recall.’

‘How about a girl called Mia?’

‘I’m sure I would remember.’ Randall turned towards Liversedge.

‘She’s the only one left alive,’ said Annie.

‘I don’t see the relevance of that remark,’ said Randall.

‘Just an observation,’ said Annie. ‘If she had anything to do with whatever’s been going on, three people are dead while you and Mia are still alive.’

Randall glared at her.

‘I think that’s about it, don’t you?’ said the solicitor. ‘We’ve been very patient, but you’ve obviously wandered into territory that means nothing to my client.’ They both stood up.

‘Maybe the question is,’ Annie said slowly, ‘would your name mean anything to her? Maybe she’ll be able to tell us what’s been going on when we find her?’

Still glaring, Randall followed Liversedge out of the interview room. Gerry dropped her pencil and Annie exhaled. ‘He’s lying,’ she said. ‘The slimy bastard. He’s lying.’

The archives on the floor below were always a few degrees colder than the office upstairs. Mrs Pryce, a large woman of indeterminate age, sat as she usually did, hunched over her desk in her ill-fitting grey cardigan, big glasses enlarging her eyes as she looked up from the computer screen.

‘Ah, Miss Zelda,’ she said. ‘And what can we do for you today?’

‘Nothing to trouble yourself about,’ said Zelda waving the folder of photographs. ‘I just need to go over some of my last month’s filings.’

‘You know where they are.’ Mrs Pryce went back to her spreadsheet, or her game of Candy Crush, for all Zelda knew.

The archive was a large area divided into rows of shelving, much like a library, with filing cabinets of index cards against the walls. Eventually everything was digitised, of course, but the originals remained there, everything in its place, until a file was closed. The place smelled of old photo processing fluids from before digital days, and burnt coffee from the pot Mrs Pryce kept on the boil all day, every day.

The archive was divided into sections according to processor, so it was easy for her to go over to her own section and locate the file. Rather than taking the folder back to the front desk, near where Mrs Pryce worked, Zelda thought it more prudent to do what she had to do right where she was, in the stacks.

It didn’t take her long to locate the photograph, one of a series taken by a field agent who had been following the man in the photo with Keane, the one she hadn’t told Banks about. His name was Petar Tadić, a Croatian thug, and his story began with war crimes, involvement in massacres, ethnic cleansing and systematic rape, then progressed to trafficking in young women for the sex trade, and eventually rising to the dizzy heights of serving in the private army of a Russian oligarch-cum-gangster called Zhigunov Tsezar Pavlovich, or ‘Ziggy’ for short.

As Zelda knew all too well, Tadić, was a cruel and violent man who liked to torture his victims, especially the women, before dispatching them to the hereafter or sending them off to work in his string of brothels. Zelda had had him in her sights for a while, but he could wait. For the moment, it was Keane who interested her. He was handsome, looked intelligent, well mannered, cultured even. She wondered exactly what his role was in the trafficking world. Who did he work for? Zhigunov Tsezar Pavlovich? And what was he doing with a clod like Tadić? Zelda had to assume that it was something to do with documents or provenance, as that seemed to be his area of specialty. But it wouldn’t do to forget that, according to Banks, he was a stone killer, too.

The two of them made quite a pair, Tadić and Keane, and not only because of the physical contrast — Tadić small and barrel-chested with a shiny bald head and a snake tattoo running down his neck. She wished she could have been a fly on the wall during that conversation. The field agent hadn’t recorded them speaking, or if he had, Hawkins had decided that what they were talking about was on a need-to-know basis, and he didn’t think Zelda needed to know. That happened often enough. He was suspicious of her, not quite convinced, she could tell, as men like him always were about women who had suffered in the way she had. Well, they would both have to live with that.

She found the folder she was looking for easily enough and flipped through the images, picking the best one. It was unlikely that anyone would be checking, but she still decided it wouldn’t be safe to take the original. Instead, she rested it on an empty space in the shelf, took out her mobile and snapped a couple of images, making sure that Tadić wasn’t included.

She had just put her phone back in her pocket and was about to return the photograph to its rightful place when she sensed a presence behind her. She turned quickly and saw that Hawkins was standing at the end of the stack, watching her. She hadn’t heard him enter the archive, and she didn’t know how much he had seen.

‘Zelda,’ he said, walking towards her. ‘What is it? Anything I should know about?’

Flustered, Zelda tried to shove the photo back among the others as she talked, but she didn’t have time. ‘No. Just something I wanted to look up, that’s all.’

‘Can I help?’ he asked, coming close enough to see what she was holding. ‘Ah, our friend Tadić and the mystery man.’

‘Yes.’

‘Decided you recognise him after all?’

‘No. I just wanted to check and make sure.’

Hawkins frowned. ‘It’s not like you to be mistaken,’ he said. ‘Is something wrong?’

‘No, of course not.’

‘Did you recognise him?’

‘No. Still a blank.’

Hawkins studied the photo, shrugged and said, ‘Well, you can’t win them all, can you?’ Then he headed off to the filing cabinets.

It was just a coincidence, Zelda told herself, but why was her heart still thudding and her hands shaking as she stuffed the photographs back in their folder?

It was another late finish for the core team, and when Banks suggested a drink in the Queen’s Arms at about half past seven, nobody objected. The pub was quiet that Wednesday evening, and the four of them found a table easily enough. Cyril had finished serving food but offered to serve up sandwiches for anyone one who wanted them — which was everyone. The plate duly arrived on the table, a mixture of prawn, ham and cheese and salad, and turned out to be just enough to take the edge off their hunger. Only Banks and Annie were drinking pints of Timothy Taylor; Gerry and Winsome stuck to diet tonic. Cyril’s playlist seemed to centre around 1966 tonight, like the Jon Savage book on that year in music Banks had just read. Sir Douglas Quintet were doing ‘She’s About a Mover’.

‘Randall’s lying,’ Annie repeated. ‘No doubt about it.’

‘The question is,’ said Banks, ‘what do we do about it?’

‘For a start, guv,’ said Gerry. ‘I could do a full work-up on his background. Find out if there’s any dirt. You never know with doctors. They’re pretty good at closing ranks and keeping things quiet when it suits them, but if I could find a chink to get through...’

‘Do your best, Gerry.’

‘And let’s not forget Mia,’ Winsome added.

‘Ah, yes,’ Banks said. ‘The mysterious Mia. Can I have another look at that sketch, Annie?’

‘Sure.’ Annie fumbled in her briefcase and handed a sheet of stiff paper over to Banks. Ray had got together with Neela Mitchell and Colin Fairfax in the student coffee shop and had managed to turn out what they said was a fair likeness of Mia. The plan was to test it against Sarah Chen’s housemates — Fiona, Erik and Fatima — and then show it around the student areas of Leeds and Eastvale to try and locate Mia. Someone might remember her, even know where she lived. Although it would probably be a quicker route, Banks didn’t want her image all over the papers or on TV because that could scare her off, and she might well disappear into the shadows, if she hadn’t done so already. But she had no reason to do so at the moment, Banks thought, as she could have no idea they were trying to find her, or that they had linked her with both Adrienne and Sarah.

Despite Ray’s grumbling and complaining that the way things were going, his next big show would be called ‘The Collected Police Sketches of Raymond Cabbot’ and might not do his reputation a lot of good, he had turned out what appeared to be a finely detailed likeness. Now all that remained was to test it against reality.

‘We can talk to the girls’ friends again, too,’ suggested Gerry. ‘Adrienne’s and Sarah’s. See if any of them remember seeing or hearing of Anthony Randall.’

‘OK,’ said Banks. ‘It’s a good start. Try to find some dirt on the doc and track down Mia. Is there anything more we can do with that phone number next to Adrienne’s name Ken Blackstone found in Sarah’s room?’

Gerry shook her head. ‘I’ve been trying to chase it down on and off ever since we got it. There’s no mobile active with that number, so it’s history by now. Certainly turned off, perhaps minus its battery, and sim card most likely destroyed if it was incriminating in any way.’

‘I’m thinking that the way the slip of paper read, it was a contact number for Adrienne, but it wasn’t her everyday number, and we also know that Adrienne had left her regular mobile in her bedsit, and there was nothing of interest on it.’

‘That’s true,’ said Winsome.

‘So what does it mean?’

‘That Adrienne had a second mobile?’ Annie suggested. ‘A burner? Like you said at the meeting.’

‘I do hate that word, “burner”,’ said Banks. ‘It sounds so Americanised.’

Annie shrugged. ‘Sorry if it offends your linguistic sensibilities. I can’t think of another one.’

Banks gave her a look. ‘What’s wrong with pay-as-you-go? Or disposable? Throwaway?’ He picked up a prawn sandwich and took a bite. Sir Douglas Quintet had finished now, replaced by Count Five’s ‘Psychotic Reaction’. Banks noticed that Cyril had subtly turned the volume down. ‘Let’s say we’re right about the throwaway phone,’ he said. ‘Why would Adrienne need a different phone from the one she normally used?’

‘Secrecy?’ said Annie.

‘About what?’

‘We don’t know. You mentioned drugs before.’

‘What did you find out about the number, Gerry?’ Banks asked.

Gerry sipped her diet tonic and consulted her notes. ‘It was part of a batch of cheap pay-as-you-go mobiles — not smartphones, by the way, so no Internet capabilities or Wi-Fi, just phone and text — and I managed to discover that they were sent to Argos in Leeds. The city centre branch on The Headrow. I got a keen young employee there to track down a few more details for me, but the most I could find out was that it was sold on the ninth of October, along with nine others and as many five-quid top-up vouchers.’

‘Sold to?’

‘No idea, guv. It was a cash sale. But the same person bought the lot.’

‘Damn. Someone was being careful, then.’

‘It’s an unusual number of phones to buy, and not so long ago,’ said Gerry, ‘so I asked my Argos pal to ask around in the store and see if anyone remembered the customer. The person who made the transaction said she thought she remembered it was a woman, but they were so busy she couldn’t be certain. One of DCI Blackstone’s team showed her the pictures of Adrienne and Sarah, but she couldn’t be sure it was either of them.’

‘OK,’ said Banks. ‘Good work, Gerry. We have a date in early October and most likely a female purchaser, possibly Adrienne or Sarah, though our witness can’t say for certain.’

‘Sarah was the one who lived in Leeds,’ said Annie.

‘But why would Sarah Chen buy ten pay-as-you-go mobiles, including one for Adrienne Munro?’

‘Why would anybody?’ Annie said. ‘I’m just thinking out loud. Adrienne could have gone to Leeds and bought it for herself.’

‘But it’s one of ten phones bought at the same time, by the same person.’

Annie shrugged. ‘All we know is that there was a piece of paper in Sarah’s room with Adrienne’s name and a phone number on it that corresponds to one of ten bought, possibly by a woman, at the Leeds city centre Argos. Hardly conclusive evidence of anything.’

Banks turned to Gerry. ‘Do we have the numbers of the other phones bought from the same batch at the same time?’

‘Yes,’ said Gerry. ‘And I’ve checked. No activity on any of them. It’s a dead end.’

‘Double damn. Someone’s being bloody smart.’

‘Look at the timing in terms of what we have so far,’ said Winsome.

‘Go on,’ Banks urged her.

‘The phones were bought on the ninth of October. That’s just a couple of weeks or so after the university year began. It’s also around the time the mysterious Mia disappeared from the scene. HOLMES threw that up.’

‘Are you suggesting that Mia bought these phones?’ Banks said.

‘I’m only pointing out a correlation,’ said Winsome. ‘But it’s possible, isn’t it? If she was running some kind of drug courier or sex service. It’s the kind of thing they do. Let’s not forget that Hadfield left his phone at home when he disappeared. Maybe he had a second mobile, too? Maybe ten people did, and when the shit hit the fan somebody rounded them all up and got rid of them.’

‘My head’s spinning,’ said Banks. ‘I need another pint.’

‘My shout,’ said Annie, and headed for the bar. The place had filled up a bit, couples sitting close together, a group of tourists from the nearby B&B, the usual locals standing at the bar. Bob Lind sang about an ‘Elusive Butterfly’, and Banks thought he knew what the man was singing about.

‘Mind if I take the last one?’ said Winsome, referring to the sandwiches.

No one objected. Annie came back with the drinks. ‘Where were we?’ she asked.

‘Still searching for answers,’ Banks said.

‘Right. By the way, one thing I forgot to mention. It’s probably not important, but the solicitor who accompanied Randall, Brian Liversedge...’

‘What about him?’

‘He’s on Hadfield’s contact list, too.’

‘Hardly surprising, is it? It seems as if Laurence Hadfield knew all the local bigwigs and more. Doctors, lawyers...’

‘And he’s not in the crime business, Liversedge. He’s a family law man.’

‘He was only there for show, anyway,’ said Gerry.

‘Yes,’ said Annie. ‘But why?’

‘They’re obviously thick as thieves,’ said Banks. He glanced at Gerry. ‘Perhaps we’d better do a bit of digging into Hadfield’s other contacts, starting with Brian Liversedge. In the meantime, let’s have a look into the connections we already have here. Maybe something will fly out and slap us across the face. Gerry, you’ve got the most recent HOLMES printout on the links between the people in the two cases, right?’

‘Yes, guv. Right here.’

‘Can you go through it for us, slowly?’

‘Of course. It works best on this diagram.’ Gerry laid a sheet of paper on the table, scribbled with circles and arrows pointing back and forth. ‘What’s missing?’

They all examined the diagram for a few moments, then Gerry told them. ‘There’s no connection between Anthony Randall and any of the women.’

‘Yet Adrienne had been at Hadfield’s house. Most likely on or close to the day they both died.’

‘And both Adrienne and Sarah were in their best party clothes,’ Annie added. She turned to Gerry. ‘And we think Randall was lying about not knowing the girls, don’t we? And he phoned Hadfield three times on that Saturday.’

‘That’s a lot of “ands”,’ said Banks.

‘And if Randall was part of it, he’d have a pay-as-you-go, too,’ Gerry said. ‘So why didn’t he use it to call Hadfield?’

‘Why would he?’ said Annie. ‘Hadfield was a mate. He’d be used to calling him on his regular mobile. He wouldn’t think of using the burner for that.’

‘Fair enough.’ Gerry nodded and added dotted lines in pencil between Randall and all three women. ‘Quite a tight little coven, isn’t it, when you look at it like that?’ she said.

‘And don’t forget the mandies,’ Banks said. ‘No matter what Randall told you, he’s a doctor. If anyone could get hold of them, it was probably him.’

‘But Hadfield had the South African connection,’ said Gerry. ‘Adele Balter mentioned that he visited Cape Town just a few weeks before his death. And mandies are still more prevalent there than anywhere else. I think it’s a lot more likely that he picked them up from a friendly doctor or client on his trips over there.’

‘So they’re all connected, and three of the five are dead,’ said Banks. ‘Short of finding Mia, which we need to do as soon as we possibly can, I think we’ve got to put more pressure on Randall. He definitely knows more than he’s saying. But how do we do that?’

‘Could you get Ken Blackstone to put someone on him?’ Annie asked.

‘I certainly think we can get Ken’s team to help us on this. After all, we’re officially together in this investigation. I’ll talk to him tomorrow, see if I can do something about it.’ Banks paused. ‘Winsome? Something on your mind.’

‘Oh, what? Yes, guv,’ said Winsome. ‘I was just thinking.’

‘It’s encouraged.’

‘Well, I know we’ve been thinking about drugs, and I know I’ve been one of the prime movers in that direction, but what if it’s not? What if it’s something else?’

Banks nodded. ‘Sex. We’ve all thought of that angle, too.’

‘Yes,’ said Winsome. ‘What if that was the case? And what if it was organised?’

‘Go on,’ said Banks.

‘Well, I doubt the students and the old blokes who want to get them into bed move in the same circles, so what do you do if you’re a rich old geezer and you want to meet a student? Put an ad in the papers or a card in a phone box? I don’t think so.’

‘An escort service?’ suggested Annie. ‘There are plenty of sugar daddy sites online.’

‘Something like that,’ Winsome said, ‘only not perhaps on so grand a scale. Say you want a more specialised service, something more select than an Internet dating site. And say you want to be more discreet about it, you don’t want to leave an electronic trail. This Mia only ever appeared around the universities at the beginning of term, didn’t she, in the case of both Adrienne Munro and Sarah Chen?’

‘That’s right,’ said Annie.

‘What if she was recruiting? Or filling orders?’

‘For Hadfield?’

‘And others. Remember, someone bought ten burners from Argos.’

‘What’s in it for Mia?’

‘Money, same as for Adrienne and Sarah. Finder’s fee. She wouldn’t do it for nothing. An introduction service. Private, reliable. Remember, both girls were a lot more flush this term, and they lied about why. I’ve checked into Sarah’s insurance and inheritance situation, by the way, and there’s nothing there. She got a small insurance payment shortly after her father died, but that was it.’

‘And where does Randall fit in?’

‘Sarah Chen.’ Winsome held her hand up. ‘All right. I know we’ve got no evidence. I know all that. But... I don’t know... call it a hunch...’

‘Symmetry,’ said Gerry.

‘Pardon?’ Winsome said.

Gerry tapped the diagram. ‘Symmetry,’ she said again. ‘It completes the diagram, Randall being involved with one of the girls. And if Adrienne was at Hadfield’s place... Maybe they had something already arranged, a get together of some sort, a party, or maybe they were arranging something?’

‘Let’s also not forget,’ Banks added, ‘that Randall is a doctor. Doctors can have all kinds of uses, especially in situations where something goes wrong and people need to keep quiet.’

‘Between eight o’clock and eleven?’ Annie said.

‘If Adrienne took an overdose of Mandrax, for whatever reason, wherever she got them, and if she was at Hadfield’s house, his bathroom, say, where she lost a charm from her bracelet, even in the bath, as Dr Glendenning mentioned she had been in contact with water... Well, he’d hardly want the whole world to know, would he? What better than a friendly medic to sort things out? Phone a friend. Especially one who was also involved in the same sort of dodgy business with the girls as he was. That way Randall could be guaranteed not to talk.’

‘And Sarah?’ asked Annie. ‘Where exactly does she fit in?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Banks. ‘I don’t profess to have it all worked out. We know she had that slip of paper with Adrienne’s name and throwaway number on. At least we assume that’s what it was. Maybe Sarah was with Randall? Maybe she saw too much?’

‘And Randall didn’t save the day,’ said Annie.

‘Exactly.’ Gerry brought another sheet of paper from her briefcase. Banks could see it was a map with markings in red pen. ‘I didn’t think much of it until Winsome just spoke out,’ she said, ‘but if you look at the map you can see two things.’ She pointed to the lines on the sheet. ‘In the first place, the Tetchley Moor parking area is just beside the direct road between Hadfield’s house and Belderfell Pass.’

They all looked, then moved on to the next line. ‘And,’ said Banks, ‘the bothy where Sarah Chen’s body was found is directly on the route south between Hadfield’s house and Bramhope, where Randall lives, which is just along Otley Road from Hyde Park, where Sarah lived.’

They all paused to let the ideas sink in. Banks finished his beer and noticed that Manfred Mann were doing ‘Pretty Flamingo’. ‘We’d better not get too carried away,’ he said. ‘Most of this is still pure speculation.’

‘Isn’t that what our job is most of the time, anyway, guv?’ said Winsome.

‘I’m not disagreeing. Just saying that we can’t go to the CPS with what we’ve got. Or even to Chief Superintendent Gervaise. We need evidence. We’ve got to keep moving along the lines we’ve already established — more pressure on Randall and finding Mia. We can conduct more interviews with Sarah’s and Adrienne’s friends. Show them Ray’s sketch. See if anyone else talked with Mia. See if anyone can place Randall with Sarah Chen. I don’t think that whatever happened that day was in any way planned, so if Hadfield and Adrienne and Randall and Sarah were connected in some way, they’d have no reason to avoid going out, maybe to fancy restaurants.’

‘Except if they wanted to keep their relationships secret.’

‘I doubt they’d shout it from the rooftops,’ said Banks, ‘but as far as they were concerned, they didn’t think they were doing anything wrong. But I don’t think it would go down well with Randall’s medical council.’

‘Well, we have a few more glimmers now, don’t we, guv,’ said Winsome.

Banks smiled. ‘We do, indeed.’

‘And while we’re speculating,’ said Annie, ‘there’s something else we might care to consider.’

‘What’s that?’ asked Banks.

‘If we’re right, and if Mia was recruiting or grooming young students for predators like Hadfield and Randall, and maybe even Liversedge, for all we know, then how did Hadfield and Randall get her to do that? Where did they find her? She was a bridge between the two groups, the men who wanted to pay for a young girl’s company, and the girls who needed the money for their education. She was the matchmaker who put student with old codger. What if it was Mia who bought the phones and handed them out? What if she was the one who got rid of them after whatever happened that Saturday? Shut down the network, so to speak. That way all communication between her, the men and the girls would be restricted to burners.’ She gave Banks a sarcastic look. ‘Sorry.’

Banks smiled. ‘And where are the phones now?’

‘If it was Mia who collected them and got rid of them after everything went pear-shaped,’ said Annie, ‘they could be anywhere now. If I were her, I’d put them in a bag full of rocks and chuck them in a river or reservoir.’

‘Good point,’ said Banks. ‘But we can’t drag all the reservoirs and rivers in Yorkshire, even the one near Hadfield’s.’

‘We don’t have to if we find Mia,’ said Gerry.

‘So we’re back to that,’ said Banks. ‘We’re going round in circles here.’

‘No we’re not,’ said Gerry sharply. ‘Sorry, guv. But I just had a thought. If what DS Cabbot says is right about Mia being the one who brought the men and the girls together, then she needed access to both. It was easy enough for her to hang about student pubs and chat with the girls. And when you think about it, second-year students would be feeling the pinch. They’d be a bit more desperate, having found out how tough it was to get through the first year financially. Lord knows, I might not have said no to a sugar daddy myself in my second year.’ She reddened. ‘No. I take that back. But do you see my point?’

‘I do,’ said Banks. ‘And it makes a lot of sense. Mia obviously looked enough like a student to blend in at the student hangouts.’

‘Yes,’ said Gerry. ‘But what about the men? How did she make contact with Hadfield, Randall, maybe Liversedge, and the others? How did she get access to them? What did they have in common? They wouldn’t normally move in the same circles. I’m thinking a posh local pub where she worked behind the bar, perhaps? Or an upmarket shop where they bought their cigars or brandy or whatever? Got chatting, got the measure of them, found out they were lonely and randy, said maybe she could help?’

‘I like your first idea best,’ said Annie. ‘It’d need to be a place where people could be casual, relax, chat, with the barriers down. A posh pub would be ideal.’

‘Or a club,’ said Banks.

It was late, and everyone else had gone home, but Annie went back to the station and sat alone in the dimly lit squad room listening to the sounds from deep in the building. A laugh. A voice raised. The clanking of the heat pipes. A drunk complaining loudly about being arrested. This business about Keane reappearing had got her on edge, no doubt about it. Perhaps Banks was the one he had tried to kill, but she was the one he had deceived, used, humiliated and betrayed. Over the past few years she had often dreamed of revenge until, like everything else, it had ceased to trouble her day-to-day mind to a large extent, though it still occupied her dreams and those moments when, for whatever reason, her guard was lowered.

She sighed and picked up the phone. It was hard to know what would be the best time to phone Poppy Hadfield. Morning was obviously out, as she was definitely a nightbird, but there was no telling how smashed she would be now, at eleven o’clock. Annie decided to risk it anyway.

Poppy answered on the fourth ring. ‘Yeah, this is Poppy Hadfield, honey, what do you want?’

‘It’s DS Cabbot here. Annie.’

‘Annie! I was going to ring you, but I lost... you know... that thing you gave me.’

‘My number?’

‘That’s it.’

She was at least partially out of it. Better move fast. ‘Poppy, do you know anything about Mandrax?’

‘Mandies? Ludes? Not my thing, honey. Now Mad Dog, Mad Dog used to lo-o-o-o-ove his mandies. Crazy bastard would pop a couple and want to fuck all night.’

‘Where did he get them? I thought they’d been discontinued years ago.’

‘Yeah, they were. But this was Mad Dog, honey. He could get whatever kind of drugs he wanted to. God, I do miss the bastard sometimes. Why are you asking me about mandies, anyway?’

‘Remember that girl I was telling you about? Adrienne?’

‘The one who died? Yeah.’

‘Well she died because of an overdose of methaqualone.’

‘Poor chick.’

‘And we don’t know where she got it from.’

‘And you thought I could help?’

Annie heard the sound of a cigarette being lit, smoke breathed in and out. ‘Something like that,’ she said.

‘Cool. That you think I would know, I mean. But it’s not my scene.’

‘You like Valium, don’t you?’

‘Like it? No way? It’s just to take the edge off. Anyway, it’s a different thing entirely.’

‘Edge off what?’

‘You know. Life.’

‘So you know nothing about Mandrax, Quaaludes?’

‘Nah.’

‘You didn’t supply them to your father?’

‘The old man?’ She cackled over the line. ‘Was the old man doing ludes? Well, fuck me.’

‘We don’t know,’ said Annie. ‘I’m asking you.’

‘Nah. Besides, I’m not a dealer. People give me the stuff. That’s how it usually works.’

‘OK,’ said Annie. ‘Just thought I’d check. You doing all right?’

‘So-so,’ said Poppy. ‘I’m just, you know, chilling right now. Ronald called earlier. Wanted me to handle the details of Daddy’s estate. He seemed pissed off you had him go all the way up to Yorkshire.’

‘Yes. He didn’t seem very happy at the time.’

‘He’s a charmer, isn’t he?’

‘Sure is. Why did you want to call me?’

‘Call you?’

‘Yes, you said you wanted to, but you lost my number.’

‘Oh, that. Yeah, I remember. It’s, like, nothing really. Just that you asked me to tell you if I remembered anything odd, and there was this one time I was up at Rivendell for a visit about a month ago, and Daddy’s phone went off, only it wasn’t his phone.’

‘What do you mean, Poppy?’

‘Well, you know all those different sounds they make, right?’

‘Ringtones?’

‘That’s the things. His always sounded like church bells. But this was like a tikitikitiki sound, a cricket or something.’

‘Couldn’t he have changed it?’

‘Why would he do that?’

‘Just for the sake of it. People do. That’s why there are so many different ringtones.’

‘Whatever. But no.’

‘How do you know?’

‘Because I saw the phone, too. It wasn’t anything like his. He’s always got the latest most expensive iPhone or Samsung or whatever, but this was one of those really old types, like just a phone. Probably didn’t even get email.’

‘Do you know what kind it was?’

‘Nah. Just that it wasn’t his.’

‘Who was ringing?’

‘I don’t know. He went away to have his conversation. Excused himself. Seemed a bit embarrassed.’

‘Why would he be like that?’

‘It was a woman.’

‘How do you know.’

‘I heard her voice. At first, when she said his name. Just over the line. I could tell it was a woman’s voice even though I couldn’t hear what she said.’

‘You didn’t catch her name?’

Annie heard a buzzing in the background. ‘No. Sorry. Look, gotta go, sweetie. Someone’s at the door. Party time! Catch you later.’

And the line went dead.

Banks’s head was still spinning when he got home that evening, and he was keen to forget the whole wretched business for the rest of the night. Over the years, he had found that it often helped to stand back and clear his mind, let the unconscious do its work. It sounded like gobbledygook, and he had never awoken the following morning with the solution glaringly obvious to him, but there did come a point when overthinking only complicated the issues.

His recipe for escape was much the same as his recipe for mulling over a puzzle. Music and wine. Sometimes a movie or television and wine worked better if he wanted to let his mind roam freely over a tough problem. There was something about watching TV that numbed a part of the brain and let the thinking bit do its work almost unhindered by having to pay attention. Of course, Banks wasn’t thinking about Bergman or Kurosawa here, not even David Lean, but something more like a mindless action film — Bond or Bourne — or a silly comedy — old Norman Wisdom or a Carry On. But it was escape from thought he wanted tonight, not working on a problem, so it would have to be wine and music.

The wine was easy. All he had left on his rack was a bottle of Languedoc he’d bought on sale at M&S the previous week. He opened it, poured a generous glass, and went into the conservatory. Music was a little more difficult than wine, and in the end he chose one of his favourite oldies: Debussy’s Orchestral Music by Haitink and the Royal Concertgebouw. He turned up the volume, then settled back and let ‘Prélude à l’après midi d’un faune’ work its magic.

It did. Soon he was drifting far away from Adrienne Munro, Sarah Chen, Laurence Hadfield and Anthony Randall, passing through thoughts and images of Emily Hargreaves, his parents, his ex-wife Sandra, his son away touring in America, Tracy, pursuing her academic career in Newcastle, and of all the choices and accidents that had brought him here, to this place at this time. Alone.

He had nothing to complain about; he knew that. He had chosen his path, and on the whole it had worked out well for him. He was good at his job, had been a reasonably good, though too frequently absent, father, a not-so-good husband, and hopeless at sustaining, or even igniting, relationships since his marriage had fallen apart. But that was just life, wasn’t it? If Sandra hadn’t left him, he would never have been romantically involved with Annie, Sophia or Oriana. And no matter how much grief those relationships had caused him in the end, he wouldn’t have done without any of them.

On the other hand, if he had remained with Emily in London, if she hadn’t chucked him, perhaps she would have persuaded him to forego the police for some other path, and who knew where that would have led him? But then neither Brian nor Tracy would have been born, and that didn’t bear thinking about. Even if it wasn’t all for the best in the best of all possible worlds, it would have to do, and there was no point indulging in these speculative pasts and futures. He didn’t feel sad, just lonely sometimes. But it was true that much of the time he enjoyed being alone. Like now.

He thought of Ray and Zelda and their new lease of life. Old Ray couldn’t believe his luck. Even that old goat Picasso hadn’t done as well as he had in the female department. And after everything Zelda had been through, to be loved so much and to have the freedom to live a creative and fulfilling life had to be good for her. Banks wondered if she wanted children. That would be a bit of a problem with the prospective father being already over seventy. But who could say? Ray might live to be ninety or a hundred and see his children grow up.

Banks refilled his wine glass and put on a recent disc called Voyages, various settings of Baudelaire’s poems by such composers as Debussy, Duparc and Fauré, sung beautifully by Mary Bevan. Banks had talked with Linda Palmer about Baudelaire at one of their sessions, and he had bought Anthony Mortimer’s dual-text translation so he could follow along with the words. His school French wasn’t good enough, and besides, no matter how clearly the singer enunciated, it was hard to translate from simply hearing the poems sung in French.

He had set his mobile down on the table beside him, just in case anything came up, and no sooner had ‘L’invitation au voyage’ begun than it rang. Curious, he picked it up and felt his chest tighten when he saw the picture of Phil Keane downloading. It was him, no doubt about it, accompanied by a simple message:

‘Best I could do. For now.

XX

Z’

Keane’s hair was a little longer and refreshed by applications of Grecian Formula, by the looks of it. But it was him, all right, and it seemed very much as if he was standing on the embankment somewhere near Tower Bridge talking to someone out of the picture.

As Banks studied Keane’s familiar face, he thought again of that near fatal evening in his cottage, at least what he could remember of it. The taste of the whisky — which had put him off Laphroaig for years — the sudden drowsiness, the distant smell of smoke, crackling sounds, then voices, cool air, darkness. And as he looked again at the face of the man who had caused all that, he felt a desire for revenge burn inside him. If he did find Keane, if this picture led him to the man, then he didn’t know whether he could trust himself not to cross the line.

He texted a thank you back to Zelda, refilled his glass and listened to Mary Bevan sing ‘Chant d’Automne’.