Friend of the Devil

15

Annie was in the station bright and early on Monday morning after a good night’s sleep and nothing stronger than a cup of hot chocolate over the course of the evening. She was just kicking the coffee machine the way you had to to get a cup out of it when Detective Superintendent Brough walked by and said, “My office, DI Cabbot. Now.”

Annie felt a chill. Was Brough a defender of the coffee machine or had Eric set out to harm her career? Had he got more photos that she hadn’t seen and sent them to Brough, or the chief constable? Or had he reported her behavior the other night? It didn’t bear thinking about.

Brough’s office was spacious and well appointed, as befitted a senior officer. He sat behind his desk and gruffly bade Annie sit opposite him in the hard chair. Her heart was thudding. She could argue that she had been drunk, but that reflected no better on her than sleeping with a snake like Eric in the first place.

“What have you got to say for yourself?” Brough asked, which didn’t help a great deal.

“About what?” Annie said.

“You know damn well what. The Lucy Payne murder. I’ve got the press so far up my arse I can taste their pencil lead, and absolutely bugger all to tell them. It’s been a week now, and as far as I can see you’ve just been marking time.”

In an odd way, Annie felt relieved that it was about the case and not about Eric. He hadn’t been in touch since Annie had paid him her visit on Friday, and that, she thought, was a good sign. Maybe he’d got the hint, which had been about as subtle as a blow to the head with a blunt object.

This was professional. This she could deal with. “With all due respect, sir,” she said, “we’ve done everything we can to trace this mystery woman, but she seems to have disappeared into thin air. We’ve questioned everyone at Mapston Hall twice — staff and patients alike, wherever possible — but no one there seems able to provide us with any kind of a lead or information whatsoever. No one knew anything about Karen Drew. It’s not as if most of the people there lead active social lives.”

Brough grunted. “Is someone lying?”

“Could be, sir. But all the staff members are accounted for during the time of the murder. If anyone there was involved, it was in passing over the information that Karen Drew was Lucy Payne, and not in committing the actual murder itself. Believe me, sir, we’re working on it.”

“Why is it all taking so long?”

“These things do take a long time, sir. Background checks. Ferreting out information.”

“I hear you’ve been going off on a tangent over some old case, gallivanting off to Leeds and Eastvale to talk to your old boyfriend. I’m not running a dating service here, DI Cabbot. You’d do well to remember that.”

“I resent that implication,” Annie said. She could take only so much from authority, and then her father’s streak of anarchy and rebellion broke through, and to the devil with the consequences. “And you’ve no right to speak to me like that.”

Brough seemed taken aback by her angry outburst, but it sobered him. He straightened his tie and settled back in his chair. “You don’t know how much pressure I’m under to get a result here,” he said, by way of a lame explanation.

“Then I suggest you do it by encouraging your team and supporting them, rather than by resorting to personal insults. Sir.”

Brough looked like a slapped arse. He flustered and blathered and then got around to asking Annie exactly where she thought she was going with the Kirsten Farrow angle.

“I don’t know for certain that I’m going anywhere yet,” said Annie, “but it’s starting to appear very much as if the same killer — whoever it is — has now killed again.”

“That Eastvale detective, yes. Templeton. Bad business.”

“It is, sir. I knew Kev Templeton.” Annie stopped short of saying he was a friend of hers, but she wanted Brough to dig into whatever reserves of police solidarity and sympathy he might have. “And in my opinion he was killed by the same person who killed Lucy Payne. We don’t have that many murders around here, for a start, the distance isn’t that great, and how many do we have that, according to witnesses, were committed by a mysterious woman using a straight razor, or some such similar sharp blade, to slit the throat of the victim?”

“But Templeton’s not our case, damn it.”

“He is if it’s the same killer, sir. Do you really believe there are two women going around slitting people’s throats — people they believe to be dangerous killers?”

“Put like that it does sound—”

“And do you find it so hard to believe that these might be related to an unsolved case in which a woman also may have killed two men, one of whom was a serial killer and one of whom she may have mistaken for him?”

“May have. You said ‘May have.’ I’ve looked over the files, DI Cabbot. There’s absolutely no evidence whatsoever that Greg Eastcote was murdered, either by a woman or by anyone else. He could have faked his disappearance because he thought the police were getting too close. In fact that’s the most logical explanation.”

“He could have,” Annie agreed. “But the police weren’t getting close. And a woman was seen with Jack Grimley and with the Australian boy, Keith McLaren, and she conveniently disappeared, too.”

“But this was eighteen years ago, for God’s sake. You can’t even prove that this Kirsten, or whoever she was, knew that Eastcote had attacked her. It’s absurd.”

“No more than most cases when you don’t have all the pieces, sir. I’m also trying to locate Kirsten’s psychiatrist. She had a course of hypnosis in Bath in 1988, and it might have helped her recover some of her memory of the attack.”

Brough grunted. Not impressed by the idea of hypnotherapy, Annie guessed. “The MO is completely different,” he went on. “The attacker used a rock on Keith McLaren and some sort of sharp blade on Lucy Payne.”

“MOs can change. And perhaps if she only kills killers, or people she mistakes for them, she hasn’t come across any in the last eighteen years? Perhaps she’s been abroad?”

“It’s all speculation.”

“If you don’t speculate, sir, you don’t get anywhere.”

“But I need something I can tell the press. Something real. Something substantial.”

“Since when have the press cared about reality or substance?”

“DI Cabbot!”

“Sorry, sir. Why don’t you tell them we’ve got a new lead we’re following, but you can’t say any more about it right now. They’ll understand.”

“What new lead?”

“Kirsten Farrow. We’re going to interview everyone we know was connected with Karen/Lucy until we get a connection to the killer.”

“Whom you believe to be Kirsten Farrow?”

“Yes,” said Annie. “But you don’t have to tell them that. Even if I’m wrong, we’re heading in the right direction. I’m not wearing blinkers, sir. Someone knew that Karen was Lucy, and that someone is either the killer herself, or the person who told the killer. And I’m trying to get some evidence to prove that Kirsten killed Lucy Payne. With any luck I should have it before the end of the day.”

“Okay,” said Brough. “That’s the kind of thing I want to hear. And I do take your point. It makes sense when you get rid of all that 1989 gobbledygook. Just be careful whose feet you’re treading on. Remember, these are professional people, you know, doctors and the like.”

“Oh, don’t worry, sir, I won’t eat any of them,” Annie said. “Now can I go?”

He jerked his head. “Go on. Get to work. And hurry up. And this evidence? Don’t forget, I expect to see some positive results before the end of the day.”

“Yes, sir,” Annie said as she left the office, fingers crossed.

Despite being dog-tired, Banks hadn’t slept at all well when he got home from the station well after midnight on Monday. They were no closer to finding Templeton’s killer, or Hayley Daniels’s, for that matter, and part of the program for the day was to start a complete review of both cases so far.

Everything about the Hayley Daniels murder pointed toward a scared rapist, someone the victim knew, who had strangled Hayley to avoid being named and caught, someone who was also possibly ashamed of what he’d done and had arranged the body in a pose more suggestive of sleep than rape and murder. Under further questioning, Joseph Randall had finally admitted that he had touched Hayley and masturbated at the scene, but he insisted that he hadn’t changed the position of the body, and Banks believed him. At that point, he had no reason to lie.

The Templeton murder, efficient and practical as it had been, seemed very much as if it had been a mistake on the part of a killer, who in the darkness of the Maze had thought she had been protecting Chelsea Pilton and ridding the world of a budding serial killer.

When Banks asked himself who might think that and why, he came back to Kirsten Farrow. And nobody knew what had become of her. The only thing that gave rise to any doubts at all in Banks’s mind about Kirsten’s being responsible was that the first murders, the 1989 ones, involved someone who had directly harmed Kirsten, mutilated her, and she had not been a victim of Lucy and Terence Payne. That meant that, if it was Kirsten, she had extended her parameters.

Or, Banks thought, with a quiver of excitement, perhaps she did have some connection with the Paynes. What it could be he had no idea, but it was a direction worth pursuing, and something he needed to tell Annie about, if she hadn’t thought of it herself. Annie had been right yesterday when she said it was good to be working together again. It was. Personal problems aside, he hadn’t realized how much he had missed her since she had gone to Eastern Area.

First thing on the agenda was another look at all the CCTV footage they had on both cases. Hayley Daniels first. As soon as the team was gathered — Banks, Winsome, Hatchley, Wilson, with the gaping absence of Templeton and the off-the-wall comments everyone had come to expect from him — they started watching the footage.

There it was again, the familiar scene of the market square at closing time, young men and women being sick, squabbling, singing with their arms around one another. Then the group from the Fountain standing together briefly while Hayley explained that she was going down Taylor’s Yard for a piss and then…? Well, she hadn’t told them where after that. To Malcolm Austin’s, perhaps?

But why would she want to go there? She was nineteen, pissed as a newt, out with her mates for a night on the town. Why would she want to go and visit a sober, older lover, who was probably lounging around in his carpet slippers sipping sherry and watching films that were made long before she was born? Well, love is blind, they say, but sometimes Banks thought it must be drunk as well. It didn’t matter, anyway. Wherever Hayley had intended to go, she didn’t get there. Someone intercepted her, and unless it was someone who had been lying in wait for any young girl to come by, as Templeton had believed, then it had to be someone who knew she would be there, a decision she had made only in the last minute or so, as they watched.

Banks glanced again at the people around her. He recognized Stuart Kinsey, Zack Lane and a couple of others. Their names were all on file. Their alibis had been checked and rechecked, their statements taken. They could all be reinterviewed. Someone had to know something. Maybe someone was covering for a friend he thought had done it?

The car went by, the couple on their way back from celebrating their wedding anniversary. And there was that annoying, flickering strip of light, like on restored copies of old black-and-white films. Banks made a note to ask technical services if they could get rid of it, though doing so probably wouldn’t reveal anything new. Then Hayley staggered off down Taylor’s Yard, and the rest headed for the Bar None.

Banks knew that Stuart Kinsey had sneaked out of the back exit almost immediately to spy on Hayley, but what about the others? They said they stayed at the Bar None until about two o’clock, and various staff, customers and doormen said they had seen them during that period. But it didn’t take long to sneak out, and if you were clever enough, you could wedge the back door open and hope no one noticed before the time you got back. But why would Hayley linger in the Maze once she had done what she went there to do? She had no reason to do so, unless she was meeting someone there, and why would she do that when she had Malcolm Austin waiting for her? Unless there was someone else.

It didn’t make sense. The killer had to be someone who knew that Hayley was going into the Maze, which meant that whoever it was had to act fast. How long does it take a woman to go down an alley and relieve herself in the dark? She was drunk, which would definitely slow her progress. And she’d been sick, too. On the other hand, she had little in the way of clothing to inhibit her. He could always ask a female constable to go in and do it, and time her. That would go down about as well as asking every woman connected with the Lucy Payne murder to take her top off. Sometimes the easiest and most obvious route was the only way you couldn’t go.

Banks estimated about five minutes, in and out, and felt that was fairly generous. That gave the killer about three or four minutes to follow Hayley and grab her before she finished. Stuart Kinsey had gone in there about three or four minutes after her, which made it unlikely that anyone else in the Bar None could have gone out the same way at the same time. They would have bumped into each other. And Stuart Kinsey had at least heard part of the assault against Hayley, and he said he had seen no one else in the Maze.

The tapes went on and on, Jamie Murdoch leaving with his bicycle at two-thirty, a few stragglers from the Bar None getting into a shoving match, then nothing. DC Doug Wilson switched off the player, put on the lights, and they all stretched. Over three hours had gone by, and nothing. It was time to send the team out on the streets to start talking to people again, and Banks had an appointment he wished he didn’t have to keep.

Banks leaned on a wall outside Eastvale General Infirmary, feeling queasy, and took a few slow, deep breaths. Dr. Wallace had performed her postmortem on Kevin Templeton with her usual brisk speed and efficiency, but it had been difficult to watch. There had been no banter, no black humor — hardly a word spoken, in fact — and she had seemed to work with the utmost concentration and detachment.

And nothing new had come of her efforts.

Cause of death was the cut throat, time was fixed by the eyewitness Chelsea Pilton, and other than that he was dead, Templeton had been in good health. The postmortem also hadn’t told Dr. Wallace anything more about the weapon, though she leaned toward the theory that a straight-blade razor had been used, pulled most likely from left to right across Templeton’s throat, cutting the carotid, the jugular and the windpipe. It had been quick, as Dr. Burns had noted at the scene, but long enough for Templeton to have known what was happening to him as he struggled for breath and felt himself weaken through loss of blood and oxygen. The consolation was that he would have been in no great pain, but when it came down to it, Banks thought, only Templeton himself could have known that for certain.

Banks stood on the steps of the infirmary, leaning beside the door, with a chill March wind blowing around him, and when he had regained his composure he decided to drive over to Eastvale College to talk to Stuart Kinsey again. On his way, he plucked up the courage to ring Sophia and ask her if she fancied a drink later. She did.

He tracked Kinsey down in the coffee lounge, and they found a dim quiet corner. Banks bought two lattes and a couple of KitKats at the counter and sat down.

“What is it now?” Stuart asked. “I thought you believed me?”

“I do believe you,” said Banks. “At least I believe that you didn’t murder Hayley Daniels.”

“What, then?”

“Just a few more questions, that’s all.”

“I’ve got a lecture at three.”

“That’s okay. I’ll be done long before then if we can make a start.”

“All right,” said Stuart, reaching for a cigarette. “What do you want to know?”

“It’s about the night you followed Hayley into the Maze.”

“I didn’t follow her.”

“But you went to spy on her. You knew she was there.” The smoke drifted toward Banks, and for the first time in ages it didn’t bother him. In fact, it made him crave a smoke himself. Must have been the stress of seeing Templeton opened up on the table. He fought the urge and it waned.

“I wasn’t spying!” Stuart said, glancing around to make sure no one could hear them. “I’m not a pervert. I told you, I wanted to see where she went.”

“Did you think she was meeting someone?”

“Not there, no. Whatever I thought of Hayley, I didn’t think she was the type for a quick drunken fumble in a dark alley. No, she went there for a piss, that’s all. I thought she was going to meet someone later, somewhere else.”

Banks took the silver paper from his KitKat. “Did Hayley give any indications, either that night or at any other time, that there was something or someone bothering her?”

“No. Not that I can think of. Why?”

“She wasn’t worried about anything?”

“You’ve asked me this before. Or the other officer did.”

“Well, I’m asking you again.”

“No. Nothing. Hayley was pretty happy-go-lucky. I mean, I never saw her really down about anything.”

“Angry?”

“She had a bit of temper. Had quite a mouth on her. But it took a lot to get her riled.”

“She was upset in the Fountain, right? And she took it out on Jamie Murdoch.”

“Yeah, a bit. I mean, he was the only one there apart from us. She called him a few names. Limp dick, dickhead, stuff like that. She was way out of line.”

“How did he take it?”

“How would you take it? He wasn’t happy.”

“He told me it wasn’t a big deal.”

“Well, he would, wouldn’t he? He wouldn’t want you to think he had a motive for hurting Hayley.”

“Did he? Was he really that angry?”

“I don’t know. More like embarrassed. He rushed us out pretty quickly after that.”

“Were they ever close at all, Hayley and Jamie?”

“No way! Jamie was a loser. He dropped out of the college. I mean, look at him, stuck in the grotty pub night after night, half the time by himself while the landlord suns himself in Florida.”

“Was there anyone in any of the pubs that night — especially the Fountain — who paid undue attention to Hayley, apart from the leather-shop owner?”

“Men looked at her, yes, but nothing weird, not that I can remember. Nothing different from usual, anyway. And like I said, we were the last to leave the Fountain. Nobody followed us.”

“Okay, Stuart. Let’s get back to the Maze now.”

Stuart squirmed in his chair. “Must we?”

“It’s important.” Banks gestured to the second KitKat on the table. “Do you want that?” Stuart shook his head. Banks picked it up and began to eat it. He had forgotten how hungry he was.

“I don’t feel good about it,” Stuart said. “I’ve thought and thought since we last talked, and I know I must have heard it happening. I know I could have stopped it if I’d just done something. Made a lot of noise, banged a dustbin lid on the wall. I don’t know. But I bottled out. I got scared and ran away, and because of that Hayley died.”

“You don’t know that,” said Banks. “Stop beating yourself up over it. I’m interested in what you heard.”

“I’ve already told you.”

“Yes, but you also said you heard some music, a snatch of a song, as if from a passing car. Rap, you said it was. And familiar. You couldn’t remember what it was when I last talked to you. Do you have any idea now?”

“Oh, yeah, that. I think I do… you know, since we talked I’ve been playing it over and over in my mind, the whole thing, and I think it was the Streets, ‘Fit But You Know It.’”

“I know that one,” said Banks. “Are you sure?”

If Stuart was surprised that Banks knew the song, he didn’t show it. “Yeah,” he said. “I’ve got the CD. Just haven’t played it in a while.”

“And you’re certain you heard it around the same time you heard the other sounds?”

“Yes. Why? Is it important?”

“Maybe,” said Banks. He checked his watch. “You’ll be late for your lecture,” he said, standing up. “Thanks for your time.”

“That’s all?”

“That’s all.” Banks finished his latte, screwed up the KitKat wrapper, dropped it in the ashtray and left, thinking he had a pretty good idea why both Stuart Kinsey and Kevin Templeton heard the same music on different nights.

Just after dark that evening, Annie found herself wandering down Saint Ann’s Staith by the estuary, past the blackboard with the tide tables on the short bridge that linked east and west. The strings of red and yellow harbor lights had just come on and made a hazy glow in the slight evening mist. They reflected, swaying slightly, in the narrow channels of the ebbing tide. Fishing boats leaned at odd angles in the silt, their masts tilting toward the fading light and rattling in the light breeze. A ghostly moon was just visible out to sea above the wraiths of mist. The air smelled of salt and dead fish. It was chilly, and Annie was glad she was wearing a wool coat and a pashmina wrapped around her neck.

She walked along beside the railings, the shops opposite closed for the evening, a glow coming from the pubs and the two cafés still serving fish and chips. Vinegar and deep-frying fat mingled with the harbor smells. A group of Goths dressed in black, faces white, hung out smoking and talking by the sheds, near the “Dracula Experience,” and even so long before the holiday season, a few tourist couples walked hand in hand and families tried to control their unruly children. The large amusement arcade was doing plenty of business, Annie noticed, almost tempted to go in and lose a few coins on the one-armed bandits. But she resisted.

She was feeling excited because Les Ferris had phoned late in the afternoon and told her the hair and fibers expert, Famke Larsen, had matched Kirsten Farrow’s sample of eighteen years ago with a hair taken from Lucy Payne’s blanket last week. So it was Kirsten. Back and in action again. Annie’s long shot had paid off and she could trust her copper’s instincts again. It gave her the focus she needed, and it appeased Superintendent Brough for a while.

According to Famke, the similarities in color, diameter, medulla pattern and the intensity of pigment granules were enough to go on, but it wasn’t a match that would stand up in court. Annie didn’t care about that; she’d half expected it, anyway. Les Ferris had reminded her that hair was class evidence — that it was not possible to match a human hair to any single head — but for her purposes the identification was enough. Both samples were fine, Caucasian, with evenly distributed pigment and a slightly oval cross section.

An unexpected bonus was that the hair found on Lucy Payne’s blanket hadn’t been sheared off; it came complete with its root. The only drawback, Famke had explained to Liam and Les, was that it was in what she called the “telogen stage.” In other words, it hadn’t been pulled out, it had fallen out, and that meant there were no healthy root cells and attached matter. The best they could hope for, Les summed up, was mitochondrial DNA, which is material that comes from outside the nucleus of the cells, and from the mother. Even so, it could help them come up with a DNA profile of Kirsten Farrow, Lucy Payne’s killer.

The tide was out, so Annie went down the steps and on the beach. There was no one else around now, perhaps because of the late-March chill. As she walked, she wondered about Jack Grimley. Would a fall to the beach from the top of the cliffs have killed him? The beach wasn’t particularly rocky. She looked behind at the looming mass towering above her. It might have. But if he’d been lying on the sand for a while, wasn’t it likely that someone would have seen him? What if Kirsten had lured him down there, believing him to be her attacker, and killed him? There were some small caves in the bottom of the cliff face. Annie walked inside one. It was pitch-black and smelled of seaweed and stagnant rock pools. It wasn’t very deep, as far as she could tell, but you could hide a body there, behind a rock, at night especially, until the tide came and took it out to sea.

She left the beach and walked up the steps from Pier Road to the Cook statue. For a moment, she sat on the bench there and thought, This is where Keith and Kirsten sat, where he kissed her and got no response. Was she so preoccupied with her revenge that she had gone beyond the merely human? It was also near here that a woman had been seen with Jack Grimley, and though she hadn’t been identified as Kirsten, Annie was certain that was who it was. What had they talked about? Had she lured him to the beach with promises of sex and killed him? Was that also how she had got Keith McLaren into the woods?

Not too far away, Annie noticed lights and a pub sign. When she got up and walked closer, she saw that it was the Lucky Fisherman. Curious, she went inside. The door to her left opened on a small smoky public bar, where about five or six men stood around chatting, a couple of them smoking pipes. A football game played on a small television over the door, but nobody paid it much attention. When Annie walked in, they all stared at her, fell silent for a moment, then went back to their conversations. There were only a couple of tables, one of them occupied by an old woman and her dog, so Annie went out again and through the door on the right. This was the lounge, quite a bit bigger, but barely populated. Music played softly, a couple of kids were playing one of the machines and four people were clustered around the dartboard. It was warm, so Annie took her coat off and ordered a pint, taking it over to a table in the corner. Nobody paid her any attention.

So this was where Keith had met Kirsten that evening, and where she had seen Jack Grimley whom, Annie guessed, she had believed for some reason to be the man who had hurt her. She hadn’t approached him, as far as Keith remembered, so she must have come back another night and perhaps waited for him outside. It wasn’t hard to lead a man where you wanted him to go to if you were young and pretty. He wanted to go there, too.

Annie sat sipping her beer and thinking about the past while she flipped through the pages of the latest Hello magazine she had bought earlier and carried in her shoulder bag. After a few moments she became aware of someone standing over her. Slowly, she looked up to see a broad-shouldered man with a shaved head and a handlebar mustache, probably in his early fifties.

“Can I help you?” she asked.

“Are you that there new policewoman?”

“I’m DI Cabbot, yes. Why?”

“Thought I saw your picture in the paper this morning. You’ll be after the person who killed that woman in the wheelchair, then, won’t you?”

“That would be one of my jobs, yes.” Annie put her magazine down. “Why? Do you know anything that could help?”

He gave her a questioning glance, and she noticed that he was asking if it was okay to join her for a moment. She nodded.

“No,” he said. “I don’t know owt. And the way I’ve heard it, I reckon she only got what she deserved. Still, it’s a terrible way to go, in a wheelchair and all, can’t defend yourself. I’d say it’s a coward’s work.”

“Perhaps,” said Annie, taking a swig of beer.

“But it was summat else I wanted to ask you about. I heard a rumor the police was asking questions about an old crime, something involving an old friend of mine.”

“Oh?” said Annie. “Who would that be?”

“Jack Grimley.”

“You knew Jack Grimley?”

“Best mates. Well, am I right?”

“I don’t know where you got your information from,” Annie said, “but we’ve taken an interest in the case, yes.”

“More than anyone could say at the time.”

“I wasn’t here then.”

He eyed her scornfully. “Aye, I can see that for myself.”

Annie laughed. “Mr….?”

“Kilbride.”

“Mr. Kilbride, much as I’d love to sit and chat with you, I have to get back to work. Is there anything you want to tell me?”

He scratched the comma of beard under his lower lip. “Just that what happened to Jack, like, it never sat well with me.”

“Did the police talk to you at the time?”

“Oh, aye. They talked to all his mates. Can I get you another drink?”

Annie had about a third of a pint left. She wasn’t having any more. “No, thanks,” she said. “I’ll stick with this.”

“Suit yourself.”

“You were saying. About Jack Grimley.”

“I was the one saw him with that there woman, standing by the railings near the Captain Cook statue.”

“And you’re sure it was a woman?”

“Oh, aye. I could tell the difference.” He smiled. “Still can. She might have been a skinny wee thing, but she was a lass, all right. Dark horse, our Jack. Not like him.”

“What do you mean?”

“Jack was the serious type when it came to women. Couldn’t look at one he fancied without falling in love with her. We used to tease him something cruel, and he’d go red as a beet.”

“But he’d never mentioned this girl?”

“No. Not to me. Not to any of us. And he would have done.”

“But she was new. He’d only just met her. They were getting to know each other.”

“Oh, she was new, all right. She’d been in here once, a few days before, with a young lad. I recognized her. Not so much the face as the way she moved. And there she was, back again, outside with Jack.”

“But she didn’t come in the second time?”

“No. She must have been waiting for him outside.”

“And you’re sure he never mentioned anything about a new girlfriend, someone he’d met, or talked to?”

“No.”

“Did you ever see her again?”

“No. Nor Jack.”

“I’m sorry about your friend,” Annie said.

“Aye. The police said he must have fallen off the cliff, but Jack was too careful to do owt like that. He grew up here, knew the place like the back of his hand.”

“I was just down on the beach,” Annie said. “Do you think a fall would have killed him? There’s not many rocks down there.”

“It’s hard enough if you fall all that way,” said Kilbride, “but there’s some has got away with a broken leg or two.”

“There was a theory that he might have jumped.”

“That’s even more ridiculous. Jack had everything to live for. He was a simple bloke who liked the simple pleasures. Believed in a good job well done. He’d have made a fine husband and father one day if he’d had the chance.” He shook his head. “No, there was no way Jack’d have done away with himself.”

“So what do you think happened?”

“She killed him, pure and simple.”

“Why?”

“You lot never tell the likes of us what you’re thinking, so how would I know? Maybe she didn’t need a reason. Maybe she was one of them there serial killers. But she killed him all right. He’d go anywhere with a pretty young woman, would Jack. Putty in her hands. The silly bastard was probably in love with her by the time she killed him.” He stood up. “Anyway, I don’t mean to bother you, love,” he said. “I just recognized you and I thought I’d let you know that if you are investigating what happened to Jack Grimley, for whatever reason, you can take my word for it — someone did for him.”

Annie finished her beer. “Thanks, Mr. Kilbride,” she said. “I’ll bear that in mind.”

“And, young lass?”

“Yes,” said Annie, far more flattered by that endearment than by all of Eric’s attentions.

“You seem like the determined type. When you do find out, drop by and let us know, will you? I’m here most nights.”

“Yes,” said Annie, shaking his hand. “Yes, I promise I’ll do that.” When she got back to her room, she made a note to let both Kilbride and Keith McLaren know the outcome of the investigation.

Sophia was already waiting when Banks got to the new wine bar on Market Street, where they had arranged to meet. He apologized for being five minutes late and sat down opposite her. It was quieter and far less smoky than the pubs, a much more intimate setting, with shiny round black-topped tables, each bearing a candle floating among flower petals, and chrome stools, mirrors, colorful Spanish prints and contemporary-style fittings. The place had only been open about a month, and Banks hadn’t been there before; it had been Sophia’s idea. When she had been there before, or whom with, he had no idea. The music was cool jazz vocal, and Banks recognized Madeleine Peyroux singing Dylan’s “You’re Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go.” It was a sentiment he could well share, because tomorrow Sophia was going back to London and Banks had no idea when, or if, he would see her again.

“Long day?” she said, when he had settled down.

“I’ve had better,” Banks said, rubbing his temples and thinking of the Templeton postmortem, and the talk he’d had with Kev’s distraught parents. “You?”

“A long run in the morning and a bit of work in the afternoon.”

“‘Work’ work?”

“Yes. I’ve got a five-part series on the history of the Booker Prize coming up soon, so I have to read all the winners. Well, most of them, anyway. I mean, who remembers Percy Howard Newby or James Gordon Farrell?” She put her fist to her mouth. “Yawn. You want to eat?”

“Do they do burgers and chips?”

Sophia grinned. “A man of great culinary discernment, I can tell. No, they don’t, but we might get some baked Brie and garlic and a baguette if I ask nicely. The owner’s an old pal of my dad’s.”

“It’ll have to do, then,” said Banks. “Any chance of a drink around here, too?”

“My, my, how impatient you are. You must have had a bad day.” Sophia caught the waitress’s attention and ordered Banks a large Rioja. When it came, she held her glass out for a toast: “To great ideas in the middle of the night.”

Banks smiled and they clinked glasses.

“I’ve brought you a present,” Sophia said, passing a familiar-shaped package across the table to Banks.

“Oh?”

“You can open it now.”

Banks undid the wrapping and found a CD: Burning Dorothy by Thea Gilmore. “Thanks,” he said. “I was going to buy it myself.”

“Well, now you don’t have to.”

Already he could feel himself relaxing, the stresses of the day rolling off, the gruesome images and the raw human misery receding into the background. The wine bar was a good choice, he had to admit. It was full of couples talking softly and discreetly, and the music continued in the same vein. Sophia talked about her work and Banks forgot about his. They touched briefly on politics, found they both hated Bush, Blair and the Iraq war, and moved on to Greece, which Banks loved and Sophia knew well. Both felt that Delphi was the most magical place in the world.

When the baked Brie and garlic had come and gone, toward the end of their second glass of wine, there was no one left in the place but the two of them and the staff. Their conversation meandered on through music, films, wine and family. Sophia loved the old sixties stuff and its contemporary imitators, liked films by Kurosawa, Bergman and Truffaut, she drank Amarone whenever she could afford it, and had a very large extended but close-knit family. She loved her job because it gave her a lot of free time if she arranged things properly, and she liked to spend it in Greece with her mother’s side of the family.

Banks was more than happy simply to sip his wine, listen to Sophia’s voice and watch the expressions flitting across her animated features and behind her dark eyes. Excitement one moment, a hint of sadness the next. Sometimes he looked at her mouth and remembered the kiss, the feel of her lips, though neither of them mentioned it during the evening. He was also aware of her bare shoulders, and of the soft swelling at the front of her blouse, aroused without even really thinking about it. Everything about being here now with her felt so natural that he couldn’t believe he had only known this woman for three days — and known was a gross overstatement. He still knew practically nothing about her.

The evening was winding down, their wine nearly finished. Corinne Bailey Rae, the Leeds lass, was singing “Till It Happens to You.” Sophia insisted on paying the waitress and disappeared for a few moments to the ladies’. Banks looked at the framed Spanish scenes on the walls and let the music roll over him. Sophia came back and sat down again, resting her arms on the table. Banks reached across and took her hand. Her skin was warm and soft. He felt the slight return of pressure as she accepted his touch.

They sat like that in silence for a while, just looking at each other. “Come back with me,” Banks said finally.

Sophia said nothing, but her eyes spoke for her. As one, they stood up and left.