Cold Is The Grave

17

Annie pulled up in the staff car park of the red brick fire station in Salford just past eleven-thirty the next morning, after over an hour spent crawling along the M62 and getting lost in the center of Manchester. A lorry had over-turned at one of the junctions near Huddersfield, and traffic was backed up as far as the intersection with the M1. The weather hadn’t helped, either. After last night’s deep freeze, the roads were icy despite the brilliant winter sunshine that glinted on windscreens and bonnet ornaments.

The fire station stood on an arterial road near the estate of shabby Georgian semis where Ruth Walker had grown up. Banks had told Annie about Ruth’s being Rosalind Riddle’s daughter. Ruth had told a lot of lies, he said, and he thought they should find out more about her background, including the fire in which both her parents were killed eighteen months ago. It had been easy to track down the address via the Salford Fire Department, which was Annie’s first port of call. The fire-station captain, George Whitmore, said he would be pleased to talk to her.

The firemen were sitting around playing cards in a large upper room above the gleaming red engines. The place smelled of sweat, aftershave and oil. They were an odd lot, firemen, Annie had always thought. When everything was going well, they had no job to do at all, just the way the police would have nothing to do if people weren’t committing crimes. Annie had known one of the local lads back in St. Ives who spent his time at work writing Westerns under a pseudonym, selling about one a month to an American publisher. She had also been out with a fireman who ran a carpet-cleaning business on the side, and one of his friends ran an airport taxi service. They all seemed to have three or four jobs on the go. Of course, fires are as inevitable as crime, and when it came to the crunch, nobody would deny the heroism of firemen if the occasion demanded it. And no matter how politically correct you tried to be about it, no matter how much people talked about recruiting more women to the job, whether you called them Combustion Control Engineers or Flame Suppressant Units, the truth about firemen was summed up in what they always had been and always would be called as far as Annie was concerned: firemen.

“Mr. Whitmore around?” she asked one of the card players.

He gave her the once-over, smiled as if he thought he was sexy and pointed with his thumb. “Office back there.”

Annie felt his eyes on her behind as she walked away, heard a whisper, then men’s laughter. She thought of turning and making some comment about how childish they were but decided they weren’t worth the effort.

George Whitmore turned out to be a pleasant, good-natured man with cropped gray hair, not far from retirement age by the look of him. He had framed photos of his family, including grandchildren, on his desk.

“You’re the lass who phoned earlier, are you?” he said, bidding Annie to sit down.

“Yes.”

“Well, I should’ve told you you’ve probably made a long journey for nothing.”

Annie smiled at him. “I don’t mind. It’s nice to get out of the office for a while.” She took out her notebook. “You remember the Walker fire?”

“Yes. I was on the crew back then, before my bad back put me on office duties a year ago.”

“You were at the scene?”

“Yes. It happened, oh, about three or four in the morning, or a bit after. I could look it up if you want the exact time.”

“It doesn’t matter for the moment. Just your impressions will do.”

He paused and frowned. “If you don’t mind me asking, love, why do the police want to know about the Walker fire now, after all this time?”

“It’s just a background check,” Annie said. “Routine.”

“Because there was nothing funny about it.”

“I understand there was no police investigation?”

“Not beyond what’s required by law and the insurance company. No reason for one.”

“What was the cause of the fire?”

“A smoldering cigarette end down the side of the sofa.”

Another reason smoking’s bad for your health, thought Annie. “And you ruled out arson?”

Whitmore nodded. “Early on. There were no signs of forced entry, of anything being disturbed, for a start. There was also no evidence of accelerants being used, and, quite honestly, nobody had any reason to harm the Walkers.”

“You knew them?”

“Only in passing. To say hello to. They were active in chapel. Everyone knew that. I’m not a particularly religious sort myself. Nice, God-fearing couple, though, by all accounts. Nice daughter they had, too. Poor lass barely escaped with her life.”

“That’d be Ruth?”

“Aye. They only had the one.”

“So what happened from the moment the alarm went off?”

“They didn’t have a smoke detector. If they’d had one, it’s likely they wouldn’t have died. A neighbor saw the smoke and flames and phoned us. By the time we got there, most of the neighbors were already out in the street. See, a cigarette can smolder for hours and generate a lot of heat. When it takes hold, it really goes. The fire had taken hold by then, and it took us a good hour or so to put it out completely. At least we managed to stop it spreading.”

“Where was Ruth at this time?”

“They’d taken her to hospital. She jumped out of her bedroom window in the nick of time. Broke her ankle and dislocated her shoulder.”

“Nasty.”

“The ankle was the worst. Bad fracture, apparently. Took her weeks before she could walk again without crutches or a stick. Anyway, it wasn’t nearly as nasty as what happened to her mum and dad. She was the lucky one. There’d been a shower earlier in the evening, and the ground was soft, or she might have broken more bones.”

“How did her parents die?”

“Smoke inhalation. That’s what the postmortem showed. Never even had time to get out of bed. Ruth had inhaled some smoke, too, before she jumped, but not enough to do her much harm. A whiff of oxygen and she was right as rain.”

“Why did she have time to escape and her parents didn’t?”

Whitmore shrugged. “Younger, stronger, quicker reflexes. Also, her room was at the front, and the fire was worse further back. Her parents were probably dead when she jumped.”

“Can you tell me anything else?”

“That’s about it, really, love. Told you you’d probably had a wasted journey.”

“Well, you know what it’s like,” said Annie. “Was the house completely destroyed?”

“Pretty much. Inside, at any rate.”

“And now?”

“Oh, someone bought it and had it renovated. To look at it now you’d never know such tragedy happened there.”

Annie stood up. “Where is it from here, exactly?”

“Carry on along the main road, go left at the next lights and it’s the second street on the right.”

“Thanks very much.” Annie left Whitmore’s tiny office and walked back past the card players. This time one of them whistled at her. She smiled to herself. It felt quite nice, actually. Thirty-something and she still got whistled at. She’d have to tell Alan about that.

Alan. They had talked most of the night while the peat fire blazed in the hearth and soft jazz played in the background. He told her about Rosalind’s visit, about Emily and Ruth, about the guilt he felt on finding Riddle dead in his garage, and she told him about how Dalton’s appearance had knocked her out of kilter, brought back feelings she didn’t know she still harbored, and how she had confronted him on Sunday morning.

Had it been summer, they would have been up talking until dawn, but because it was December, the only light that shone through the windows at four o’clock in the morning came from a full moon as white as frost. Even then they continued to talk, and the way Annie remembered it she thought she had probably fallen asleep in mid-sentence.

It wasn’t until both had slept for about three hours that they made love – tentatively and tenderly – and in the morning they had to scrape the ice off their car windows and drive like hell to get to work on time.

Now, it seemed to Annie as if there were no more secrets, as if nothing stood between them. She still worried about their working together, especially now that she was stationed at Western Divisional HQ, too, and she could never quite get over her fear of commitment, of rejection. But Banks hadn’t asked her for commitment, and if anything, it was she who had rejected him last time, out of fear of his past impinging on her life.

All she really knew, she decided, was that whatever it was they had, she wanted it. It was time again to take her lesson from Eastern philosophy – go with the flow.

Annie smiled as she touched up her makeup, using the rear-view, then she headed off to see if she could discover anything from the Walkers’s neighbors.

The atmosphere that had hung over the death scene at Riddle’s garage the previous day seemed to have permeated the entire station, Banks thought as he looked out of his window at the market square. The place had all the atmosphere of a funeral parlor. While Riddle might not have been the most loved or admired chief constable they had ever had, he had been one of them, and he was dead. It was like losing a member of the family. A distant and austere uncle perhaps, but still a family member. Even Banks felt heavy-hearted as he sipped his bitter black coffee.

The dark mood reminded him of the days after Graham Marshall’s disappearance, when everyone in the school seemed to be going around walking on eggs, in a daze, and conversations all seemed to be carried out in whispers. Those days had given Banks his first real taste of guilt, a sense of being responsible for people that was one of the things that spurred him on now in his job. He knew deep down that he was no more responsible for Graham Marshall’s disappearance than he was for Phil Simpkins’s bleeding to death on the railings, or Jem’s overdose of heroin, but he seemed to attract the guilt, draw it to him and wrap it around himself like a comforting mantle.

When he thought of Annie, though, he felt his spirits rise. He knew not to expect too much – she had made that quite clear – but at least they had got beyond the rumors and fears they had been bogged down in the past week. Banks sensed the possibility of a new, deeper trust. It would have to develop naturally, though; there could be no pushing, not with someone as scared of intimacy as Annie was, or someone as recently battle-scarred as himself. Sandra’s asking for a divorce and telling him she wanted to marry Sean might have given him a sense of finality, of liberation, but the old wounds were still there. Which reminded him: he ought to respond to the second solicitor’s letter, or Sandra would think he had changed his mind.

Banks could see a knot of reporters outside the station. He looked at his watch: almost opening time. Pretty soon they’d all be ensconced in the Queen’s Arms padding out each other’s expense accounts. Riddle’s suicide was the kind of thing that got the London dailies this far up north. No official statements had been issued yet, and the Riddle house was still under secure guard. Of course, they could have a field day with this one: CHIEF CONSTABLE COMMITS SUICIDE WITH POLICE GUARD ONLY YARDS AWAY. They could spin that to read whatever way they wanted.

Rosalind was going down to stay with her parents in Barnstaple when she had made the funeral arrangements. Then, she had told Banks just before she left the previous evening, she would sell the house and decide what to do next. There was no hurry – she would be well provided for – but she would move as far away from Yorkshire as possible. Banks felt for her; he had absolutely no conception of how awful it must feel to lose a daughter and a spouse in the space of only a few days. He couldn’t even imagine how terrible it would be to lose Brian or Tracy.

Banks’s ancient heater hissed and sputtered as he sat down and thought over the previous evening’s conversation with Rosalind. One obvious point was that, by telling him what she had, she had inadvertently supplied him with a motive for getting rid of Emily. Or was it inadvertent? He had no doubt that Rosalind could be devious when she wanted to – after all, she was a lawyer – but he had no idea as to why she would want to incriminate herself that way. Put simply, though, if Rosalind wanted to keep Ruth’s existence from her husband, and if Emily was a loose cannon on the deck, then Rosalind had a motive for getting Emily out of the way.

And, by extension, she had an even better motive for wanting Ruth Walker out of the way permanently.

Since Riddle’s suicide, though, it was all academic. The money, the status, the celebrity, the possibility of political life – they had all vanished into thin air. Nothing remained for Rosalind except Benjamin and Ruth, and Banks doubted she would have anything more to do with Ruth after all that had happened. It was enough to prove the writer of Ecclesiastes right when he wrote that all is vanity.

Banks couldn’t bring himself to believe that Rosalind had actually given her own daughter cocaine laced with strychnine, or that she was right now plotting the demise of her other daughter, but at the same time he had to bear in mind that there was no love lost between any of them and that, once, Rosalind had given her child away to strangers and moved on to the wealth and power and their trappings she seemed to need so much. And when it came right down to it, no matter what Bank’s gut instinct told him, we are all capable of murder given the right incentive.

Whichever way he looked at it, Ruth Walker’s sudden prominence in the case was a complication he could do without. While Annie dug up information on Ruth’s background in Salford, Banks was trying to find out as much as he could about her present life in Kennington while he waited for a call from Burgess. He had already made several phone calls and had two pages of notes.

When his telephone rang, he thought it was Ruth’s boss calling him back, but it was the other phone call he’d been waiting for, Burgess’s the one that gave a green light for the second interview with Barry Clough. And not before time, too; they could only hang on to him for another couple of hours at most.

It seemed a pleasant enough neighborhood, Annie thought, standing by the side of the road looking at the houses. Not at all the sort of place you would expect in Salford, though if she was honest she would have to admit she had never been to Salford before and had no idea what to expect. Semi-detached houses lined both sides of the quiet road, each with a fair-sized front lawn tucked away behind a privet hedge. The cars parked in the street were not ostentatious, but they weren’t rusted and clapped-out ten-year-old Fiestas, either. Most of them were imported Japanese or Korean models, and Annie’s Astra didn’t look too out of place. Crime-wise, she guessed, the biggest problems would be the occasional break-in and car theft.

Number 39 was much like the other houses. As Whitmore had said, there was no indication whatsoever of the tragedy that had taken place there. Annie tried to imagine the flames, the smoke, the screams and neighbors standing out in their slippers and dressing gowns watching, helpless, as Ruth jumped from the upstairs window and her parents suffocated, unable even to get out of their beds.

“Help you, dearie?”

Annie turned and saw an elderly woman clutching a shopping bag with arthritis-crippled fingers.

“Only you look like you’re lost or something.”

“No,” said Annie, smiling to reassure the woman she wasn’t crazy or anything. “Just lost in thought, maybe.”

“Did you know the Walkers?”

“No.”

“Only you were looking at their house.”

“Yes. I’m a policewoman.” Annie introduced herself.

“Tattersall. Gladys Tattersall,” the woman said. “Pleased to meet you, I’m sure. Don’t tell me you’re opening an investigation into the fire after all this time?”

“No. Do you think we should be?”

“Why don’t you come inside. I’ll put the kettle on. I’m at number thirty-seven here.”

It was the semi adjoining the Walker house. “It must have been frightening for you,” Annie said as she followed Mrs. Tattersall down the path and into the hall.

“I was more frightened during the bombing in the war. Mind you, I was just a lass then. Come in. Sit down.”

Annie entered the living room and sat on a plum velour armchair. A gilt-framed mirror hung over the fireplace and the inevitable television set sat on its stand in the corner. At the far end of the room was a dining table with four chairs arranged around it. Mrs. Tattersall went into the kitchen and came back. “Won’t be long,” she said, sitting on the sofa. “You’re right, though. It was a frightening night.”

“Was it you who called the fire brigade?”

“No. That was the Hennessy lad over the road. He was coming home late from a club and he saw the flames and smoke. It was him came knocking on our door and told us to get out fast. That’s me and my husband, Bernard. He passed away last winter. Cancer.”

“I’m sorry to hear it.”

“Oh, it’s all right, lass. It was a blessing, really. It was in his lungs, though he was never a smoker. The painkillers weren’t doing him much good toward the end.”

Annie paused for a moment. It seemed appropriate after the mention of the late Mr. Tattersall. “Was your house damaged?”

Mrs. Tattersall shook her head. “We were lucky. The walls got a bit warm, I can tell you, but the fire brigade sprayed the exterior with enough water to start a swimming pool. It was August, you see, warm weather, and we’d left a window open, so a bit of it got inside and did some damage to the walls – peeling paper, stains, that sort of thing. But nothing serious. The insurance paid for it. Perhaps the worst that came out of it for us was having to live here while the people that bought the house after the fire hammered and banged away all hours of the day and night.”

“The renovators?”

“Yes.” The kettle boiled. Mrs. Tattersall disappeared for a few minutes and returned with the tea service on a tray, which she set down on the low table in front of the electric fire. “You haven’t told me why you’re asking,” she said.

“It’s just a routine check. Nothing to do with the fire, really. It just seemed like an easy place to start.”

“Routine? That’s what you always say on telly.”

Annie laughed. “It’s probably about the only realistic thing about TV coppers, then. It’s Ruth we’re interested in. The daughter.”

“Is she in any trouble?”

“Not as far as I know. Why do you ask?”

Mrs. Tattersall leaned forward and poured. “Milk and sugar?”

“Just milk, please.”

“You wouldn’t be asking about her for the good of your health, would you?”

“It’s to do with a friend of hers,” Annie said. Like most police, she was loath to give away the slightest scrap of information.

“I suppose that’ll have to do, then,” said Mrs. Tattersall, handing Annie the cup and saucer.

“Thank you. Did you know the Walkers well?”

“Pretty well. I mean, as well as you could do.”

“What do you mean?”

“They weren’t the most sociable types, weren’t the Walkers.”

“Standoffish? Snobbish?”

“No, not really. I mean, they were polite enough. Polite to a tee. And helpful if you needed anything. Lord knows they didn’t have much themselves, but they’d give you the shirt off their backs. They just didn’t mix.” She paused, then whispered, “Religious,” the same way she had whispered cancer.

“More than most?”

“I’d say so. Oh, it was nothing strange. None of those weird cults or churches where you can’t have blood transfusions or anything. Straight Methodist. But strict observers. Against Sunday shopping, drinking, pop music, that sort of thing.”

“What was Mr. Walker’s occupation?”

“Wages clerk.”

“Did his wife work?”

“Pauline? Good heavens, no. They were as traditional as you get. She was a housewife.”

“You don’t get many of those in this day and age.”

Mrs. Tattersall laughed. “You’re telling me you don’t, lass. Me, half the time I couldn’t wait to get out of the house and to work. Not that I had such a wonderful job, myself, I was only a receptionist at the medical center down the road. But you get to meet people, chat, find out what’s going on in the world. I’d go barmy if I was stuck between four walls day in, day out. Wouldn’t you?”

“I would,” said Annie. “But Mrs. Walker didn’t seem to mind?”

“She never complained. But it’s against their religion, isn’t it, complaining?”

“I didn’t know that.” Annie would have been the first to admit that she didn’t know much about religion except what she had read, and she had read mostly about Buddhism and Taoism. Her father was an atheist, so he hadn’t subjected her to Sunday school or any of the usual childhood indoctrination, and the people who came and went in the commune carried with them a variety of ideas about religion and philosophy. Everything was always up for debate, up in the air.

“I mean, if whatever happens to you is God’s will, good or bad, then you’ve no call to be complaining to God about God, if you see what I mean.”

“I think I do.”

“They were just a bit old-fashioned, that’s all. People used to laugh behind their backs. Oh, nothing vicious or anything. It was mostly good-humored. Not that they’d have noticed. That was another thing that wasn’t in their religion. Humor. I did feel a bit sorry for young Ruth sometimes.”

“Why?”

“Well, there wasn’t much fun in her life. And young people need fun. Even us old ’uns need a bit of fun from time to time, but when you’re young…” She sighed. “Anyway, the Walkers’ values were different from other folks’. And they didn’t have much money, with only him working.”

“How did they get by?”

“Parsimony. She were a good housekeeper, Pauline, I’ll give her that. Good budgeter. But it meant that young Ruth could hardly stay up-to-date with fashions and whatnot. You’d see her in the same outfit year after year. A nip here and a tuck there. And shoes. Good Lord, she’d be clomping around in the most ugly things you could imagine. Pauline bought her them because they were durable, you see. Sturdy, sensible things with thick soles so they’d last a long time. None of these Nike trainers or Reeboks, like the other kids were wearing. Like it or not, love, fashions are so important to children, especially in their teens.” She laughed. “I should know; I’ve brought up two of them.”

“What happened?”

“The usual. The other girls at school laughed at her, called her names, tormented her. Children can be so cruel. And they’d no time for music or telly, either – wouldn’t have a record player or a television set in the house – so poor Ruth couldn’t join in the conversations with the rest. She didn’t know all about the latest hits and the popular television programs. She was always a bit of a loner. It wasn’t as if she was a great beauty, either. She was always a rather pasty-faced, dumpy sort of lass, and that kind are easy to pick on.”

It was starting to sound like a pretty miserable household to grow up in, Annie thought. The artists’ colony where she had grown up herself didn’t have a television, either, but there was always music – often live – and all sorts of interesting people around. Some nights they would sing songs and recite poems. She could hear them from her bedroom. It was all mumbo-jumbo to her then, of course, none of it rhymed or anything, but they seemed to enjoy themselves. Sometimes, they let her sing for them, too, and if she said so herself, she didn’t have a bad voice for traditional folk music.

Still, she thought she could relate to Ruth’s feeling of being an outsider. If you’re different in any way – no matter whether your family’s too strict or too liberal – you get picked on, especially if you aren’t up on the latest styles, too. Children are cruel; Mrs. Tattersall was right about that. Annie could remember some of their cruelties of her own childhood very well indeed.

Once, when she was about thirteen, a gang of classmates had waylaid her in the lane on her way home from school, dragged her into the trees, stripped her and painted flowers all over her body while they made remarks about filthy, drug-taking hippies and flower power. They had then run off with her clothes and left her to make the rest of her way home naked. Cruel. You could say that again. She had found her clothes hanging on a tree by the side of the lane going to school the next day. And that was in 1980, when hippies were history and the sixties was something her classmates could only have read about in books or seen on television documentaries. The people who lived at the commune were artists and writers, free thinkers, yes, but hippies? No. Annie’s only sin was to be different, to wear the kind of clothes she wanted to wear (and that her father could afford, artists never having been among the richest members of society). Yes, in an odd way, she could sympathize very easily with Ruth Walker: two sides of the same coin.

“Ruth went off to university, didn’t she?”

“Yes. That’s what changed everything.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, they wanted her to go to Manchester, like, and keep on living at home so they could keep an eye on her, but she went to London. They thought university was a den of iniquity, you see, full of sex and drugs, but they also knew you don’t get very far in this day and age without a good education. It was a bit of a dilemma for them. Anyway, she got her student grant or loan or whatever they get, so she had a bit of money of her own for the first time, and in the holidays she usually got a job. It gave her her first taste of independence.”

“What did she do with her money?”

“Bought clothes, mostly. You should have seen her when she came back after her first year. Had all the latest styles. Whatever they were wearing at the moment. It all changes far too quickly for me to keep up with it. Anyway, she looked like any other rebellious young lass her age. Had her hair dyed all the colors of the rainbow, rings through her ears and eyebrows. Looked awfully painful. She’d found her brave new world, all right.”

“How did her parents react?”

“I don’t know. They never said anything in public. I can’t imagine they were pleased, though. I got the feeling they were ashamed of her.”

“Did you hear any rows? Through the walls.”

“They never got angry. Against their religion. I think they pleaded with her and tried to get her to switch to a course at Manchester and come back home, but she’d changed too much by then. It was too late. She’d had her taste of freedom and she wasn’t about to give it up. I can’t say I blame her.”

“So the matter went unresolved?”

“I suppose so. She spent that summer working at the local supermarket, general floor washer and shelf stacker, that sort of thing. She was a bright lass and a hard worker, and to do her justice, even when she looked like a tearaway she didn’t cause any trouble. She was always polite.”

“So she just looked strange?”

“That’s about all. I think she’d reacted against the religion, too. At least she didn’t go to chapel with them anymore. But kids do that, don’t they?”

“They do,” Annie agreed. “I was talking to one of the firemen, Mr. Whitmore, earlier.”

“I know George Whitmore. He was a friend of my Bernard’s. They used to enjoy a game of darts down at the King Billy on a Friday night.”

“He said they didn’t see any need to investigate the fire.”

“That’s right. I can’t see why they would. That’s why I was wondering what on earth you were doing here. Nobody would want to hurt the Walkers.”

“Mr. Whitmore said it was probably started by a cigarette left smoldering down the side of the sofa.”

“Well, that was a bit odd,” said Mrs. Tattersall slowly. “Being religious and all, the way they were, you see, the Walkers didn’t smoke or drink.”

“But I’ll bet Ruth did,” said Annie.

Clough looked a little the worse for wear after his night in the cell, though the kind of suit he wore hardly showed a wrinkle. He had chosen not to shave, and the stubble, along with the tan, the gold and the elegant dress, made him look slightly unreal, like some sort of aging pop star. His lawyer, Simon Gallagher, however, who had no doubt spent the night in Burgundy House, Eastvale’s poshest and priciest hotel, had taken the opportunity to clean himself up a bit, and now he looked every inch the high-priced solicitor. He still had the twitchy, perky manner of a habitual cokehead, though, and Banks wondered if he’d snorted up a couple of lines before the interview. He didn’t say a lot, but he just couldn’t sit still.

With Annie in Salford and Winsome back inputting data into HOLMES, Banks got Kevin Templeton to attend the interview with him. After the usual preliminaries, Banks began.

“Hope you had a comfortable night, Barry.”

“You don’t give a rat’s arse what kind of night I had, so why don’t you cut the crap and get to the point.” Clough looked at his watch. “According to this, my twenty-four hours are up in about one hour and forty-five minutes. That right, Simon?”

Simon Gallagher nodded. Or twitched.

“We aim to please,” said Banks. “Anyway, I don’t know if you’ve heard, but since we last talked, Chief Constable Riddle committed suicide.”

“Well, at least that’s one thing you can’t bang me up for, then, isn’t it?”

“Is that all you’ve got to say about it?”

“What do you expect? I didn’t know the man.”

Even people who did know Riddle, Banks thought, might show as little concern as Clough. Banks himself hadn’t liked the man, and he didn’t intend to be hypocritical about it now, but the tragedy and despair of the act pierced his dislike to some extent. Nobody should be reduced to that. “Were you putting pressure on him, Barry?”

“What do you mean?”

“I think you know what I mean. Putting pressure on him to become your man, to do you the odd favor or two, make sure we looked the other way when you set up your little scams in North Yorkshire.”

“Why would I want to do that?”

“You tell me.”

“I wouldn’t.”

“But that’s what your meeting was about, wasn’t it? That’s why he walked out before you really got started, isn’t it? What were you using, Barry? Was it Emily? Do you have photographs? Did you threaten him that you could take her back anytime you wanted?”

Clough sighed and rolled his eyes at Gallagher.

“I think you’ve already exhausted this line of questioning,” Gallagher said. “As you are well aware, my client could have had nothing to do with Mr. Riddle’s unfortunate death, even if it hadn’t been suicide. He has the best of all alibis: he was in your cells.”

“Your client might have been one of the chief factors that drove the chief constable over the edge.”

“You can’t prove that,” said Gallagher. “And even if you could, it hardly constitutes an indictable offense. Stick to the facts, Chief Inspector. Move on.”

Banks was loath to give up and move on, but Gallagher was probably right. It would take a hell of a lot more than he had to persuade the CPS to even look at the possibility of prosecuting someone for complicity in the suicide of another. If Banks remembered his criminal law correctly, complicity could mean aiding, abetting, counseling or procuring another’s suicide, and there was no evidence that Clough, even though he might have been trying to blackmail Riddle, had done any of those things. He was simply the straw that broke the camel’s back.

Banks moved on. “Remember we were talking yesterday about Charlie Courage and Andrew Handley?”

“Vaguely.”

“That both were killed by shotgun blasts, and both were found in rural areas some distance from their homes.”

“I believe I asked what that had to do with me at the time, and now I’m asking again.”

“Just this,” said Banks, pausing and opening the file folder he had brought in with him. “While you’ve been enjoying our hospitality downstairs, we’ve been very busy indeed, and our forensics men have been able to match the tire tracks at the two scenes.”

“I’m impressed,” said Clough, raising an eyebrow. “The wonders of modern science.”

“There’s even better to come. On further investigation, they were able to match the tracks found at the scene of the two murders to a cream Citroën owned by a Mr. Jamie Gilbert. One of your employees, yes?”

“Jamie? You already know that.”

“And it also turns out that one of Charlie Courage’s neighbors recognized the photograph of Jamie Gilbert our officer showed her. Jamie was seen getting into a car with Charlie Courage around the time he disappeared. Anything to say?”

“They must be mistaken.”

“Who?”

“Your scientists. This witness.”

Banks shook his head. “Afraid not. Not only do the tires match, but we were also able to find hair samples and minute traces of blood we believe belong to either Charlie Courage or Andrew Handley in the car. Jamie was careless. He didn’t clean it out thoroughly enough. The samples are being checked for DNA now.”

“I don’t know what to say,” said Clough. “I’m shocked. Stunned, even. And I thought I knew Jamie.”

“Evidently not. Anyway, Mr. Gilbert is in custody back in London at the moment. He’ll no doubt be telling the interviewing officers down there exactly what happened.”

“Jamie won’t…”

“Jamie won’t what, Barry?”

Clough smiled. “I was just about to say that Jamie won’t be saying anything. You don’t know him as well as I do. He’s not the type.”

“But you said just now that you only thought you knew him, that you’re surprised he’s a murderer.”

“An alleged murderer,” Simon Gallagher chipped in.

“My apologies,” Banks went on. “An alleged murderer.”

“You know what I mean.”

“Do you have any idea why Jamie Gilbert would want to kill Charlie Courage and Andrew Handley?”

“None at all.”

“Did he even know Charlie Courage?”

“I don’t know who he hangs about with in his spare time.”

“But he works for you.”

“Worked. If you think I’m going to keep a murderer in my employ you must think I’m crazy. He’s fired as of now.”

“He worked for you at the time of the murders. He was your chief enforcer. And he did know Andrew Handley.”

“Jamie was my administrative assistant. I already told you that.”

“What did he administer for you? Punishment?”

“He handled my business affairs.”

“Just exactly what might those be?”

“For crying out loud!” Clough looked at Gallagher. “Can’t you get him to stop this? It’s like an old LP with the bloody needle stuck.”

“Legitimate questions, Barry. Legitimate questions.”

Clough glared at Gallagher, who turned to Banks. “Get to the point quickly, Chief Inspector. We’re all running out of time and patience here.”

“Not me,” said Banks. “Barry, is it true you were fired as a roadie for bootlegging the band’s live performances?”

Clough faltered, clearly not expecting the question. “What the hell has that got to do with anything?”

“Just answer my question, please.”

“It was years ago. There were no charges or anything.”

“But you do have a history in bootlegging?”

“It was a mistake.”

“Well, pirating is big business these days. Movies, computer software, games. Big business. Maybe not as big here as it is in the Far East or eastern Europe, but big enough to provide maximum profits for minimum risks. Just the kind of business venture that interests you, isn’t it, Barry?”

“Chief Inspector!”

“Sorry, Mr. Gallagher. Slip of the tongue.” Banks could see Kevin Templeton trying to stifle his grin. “You’ve already admitted you know Gregory Manners, haven’t you?” Banks pressed on.

“I’ve admitted no such thing.”

“Mr. Manners has a conviction for smuggling. Customs and Excise had their eyes on him for a while.”

“What’s that got to do with me?”

“They had their eyes on you, too.”

“Well, if they’d seen anything they’d have arrested me, wouldn’t they?”

“You’re obviously a very careful man. It’s odd, though, isn’t it?”

“What is?”

“So many of your friends and employees being criminals. Jamie Gilbert. Andrew Handley. Gregory Manners. Charlie Courage.”

“I told you, I’ve never heard of a Gregory Manners or a Charlie Courage.”

“Of course not. My mistake. The others, though.”

“Like I said, it’s hardly my responsibility what my employees get up to in their own time. Maybe criminals have more fun.”

“One might be forgiven for assuming that they were merely carrying out your orders.”

“Assume what you want. You can’t prove anything.”

“I’d say if a man has one criminal employee, that might be carelessness, but two…?”

“Are we going anywhere with this, Chief Inspector?” Gallagher chipped in. “Because if we’re not, we can stop right here. As they say in the vernacular, either shit or get off the pot.”

“And you a well-educated man, Mr. Gallagher. Tut-tut. I’m appalled. Wash your mouth out, as my mother would say.”

Clough stood up. “I’ve had enough of this.”

“Sit down, Barry,” said Banks.

“You can’t make me. I’m free to go whenever-”

“Sit down!”

Clough was so taken aback by Banks’s harsh tone that he subsided slowly into his chair again. Gallagher said nothing. He looked as if he badly needed another couple of lines. Banks leaned forward and rested his arms on the table. “Now, let me tell you what I think happened, Barry. You had a nice little earner going, pirating software and games. You’d rent units in business parks all over the country for a while under phony company names, flood the local markets, using the same distribution setup you’d organized for your smuggling business; then you’d move on, like playing hopscotch, always one step ahead of Trading Standards. Gregory Manners ran the operation in the Daleview Business Park and Andrew Handley oversaw the regional operation. Just my guess, of course, but Andy wasn’t seen around the place as much as Mr. Manners was. Andy Pandy got very pissed off at you, perhaps because of the way you treated him like shit, pushing Emily into the room with him, passing on your leftovers. He decided, in revenge, to rip off the operation. To do this, he enlisted Charlie Courage, night watchman and petty criminal. Charlie probably arranged for the move to Northumbria and passed the details on to Andy Pandy, who arranged a hijack, killing the driver, Jonathan Fearn, a local wide-boy recruited by Charlie. How am I doing so far?”

Clough sat with his arms folded, a supercilious grin on his face. “It’s fascinating. You should write detective fiction.”

“But you suspect a double cross. You don’t trust what you hear about Charlie Courage. Maybe you don’t like strangers being brought in on things. Whatever. You lean on Gregory Manners enough to know it’s not him. Which leaves Andy Pandy. Then you have Jamie Gilbert and another minder pick up Charlie and ask him a few questions. The hard way. Charlie never did have much of a stomach for violence, and it doesn’t take long before he spills the whole scam. They take him for the long ride and blow him away, then they do the same with Andy Pandy, after they’ve beaten the whereabouts of the stolen stock and multidisc copying machines from him.”

“And where are these machines, then, seeing as you’re so clever?”

“Barry,” Gallagher cut in, “I’d strongly advise-”

Banks waved him down. “It’s all right, Mr. Gallagher. I’ll answer Barry’s question. Andy Pandy had a lockup in Golders Green, and it was broken into shortly after he disappeared. I think your lads also did that, took back the stolen equipment. My guess is that you’ve sold it by now and moved on to something else. How am I doing so far?”

Clough contemplated his fingernails. “Like I said, it’s a fascinating story. You’ve missed your vocation. See, Simon, they’ve got nothing?”

“Remember, Chief Inspector,” said Gallagher, “time’s running out. Shit or get off the pot.”

Banks paused, scribbled a couple of meaningless notes in his file, then got up and said to Kevin Templeton, “Take Mr. Clough downstairs to the custody sergeant, Kevin, and have him charged with conspiracy to commit murder. I’m sure Mr. Gallagher will make sure everything’s done according to PACE regulations.”

Clough flushed. “You can’t do this. Tell them, Simon. Tell them they can’t do this!”

“I’ll deal with it, Barry,” said Gallagher. “Don’t worry, I’ll have you out in no time.”

“What do you mean, you’ll have me out in no time? Out of where?”

“He means out of prison, Barry,” said Banks. “And if you ask me, I think he’s being overly optimistic.”

“If truth be told,” said Banks to Annie over an after-work pint in the Queen’s Arms that evening, “I think it was me being overly optimistic in thinking we can make any charges stick against Clough.”

Annie sipped her pint and settled into her chair. She looked around. The pub was pretty quiet at that time in the evening; most people were at home having dinner and watching the news. Occasionally, a Christmas shopper or two would come in with carrier bags from Marks amp; Spencer’s, Tandy’s or W.H. Smith’s in the Swainsdale Centre across the square, knock back a quick whiskey to warm the cockles and head out again. Christmas decorations hung across the ceiling. The pub’s dim light glowed in the polished wood and brass, the dimpled, copper-topped tables, the sparkling glasses and the bottles arranged behind the bar. Cyril, the landlord, stood chatting to a regular. The jukebox was mercifully silent and Annie could hear the church choir collecting for a refugee relief fund, singing “Away in a Manger” under the giant Christmas tree outside. Poor kids, she thought. It was real brass-monkey weather out there; they must be freezing.

“You don’t think there’s much hope, then?” she asked.

Banks shrugged. “We’ll set up a meeting with Stafford Oakes in the CPS office, but let’s just say it’s pretty flimsy evidence so far.”

“What about the forensics?”

“I’ve never put much faith in tire tracks. Most people don’t know Goodyear from Michelin.”

“But the blood?”

“Might be something there, if the lab doesn’t ‘lose’ the evidence.”

“What do you mean?”

“Remember that fire at the Wetherby lab a few years ago?”

“Yes.”

“That was started to destroy evidence being kept there. Don’t you think someone like Clough is capable of something similar?”

“I hadn’t thought of that. What about the witness who saw Jamie Gilbert with Courage?”

“Easy meat.”

“Oh, dear.”

“Indeed. I have a terrible feeling that they’ll both walk. Conspiracy’s always a bugger to prove. And as for implicating him in Riddle’s suicide… that was pissing against the wind.”

“It was suicide, then?”

“Not much doubt about it. I had a brief word with Dr. Glendenning after he did the postmortem this afternoon. No signs of a struggle, no signs of restraint or drugs in the system. He’ll run a full tox check, of course, just to be certain. And the note’s been checked by an expert. It’s Riddle’s handwriting. No, I think we can be pretty certain that Jimmy Riddle voluntarily sat in his car with the engine running. We can also be damn certain that the business with Emily and the pressure Clough was putting on him were a big part of what drove him to it, but we can’t touch Clough for that.”

“He’s a slippery bastard, all right.”

“Anyway, I’m getting more and more interested in Ruth Walker.”

“You think she killed Emily?”

“I think she might have. It never really made any sense to me that Clough would have done it, especially after he tried to blackmail Riddle, much as I’d have loved to put him away for it.”

“But Ruth?”

“She certainly had the opportunity, for a start. She was off work, poorly, at the time Emily was killed, or so she says. She could have driven up and back easily.”

“And the means?”

“She said she had a cold, but I think her sniffle might have been caused by something else.”

“Coke?”

“At a guess.”

“What about the strychnine, though?”

“One of the leads I’m following up. As far as I can piece it together, her degree’s in computers and information technology. She’s very bright, got first-class honors and walked straight from university into a good job. She works for a computer software company. One of the employees told me that they custom-design specific software systems for specific business applications.”

“You think she could be connected with Clough’s pirating racket?”

“It is a connection that springs immediately to mind, I’ll admit, but no. That’s not it. This isn’t the sort of thing you could profitably pirate. It’s tailor-made for very specific business functions.”

“So where does it lead us?”

“This employee I talked to, she thinks that Ruth’s working on an inventory-control system for a large pharmaceutical company.”

Annie whistled. “I see.”

“What I’m trying to find out, if I can get hold of the boss there, is whether the job could possibly have given her access to controlled drugs such as strychnine.”

“And if there’s any missing?”

“Yes. But it could have been such a small quantity it wouldn’t be missed. I don’t know how tightly they control these things.”

“Pretty tightly, I’d say. But if Ruth really was working on inventory control…”

“She might have access to the inventory. Yes. And she might also have been in a position to falsify data about quantities. We’ll just have to wait and see. In the meantime there’s another couple of things we need to follow up on.” Banks lit a cigarette. “Want something to eat?”

Annie shook her head. “I’ve got some leftover pasta at home. Pub food’s not very appetizing to a vegetarian.”

“They do a nice salad sandwich, I’m told.”

“I know. I’ve had one. A strip of wilted lettuce and a couple of slices of green tomato. What next?”

“First off, I want you to ask Darren Hirst, the boy who was with Emily the night she died, for access to his cellphone records. I just realized last night what was bothering me about the Riddles’s phone records.”

“What?”

“Emily’s call to me the day before she died. It wasn’t listed.”

“She could have used a public box.”

“That’s what I thought at first, with the background noise and all. But Darren has a cell phone and she was out with him and the gang that night. It’s my bet she used his phone, and that she also used it to talk to whoever she set up the drug buy with. It’s hardly likely she’d risk using her home phone for something like that. What I’d like to know is whether she used Darren’s phone to call Ruth close to the time of her murder.”

“That should be easy enough to find out.”

“There’s another thing. I also phoned Craig Newton, Emily’s ex-boyfriend down in Stony Stratford.”

“And?”

“When I went to talk to him, I remember noticing some photographs of Emily that bore a strong resemblance to the one that appeared in the newspaper yesterday.”

“You think he was behind the story?”

“Craig? No. But he confirmed that Ruth also had prints of the photos because they’d been taken at a party they’d all attended.”

“One of Clough’s parties?”

“Not this time, no. Before Clough. The point is, though, that Ruth could have supplied the newspaper with the photograph and the hints about Clough and Jimmy Riddle.”

“But how could she know?”

“I’ve no idea. It’s all speculation so far. She obviously knew about Emily and Clough, probably knew Clough was a bit of a gangster. If she had discovered that Rosalind Riddle was her birth mother and was blackmailing her over it, it’s no great leap of imagination to assume that she knew Jimmy Riddle was chief constable.”

“I suppose not. But why?”

“To cause trouble for the Riddles. She was already black-mailing Rosalind, remember. Perhaps after Emily’s murder Rosalind refused to pay up any more.”

“Are we going to talk to Ruth again soon?”

“Definitely. Up here this time. I’ll have her brought up tomorrow. I hope we’ll have answers to some of our questions before she arrives. There’s one other thing.”

“What’s that?”

“We need to talk to the person who saw Emily get into the car at the Red Lion. So far I’ve been thinking that a light-colored car driven by someone with short blond hair probably meant Jamie Gilbert.”

“And now?”

“Ruth Walker. She drives a cream car – I’ve seen it – and she’d bleached her hair blond the second time I saw her. Another drink?”

“Better not,” Annie said. “I’ve got a long drive home. You should be careful, too.”

“You’re going home?”

“Don’t look so disappointed. We’ve got a busy day tomorrow.”

“You’re right. But you can’t blame me for showing a little disappointment.”

Annie smiled. “I’d be pissed off if you hadn’t. Anyway, after last night I’m worn out. I’m surprised you’re not tired, too.”

“It’s been a long day. That’s true.” Banks swirled the last quarter of his pint around the bottom of his glass. “Do you think Ruth killed her adoptive parents?”

“Very unlikely. Mind you, I think she was definitely responsible for the cigarette end that started the fire. Her parents didn’t smoke or drink. They were good Methodists. Ruth went a bit wild when she got to university. Maybe she’d had a few drinks and didn’t put it out properly.”

“It doesn’t sound as if she made any attempt to save them.”

“Who knows what happened in there, what she could or couldn’t have done? She hurt herself badly getting out.”

“Yes, but she lived. Were postmortems performed on the parents?”

Annie nodded. “I checked. No cause for suspicion. In both cases death was due to smoke inhalation. Just as with Chief Constable Riddle, there were no signs that they were restrained in any way, or drugged, and no indication that any obstacles had been placed in the way of their getting out. They were old and slow. That’s all there is to it.”

“Makes you wonder, though, doesn’t it?”

“About what?”

“Oh, life, the universe, everything.”

Annie slapped his arm, laughed and stood up. “I’m off before you start getting really philosophical. What about you?”

“One more cigarette, then I’ve got a couple more things to do back at the office.”

“See you tomorrow, then.”

“See you.”

Annie walked out into the cold night air and paused for a while, listening to the choir singing “Silent Night” through chattering teeth. Then she dropped a few coins in the collection box and hurried off to her car before she changed her mind about Bank’s offer.