Final Account

1

The sky was a sheet of gray shale, smeared here and there by dirty rags of cloud fluttering over the wooded hillsides on a cool wind. Rooks and crows gathered noisily in the roadside trees like shards of darkness refusing to dispel. Even the green of the dense beech forests looked black.

Banks and Sergeant Hatchley, who had driven through the night at breakneck speed from Eastvale, stood and looked in silence at the patrol car with the shattered windscreen and at the outline of the body on the tarmac about six or seven feet ahead, near which dark blood had coagulated in shallow puddles on the road surface. Close by, Detective Superintendent Jarrell from the Thames Valley Police paced up and down, shabby beige raincoat flapping around his legs.

The road had been cordoned off, and several patrol cars, lights circling like demented lighthouses, guarded the edges of the scene, where the SOCOs still worked. Local traffic had been diverted.

“It was a cock-up,” Superintendent Jarrell growled, glaring at the two men from Yorkshire the minute they got out of Banks’s Cortina and walked over to him. “A monumental cock-up.”

Jarrell was clearly looking for somewhere to place the blame, and it irritated the hell out of him that no matter how hard he tried, it fell squarely on his own shoulders. The two PCs might have made a mistake in not tattooing the Granada ’s number on their memories, and the radio operator had certainly screwed up royally, but in the police force, as in other hierarchical structures, when an underling screws up, the responsibility goes to the top. You don’t blame the foot-soldiers, you blame the general, and everybody gets a good bollocking, from the top down.

Banks knew that Ken Blackstone at West Yorkshire had followed correct procedure in getting a photograph, description and details about Arthur Jameson out to all divisions. And the point he had most emphasized was, “May be armed. Observe only. UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES ATTEMPT TO APPREHEND.”

Jarrell’s was one of those unfortunate faces in which the individual features fail to harmonize: long nose, small, beady eyes, bushy brows, a thin slit of a mouth, prominent cheekbones, receding chin, mottled complexion. Somehow, though, it didn’t dissolve into total chaos; there was an underlying unity about the man himself that, like a magnetic field, drew it all together.

“Any update on the injured officer, sir?” Banks asked.

“What? Oh.” Jarrell stopped pacing for a moment and faced Banks. He had an erect, military bearing. Suddenly the fury seemed to bleed out of him like air from a tire. “Miller was killed outright, as you know.” He gestured at the outline and the surrounding, stained tarmac with his whole arm, as if indicating a cornucopia. “There’s about seven pints of his blood here. Everett ’s still hanging on. Just. The bullet went in through his upper lip, just under the nose, and it seems to have been slowed down or deflected by cartilage and bone. Anyway, it didn’t get a chance to do serious brain damage, so the doc says he’s got a good chance. Bloody fool.”

“If you don’t mind my saying so, sir,” Banks said, “it looks like they got into a situation they couldn’t get out of. We had no reason to think Jameson knew we were onto him. Nor had we any reason to think he was a likely spree killer. We want him for a job he was hired to do coldbloodedly. He must have panicked. I know it doesn’t help the situation, sir, but the men were inexperienced. I doubt they’d handled much but traffic duty, had they?”

Jarrell ran his hand through his hair. “You’re right, of course. They pulled him over on a routine traffic check. When Miller called in the vehicle number, the radio operator called the senior officer on the shift. He tried to talk her through it calmly, but… Hell, she was new to the job. She was scared to death. It wasn’t her fault.”

Banks nodded and rubbed his eyes. Beside him, Hatchley’s gaze seemed fixed on the bloody tarmac. When Banks had got the call close to two A.M. – his first night at home in days – he had first thought of taking Susan Gay, then, not without malice entirely, though affectionate malice, he had decided that it was time Sergeant Hatchley got his feet wet. He knew how Hatchley loved his sleep. Consequently, they hadn’t said much on the way down. Banks had played Mitsuko Uchida’s live versions of the Mozart piano sonatas, and Hatchley had seemed content to doze in the passenger seat, snoring occasionally.

Most chief inspectors, Banks knew, would have had someone else drive, but he was using his own car, the old Cortina, no longer produced now and practically an antique. And, damn it, he liked driving it himself.

“Seen enough here?” Jarrell asked.

“I think so.”

“Me, too. Let’s go.”

Jarrell drove them down the road. “Believe it or not,” he said, “this is very pretty countryside under the right circumstances.”

About a mile along the road, toward Princes Risborough, Jarrell turned left onto a muddy farm track and bumped along until they got to a gate on the right, where he pulled up. A hedgerow interspersed with hawthorns shielded the field and its fence from view. Cows mooed in the next field.

The gate stood open, and as Banks and Hatchley followed Jarrell through, they both sank almost to their ankles in mud. Too late, Banks realized, he hadn’t brought the right gear. He should have known to bring the wellingtons he always carried in the boot of his car. Like most policemen, he took pride in keeping his shoes well polished; now they were covered in mud and probably worse, judging by the prevalence of cows. He cursed and Jarrell laughed. Hatchley stood holding onto the gatepost trying to wipe most of it off on the few tufts of grass there. Banks looked at the muddy field dotted with cowpats and didn’t bother. They’d only get dirty again.

In the field, a group of men in white boiler suits and black wellington boots worked around a car that stood bogged down in the mud with its doors open. The air was sharp with the tang of cow-clap.

One of the men had propped a radio on a stone by the hedgerow, and it was tuned to the local breakfast show, at the moment featuring a golden oldie: Cilla Black singing “Anyone Who Had a Heart.” One of the SOCOs sang along with it as he worked. The cows mooed even louder, demonstrating remarkably good taste, Banks thought. They weren’t so far away after all. They were, in fact, all lying down in a group just across the field. Cows lying down. That meant it was going to rain, his mother always said. But it had rained already. Did that mean they’d been in the same position for hours? That it was going to rain again?

Giving up on folk wisdom, Banks turned instead to look at the abandoned Granada, the bottom of its chassis streaked with mud and cow-shit. It had been found, Jarrell said, just over an hour ago, while Banks and Hatchley had been in transit.

“Anything?” Jarrell shouted over to the team.

One of the men in white shook his head. “Nothing but the usual rubbish, sir,” he said. “Sweet wrappers, old road maps, that sort of thing. He must have taken everything of use or value. No sign of any weapons.”

Jarrell grunted and turned away.

“He’d hardly have left his guns, would he?” said Banks, “not now he’s officially on the run. I’d guess he probably had a rucksack or something with him in the car. Look, sir, you know the landscape around here better than I do. If you were him, where would you go?”

Jarrell looked up at the louring sky for a moment, as if for inspiration, then rubbed at the inside corner of his right eye with his index finger. “He has a couple of choices,” he said. “Either head immediately for the nearest town, get to London and take the first boat or plane out of the country, or simply lie low.” He pointed toward the hills. “A man could hide himself there for a good while, if he knew how to survive.”

“We’d better cover both possibilities,” Banks said. “He’s spent time in the army, so he’s probably been on survival courses. And if he heads for London, he’ll likely know someone who can help him.”

“Whatever he does, I’d say he’ll most likely go across country first,” said Jarrell. “He’d be smart enough to know that stealing a car or walking by the roadside would be too risky.” He looked at his watch. “The shooting occurred at about half past twelve. It’s half past six now. That gives him a six-hour start.”

“How far could he get, do you reckon?”

“I’d give him about three miles an hour in this terrain, under these conditions,” Jarrell went on. “Maybe a bit less.”

“Where’s the nearest station?”

“That’s the problem,” said Jarrell slowly. “This is close to prime commuter country. There’s Princes Risborough, Saunderton and High Wycombe on the Chiltern Line, all nearby. If he heads east, he can get to the Northampton Line at Tring, Berkhamsted or Hemel Hempstead. If he heads for Amersham, he can even get on the underground, the Metropolitan Line. Unfortunately for us, there’s no shortage of trains to London around here, and they start running early.”

“Let’s say he’s managed about sixteen or seventeen miles,” said Banks. “What’s his best bet?”

“Probably the Chiltern Line. Plenty of trains and an easy connection with the underground. He could even be in London by now.”

They started walking back to the car. “I can tell you one thing,” said Banks. “Wherever he is, his shoes will be bloody muddy.”

2

If. If. If. Such were Banks’s thoughts as he followed Superintendent Jarrell into Jameson’s rented cottage an hour or so later. If Everett and Miller hadn’t stopped Jameson last night. If Jameson hadn’t panicked and shot them. If.

In an ideal world, they would have tracked Jameson to this cottage through a check stub or a circled address in an accommodation guide. Quietly, they would have surrounded the place when they were certain Jameson was inside, then arrested him, perhaps as he walked out to his car, unsuspecting, without a shot being fired. For he hadn’t known. That was the stinger; he hadn’t known they were after him. Now, though, things were different. Now he was a dangerous man on the run.

As it turned out, they discovered that Jameson was renting a cottage just to the east of Princes Risborough through an Aylesbury estate agent shortly after the office opened at eight-thirty that Friday morning. Policemen were showing Jameson’s photograph around and asking the same questions in every estate agent’s, hotel and bed and breakfast establishment in Buckinghamshire, and the pair of DCs given the Aylesbury estate agents just happened to get lucky. Like Everett and Miller got unlucky. Swings and roundabouts. That was often the way things happened.

Jameson had simply driven off from Leeds on his holidays. Being a lover of nature, he had headed for the countryside. Why the Chilterns? It was anyone’s guess. It could just as easily have been the Cotswolds or the Malverns, Banks supposed.

According to the estate agent, the man had simply dropped in one afternoon and asked after rental cottages in the area. He had paid a cash deposit and moved in. There was no need for subterfuge or secrecy. Arthur Jameson had nothing to fear from anyone. Or he wouldn’t have had, were it not for a weakness for pornography, a fleeting contact with Daniel Clegg’s estranged wife, Melissa, and Sergeant Hatchley’s network of informers. He had either been careless about the wadding, or he thought it was a joke; they didn’t know which yet. It hadn’t shown up as a trademark in any other jobs over the past few years.

Last night he had probably gone into High Wycombe for a bite to eat, lingered over his dessert and coffee, maybe celebrated his new-found wealth with a large cognac, then headed back for the rented cottage, taking the bend a little too fast.

The cottage was certainly isolated. It stood just off a winding lane about two miles long, opposite a small, perfectly rounded tor. The lane carried on, passed another farmhouse about a mile further on, then meandered back to the main road.

From the mud on the floor, it looked very much as if Jameson had been there after the shooting. A bit of a risk, maybe, but the cottage wasn’t far from his abandoned car. In the kitchen, yesterday’s lunch dishes soaked in cold water, and breadcrumbs, cheese shavings and tiny florets of yellowed broccoli dotted the counter.

In the living room, Jameson had left the contents of his suitcase strewn around, including a number of local wildlife guides beside a girlie magazine on the table. Hatchley picked up the magazine and flipped through it quickly, tilting the centerfold to get a better look. Then they all followed the mud trail upstairs.

At the bottom of the wardrobe, hardly hidden at all by the spare blankets Jameson had obviously used to cover them, lay a twelve-gauge shotgun wrapped in an oil-stained cloth, and a small canvas bag. Carefully, Banks leaned forward and opened the flap of the bag with the tip of a Biro. It was empty, but on the floor by the blankets lay a few used ten-pound notes. Banks visualized the hunted man hurriedly stuffing the notes into his pockets until they spilled over on the floor. The shotgun was obviously too big and awkward for him to take with him, but he was still armed with the handgun.

Banks pointed to the shotgun and the canvas bag. “Can we get this stuff to your lab?” he asked Jarrell. “That shotgun’s probably evidence in a murder case.”

Jarrell nodded. “No problem.”

As Hatchley bent to pick up the shotgun, careful to handle only the material it was wrapped in, and as Banks reached for the canvas bag, a message for Jarrell crackled through on his personal radio.

“Jarrell here. Over.”

“HQ, sir. Subject, Arthur Jameson, spotted at Aylesbury railway station at nine fifty-three A.M. Subject bought London ticket. Now standing on platform. Locals await instructions. Over.”

“Has he spotted them?”

“They say not, sir.”

“Tell them to keep their distance.” Jarrell looked at his watch. It was ten o’clock. “When’s the next train?” he asked.

“Twelve minutes past ten, sir.”

“Which route?”

“Marylebone via Amersham.”

“Thank you. Stand by.” Jarrell turned to Banks and Hatchley. “We can pick up that train at Great Missenden or Amersham if you want,” he said.

Banks looked first at Hatchley, then back at Jarrell. “Come on, then,” he said. “Let’s do it.”

3

Banks and Hatchley boarded the train separately at Amersham at ten thirty-two. Reluctantly, Superintendent Jarrell, being the local man, had agreed to stay behind and coordinate the Thames Valley end of the operation.

Neither Banks nor Hatchley looked much like a policeman that morning. Waking miserably to the middle-of-the-night phone call, Banks had put on jeans, a light cotton shirt and a tan sports jacket. Over this, he had thrown on his Columbo raincoat. Even though he had done his best to clean the mud off his shoes with a damp rag, it still showed.

Sergeant Hatchley wore his shiny blue suit, white shirt and no tie; he looked as if he had been dragged through a hedge backward, but there was nothing unusual in that.

They had been told by the Transport Police, who had spotted Jameson, that the suspect still resembled his photograph except that he had about two days’ growth around his chin and cheeks. He looked like a rambler. He was wearing gray trousers of some light material tucked into walking boots at the ankles, a green open-neck shirt and an orange anorak. Nice of him, Banks thought, dressing so easy to spot. He was also carrying a heavy rucksack, which no doubt held his gun and money, amongst other things.

The train rattled out of the station. Banks managed to find a seat next to a young woman who smiled at him briefly as he sat down, then went back to reading her copy of PC Magazine. Banks had his battered brown leather briefcase with him, and its chief contents were his omnibus paperback copy of Waugh’s Sword of Honour and his Walkman. He opened the book at the marker and started to read, but every so often he glanced at the man in the green short-sleeve shirt who sat about four seats down, over to his left. The rucksack and the orange anorak lay on the luggage rack above.

The train moved in a comforting rhythm, but Banks couldn’t help feeling tense. He left the Walkman in his briefcase because he was too distracted to listen to music.

They could probably take Jameson right now, he thought. He and Jim Hatchley. Just approach quietly from behind like anyone going to the toilet and grab an arm each. The gun, surely, was up in the rucksack on the luggage rack.

But it wasn’t worth the risk. Something could go wrong. Jameson could hold the entire coach hostage. It didn’t bear thinking about. This way was far safer and would, with a little patience, skill and luck, guarantee success.

Banks and Hatchley had got on the train simply to keep an eye on Jameson. At the station, Superintendent Jarrell had talked to the Yard, who promised that there would be a number of plainclothes officers waiting at Marylebone, mixed in with the crowds. These men were experts at surveillance, and they would keep Jameson in sight, no matter how he travelled, without being spotted, until he arrived at his final destination, be it hotel or house.

Some were posing as taxi-drivers, and, with luck, Jameson would get into one of their cabs. Banks had every intention of trying to keep up with the chase, but it was comforting to know that if he lost sight of Jameson, someone else would have him. There were plainclothes officers at all the stops on the way, too, in case he got off, but Jameson had bought a ticket for London and it was almost certain that was where he was heading. Given his past, he would likely know someone there who could help get him out of the country. What Banks hoped – and this was one of the main reasons for letting their quarry go to ground – was that Jameson would lead them to his accomplice in the Rothwell murder.

As the train rattled out of Rickmansworth, Jameson got up and walked past Banks on his way to the toilet. Banks looked down at his book, not registering the words his eyes passed over. While Jameson was gone, he stared at the khaki rucksack and held himself back. How easy it would be, he thought, just to take it, then grab Jameson when he came back. But he had to keep thinking like a policeman, not give in to the maverick instinct, however strong. This way, with a little patience, the catch might be bigger.

And there was another reason. The gun might not be in the rucksack. Jameson’s trousers were of the bulky, many-pocketed kind favored by ramblers. Banks had glanced quickly as he went by and hadn’t been able to discern the weight or outline of a gun, but it could be there, and there were too many civilians present to make the risk worthwhile. Best wait. He thought of how much money there might be in the rucksack and smiled at how ironic it would be if someone snatched it while Jameson was having a piss.

Jameson came back. They passed Harrow and entered a landscape of factory yards, piles of tires and orange oil drums, pallets, warehouses, schoolyards full of screaming kids, bleak housing estates, concrete overpasses. Before long, the people in the carriage were standing up to get their jackets and bags as the train rumbled slowly into Marylebone station, all anxious to be first off.

Banks spotted Hatchley ahead of him, his head above most people in the crowd that shuffled through the ticket gate. Jameson had his anorak on now and was easy to keep in sight. Banks noticed him look around and lick his lips every now and then, sad, cruel puppy-dog eyes scanning the station forecourt.

But there was nothing to see. Nothing out of the ordinary. The uniformed Transport Police went about their business as usual, people leafed through magazines at the bookstall or headed for the buffet, checked the schedule displays, ran for trains. Carts of luggage and mail threaded in and out of the crowds, announcements about forthcoming departures came over the public-address system in the usual monotone echoing from the roof, where pigeons nested. To Banks, the station smelled of diesel oil and soot, though the age of steam was long gone.

Jameson made his way through the exit and managed to get a taxi. That was their first stroke of good fortune. If things went according to plan, the driver would be a DC; if not, then a taxi crawling through London traffic was easy enough for even a one-legged septuagenarian on foot to follow.

Banks opened the door of the next taxi, Hatchley beside him now. Banks was dying to jump in and say, “Follow that taxi!” but the driver didn’t want to let them in. He leaned over and tried to pull the door shut, holding up a police ID card. “Sorry, mate,” he said. “Police business. There’s another one behind.” Just in time, Banks managed to get his own card out. “Snap,” he said. “Now open the fucking door.”

“Sorry, sir,” said the driver, eyes on the road, following Jameson’s cab through the thick traffic on Marylebone Road. “I wasn’t to know. They never said to expect a DCI jumping in the cab.”

“Forget it,” said Banks. “I’m assuming it’s one of your men driving in the taxi ahead?”

“Yes, sir. DC Formby. He’s a good bloke. Don’t worry, we’re not going to lose the bastard.”

With excruciating slowness, the taxis edged their way south toward Kensington, along the busy High Street and down a side street of five- or six-story white buildings with black metal railings at the front. Jameson’s taxi stopped outside one that announced itself a HOTEL on the smoked glass over the huge shiny black doors. Across the street came the sound of drilling where workmen stood on scaffolding renovating the building opposite. The air was dry with drifting stone dust and thick with exhaust fumes. Jameson got out, looked around quickly, and went into the hotel. His taxi drove off.

“Right,” said Banks. “Looks like we’ve run the bastard to earth. Now we wait for the reinforcements.”

4

For gray, the hotel manager could have given John Major a good run for his money. His suit was gray; his hair was gray; his voice was gray. He also had one of those faces – receding chin, goofy teeth, stick-out ears – that attract such abusive and bullying attention at school. At the moment, his face was gray, too.

He reminded Banks of Parkinson, a rather unpleasant large-nosed boy who had been the butt of ridicule and recipient of the occasional thump in the fourth form. Banks had always felt sorry for Parkinson – had even defended him once or twice – until he had met him later in life, fully transformed into a self-serving, arrogant and humorless Labour MP. Then he felt Parkinson probably hadn’t been thumped enough.

The manager had obviously never seen so many rough-looking, badly dressed coppers gathered in one place since they stopped showing repeats of The Sweeney. Jeans abounded, as did leather jackets, anoraks, blousons, T-shirts and grubby trainers. There wasn’t a uniform, a tie or a well-polished shoe in sight, and the only suit was Sergeant Hatchley’s blue polyester one, which was so shiny you could see your face in it.

It was also obvious that a number of the officers were armed and that two of them wore bullet-proof vests over their T-shirts.

Short of the SAS, Police Support Units or half a dozen Armed Response Vehicles, none of which the police authorities wanted the public to see mounting a major offensive on a quiet Kensington hotel on a Thursday lunch-time, these two were probably the best you could get. Vest One, the tallest, was called Spike, probably because of his hair, and his smaller, more hirsute associate was called Shandy. Spike was doing all the talking.

“See, squire,” he said to the wide-eyed hotel manager, “our boss tells us we don’t want a lot of fuss about this. None of this evacuating the area bollocks you see on telly. We go in, we disarm him nice and quiet, then bob’s your uncle, we’re out of your hair for good. Okay? No problems for us and no bad publicity for the hotel.”

The manager, clearly not used to being called “squire,” swallowed, bobbing an oversize Adam’s apple, and nodded.

“But what we do need to do,” Spike went on, “is to clear the floor. Now, is there anyone else up there apart from this Jameson?”

The manager looked at the keys. “Only room 316,” he said. “It’s lunch-time. People usually go out for lunch.”

“What about the chambermaids?”

“Finished.”

“Good,” said Spike, then turned to one of the others in trainers, jeans and leather jacket. “Smiffy, go get number 316 out quietly, okay?”

“Right, boss,” said Smiffy, and headed for the stairs.

Spike tapped his long fingers on the desk and turned to Banks. “You know this bloke, this Jameson, right, sir?” he said.

Banks was surprised he had remembered the honorific. “Not personally,” he said, and filled Spike in.

“He’s shot a policeman, right?”

“Yes. Two of them. One’s dead and the other’s still in the operating room waiting to find out if he’s got a brain left.”

Spike slipped a stick of Wrigley’s spearmint gum from its wrapper and popped it in his mouth. “What do you suggest?” he asked between chews.

Banks didn’t know if Spike was being polite or deferential in asking an opinion, but he didn’t get a chance to find out. As Smiffy came down the stairs with a rather dazed old dear clutching a pink dressing-gown around her throat, the phone rang at the desk. The manager answered it, turned even more gray as he listened, then said, “Yes, sir. Of course, sir. At once, sir.”

“Well?” Spike asked when the manager had put the phone down. “What’s put the wind up you?”

“It was him. The man in room 324.”

“What’s he want?”

“He wants a roast beef sandwich and a bottle of beer sent up to his room.”

“How’d he sound?”

“Sound?”

“Yeah. You know, did he seem suspicious, nervous?”

“Oh. No, just ordinary.”

“Right on,” said Spike, grinning at Banks. “ Opportunity knocks.” He turned back to the manager. “Do the doors up there have those peep-hole things, so you can see who’s knocking?”

“No.”

“Chains?”

“Yes.”

“No problem. Right,” said Spike. “Come with me, Shandy. The rest of you stay here and make sure no one gets in or out. We got the back covered?”

“Yes, sir,” one of the blousons answered.

“Fire escape?”

“That, too, sir.”

“Good.” Spike looked at Banks. “I don’t suppose you’re armed?”

Banks shook his head. “No time.”

Spike frowned. “Better stay down here then, sir. Sorry, but I can’t take the responsibility. You probably know the rules better than I do.”

Banks nodded. He gave Spike and Shandy a floor’s start, then turned to Sergeant Hatchley. “Stay here, Jim,” he said. “I don’t want to lead you astray.”

Without waiting for an answer, he slipped into the stairwell. One of the Yard men in the lobby noticed but made no move to stop him. At the first-floor landing, Banks heard someone wheezing behind him and turned.

“Don’t worry, I’m not deaf,” said Hatchley. “I just thought you might like some company anyway.”

Banks grinned.

“Mind if I ask you what we’re doing this for?” Hatchley whispered as they climbed the next flight.

“To find out what happens,” said Banks. “I’ve got a funny feeling about this. Something Spike said.”

“You know what curiosity did.”

They reached the third floor. Banks peeked around the stairwell and put his arm out to hold Hatchley back.

Glancing again, Banks saw Spike point at his watch and mouth something to Shandy. Shandy nodded. They drew their weapons and walked slowly along the corridor toward Jameson’s room.

The worn carpet that covered the floor couldn’t stop the old boards creaking with each footstep. Banks saw Spike knock on the door and heard a muffled grunt from inside.

“Room service,” said Spike.

The door rattled open – on a chain, by the sound of it. Someone – Spike or Jameson – swore loudly, then Banks saw Shandy rear back like a wild horse and kick the door open. The chain snapped. Spike and Shandy charged inside and Banks heard two shots in close succession, then, after a pause of three or four seconds, another shot, not quite as loud.

Banks and Hatchley waited where they were for a minute, out of sight. Then, when Banks saw Spike come out of the room and lean against the doorjamb, he and Hatchley walked into the corridor. Spike saw them coming and said, “It’s all over. You can go in now, if you like. Silly bugger had to try it on, didn’t he?”

They walked into the room. Banks could smell cordite from the gunfire. Jameson had fallen backward against the wall and slid down into a perfect sitting position on the floor, legs splayed, leaving a thick red snail’s trail of blood smeared on the wallpaper. His puppy-dog eyes were open. His face bore no expression. The front of his green shirt, over the heart, was a tangle of dark red rag and tissue, spreading fast, and there was a similar stain slightly above it, near his shoulder. His hands lay at his side, one of them holding his gun. Another dark wet patch spread between his legs. Urine.

Banks thought of the chair at Arkbeck Farm, where this man had scared Alison Rothwell so much that she had wet herself. “Jesus Christ,” he whispered.

“We’d no choice,” Spike said behind him. “He had his gun in his hand when he came to the door. You can see for yourself. He fired first.”

Two shots, in close succession, followed by another, sounding slightly different. Two patches of spreading blood. “Our boss tells us we don’t want a lot of fuss about this.”

Banks looked at the two policemen, sighed and said, “Give my regards to Dirty Dick.”

Shandy came back with a not very convincing, “Who’s that?”

Spike grinned, rubbed the barrel of his gun against his upper thigh, and said, “Will do, sir.”