Innocent Graves

I

At ten o’clock the next morning, with Jelačić cooling his heels in a cell downstairs, Banks sat at his desk, coffee in hand, lit a cigarette and opened Deborah Harrison’s diary. Ken Blackstone had given him the gist of it over the phone the previous evening-and he had not slept well in consequence-but he wanted to read it for himself before making his next move.

Like the inside of the satchel flap, it was inscribed with her name and address in gradually broadening circles, from “Deborah Catherine Harrison” to “The Universe.”

First he checked the section for names, addresses and telephone numbers, but found nothing out of the ordinary, only family and school friends. Then he started to flip the pages.

He soon found that many of her entries were factual, with little attempt at analysis or poetic description. Some days she had left completely blank. And it wasn’t until summer, when she had supposedly “lost” it, that the diary got really interesting:

August 5

Yawn. This must be the most boring summer there has ever been in my entire existence. Went shopping today in the Swainsdale Center, just for something to do. What a grim place. Absolutely no decent shoes there at all and full of local yokels and horrible scruffy women dragging around even more horrible dirty children. I must work hard on mummy and persuade her to take me shopping to Paris again soon or I swear I shall just die from the boredom of this terrible provincial town. In the shopping center, I met that common little tart Tiffy Huxtable from dressage. She was with some friends and asked if I’d like to hang around with them. They didn’t look very interesting. They were all just sitting around the fountain looking scruffy and stupid, but there was one fit lad there so I said I might drop by one day. Life is so (yawn) boring that I really might do. Oh, how I do so need an adventure.

There were no entries for the next few days, then came this:

August 9

Tiffy’s crowd are a bunch of silly, common bores, just as I thought. All they can talk about is television and football and sex and pop music. I mean, really, darling, who gives a damn? I’m sure not one of them has read a book in years. Quite frankly, I’d rather stay at home and watch videos. Tracy Banks seems quite intelligent, but it turns out that she’s a policeman’s daughter, of all things. One boy looks a bit like that really cool actor from “Neighbors” and wears a great leather jacket. He really does have very nice eyes, too, with long lashes.

After that, things started to move quickly:

August 12

John (Oh, such disappointment! What a terribly common, dull and ordinary name, like “Tracy”!) stole a car tonight and took me for a joy-ride. Me!! Little miss goody-two-shoes. It was brill! If Daddy knew about it he would have apoplexy. It wasn’t much of a car, just a poky little Astra, but he drove it really fast out past Helmthorpe and parked in a field. It was so exciting even though I was a bit frightened we’d get caught by the police. When we parked he was like an octopus! I told him I’m not the kind of girl who does it the first time you go out, even if he did steal a car for me. Lads! I ask you. He asked me what he could do the first time, and I told him we could just kiss. I really didn’t mind when he put his tongue in my mouth but I wouldn’t let him touch my breasts. I didn’t tell him I had never done it before. Though I came close with Pierre at Montclair last year, and if he hadn’t been too much in a hurry and had that little accident first we might have done it.

Then, three days later, she wrote:

August 15

Tonight, in another “borrowed” car, as John calls them, we actually did it for the first time! I made him take a van this time, because it’s cramped in a little Astra, and we went in the back. I wasn’t going to go all the way at first but things just got out of control. It didn’t hurt, like they say it does. I don’t know if I like it or not. I did feel excited and sinful and wicked but I don’t think I had an orgasm. I don’t really know, because I don’t know what they feel like, but the earth didn’t move or anything like that, and I didn’t hear bells ringing, just a funny feeling between my legs and I felt a bit sore after. I wonder if I will ever have multiple orgasms? Charlene Gregory at school told me she can have orgasms just from the vibrations of the engine when she’s on a bus, but I don’t believe her. And Kirsty McCracken says she can get them from rubbing against her bicycle saddle while she’s riding. Maybe that’s true. I sometimes feel a bit funny when I’m horse-riding. Anyway, when he finished, it was really disgusting the way he just tied a knot in the condom and threw it out of the window into the field, and then he didn’t even seem to want to talk to me all the way back. Is this what happens when you give in to lads and let them have what they want? That’s what Mummy would say, even though she is French and they’re supposed to be so sexy and all.

August 17

John came to the house today. Mummy was out and he wanted us to go and do it upstairs but I was too frightened we’d get caught. Anyway, we barbecued some hot dogs on the back patio and I took a bottle of Father’s special wine from the cellar and we drank that. Of course, Mother came home! She was very nice about it, really, but I could tell she didn’t like John. Uncle Michael was there, too, and I could tell he really hated John on sight. John says nobody ever gives him a chance.

August 20

They all went to Leeds today-Mummy and Daddy and Uncle Michael-to some naff cocktail party or other, so I told John he could come over to the house again. This time I knew they’d be gone a long time so we did it in my bed! How sinful! How wickedly, deliciously sinful! I don’t know if I had an orgasm or not, but I certainly tingled a bit, and I didn’t feel at all sore. John wants me to do it without a condom, but I told him not to be stupid. I wouldn’t even think of it. I don’t want to get pregnant with his baby or get some sexual disease. That hurt him, that I thought he would have some disease to pass on to me. He can be so childish at times. Childish and boring.

But it wasn’t until a later entry that Banks found out for himself what Ken Blackstone meant when he said the diary might be “dynamite.”

August 21

I can hardly believe it, Uncle Michael is in love with me! He says he has loved me since I was twelve, and has even spied on me getting undressed at Montclair. He says I look like Botticelli’s Venus! Which is stretching it a bit, if you ask me. I remember seeing it in the Uffizi when Mummy and I went to Florence last year, and I don’t look a bit like her. My hair’s not as long, for a start, and it’s a different color. I never thought Uncle Michael knew literature and art at all. Some of what he wrote sounds very poetic. And it’s all about me!! I don’t know what I shall do. For the moment, it will be my little secret. He’s not really my uncle of course, just my dad’s friend, so I suppose it is all right for him to be in love with me, it’s not incest. It feels funny, though, because I’ve known him forever. Oops, I forgot to say how I know. Last night John and me stole Uncle Michael’s car because he was so beastly to him last week at the barbecue (now I know why: Uncle Michael must have been jealous!!). Well, Uncle Michael had left his computer in the back seat. We took it to John’s house (and thank the lord his horrible smelly mother was out-she really gives me the creeps)-and I couldn’t get into all his technical stuff but it only took me about fifteen minutes to get the password to his word-processing directories: it’s MONTCLAIR, of course. After that, it was easy. Uncle Michael puts everything on his computer, even his shopping-lists! When I’d finished, I reformatted his hard drive. That’ll show him!

Banks put the diary aside and walked to the window. Mid-morning on a hot and humid June day, cobbled market square already full of cars and coaches. He wondered if this summer was going to be as hot as the last one. He hoped not. Naturally, there was no air-conditioning in Eastvale Divisional HQ, or in the whole of Eastvale, as far as he knew. You just had to make do with open windows and fans-not a lot of use when there’s no breeze and the air is hot.

The diary wasn’t evidence, of course. Deborah Harrison had read some of Michael Clayton’s private files and discovered that he was sexually infatuated with her; it didn’t mean that he had killed her. But as Banks sat down again and read on, it became increasingly clear that Clayton, in all likelihood, had killed Deborah.

The telephone rang. Banks picked it up and Sergeant Rowe told him there was a Detective Sergeant Leaside calling from Swiss Cottage.

Banks frowned; he didn’t recognize the name. “Better put him on.”

Leaside came on. “It’s about a woman called Michelle Chappel,” he said. “I understand from the PNC that she was part of a case you’ve been involved in recently up there?”

Banks gripped the receiver tightly. “Yes. Why? What’s happened?”

“She’s been assaulted, sir. Quite badly. Lacerations and bruises, attempted strangulation.”

“Rape?”

“No, sir. I was wondering…We got a description of the suspect from a neighbor…” He read the description.

“Yes,” Banks said when he’d finished. “Dammit, yes. That sounds like Owen Pierce. All right, thanks Sergeant. We’ll keep an eye open for him.”

II

Ive Jelačić was surly after his night in the cells. Banks had him brought up to an interview room and left him alone there for almost an hour before he and Superintendent Gristhorpe went in to ask their questions. They didn’t turn the tape recorder on.

“Well, Ive,” said Banks, “you’re in a lot of trouble now, you know that?”

“What trouble? I do nothing.”

“Where did you get that diary?”

“What diary? I never see that before. You policeman put it on me.”

Banks sighed and rubbed his forehead. He could see it was going to be one of those days. “Ive,” he said patiently, “both Mile Pavelič and Vjeko Batorac have seen you with the diary. You asked them to read it for you. You even hit Vjeko when he tried to hang onto it.”

“I remember nothing of this. I do nothing wrong. Vjeko and I, we quarrel. Is not big deal.”

“Come on, lad,” said Gristhorpe, “help us out here.”

“I know nothing.”

Gristhorpe gestured for Banks to follow him out of the room. He did so, and they stood silently in the corridor for a few minutes before going back inside. It seemed to work; Jelačić was certainly more nervous than he had been before.

“Where you go?” he asked. “What you do?”

“Listen to me, Ive,” said Banks. “I’m only going to say this once, and I’ll say it slowly so that you understand every word. If it hadn’t been for you, an innocent man might not have spent over six months in jail, suffered the indignity of a trial and incurred the wrath of the populace. In other words, you put Owen Pierce through hell, and even though he’s free now, a lot of people still think he really killed the girls.”

Jelačić shrugged. “Maybe he did. Maybe court was wrong.”

“But more important even than Owen Pierce’s suffering is Ellen Gilchrist’s life. If it hadn’t been for you, Ive Jelačić, that girl might not have had to die.”

“I tell you before. In my country, many people die. Nobody ca-”

Banks slammed his fist on the flimsy table. “Shut up! I don’t want to hear any more of your whining self-justification and self-pity, you snivelling little turd. Do you understand me?”

Jelačić’s eyes were wide open now. He nodded and glanced over at Gristhorpe for reassurance he wasn’t going to be left alone with this madman. Gristhorpe remained expressionless.

“Because of you, an innocent girl was brutally murdered. Now, I might not be able to charge you with murder, as I would like to do, but I’ll certainly get something on you that’ll put you away for a long, long time. Understand me?”

“I want lawyer.”

“Shut up. You’ll get a lawyer when we’re good and ready to let you. For the moment, listen. Now, I don’t think we’ll have much trouble getting Daniel and Rebecca Charters to testify that you tried to extort money from them in order to alter the story you told against Daniel Charters. That’s extortion, for a start. And we’ll also get you for tampering with evidence, wasting police time and charges too numerous to mention. And do you know what will happen, Ive? We’ll get you sent back to Croatia is what.”

“No! You cannot do that. I am British citizen.”

Banks looked at Gristhorpe and the two of them laughed. “Well, maybe that’s true,” Banks said. “But you do know who Deborah Harrison’s father is, don’t you? He’s Sir Geoffrey Harrison. A very powerful and influential man when it comes to government affairs. Even you must know something of the way this country’s run, Ive. What would you say for your chances now?”

Jelačić turned pale and started chewing his thumbnail.

“Are you going to co-operate?”

“I know nothing.”

Banks leaned forward and rested his elbows on the table. “Ive. I’ll say this once more and then it’s bye-bye. If you don’t tell us what you know and where you found the diary, then I’ll personally see to it that you’re parachuted right into the middle of the war zone. Clear?”

Jelačić sulked for a moment, then nodded.

“Good. I’m glad we understand one another. And just because you’ve behaved like a total pillock, there’s one more condition.”

Jelačić’s eyes narrowed.

“You drop all charges against Daniel Charters and make a public apology.”

Jelačić bristled at this, but after huffing and puffing for a minute or two, agreed that he had, in fact, misinterpreted the minister’s gesture.

Banks stood up and took Jelačić’s arm. “Right, let’s go.”

They drove him to St. Mary’s, and he led them along the tarmac path, onto the gravel one and into the thick woods behind the Inchcliffe Mausoleum. A good way in, he paused in front of a tree and said, “Here.”

Banks looked at the tree but could see nothing out of the ordinary, no obvious hiding-place. Then Jelačić reached his hand up and seemed to insert it right into the solid wood itself. It was then that Banks noticed something very odd about the yew trees. Not very tall, but often quite wide in circumference, they were hard, strong and enduring. Some of the older ones must have been thirty feet around and had so many clustered columns they looked like a fluted pillar. The one they stood before had probably been around since the seventeenth century. The columns were actually shoots pushing out from the lower part of the bole, growing upwards and appearing to coalesce with the older wood, making the tree look as if it had several trunks all grafted together. It also, he realized, provided innumerable nooks and crannies to hide things. What Deborah had sought out for a hiding-place, and Jelačić had seen her use, was a knot-hole in this old yew, angled in such a way that it was invisible when you looked at it straight on.

Banks moved Jelačić aside and reached his hand inside the tree. All he felt was a bed of leaves and strips of bark that had blown in over the years. But then, when he started to dig down and sweep some of this detritus aside, he was sure his fingers brushed something smooth and hard. Quickly, he reached deeper, estimating that Deborah could have easily done the same with her long arms. At last, he grasped the package and drew it out. Gristhorpe and Jelačić stood beside him, watching.

“Looks like you missed the jackpot, Ive,” Banks said.

It was a small square object wrapped in black bin-liner, folded over several times for good insulation. When Banks unfolded it, he brought out what he had hoped for: a computer diskette.

III

Back at the station, Banks handed the floppy disk to Susan Gay and asked her if she could get a printout of its contents. He hoped it had survived winter in the knot-hole of the yew. It should have done; it had been wrapped in plastic and buried under old leaves, wood chips and scraps of bark, which would have helped preserve it, and the winter hadn’t been very cold.

Ten minutes later, Susan knocked sharply on Banks’s office door and marched in brandishing a sheaf of paper. Her hand was shaking, and she looked pale. “I think you’d better have a look at this, sir.”

“Let’s swap.” Banks pushed the diary towards her and picked up the printout.

De-bo-rah. De-bo-rah. How the syllables of your name trip off my tongue like poetry. When was it I first knew that I loved you? I ask myself, can I pinpoint the exact moment in time and space where that magical transformation took place and I no longer looked at a mere young girl but a shining girl-child upon whose every movement I fed hungrily. When, when did it happen?

Oh, Deborah, my sweet torturer, why did I ever, ever have to see you pass that moment from childhood to the flush of womanhood? Had you remained a mere child I could never have loved you this way. I could never have entertained such thoughts about your straight and hairless child’s body as I do about your woman’s body.

I seek you out; yet I fly from you. On the surface, all appears normal, but if people could see and hear inside me the moment you come into a room or sit beside me, they would see my heart pulling at the reins and hear my blood roaring through my veins. That day you won the dressage and walked towards me in your riding-gear, that moist film of sweat glistening on the exquisite curve of your upper lip…and you kissed me on the cheek and put your arm around me…I felt your small breast press softly against my side and it was all I could do to remain standing let alone furnish the required and conventional praise…well done…well done…wonderful…well done, my love, my Deborah.

The first time I saw you naked as a woman you were standing in the old bath-tub at Montclair looking like Botticelli’s Birth of Venus. Remember, my love, there were no locks on the doors at Montclair. One simply knew when private rooms were engaged and refrained from entering. Mistakes were made, of course, but honest mistakes. Besides, it was family. They aren’t prudes about such things, the French, Sylvie’s people. I hoped only for a brief glimpse of your nakedness as you bathed. I knew I couldn’t linger, that I must apologize and dash out as if I had a made a mistake before you even realized I had seen you. So fast, so fleeting a glimpse. And even now I wonder what would have happened had I not witnessed you in your full glory.

For you were standing up, reaching for the towel, and your loveliness was on display just for me. Steam hung in the air and the sunlight that slanted through the high window cast rainbows all about you. Droplets of moisture had beaded on your flushed skin; your wet hair clung to your neck and shoulders, long strands pasted over the swellings of your new breasts, where the nipples, pink as opening rosebuds stood erect. Even that early in womanhood your waist curved in and swelled out at the narrow hips. Between your legs a tiny triangle of hair like spun gold lay on the mound of Venus; the paradise I dream of; drops of water had caught among the fine, curled hairs, forming tiny prisms in the sunlight; some just seemed to glitter in clear light like diamonds…

I have other images locked away inside me: the thin black bra strap against your bare shoulder, the insides of your thighs when you cross your legs…

And so it went on. Again, it wasn’t solid evidence, but it was all they had. Banks had no choice but to act on it.

IV

Owen gazed out of the train window into the darkness. Rain streaked the dirty glass and all he could see was reflections of the lights behind him in the carriage. He wished he could get another drink, but he was on the local train now, not the InterCity, and there was no bar service.

As the train rattled through a closed village station on the last leg of his journey, Owen thought again of how he had walked the London streets all night in the rain after killing Michelle, half-hoping the police would pick him up and get it over with, half-afraid of going back to prison, this time forever.

He had covered the whole urban landscape, or so it seemed; the west end, where the bright neons were reflected in the puddles and the nightclubs were open, occasional drunks and prostitutes shouting or laughing out loud; rain-swept wastelands of demolished houses, where he had to pick his way carefully over the piles of bricks with weeds growing between them; clusters of tower blocks surrounded by burned-out cars, playgrounds with broken swings; and broad tree-lined streets, large houses set well back from the road. He had walked through areas he wouldn’t have gone near if he had cared what happened to him, and if he hadn’t been mugged or beaten up it wasn’t for lack of carelessness.

But nothing had happened. He had seen plenty of dangerous-looking people, some hiding furtively in shop doorways or hanging around in groups smoking crack in the shadows of tower-block stairwells, but no-one had approached him. Police cars had passed him as he walked along Finchley Road or Whitechapel High Street, but none had stopped to ask him who he was. If he hadn’t known different, he would have said he was leading a charmed life.

At one point, close to morning, he had stood on a bridge watching the rain pit the river’s surface and felt the life of the city around him, restful perhaps, but never quite sleeping, that hum of energy always there, always running through it like the river did. He didn’t think it was Westminster Bridge, but still Wordsworth’s lines sprung into his mind, words he had read and memorized in prison:

This City now doth, like a garment, wear

The beauty of the morning; silent, bare,

Ships, towers, domes, theaters, and temples lie

Open unto the fields, and to the sky;

All bright and glittering in the smokeless air.

Well, perhaps the air wasn’t exactly “smokeless,” Owen thought, but one has to make allowances for time.

Owen felt tired and empty. So tired and so empty.

Eastvale Station was in the north-eastern part of the town, on Kendal Road a couple of miles east of North Market Street. It was only a short taxi-ride to the town center. But Owen didn’t want to go to the center, or, tired as he was, home.

He was surprised the police weren’t waiting for him at the station, as they probably would be at his house. He didn’t want to walk right into their arms, and however empty he felt, however final every second of continued freedom seemed, he still didn’t want to give it up just yet. Perhaps, he thought, he was like the cancer patient who knows there’s no hope but clings onto life through all the pain, hoping for a miracle, hoping that the disease will just go away, that it was all a bad dream. Besides, he wanted another drink.

Whatever his reasons, he found himself walking along Kendal Road. The day had been so hot and humid that the cooler evening air brought a mist that hung in the air like fog. At the bridge, he looked along the tree-lined banks towards town and saw the high three-quarter moon and the floodlit castle on its hill reflected in the water, all blurry in the haze of the summer mist.

Walking on, he came to the crossroads and saw the Nag’s Head. Well, he thought, with a smile, it would do as well as anywhere. He had come full circle.

V

By the time Banks and Gristhorpe got Chief Constable Riddle’s permission to bring Michael Clayton in for questioning, which wasn’t easy, it was already dark. One of the conditions was that Riddle himself be present at the interview.

Banks was pleased to see that Clayton, as expected, was at least mildly intimidated by the sparse and dreary interview room, with its faded institutional-green walls, flyblown window, table and chairs bolted to the floor, and that mingled smell of urine and old cigarette smoke.

Clayton made the expected fuss about being dragged away from his home, like a common criminal, to the police station, but his confidence had lost a bit of its edge. He was wearing sharp-creased gray trousers and a white short-sleeved shirt; his glasses hung on a chain around his neck.

“Are you charging me with something?” Clayton asked, folding his arms and crossing his legs.

“No,” said Gristhorpe. “At least not yet. Chief Inspector Banks has a few questions he wants to ask you, that’s all.”

Jimmy Riddle sat behind Clayton in the far corner by the window, so the suspect couldn’t constantly look to him for comfort and reassurance. Riddle seemed folded in on himself, legs and arms tightly crossed. He had promised not to interfere, but Banks didn’t believe it for a moment.

“About what?” Clayton asked.

“About the murder of your goddaughter, Deborah Harrison.”

“I thought you’d finished with all that?”

“Not quite.”

He looked at his watch. “Well, you’d better tell him to get on with it, then. I’ve got important work to do.”

Banks turned on the tape recorders, made a note of the time and who was present, then gave Clayton the new caution, the same one he had given Owen Pierce eight months ago. Formalities done, he shuffled some papers on the desk in front of him and asked, “Remember when we talked before, Mr. Clayton, and I asked you if you had been having an affair with Sylvie Harrison?”

Clayton looked from Gristhorpe to Banks. “Yes,” he said to the latter. “I told you it was absurd then, and it’s still absurd now.”

“I know.”

Clayton swallowed. “What?”

“I said I know it’s absurd.”

He shook his head. “So you’re not still trying to accuse me of that? Then why…?”

“And remember I suggested that Deborah might have gained access to some sensitive business material, or some government secret?”

“Yes. Again, ridiculous.”

“You’re absolutely right. You weren’t having an affair with Sylvie Harrison,” Banks said slowly, “and Deborah didn’t gain access to any important government secrets. We know that now. I got it all wrong. You were in love with your goddaughter, with Deborah. That’s why you killed her.”

Clayton paled. “This…this is ludicrous.” He twisted around in his chair to look at Riddle. “Look, Jerry, I don’t know what they’re talking about. You’re their superior. Can’t you do something?”

Riddle, who had read both the diary and the computer journal, shook his head slowly. “Best answer the questions truthfully, Michael. That’s best for all of us.”

While Clayton was staring open-mouthed at Riddle’s betrayal, Superintendent Gristhorpe dropped the printed computer journal on the table in front of him. Clayton first glanced at it, then put his glasses on, picked it up and read a few paragraphs. Then he pushed it aside. “What on earth is that?” he asked Banks.

“The product of a sick mind, I’d say,” Banks answered.

“I hope you’re not suggesting it has anything to do with me.”

Banks leaned forward suddenly, snatched back the pages and slapped them down on the table. “Oh, stop mucking us about. It came from your computer. The one John Spinks stole that day he took your car. He’s already told us all about that, about how he saw Deborah make a copy of the files onto a diskette. You didn’t know about that, did you?”

“I…where…?”

“She kept it well hidden. Look, you know it’s your journal. Don’t deny it.”

Even in his shock, Clayton managed a thin smile and rallied his defenses. “Deny it? I most certainly do. And I’m afraid you’ll have a hard job proving a wild accusation like that. Your suggestions are outrageous.” He glanced back at Riddle. “And Jerry knows it, too. There’s absolutely nothing to link that printout with me. It could have been written by anyone.”

“I don’t think so,” said Banks. “Oh, I know that Deborah reformatted your hard drive well beyond anything an ‘unerase’ or ‘undelete’ command could bring back to life, but you must admit the contents of the journal, the circumstances, all point to you. Very damning.”

“Fiction,” said Clayton. “Pure fiction and fantasy. Just some poor lovestruck fool making things up. There’s nothing illegal in that. There’s no law against fantasies; at least not yet.”

“Maybe not,” said Banks. “We never checked Deborah’s clothing for your hairs, you know.”

“So?”

“You might not have left any blood or tissue, but I’m willing to bet that if we went over the hair samples again now, we’d find a positive match. That wouldn’t be fantasy, would it?”

Clayton shrugged. “So what? It wouldn’t surprise me. Deborah was my goddaughter, after all. We spent a lot of time together-as a family. Besides, I was in court for the so-called expert’s testimony. Hairs hardly prove a thing scientifically.”

“What about Ellen Gilchrist?”

“Never heard of-wait a minute, isn’t that the other girl who was killed?”

“Yes. What if we found your hairs on her clothing, too, and hers on yours? Was she family, a friend?”

Clayton licked his lips. “I never saw her in my life. Look, I don’t know what grounds you’ve got for assuming this, but-”

Banks dropped a photocopy of Deborah’s diary in front of him. “Read this,” he said.

Clayton read.

His hands were shaking when he put the diary down. “Fantasy,” he said, straining to keep his voice steady. “That’s not very much to go on, is it? It could be anyone.”

“Come on, Michael,” said Banks. “It’s all over. Admit it. You know what happened. You’ve just read her account. Deborah read your journal and found out you’d been secretly lusting after her since she was twelve. She was both shocked and excited by the idea. But only by the idea. She was flattered, but still too much of a kid to know how serious it all was to you. And she had a bit of a crush on you anyway. So she teased you, made up a bit of romance, flirted a little, the way young girls sometimes do to tease boys they know fancy them. Didn’t she, Michael?”

“This is absurd. You’re not only insulting me you’re also besmirching my goddaughter’s memory.” He looked around at Riddle again. “Sir Geoff-”

But Banks cut him off. “Besmirching? That’s a good word, Michael. I like that. Besmirching. Sounds naughty. Very public school. So let’s talk about besmirching. Eventually, when it became clear you wouldn’t leave her alone, Deborah threatened to tell her father. You knew that if Sir Geoffrey found out he would probably kill you. At the very least it would mean the end of your business relationship. That meant a lot to you, didn’t it, Michael? The two old Oxford boys, still together after all these years. Sir Geoffrey’s friendship meant a lot to you, too, but it didn’t stop you lusting after his twelve-year-old daughter, a girl who wasn’t even born when the two of you first met.”

Clayton glared, the color drained from his face. “You’ll regret this,” he said, glancing at both Gristhorpe and Riddle. “All of you will, if you don’t stop this right now.” Banks could almost hear Clayton’s teeth grinding together. Gristhorpe said nothing. Riddle polished his buttons with a virgin white handkerchief.

“You waited for Deborah in St. Mary’s graveyard,” Banks continued calmly. “In the shrubbery that foggy Monday evening when you knew she would be walking home alone from the chess club. You were going to grab her and drag her into the bushes, but when you saw her take the gravel path, you followed her towards the Inchcliffe Mausoleum, where you snatched her satchel and strangled her with the strap. Maybe she knew it was you, and maybe she didn’t. Maybe you talked first, tried to persuade her not to say anything, or maybe you didn’t. But that’s what happened, isn’t it, Michael?”

“I’m saying nothing.”

“You didn’t know she was going to pick up the diary she’d been keeping and hiding ever since summer, did you? Oh, Michael, but if you’d only been patient, given her a few more seconds, she would have led you straight to it and you probably wouldn’t be here now. Isn’t that how it happened?”

“I won’t even dignify your accusation with a response.”

“When she told you she’d read your computer journal, Deborah didn’t tell you that she’d copied the file about her onto a diskette, did she? But you knew she had a diary at one time. You bought it for her. That’s another irony, isn’t it, Michael? You knew she’d told Sylvie she lost it, but I wouldn’t be at all surprised if you had a good look around her room after you killed her. After all, you had your own key to Sir Geoffrey’s house, and he and Lady Harrison were out. Even if they came back and found you there, it wouldn’t have surprised them. And you opened Deborah’s school satchel, too, didn’t you, to see if she kept anything incriminating in there. Just in case. The only place you couldn’t really get access to was her school desk, but you reasoned she’d be unlikely to keep anything important or private there.”

Clayton put his hands over his ears. “This is ridiculous,” he said. “I don’t have to listen to this. You’ll never be able to prove anything. I want-”

“Now, I’m only guessing,” Banks went on, “so stop me if I’m wrong, but I also think, as you murdered Deborah, that you found out you liked it. It stimulated you. Maybe you even had an orgasm as you tightened the strap around her neck. I know you were far too clever to actually rape her because you know about DNA and all that, don’t you? But you did mess around with her clothing after you killed her-partly for pure pleasure, I’d guess, and partly to make it look like a genuine sex murder.

“It was the same with Ellen Gilchrist, wasn’t it? You’d been over and over it in your mind all week, planning how you’d kill again, anticipating the intimacy of it all, and when you did it, when you felt the strap tightening, pulling her back against you, feeling her soft flesh rubbing against you, that excited you, didn’t it?”

“Really, Banks,” Chief Constable Riddle cut in from behind. “Don’t you think this is getting a little out of hand?”

Clayton turned and looked at Riddle, a cruel smile on his thin lips. “Well, thank you, Jerry, for all your support. You’re absolutely right. He’s talking rubbish, of course. I’d never even met the girl.”

“That doesn’t matter,” Banks went on, mentally kicking Riddle and trying to ignore his interruption. “Unlike Deborah, Ellen Gilchrist was a random victim. Wrong place, wrong time. You got lucky when Owen Pierce was arrested for the murder of Deborah Harrison, didn’t you? You thought he would get convicted, sentenced and that would be an end to it. But when the trial was nearing its close, you started to worry that he might get off. The defense was good, the prosecution had only circumstantial evidence, and you’d heard rumors about evidence that would have convicted Pierce for certain had it been admissible. But you saw it all slipping away, and the focus perhaps shifting back towards you. So you went to Owen Pierce’s house while the jury was deliberating, and you either found the door open from a previous break-in, or you broke in yourself and made it look like vandals. It doesn’t really matter which. You took some hairs from Owen’s pillow, and you stole an open film container which you guessed would have his fingerprints on it. You set out to deliberately frame Owen Pierce for the murder of Ellen Gilchrist, knowing we’d also put Deborah’s murder down to him, too, and close the file on both of them. But, you know what? I think you also enjoyed it. Just the way you did with Deborah. And I think there would have been more if we hadn’t caught you, wouldn’t there? You’ve developed a taste for it.”

“This is insane,” Clayton said. “And you can’t prove a thing.”

“Oh, I think we can,” Banks went on. “Look what we proved against Owen Pierce, and he didn’t even do anything.”

Clayton smiled. “Ah, but he got off, didn’t he?”

Banks paused. “Yes. Yes, he did. But maybe you should talk to him about that. I’m sure he’d be very interested to meet you. Getting off isn’t all it’s cracked up to be in some cases. See, maybe you’re right, Michael. Maybe we won’t be able to convince a jury that a fine, upstanding citizen like yourself murdered two young girls. Perhaps even with the evidence of the journal and the diary and the hairs, if we find they match, we won’t be able to prove it to them. But you know who will believe us, don’t you, Michael? You know who knows quite well who ‘Uncle Michael’ is, who knows what Montclair is and that there are no locks on the bathroom doors there. You know exactly who will know who is the writer and who’s the subject. Sir Geoffrey will know. And you’ll have gained nothing. In some ways, I think I’d rather take my chances with a jury, or even go to jail, than incur the wrath of Sir Geoffrey over such a matter as the murder of his only daughter by the man he’s trusted for more than twenty years, don’t you?”

Clayton said nothing for a moment, then he croaked, “I want my solicitor. Now. Get my solicitor, right now. I’m not saying another word.”

Bloody hell, thought Banks, here we go again. He called in the constable from outside the interview room. “Take him down to the custody suite, will you, Wigmore. And make sure you let him call his lawyer.”

VI

Owen sat in the Nag’s Head nursing his second pint and Scotch chaser, trying to pluck up the courage to go over the road and see Rebecca and Daniel. The problem was, he felt ashamed to face them. They had believed in his innocence, and he had let them down badly. He knew that if there were to be any sort of salvation or reclamation in this business at all, he would have to tell them the whole truth, including what he had done to Michelle. And he didn’t know if he could do that right now. He could hardly even admit to himself that he had become exactly what everyone thought he was: a murderer.

He looked around at the uninspiring decor of the pub and wondered what the hell he was doing here again. It had seemed a nice irony when he saw the sign over the bridge-full circle-but now it didn’t seem like such a good idea.

The Nag’s Head was boisterous, with the landlord entertaining a group of cronies with dirty jokes around the bar and tables full of couples laughing and groups of underage kids who’d had a bit too much.

He didn’t know what he was going to do after he finished his drinks: either go home and meet the police, or have another and go face Rebecca and Daniel. More drink wouldn’t help with that, though, he realized. He would feel less like facing them if he were drunk. Best drink up and turn himself in, then, return to the custody suite, where he should feel quite at home by now.

“What did you say?”

Owen looked up at the sound of the voice. There was a lull in the conversation and laughter. The landlord was collecting empty glasses. He stood over Owen’s table. “Sorry mate,” he said. “I thought I heard you say something.”

Owen shook his head. He realized he must have been muttering to himself. He turned away from the landlord’s scrutiny. He could still feel the man looking at him, though, recognition struggling to come to the surface. He had a couple of days’ growth, a few more pounds around the waist from lack of exercise and a prison pallor, but other than that he didn’t look too different from the person who had sat alone in that same pub one foggy night last November.

Best finish his drinks and leave, he decided, tossing back the Scotch in one and washing it down with beer.

Then, all of a sudden, the landlord said, “Bloody hell, it is him! I don’t bloody believe it. The nerve.”

The men at the bar turned as one to look at Owen.

“It’s him,” the landlord repeated. “The one who was in here that night. The one who murdered those two young lasses.”

Owen wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and stood up, edging towards the door.

“Nay, they let him off,” someone said.

“Aye, but just because they hadn’t got enough evidence,” another said. “Don’t you read t’papers?”

“It was a bloody cover-up.”

“Bleeding shame, more like. Poor wee lasses.”

“A travesty of justice.”

By the time Owen actually got to the door, a journey that felt like a hundred miles, bar-stools were scraping against the stone floor and he was aware of a crowd surging towards him.

No time to sneak out surreptitiously now. He dashed through the door and ran across Kendal Road. Luckily, the traffic lights were in his favor. When he got to the other side of the road, he saw about five or six people standing outside the pub doors. For a moment, he thought they were going to give chase, but someone shouted something he didn’t hear and they went back inside.

Owen still ran as if he were being chased. There was only one place he could go now. He dashed across North Market Street towards St. Mary’s church. When he was through the gate, running down the tarmac path, he could see, even in the mist, that the kitchen light was on in the vicarage.

VII

Alone in his office at last, Banks went to close the blinds and looked out for a moment on the quiet cobbled market square and the welcoming lights of the Queen’s Arms. Maybe he’d have a quick one there before going home. Still time. Finally, he closed the blinds, turned on the shaded table-lamp and lit a cigarette. Then he sifted through his tapes and decided on Britten’s third string quartet.

For a long time he just sat there smoking, staring at the wall and letting Britten’s meditative quartet wash over him. He thought about the Clayton interview, and especially about the new coldness in Chief Constable Riddle’s manner towards his old lodge pal. Maybe Riddle wasn’t so bad, after all; at least he had an open enough mind to change his opinions when the facts started to weigh heavily against them.

Then, when his cigarette was finished, Banks turned to Deborah’s diary again, striving once more to understand what had happened between her and Clayton over the two months leading up to her death.

August 24

Disaster has struck! Mummy caught John and me in bed this afternoon. She was supposed to be at one of her charity meetings but she wasn’t feeling well and came home early. It was a terrible scene with Mummy and John shouting at one another and I didn’t like to see John at all behaving like that. I thought he was going to hit Mummy in the end but he broke a vase on the wall and a piece of pottery cut Mummy’s face. Then when he’d gone Mummy said I absolutely must not see him again or she would tell Daddy. Then she cried and put her arms around me and I felt sorry for her. John said such terrible things, called her such horrible names and said he would do things to her I won’t repeat even here in my private diary. I don’t care if I never see him again. I hate him. He’s gross. He even stole things from our house. He’s just a common thief. A thief and a thickie. What could I ever have seen in him?

August 27

Michael came to the house today while Mummy and Daddy were out. He was absolutely livid about the other day with John. I didn’t know Mummy had told him. He called me names and I thought at one point he was going to hit me. It was then I told him. I couldn’t help it. I told him I’d read his journal about me and called him a dirty old man. He went so white I thought he was going to faint. Then he asked me what I was going to do. I said I didn’t know. I’d just have to wait and see. Wait for what? he asked me. To see what happens, says I.

August 28

Michael really is rather handsome. And much more intelligent and sophisticated than John. Mary Taylor at school told me last term she had an affair with a married man, a friend of her father’s, who was 38 years old! And she says he was wonderful and considerate at sex and bought her presents and all sorts of things. I think Uncle Michael might be even older than 38 but he’s not fat and ugly or anything like most old people.

September 1

Michael came for dinner tonight. Mummy and Daddy were there, of course. I wore a tight black jumper and a short skirt. Out of the corner of my eye I could see him looking at my thighs and breasts when he thought I wasn’t watching. It really is amazing how he can seem so normal and ordinary when we’re all together, but when there’s just him and me he’s so passionate and can hardly control himself!

September 3

Michael came again today when everyone was out. He told me he felt such powerful desire for me he didn’t know if he could control himself. That was the word he used: desire. I don’t think that anyone has ever desired me before. It feels rather exciting. Of course, he wanted to do it, and when I said no he got all upset and said if I let a no-good lout like John Spinks do it to me why wouldn’t I let him? I must admit I don’t know the answer to that. Except that he’s Uncle Michael and I’ve known him all my life.

September 6

This is getting to be quite an adventure! Saw Michael again today and let him kiss me again. It made him happy for a while, then he said he wanted to kiss my breasts. I wouldn’t let him do that but I let him touch them over my jumper. While he was doing it he took my hand and held it to the front of his trousers so I could feel he was really hard. I started to feel a bit scared because his grip was so strong and then I felt him go all wet and he gasped as if somebody had hit him just the way John used to do. Gross. I can’t explain why I felt it then, but I started to panic a bit because I’d just been teasing really and this was UNCLE MICHAEL, and even if he isn’t really my uncle I’ve still known him since I was a little girl. I just couldn’t let him do it to me. It wouldn’t be right. After he’d finished he went all quiet so I left.

September 8

School again. Sad, sad, sad. Saw Mucky Metcalfe in the corridor. Wonder if he knows I know he’s been doing it with the vicar’s wife?

There were no more entries until October, and Banks assumed that Deborah had been getting settled in at St. Mary’s again in the interim. But even by late October, Michael Clayton still hadn’t got the message.

October 24

Can’t Uncle Michael understand that whatever it was we had is over now? I’ve told him I don’t love him, but it doesn’t do any good. He keeps coming to the house when he knows I’m here alone. Now he says he just wants to see me naked, that he won’t even touch me if I just take my clothes off in front of him and stand there the way I did in the bath at Montclair. I suppose it’s flattering in a way to have a sophisticated older man in love with you, but to be honest he doesn’t seem very sophisticated when he keeps wanting me to touch that hard thing in his pants. I don’t want to play any more. I suppose he must still be living in hope, but doesn’t he understand that summer’s over and I’m back at school now?

Obviously he didn’t, thought Banks. It hadn’t been just a summer romance for Michael Clayton; it had been a dark, powerful obsession. And beneath all the veneer of sophistication and experience, Deborah had simply been a naïve teenager misreading the depth of an older man’s passion; she was just a girl who thought she was a woman.

But even as Deborah grew worried by Clayton’s persistence, she always kept her secret, always lived in hope that he would simply give up and stop pestering her. She clearly knew what dreadful consequences would occur if she told her parents, and she wanted to avoid that if she could. But Clayton wouldn’t give up and go away. He couldn’t; he was too far gone. Her final entry, dated the day before she died, read,

November 5 (Bonfire Night)

Yesterday Uncle Michael grabbed me and held my arm until it hurt and told me I had stolen his soul and all sorts of other rubbish. I know it was cruel of me to tease him, and to let him kiss me and stuff, but it was just a game at first and he wouldn’t let me stop it. I want him to stop it now because I’m getting frightened, the way he looks at me. You still wouldn’t believe it if you saw him with other people around, but he really does change when he’s only with me. It’s like he has a split personality or something. I told him if he doesn’t promise to leave me alone I’ll tell Daddy when I get home from school tomorrow. I don’t know if I will I don’t really want to tell Daddy because I know what he gets like and what trouble it will cause. The house won’t be worth living in. Anyway, we’ll see what happens tomorrow.

Banks pushed the diary aside and lit another cigarette. The gaslights around the market square glowed through the gaps in the blinds. The quartet was reaching the end of its final movement now, the moving, introspective passacaglia, written when Britten was approaching death.

Why do we feel compelled to record our thoughts and feelings in diaries and on tape, Banks wondered, and our acts on video and in photographs? Perhaps, he thought, we need to read about ourselves or watch ourselves to know we are truly alive. Time after time, it leads to nothing but trouble, but still the politicians keep their diaries, ticking away like time bombs, and the sexual deviants keep their visual records. And thank the Lord they do. Without such evidence, many a case might not even get to court.

When the music finished, Banks sat in silence for a while, then stubbed out his cigarette. Just as he was about to get up and go for that pint before last orders, the telephone rang. He cursed and contemplated leaving it, but his policeman’s sense of duty and his even deeper-rooted curiosity wouldn’t let him.

“Banks here.”

“Sergeant Rowe, sir. We’ve just had a report that Owen Pierce is at St. Mary’s vicarage.”

“Who called it in?”

“Rebecca Charters, sir. The vicar’s wife. She says Pierce is ready to turn himself in for the murder of Michelle Chappel.”

“But she’s not dead.”

“I suppose he doesn’t know that.”

“All right,” said Banks. “I’ll be right there.”

He sighed, picked up his sports jacket and hurried out into the hazy darkness.