Playing With Fire

Chapter 14

Banks pondered over Phil Keane’s response to his visit and his questions as he drove down to Leeds that afternoon. Quite often, he knew, it wasn’t so much what a person said that was revealing, it was what he didn’t say, the way he said something, or the body language he was unconsciously displaying at the time he said it. No matter how often he ran over it in his mind, though, Banks couldn’t fault Keane’s performance. Even the hint of irritation at being questioned was reasonable, realistic. He’d have felt the same way himself.

But there was something that niggled away at him. It wasn’t until the roundabout at the Leeds ring road that Banks realized what it was. Keane’s performance had been just that: a performance. He was anxious to know if Burgess had been able to dig anything up, but decided he’d leave it until the morning. If he hadn’t heard by then, he’d phone Scotland Yard.

For the moment, though, he had a rather difficult interview with Tina’s grandparents, the Redferns, to concentrate on. He found their house easily enough, a large bay-window semi on a quiet, tree-lined Roundhay street, and parked outside.

“Mr. Banks,” said the matronly woman who answered the door, “we’ve been expecting you. Please come in. I’m Julia Redfern. Let me take your coat.”

Banks gave her his car coat, which she put on a hanger in the hall cupboard. The house smelled of apples and cinnamon. Mrs. Redfern led him into the kitchen, where the smell was even stronger. “I hope you don’t mind if we talk in here,” she said. “The study and the sitting room are just too formal. I always think the kitchen is the real heart of a house, don’t you?”

Banks agreed. Though he spent most of his time in his living room reading, watching television or listening to music, he loved his own kitchen. In fact, the kitchen was the main reason he had bought the cottage in the first place, having dreamed about it before he saw it. The Redferns’ kitchen was much larger than his, though, done out in rustic style, with a heavy wood dining table and four hard-backed chairs. French doors, closed at the moment, led out to a small conservatory. Banks sat down.

“Besides,” Mrs. Redfern went on, “the pie should be ready. I’ll just take it out and let it cool a minute.”

“I thought I could smell something good,” said Banks.

“I always like to do something a bit special when we have company,” Mrs. Redfern said, taking the apple pie out of the oven and setting it on a rack. The crust was golden and flaky. There was something surreal about the whole scene, Banks was beginning to feel: rustic kitchens, cooking smells, apple pie fresh from the oven. It was a far cry from Mark’s and Tina’s world. He wondered if Mrs. Redfern felt that she needed some sort of activity to take her mind off his impending visit, or to calm her nerves.

Dr. Redfern strode in. He looked fit and energetic despite being in his seventies, and he still had a full head of silver hair. His handshake was firm. Banks wondered if he had been a good doctor. “Maurice Redfern,” he said. “Pleased to meet you.” Then he sat opposite Banks.

“First of all,” Banks said, “I just want you to know that I’m very sorry about what happened to your granddaughter, and that we’re doing our best to find out who did it.”

“I don’t see how we can help you,” said Dr. Redfern, “but we’ll do as much as we can, of course.”

His wife fussed over tea, then set the pot and three cups and saucers down on the table and cut them each a slice of apple pie. “Some cream with your pie?” she asked Banks. “Or a slice of Cheddar, perhaps?”

“No, thanks. It looks fine as it is.”

“Milk and sugar?” she asked, tapping the teapot.

“Just as it comes, please,” said Banks. She poured and sat down. She seemed on edge, Banks thought, unable to keep still. Perhaps it was just her nature. Banks sipped some tea. It was strong, the way he liked it. Sandra always used to say he could stand a spoon up in his tea. She preferred hers weak, with milk and two sugars. In his mind’s eye, he saw her walking away from him in the rain, pushing the pram. “I’m just after some background, really,” he said. “You’d be surprised how helpful little things can be, and you don’t know what they are until you find them. Rather like a doctor’s diagnosis, I suppose?”

“Indeed,” said Maurice Redfern. “Very well. Go ahead, then.”

“Were you close to your granddaughter?” Banks asked.

The Redferns exchanged glances. Finally, Maurice answered. “Christine lived here with us until she was five years old,” he said slowly. “After that, she was a frequent visitor, and sometimes she even stayed with us for longer periods. We’d look after her if her parents took a short holiday, that sort of thing.”

It was a very evasive answer, Banks thought. But maybe his question was too difficult, or too painful, for the Redferns to answer. “Did she confide in you about things?”

“She was a quiet child. A dreamer. I don’t know that she ever confided in anyone.”

“What about when she got older? Did you remain close?”

“Do you have any children of your own, Mr. Banks?” Julia Redfern asked.

“Two,” Banks said. “A boy and a girl.”

“Grandchildren?”

“Not yet.”

“Of course not,” she said. “You’re far too young. But you’ll know what I mean when I tell you how relationships change when children become teenagers.”

“You didn’t see as much of her?”

“Exactly. The last thing a teenage girl wants to do is come and visit old grandma and grandad.”

“Boys, too,” said Banks. “I was the same, myself.” Banks’s grandparents had all lived in London, so he hadn’t seen them that often, but he remembered endless rainy train rides with his parents and his brother Roy, remembered the old Hornby clockwork train set his grandad Banks kept for him to play with in the spare room, the old war souvenirs in the attic – a tin hat, a shell casing and a gas mask – and the rabbit hutches in the big back garden of his grandad Peyton’s house, facing the railway tracks, the long trains rumbling by in the night, through his sleep. All four grandparents were dead by the time he was seventeen, and he was sorry he hadn’t had a chance to know them better. Both his grandfathers had fought in the First World War, and he wished he’d asked them about their experiences. But back when he was a kid, he hadn’t cared so much. Now the subject interested him. He hoped that if Brian or Tracy had kids it wouldn’t be so far in the future that he was a useless old man. “But you did see her on occasion, didn’t you?” he asked.

“Oh, yes,” Maurice Redfern answered. “But she was un-communicative.”

“Did you ever suspect there was anything wrong?”

The muscles on Maurice’s face seemed to tighten. “Wrong? In what way?”

“Did you suspect drug use, for example? It’s not uncommon among teenagers.”

“I never saw any evidence of it.”

“Was she happy?”

“What an odd question,” Maurice said. “I suppose so. I mean she never said, either way. She was very much in her own world. I assumed it was a benign place. Now it appears that perhaps I was wrong.”

“Oh? Why is that?”

“You’d hardly be here asking all these questions otherwise, would you?”

“Dr. Redfern, I’m sorry if I appear to be prying into private family history, but this is a murder investigation. If you know anything at all about your granddaughter’s state of mind prior to her death, then you should realize it might be important information.”

“We don’t know anything,” said Julia. “We were just a normal family.”

“Let’s go back a bit,” said Banks. “How old was Christine’s mother when she got pregnant?”

“Sixteen,” said Maurice.

“Was she a wild child?”

He thought for a moment, fingertip touching his lips, then said, “No, I wouldn’t say that, would you, dear?”

“Not at all,” Julia agreed. “Just foolish. And ignorant. It only takes once, you know.”

“And the father was an American student?”

“Apparently so,” said Dr. Redfern. “He soon disappeared from the scene, whoever he was.”

“What kind of a mother was Frances?”

“She did her best,” said Julia. “It was difficult, her being so young and all, but she tried. She did love little Christine.”

“Was Dr. Aspern on the scene then?”

“I’ve known Patrick Aspern for nearly thirty years,” said Dr. Redfern. “He was my junior at the infirmary, and we even practiced together in Alwoodley for a period.”

“So you were his mentor?”

“In a way. His friend, too, I hope.”

“How did you feel about Dr. Aspern’s interest in your daughter?”

“We were pleased for both of them.”

“How early did you notice it?”

“What do you mean?”

“I assume Patrick Aspern was around the house a lot. Did he seem interested in Frances before she had Christine?”

“Don’t be absurd,” said Maurice. “She would have been under sixteen then. He knew her, of course, had done almost since the day she was born. But Frances was twenty-one when they got married, well above the age of consent. There was nothing untoward or unhealthy about it at all. Besides, an older man can bring a bit more stability and experience to raising a family. Frances needed that.”

“So your daughter was grateful for Patrick Aspern’s interest in her?”

“I wouldn’t say ‘grateful’ is the right word to use,” Maurice argued.

“But his interest was reciprocated?”

“Of course. What do you think it was, an arranged marriage? Do you think we forced Frances into it?”

“What are you getting at, Mr. Banks?” asked Julia. “What’s this got to do with Christine’s death?”

“How long were they courting?” Banks asked her. “These things don’t happen overnight.”

“You have to remember,” Julia explained, “that there was Christine to think about. Always. It was hard for Frances to lead a normal life, make friends and go out with boys like other girls her age. She didn’t get out very often, so she had no chance to meet boys. Patrick took her out a few times, while we looked after Christine. Just to the pictures, that sort of thing. More as a favor, really, to get her out of the house for a while. Sometimes he’d take the two of them to the country for a day out. Whitby, or Malham. Somewhere like that.”

“Weren’t you worried?”

“About what?”

“That they might be up to something.”

“Why should we be?” said Maurice. “Patrick was my closest and dearest friend. I trusted him implicitly.”

“But didn’t it bother you, him being so much older than Frances? Weren’t you concerned that he might take advantage of her?”

An edge of irritation entered Maurice Redfern’s tone. “Not at all,” he said. “Why would we be concerned? Frances was twenty and Patrick was in his thirties when they first started ‘stepping out’ together. She was a very attractive young woman, and he was a dashing, handsome, talented doctor with a great future. What could be wrong with that? Why should we object or feel concern? We’d almost despaired of Frances finding anyone, and then… this happened. It was perfect. A miracle. An occasion for joy. Two of the people I loved most in the world finding one another. I couldn’t have wished for a better match.”

So that was it, Banks realized. The reason for all the edginess and embarrassment he had sensed. The Redferns had wanted to get Frances married off, and baby Christine had been an impediment to that. They were the ones who were grateful for Patrick’s interest in their daughter. After all, not many young men are willing to take on a young woman and a baby, especially if that baby isn’t his own. When the good Dr. Aspern took both Frances and the child as well, it would have been easy for the Redferns to turn a blind eye to any number of things. Perhaps they had even encouraged him, left the two alone together, offered to baby-sit? But to what, exactly, had they turned a blind eye?

“What was their relationship like?” Banks asked.

“Perfectly aboveboard,” said Julia Redfern. “There was no hanky-panky. Not in this house. And, take my word for it, we’d have known.”

“Were they affectionate? Demonstrative?”

“They weren’t always touching and feeling each other like some of the kids today,” said Julia. “It’s disgusting, if you ask me. You should keep that sort of thing for private.”

“And they didn’t get much privacy?”

“I suppose not,” she said. “It was difficult.”

“We were just happy that Patrick took an interest in her,” Maurice added. “He brought her out of her shell. It had been a difficult few years. Christine wasn’t always the easiest child to deal with, and Frances was becoming withdrawn, old before her time.”

“Christine was five when Patrick and Frances married?”

“Yes.”

“How did he take to fatherhood?”

“He was very good with her, wasn’t he, darling?” Julia said.

“Yes, very,” Maurice agreed.

Well, what had Banks expected? That they’d suddenly come out and tell him that the pure and holy Patrick Aspern was a daughter-diddling pedophile? But the portrait of utter mind-numbing ordinariness that they were painting just didn’t ring true. Had they suspected something and tried to ignore it? People did that often enough, Banks knew. Or were they really blissfully, willfully ignorant of Aspern’s sexual interest in Tina? And when did that start? When she was six, seven, eight, nine, ten? Or before? Had he been interested in Frances when she was a child, too? He wished he could find out, but he couldn’t think of a direct way of getting an answer to these questions. He would have to see if he could get there indirectly.

“Did the marriage have any effect on Christine?” he asked.

“Well, it gave her a father,” said Maurice. “I’d say that’s pretty important for a child, wouldn’t you? No matter what some of these special interest groups say.”

“Did she behave any differently after the marriage?”

“We weren’t with her so much, so we wouldn’t know. They had their own house by then, out Lawnswood way, not far from where they are now. I’m sure she had her problems adjusting to a new routine, though, as we all do.”

“When they brought Christine to visit, did she seem the same as usual?”

“Yes,” said Maurice. “Until…”

“Until when?”

“What I told you earlier. Until she became a teenager.”

“Then she became uncommunicative?”

“Somewhat, yes. Rather quiet and brooding. Sullen. She could be quite snappy, too, if you pushed her on anything. Hormones.”

Or Patrick Aspern, Banks thought. So he had his answer. It had started, in all likelihood, when she hit puberty. What’s a cut-off point for some pedophiles is the starting point for others.

“Did you see her after she left home?”

The Redferns looked at each other, and Julia nodded. “She came here once,” she said, close to tears. “Maurice was out. Oh, she looked terrible, Mr. Banks. My heart just…” She shook her head and grabbed a tissue from the box on the window ledge. “It just went out to her. I’m sorry,” she said. “It was just so upsetting.”

“In what way did she look terrible?”

“She was so thin and pale. Her nose was running constantly. Her face was spotty, her skin terrible. Dry and blotched. She used to be such a pretty young thing. And I hate to say it, but her clothes were filthy and… she smelled.”

“When was this?”

“Shortly after she’d left. About a year ago.”

When they were living in the Leeds squat, before the boat, perhaps even before Mark. “What did she come for?”

“She wanted money.”

“Did you give her any?”

She looked at her husband. “Fifty pounds. It was all I had in my purse.”

“Did she say anything?”

“Not much. I tried to persuade her to go back to Patrick and Frances. They were beside themselves with worry, of course.”

“What did she say to that?”

“She said she wasn’t going back. Not ever. She was quite emotional about it.”

“Did she say why?”

“Why what?”

“Why she wasn’t going back. Why she left.”

“No, she just got very upset when I mentioned the subject and refused to talk about it.”

“Why did you think she left?”

“I thought it must be something to do with a boy.”

“A boy? Why? Did Patrick Aspern say that?”

“No… I… I just assumed. She was the same age as her mother was when she… I don’t know. It’s a difficult age for young girls. They want to be all grown up, but they don’t have the experience. They lose their hearts to some no-good layabout, and the next thing you know, they’re pregnant.”

“Like Frances?”

“Yes.”

“So you saw history repeating itself?”

“I suppose so.”

“Did you ask your daughter or her husband why Christine left home at sixteen?” Banks persisted.

Julia put her hands to her ears. “Please stop! Make him stop, Maurice.”

“It’s all right, Mrs. Redfern,” said Banks. “I’m not here to badger you. I’ll slow down. Let’s all just take a minute and relax. Take a deep breath.” He finished his tea. It was lukewarm.

“As you can see, Mr. Banks,” Maurice said, “this is all very upsetting, and I can’t see what any of it has to do with Christine’s unfortunate death. Perhaps you’d better leave.”

“Murder’s an upsetting business, Dr. Redfern, and I haven’t finished yet.”

“But my wife…”

“Your wife is emotional, I can see that. What I’d really like to know is why.”

“I’d have thought that was quite obvious.”

“Not to me it isn’t.”

“You coming here and-”

“I don’t believe that’s the reason, and I don’t think you do, either.”

“What are you getting at, man?”

Banks took a deep breath. Here goes, he thought. “There have been serious allegations that Patrick Aspern had been sexually abusing his stepdaughter, probably since puberty.”

Maurice Redfern shot to his feet. “Are you insane? Patrick? What allegations? Who made them?”

“Christine told her boyfriend, Mark Siddons, that that was partly why she started using drugs, drugs she got from her stepfather’s surgery, to escape the shame and the pain. He also suggested that Patrick Aspern later let her have the drugs in return for her silence, and perhaps for her sexual favors.”

“I don’t believe it,” said Maurice, sinking back into his chair, pale. “Not Patrick. I won’t believe it.”

“So that’s what she meant,” Julia Redfern said, in a voice hardly louder than a whisper.

“What?” said Banks. “What did she say?”

“Just that I was better off not knowing, that’s all. And that I wouldn’t believe her, never in a million years, she said, even if she told me. And that look on her face.” She turned to her husband, tears welling up in her eyes again. “Oh, my God, Maurice, what have we done?”

“Get a grip on yourself, Julia,” said Maurice. “It’s all lies. Lies made up by some drug-addled boy. We’ve done nothing to be ashamed of. Our daughter married a good man, and now someone’s trying to blacken his character. That’s all. We’ll deal with this through our solicitor.” He stood up. “I’d prefer it if you left now, Mr. Banks. Unless you’re going to arrest us or something, we don’t want to talk to you anymore.”

Banks had nothing more to ask, anyway. He already had his answers. He nodded, got up and left, the apple pie still untouched on its plate.

It was well after dark when Mark got off the number one bus outside the Lawnswood Arms, just past the Leeds Crematorium. His journey had taken so long because there weren’t that many buses from Eastvale to Leeds, and he had to change in Harrogate. Then he had to buy a street map at W.H. Smith’s to find out how to get to Adel. He had never visited Tina’s parents before – never had any reason to – but the address was on the inside cover of some of the books she had kept with her in the squat and on the boat, and he remembered it. He also knew the security code you had to punch in to stop the burglar alarm from going off. Tina had made him memorize it. A month or so ago, Danny Boy had suffered a brief disruption in distribution, and to keep Tina sane, Mark had pretended to go along with a half-baked scheme to break into her father’s surgery and steal some morphine. Luckily, Danny Boy had come through before things really got out of hand.

There was nothing but fields across the main road, and beyond them, down the hill, Mark could see the clustered lights of Adel village. Still unsure of exactly what he was going to say or do, Mark was drawn by the lights of the Lawnswood Arms and went inside. He hadn’t eaten any lunch, so he was hungry, for one thing, and maybe a few drinks would give him some Dutch courage.

The Lawnswood Arms seemed more of a family pub than a local watering hole, though at eight o’clock that evening there were hardly any families in evidence. Mark went to the bar and ordered a pint of Tetley’s cask and looked at the menu. Steak and chips would do just fine, he decided. The first pint went down so fast the barman gave him a dirty look when he ordered a second. He’d seen that look before: “I’ve got my eye on you, mate. I know trouble when I see it.” Well, maybe he was going to be trouble, but not for the bartender.

He got two pints down before his food was ready and ordered a third to wash down the steak. He wasn’t showing any signs of drunkenness, so they had no reason to refuse to serve him, and they didn’t. He just sat quietly in his corner, smoking and thinking. If they knew his thoughts, then maybe they’d call the police, but they didn’t. The more he drank, the darker his thoughts became. Surges of emotion, sometimes anger, shot with red, black and gray.

He’d been wandering aimlessly, he realized now, with nowhere to go and nobody to talk to, nobody to share his grief with, nobody to hold him when he cried. But he never had had anyone. He had always been alone. Just him and his imagination, and his wits. The only difference was that he was even more adrift than ever now that Tina, his anchor, his burden, his reason for being, was gone.

He thought about Crazy Nick lying bleeding on the floor; he thought about his mother, how she’d never wanted him because he got in the way of her good times, though when he heard she was dead he had felt oddly alone in the world. But most of all he thought about Tina. He had never seen her body, he realized, so her parents must have identified her. The thought of Aspern gloating over her, touching her, made his flesh crawl. His last memory of her, the one he would carry forever, was the frail figure huddled in the sleeping bag, needle barely out of her arm, giving a little sigh of pleasure, and Beth Orton playing quietly on the CD. Not “Stolen Car” but a more recent one, a song about being on a train in Paris, as he snuffed out the candle and left her to sneak off to the welcoming arms of Mandy. If only he’d stayed with her, the way he’d promised, the way he had always done before…

“You all right?”

The voice sounded far away, and when he looked up, Mark noticed it was one of the bar staff collecting glasses, a young girl, perhaps not much older than Tina, though he knew she had to be over eighteen to work in a pub. She had a short spiky haircut and a gold stud through her lower lip, just like Tina, and in a way she reminded him of her, the way she could be when she held the darkness at bay.

“Yeah,” he said. “Fine. Just thinking.”

She stared at him, an assessing look in her eye. “Not good thoughts, by the looks of you.”

“You could say that.”

She lowered her voice. “Only, old misery-guts over there has been giving you the evil eye all night. One wrong move and you’re cut off. You weren’t thinking of making any wrong moves, were you?”

“No,” said Mark. “Not here, at any rate.”

“Well, that’s all right, then.” She smiled. “I’ve not seen you here before.”

“That’s because I’ve never been here before.”

“Not from around these parts?”

“No.”

“Cathy!”

The new voice came from the bar. “Oops,” she said, grimacing. “Got to go. Old misery’s calling. Remember, tread carefully.”

“I will,” said Mark.

The brief conversation had brought him back to a world of normality, at least for a few moments, and he wondered if his life could ever be good again. The girl might not have been trying to pick him up, but she was definitely flirting with him, and he could tell she fancied him. If his world were normal he’d have pursued the matter and maybe gone home with her, if she had her own flat. She probably did, he thought. Looked like a student, and the university wasn’t far down the road. The bus had passed it on the way out of town. But after what happened to Tina, and him being with Mandy at the time, somehow made it so he just couldn’t contemplate anything like that, even though this girl Cathy reminded him of Tina.

The barman gave him the evil eye again when he ordered his next pint, his fifth, he thought, though he was still steady on his feet, and his speech wasn’t slurred. The look told him, “This is your last one, mate. After that you’re on your bike.” Fine, he didn’t want any more. It was nearly closing time anyway.

Mark lit another cigarette, the last in his packet, and tried to work out exactly what he wanted to do or say when he got to Aspern’s house. The way he felt whenever he thought about Patrick Aspern, he thought he’d probably do what he did to Crazy Nick, or worse. He didn’t know about Tina’s mother. He’d nothing against her and didn’t want to hurt her, but she hadn’t been there for her daughter any more than his mother had been there for him. True, he’d never been sexually molested by any of her men friends, but more than one of them had beaten him up, and more often than not they just used him to fetch and carry for them and clean up their messes. Mothers ought to be there for their kids – they were supposed to love them and nurture them – and Tina’s had failed in that as much as his own mother had, no matter how far apart they were in social status. When it came right down to it, a doctor’s wife could be just as useless a mother as a whore, because that was what his mother had been; he had no illusions about that.

A bell rang and someone called out time. Mark had about half a pint left in his glass. He’d had five, and he still didn’t feel in the least bit pissed. He fiddled for change in his pocket and bought another packet of cigarettes from the machine. When he’d finished his drink, he stuck a cigarette in his mouth, lit it and headed for the door.

“Good night,” a voice called out behind him.

It was the girl, Cathy. She was closer than he thought, a cloth in her hand, wiping down the tables.

“Good night,” he said.

“Maybe I’ll see you again?”

Was that a note of hope in her voice? he wondered. He managed a smile for her. “Maybe,” he said. “You never know.”

Then he walked out into the chilly night air.

“Have you thought any more about New York?” Phil asked Annie as they lingered over café noir and crème brûlée in Le Select, Eastvale’s prestigious French bistro. Already well sated with several glasses of fine claret, Annie was feeling warm and relaxed, and the idea of a weekend away with Phil held immense appeal. Especially New York.

“I can’t go, Phil, really I can’t,” she said. “I’d love to, honestly. Maybe some other time?”

“If it’s a matter of money…”

“It’s only partly a matter of money,” Annie chipped in. “I mean, you might be able to go swanning off to America on a whim, but I do have to think about the expense.”

“I told you I’d get your ticket. Security consultant.”

“That’s very sweet of you, but it doesn’t seem right,” Annie said. “Besides, if I went with you to New York, I certainly wouldn’t want to go as your employee.”

Phil laughed. “But that would only be on paper.”

“I don’t care.”

The waiter came over with the bill and Phil picked it up.

“See what I mean?” Annie said. “You’re always paying.”

“I’ll split it with you, then?”

“Fine,” said Annie, reaching for her handbag. The Visa wasn’t maxed out, she was certain. How embarrassing it would be, after all her bravado about paying her own way, if that obsequious waiter with the phony French accent trotted back and told her her card had been rejected.

“You don’t know what you’re missing,” Phil went on. “We could stay at the Plaza. A carriage ride in Central Park, top of the Empire State Building, Tavern on the Green, Saks Fifth Avenue, Bloomingdale’s, Tiffany’s-”

“Oh, stop it!” Annie said, slapping his arm and putting her hands over her ears. “I don’t want to know, okay?”

Phil held his hands up in mock surrender. “Okay. Okay. I’ll stop.”

“Besides,” Annie said, “we’ve still got a major crime investigation on the go.”

“Still stumped?”

“We don’t have a lot to go on. Even the rented car turned out to be a dead end. Literally. The man who rented it died six months ago.”

“Oh,” said Phil. “Then how…?”

“Don’t ask. All I know is it’s a real bloody headache, and it’s nice to take my mind off it even for a few hours. Christ, I even had to spend last night in a motel outside Redditch fighting off the attentions of two traveling salesmen from Solihull.”

Phil laughed. “Successfully, I hope.”

“Yes. I had Winsome with me. She can be quite fearsome when she wants.” Annie smiled. “Fearsome Winsome.”

The waiter returned with their credit card receipts to sign. Annie breathed a sigh of relief. When they had finished, they picked up their coats from the rack by the table and walked out into the cobbled alley off King Street, at the back of the police station.

“Ooh,” said Annie, when the cold night air hit her. “I feel dizzy. I think I’ve had a bit too much wine.” She linked arms with Phil.

“Come on,” Phil said. “My car’s just around the corner. Where did you park?”

Annie was wearing high heels, and it was difficult walking on the cobbles, especially with the effects of the wine and the patches of ice that were forming as the temperature dropped. “Police station car park,” she said.

“Leave it there, then. I’m perfectly okay to drive.”

And he was, Annie knew. She had never seen Phil drunk, never known him to drink more than one glass of wine with dinner. “But what…?”

“Look,” he said, “I’ll take you home, if you like. Or, if you want…”

Annie looked up at him. “What?”

“Well, you could come back to my place, if you like.”

“But how will I get to work in the morning?”

“Maybe you won’t. Maybe I’ll keep you there. My love slave.”

Annie laughed and pushed him.

“Seriously,” he said. “I’ll drop you off there in the morning. I have to pick up the Turners to take them to London, anyway.”

“You’re going back down?”

“Have to.”

“Pity.”

“Work goes on. Anyway, how about it?”

“You’ll bring me back in the morning? You’ll do that?”

“Of course. Unless I decide to keep you prisoner.”

“Go on, then.”

“But I’m warning you. I know you’ve had a bit too much to drink, and I might take advantage of you.”

Annie felt better than she had in a long while about that prospect, but she was damned if she was going to let Phil know it. “I’m not that drunk,” she said. “And I’m definitely not that easy.”

“Well, I’m sure we’ll find some way of keeping your mind off your work for a few hours more, at least.”

Annie tightened her arm around his and they turned the corner onto King Street.

“Dad? I’m sorry to ring so late, but I just got back in.”

Banks glanced at his watch. Almost midnight. “Where’ve you been?”

“The pictures. With Jane and Ravi.”

“What did you see?”

“The new Lord of the Rings.”

“Was it good?”

“Brilliant. But very long. Look, Dad…”

Banks turned down the old Jesse Winchester CD he was playing and settled back in the armchair with his glass of Laphroaig, his used paperback copy of Ambler’s The Mask of Dimitrius open facedown beside him. The peat fire crackled and filled the small living room with its warmth, the acrid smell harmonizing with the taste of whiskey. He didn’t like the ominous tone of his daughter’s “Look, Dad.” “What?” he asked.

“I was talking to Mum earlier today,” Tracy went on.

“And?”

“She said she saw you. In London.”

“That’s right. I was down there on business.”

“She said she thought you were watching her. Stalking her.”

“I was doing no such thing.”

“Well, she says you were hanging around her house. In the rain.”

“It wasn’t raining. That started later.”

“Dad, she’s worried about you.”

“I don’t see why.”

“She thinks you’re becoming weird.”

“Weird?”

“Yes. Hanging around her house and all. It is pretty weird. You must admit.”

“I had a few questions I wanted to ask her.”

“About a case?”

“As it happens, yes. About an artist she once knew when she worked at the community center. It’s part of a case I’m working on.”

“The burning boats. Yes, I’ve read about it in the paper.” Tracy paused. “She didn’t tell me that.”

“Well, it’s true. What? Don’t you believe me? Do you think I’m getting weird in my old age?”

“Nobody said anything about old age.”

“Still… my own daughter grilling me.”

“I’m not grilling you. Can’t you see, she still cares about you?”

“She’s got a funny way of showing it.”

“You scare her, Dad. She just can’t cope with you. You always seem so angry with her. She thinks you hate her. All she can manage is to go cold when the two of you talk to one another.”

Banks remembered that from their marriage. Whenever Sandra couldn’t deal with a situation emotionally, she would just sort of turn off. Sometimes she would even fall asleep in the middle of an argument. It used to infuriate him. “I don’t hate her,” he said.

“Well, that’s how she feels.”

“It’s a funny turn of events, isn’t it, my own daughter giving me advice on marital relationships?”

“I don’t have any advice to give. And you’re not married anymore. That’s the problem. How’s your girlfriend?”

“Michelle? She’s fine.”

“Seen her lately?”

“No. We’ve both been too busy.”

“There you go, then.”

“And what’s that supposed to mean?”

“Dad, you’ve got to make time to have a life. Stop and smell the roses. You can’t just… Oh, I don’t know. What’s the point?”

“I stopped to smell the roses last summer,” Banks said. “But it didn’t last.” He remembered the two weeks of bliss he had spent on a Greek island, the sun, the light on white and blue planes of the houses straggling down the hill, scents of lavender, thyme, oregano, a whiff of dead fish and salt spray. He also remembered how restless he had felt and how, though it seemed a great wrench at the time, he was secretly pleased to feel himself being called back home to a case. And to the lovely Michelle Hart. How he wished she were with him tonight, but he wasn’t going to let his daughter in on his longings.

“That was because you came running back to get involved in another case,” Tracy said.

“Tracy, Graham Marshall was an old friend of mine. How could I-”

“Oh, I know. I’m not saying you shouldn’t have come back. Of course I’m not. But remember the time before, when we were supposed to be going to Paris for the weekend, and you went off searching for Jimmy Riddle’s runaway daughter instead? There’s always something. Always will be. You just have to… I mean, you can’t solve the world’s problems single-handedly. You’re not the only detective in the country, you know. Sometimes I think you just use your job to hide yourself from yourself. And from everybody else.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Oh, it’s too complicated to go into right now.”

“Quite the philosopher you’ve become. And here’s me thinking you were a history student.”

“You know what Socrates said: ‘The unexamined life is not worth living.’ ”

“Well, I wouldn’t examine it too closely, if I were you. You never know what you might find.”

“Oh, Dad. You’re just playing word games now.”

Banks felt the urge for a cigarette peak and wane. He took another sip of whiskey. “Look,” he said, “I’m sorry for being facetious. It’s just been a long day. A long week, as a matter of fact. I haven’t had much sleep, and I’ve got a lot on my mind.”

“When was it ever any different?”

“Tell your mother I don’t hate her.”

“Tell her yourself. Good night, Dad.”

And Tracy hung up.

Banks held the phone in his hand for a few moments and listened to the buzzing sound. He’d been about to tell Tracy that seeing the baby for the first time had been a shock, that he hadn’t been prepared for the way it made him feel. But she’d hung up on him.

He put the phone down and went into the kitchen to top up his glass. As he stood there pouring the Laphroaig, he felt an overwhelming sense of melancholy envelop him. But it came from the outside, not the inside. Though he didn’t generally believe in the supernatural, he had long believed that the kitchen contained some sort of spirit. It usually gave him a strong sense of well-being, and he had never felt its sadness before.

Banks shuddered and went back to the living room, turned up Jesse Winchester singing “The Brand New Tennessee Waltz” and settled down gloomily to get drunk. He knew he shouldn’t, knew that tomorrow would be just as busy as today, and that the hangovers only got worse as he got older. But his daughter had hung up on him. He thought of phoning her back, but decided against it. He didn’t feel he had the emotional energy to deal with the sort of discussion Tracy seemed to have in mind tonight. Best wait till they’d both slept on it. He was sure she would ring him again tomorrow and patch things up. Still, it was a sour note to go to bed on, which was why he had refilled his glass.

He wanted to talk to Michelle. The way things had turned out, he hadn’t called her from London, hadn’t spent the evening in Peterborough. It was after one o’clock, but he would ring her anyway, he decided, reaching for the phone. But before he could pick it up, it rang. He thought it might be Tracy ringing back to apologize, so he answered it.

“Alan?”

“Yes?”

“Ken Blackstone here. Sorry to bother you at this hour, but I thought you might be interested. I just got a call from Weetwood.”

Banks sat up. “What is it?”

“Another fire. Adel. Patrick Aspern’s house.”

Banks put his glass down. “I’ll be there as soon as I can,” he said.

“I’ll be waiting.”

Banks took stock of the shape he was in. Luckily, he had only taken a sip or two of his second drink, and he knew he wasn’t over the limit. He put the kettle on and poured plenty of fine-ground coffee into a filter. While the water was coming to a boil, he stuck his head under the tap and ran cold water over it for a couple of minutes. Then he poured the boiling water into the filter and watched it drip through, filled it once again and brushed his teeth and sucked on a breath mint. Just before he left, he filled a travel mug with hot black coffee and carried it out to the car. The night was cold and hoarfrost had formed on the trees and drystone walls, giving them a ghostly white outline in the night. The sky was studded with stars.

There was no time for Jesse Winchester’s bittersweet musings now. Banks flipped through the CDs he carried in the car and went for The Clash’s London Calling. If that and the hot, strong coffee didn’t keep him awake all the way to Adel, nothing would.