Cold Is The Grave

12

Banks came out of the meeting early Monday afternoon with only a little more information than he went in with. A weekend of showing Emily’s photograph around town and making house-to-house inquiries had turned up several people who thought they had seen her in various Eastvale shopping areas on Thursday afternoon, always alone, but only one witness who thought she had seen her with anyone else. Unfortunately, the witness was about as useful as most; all she had seen was Emily getting into a car outside the Red Lion Hotel at the big York Road roundabout. She thought the time was about three o’clock. None of the bar staff at the Red Lion had seen Emily, and Banks was certain they would remember if they had.

When it came to the make of car, they all looked the same to the witness. All she could say was that it was light in color. She also hadn’t noticed anything in the least bit odd about what she saw; the girl had seemed to know the driver and smiled as she got in, as if, perhaps, she had been waiting for the lift. No, she hadn’t really got a glimpse of the driver at all, except that maybe he or she was fair-haired.

So, if their witness was to be believed, Emily had got into a light-colored car with someone she probably knew and trusted around the time of the meeting she had mentioned at lunch. She had left the Black Bull shortly before half past two. DC Templeton had checked the bus timetable and discovered that she must have taken the quarter-to-three to get there on time.

If – and it was a big if – their witness was right, then the sighting raised several interesting points. Banks walked over to his office window and lit an illicit cigarette. The day was overcast but balmy for the time of year. A crew of borough workers were putting up the Christmas tree in the market square, watched by a group of children and their teacher. The high-pitched whine of some sort of electric drill came from the extension down the corridor. It reminded Banks of the dentist’s, and he gave a little shudder.

In the first place, Banks thought, why was Emily meeting someone on the edge of town rather than in another pub or in the Swainsdale Centre? Especially if this someone had a car and could easily drive into the town center. Answer: Because she was meeting someone who intended to kill her and who had insisted on the arrangement because he or she didn’t want to be seen with Emily. Any secrecy could easily be explained by the fact that drugs were being sold.

Objection: If this person wanted to kill Emily, why not drive her into the country and do it at leisure, then bury her body where it would never be found?

That raised the whole issue of the way she was killed. Poison, or so the cliché goes, is a woman’s weapon. In this case, if Emily’s killer hadn’t been in the Bar None at the time of her death, then the murder had also occurred at some distance from the killer. That suggested someone who wanted to get rid of her but didn’t have any particular emotional stake in seeing her die. On the other hand, the use of strychnine as a method implied someone who wanted Emily to suffer an agonizing and dramatic death. There are far easier and less painful ways of getting rid of a pest. The murder had elements of both calculation in its premeditation and extreme sadism in its method, a profile which might easily fit Barry Clough, the gangster who didn’t like to lose his prized possessions. But would Clough drive all the way from London simply to give Emily some poisoned cocaine because she had insulted his macho vanity? He had said he was in Spain at the time, and Banks was having that checked. It wouldn’t be easy, given how lax border crossings were these days, but they could tackle the airlines first, and then find out if any of his neighbors in Spain had seen him.

Also, while strychnine wasn’t as difficult to get hold of as some poisons, it wasn’t exactly on sale in the local chemist’s shop. Banks had looked it up. Strychnine, derived originally from the seeds of the nux vomica tree, which grows mainly in India, was used mostly as a rodenticide. It had some medical uses – vets used it as a mild stimulant, for example, and it was sometimes used in research, to cause convulsions in experiments for antiseizure drugs, and in the treatment of alcoholism. None of Banks’s suspects was a doctor or a nurse, and strychnine wasn’t issued on prescriptions, so the medical side could be ruled out. Craig Newton was a photographer, and they sometimes had access to unusual chemicals, though not, as far as Banks could remember, strychnine. Barry Clough could no doubt get hold of anything he wanted.

Then there was Andrew Handley to consider: “Andy Pandy,” Clough’s gofer, the one he had “given” Emily to the night she fled to Banks’s hotel. Such rejection could have driven Handley to revenge, if he was that kind of person. Burgess had said he would put some men on trying to track down Handley, so maybe they would get a chance to ask him soon.

But would Emily have smiled as she got in his car with either Clough or Handley? Christ, why hadn’t Emily told Banks whom she was going to meet? Why hadn’t he asked her? He rested his forehead against the cool glass and felt the vein throb in his temple.

It was no good, Banks decided; he needed far more information before he could even speculate about what had happened. He had found nothing of use in the contents of her handbag, once they had been gathered up and bagged. Nothing but the usual: cigarettes, tampons, electronic organizer, keys, a purse with £16.53 in it, makeup, a crumpled film magazine, an old family photograph – probably the one Ruth Walker had mentioned – Ruth’s driving license, which she hadn’t even really needed anymore, and the fake proof-of-age card.

The SOCOs had turned up nothing of interest from the ladies’ toilet in the Bar None, except for any number of unidentified pubic hairs, and there were no prints except Emily’s on the glassine bag in which the cocaine and strychnine had been kept. There were hundreds of prints around the stall – which testified to the frequency with which the owners thought it necessary to clean the toilets – but Banks suspected they would come to nothing. He was convinced that the killer, whoever it was, hadn’t been in the Bar None toilets either with or without Emily, and had not even been in the club at the time of her death – had probably never been there. This was murder from a distance, perhaps even death by proxy, which made it all the more bloody difficult to solve.

DC Templeton had come up with a lead on the couple seen leaving the Bar None at ten forty-seven. A bartender at the Jolly Roger pub, a popular place for the student crowd on Market Street, seemed to remember them being in the pub earlier that evening. She had seen them before, she said, but didn’t know their names; she only recognized the way they were dressed and thought they were students at the college, like most of her customers.

Next, Banks turned his mind to Charlie Courage’s murder and felt a singular lack of progress there, too. Charlie’s murderer had been at the scene, of course, but Charlie himself had been far from home, in the middle of nowhere. The only solid piece of evidence was the tire track, and that would be no use at all unless a corresponding car could be found. He decided to phone DI Collaton later in the day and see if anything had turned up at the Market Harborough end. Maybe he could have a word with DI Dalton, too, see if he had come up with anything more on PKF Computer Systems.

Banks stubbed out his cigarette in his wastebin, making sure it was completely dead, and tried to clear the air as best he could by opening the window and waving a file folder about.

When someone knocked at the door and walked in, he felt guilty, like the time his mother noticed ash from his cigarette on the outside window ledge of his room and stopped his pocket money. But it was only Annie Cabbot. He had asked her to drop by his office as soon as she had finished handing out actions to the newly drafted DCs that Red Ron McLaughlin had promised.

She looked particularly good this morning, Banks thought, her shiny chestnut hair falling in waves over her shoulders, her almond eyes serious and alert, though showing just a hint of wariness. She was wearing a loose white shirt and black denim jeans, which tapered to an end just above her ankles, around one of which she wore a thin gold chain.

“Annie. Sit down.”

Annie sat and crossed her legs. She twitched her nose. “You’ve been smoking in here again.”

“Mea culpa.”

She smiled. “What did you want to see me about?”

“In the first place, I’d like you to go over to the transportation office at the bus station, see if you can find out who was driving the quarter-to-three bus to York, the one that stops at the roundabout.”

Annie made a note.

“Have a chat with him. See if he remembers Emily being on the bus and getting into a light-colored car near the Red Lion. You might also see if he can give you any leads as to his other passengers. Someone might have noticed something.”

“Okay.”

“And have a chat with that bartender at the Jolly Roger, see if she can come up with anyone who might know where this couple lives, who they are. It’s probably a dead end, but we have to check it out.”

Annie made a note. “Okay. Anything else?”

Banks paused. “This is a bit awkward, Annie. I don’t want you to get the impression that this is in any way personal, but it’s just that since we started this investigation, I don’t feel I’ve had your full cooperation.”

Annie’s smile froze. “What do you mean?”

“I mean it feels like there’s a part of you not here – you’ve been distracted – and I’d like to know why.”

Annie shifted in her chair. “That’s ridiculous.”

“Not from where I’m sitting.”

“Look, what is this? Am I on the carpet, or something? Are you going to give me a bollocking?”

“I just want to know what’s going on, if there’s something I can help with.”

“Nothing’s going on. At least not with me.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Do I have to spell it out for you?”

“Try.”

“All right.” Annie leaned forward. “You said this wasn’t personal, but I think it is. I think you’re behaving this way because of what happened with us, because I broke off our relationship. You can’t handle working with me.”

Banks sighed. “Annie, this is a murder case. A sixteen-year-old girl, who also happens to be our chief constable’s daughter, was poisoned in a nightclub. I would have hoped I wouldn’t have to remind you of that. Until we find out who did it, this is a twenty-four-hour-a-day, seven-day-a-week job for us, and if you’re not up to it for one reason or another, I want to know now. Are you in or out?”

“You’re blowing this out of all proportion. I’m on the job. I might not be obsessed with the case, but I’m on the job.”

“Are you implying I am obsessed?”

“I’m not implying anything, but if the cap fits… What I will say is that it’s a damn sight more personal for you than it is for me. I didn’t go to London to track her down, or have lunch with her on the day she died. You did.”

“That’s neither here nor there. We’re talking about your commitment to the case. What about Sunday?”

“What do you mean?”

“Sunday morning, when I called in for an update. You were out of contact all morning, and DC Jackman sounded decidedly cagey.”

“I’m hardly responsible for DC Jackman’s telephone manner.” Annie stood up, flushed, put her palms on his desk and leaned forward, jutting her chin out. “Look, I took some personal time. All right? Are you going to put me on report? Because if you are, just do it and cut the fucking lecture, will you. I’ve had enough of this.”

With anyone else, Banks would have hit the roof, but he was used to Annie’s insubordinate manner. It was one of the things that had intrigued him about her in the first place, though he still couldn’t be sure whether he liked it or not. At the moment, he didn’t. “The last thing I want to do is put you on report,” he said. “Not with your inspector’s boards coming up. I would hope you’d know that. That’s why I’m talking to you one on one. I don’t want this to go any further. I’ll tell you something, though: If you keep on behaving like this whenever anyone questions your actions, you’ll never make inspector.”

“Is that a threat?”

“Don’t be absurd. Look, Annie, sit down. Please.”

Annie held out for a while, glaring, then she sat.

“Can’t you see I’m trying to help you out here?” said Banks. “If there’s a problem, something personal, something to do with your family, I don’t know, then maybe we can work it out. I’m not here to supervise you twenty-four hours a day.”

“You could have fooled me.”

“But I need to be able to trust you, to leave you alone to get on with the job.”

“Then why don’t you?”

“Because I don’t think that’s what you’ve been doing.”

“I trusted you, and look what I found out.”

Banks sighed. “I’ve explained that.”

“And I’ve explained what I was doing.”

“Not to my satisfaction, you haven’t, and I don’t have to remind you that I’m SIO on this one. It’s my head on the block. So if there’s a problem, if it’s something I can help you with, then spit it out, tell me what it is, and I will. No matter what you believe, I’m not after doing you any harm because of what did or didn’t happen between us. Not everything is as personal as you think it is. Credit me with a bit more professionalism than that.”

“Professionalism? Is that what this is all about?”

“Annie, there’s something wrong. Let me help you.”

She gave a sharp jerk of her head and got to her feet again. “No.”

At that moment, DI Dalton popped his head around the door.

“What is it?” Banks asked, annoyed at the interruption. Dalton looked at Banks, then at Annie, and an expression of panic crossed his features.

“What is it, DI Dalton?”

Dalton looked at them both again and seemed to compose himself. “I thought you might like to know that the van driver died early this morning. Jonathan Fearn. Never regained consciousness.”

“Shit,” said Banks, tapping his pen on the desk. “Okay, Wayne, thanks for letting me know.”

Dalton glanced at his watch. “I’ll be off back to Newcastle now.”

“Keep in touch.”

“Will do.”

Dalton and Annie looked at one another for a split second before he left, and Banks saw right away that there was something between them, some spark, some secret. It hit him smack in the middle of the chest like a hammer blow. Dalton? So that was what she had been up to. It fit; her odd behavior coincided exactly with his arrival in Eastvale. Annie and Dalton had something going. Banks felt icy worms wriggle their way up inside his spine.

Annie stood for a few seconds, her eyes bright, glaring at Banks defiantly, then, with an expression of disgust, she turned on her heels, strode out of his office and slammed the door so hard that his filing cabinet rattled.

Sometimes trying to get a lead was like drawing teeth, Annie reflected. The bus driver had been easy enough to find – in fact, he had been eating a late breakfast in the station café before his first scheduled trip of the day – but he had been no help at all. All he’d been able to tell her was that he remembered Emily getting off at the roundabout, but there had been far too much traffic to deal with for him to notice anything more. The bus had been mostly empty, and he didn’t know who any of the other passengers were. He could, however, state with some certainty that Emily was the only person to get off at that stop.

Disappointed, Annie headed for the Jolly Roger, still fuming from her run-in with Banks. After her confrontation with Dalton, she had actually felt better, more confident, ready to get on with the job without distractions. She might even have told Banks why she had been distracted in the first place if he hadn’t taken such a high-handed attitude.

The bloody nerve of him, having her on the carpet like that. He knew she hated that sort of thing. Annie had never been able to handle authority well, which can be something of a liability in the police force, but most of the time she could pay lip service when required. Not with Banks, though. This time, he had hit her where it really hurt: her professionalism. And the fact that he was partly right hurt even more. She would show him, though. She wasn’t going to wallow in self-pity; she was going to get back on the damn horse and ride again.

Annie paused briefly at the market square to watch the awestruck expressions on the children’s faces as they gathered around the Christmas tree. It took her back to her own childhood in St. Ives. There had been few, if any, practicing Christians down at the commune where she had grown up. Most of the people who passed through had no religion at all, other than ART, and those who had tended toward the more esoteric kinds, such as Zen Buddhism and Taoism, the ones without God, where you could ponder the meaning of nothingness and the sound of one hand clapping. Annie herself, with her meditation and yoga, came closer to Buddhism than anything else, though she never professed to be a Buddhist. She wasn’t detached enough, for a start; she knew that desire caused suffering, but still she desired.

Christian or not, every Christmas had been a festive time for Annie and the other kids there. There were always some other children around, though most of them never stayed long, and she got used to her friends’ moving away, being dependent on herself, not on others. But at Christmas, someone always came up with a tree, and someone else scrounged around for some tinsel and decorations, and Annie always got Christmas presents from whoever was living there at the time, even if many of them were just sketches and small hand-carved sculptures; she still had most of them, and some were worth a bit now – not that she would ever sell them. Christmas was as much a tradition at the commune as anywhere else, and it always brought back memories of her mother. She still had a photograph of her mother holding her up to look closely at the tree decorations. She must have been two or three years old, and though she couldn’t remember the moment itself, the photograph always brought back waves of nostalgia and loss.

Shrugging off the past, she walked on to the Jolly Roger.

Eastvale didn’t have a large student population, and the college itself was an ugly mess of red brick and concrete boxes on the southern fringes of the town, surrounded by marshland and a couple of industrial estates. Nobody wanted to live out there, even if there had been anywhere to live. Most of the students lived closer to the town center, and there were enough of them to turn at least one pub into the typical student hangout, and “the Roger,” as they called it, was the one.

On first impression, Annie thought, the Jolly Roger was no different from any other Victorian-style pub on Market Street, but when she looked around inside, she noticed it was more run-down, and there was an odd selection of music on the jukebox, including far more angry, alternative stuff than pleasant pop and big-name bands. The clientele at that time in the afternoon consisted mostly of students who had finished early or had been there since lunchtime. They sat in small groups, smoking, chatting and drinking. Some favored the scruffy, Marxist look of old, while others cultivated a more clean-cut Tony Blair style, but they all seemed to mix cheerfully together. One or two loners in thick glasses sat at tables reading as they slowly sipped their pints.

Annie went to the bar and pulled out the fuzzy image taken from the CCTV video.

“I’ve been told you might know this couple,” she said to the young man behind the bar, who looked like a student himself. “One of our lads had a word yesterday.”

“Not me, love,” he said. “I wasn’t on yesterday. That’ll be Kath over there.” He pointed to a petite blonde busy pulling a pint and chatting to another girl across the bar. Annie walked over and showed her the photo.

“Any more thoughts on who this might be?” she asked, after introducing herself.

“I’ve given it a bit of thought,” said Kath, “but I can’t say as I have. I know I’ve seen them here, but I just can’t place them.”

“Let’s have a look, Kath,” said the girl. She didn’t look old enough to be drinking, but Annie wasn’t there to enforce the licensing laws. She was dressed all in black, including her lace-trimmed gloves, with orange hair and a pale, pixieish face.

She looked at Annie. “If that’s all right with you,” she added.

“That’s fine,” said Annie. “We need all the help we can get.”

“I’m Sam. Short for Samantha.”

Annie didn’t think it was short for Samuel, but you never knew. “Pleased to meet you, Sam.”

“Lousy picture,” Sam commented. “That from the Big Brother video?”

“Yes,” said Annie, “it’s from the CCTV cameras in the market square.”

“Talk about an invasion of privacy,” the girl began. “You know-”

“I’d like to spend some time arguing the pros and cons of city center CCTV with you, Sam,” said Annie sweetly. “Really I would, but a young girl, probably no older than you, was murdered in the Bar None last week, and we’re trying to find out who killed her.”

“Yeah, I heard,” said Sam, looking away. “It’s a fucking shame a woman can’t go anywhere by herself these days.”

“Any idea who they are?”

“Course I do.”

“Will you tell me?”

“Did they do it?”

“I very much doubt it. But they might have seen something.”

“It’s Alex and Carly. Alex Pender and Carly Grant. Carly and I do art together.”

“Know where they live?”

“They’ve got a flat on Sebastopol Avenue, you know, one of those big old Victorian terraces. Landlords divide them up into poky flats and rent them out for a fortune. Talk about exploitation.”

“Do you know the number?”

Sam told her.

Knowing now the reasons for Annie’s erratic behavior didn’t make Banks feel any better. In fact, as the afternoon wore on, it made him feel worse. When she had stormed out of his office, he had stood for a moment to let his realization sink in, then felt the bile rise and burn in his throat. He might not be sleeping with Annie anymore, but the thought of her being with Dalton hurt. He had been through the same thing with Sandra. For months after she left, when he knew she had moved in with Sean, the intolerable images crowded his mind, and during the long nights of drinking alone, with random phrases from bitter Bob Dylan love songs echoing around his mind, the jealousy burned like acid on his soul.

Perhaps it wasn’t even jealousy, but envy: he couldn’t have Annie, but he couldn’t bear thinking about Dalton having her. Whatever it was, it hurt, and Banks had to make an effort to put it out of his mind for the time being and get on with the job.

First, he sent DC Templeton off to get copies made of the photo of Clough he had got from Craig Newton. It was a good shot, candid or not, and Craig had cropped it so that it showed only Clough in full, mean face. When that was done, he would send a team out to check every hotel and guest house in the area to see if Clough had been staying there recently. He would also have Jim Hatchley and Winsome Jackman show it around Daleview and Charlie Courage’s neighborhood. In the meantime, information had started trickling in now the working week had begun again.

He didn’t learn much from the Riddles’ phone records. British Telecom’s Investigations Department had furnished DC Templeton with a list of numbers called on the Riddles’ house telephone for the last month, and a subscriber check had supplied the names and addresses. Most seemed to be political cronies of Jimmy Riddle, or calls to Rosalind’s law office. Someone, Emily presumably, had phoned Ruth Walker’s number twice, but not within ten days of her death. There were no calls to either Craig Newton, Andrew Handley or Barry Clough. The only other calls Emily seemed to have made had been to Darren Hirst and to a sixth-form college in Scarborough. Banks thought it might be a good idea to get hold of Craig’s and Clough’s records, and do a cross-reference. It would take time, but it might throw up a lead of some sort. Oddly enough, Banks couldn’t find the call that Emily had made to him the day before she died. Then he remembered the background noise and realized she must have used a public telephone.

Now that Jonathan Fearn was dead, Banks also had another murder on his plate, or manslaughter at least. Strictly speaking, it was DI Dalton’s case, the way Charlie Courage’s murder was Collaton’s, but there was a strong Eastvale connection, the Daleview Business Park and PKF Computer Systems being at the heart of both. Banks was just about to check if anything was happening in the incident room when his phone rang. It was Vic Manson, the fingerprints expert.

“It’s about that CD case you had sent over,” Manson said.

“Find anything?”

“Some very clear prints. I’ve checked the national index and, lo and behold, they belong to a bloke called Gregory Manners.”

“Who the hell’s he when he’s at home?”

“You may well ask. He’s been a naughty boy, though. Did six months a couple of years back for attempting to defraud Customs and Excise.”

“What?”

“Smuggling, to you and me.”

“Well, well, well.”

“Ring any bells?”

“So loud they’re deafening me. Thanks, Vic. Thanks a lot.”

“No problem.”

The minute Banks got off the phone with Manson he called Dirty Dick Burgess at the National Criminal Intelligence Service.

“Banks. Solved your murder yet?”

“Murders. And no, I haven’t.”

“How can I help?”

“I’ve got a few loose strands that seem to be coming together. Remember that PKF business I asked you about?”

“Something to do with computers, wasn’t it?”

“That’s right. Charlie Courage, night watchman and one-time con, gets murdered the day after a van clears out PKF’s Daleview offices, heading for another business park up Tyneside way. Over the past four weeks he’s made five two-hundred-pound cash deposits at his bank. With me so far?”

“Hanging on your every word.”

“The van itself gets hijacked north of Newcastle and the entire contents disappear. The driver, Jonathan Fearn, who, by the way is a known associate of Courage’s, has just died of injuries received.”

“Another murder, then.”

“Looks that way. But let me finish. PKF is a phony company and we can’t trace anyone involved in it. The only bit of evidence we’ve got is a CD case.”

“That’s hardly evidence, is it?” Burgess commented. “Stands to reason there’ll be cases around computer people.”

“That’s not all. I’ve just found out that the prints on this CD case are those of one Gregory Manners, late of Her Majesty’s first-class hotel in Preston. Manners did six months for smuggling a lorryload of cigarettes through Dover. Or trying to. When questioned he said-”

“ – he was working alone, and nobody was able to prove any different. All right, you’ve got a point. As a matter of fact, I do remember that one. It was one of Customs and Excise’s few successes that year.”

“Let me guess who was behind it: Barry Clough?”

“The man himself. Seems he’s everywhere we look, isn’t he?”

“He certainly is. This Manners connection links him directly to PKF, whatever it was up to, and by extension to the murders of Charlie Courage and Jonathan Fearn.”

“Still like him for the girl’s murder, too?”

“Very much. But we don’t have enough to bring him in yet. You told me yourself how slippery he is.”

“As a jellied eel. You know what I’m thinking, Banks?”

“What?”

“This hijack you told me about. It sounds very much as if someone ripped Barry Clough off.”

“Indeed it does.”

“And we know Barry doesn’t like that. Barry throws tantrums when people upset him.”

“Enough for two people to end up dead?”

“I’d say so.”

“So maybe Courage was on Clough’s payroll, then he decided to work his own scam, selling information about when PKF was moving and where they were going. He’d hardly have looked the other way during a robbery at Daleview because it would have seemed far too obvious.”

“A hijacked van’s pretty obvious, too, if you ask me,” said Burgess.

“Charlie wasn’t that bright.”

“Obviously not. Anyway, it all sounds possible. It must have been valuable merchandise, though, to make it worth the risk.”

“There wasn’t much risk to speak of, believe me. Not on the road up there at that time on a Sunday night.”

“Ah, the provinces. They never cease to amaze me. Ever wondered where the stuff’s got to?”

“Yes,” said Banks. “Whatever it was, I’m assuming it’s either been sold or it’s in someone’s lockup waiting to cool down. I’m trying to run a check on other business parks around the country, see if there’ve been any more PKF-type scams lately, but that’ll take forever.”

“What do you want me to do?”

“Can you fax me what you’ve got on Gregory Manners, for a start?”

“Sure.”

“And have you any photos of Andrew Handley and Jamie Gilbert on file?”

“Indeed we do.”

“Could you fax them up here, too? It might not be a bad idea to have someone show them around Daleview and Charlie Courage’s neighborhood along with Clough’s.”

“Okay.”

“Thanks. And will you keep a close eye on Clough?”

“It’s being done as we speak.”

“Because I’ll be wanting to talk to him again soon, if anything breaks, and this time I think we’ll have him up here.”

“Oh, he’ll like that.”

“I’ll bet. Anyway, thanks. I’ll be in touch.”

“My pleasure. By the way, there’s nothing on Andy Pandy yet. It seems that when he wants to hide, he stays hidden. The lads are still on it, though. I’ll keep you informed.”

“Thanks.”

Banks hung up the phone and tried to piece together what he’d got. Not much, really, just a lot of vague suspicions as far as both cases were concerned. There was still something missing: the magnet, the one piece that would rearrange the chaotic jumble of iron filings into a discernible pattern. Until he had that, he would get nowhere. He had a feeling that part of the answer, at least, lay with PKF and whatever it had been doing. At least he could have Gregory Manners brought in and find out what he had to say about the operation.

Annie found a place to park outside number 37 Sebastopol Avenue, walked up the front steps and rang the doorbell to flat number 4.

Luck was still with her; they were in.

The flat was quite nicely done up, Annie thought, when they let her in and offered her a cup of tea. The furniture looked used, probably secondhand or parental donations, but it was serviceable and comfortable. The small living room was clean and uncluttered, and the only decoration was a poster of a Modigliani nude over the tiled mantelpiece. Annie recognized it from one of her father’s books; he had always been a big fan of Modigliani, and of nudes. Under the window was a desk with a PC, and a mini stereo unit stood in a cabinet along with stacks of compact discs. There was no television.

“What are you studying?” Annie asked as Alex brought the tea.

“Physics.”

“Beyond my ken, I’m afraid.” She nodded toward the painting. “Someone likes art, though, I see.”

“That’s me,” said Carly. “I’m studying art history.” She was a slight girl with dyed black hair, a ring through the far edge of her left eyebrow and another through the center of her lower lip, which gave her voice a curious lisp.

They talked about art for a while, then, when they both seemed relaxed, Annie got down to business. It wasn’t as if she was there to interrogate them, but people often got nervous around the police, the way Annie did around gynecologists.

“Have you any idea why I’m here?” she asked.

They shook their heads.

“I found someone in the Jolly Roger who told me where you lived. Why haven’t you come forward before now? You must know of all the appeals for information we’ve had out.”

“Information about what?” Alex asked, a puzzled expression on his face. He was good-looking enough, in a boyish sort of way, though his hair looked as if it needed a wash and he had an Adam’s apple the size of a gob-stopper. Could do with a shave, too, Annie thought, or was she just getting conservative in her old age? There was a time, she reminded herself, when she hadn’t minded a little stubble on a man. She had even worn a stud through her nose. It wasn’t that long ago, either.

“About the murder,” she went on. “Emily Riddle’s murder. Surely you know it happened at the Bar None shortly after you left on Thursday night?”

Alex and Carly looked blank. “No.”

“It was in all the papers. On telly. Everyone’s talking about it.”

“We don’t have a TV set and, well, to be honest,” Alex said, “we haven’t looked at a paper in days. Too busy at college.”

Seems like it, Annie thought. “But haven’t you heard anyone talking about it?”

“I’ve heard people talking about a drug overdose,” Carly said. “But I didn’t make the connection. I didn’t pay much attention. It’s so negative. I never read about things like that. It upsets my balance. Why are you here?”

“Why did you leave the club so early?”

They looked at one another, then Carly lisped, “We didn’t like the music.”

“That’s it?”

“It’s enough, isn’t it. I mean, you wouldn’t like to have to listen to that crap all night, would you?”

Annie smiled. She certainly wouldn’t. “So why go in the first place?”

“We didn’t know what sort of music they played,” Alex answered. “Someone at college said it was a pretty good place to have a few drinks and dance, and you know… unwind.”

“And buy drugs?”

Carly reddened. “We don’t do drugs.”

“Is that why you went? To buy drugs? And when you’d bought them you left?”

“She said we don’t do drugs and we don’t,” said Alex. “Why can’t you just believe us? Not every young person’s some sort of drug addict, you know. I knew the cops were prejudiced against blacks and gays, but I didn’t think they were prejudiced against the young in general.”

Annie sighed. She’d heard it all before. “I’d love to believe you, Alex,” she said. “In a perfect world, maybe. But a girl died a very nasty death after taking some adulterated cocaine in the Bar None not more than half an hour after you left and, as yet, we don’t know when she got it or where she got it from. If you can give me any help at all, then surely that gives me the right to come here and ask you a few simple questions, doesn’t it?”

“It still doesn’t give you the right to accuse us of being druggies,” said Alex.

“Oh, for crying out loud! Grow up, Alex. If I were accusing the two of you of being junkies you’d be down in the cells now waiting for your legal aid solicitor.”

“But you said-”

“Let’s move on, shall we?”

They both sulked for a moment, then nodded.

“What kind of music do you like?”

Alex shrugged. “All sorts, really. Just not that technorave-disco crap they play at the Bar None. It gives me a headache.”

Annie got up and wandered over to look at their CD collection to see for herself. Hole, Nirvana, the Dancing Pigs, even an old Van Morrison. There was quite a variety, but certainly no dance mix. One odd thing she noticed was that some of the CDs had no covers, only typed labels stuck on the cases identifying the contents. When she looked more closely, she also saw that the CDs themselves didn’t all have record-company logos. She glanced at the desk and saw a couple of popular computer software programs and games there. Again, there was no form of official identification.

“Where did you get these?” she asked, noticing that Carly had reddened when she picked up one of the CD cases.

“Shop.”

“What shop?”

“Computer shop.”

“Come on, Carly. You think I’m stupid just because I’m an old fogy? Is that it? You didn’t buy this in any legitimate computer shop. It’s a knock-off, like the music CDs. Where did you buy them?”

“It’s not illegal.”

“We won’t go into the ins and outs of breach of copyright just now. I just want to know where you bought them.”

After letting the silence stretch for almost a minute, Alex answered. “Bloke in the used bookshop down by the castle sells them.”

“Castle Hill Books?”

“That’s the one.”

Annie made a note. It probably wasn’t important, and it wasn’t her case, but she couldn’t dismiss the connection she felt with the empty CD case she had found at PFK. She would pass the information on to Sergeant Hatchley.

“Are you going to arrest us?” Carly asked.

“No. I’m not going to arrest you. But I do want you to answer a few more questions. Okay?”

“Okay.”

“While you were in the club, did you notice anyone selling drugs or behaving suspiciously?”

“There weren’t many people in the place,” Carly said. “Everyone was just getting in drinks or sitting down.”

“A few people were dancing,” Alex added. “But things hadn’t really got going by then.”

“Did you notice this girl?”

Annie showed them a picture of Emily.

“I think that’s the girl who came in with some friends just after us,” Carly said. “At least it looks like her.”

“About five foot six, taller in her platforms. Flared jeans.”

“That’s the one,” Carly said. “No, I didn’t see her doing anything odd at all. They sat down. Someone went for drinks. I think she was dancing at one point. I don’t know. I wasn’t really paying attention. The music was already driving me crazy.”

“You didn’t notice her talk to anyone outside her immediate group?”

“No.”

“Did you see her go to the toilet?”

“We weren’t watching people coming and going from the toilets.”

“So you didn’t notice her go?”

“No.”

“All right. Did you recognize her? Have you ever seen her before?”

“No,” Alex answered, with a sly glance at Carly. “And I think I’d remember.”

Carly threw a cushion at him. He laughed.

“She was too young for you, Alex,” said Annie. “And by all accounts you’d have been far too young for her.” She thought again of Banks and his lunch with Emily the day she died. Was there any more to it than that? She still got the impression he was holding back, hiding something.

Things were going nowhere fast with Carly and Alex, so she decided to wrap up the interview and call it a day. “Okay,” she said, standing up and stretching her back. “If either of you remembers anything about that evening, no matter how insignificant it might seem to you, give me a ring at this number.” She handed her card to Carly, who put it on the computer desk, then left the flat, ready to head home. It had been a rough day. Maybe she could treat herself to a book and a long hot bath and put Banks and Dalton out of her mind.