Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 148, Nos. 3 & 4. Whole Nos. 900 & 901, September/October 2016

The Village That Lost Its Head by Peter Robinson

Winner of the best-short-story Edgar for his 11/00 EQMM story “Missing in Action,” Peter Robinson may be best known to EQMM readers today as the author of the DI Alan Banks novels, which have been made into a TV series for the U.K.’s ITV and shown on PBS. The fifth season of the TV series, starring Stephen Tompkinson, is currently in production. This new Banks story is set, like the rest of the series, in the author’s native Yorkshire.

DCI Alan Banks knelt by the body in the stocks and stared into its empty eye sockets. Despite the ungodly hour, a small crowd had already gathered around the borders of Fortford village green. As people pushed up against the crime-scene tape and craned their necks to see what was going on, the local Police Community Support Officers were doing their best to keep order as two CSIs struggled to erect a canvas screen around the body. DI Annie Cabbot and DS Winsome Jackman were already in the crowd asking questions. Beyond the murmur of voices, Banks could hear the dawn chorus from the trees and hills. Already the low sun was warm enough to bring out a sheen of sweat on his forehead.

Banks heard his knees crack as he stood up to look behind, where he saw that the man was sitting on a wooden stool about three feet high. The stocks were of the pillory kind, with holes for legs, hands, and head. Anyone locked in between the hinged wooden boards would hardly be able to move. They were large enough that he wasn’t bent quite double, but had he been alive he would have been hellishly uncomfortable after a few hours of such imprisonment.

Banks looked at his watch as he gently touched the victim’s jaw and neck to make sure his theory about rigor was correct. They had hardened. In general, he knew, the facial muscles began to stiffen about two or three hours after death. It had been a warm night, which would have speeded up the process, and judging by the stage they had reached now, Banks estimated time of death at maybe four to six hours ago. As it was now just after six o’clock in the morning, the man had probably died around midnight, give or take an hour. Which made sense. Banks didn’t know at that point whether he had been killed in the stocks or put there after his death, but it was more than likely that, whatever the sequence of events, they had taken place after dark.

The body had been discovered shortly after dawn, which came early in North Yorkshire at that time of year, by a van driver delivering the morning papers to the local newsagent’s shop. He, in turn, had banged on the door of Gareth Young, the local Police Community Support Officer, who had immediately called in his closest colleagues and put a call in to Eastvale Police HQ. While waiting for the Homicide and Major Crimes Squad to arrive, the officers had made themselves useful by erecting crime-scene tape around a large section of the green. Such unusual activity so early in the morning had woken a good number of the villagers, who had immediately trooped out to see what was going on, some still in their pyjamas.

After they had screened the body from the prying eyes of the onlookers, the CSIs went about searching for trace evidence in the grass around the stocks, while police photographer Peter Darby snapped away. Enough people had told him to get up to date and go digital, but he swore by the Pentax SLR, and nobody could complain about the results.

Dr. Burns, the police surgeon, arrived just after six-thirty and asked if he could remove the body from the stocks. Banks called over Stefan Nowak, Crime Scene Manager, and asked about the padlocks. Nowak nodded, asked one of his men to get some bolt cutters from the back of their van, and carefully snipped open the locks, placing them immediately into plastic bags and labelling them.

With Banks’s help, Dr. Burns laid the body out on the village green. After several minutes of squatting beside it poking and prodding, he got to his feet and said, “There’s no obvious cause of death, and I’d say the wounds were inflicted postmortem. You can see for yourself that the grass is hardly awash with blood.”

“Yes.” Banks pointed to drag marks on the green. “And it looks as if the body was dragged over the green from the road there,” he said. “Perhaps from a car.”

“He was put in the stocks pretty quickly after death,” said Burns. “You can see from the lividity, the areas where the blood has settled after the heart stopped beating. It’s consistent with his position when he was found.” He knelt by the body again and made a brief head-to-toe inspection. When Dr. Burns looked up, Banks could tell he had noticed something that bothered him.

“What is it?” he asked.

“It’s the tongue,” said Dr. Burns. “His tongue has been cut out.”

“‘Hear all, see all, say nowt,’ ” Banks muttered to himself, remembering an old Yorkshire rhyme.

Just after Dr. Burns had left, DS Winsome Jackman slipped around the screen and came to a sudden halt when she looked down and saw the man’s naked and mutilated body spread out on the grass. Winsome was a tall and beautiful black woman in her early thirties, and though most members of the Dales communities had got used to her over the years she had been working there, she still attracted a few stares from the unwary, ethnic minorities being quite rare in that part of the world. If DI Annie Cabbot, Banks’s second-in-command, drew any looks, it was more for her manner of dress than the colour of her skin, her size or beauty — though she was a fine-looking woman, long legged and lithe, with a head of chestnut hair parted in the middle, falling in elegant waves over her shoulders. She followed Winsome into the inner cordon, and today she was wearing red boots, tight jeans, and an oversize blue T-shirt with KEEP CALM AND PUT ON THE HANDCUFFS printed on the front. Area Commander Gervaise would have a thing or two to say about that, if she ever saw it, Banks thought with a smile.

“Anything?” asked Banks.

“Nobody saw or heard a thing,” said Winsome.

“Same here,” Annie said. “Not a dicky bird. They must sleep the sleep of the truly innocent around here.”

“Then, when we arrive at the scene, they all decide to get up and come for a look at the dead body,” said Banks.

Annie shrugged. “Rural communities. What can you say? They rise early.” She looked at the corpse. “You must admit he’s a corker, though, as far as dead bodies go.”

“It’s interesting,” said Banks. “That’s what it is. Interesting. And dead. Anyone know who he is?”

Annie shook her head. “Nobody I talked to. But I’m not sure I’d recognise my own next-door neighbour, the state he’s in. And the PCSOs have kept them far enough back. You really couldn’t see much more than the top of his head from the edge of the green, even before the screen went up.”

Banks nodded. “I’ll have a chat with local PCSO, and we’ll get a photo or an artist’s impression organised as soon as we can.”

“So what now?” Annie asked.

“We’ll need a temporary incident room. Village hall, or something like that. In the meantime, why don’t you and Winsome go and knock on a few doors.” The north-south road through Fortford split to circumvent the village green, and the body had clearly been dragged to the stocks from the southbound side. There were cottages across the road, and the occasional snicket led off to more streets, more homes. “Somebody must have noticed something.”

Annie gave a mock salute. “Will do. Come on,” she said to Winsome. “Time to pay a few house calls.”

Banks watched Winsome and Annie leave, then he turned back to the body. The man was fortyish, Banks guessed. Lank fair hair, stubby fingers, bitten nails, but not a manual labourer’s hands. Not fat, not too skinny, average height. It wasn’t much to go on. Maybe somebody would recognise him.

Kneeling again by the bloody head, Banks took a deep breath and sighed as he exhaled and looked up at the clear blue sky. He could probably say goodbye to his long weekend in Umbria with the beautiful Oriana. No fresh fish from Lake Trasimeno or Montefalco wine for him. Just an eyeless, earless, and tongueless corpse found padlocked into some seventeenth-century stocks on Fortford village green. Sometimes he wondered whether he had chosen the right career.

“His name is Max Belling,” said PCSO Gareth Young. “He was an accountant. Lived in one of those posh houses behind the high street.”

“Perhaps you can take my DI and a search team over there later this morning,” said Banks. They were sitting in the village hall, which Annie had commandeered as an incident room, sipping weak tea, and despite all the windows and doors being open, the hall was still hot. “Was Belling a wealthy man?”

“Wealthy enough. There’s a lot of that here in Fortford. Professionals, businessmen who’ve made enough to retire at forty or thereabouts. Like George Harris. Owns a string of stationery shops. Doesn’t have to do a stroke of work anymore, and he can’t be more than forty-five. And Dr. Cruickshank’s not short of a bob or two either. He was another mate of Max Belling’s. I reckon he must do plastic surgery on the side down Harley Street or somewhere.”

Banks laughed. “Any rumours of Belling fiddling the books or anything?”

Young shook his head. “Good investments is what I heard, sir. But then they’d hardly tell me if he was bent, would they?”

“How long have you been PCSO here, Gareth?”

“Six months.”

“Your predecessor?”

“Nick Vauxhall, sir. He died.”

Banks remembered a memo about the death of a local PCSO. “Cycling accident, wasn’t it?”

“That’s right, sir. Caught the bug after the Tour de France came through here. I didn’t know him, myself. I moved over here from Northallerton.”

“Can you tell me anything more about Max Belling?”

“Not really. He kept himself to himself. Never in any trouble.”

“Was he married? Children?”

“No, sir. Lived alone. I do believe there was a wife on the scene once, but it’s my impression she left quite awhile ago.”

“Would you happen to know who his close friends were? What about this George Harris you mentioned?”

“He’s one of them,” said Young. “There’s a crowd who drink at the Hope and Anchor, bottom of main street, near the Helmthorpe Road. Belling, Harris, Doc Cruickshank, Ned Howard, a few others. It’s a bit upmarket. Most of the tourists take one look at the prices and head up the street to The Unicorn.”

“Keeps the riffraff out?”

“I suppose it does.”

The Hope and Anchor prided itself on being founded in the fourteenth century and proved to be a honeycomb of small snugs, bars, and narrow passages, with a few steps here and there just to try and trip up anyone who’d taken a drink too many. People probably got lost on their way to the gents. That lunchtime, there was a strange mood in the place, no doubt caused by Belling’s murder. Most of the rooms were full as the villagers gathered in a sort of stunned and impromptu wake.

In the largest room, Banks found a group of about ten people gathered around several tables shoved together. It was a typical upmarket pub, with Stubbs prints and horse brasses and photos of the old hunt on the whitewashed walls, solid round tables with cast-iron legs, a fine selection of single malts behind the bar, and a broad enough selection of real ales to satisfy even the staunchest member of CAMRA, even if the prices were a bit steep for the rucksack-and-anorak crowd.

Banks asked the barmaid if George Harris was in, and she pointed to a dapper man with thin lips and bushy eyebrows under a head of prematurely greying hair. Harris was wearing a white shirt and striped tie, his suit jacket hanging over the back of his chair. Banks bought himself a pint of Cock-a-Hoop, walked over to the group, and introduced himself to Harris, who nodded briefly and made space for him. Harris then introduced Banks to the rest of the group.

“I’d say ‘pleased to meet you,’” one of them said. “But under the circumstances... Anyway, Oliver Cruickshank. Dr. Oliver Cruickshank. At your service.” He stuck out his hand. Banks shook it. “I’m the local quack, in case you’re wondering.” Cruickshank lifted up his snifter of amber fluid and gulped some down. “Here’s to old Belling.” The others raised their glasses and mumbled a toast.

Cruickshank was a tall, athletic-looking man, probably in his early forties, with a charismatic, commanding manner. If the group had a leader, Banks guessed, this would be him. He had a brick-red complexion, a thick head of brown hair and a bristly moustache, and wore casual sports clothes. Casual but expensive, from what Banks could gather by the designers’ names on view. And he seemed like someone used to giving orders and having them obeyed.

“Had you known Max Belling for very long?” Banks asked Cruickshank.

“A good few years now,” the doctor answered. “I’ve been practising in Fortford since I first started out as a GP, in nineteen ninety-five, and Max arrived a couple of years later. He was my accountant.”

“Any ideas where he came from?”

“London, I think. He was something in the City.”

“Was he still working?”

“Semiretired. He kept on a few of his older clients but hadn’t taken on any new ones in some time.”

“Max always said life was too short to spend every hour God sent hunched over a column of figures,” added George Harris.

“Aye,” said the man next to him, whose name, Banks remembered, was Ned Howard. “Time to stop and smell the flowers, he said.”

“An admirable sentiment,” said Banks. “I don’t suppose we can put it down to foresight, though. Do any of you know anyone who might have had a reason to want to harm Max Belling?”

They all shook their heads.

“I think you’ll find, Chief Inspector,” said Dr. Cruickshank, “that Max Belling was well liked around these parts. I don’t mean to tell you your business, but it must have been someone from outside the village did this.”

“Did he know people outside the village?”

“I assume so. He made trips to London occasionally. Other places too. He was fond of the Scottish Highlands, a keen golfer and single-malt man. I shouldn’t think it could have been anyone who knew him, though. More likely the work of some passing maniac.”

“Or a tramp, perhaps?” said Banks.

“Don’t get many of them, these days.”

“Has anything unusual happened in the village lately?”

“Not that I can think of,” said George Harris, scratching his chin.

Ned Howard shook his head.

“Had Max Belling been behaving oddly? Did he seem worried, anxious, depressed, anything like that.”

They all looked down into their drinks muttering, “No.”

Banks didn’t feel he was going to get any further, so he finished his pint and left the pub. Perhaps it would be best to have them in an interview room one at a time later.

Banks was grateful for a breath of fresh air when he left the Hope and Anchor and headed up towards the village hall. The CSIs were still at work on the green in their white protective gear, the cordon still in place, though now that Belling’s body had been removed to the mortuary there was no need for the canvas screens anymore.

Before Banks had got far, he felt a tap on his shoulder and turned to find Dr. Cruickshank standing behind him.

“Sorry to bother you, old boy,” the doctor said. “I didn’t want to speak out in the pub. You understand, I’m sure. Mood of the occasion and all that. And I certainly have no wish to speak ill of the dead.”

“But you have something you’d like to tell me?”

“Well, yes, as it happens. But dammit, it’s difficult. Max was a mate, despite everything.”

Banks faced Dr. Cruickshank. “Surely if you helped us catch his killer, you’d be doing your mate proud?”

“Yes... well... seeing as you put it like that. I think Max had got himself mixed up with some rather dodgy people lately.”

“Financially?”

Cruickshank nodded. “That was his world. Yes. Though I don’t think it was a simple matter of handling their profit-and-loss statements.”

“What, then?”

“You have to understand that I don’t know any of this for certain. It’s partly guesswork, based on hints Max dropped. I think they may have been people he knew in London, from before he came up here.”

“And you think he’d got involved with them again?”

“Yes.”

“What makes you think that?”

“As I said. Just little hints. And he was worried about something. Edgy, anxious. That wasn’t like Max. These are not very nice people, Chief Inspector.”

“What did Mr. Belling say?”

“He didn’t say anything directly. Just that he wished he hadn’t gone back to some reunion there, that they were dragging him into it again.”

“Into what?”

Cruickshank leaned closer, as if to share a confidence. “Money laundering, tax avoidance, offshore accounts, that sort of thing.”

“He told you this?”

“Not in so many words, perhaps, but that was the gist of it. He was always very cagey about his business trips, very vague if you asked him how they went, that sort of thing. Once he was even walking with a limp, as if someone had physically forced him into doing something.”

“How did he explain it?”

“Said he’d tripped and fallen on the edge of a pavement.”

“Any idea who these dodgy people might have been? Their names?”

Cruickshank shook his head.

“Ever see any of them up here?”

“No. But they’d keep a low profile, wouldn’t they?”

“And this is all you know?”

“Yes. A couple of days ago, for a moment, I thought Max was going to confide in me about a problem of some sort, get something off his chest. Not a medical problem. But he drew back from the brink, and I couldn’t get another word out of him. Yes, I think something was worrying him.”

“And you think it had something to do with his murder?”

“Stands to reason, doesn’t it? People with a lot to lose. Shady businessmen. Criminals. Maybe Max had been skimming or fiddling the books somehow? Maybe he wouldn’t do what they wanted him to do. Maybe he was going to blow the whistle on someone. All I know is that he was more than usually edgy. These past few weeks, Max Belling was a worried man, Chief Inspector, a worried man. Now I must get back.”

Banks watched Oliver Cruickshank stride back to the pub and carried on towards the village hall. The doctor had certainly given him plenty to think about. Dodgy bedfellows in high finance wouldn’t think twice about teaching someone like Max Belling a lesson. Who knew where they got the money that needed laundering in the first place? Drugs came to mind. And people-trafficking. Gun running. Prostitution. Protection rackets. All the old standbys, and probably a few new ones, or at least modern variations. All worth killing for as far as those profiting from them were concerned.

It was time to start looking into Max Belling’s financial activities.

“I couldn’t find anything in our files to indicate that Max Belling was connected with money laundering or offshore banking,” said Winsome over a late lunch with Banks and Annie in The Unicorn that afternoon. “I’ve talked with DI MacDonald in Criminal Intelligence too, and she came up with nothing. But, of course, it’s hardly the sort of thing you advertise, is it, and I haven’t had a chance to dig very deeply yet. Anyway, I’ve been in touch with the Met, and someone’s working it from their end.”

“Keep digging,” said Banks. “If there’s anything in it, something is bound to turn up.” He cut a chunk off his Cumberland sausage and washed it down with beer.

“I was in Belling’s house this morning when the CSIs worked on it,” said Annie, “and it was pretty clean. If he was killed there, someone did a good cleanup job. The search team did find quite a lot of cash, though — over three grand — and they’ve taken his files and computers. The forensic accountants are on it now, so they might be able to tell us something soon.”

Banks pushed his plate away and finished his beer. “It’s a very bold and dramatic statement, this murder, don’t you think?” he said. “Someone not only kills a man but takes the time to remove his eyes, ears, and tongue, then risks driving him to the village green and putting him in the stocks.”

“Not much of a risk in the middle of the night,” said Annie. “Not in a sleepy old village like Fortford.”

“Even so,” said Banks. “The killer was lucky. Someone could have seen something. Out of a window, say. Or a drunk on his way home. Kids out late. It’s only not too much of a risk if you really feel you have to do it. So what we need to ask ourselves is, why did our killer feel he had to mutilate the body and put it on display in a public place?”

“A warning to others,” Annie said.

“That’s a good point,” said Banks. “But a warning to whom? About what?”

“It’s a bit odd, don’t you think?” Winsome asked Banks in the village hall the following morning. “I thought I’d spend a minute or two checking on the previous PCSO, Nick Vauxhall. He’s only been dead for six months. I thought maybe the cycling accident was just a bit fishy, given what happened yesterday. Two suspicious deaths in such a short time in the same small village. Anyway, I had a look at the reports and there wasn’t much of an investigation. It happened up Buttertubs way last winter. Poor weather conditions, they said. Sudden mist, slippery road surface, low visibility, blah blah blah. One of the investigating officers noticed some skid marks on the road, but they were never traced to anyone.”

Banks rested the backs of his thighs against the edge of Winsome’s desk. “Hit and run?”

“That’s what I’m thinking, guv. And six months isn’t very long. If Max Belling was involved with some dodgy business recently, the odds are he was involved as far back as then too.”

“So you’re thinking, what if Nick Vauxhall had his suspicions and mentioned them to the wrong people?”

“Well, yes, guv. It’s a possibility, isn’t it? Only PCSOs don’t investigate crimes.”

Banks smiled. Police Community Support Officers did almost the same jobs as regular police officers, but with fewer powers, and they were often sneered at by the public, called “Blunkett’s Bobbies,” after the Home Secretary who instituted them, or “plastic policemen” by the less polite. “You don’t think a keen PCSO mightn’t just have a go?” Banks said. “Try and prove he’s as good as us? Come off it, Winsome, they’re all Sam Spades at heart.”

Winsome laughed. “I suppose so.”

“Gareth Young doesn’t seem to know anything about Belling’s financial doings,” said Banks, “but why would he? Belling would hardly tell him. Did he have a family, this Nick Vauxhall?”

“Wife. Widow now.”

“Give me her address. I’ll go have a chat with her.”

The drive down to Hawes was spectacular, the rolling landscape of Wensleydale spread out before him beyond the meandering river as far as the next steeply rising valley side, all so lush and green, with the greyish limestone scars of the high dale-sides shining almost silver in the sun. Banks played Brahms’ clarinet quintet and opened the car windows rather than using the air conditioning. Wafts of warm air buffeted him, carrying the scents of hay, freshly mown grass, honeysuckle, and wild garlic. Sheep and cattle grazed lazily in fields carpeted with gold and purple wildflowers. Curlews circled on the heights, pewits flew up from their ground nests at the sound of the car, and wagtails twitched in the roadside hedges behind drystone walls.

Hawes was already chockablock with tourists, as Banks had expected, many of them there to visit the famous Wensleydale Creamery, where the cheese was made, up the hill towards Gayle. Banks found a car park on the high street, opposite The Board pub, and walked back past the food and souvenir shops, turning left onto the narrow, winding street where Mandy Vauxhall now lived.

She had a small terrace house on the slope down to the main road. Her little front garden was beautifully kept, bees humming around the fuchsia and foxgloves. She answered his knock, wearing jeans and a T-shirt, and asked him to come in. The window was open to the scents and sounds of the garden and street. The living room was tiny but not cluttered with furniture. Banks sat in the small armchair Mandy offered him as she went to make tea. He wasn’t quite sure what he expected to find out from her, but it was worth a try. Winsome was right about Nick Vauxhall’s death being suspicious.

Mandy came back with a tray of tea and Fox’s custard creams. She was younger than Banks had expected, a very attractive woman in her thirties, with short, layered auburn hair above loam-brown eyes, a small, slightly retroussé nose, generous mouth, and a figure that spoke of regular workouts at the gym. Far too young and lovely to be a widow.

“What can I do for you, Chief Inspector,” she said, pouring the tea.

“Alan, please,” said Banks.

She nodded. “If you like. I suppose I must have got used to the police formality over the years with Nick.”

“It’s Nick I want to talk to you about, if that’s all right?”

Mandy leaned back and crossed her long legs. Banks had a feeling that the room, the house, was too small for her, but he imagined it was all she could afford. A PCSO widow’s pension can’t have been very much.

“It must be nice to have a lovely day like this off work,” he commented.

“Oh, I’m not off work,” she said. “I work at home. I’m a graphic designer. My studio, if you could call it that, is upstairs.”

“Then I’m sorry to disturb you,” Banks said.

“One of the drawbacks of working at home. People think you’re available all the time. I don’t mean anything by that, by the way. I’m only too glad to talk to you about Nick. I just... Oh, dear...”

Banks smiled. “I know what you mean. I’m sorry. And I appreciate your taking the time.”

Mandy frowned. “So what is it that you want to know?”

“I don’t really know that myself, yet. It depends what you tell me. You’ve heard about the murder in Fortford?”

“Yes. It was on the news this morning. Terrible business. How was he killed?”

“We don’t know yet,” said Banks. “Still waiting on the PM results. Did you know Max Belling?”

“Yes,” said Mandy. “We went to the same church. We were all three of us in the choir. I always thought Max was a nice man, a decent man. He was one of the few villagers we had much time for. And certainly the only one of Oliver Cruickshank’s little cabal.”

“Did you also know Dr. Cruickshank?”

“Yes. He was our GP.”

“What did you think of him?”

“An arrogant and condescending twat. Him and his cronies thought they ran the place. They were always telling Nick what to do, how to do his job.”

“George Harris, Max Belling, Ned Howard?”

“That’s some of them.”

“But you stayed with the doctor?”

Mandy smiled. “He was the only doctor in the village. Everyone said he was good. Luckily, neither of us ever needed more than a flu shot.”

“You didn’t have children, you and Nick?”

Mandy looked away. “No.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. It was one of the many things we just hadn’t got around to. We were very happy, Chief Inspector. How does the song go? We thought we had all the time in the world.”

Don’t we all, thought Banks. “What did you think of the accident?”

“I don’t think it was an accident. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying it was deliberate or anything. Nick was out on the Buttertubs, heading for Tan Hill, and it was bad weather. A sudden mist came up, as they do sometimes. He had his lights on and his high-visibility jacket, but I think there was a car or a van or something and the driver just didn’t see him in time, or wasn’t paying attention. Unfortunately, he was at the edge of the road, and there was no soft landing.”

“But you didn’t make a fuss at the time.”

“No. I knew the investigating officer had noticed skid marks on the road, though there was no telling how old they were, and I also knew that there was no way they’d trace them to a particular car or driver even if they tried. Hitand-run drivers are notoriously hard to track down unless they give themselves up, become consumed by guilt and can’t live with what they’ve done. That didn’t happen in Nick’s case. And, as far as I know, nobody had any reason to kill Nick, so I wasn’t especially suspicious that it had been deliberate.”

“What if someone did have a motive?”

Mandy raised her eyebrows. “What do you mean?”

“I’m just speculating here, but did your husband ever say anything about Max Belling and money laundering, or anything like that?”

“Good lord, no. What are you suggesting?”

“Just something I picked up.”

“I can’t imagine why anyone would say that. If you asked me, I’d say Max was as honest as the day is long. He was a moral man, which I often think is quite rare in this day and age.”

“But you didn’t know him really well, did you? And religion... well, I’ve known plenty of people who pretend to be good Christians in my time.”

“That’s true. And I’ve been wrong about people before. But...” She shook her head. “And no, we didn’t socialise, didn’t have dinners together or anything, though we did have the occasional drink, and not in the Hope and Anchor. I’m sorry, I just can’t see it. Not Max.”

“That’s all right,” said Banks. “I’m interested in what you think, not in confirming my theories or previous opinions.”

“I sometimes thought...” said Mandy.

“Yes?”

“It’s nothing, really. Just another vague impression about Fortford.”

“Even so. When you get enough of them, they don’t seem so vague anymore.”

She paused and bit on her lower lip, then poured a little more tea into their cups. “Well, there was a teenage suicide in the village while Nick was working the beat. A girl called Becky Harris. She was the daughter of George and Doreen Harris, cronies of Dr. Cruickshank.”

“How long ago was all this?”

“About two years.”

“Was this suicide suspicious?”

“Not at all. Open and shut. The girl took an overdose of her mother’s sleeping pills. Choked on her own vomit. It was a real tragedy. The parents were gutted. They split up not long after, and Doreen moved away.”

“What was it that struck you as odd about this? Sadly, teenage suicides aren’t uncommon, even in isolated villages.”

“Yes, I know that. But there was a man involved, too. At least, Nick mentioned him along with Becky once or twice. Apparently they were friendly. Nick said if it wasn’t politically incorrect these days he’d have been called the village idiot. He was a bit slow, that’s all, but he could take care of himself, like. Feed himself and so forth. I saw him around the village a few times. He seemed harmless enough to me. Some of the local kids used to make fun of him.”

“Children can be very cruel. What happened to him?”

“He moved away.”

“Do you remember his name?”

“Tony. Tony Platt.”

“Parents?”

“God knows. He lived alone. There must have been someone who knew him, though, because that’s what got Nick interested.”

“What do you mean?”

“Someone turned up in the village — at the Hope and Anchor — asking after him.”

“When was this?”

“Maybe seven months or so ago. Not long before Nick had his accident.”

“How old was the Platt boy?”

“I don’t know for certain, but I got the impression he was in his late twenties.”

“Did he have a job?”

“Not that I know of. He was strong, though, and he did odd jobs for the farmers. Manual labour. He wasn’t much good at thinking for himself, but he could follow instructions well enough.”

“What was the connection between Becky and Tony?”

“I don’t know, really, except they were friends. This Platt fellow liked to play with the village kids — the ones who didn’t torment him — and they liked him. Maybe because he was about the same mental age as them. They probably understood one another. But their parents didn’t like it.”

“Did Max Belling have anything to do with any of these people?”

“Not as far as I know. Though he was a close friend of George and Doreen’s, so he must have known Becky. He was certainly devastated by her suicide.”

Banks made a note of a few names and dates, then he thanked Mandy Vauxhall for her time and left. As he walked to his car, he cast his eye on the menu outside The Board and decided to nip in for a giant Yorkshire pudding filled with roast beef and gravy. It was a hot day and the outside benches were all full, but he managed to find a corner table inside easily enough. His mind was still spinning with some of the things Mandy Vauxhall had told him, so he could make a few phone calls and jot down a few ideas as he ate.

“SUX?” echoed Banks.

“Yes,” said Annie. “It’s short for succinylcholine.” They were on their way to talk to Doreen Harris, who lived in Sherburn-in-Elmet, near Selby, and Annie had just got the results of Dr. Glendenning’s postmortem on Max Belling. The pathologist had found a needle mark under Belling’s left arm and had tracked down what had been injected there. “But it’s not that,” Annie went on. “That’s the other drug it’s hard to trace in the system after it’s been used as a murder weapon. The doc’s convinced this killer used potassium chloride because of the damage to the heart and the elevated levels of potassium. It’s never a hundred percent, but it’s the best we have to go on. Here we are, I think.”

Banks pulled up outside a grand house on the edge of town. Detached, with its own garage and a large overgrown garden, bay windows, and gables, it seemed to stare at them like a giant head as they walked up the garden path. The place looked deserted — in fact, it looked as if it had been abandoned for years — and they hadn’t called ahead, not wanting either to alarm or tip off Doreen Harris to their interest.

Just when Banks was starting to think they’d had a wasted journey, a woman answered the doorbell. She was in her mid forties, Banks guessed, and had clearly been an attractive woman not so long ago, but she had let herself go to some extent. The clothes she wore were ill fitting and creased, and there was a food stain on the front of her blouse. Her hair seemed lifeless and her skin pasty, doughlike, her eyes dull, perhaps with tranquillisers or antidepressants.

“Oh, come in,” she said, without any real enthusiasm, when they announced themselves. As she led the way, Annie glanced at Banks and pulled a face. The place was hot and smelled as if it hadn’t been aired in months. A thin patina of dust lay on the surfaces, and despite the sunlight outside, very little light made its way through the grimy windows, which hadn’t been washed in months. Doreen Harris made no apology for the state of the place. Perhaps she didn’t notice. She also made no offer of refreshments as they all sat down in the gloomy living room. There was music playing faintly in the background, Banks noticed. Piano music. He thought it might be Chopin, but he wasn’t knowledgeable enough to be certain, despite his enthusiasm for classical music.

Banks leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees. “We’d like a word with you about your daughter, Mrs. Harris.”

“My daughter’s dead, and my name’s Grainger now. I went back to my maiden name. But you can call me Doreen.”

“Very well, Doreen. We know that your daughter is dead, and I’m very sorry to bring the subject up. I know it must be painful for you.”

She shrugged. “It was a long time ago.”

“Just two years,” said Banks. “It’s not that long.”

“I don’t know why you’ve bothered coming here asking questions, even after two years. My daughter took her own life.”

“We know that,” said Banks. “What we’d like to know is whether you know of any reason why.”

“Becky was depressed. The doctor said it was clinical, that she needed expert help. But she killed herself before we could arrange anything.”

“Which doctor was that?”

“Dr. Cruickshank, of course. Oliver. He was our doctor. And our friend. He was trying to get Becky in a special clinic, but he was too late.”

“Was this before or after Tony Platt left the village?”

“Tony Platt? So you know about him? It was after he left.”

“Was Becky upset about Tony going away?”

“Why should she be?”

“They were friends, weren’t they?”

“Friends? But he...”

“He what, Doreen?”

“Look, I’m sorry, but I don’t like to talk about it.”

“Talk about what?”

Doreen Grainger took a Silk Cut from the packet on the table and lit up. For a split second, Banks felt the urge to smoke too, but it passed. “You know what,” she said, breathing out smoke, “or you wouldn’t be here.”

“I want you to tell me in your own words.” Banks was bluffing. He had no idea what she was talking about, but if she thought he did, it might help to coax her along.

Doreen sat in silence for a while, then she seemed to snap out of her mood, or whatever it was that was enveloping her consciousness like a mist. It was as if she recognised her surroundings for the first time. She gazed around the room, then back at Banks and Annie. “You must forgive me,” she said. “This place is a terrible mess. I’m not usually such a slattern. I don’t get many visitors. I get depressed sometimes. It must run in the family.”

“Don’t worry about it,” said Annie. “You should see my place.”

“Becky and Tony Platt,” Banks repeated.

Doreen paused, looking from one to the other, as if deliberating with herself whether to speak or not. Finally, she said, “He raped her, as you’re well aware. See. You’ve made me say it. She came home one night, all bruised and bleeding, and she told us Tony Pratt had raped her in a field by the river. She was never the same again.”

“When was this?”

“When she was fifteen.”

“Three years ago? A year before she killed herself?”

“Yes, about that. She was a beautiful child. We did our best, George and me. We loved her as best we could. We tried to cope.”

“Did you report the rape?” Banks asked.

“What would be the point in doing that?” Doreen answered. “Put poor Becky through all that humiliation and pain just so a jury could let him walk free, put him in a home, or give him a slap on the wrist or a suspended sentence.”

“It might not have been like that.”

“Of course it would. That’s what...”

“What?”

“That’s what Oliver said.”

“So what happened?”

“He had to leave the village. Tony. It was decided. He had to leave the village and never come back.”

“Who said he had to leave? Oliver?”

“All of us.”

“The whole village?”

“People knew what he’d done. People whose children he played with, who didn’t like it. Now there was something very real to be frightened of. He couldn’t be allowed to stay. What about their daughters? Nobody was safe.”

“Where did he go?”

“I don’t know. One day he was just gone. The movers came, took his stuff. He didn’t have much.”

“Which movers?”

“The local firm. Howard’s.”

“Ned Howard?”

“That’s right.”

Banks saw Annie make a note of the name. They could check with the company’s records and find an address. “And he didn’t say where he was going?”

“Not to me.”

“And after that?”

“Nothing. Poor Becky was never the same. She became more withdrawn. She’d shut herself in her room, or if she went out we wouldn’t know where she was.”

“And a year later, two years ago, she—”

“Committed suicide. Yes. George and I struggled along for a while, but you’ve no idea, not unless it happens to you, you’ve no idea what the loss of a child can do to a couple, even a loving couple like George and me. In the end I... it seemed best, just, you know, to come here. My parents used to live here. I grew up here. They left the place to me when they died. We were going to sell it, but I came to live here by myself instead. Back where I started.”

There seemed nothing more to say. Annie packed away her notebook and Banks got to his feet. “I’m sorry we had to bother you, Doreen. I’m not sure if you know about this, but Max Belling was murdered in Fortford yesterday, and we’re investigating his death.”

She glanced at Banks sharply. “Max? Oh, dear God, no. Max was... Max was the only one...”

“The only one what?” Banks asked.

“The only one of us who wanted to do the right thing. To call the police. You know. After Becky was raped. George and Oliver and Ned and the others, they talked to him nearly all night. He went along with the rest in the end, but he wasn’t happy. Talk to George. You should talk to George.”

In the safety and comfort of his own home, as grand a place in its own way as his wife’s family house, George Harris was more at ease and forthcoming than he had been the previous day in the Hope and Anchor with Dr. Cruickshank and the others. Even so, he seemed shaken and reluctant to talk about the past, but the more they spoke, the more he seemed to want to open up, to unburden himself of something.

The study was a high-ceilinged, book-lined room, and in addition to the desk, there was room for three chairs around a glass table, and that was where they sat. George Harris didn’t offer refreshments either, but not out of neglect or impoliteness, Banks thought. This wasn’t to be a “would you like a cup of tea” sort of visit.

“We’re interested in the night Max Belling was killed, George,” said Banks. “Do you know anything about that?”

“I didn’t do it, if that’s what you’re thinking,” said Harris.

“I’m not thinking anything at the moment. I’d like to hear your story.”

Harris put his head in his hands. “My God,” he muttered, “how on earth did we get ourselves so far down this path?” He looked up. “I could tell you I know nothing about any of it.”

Banks shook his head. “We wouldn’t believe you. We’ve talked to your wife, and to Mandy Vauxhall. It’s all over, George. Who ran Nick Vauxhall off the road? You might as well tell us. Was that you?”

“God, no! I haven’t killed anybody.”

“Oliver Cruickshank.”

“I don’t know. Maybe. Sometimes I think Oliver’s capable of anything. Or Ned, with his van.”

“Whose idea was it to implicate Max Belling in financial wrongdoings? We’ve looked, and we couldn’t find anything amiss.”

“I don’t know. It wasn’t me.”

“Oliver Cruickshank again?”

George hung his head. “Someone came looking for Tony again. To the Hope and Anchor, just last week. The same bloke who’d talked to Nick Vauxhall before. He was very persistent. I don’t think he believed that we didn’t know anything. We thought if we directed your attention towards the London underworld...”

“That we wouldn’t look closer to home? Start at the beginning, if you like,” said Banks. “We’ve got plenty of time.”

Harris took a long, deep breath and let it out in a sigh. On the bay tree outside his open window a blue tit flitted from branch to branch. Harris ran his hand over his silvering hair. “The beginning?” he said. “I’m not sure I know where that is anymore.”

“Start with your daughter.”

He gave Banks a sharp glance. “Becky? You know what happened. My ex-wife told you.”

“She told us that Tony Platt raped your daughter and instead of going to the police, you ran him out of town. Is that what happened?”

“Partly. At least it’s what Doreen believes. You have to understand, Tony was retarded. He was big and strong with the mind of a child. We didn’t like him being friends with the local children, none of the parents did, but he always seemed gentle towards Becky and the others. We still worried, though. He was the kind who might pick up a bird to stroke it and you’d find it crushed in his hand a moment later.”

“Is that what happened to Becky?”

“She never told us any details. I can only assume that’s what happened. That things went too far.”

“Did anyone confront Tony about this? Try to find out whether he really did it? Young girls aren’t always truthful.”

“Becky had no reason to lie, and yes, we confronted Tony Platt. He admitted it. He said he loved her, for Christ’s sake. He couldn’t understand why she was angry with him. You should have seen the bruises. She was bleeding between...” He put his head in his hands again and sobbed briefly, then pulled himself together.

“Yet none of you thought to let the police handle the matter, or get her the attention she needed.”

“Oliver took care of her. Whatever you might think about him, he’s a good doctor. And the police? We had no faith in justice. We’d all seen far too many rapists and pedophiles go free or get light sentences because the system let the victims down.”

“So you decided to take justice into your own hands?”

“If you want to put it that way.”

“I do.”

“Look, Tony Platt raped my fifteen-year-old daughter. What would you lot have done after your rape kits and your DNA tests and the lawyers and psychiatrists got involved? They’d probably end up saying she asked for it. That she was at fault and he was the victim.”

“You’re assuming an awful lot, George,” said Annie, “if you don’t mind my saying so. Could we have done any worse than you and your cronies did? What sort of justice have you ended up with?” She counted off on her fingers. “One murdered PCSO disguised as an accident, one mentally challenged young man run out of town to God knows where, your teenage daughter committing suicide, and now a good friend of yours brutally murdered and disfigured and put out on the green on display for the whole village. Is that justice? What was Max Belling’s murder supposed to be, George, a warning to the villagers who knew, or suspected? The ones who didn’t like Tony Platt playing with their kids. Keep quiet or this’ll happen to you too. Is that what it was? Because someone came to the pub asking about him for the second time? Christ almighty, George, could we have done much worse than that, imperfect as we are?”

“I didn’t mean... we didn’t mean. It wasn’t...” George fell silent for a few moments then spoke in a voice so soft Banks had to strain to hear it. “Tony Platt didn’t leave the village,” he said. “We killed him and buried his body on the moors.” Then he started to sob.

“Well, Oliver,” said Banks. “We’ve got a right mess on our hands here, haven’t we?”

“I’m not saying a word until my lawyer arrives,” said Dr. Cruickshank, sitting in a stifling interview room at Eastvale Police HQ, dragged from a local cricket match, white V-neck sweater still tied around his neck.

“I don’t think we need you to say a word just yet,” said Banks, glancing at Annie, who sat beside him. “I think I can piece most of the story together from what Mandy, Doreen, and George have told me, and from the events themselves. And while I’m telling you that, my forensic team is going through your house, your surgery, and your car with a fine-tooth comb, and believe me, they’re good.”

“They won’t find anything.”

“Don’t be so quick to say that. I’m sure you cleaned up, but nobody cleans up quite well enough for the CSIs, Oliver. You ought to know that.”

“It’s Dr. Cruickshank to you.”

“Three years ago, a mentally challenged young man raped fifteen-year-old Becky Harris, daughter of a close friend of yours, George Harris. I think that’s more or less beyond dispute. I hear you stick together in that village of yours, so naturally you were concerned, as were many of the other villagers. People were suspicious of Tony Platt because he was different, because he didn’t belong. You persuaded your mates and several concerned parents that it would be far more satisfying if you took matters into your own hands. So you paid Tony Platt a visit. Maybe you just intended to warn him off. Give him a beating. I’m not even sure how many of you there were, but I imagine you managed to gather together a tidy little mob. You marched Tony out of town, and once you were up on the moors, you beat him to death, or killed him in some other manner, and buried his body in the peat bog. Luckily for us, peat bogs preserve human bodies. Haven’t you ever heard of the Tollund man? He ended up in one in the fourth century BC, and he’s in a museum in Denmark today, perfectly preserved. There’s not much doubt that as soon as George Harris leads us to the burial site, we’ll be able to nail down the exact cause of death and glean a great deal of forensic evidence from Tony Platt’s body.”

Cruickshank shot Banks a glance full of hatred.

“Yes, they’re all turning on you, those friends of yours,” he said. “There’s about as much honour among murderers as there is among thieves. And it’s not only George Harris. What about Ned Howard? Ned’s the local removal man, and after Platt’s murder you got him to ‘move house’ for the dead man. Ned’s one of your cronies, in on the whole deal, so he makes it look good and somehow gets rid of the stuff, furniture, papers, and all. Yes, we’ve talked to Mr. Howard, Oliver, and he’s come clean too, as soon as we found no record of the move on his books. So Tony Platt is dead, and a year later, poor Becky Harris is still so traumatised by what happened that she commits suicide.

“Perhaps she found out what you’d done to Tony? Perhaps he wasn’t the one who raped her? Maybe she made up the story? Maybe they were both willing but Platt just didn’t know his own strength and got carried away? We may never know. But everything’s hunky-dory in the village for a while, then your local PCSO, perhaps with delusions of becoming a great detective, gets suspicious about the suicide and Platt’s disappearance, partly because someone came looking for Tony. There’s a bit of a time gap here. This happened only seven months ago. But Nick Vauxhall and his wife knew Becky Harris, and they knew Max Belling. Nick also knew Tony Platt, whom he was told had left town. Also, George Harris told us that about a week ago this person came back to the Hope and Anchor looking for Platt again. He was quite persistent, and when you told him Tony had moved away years ago, he seemed doubtful, the same as before, according to George. Anyway, in the end he went away. We’re trying to trace him, by the way, and I’m sure we’ll succeed. I’ll bet you never imagined Tony Platt might have had any old friends who’d miss him, did you? Who knows whether this mystery man knows anything, but it’s another link in the chain.

“Anyway, that’s what got Max Belling so nervous, isn’t it, Oliver? Doreen Harris told us that Max had been against the whole thing from the start, remember. He’d been for calling the police after Becky’s rape. He took a lot of persuading that you’d be better off taking the law into your own hands, and I’ll bet he was livid when he found out you’d killed Platt rather than simply booting him out of Fortford. Max was a decent man, moral even, I’m told. He made a big mistake in allowing himself to be complicit with the rest of you, and it gnawed away at his conscience. Anyway, it’s my guess he was about to become a whistle-blower. Things were falling apart. After eighteen months of relative security, you had to run a PCSO off the road for asking questions where they weren’t wanted, and now one of your very own was turning against you. It was time for a stern warning. Time to send a message. And I believe it was you who sent that message, Oliver. In the first place, you’re a doctor. You have the skills and the tools necessary to do what was done, and the stomach to do them. You’d also know that potassium chloride can bring on a heart attack and is practically undetectable in the system afterwards. But Max Belling had a healthy heart, and our pathologist’s better than you think.

“The village stocks. That was a masterstroke. Let everyone see what happens to dissenters. Because the whole village either knew or suspected what had gone on, and people were either afraid of you or beholden to you. And what a clever idea it was to come after me and tell me about Max Belling’s financial dealings, something to send us off down the wrong path, perhaps never to return from it. One thing you forgot, or failed to consider, was that Doreen Harris was probably the one person who knew most of the story who hadn’t seen the warning placed on the village green. She was a loose end you’d overlooked, and that’s what makes me so sure we’ll find others. Mandy Vauxhall was at a distance too. You’re not quite as brilliant as you think you are.”

Cruickshank said nothing, just sat there smirking with his arms folded. Banks put his papers back in the buff folder, stuck it under his arm, nodded to Annie, and they got up and left the room. Cruickshank’s lawyer would arrive in due course, but so would the forensic results from the doctor’s car and surgery, and from Tony Platt’s preserved body, along with statements from George Harris and Ned Howard and all the others who were finally turning against Cruickshank.

As he and Annie headed over to the Queen’s Arms for a well-deserved pint of Black Sheep, Banks had no doubt whatsoever that they would get the proof they needed within days and that the good doctor would get far more than a slap on the wrist or a suspended sentence.