Cold Is The Grave

2

On Friday afternoon, Banks was walking along Old Compton Street in the chilly November sunshine, having traveled down to London with Tracy and Damon that morning. After a grunted “Hi,” Damon had hardly spoken a word. The train was almost full, and the three of them couldn’t sit together, which seemed a relief to Tracy and Damon. Banks had to sit half the carriage away next to a fresh-faced young businessman wearing too much aftershave and playing FreeCell on his laptop computer.

Most of the journey he spent listening to Lucinda Williams’s Car Wheels on a Gravel Road and reading The Big Sleep, which he had substituted for Maigret and the Hundred Gibbets when he realized he wasn’t going to Paris. He had seen the Bogart film version a few weeks ago and enjoyed it so much it had made him want to read the book. Besides, Raymond Chandler seemed more suitable reading for the kind of job he was doing: Banks, PI.

Shortly before King’s Cross, his thoughts had returned to Tracy’s boyfriend.

Banks wasn’t at all certain what to think of Damon. The grunt was no more than he would have expected from any of his daughter’s friends, and he didn’t read anything into it, except perhaps that the lad was a bit embarrassed at coming face-to-face with the father of the girl he was sleeping with. Even the thought of that made Banks’s chest tighten, though he told himself not to get upset, not to interfere. The last thing he wanted to do was alienate his daughter, especially as he was hoping to get back together with her mother. It wouldn’t do any good, anyway. Tracy had her own life to lead now, and she was no fool. He hoped.

He had left the young lovers at King’s Cross and first gone to check in at the small Bloomsbury hotel he had telephoned the previous evening. Called simply Hotel Fifty-Five, after the street number, it was the place he favored whenever he visited London: quiet, discreet, well-located and relatively inexpensive. Riddle might have said he would pay any expenses, but Banks wouldn’t want to see the CC’s face if he got a bill from the Dorchester.

The morning’s rain had dispersed during the journey, and the day had turned out windy and cool under the kind of piercingly clear blue sky you only get in November. Maybe the bonfires would dry out in time for Guy Fawkes Night after all, Banks thought, as he zipped his leather jacket a bit higher. He tapped his briefcase against his thigh to the rhythm of some hip-hop music that drifted out of a sex shop.

Banks had strong feelings and memories associated with Soho ever since he used to walk the beat or drive the panda cars there out of Vine Street Station, after it had been reopened in the early seventies. Certainly the area had been cleaned up since then, but Soho could never be really clean. Cleanliness wasn’t in its nature.

He loved the whiff of villainy he got whenever he walked Old Compton Street or Dean Street, where a fiddle had been simply a hair’s breadth away from a legitimate business deal. He remembered the cold dawns at Berwick Street Market, a cigarette and mug of hot sweet tea in his hands, chatting with Sam, whose old brown collie Fetchit used to sit under the stall all day and watch the world go by with sad eyes. As the other stallholders set up their displays – fruit, crockery, knives and forks, knickers and socks, watches, egg slicers, you name it – Sam used to give Banks a running commentary on what was hot and what wasn’t. Probably dead now, along with Fetchit. They’d been old enough back then, when Banks was new to the job.

Not that Soho was ever without its dark side. Banks had found his first murder victim there in an alley off Frith Street: a seventeen-year-old prostitute who had been stabbed and mutilated, her breasts cut off and several of her inner organs removed. “Homage to Jack the Ripper,” as the newspaper headlines had screamed. Banks had been sick on the spot, and he still had nightmares about the long minutes he spent alone with the disemboweled body just before dawn in a garbage-strewn Soho alley.

As with all the dead in his life, he had put a name to her: Dawn Wadley. Being junior at the time, Banks was given the job of telling her parents. He would never forget the choking smell of urine, rotten meat and unwashed nappies in the cramped flat on the tenth floor of an East End tower block, or Dawn’s washed-out junkie mother, apparently unconcerned about the fate of the daughter she gave up on years ago. To her, Dawn’s murder was just another in the endless succession of life’s cruel blows, as if it had happened solely in order to do her down.

Banks turned into Wardour Street. Soho had changed, like the rest of the city. The old bookshops and video booths were still around, as was the Raymond Revue Bar, but cheap sex was definitely on the wane. In its place came a younger crowd, many of them gay, who chatted on their mobiles while sipping cappuccinos at chic outdoor cafés. Young men with shaved heads and earrings flirted on street corners with clean-cut boys from Palmer’s Green or Sudbury Hill. Gay bars had sprung up all over the place, and the party never stopped.

Banks checked the address for GlamourPuss Ltd. he had got from the first place he tried: the phone book. Sometimes things really are that easy.

From the outside, it looked like any number of other businesses operating in Soho. The building was run-down, paint flaking from the doors, the lino on the creaky corridors cracked and worn, but inside, through the second set of doors, it was all high-tech glam and potted plants, and he could still smell the fresh paint on the walls.

“Can I help you, sir?”

To Banks’s surprise, there was a female receptionist sitting behind a chest-high semicircle of black Plexiglas. Written on it, in florid pink script scattered with some sort of glitter, at about waist height, was the logo “GlamourPuss Ltd.: Erotica and More!” Banks had the idea, somehow, that women – right-thinking women, anyway – didn’t want anything to do with the porn business, that they wanted, in fact, to outlaw it if they could. Maybe this was a wrong-thinking woman? Or was she the respectable face of porn? If so, it was about nineteen, with short henna hair, a ghostly complexion and a stud through its left nostril. A little badge over her flat chest read “Tamara: Client Interface Officer.” Banks’s mind boggled. Can we interface, Tamara?

“I’d like to see the person in charge,” he said.

“Do you have an appointment, sir?”

“No.”

“What is the purpose of your visit?”

She was starting to sound like an immigration official, Banks thought, getting irritated. In the old days he would probably have just tweaked her nose-stud and walked right on in. Even these days he might do the same under normal circumstances, but he had to remember he was acting privately; he wasn’t here officially as a policeman. “Let’s call it a business proposition,” he said.

“I see. Please take a seat for a moment, sir. I’ll see if Mr. Aitcheson is free.” She gestured to the orange plastic chairs behind him. An array of magazines lay spread out on the coffee table in front of them. Banks lifted a couple up. Computer stuff, mostly. Not a Playboy or a Penthouse in sight. He looked up at Tamara, who had been carrying on a hushed conversation by telephone. She smiled. “He’ll be with you in a moment, sir.” Did she think he was looking for a job, or something? As what?

Banks was beginning to feel more as if he were in a dentist’s waiting room than a porn emporium, and that thought didn’t give him any comfort. Clearly, things had changed a lot since he had walked the Soho beat; enough to make him feel like an old fogy when he was only in his mid-forties. In the old days, at least you knew where you were: people like GlamourPuss Ltd., as befit their name and business, used to operate out of seedy offices in seedy basements; they didn’t run Internet Web sites; they didn’t have client-interface officers; and they certainly didn’t come out from under their stones to meet strangers offering vague business propositions the way this young man was doing right now, smiling, hand outstretched, wearing a suit, no less.

“Aitcheson,” he said. “Terry Aitcheson. And you are?”

“Banks. Alan Banks.”

“Pleased to meet you, Mr. Banks. Follow me. We’ll go to the office. Far more private in there.”

Banks followed him past Tamara, who gave a little wave and a nose twitch that looked painful. They crossed an open-space area filled with state-of-the-art computer equipment and went into a small office which looked out over Wardour Street. There was nothing either on the desk or the walls to indicate that GlamourPuss Ltd. dealt in pornography.

Aitcheson sat down and clasped his hands behind the back of his neck, still smiling. Up close, he looked older than Banks had first guessed – maybe late thirties – balding, with yellowing front teeth that were rather long and lupine. A few specks of dandruff speckled the shoulders of his suit. It was hardly fair, Banks thought, that even when you’re going bald you still get dandruff. “Okay, Mr. Banks,” said Aitcheson, “what can I do for you? You mentioned a business proposition.”

Banks felt a little more at home now. Smarmy smile and suit aside, he had dealt with pillocks like Aitcheson before, even if their offices weren’t as pretty and they didn’t bother to offer up a smug facade of decency. He took the truncated picture of Emily Riddle from his briefcase and put it on the desk, turning it so that Aitcheson could see the image the right way up. “I’d like you to tell me where I can find this girl,” he said.

Aitcheson studied the photo. His smile faltered a moment, then returned full force as he pushed the photograph back toward Banks. “I’m afraid we don’t give out that sort of information about our models, sir. For their own protection, you understand. We get some… well, some rather strange people in this business, as I’m sure you can understand.”

“So she is one of your models?”

“I was speaking generally, sir. Even if she were, I couldn’t give you the information you want.”

“Do you recognize her?”

“No.”

“What if I told you this came from a Web site run by your company?”

“We operate several Web sites, sir. They act as a major part of our interface with the public.” He smiled. “You have to be on the Web these days if you want to stay in business.”

Interface. That word again. It seemed to be a sort of buzzword around GlamourPuss Ltd. “Are escort services part of your business?”

“We have an escort agency as one of our subsidiary companies, yes, but you can’t just bring in a girl’s picture from one of our Web sites and place an order for her. That would be tantamount to pimping on our part.”

“And you don’t do that?”

“We do not.”

“What exactly is your business?”

“I should have thought that was obvious. Erotica in all its forms. Sex aids, videos, magazines, erotic encasement equipment and services, Web-site design and hosting, CD-ROMS, travel arrangements.”

“Erotic encasement equipment and services?”

Aitcheson smiled. “It’s a variation on bondage. Mummification’s the most popular. Some people liken it to an erotic meditative state, a sort of sexual nirvana. But there are those who simply prefer to be wrapped in cling film with rose thorns pressed against their flesh. It’s all a matter of taste.”

“I suppose it is,” said Banks, who was still trying to get his head around mummification. “And travel arrangements? What travel arrangements?”

Aitcheson graced Banks with a condescending smile. “Let’s say you’re gay and you want a cruise down the Nile with like-minded people. We can arrange it. Or a weekend in Amsterdam. A sex-tour of Bangkok.”

“Discount vouchers for brothels? Fifty pee off your next dildo? That sort of thing?”

Aitcheson moved to stand up, his smile gone. “I think that’s about all the time I can spare you at the moment, sir.”

Banks stood up, leaned over the desk and pushed him back down into his chair. It wheeled back a couple of inches and hit the wall, taking out a small chunk of plaster.

“Just a minute!” Aitcheson said.

Banks shook his head. “You don’t understand. That picture came from your Web site. Even if you don’t remember putting it up there yourself, you can find out who did and where it came from.”

“What’s this got to do with you anyway? Wait a minute. Are you a copper?”

Banks paused and glanced down at the photo again. The younger version of Rosalind Riddle’s features – pale skin, pouting lips, high cheekbones, blue eyes – looked up at him from under her fringe with a sort of mocking, come-hither sexuality. “It’s my daughter,” he said. “I’m trying to find her.”

“Well, I’m sorry, but we don’t run a location service for missing kids. There are organizations-”

“Pity, that,” Banks cut in. “Her being so young, and all.”

“What do you mean?”

Banks tapped the photo. “She can’t have been more than fifteen when this was taken.”

“Look, I’m not responsible for-”

“I think you’ll discover that the law says otherwise. Believe me, I’ve read up on it.” Banks leaned forward and rested his hands on the desk. “Mr. Aitcheson,” he said, “here’s my business proposition. There are two parts to it, actually, in case one of them alone doesn’t appeal. I must admit, I’m not always certain justice is done when you bring in the police and the lawyers. Are you? I mean, you could probably beat the charges of distribution and publication of indecent photographs of minors. Probably. But it could be an expensive business. And I don’t think you’d like the sort of interface it would create with your public. Do you follow? Child pornography is such an emotive term, isn’t it?”

Aitcheson’s smile had vanished completely now. “You sure you’re not a copper?” he whispered. “Or a lawyer?”

“Me? I’m just a simple working man.”

“Two parts. You said two parts.”

“Ah, yes,” said Banks. “As I said, I’m a simple working man, and I wouldn’t want to get tangled up with the law myself. Besides, it would be bad for young Louisa, wouldn’t it – all that limelight, giving evidence in court and all that. Embarrassing. Now, I work on a building site up north, and my fellow workers tend to be a conservative, even rather prudish lot when it comes to this sort of thing. It’s not that they mind looking at a pair of tits on a Playboy centerfold or anything like that, mind you, but, believe me, I’ve heard them talking about child pornography, and I wouldn’t want to be on the receiving end of some of the actions they propose to deal with the people who spread it, if you know what I mean.”

“Is this a threat?”

“Why not? Yes, let’s call it that: a threat. Suits me. Now, you tell me what I want to know, and I won’t tell the lads at the building site about GlamourPuss exploiting young Louisa. Some of them have known her since she was a little baby, you know. They’re very protective. As a matter of fact, most of them will be down here next week to see Leeds play Arsenal. I’m sure they’d be happy to find the time to drop by your offices, maybe do a bit of remodeling. Does that sound like a good deal to you?”

Aitcheson swallowed and started at Banks, who held his gaze. Finally, he brought out his smile again, a bit weaker now. “It really is a threat, isn’t it?”

“I thought I’d already made that clear. Do we have a deal?”

Aitcheson waved his arm. “All right, all right, I’ll see what I can do. Can you come back on Monday? We’re shut over the weekend.”

“I’d rather we got it over with now.”

“It might take a while.”

“I can wait.”

Banks waited. It took all of twenty minutes, then Aitcheson came back into the office looking worried. “I’m sorry,” he said, “but we just don’t have the information you require.”

“Come again?”

“We don’t have it. The model’s address. She’s not on our books, not part of our… I mean, it was an amateur shoot. I seem to remember she was the photographer’s girlfriend. He used to do some work for us now and then, and apparently he took those photos as a bit of a lark. I’m sure he didn’t know the model’s true age. She looks much older.”

“She’s always looked older than her years,” Banks said. “It’s got a lot of boys into trouble. Well, I’m relieved to hear she’s not on your books, but I don’t think we’re a lot further forward than when I first arrived, do you? Is there anything you can do to make amends?”

Aitcheson paused, then said, “I shouldn’t, but I can give you the photographer’s name and address. Craig Newton. As I said, he used to do a spot of work for us now and then, and we’ve still got him on file. We just got a change-of-address notice from him a short while ago, as a matter of fact.”

Banks nodded. “It’ll have to do.” Aitcheson scribbled down an address for him. It was in Stony Stratford, commuter country. Banks stood up to leave. “One more thing,” he said.

“Yes?”

“Those photos of Louisa on your Web site. Get rid of them.”

Aitcheson allowed himself a self-satisfied smile. “Actually,” he said, “I’ve done that already. While you were waiting.”

Banks smiled back and tapped the side of his nose with his forefinger. “Good lad,” he said. “You’re learning.”

Back at his hotel, Banks picked up the telephone and did what he had been putting off doing ever since he discovered he was bound for London the previous day. Not because it was something he didn’t want to do, but because he was nervous and uncertain of the outcome. And there was so much at stake.

She answered on the fourth ring. Banks’s heart pounded. “Sandra?”

“Yes. Who is this? Alan?”

“Yes.”

“What do you want? I’m in a bit of a hurry right now. I was just on my way out.”

“Off somewhere with Sean?”

“There’s no need to make it sound like that. And as a matter of fact, no, I’m not. Sean’s away photographing flood damage in Wales.”

Let’s hope the flood water carries him away with it, Banks thought, but bit his tongue. “I’m in town,” he said. “In London. I was wondering if, maybe, tomorrow night you might be free for a meal. Or we could just have a drink. Lunch, even.”

“What are you doing down here? Working?”

“In a manner of speaking. Are you free?”

He could almost hear Sandra thinking across the wires. Finally, she said, “Yes. Actually. Yes, I am. Sean won’t be back until Sunday.”

“So will you have dinner with me tomorrow night?”

“Yes. All right. That’s a good idea. There’s a few things we have to talk about.” She named a restaurant on Camden High Street, not far from where she lived. “Seven-thirty?”

“Can you make it eight, just to be on the safe side?”

“Eight, then.”

“Fine. See you there.”

“See you.”

Sandra hung up and Banks was left with the dead line buzzing in his ear. Maybe she hadn’t exactly welcomed him with open arms, but she hadn’t cut him off, either. More importantly, she had agreed to see him tomorrow And dinner was far more intimate than lunch or a quick drink in the afternoon. It was a good sign.

It was already dark by late afternoon when Banks took the train out of Euston. The Virgin InterCity sped through Hemel Hempstead so fast he could hardly read the station nameplate, then it slowed down near Berkhamsted for no reason Banks was aware of except that trains did that every now and then – something to do with leaves on the tracks, or a cow in a tunnel.

Berkhamsted was where Graham Greene came from, Banks remembered from A Sort of Life, which he had read a year or two ago. Greene had been one of his favorite writers ever since he first saw The Third Man on television back in the old Met days. After that, in his usual obsessive fashion, he collected and read everything he could get his hands on, from the “entertainments” to the serious novels, films on video, essays and short stories.

He was particularly taken by the story of the nineteen-or twenty-year-old Greene going out to Ashbridge Park in Berkhamsted with a loaded revolver to play Russian roulette. It was eerie now to imagine the awkward, gangly young man, destined to become one of the century’s most famous writers, clicking on an empty chamber that autumn over seventy-five years ago, not far from where the train had just stopped.

Banks had also been impressed by Greene’s writings on childhood, about how we are all “emigrants from a country we remember too little of,” how important to us are the fragments we do remember clearly and how we spend our time trying to reconstruct ourselves from these.

For most of his life, Banks hadn’t dwelled much on his past, but since Sandra had left him a year ago, he had found himself returning over and over again to certain incidents, the heightened moments of joy and fear and guilt, along with the objects, sights, sounds and smells that brought them back, like Proust’s madelaines, as if he were looking for clues to his future. He remembered reading that Greene, as a child, had had a number of confrontations with death, and these had helped shape his life. Banks had experienced the same thing, and he thought that in some obscure, symbolic way, they partly explained why he had become a policeman.

He remembered, for example, the hot summer day when Phil Simpkins wrapped his rope around the high tree in the churchyard and spiraled down, yelling like Tarzan, right onto the spiked railings. Banks knew he would never forget the squishy thud that the body made as it hit. There had been no adults around. Banks and two others had pulled their writhing, screaming friend off the railings and stood there wondering what to do while he bled to death, soaking them in the blood that gushed from a pierced artery in his thigh. Someone later said they should have tied a tourniquet and sent for help. But they had panicked, frozen. Would Phil have lived if they hadn’t? Banks thought not, but it was a possibility, and a mistake, he had lived with all his life.

Then there was Jem, a neighbor in his Notting Hill days, who had died of a heroin overdose; and Graham Marshall, a shy, quiet classmate who had gone missing and never been found. In his own way, Banks felt he was responsible for them, too. So many deaths for one so young. Sometimes Banks felt as if he had blood on his hands, that he had let so many people down.

The train stopped in Milton Keynes. Banks got off, walked up the stairs and along the overpass to the station exit.

He had never been to Milton Keynes before, though he had heard plenty of jokes about the place. One of the new towns, built in the late sixties, it was constructed on a grid system, with planned social centers, hidden pedestrian paths, rather than pavements, and hundreds of roundabouts. It sounded like the sort of design that would go down well in America, but the British sneered at it. Still, at not much over half an hour by train from London, and a much cheaper place to live, it was ideal commuting territory.

As it was, it was too dark to see much of the place. The taxi seemed to circle roundabout after roundabout, all of them with numbers, like V5 and H6. Banks didn’t see any pavements or people out walking. He hadn’t a clue where he was.

Finally, when the taxi turned into Stony Stratford, he found himself on a typical old village High Street, with ancient pubs and shop facades. For a moment, he wondered if it was all fake, just a faux finish to give the illusion of a real English village in the midst of all that concrete-and-glass modernity. It seemed real enough, though, and when the taxi pulled into a street of tall, narrow prewar terrace houses, he guessed that it probably was real.

The youth who answered the door looked to be in his mid- to late twenties; he wore black jeans and a gray sweatshirt advertising an American football team. He was about Banks’s height, around five feet eight or nine, with curly dark hair and finely chiseled features. His nose had a little bump at the bridge, as if it had been broken and not properly set, and he was holding something that looked like a squat vacuum flask, which he kept tipping gently from side to side. Banks recognized it as a developing tank.

Craig Newton, if that indeed was who it was, looked both puzzled and annoyed to find a stranger on his doorstep early on a Friday evening. Banks didn’t look like an insurance salesman – besides, how many salesmen still called at houses in these days of direct mail and electronic advertising? He also didn’t look like a religious type, or a copper.

“What are you collecting for?” Newton asked. “I’m busy.”

“Mr. Newton? Craig Newton?”

“Yes. What do you want?”

“Mind if I come in for a moment?”

“Yes, I do. Tell me what you want.”

“It’s about Louisa.”

Craig Newton stepped back a couple of inches, clearly startled. “Louisa? What about her?”

“You do know her, then?”

“Of course I do. If it’s the same person we’re talking about. Louisa. Louisa Gamine.” He pronounced it in Italian fashion, with a stress on the final e. “What’s wrong? Has something happened to Louisa?”

“Can I come in?”

He stood back and gave Banks enough room to enter. “Yes, I’m sorry. Please.”

Banks followed him down a narrow hallway into the front room. These old terrace houses weren’t very wide, but they made up for it in length, with both kitchen and bathroom tacked on at the back like afterthoughts. Comfortably messy, the first thing the room told Banks was that Newton probably lived alone. A number of magazines, mostly to do with photography or movies, littered the coffee table, along with a few empty lager cans. A TV set stood at the far end. “The Simpsons” was showing. There was also a faint whiff of marijuana in the air, though Newton didn’t appear stoned at all.

“Has something happened to Louisa?” he asked again. “Is that why you’re here? Are you a policeman?”

“Nothing’s happened to her as far as I know,” said Banks. “And no, I’m not a policeman. I’m looking for her.”

He frowned. “Looking for Louisa? Why? I don’t follow.”

“I’m her father.” The lies were starting to come rather more easily now, after just a little practice, and Banks wasn’t sure how he felt about that. Something to do with the end justifying the means crossed his mind and made him feel even more uneasy. Still, it wasn’t as if he hadn’t told plenty of lies in the course of his work, so why worry about it now he was doing the same thing as a private citizen? All in a good cause, if it could help a teenage runaway get herself sorted and get Jimmy Riddle off his back for good.

Craig raised his eyebrows. “Her father…?” Then he seemed suddenly to notice the developing tank he was shaking. “Shit. Look, I’ve got to finish this off properly or it’s a week’s work down the tubes. Come up if you like.”

Banks followed him upstairs, where Craig had turned his spare room into a makeshift darkroom. He didn’t need complete darkness for this stage of the process, so a dim light glowed on the wall. With expert, economic gestures, Craig emptied the tank of developer, poured in the stop bath and shook the tank again for a while. After that, he emptied it out again and poured in the fixer.

Banks noticed a number of photographs of Emily Riddle tacked to a corkboard. Not nude shots, but professional-looking folio stuff. In some she wore a strapless black evening gown and had her hair pinned up. In another she was wearing a vest and baggy jeans, showing her bare midriff with its spider tattoo, trying to look like Kate Moss or Amber Valletta.

“These are good,” he said to Craig.

Craig glanced over at them. “She could be a model,” he said sadly. “She’s a natural.”

The harsh chemical smells transported Banks back not to his life with Sandra, who was a keen amateur photographer, but to his childhood, when he used to go up to the attic darkroom with his Uncle Ted and watch him processing and printing. He liked the printing best, when the blank piece of paper went in the developing tray and you could watch the image slowly forming. It seemed like magic. Every time they went over, he pestered his Uncle Ted to take him up. There was a safe light on the wall, too, he remembered, just enough to see by, and it gave an eerie glow in the small room. But mostly it was the sharp, chemical smells he remembered, and the way constant exposure to the chemicals made his Uncle Ted’s fingernails brown, the same way nicotine stained Banks’s fingers when he started smoking. He used to scrub it off with pumice stone so his mother wouldn’t notice.

Then the visits to Uncle Ted’s stopped abruptly and nobody ever said why. It was years before Banks thought about those days again and managed to work it out for himself. He remembered his uncle’s hand on the small of his back, perhaps rubbing just a little, or the arm draped casually across his shoulders in an avuncular way. Nothing more. Never anything more. But there was some kind of scandal – not involving Banks, but someone else. Uncle Ted suddenly broke off his connection with the local Youth Club and no longer acted as a Boys’ Brigade leader. Nothing was said, no police were involved, but he was suddenly a pariah in the community. That was how things like that were dealt with back then in that sort of close working-class community. No doubt one or two of the local fathers lay in wait one night and gave him a beating, too, but Banks heard nothing about that. Uncle Ted was simply never mentioned again, and if Banks ever asked to go visit or mentioned the name, his mother’s mouth formed into a tight white line – a definite warning sign to shut up or else. Eventually, he stopped mentioning it and moved on to discovering girls.

“Okay,” said Craig, emptying out the fixer and inserting a hose attached to the cold water tap. “We’re all right for half an hour now.”

Banks followed him downstairs, still half-lost in memories of Uncle Ted, slowly moving to memories of Sandra, and how they made love in the red glow of her darkroom once.

Back in the living room, “The Simpsons” had given way to a documentary on Hollywood narrated in a plummy, superior accent. Craig turned the TV off and they sat down opposite one another in the narrow room.

Banks reached for his cigarettes; he’d been a long time without. “Mind if I smoke?”

“No, not at all.” Craig passed him a small ashtray from the mantelpiece. “I don’t indulge, myself, but it doesn’t bother me.”

“Not cigarettes, anyway.”

Craig blushed. “Well, a bit of weed never did anyone any harm, did it?”

“I suppose not.”

He continued to study Banks, his look wary and suspicious. “So, you’re Louisa’s father,” he said. “Funny, you don’t look Italian. She said her father was Italian. Met her mother in Tuscany or somewhere like that on holiday.”

“What did she say about me?”

“Not much. Just that you were a boring, tight-arsed old fart.”

Well, Banks thought, if you will go around assuming other people’s identities, you have to be prepared for the occasional unflattering remark – especially if that identity is Jimmy Riddle’s. On that score, Emily Riddle probably wasn’t far wrong. “Do you know where Louisa is?” he asked.

“Haven’t seen her for a couple of months,” said Craig. “Not since I moved out here.”

Banks showed him the photo. “This is the person we’re talking about, isn’t it?”

Craig looked at the photo and gasped. “You’ve seen them, then?”

“Yes. Is it the same girl we’re talking about?”

“Yeah. That’s her. Louisa.”

“My daughter. What happened? The photos on the Web site?”

“Look, I’m sorry. It was just a lark, really. It was her as much as me. More, really. Though I don’t expect you to believe me.”

“You took the photos?”

“Yes. We were living together at the time. Three months ago.”

“Here?”

“No. I was still in London then. Had a little flat in Dulwich.”

Emily Riddle was a fast worker, Banks thought. Only away from home three months and she was living with someone. “How did they get onto the GlamourPuss Web site?”

Craig looked away, into the empty fireplace. “I’m not proud of it,” he said. “I used to do some work for them. I went to school with one of the blokes who run the site, and I met him in a pub when I was a bit down on my luck, just after college. I’d studied photography, got my diploma, but it was hard to get started in the business. Anyway, he offered me a bit of paying work every now and then. Models. It didn’t seem that much different from life studies in college.”

It probably didn’t, really, Banks thought. Sandra was a photographer, too, and Banks had seen plenty of life studies she had taken at the camera club, male and female. He pointed to the cropped photo of Louisa. “You got paid for this?”

“No. Good Lord, no. This wasn’t paid work. Like I said, it was a lark. A bit of fun. We were… well, we’d been smoking a bit of weed, if you must know. After I’d taken them, Louisa said I should put them on the Web with some of the other stuff I’d done – the professional stuff. She said it would be really cool. Rick said he liked them, so we put them up in the amateurs gallery. But that’s all. I mean Louisa doesn’t have any connection with the rest of the GlamourPuss business.”

Just what Aitcheson had said at the office. Maybe it was true. “I’m glad to hear that. Are you sure?”

“Certain. She never did. The photos were just a one-off. A joke. I was trying out a new digital camera and… well, one thing led to another.”

“Okay,” said Banks, waving his hand. “Let’s put that behind us. I’d really like to find Louisa, just to talk to her. I’m sure you understand. Can you tell me where she is?”

“I wasn’t lying. I don’t know where she is. I haven’t seen her in two months.”

“What happened?”

“She met another bloke.”

“And left you?”

“Like a shot.”

“Who is he?”

“I don’t know his name… I…” Craig turned away again.

“Craig? Is something wrong?”

“No. Maybe. I don’t know.”

“Talk to me, Craig.”

Craig stood up. “How about a drink?”

“If it’ll help loosen your tongue.”

“Lager okay?”

“Lager’s fine.”

Craig brought a couple of cans from the fridge and offered one to Banks. He took it and popped the tab, watching the foam well up and subside. He took a sip and leaned back in the chair. “I’m waiting.”

“You sure you’re not a copper?”

“I told you. I’m Louisa’s father. Why?”

“I don’t know. Just something… Never mind. Besides, you don’t really look old enough to be her father. Not like I imagined, anyway. I would’ve expected some bald wrinkly in a suit, to be honest. With a funny accent, waving his arms around a lot.”

“I’m flattered,” said Banks, “but how old did you think she was?”

“Louisa? Nineteen. When I met her, that is.”

“How long ago was that?”

“About three or four months. Why?”

“Because she’d just turned sixteen, that’s why.”

Craig spluttered on his beer. “She never! I mean, for crying out loud. I wouldn’t’ve touched… You’ve seen the photos. You’re her father, for Christ’s sake!”

“Calm down,” said Banks. “Louisa always did look older than her age, even if she didn’t always act it.”

“She had that… I don’t know… she seemed young but mature, worldly and innocent at the same time. That was one of the attractive things about her. To me, anyway. She was a walking mass of contradictions. I swear, if you were me, and she told you she was nineteen, twenty-one, even, you’d believe her.”

“How old are you?”

“Twenty-seven. Look, I’m sorry. I really am. About everything. But she told me she was nineteen and I believed her. What can I say? Yes, I was attracted to her. But I’m no cradle snatcher. That wasn’t it at all. Most of my girlfriends have been older than me, as a matter of fact. She just had this aura, like she knew what it was all about, but when it got right down to it she was vulnerable, too, and you felt like you wanted to protect her. It’s hard to explain.”

Banks felt sad and angry, as if this really were his own daughter he was discussing. Stupid. “What happened? You say you don’t know where she is, that she found another boyfriend. Who?”

“I told you I don’t know his name. I’d tell you if I did. I don’t know who he is. All I know is the last time I saw her she was with him. They were coming out of a pub in Soho, not far from the GlamourPuss offices. I’d been there having a pint with that old schoolfriend, Rick, and trying to shake a bit more business out of him. I’d been taking a few candids out in the street. I was upset about her leaving me without a word, so I went up to her and tried to talk to her.”

“What happened?”

“A couple of goons attacked me.” He pointed to his nose. “That’s how I got this.” Then he pointed to his head. “And I had to have seen stitches where my head hit the pavement.”

“Two goons?”

“That’s what they looked like. Bodyguards. Minders. Nobody said a word. It all happened so quickly.”

“When did this happen?”

“About a month ago.”

“What was Louisa doing at the time?”

“She was hanging on this bloke’s arm, not doing anything really. She looked high. I mean really high, not just like a couple of drinks and a spliff high. I heard her giggling when I went down.”

“And the man she was with? What did he look like?”

“Stone-faced. All sharp angles, like it was carved from granite. Hard eyes, too. Didn’t blink. Didn’t smile. Not a word. When I was on the ground, one of the goons kicked me, then they all just disappeared. Someone came out of the pub and helped me up, and that was that. I was lucky they didn’t break my camera. It was a Minolta. An expensive one.”

Banks thought for a moment. He didn’t like what he was hearing at all. “Can you tell me anything more about this man?”

Craig shrugged. “Don’t know, really. I didn’t get a really good look at him. Tall. Maybe about six two or three. Looked older.”

“Than who?”

“More your age than mine.”

Banks felt his stomach rumbling and realized he hadn’t eaten all day, except for a slice of toast with his morning coffee. He hadn’t finished with Newton yet, though; there were still things he needed to know. “Is there anywhere decent to eat around here?” he asked.

“Couple of good Indian places down the High Street, if that’s your sort of thing.”

“Fancy a meal? On me.”

Craig looked surprised. “Sure. Why not? Just let me hang up the negs to dry. Won’t be a minute.” He left the room. Banks stayed where he was, finishing his lager, and thought a bit more about darkrooms, Uncle Ted, and Sandra naked in the infrared light. Dinner. Tomorrow.

They walked down to the narrow High Street. The wind had dropped, but it was a chilly evening and there weren’t many people out. Banks was glad of his warm leather jacket. They passed a sign on the wall of one of the buildings that made some reference to Richard III. Historical too, then, Stony Stratford.

“It’s supposed to be where he picked up the princes in the tower,” said Craig. “Before they were in the tower, like. You know, the ones he killed.”

Craig picked a relatively inexpensive Indian restaurant. It was comfortably warm inside, and the exotic smells made Banks’s mouth water the minute they got in the door. When they had ordered beers and were nibbling on poppadams in anticipation of their main courses, Banks picked up the subject of Louisa again. “Did she ever mention this boyfriend to you before?”

“No. One day everything seemed fine, the next she packed her stuff – what little she had – and she was gone before I got home. I had a wedding to shoot that day. My first, and it was a big deal. When I got home, all I found was a note. I remember it word for word.” He closed his eyes. “‘Sorry, Craig, it’s just not working out. You’re sweet lad. Maybe see you around. Hugs and Kisses, Louisa.’ That was it.”

“You had no idea at all what was going on? That she’d met someone else?”

“Not at the time, no. But the bloke’s often the last to find out, isn’t he?”

“Had you been arguing?”

“Yeah, but that was par for the course with Louisa.”

“You argued a lot?”

“A fair bit.”

“What about?”

“Oh, the usual stuff. She was bored. Our life lacked glamour and excitement. She wanted to go places more. She said I wasn’t paying enough attention to her, that I was taking her for granted.”

“Was it true?”

“Maybe. Some of it. I was working a lot, getting paying jobs, like that wedding. I suppose I was probably spending more time in the darkroom than I was with her. And I didn’t know where she was half the time. I mean, we’d only been living together a month or so. It wasn’t as if we were an old married couple, or something.”

“She went out alone a lot?”

“She said she was out with her mates. Sometimes she didn’t come back till two or three in the morning. Said she’d been clubbing. Well, you don’t hold on to a girl like Louisa by clipping her wings, so there wasn’t a lot I could do about it. It got me down a bit, though.”

“Did you know any of her friends?”

“Only Ruth. She introduced us.”

“Ruth?”

“Yeah. Ruth Walker.”

“How did she know Louisa?”

“Dunno. But Ruth’s always taking in strays. Heart of gold, she’s got. Do anything for you. Louisa was staying with her when we met. I’ve known Ruth since I was at college. She was doing a computer course at the university, and she helped me out with some digital photography software. We got to be friends. I’d go see her once in a while, you know, take her down to the pub or out to see a movie or a band or something – she’s really into the live-music scene – and one time I went, there was Louisa, sitting on her sofa. I won’t say it was love at first sight, but it was definitely something.”

Lust, no doubt, thought Banks. “Were you and Ruth lovers?”

“Ruth and me? Nah. Nothing like that. We were just friends.”

The food came – balti prawns for Craig and lamb korma for Banks, along with pullao rice, mango chutney and naans – and they paused as they shared out the dishes. The ubiquitous sitar music droned in the background.

“Okay,” said Banks after a few bites to stay the rumbling of his stomach. “What happened next?”

“Well, Ruth had got Louisa a job at the same company she worked for out Canary Wharf way. Nothing much, just fetching and carrying, really. Louisa didn’t have any great job skills. But it brought in a quid or two, helped get her on her feet.”

“Did Louisa talk much about her past?”

“Only to put it down. Sounds as if you gave her a pretty rough time. Sorry, but you asked.”

“I suppose I did.” Banks tasted the lamb. It was a bit too greasy, but it would do. He soaked up some sauce with his naan.

“Anyway,” Craig went on, “she didn’t last long there. Didn’t seem to take to office work at all, as a matter of fact. Or any work, for that matter.”

“Why was that?”

“I think it was mostly her attitude. Louisa thinks other people are there to work for her, not the other way around. And she’s got attitude with a capital A.”

“How did she survive after that?”

“She had a few quid of her own in the bank. She never said how much, but she never seemed to go short. Sometimes she borrowed off Ruth or me. She could go through money like nobody’s business, could Louisa.”

“And the new boyfriend?”

Craig nodded. “If he’s the sort of bloke who can afford minders, then he’s probably not short of a few quid, is he? Gone up in the world, she had, young Louisa.”

That’s right, Banks thought. And if he’s the sort of bloke who needs minders, then the odds are that he makes his money in a dodgy way, a way that could make him enemies who want to do him physical harm, a way that could also put Emily in jeopardy. The more Banks heard, the more worried about her he became. “Are you sure you’ve got no idea who he is, where I can find them?”

“Sorry. If I knew, I’d tell you. Believe me.”

“Do you think Ruth Walker might know?”

“It’s possible. She wouldn’t tell me when I asked her, but I think Louisa must have told her I was obsessed with her, stalking her or something.”

“Were you?”

“Course not.”

“Then what makes you think that?”

“Just the way she looked at me. We haven’t been quite the same since that whole thing with Louisa, Ruth and me. But she might tell you.”

Banks shrugged. “It’s worth a try.”

Craig gave him the address of Ruth’s flat in Kennington. “You know, I really liked Louisa,” he mused. “Maybe I loved her… I don’t know. She was pretty wild, and her mood swings… well… all I can say is she could make one of those divas look stable. But I liked her. Still, maybe I’m better off without her. At least I can concentrate on my work now, and I need to do that. Lord knows, she ran me ragged. But for a while there, when she’d first gone, there was a big hole in my life. I know it sounds corny, but I’d no energy, no real will to go on. The world didn’t look the same. Not as bright. Not as interesting. Gray.”

Welcome to reality, thought Banks. He had come prepared to be hard on Craig Newton – after all, Craig had taken the nude photographs of Emily that had ended up on the GlamourPuss Web site for every pervert to drool over – but the lad was actually turning out to be quite likable. If Craig was to be believed, he had genuinely thought that Emily was nineteen – and who wouldn’t, going by the evidence Banks had seen and heard so far – and the Web photos had simply been a foolish lark. Craig also seemed to care about Emily – he hadn’t only been with her for the sex, or whatever else a sixteen-year-old girl had to offer a twenty-seven-year-old man – and that went a long way in Bank’s estimation.

On the other hand, this new boyfriend sounded like trouble, and Emily Louise Riddle herself sounded like a royal pain in the arse.

“Why did you move out here?” Banks asked. “Because of Louisa?”

“Partly. It was around that time. It’s funny, but I’d mentioned getting out of London a couple of times and Louisa went all cold on me, the way she did when she wasn’t getting her own way or heard something she didn’t like. Anyway, I got the chance of a partnership in a small studio here with a bloke I went to college with. A straight-up, legit business this time – portraits and weddings, mostly. No porn. I was fed up of London by then, anyway. Not just the thing with Louisa, but other things. Too expensive. Too hard to make a living. Too much competition. The hours I was putting in. You’ve really got to hustle hard there, and I was discovering I’m not much of a hustler at heart. I began to think I’d be better off as a bigger fish in a smaller pond.”

“And?”

He looked up from his prawns and smiled. “It seems to be working out.” Then he paused. “This is weird, though. I never thought I’d be sitting down having a curry with Louisa’s dad, chatting in a civilized manner. I’ve got to say, you’re not at all what I imagined.”

“So you said. A boring old fart.”

“Yeah, well, that’s what she said. Wouldn’t let her do anything, go anywhere. Kept her a virtual prisoner in the house.”

“Lock up your daughters?”

“Yeah. Did you?”

“You know what she’s like. What do you think I should have done?”

“With Louisa? I used to think I knew what she was like. Now I’m not so sure. From what you say, she told me a pack of lies right from the start. How can I believe anything about her? What do you do with someone like her?”

Indeed, thought Banks, feeling just a little guilty over his deception. What do you do? The thing was, that the more he found himself pretending to be Louisa’s father, the more he found himself slipping into the role. So much so that on the slow train back to Euston later that evening, after Craig had kindly given him a lift to the station, when he thought about what his own daughter might be up to in Paris with Damon, he wasn’t sure whether he was angry at Tracy or at Emily Riddle.

And the more he thought about the situation, the more he realized that it had never been finding Emily Riddle that concerned him; it was what he was going to do after he’d found her that really bothered him.