Cold Is The Grave

13

The postman came before Banks set off for work on Wednesday morning, and in addition to the usual bills and another letter from Sandra’s lawyer, which Banks put aside for later, he also brought with him a small oblong package. Noting the return address, Banks ripped open the padded envelope and held in his hand his son’s first officially recorded compact disc, Blue Rain, along with a thank you note for the three-hundred-pound check Banks had sent him, and which had cut severely into his Laphroaig budget.

There was a photograph of the band on the cover, Brian at the center in a practiced, cool sort of slouch, torn jeans, T-shirt, a lock of hair practically covering one eye. Andy, Jamisse and Ali flanked him. It was a poor-quality photograph, Banks noticed – Sandra certainly wouldn’t approve – and looked more like a grainy black-and-white photocopy of a color original. Banks didn’t much like the band’s name, either; Jimson Weed sounded far too sixtyish and druggie, but what did he know?

The music was what counted, and Banks was pleased to see that they had recorded their cover version of Dylan’s “Love Minus Zero/No Limit,” a song he had been surprised to hear them play on the only occasion he had seen them perform live. The rest of the songs were all originals, with Brian and Jamisse sharing most of the writing credits, apart from an old Mississippi John Hurt number, “Avalon Blues.” They weren’t a blues band, but blues was an underlying influence on their music, sometimes overlaid with rock, folk and hip-hop elements: The Grateful Dead meet Snoop Doggy Dogg. Banks was also absurdly pleased to see that in the liner notes Brian had credited him with nurturing an interest in music. Hadn’t mentioned that his dad was a copper, though; that wouldn’t go down too well in the music business.

He didn’t have time to listen to the CD before heading to the office. If he expected his team to put in a full day on Emily’s murder, then he had to set an example. Thoughts of work soon led into thoughts of Annie, who had contributed toward yet another sleepless night. He couldn’t understand what she saw in Dalton, who seemed such a dull, unprepossessing type to Banks. Not particularly good-looking, either. But, as he well knew, there was neither rhyme nor reason in matters of sex and love.

He just wished he could get the images of them out of his mind. Last night he had tossed and turned, unable to stop himself from imagining them making love in all sorts of positions, Dalton pleasing her far more than he had ever done, making her cry out in ecstasy as she climaxed, riding him wildly. The morning, dark and wet as it was, brought a respite from the images, but not from the feelings that had generated them. Working with her was turning out to be far more difficult than he had imagined it would be. Maybe she was right, and he just couldn’t hack it.

As he turned toward the town center and slowed in the knot of traffic on North Market Street, which was just opening up for the day, he wondered if everyone suffered from jealousy as much as he did. It had always been that way for him; jealousy had wrecked his relationship with the first girl he had ever slept with.

Her name was Kay Summerville, and she lived on the same Peterborough estate as he did. For weeks he had lusted after her as he watched her walk by in her jeans and yellow jacket, long blond hair trailing halfway down her back. She seemed unobtainable, ethereal, like most of the women he lusted after, but he was surprised when one day, walking back from the newsagent’s over the road with her, he plucked up the courage to ask her out, and she said yes.

Everything went well until Kay left school and got an office job in town. She made new friends, started going for drinks with the crowd regularly after work on a Friday. Banks was still at school, having stayed on for his A-Levels, and a schoolboy had far less appeal than these slightly older, better dressed, more sophisticated men of the world at the office. They had more money to flash around and, even more important, some of them had cars. Kay insisted there was no hanky-panky going on, but Banks became tortured with jealousy, racked by imagined infidelities, and in the end, Kay walked away. She couldn’t stand his constant harping on whom she was seeing and what she was doing, she said, and the way he got stroppy if she ever so much as looked at another man.

Shortly after, Banks moved to London and went to college there. A year or two after that, and several casual relationships later, he met Sandra. After a rocky few months at the start, when he realized he wanted her so much he couldn’t bear the thought of anyone else being with her, he saw that if he played his cards right, nobody else but him was going to be, and for the next twenty years or so he had very few problems with jealousy. Then she left him and Sean came on the scene, or vice versa. Now this with Annie. He was beginning to feel like a sex-obsessed, acne-plagued teenager again, and he didn’t like it at all.

Though he couldn’t play it, Banks had Brian’s CD on the passenger seat beside him, feeling pride every time he managed to break off his miserable thoughts and look down to see his son’s face on the cover. The marriage might have ended badly, but at least it had produced Brian and Tracy, Banks told himself, and the world was a better place for having them in it. He picked up the CD and dashed through the rain with it into the station. Once in his office, he set it on his desk, hoping that anyone who dropped by would ask about it.

Because Tuesday had been a day of paperwork, phonework and legwork, Banks was hoping some of it would pay off today. Teams of uniformed and plainclothes officers had been sent out with photos of Gregory Manners, Andrew Handley, Jamie Gilbert and Barry Clough. If any of those four had been up to no good in the Eastvale area over the past month or so, then someone would recognize them. Also, as he had looked at the cover of the Jimson Weed CD and thought about some of the things he had discovered lately, a number of disparate strands had started to come together, and he made an appointment to have lunch at half past one in the Queen’s Arms with Granville Baird, of North Yorkshire Trading Standards.

Annie was surprised to find herself feeling so good on Wednesday morning, the best she’d felt in a long time. She had awakened after a long, deep and dreamless sleep feeling that old calm, had done her meditation and yoga and seemed to be getting back in the groove. Agitated voices still muttered in the distance of her mind and talons raked at the raw edges of her emotions, but even so, she felt much better. All would be well.

She wondered if it was anything to do with Dalton’s having gone back to Newcastle and decided that was only partly it. Certainly it was a blessing not to have him around the place, constantly reminding her, whether he intended to or not, of that terrible night two years ago. In a way, though, she had exorcised all that by confronting him by the swing bridge. Anyway, she didn’t intend to dwell on why she was feeling so good. One thing she had learned from her meditation was that sometimes it’s best to let go, simply to accept the feelings you have and ride with them.

Banks had been cool and distant toward her since their blowup on Monday afternoon, and, while a little warmth wouldn’t go amiss, that suited her perfectly well at the moment, because all she wanted to do was get on with the job.

And early that Wednesday afternoon, she was doing exactly that, heading for Scarlea House. The desk clerk there had said he recognized Barry Clough’s photograph when one of the DCs turned up on the doorstep showing it around.

It was a dull afternoon, and Annie needed to turn her headlights on. The heavy gray cloud was so low it seemed to rest on top of Fremlington Hill, a high limestone scar, or “edge,” which curved like bared teeth around the junction of Swainsdale and the smaller Arkbeckdale, which ran northwest.

She drove through sleepy Lyndgarth, with its village green like a handkerchief flapping in the wind, its chapel, church and three pubs. Smoke drifted from the chimneys and lost itself in the clouds like her thoughts when she meditated. She passed through the remote hamlet of Longbridge, a name most found funny as it had the smallest, shortest bridge in the dale. She remembered it was supposed to be famous because someone drove over it in the opening credits of a television program, but that had been before her time up north. Not a soul stirred; the hamlet looked deserted, its shop closed, rough stone cottages shut up. Only a glimmer of light from the pub showed that anyone lived there at all. It was an eerie feeling, especially in the half-light. Annie felt that if she got out of her car and walked around she would find everything in order – meals on the table, today’s newspapers lying open, kettles boiling on the cookers – and nobody there, like on the Marie Celeste.

Scarlea House loomed ahead, a huge, dark Gothic limestone pile. None of the windows seemed to have any curtains. It stood on a slight rise at the end of a broad gravel drive, and in the weak light, against the backdrop of the rising, dull-green daleside, it looked like a vampire’s castle from an old horror film. All that was needed to complete the effect was a few flickers of lightning and the distant rumble of thunder. But when Annie pulled up outside and turned off her engine, everything was silent apart from the occasional bird call and the burbling of the River Arkbeck on its way to join the Swain along the valley bottom.

Christ, Annie, she thought, you’re about to enter one of the most upmarket shooting lodges in the Dales and just look at you; you’re a mess. She hadn’t dressed for upmarket when she climbed into her jeans and flung on a red roll-neck jumper that morning. Even less so when she picked up her denim jacket on her way out. They’ll just have to take me as they find me, she told herself, opening the heavy front door and walking over to the reception area.

The ceiling in the hall was taller than her entire cottage, and if it wasn’t quite the Sistine Chapel it was certainly ornate, complete with gilded panels and a chandelier. The walls were all dark wood wainscoting, and here and there hung overlarge oil paintings of men with bulbous noses wearing their collars too tight, faces the color and texture of rare roast beef, like Jim Hatchley’s – the kind of paintings that Ray, her father, called “optical egotism.” They paid the rent, though. If a local artist got one of those self-styled bigwigs to commission such a portrait, it would probably keep him in paint and canvas for a few years. Even Ray knew the value of that.

“Can I help you, miss?”

An elegant silver-haired man in a black suit came forward to greet her. Annie’s first impression was that he looked like a funeral-parlor worker.

“Actually,” she said, feeling a bit snotty and more than a trifle intimidated by her surroundings, “it’s not Miss, it’s Detective Sergeant Cabbot.”

“Ah, yes, Sergeant, we’ve been expecting you. My name’s Lacey. George Lacey. General Manager. Please, come this way.”

He gestured toward a door with his name on it, and when they went inside Annie saw it was a modern office, complete with fax machine, computer, laser printer, the works. She would never have expected it from the old-fashioned decor, but the paying guests would be well-off businessmen, and they would demand all the modern conveniences of the electronic age as well as the primitive excitement of blood lust. And why not? They could afford it all.

Annie sat in a swivel chair and took out her notebook. “I don’t know if I can tell you any more than I told the other officer,” Lacey said, making a steeple of his hands on the desk. He had prissy sort of lips, Annie noticed, shaped in a cupid’s bow and far too red. They irritated her when he talked. She tried to keep her eyes on the knot of his regimental tie.

“I’m just here to confirm that it really was the man in the photograph who stayed here.” She laid her copy of Clough’s photo on the desk in front of him. “This man.”

Lacey nodded. “Mr. Clough. Yes. That was, indeed, him.”

“Has he been here before?”

“Mr. Clough is a frequent guest during the season.”

“Can you tell me the dates he was here?”

“Just a moment.” Lacey tapped a few keys on the computer and frowned at the screen. “He stayed here from Saturday, the fifth of December, until Thursday the tenth.”

“It’s a bit late in the year for a holiday in the Dales, isn’t it?”

“This is a shooting lodge, Sergeant. People do not come here for holidays. They come here to shoot grouse. This was the last weekend of the season and we were full to capacity.”

“What about now?”

“Not quite so busy. It comes and goes.”

“But you stay open all winter, even though the grouse season is over?”

“Oh, yes. We’re generally booked up over Christmas and New Year, of course. The rest of the time it’s… well, quieter, though we get a number of foreign guests. Our restaurant has an international reputation. One often has to make dinner reservations weeks in advance.”

“It must be an expensive operation to run.”

“Quite.” Lacey looked at her as if the mere mention of money were vulgar.

“Was Mr. Clough alone while he was here?”

“Mr. Clough, as usual, came with his personal assistant and a small group of colleagues. The season is very much a social event.”

“His personal assistant?”

“A Mr. Gilbert. Jamie Gilbert.”

“Ah, yes. Of course.” Banks had told her, when she had forced his confession about the lunch with Emily, that Emily had imagined she saw Jamie Gilbert in Eastvale the Monday of the week she died. Maybe she hadn’t imagined it after all. It was also interesting that Clough had arrived in Yorkshire only a day or two before Charlie Courage’s murder and left the day of Emily’s, which meant that he had certainly been in a position to supply her with the strychnine-laced cocaine.

“Do you know what time Mr. Clough left on the tenth?” she asked.

“Not exactly. Usually our guests depart after breakfast. I’d say between nine and ten o’clock, perhaps.”

“Is there anything else you can tell me about his stay, his comings and goings?”

“I’m afraid not. I am not employed to spy on our guests.”

“Is there anyone who might be able to tell me?”

Lacey looked at his watch and curled his lip. “Mr. Ferguson, perhaps. He’s the bartender. As such, he spends far more time close to the guests in social situations. He might be able to tell you more.”

“Okay,” said Annie. “Where is he?”

“He won’t be in until later this afternoon. Around five o’clock. If you’d care to come back then…?”

“Fine.” Annie thought of asking for Ferguson’s home address and calling on him there, but decided she could wait. Banks was at lunch with someone from Trading Standards, and Annie knew that he would want to be here if she took this line of inquiry any further. She could phone him on her mobile and arrange to meet back at Scarlea at five. In the meantime she would head out to Barnard Castle and investigate a reported sighting of Emily Riddle there the afternoon before she died.

The news about Clough was exciting, though. It was the only positive lead they had on him since Gregory Manners’s fingerprints on the CD case linked him to PKF, and it was the first real lead they’d had linking Clough with Yorkshire and catching him out in a lie. Yes, Banks would certainly want to be in on this.

Banks had first met Granville Baird two years ago, when North Yorkshire Trading Standards had asked for police assistance after one of their investigators had been threatened with violence. Since then, they had worked together when their duties overlapped and had even met socially now and then for a game of darts in the Queen’s Arms. They weren’t close friends, but they were about the same age, and Granville, like Banks, was a jazz fan and a keen operagoer.

They chatted about Opera North’s season for a while, then, jumbo Yorkshire pudding on order and a pint of Theakston’s bitter in front of him, the buzz of lunchtime conversation all around, Banks lit a cigarette and asked Granville, “Know anything about pirating compact discs?”

Granville raised an eyebrow. “Does that mean you’re in the market for something? The ‘Ring’ cycle, perhaps?”

“No. Though now you come to mention it, I wouldn’t mind the complete Duke Ellington centenary set, all twenty-four, if you can run some off for me.”

“Wish I could afford it. Does this mean that the police are actually looking at doing something about pirating at last?”

“Apart from copyright infringement, which is hardly a police matter, I wasn’t aware that any laws were being broken. If you expect us to come charging in to Bill Gates’s rescue every time someone pirates a copy of Windows, then you’ve got a very funny idea of what our job really is.”

Granville laughed. “You’re behind the times, Alan. It’s big business these days. If it were simply a matter of copying Windows or the latest Michael Jackson CD for a friend, nobody would bat an eyelid, but we’re talking big operations here. Big money, too.”

“That’s exactly what I’m interested in,” said Banks. “How big?”

“The last raid we carried out we netted about a quarter of a million quid’s worth of stuff.”

Banks whistled. “That big?”

“Tip of the iceberg.”

“So it would be a lucrative business for organized crime, would it?”

“Especially as you lot don’t even seem to think it’s a crime.”

“Point taken. Look, we’ve got a case on right now – it started with a murder – and I’ve been putting two and two together and coming up with a pirating business. I don’t know how big yet. In fact, we don’t know much at all.” Brian’s CD had been the final piece in the puzzle. Seeing its amateurishly produced cover, Banks had thought of the CD case Annie had found at PKF, the CDs she saw at Alex and Carly’s flat, about Gregory Manners’s fingerprints, Barry Clough’s dismissal as a roadie for bootlegging live recordings, and the van worth hijacking, the driver worth killing. They still hadn’t found the van’s contents yet, but Banks would bet a pound to a penny they consisted of equipment for copying CDs, along with any stock and blank discs that happened to have been there. What Banks needed to know from Granville Baird was whether there was enough profit in the pirating business to make it of interest to Clough, the way smuggling was.

“What do you know?” Granville asked.

“A phony company leases small units in rural business parks, operates for a while, then moves on. Make any sense?”

Granville nodded. “I’ve heard rumors of such a setup, yes. And if you had two or three of these operations running at once, around the country, you could be turning over a mill or two a year or more, easy. If you had the proper equipment, of course.”

“Definitely worth his while, then?”

“Whose while?”

“We’re not sure yet. This is just speculation. What sort of things would they pirate?”

“Everything they can get their dirty little hands on. Music, software programs, games, you name it. For the moment, by far the biggest profits are in games. Sony PlayStation stuff, that sort of thing. Everyone’s kid wants the latest computer game, right? We’ve even found pirated stuff on sale that isn’t on the market yet. Some of the Star Wars tie-in games came over from the States before the film even came out here.”

“What about pirated movies?”

“There’s a lot of that, but most of it’s done in the Far East.”

“How do they get the originals? Insiders?”

“Mostly, yes. As far as the movies are concerned, though, sometimes all they have for a master is a hand-held video of the film being shown at a theater full of people. I’ve seen some of the stuff and it’s awful. When it comes to the computer programs and games, though, it’s easy enough for some employee to sneak a disc out, and if he can make a couple of hundred quid from it, all the better. There even used to be a private Web site where, for a membership fee, you got offered a variety of pirated stuff to download, but that’s defunct. Mind you, it’s very much a matter of caveat emptor. Some of it’s a rip-off. We found a lot of games among the last haul that couldn’t be played without complicated bypasses of internal security systems.”

“The manufacturers are wising up, then?”

“Slowly.”

Their food came, and they paused awhile to eat. Banks took a bite of his Yorkshire pudding filled with roast beef and gravy and washed it down with some beer. He looked at Granville, who was drinking mineral water and nibbling at a salad. “What’s up? On a diet?”

Granville frowned. “Annual checkup last month. Doc says my cholesterol’s too high, so I’ve got to cut out booze and fatty foods.”

Banks was surprised. Granville looked healthy enough, played squash and was hardly any heavier than Banks was. “Sorry to hear that.”

“No sweat. You just go right on enjoying yourself until it’s your turn.”

Banks, who felt he had led a charmed life healthwise thus far, despite the bad diet, the cigarettes and the ale, nodded. “It’ll be either that or the prostate, I know. What about distribution?”

“Wherever you can shift it. I’ve even heard stories of the local ice-cream van selling PlayStation games to kids. Gives a whole new meaning to Mr. Softee.”

Banks laughed. That made a lot of sense, he thought as he ate. Clough could use the same distribution network he had set up for the smuggled cigarettes and alcohol – small shopkeepers like Castle Hill Books, to whom DC Winsome Jackman should be talking this afternoon, market stallholders, pubs, clubs, factories. After all, the customers would often be the same people, none of whom thought they were really doing anything wrong in buying the odd packet of smuggled fags or a pirated computer game for their kid’s birthday. Half the cops in the country were smoking contraband cigarettes and drinking smuggled lager. Banks even knew a DI with West Yorkshire who drove to Calais every few weeks and filled up his trunk with booze and cigarettes. He made enough selling them at the station to cover the expenses of his trip and keep himself in the necessities till the next time.

So, why not? people thought. Big deal. They were getting a bargain, Bill Gates already had too much money, and the tax on booze and fags was extortionate. Now the EC had also cut out duty-free purchases between its members. In a way, Banks agreed, the consumers had a point – except that people like Barry Clough were getting rich from them.

He tried to work out how events might have occurred. Clough’s men pay off Charlie Courage, whose ability to sniff out wrongdoing and try for a slice of the pie was legendary, then Charlie sells them out to a rival, who hijacks the van and steals the equipment and stock of pirated CDs to set up somewhere on his own. Only it goes wrong. Clough’s men torture Charlie. Does he give up the hijacker? You bet he does. And what happens to both of them?

“It makes sense,” he said to Granville. “Especially if there’s the kind of money in it you’re saying there is.”

“Take my word for it. There is. And if your man’s really organized, he’ll have multidisc copying writers so he can churn them out by the dozen.”

“That’d be an expensive piece of equipment, I should imagine?”

“Indeed it would. An investment of thousands.”

That answered one question that had been puzzling Banks. If the PKF van had been carrying a few pirated discs, it would have hardly been worth hijacking, not to mention killing Jonathan Fearn. But if it had been carrying industrial-standard multidisc copying equipment, that was another matter entirely. “A very healthy return, I’d imagine, though, if you’ve got the start-up capital,” Banks said.

“Indeed.”

And Clough certainly had the capital to invest. From his gun-restoring racket, the music business, his club, his smuggling operations and whatever other dirty little scams he was involved in, he had plenty of seed money. The problem was how to prove his involvement. It was as Burgess had said about Clough’s smuggling activities: there was plenty of ground for suspicion, but scant evidence of actual guilt. Everything was done through minions and intermediaries, people like Gregory Manners, Jamie Gilbert and Andy Pandy; Clough never got his own hands dirty. His only contact with anything but the profits was entirely circumstantial.

Or was it? Had Emily Riddle posed some sort of threat to him? Did she have knowledge he considered dangerous? Clough didn’t like to lose, didn’t like people walking out on him, especially if they took something with them, be that something money or knowledge.

It was beginning to seem entirely possible to Banks that the two cases were connected, and that Emily Riddle might have been killed by the same person and for the same reason as Charlie Courage. But who was it? Which of his minions had Clough used? Andy Pandy, who already had a grudge against Emily, the kind of grudge you develop from a hard knee in the balls? Jamie Gilbert, to whom Burgess had referred as a psycho? Or someone else, someone they hadn’t encountered yet? Gregory Manners might be able to help them, if they could find him.

Banks finished his Yorkshire and lit another cigarette. He had about a third of a pint left, and he decided not to have another one. “You said you’d heard rumors about a big local operation,” he said. “Anything in them?”

“There’s always something, don’t you think? No smoke without fire, as they say. It’s mostly a matter of finding a lot more pirated goods flooding the markets around North Yorkshire, which reeks of the kind of organization you’ve just been talking about. You say they’ve moved on?”

“Their van was heading for another business park near Wooler, in Northumbria, when it was hijacked. Everything disappeared, and the driver was in a coma for a few days before he died. No prints at the scene. Nothing. All we have is a CD case from PKF’s Daleview operation which bears the fingerprints of one Gregory Manners, convicted for smuggling, and a known associate of our Mr. Big.”

“That’s the thing,” said Granville, leaning forward. “They’re getting into these new areas, the big guys, like cigarette smuggling and pirating games. There’s a pile of money to be made if you do it right, and the risks are far less than dealing in drugs. Besides, drugs are cheaper than they’ve ever been these days. With smuggling and pirating, you just sit back and rake in the profits. That’s what we’ve been trying to tell you lot for ages. And the more you squeeze the drug dealers, the more they’re likely to find more creative ways of making their fortunes.”

Banks looked at his watch. Just gone half past two. Time to check on what was happening in the incident room, then ACC McLaughlin and Detective Superintendent Gristhorpe would be waiting for an update. “I’ve got to go now, Granville,” he said, “but could you do me a favor and keep your eyes and ears open?” Banks asked.

“My pleasure.” Granville paused, then said, “I heard about Jimmy Riddle’s daughter. Terrible business.”

“Yes, it is,” Banks agreed.

“Your case?”

“For my sins.”

“Anything in those rumors in the papers? Sex and drugs?”

“You know what it’s like, Granville,” said Banks, stubbing out his cigarette and getting up to leave. “There’s always something in it, isn’t there? No smoke without fire.”

Annie’s news about Clough’s being seen in the area around the time of both murders gave Banks that tingle of excitement he hadn’t felt in a while as he headed for Scarlea House late that afternoon, taking the unfenced high roads, where the only things that slowed him down were wandering sheep. He put Richard and Linda Thompson’s Shoot Out the Lights on the car stereo and turned it up a bit louder than usual.

Annie’s purple Astra was parked outside Scarlea, and she was waiting in the lobby when Banks arrived. Gerald Ferguson had reported for work ten minutes ago, according to George Lacey. He pointed the way, and Banks and Annie walked down the gloomy hallway to the double doors at the far end.

“Anything on that sighting in Barnard Castle?” Banks asked.

Annie shook her head. “False alarm. Witness was an elderly woman and she admitted all teenagers looked alike to her. Soon as I showed her the photo again she began to have doubts.”

Banks pushed open the heavy doors – it took more strength than he expected – and they entered the magnificently appointed dining room. Once a banquet hall, he guessed, it had a number of large windows looking out over the valley bottom to the steep dalesides crisscrossed with drystone walls. It was too dark to see anything now, of course, but breakfasting grouse shooters could no doubt look at the view and anticipate the joys of the coming day’s slaughter as they ate their eggs Benedict or juice and cereal.

There would probably have been one large central banquet table before the place had been turned into an upmarket restaurant, Banks thought, but now there were a number of tables scattered about the room, each covered by a spotless heavy linen tablecloth. At the far end were more doors, probably to the kitchen, and a long bar took up one wall, all dark polished wood and brass, the rows of bottles gleaming on shelves in front of the mirror at the back. Banks had never seen so many single-malt whiskeys in one place before. Most of them he had never even heard of.

A man in a burgundy jacket stood with his back to them fiddling with the Optic on the gin bottle when Banks went over and introduced himself and Annie.

“Charmed to meet you,” the man said, glancing back at them. “I’m Gerald Ferguson, and this bloody thing is a pain in the arse, excuse my French, love. I’ve told them to buy a new one but they’re too bloody tight-fisted. The hell with it.” He left the Optic and leaned on the bar to face them. “What can I do for you?”

He was a round little man of about fifty, with a red face, muttonchops sideboards and a soup-strainer mustache. His jacket tugged a bit at the gold buttons around his chest and stomach, and Banks thought one deep breath would pop them. “We were hoping you might be able to help us with some information about a guest, Mr. Ferguson,” he said.

“Gerald. Please.” He looked around, then put his finger to the side of his nose. “Fancy a wee dram?”

Banks and Annie sat on the high barstools. “We wouldn’t want to get you into any trouble,” said Banks.

Gerald waved his hand and looked toward the door they had entered by. His fingers were surprisingly long and tappered, Banks thought, the nails neatly clipped and shiny. Perhaps he played piano as a hobby. “What he doesn’t know won’t harm him. What’s your poison?”

It was an unfortunate turn of phrase, Banks thought, as he scanned the row of bottles and settled on the cask-strength Port Ellen.

“Detective Sergeant Cabbot?”

“Nothing for me, thank you.”

“You certain?”

“Certain.”

Gerald shrugged. “Up to you.” He poured two glasses of Port Ellen, very generous measures, Banks thought, set one in front of himself and another in front of Banks. “Slainte,” he said, and knocked it back in one.

“Slainte,” said Banks, and took a little sip. Heaven. He set the glass down. “It’s a guest called Clough we’re interested in. Barry Clough. Apparently he’s a regular in grouse season.”

“Aye, he’s that, all right.”

Banks caught the tone of disapproval in his voice. “You don’t like him?”

“I didn’t say that, did I?” said Ferguson, pouring himself another Port Ellen. Banks guessed it wasn’t his first and wouldn’t be his last one of the day, either. At least this time he sipped it slowly.

“Tell us what you do think of him, then.”

“He’s a thug in fancy dress. And as for that factotum of his-”

“Jamie Gilbert?”

“If that’s his name. The one with the queer hair.”

“That’s him. Go on.”

Ferguson took another sip of whiskey and lowered his voice. “This place used to have a bit of class, do you know that? I’ve worked here going on twenty-five years and I’ve seen them all come and go. We’ve had MPs – a prime minister and an American president once – judges, foreign dignitaries, businessmen from the City, and some of them might have been stingy bastards, but they all had one thing in common: they were gentlemen.”

“And now?”

Ferguson snorted. “Now? I wouldn’t give you twopence for the crowd we get these days.” He glanced over at the doors again. “Not since he came.”

“Mr. Lacey?”

“Mr. George bloody Lacey, General Manager. Him and his new ideas. Modernization, for crying out loud.” He pointed toward the windows. “What do you need modernization for when you’ve got the best bloody view in the world and all nature on your doorstep? Tell me the answer to that, if you can.”

Banks, who knew a rhetorical question when he heard one, gave a sympathetic nod.

“Since he came,” Ferguson went on, “we’ve had nothing but bloody pop stars, actors, television personalities, whiz kids from the stock market. Christ, we’ve even had bloody women. Sorry love, no offense intended, but grouse shooting never used to be much of a woman’s sport.” He knocked back another mouthful of Port Ellen.

Annie smiled, but Banks had seen that one before; she didn’t mean it. Ferguson had better watch out.

“Half of them don’t even know one end of a shotgun from t’other,” Ferguson went on. “It’s a wonder we don’t have more accidents, I tell you. But they’ve got plenty of money to throw about. Oh, aye. Take a bloke like that there Clough. Thinks if he tosses you a few bob at the start of the evening you’re at his beck and call for the rest of the night. Pillock. And Mary, she’s one the lasses clean the rooms. Nice lass, but a couple of bob short of a pound, if you know what I mean, the stories she’s told me about some of the things she’s found.”

“Like what?” Banks asked.

Ferguson thrust his face forward and whispered. “Syringes, for a start.”

“In Clough’s room?”

“No. That were one of the pop stars. Stayed here a week and never once came out of his room. I ask you. Money to throw away, that lot.”

“Back to Barry Clough, Mr. Ferguson.”

Ferguson laughed and scratched his head. “Aye. Sorry. I do run off at the mouth sometimes, don’t I? You got me started on one of my little hobbyhorses.”

“That’s fine,” said Banks, “but can you tell us any more about Barry Clough?”

“What sort of things would you be wanting to know?”

“Did you see much of him while he was here?”

“Aye. I was on the bar every night – I get help when we’re busy, like. Mandy, one of the local girls from Longbridge – and Clough was always here for drinks before dinner, and most times he ate here, too.” Ferguson looked around and leaned forward conspiratorially. “They say the food’s spectacular here, but if you ask me there’s nowt edible. Foreign muck, for the most part.”

“But Mr. Clough enjoyed it?”

“He did. And he knew what wines to order with what courses – we’ve got a wine waiter, sommelier, as he likes to call himself, the stuck-up bugger – from his Château neuf du bloody Pape to his Sauternes and his vintage Port. See, he’s got all the trappings, the expensive clothes – Armani, Paul Smith – all the top-quality shooting gear and what have you, and he thinks he’s got style, but you can tell he’s common as muck underneath it all. Must’ve read a bluffer’s guide, but he couldn’t fool me. There’s one thing you can’t fake: class. Like I said, a thug. Why? What’s he done?”

“We don’t know that he’s done anything yet.”

“I’ll bet you suspect him of something, though, don’t you? Stands to reason. You mark my words, bloke like him, he’s bound to have done something. Bound to.”

“Did you talk to him much?”

“Like I said, he came on like he thought he was a gentleman, but he couldn’t pull it off. For a start, a real gentleman wouldn’t pass the time of day talking to the likes of me. He might make a friendly comment on the weather or the quality of that day’s shooting, but that’s as far as he’d go. There are clear lines. This Clough, though, chatty as anything, propping up the bar, drinking his bloody Cosmopolitans and smoking his Cuban cigars. And that bloody ponytail.”

“What did he talk about?”

“Nothing much, when all’s said and done. Football. Seems he’s an Arsenal supporter. I’m a Newcastle man, myself. Goes on about his villa in Spain, about going to parties with all these bloody celebrities. As if I give a toss.”

“Did he ever talk about his business?”

“Not that I recall. What is it?”

“That’s what we’d like to know.”

“Well, I won’t say some people don’t sometimes let something slip, you know. Comes with the territory. I’ve actually managed one or two good investments over the years based on things I’ve heard on this job, but don’t tell anyone that. I’m paid to stand behind this bar all bloody night and sometimes people, they look on you as a sort of father confessor, not that I’m Catholic or anything. Straight C of E.”

“Not Clough, though?”

“No. That’s why I can hardly remember a word he said.”

“Was he with a party?”

“Yes. About five or six of them.”

“Who?”

“They were a mixed bunch. There was that pretty young pop singer whose picture you see all over the place these days, the one where she’s wearing hardly more than a pair of gold silk knickers. Amanda Khan, she’s called. Touch of the tarbrush. Lovely skin, though.”

Banks had seen the image in question; it was on the cover of her new CD and also graced posters in HMV and Virgin Records. She looked about as old as Emily Riddle.

“Couldn’t even hold a bloody gun, her, let alone shoot one. Still, I must say she seemed a nice-enough lass, especially for a pop singer. Polite. And far too nice, not to mention too young, for the likes of Clough.”

“Was she with him?”

“What do you mean? Were they sleeping together?”

“Yes.”

“I don’t know. Whatever they get up to when the bar closes is none of my business.”

“Did you get the impression that they were sleeping together?”

“Well, they did seem a bit close, and I did see him touch her every now and then. You know, put an arm around her, pat her bum, that sort of thing. More as if she were a possession he kept wanting to touch than anything else.”

That sounded like Clough, Banks thought. It hadn’t taken him long to get another girl. “Who else?”

Ferguson scratched his head again. Banks took another sip of the fiery malt. “I didn’t recognize any of the others. I’m sure our Mr. Lacey will let you have a look at the registration book, or bloody diskette or whatever he calls it now. Used to have a nice big black leather-bound book. Must’ve been worth a bob or two. But now it’s all bloody computer discs and Web sites. I ask you. Web sites.”

Banks slipped the photograph of Emily Riddle out of his briefcase. “Did he ever meet with this girl?”

Some of the color left Ferguson’s face. “So that’s what it’s all about, is it? I know who she is, poor lass. I read about her in the papers. You think he did it? Clough?”

“We don’t know,” said Banks. “That’s why we’re asking these questions.”

“I can’t give him an alibi,” said Ferguson. “Like I said, I saw him most evenings, but never during the day. He could have slipped out anytime, really.”

“An alibi’s not much use in a case like this,” Banks said. “At the moment it’s enough to know that he was in the area at the time.”

“Oh, he was in the area, all right.”

“Did you see him meet with anyone outside his party?”

“Only the once.”

“When was this?”

“I can’t recall if it was Sunday or Monday. I think it must have been Sunday. That was the day we had the saddle of lamb. Would have been nice, too, if it hadn’t been for all them fancy herbs and sauces cook sloshes over everything he makes. Freshen your drink?”

“No, thanks.”

“Sure you won’t have a drop, miss?”

“No, thanks, Mr. Ferguson.”

“Gerald. I told you, it’s Gerald.”

Annie smiled that non-smile again. “No, Gerald.”

He beamed at her. “That’s better.”

“This person Clough met,” Banks said. “Man or a woman?”

“Man. You know, there was something familiar about him, but I just can’t put my finger on it right now.”

“A media personality?”

“I don’t think so. But I’ve seen him in the papers.”

“What did he look like?”

“About six-foot-something. Bit dour-looking, as if he’s just been sucking on a lemon. Didn’t seem at all comfortable to be there. Only drank mineral water. Kept looking around.”

“Could you tell if they’d met before?”

“Hard to say, really. If I had to guess, I’d say it was their first meeting. I don’t know why, but there you are. What you lot would call a hunch.”

“Did you hear any of what they said?”

“No. I was here, behind the bar, and they had a window table.”

“Did they seem friendly?”

“As a matter of fact, no, they didn’t. The bloke got up and left before his main course had even arrived.”

“Were they arguing?”

“If they were, they were doing it quietly. He was certainly red in the face when he left, I can tell you that.”

“Clough?”

“No, the other fellow. Clough were cool as a cucumber.”

“Anything else you can tell me about this man?”

“Bald as a coot, heavy eyebrows. There was something else familiar about him, too, about his bearing, as if maybe he was a military man or something. No… there’s still something missing.”

“A uniform, perhaps?” Banks suggested, feeling the tingle at the bottom of his spine. “A police uniform?”

Ferguson’s eyes opened wide. “By George, I think you’ve got it. He was wearing a suit that night, but if you picture him in a uniform… You’re right. I’ve seen him on telly opening farm shows and spouting about crime figures being down. Mr. Riddle, that’s who it was, now I think back. Your own chief constable. I wonder what all that was about.”

Great, thought Banks, with that sinking feeling. Just what we need. He had sensed something odd about Riddle the night he went to break the news of Emily’s murder. Riddle had mentioned Clough immediately, though Banks had never told him the man’s name, and he was damn sure Emily hadn’t.

“Thank you, Mr. Ferguson,” he said, slugging back the last millimeter of Port Ellen. “Thank you very much. We might need to talk to you again, if that’s all right?”

“You know where I am. We’ll try the Caol Ila twenty-two-year-old next time you drop by. Lovely drop of malt. It’ll knock your socks off.”

Banks felt as if his socks had been knocked off already as he walked out into the evening darkness. Neither he nor Annie could think of anything to say. He felt tired. His brain couldn’t even grapple with the consequences of what Gerald Ferguson had just told him about Chief Constable Riddle dining with Barry Clough. There was too much to take in. But he couldn’t let it lie; he had to confront Riddle, and the sooner the better.

Banks still felt tired when he pulled up yet again in front of the Old Mill that night. Annie had seemed annoyed back at the station when he told her he wanted to confront Riddle alone with Ferguson’s story, but she hadn’t argued. Riddle was chief constable, after all, and Banks didn’t want to give the appearance of a formal interrogation, the way it would appear if two detectives turned up on his doorstep. He wanted an honest explanation, though he had his own ideas about what had transpired, and he believed that Riddle would give him one. It was a job he would have gladly delegated if he thought that was at all possible, but it wasn’t. He was still SIO, and if anyone was going to face Chief Constable Riddle with this new development, then it had to be Banks.

Riddle himself answered the door and invited Banks in.

“Ros is out, I’m afraid,” he said. “She’s visiting with Charlotte King, our neighbor. Benjamin’s in bed.”

They walked through to the large living room and sat down. Riddle didn’t offer anything in the way of refreshments, which was fine; Banks didn’t want anything. He blamed the small whiskey he’d had at Scarlea for his tiredness. “How’s he taking everything?” he asked. “Benjamin.”

“He doesn’t know what’s happened. He knows that his sister has gone to live with Jesus, and he misses her terribly. He keeps asking if it’s something to do with the funny pictures of her in the computer.”

“What do you tell him?”

“That it’s not. To forget about that. But it seems he can’t. We’re going to send him to stay with his grandparents – Ros’s mother and father down in Barnstaple – after the funeral. He’s always got along well with them and we think a change of scene will do him good.”

“When’s the funeral?”

“Tomorrow morning. The coroner released the body as quickly as she could.” He paused. “Will you be there?”

“If I wouldn’t be intruding.”

“For better or for worse, you’re part of this.”

Banks wished to hell he weren’t, but Riddle was right. “I’ll be there,” he said.

“Good.”

“And your wife? How’s Mrs. Riddle doing?”

“She’s bearing up. Ros is strong. She’ll survive. Anyway, you’re not here to make small talk about my family, Banks. What is it? Have there been any developments?”

Banks paused. “Yes,” he said finally. “As a matter of fact, there have.”

“Out with it, then.”

“You’re not going to like it.”

“More bad news?” Banks noticed a quick flash of fear in Riddle’s eyes, something he had never seen there before. Riddle averted his gaze. “Anyway, it doesn’t matter whether I like it or not,” he said. “Things have gone too far for that. Two months ago, I wouldn’t have even imagined having you in my house, let alone inviting you to my daughter’s funeral. It doesn’t mean I’ve changed my mind about you, Banks, just that circumstances have changed.”

“I’ve been useful to you.”

“And haven’t I fulfilled my part of the bargain?”

“What were you doing having dinner with Barry Clough at Scarlea House on Sunday, December the sixth?”

Riddle paused before answering. “I was hoping you wouldn’t find out about that,” he said. “Too much to hope for, I suppose.”

“You should have known.”

“Yes, well… Anyway, I didn’t have dinner with him. I left before things went that far.”

“Don’t split hairs. You met with him. Why?”

“Because he asked me to.”

“When?”

“Two days earlier.”

“Friday?”

“Yes. He telephoned me at the station and said he was coming up to Yorkshire for the end of the grouse season the next day, that he’d like to meet me to talk about Emily. That’s all he would tell me on the telephone.”

“He called her Emily?”

“Yes.”

“Not Louisa?”

“No.”

“So he’d found out who she was?”

“Oh, he’d found out all right. Starting with her conversation with you in his living room.”

“Bugged?”

“Of course. That’s what he told me, anyway.”

“What did he want with you?”

“What do you think?”

“Blackmail?”

“In a nutshell. I’ve come across his kind before, Banks. They collect people they think they might be able to use at some point.”

“Tell me about your conversation.”

Riddle scowled. “You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?”

“What do you mean?”

“Putting me on the receiving end. Isn’t this what you’ve always dreamed about?”

“You overestimate your importance to me,” said Banks, “and to be perfectly honest, the answer’s no, I’m not enjoying it. I haven’t enjoyed any of this. Not breaking the news to you about Emily’s death, not questioning you and your wife about her movements, and certainly not this. I’ve had the feeling that one or both of you has been lying or concealing things right from the start, and now I have some concrete evidence of it. I still wish I could simply wash my hands of the lot of you, but I can’t. I’ve got my job to do, and believe it or not, I feel that I owe your daughter something.”

“Why? What did she ever do for you?”

“Nothing. That’s not it at all.”

“What is, then?”

“You wouldn’t understand. Let’s just get back to that Sunday dinner at Scarlea, shall we? What did Clough want to talk to you about?”

“What do you think? He’d discovered that I’m chief constable and that I was contemplating entering into politics. The idea of having such an influential person in his pocket appealed to him.”

“What did he say?”

“He said that he knew Emily in London – as Louisa Gamine, of course – that they had lived together for two or three months and that he had compromising photographs and all sorts of interesting stories he could give to the newspapers about her, things that would spoil my chances of election, should I ever get that far, and things that would even call into doubt my fitness to stay on as chief constable, should I not. He made a few obscene comments about her, and he also indicated that he could probably persuade her to go back with him anytime he wanted. He seemed to believe that all he would have to do was whistle.”

“What did you say to him?”

“I told him to sod off. What do you think?”

“What did he say to that?”

“He said he could perfectly understand my reaction and that he’d give me a couple of weeks to think it over, then get in touch again.”

“Is that when you got up and walked away?”

“Yes.”

“Did you ever hear anything else from him after that?”

“No. It’s only been a week and a half.”

“No threats or anything?”

“Nothing. And I don’t expect to.”

“Why not?”

“Well, he’s hardly going to draw attention to himself by making good on his blackmail threat to me now, is he? Not after the murder.”

“You don’t think the murder was a sort of warning for you, a signal?”

“Don’t be absurd. Things were in a delicate balance. Clough had everything to lose by harming Emily and everything to gain by keeping her alive. He’s not a stupid man, Banks. What do you imagine he’d guess my reaction to be if I thought for a moment that he’d murdered my daughter? It just doesn’t make sense.”

“I wouldn’t be too sure about that.” Banks really wanted a cigarette but he knew he couldn’t have one, not in Riddle’s house. “You must have known we’d find out sooner or later,” he said. “Why on earth didn’t you tell me?”

“It was a calculated risk. Why should I tell you? It was my personal business. My problem. It’s up to me to deal with it.”

“This wasn’t a personal problem. It stopped being that the minute someone murdered Emily, for Christ’s sake. Maybe Clough. You were withholding evidence.”

“What evidence?”

“That he was in the area around the time of her death, for a start. He could have easily given her the drugs.”

“I’ve tried not to interfere with the investigation in any way. I would like to have steered you away from Clough as a suspect, but I obviously couldn’t do that without raising suspicion.” Riddle leaned forward and rested his hands on his knees. “Think about it for a minute, Banks, before you go off half-cocked on this. What possible reason could Clough have for wanting to kill Emily when she represented his hold over me?”

“She didn’t need to be alive for him to make good on his threat.”

“But it wasn’t just the threat of revelations he made, remember. He also said he could take her back with him whenever he wanted. He knew I wouldn’t be able to bear the thought of her being with him. You should have told me, Banks. When you brought her back. You should have told us the sort of trouble she’d been getting herself into. You blame me for withholding evidence, but neither of you said a word about what Emily had been up to in London.”

Banks sighed. “What good would it have done?” Though maybe he should have, he thought miserably. He had believed that in keeping quiet he was saving the Riddles from unnecessary pain, and saving Emily perhaps from their disciplinarian backlash. But look what had happened. Emily was dead and Jimmy Riddle was in deep trouble himself. Trouble from which he might never fully recover. Banks remembered what Emily had told him about Riddle being a poor detective, always coming up with the wrong killer in the crime novels he read as an adolescent. He could believe it. “It’s no use blaming me,” he went on. “Believe me, there are times I wish I’d done things differently. But you. You’re a professional copper. You’re a bloody chief constable, for crying out loud. I can’t believe you’d be so stupid and stubborn and proud not to tell me that a man I’ve been seriously suspecting as your daughter’s killer actually approached you as a blackmail target only four days before she was murdered.”

Riddle’s expression hardened. “I told you. It was a private matter. It has nothing to do with Emily’s death. He had no motive for killing her. Don’t you think that if I really believed Clough had killed Emily I’d have throttled him with my bare hands by now? You might not understand this, Banks, but I loved my daughter.”

“Who can really know with someone like Clough?” Banks argued. “Perhaps from a business standpoint he would be better off with Emily alive, but he’s also a violent man, from what I’ve heard, and a possessive one. He doesn’t like people walking out on him. Maybe that’s why he killed her. Besides, I don’t believe she would have gone back to him that easily. She was frightened of him.”

“Well, that might be one good reason for going back to him, mightn’t it? Men like him might have a certain fascination for girls like… like Emily.”

“What do you mean?”

“Precocious, mischievous, rebellious. She’s always been like that. You know that she and I didn’t get on, no matter how much I cared about her. It always came out wrong. And Clough. He’s about my age, but he’s a criminal. Policeman – criminal. Don’t you see that she was doing this to hurt me?”

“If she’d wanted to hurt you, she’d have made sure you knew about it.”

Riddle just shook his head.

“Did Clough say anything about his business interests at this dinner?”

“No.”

“Did he mention PKF Computer Systems?”

“No.”

“Charlie Courage? Gregory Manners? Jamie Gilbert?”

“No. I’ve told you what he said. Don’t you think that if he’d told me anything incriminating I would have passed it along to you?”

“After what I’ve just heard, I don’t know about that.”

“There was nothing, Banks. Just his not-so-subtle blackmail hints.”

“But he was here, in the Eastvale area, when both Charlie Courage and your daughter were killed. Doesn’t that make you stop and think?”

“The first thing it makes me think is that he can’t have been responsible for the murders. He’s not so stupid as to be on the doorstep when they went down.”

“Stop defending him. For crying out loud, anyone would think you had…”

“What?”

“Never mind.”

“What are you going to do about it?”

Banks shook his head. “I don’t know.”

“Whatever it is, please have the decency to wait until after the funeral, would you?”

Banks said he would, but his mind was elsewhere, with what he had left unsaid. He could think of only one good reason why Riddle would be so unprofessional as to conceal the details about his secret meeting with Clough: that he was at least considering capitulating to Clough’s request. Which brought Banks to consider an even greater problem. With Emily’s death, clearly a large part of Clough’s hold over Riddle had been extinguished. If Clough hadn’t killed her, then, who did want Emily Riddle dead, and why?