Playing With Fire

Chapter 4

“Do you know that it takes about an hour or an hour and a half at between sixteen and eighteen hundred degrees Fahrenheit to cremate a human body?” Dr. Glendenning asked, apropos of nothing in particular. “And that the ordinary house – or, in this case, boat – fire rarely exceeds twelve hundred? That, ladies and gentlemen, is why we have so much material left to work with.”

The postmortem lab in the basement of Eastvale General Infirmary was hardly hi-tech, but Dr. Glendenning’s experience more than made up for that. To Banks, the blackened shape laid out on the stainless-steel table looked more like one of those Iron Age bodies preserved in peat bogs than someone who had been a living, breathing human being less than twenty-four hours ago. Already, the remnants of clothing had been removed to be tested for traces of accelerant, blood samples had been sent for analysis, and the body had been X-rayed for any signs of gunshot wounds and internal injuries. None had been found, only a belt buckle, three pounds sixty-five in loose change, and a signet ring without initials engraved on it.

“Thought you wouldn’t know that,” Glendenning went on, casting an eye over his audience: Banks, Geoff Hamilton and Annie Cabbot, fresh from the scene. “And I hope you appreciate my working on a Friday evening,” he went on as he examined the body’s exterior with the help of his new assistant, Wendy Gauge, all kitted out in blue scrubs and a hairnet. Glendenning looked at his watch. “This could take a long time, and you also probably don’t know that I have an important dinner engagement.”

“We realize you’re a very important man,” said Banks, “and we’re eternally grateful to you, aren’t we, Annie?” He nudged Annie gently.

“We are, indeed,” said Annie.

Glendenning scowled. “Enough of your lip, laddie. Do we know who he is?”

Banks shook his head. “All we know was in the report I sent you. His name’s probably Tom, and he was an artist.”

“It would help if I knew something about his medical history,” Dr. Glendenning complained.

“Afraid we can’t help you,” said Banks.

“I mean, if he was a drug addict or a drunk or on some sort of dodgy medication… Why do you always make my job so much more bloody difficult than it needs to be, Banks? Can you tell me that?”

“Search me.”

“One day I probably will,” Glendenning said. “Inside and out.” He scowled, lit a cigarette, though it was strictly forbidden, and went back to work. Banks envied him the cigarette. He had always smoked at postmortems. It helped to mask the smell of the bodies. And they always smelled. Even this one would smell when Dr. Glendenning opened him up. He’d be like one of those fancy, expensive steaks: charred on the outside and pink in the middle, and if he’d got enough carbon monoxide in his system, his blood would look like cherryade.

“Anyway,” Glendenning went on, “if he was an artist, he was probably a boozer. Usually are in my experience.”

Annie said nothing, though her father, Ray, was an artist, and a boozer. She stood beside Banks, eyes fixed on the doctor, already looking a little pale. Banks knew she didn’t like postmortems – nobody really did except, arguably, the pathologist – but the more she attended, the sooner she’d get used to them.

“He’s got burns over about seventy-five percent of the body’s surface area. The most severe burning, the greatest combination of third-and fourth-degree burning, occurs in the upper body area.”

“That would be the area closest to the point of origin,” said Geoff Hamilton, cool and glum-looking as ever.

Dr. Glendenning nodded. “Makes sense. Mostly what we’ve got is full-thickness burning on the front upper body. You can see where the surface looks black and charred. That’s caused by boiling subcutaneous fat. The human body keeps on burning long after the fire’s been put out. Sort of like a candle, burning in its own fat.”

Banks noticed Annie make an expression of distaste.

“Farther down,” Glendenning continued, “on the legs and feet, for example, you can see the skin is pink and mottled in places, covered with blisters. That indicates brief exposure and lower temperature.”

When Dr. Glendenning got to the external examination of the victim’s head, Banks noticed what looked like skull fractures. “Found something, Doc?” he asked.

“Look, I’ve told you before not to call me Doc. It’s lacking in respect.”

“But have you found evidence of blows to the head?”

Glendenning bent over and probed the wounds, examining them carefully. “I don’t think so,” he said.

“But that’s what they look like to me,” Annie said.

“To you, lassie, maybe. But to me, they look like fractures caused by the heat.”

“The heat causes fractures?” Annie said.

Dr. Glendenning sighed. Banks could imagine the sort of teacher he’d be and how he’d terrify the poor medical students.

“Of course it does,” he said. “Heat contracts the skin and causes splits that may easily be interpreted as cuts inflicted during life. It can also cause fractures in the long bones of the arms and legs, or make them so bloody brittle that they’re fractured while the body is being moved. Remember, we’re sixty-six percent water, and fire is a great dehydrator.”

“But what about the skull?” Annie asked.

Glendenning looked at her, a glint in his eye. “The fractures are caused by pressure. The brain and the blood start to boil, and the steam needs an outlet, so it blows a hole in the skull. Pop. Just like a bottle of champagne.”

Annie shuddered. Even Banks felt a little queasy. Dr. Glendenning went back to work, a mischievous grin on his face.

“Anyway,” he went on, “skull fractures caused by fire often radiate along suture lines, the weakest point in the skull’s surface, and that’s the case here. Also, the skull splinters haven’t been driven into the brain matter, which would most likely be the case if blunt-instrument trauma were present. They’ve been forced outward.”

“So you’re saying he wasn’t hit over the head?”

“I’m saying nothing of the kind,” Glendenning said. “I’m only saying it seems unlikely. That’s typical of you, Banks, jumping to conclusions when you’ve got only part of the evidence, going off half-cocked. What about a bit of scientific method, laddie? Haven’t you been reading your Sherlock Holmes lately?”

“I know that when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth. Or something like that.”

“Well, in this case,” said Glendenning, “almost anything’s still possible. Your report mentioned that the body was covered by debris, and I’ve seen the crime scene photos and sketches. The damage might have been caused by a section of the ceiling falling on the deceased after his death.”

“I suppose it could have happened that way,” said Banks.

“Definitely possible,” said Geoff Hamilton.

“I’m glad you both agree,” Glendenning said.

“On the other hand, though,” Banks argued, “wouldn’t you expect to find skull splinters in the brain if that were the case?”

Glendenning graced him with a rare smile. “You’re learning, laddie. Anyway, we don’t even know whether the injury was post-or antemortem yet. That’s my point.”

“Do you think you could find out?”

Glendenning rolled his eyes. “Do I think I could find out?” he mimicked, then went back to the body. “Well, why don’t we start by looking for signs of smoke inhalation?” He held out his hand theatrically. “Scalpel.”

Wendy Gauge suppressed a smile as she handed him the required instrument, and the pathologist bent over the corpse. The nose had burned away, along with enough skin and flesh to allow the chin and jawbone to show through in places. Glendenning worked away at exposing the tracheal area and bronchial passage, parts of which Banks could see were black with soot or charring, then he bent over the body again. “There’s definitely some thermal injury to the mouth, nose and upper airways,” he said, “but that’s not unusual, and it doesn’t tell us much.” He poked around some more. “There’s soot present, but not a great deal. In fact, in this case, there’s little enough to conclude that he was still breathing, but shallowly.”

“Was he unconscious?” Banks asked.

“Very likely.”

“So that blow to the head might have been administered prior to the starting of the fire? It might have caused the unconsciousness?”

“Hold your horses.” Dr. Glendenning bent over the body again. “I’ve already told you; that blow was more likely caused by the fire or falling debris than by human force. Deposition of soot on the tongue, in the nares, the oropharynx and the nasopharynx, all of which we have here, cannot be held to imply life during the fire.”

“So he could have been already dead?”

Glendenning gave Banks a nasty look and went on. “Traces of soot below the larynx would indicate that the victim was alive at the start of the fire.”

“And is there any?” Banks asked.

“A little. Right now, we need to dig deeper.” Glendenning gave the go-ahead and Wendy Gauge wielded her own scalpel and made the customary Y-shaped incision. The blackened skin, which had been dried by the fire and then wetted by the firefighters’ hoses, peeled back like burned paper. And there it was, the sickly smell of death. Cooked or raw, it amounted to the same thing. “Hmm,” said Glendenning. “You can see how deep the burning goes in some places. It’s never uniform, for a number of reasons, including the fact that your skin’s thicker in some places than in others.”

“Needs to be around you,” said Banks.

Glendenning pointedly ignored him. “There’s some exaggerated redness of the blood,” he said, “which indicates the presence of carbon monoxide. We’ll know the exact amounts when that incompetent pillock Billings brings the results back from the lab.”

Banks remembered the day he found his old chief constable, Jimmy Riddle, dead in his garage from carbon monoxide poisoning. Suicide. His face had been cherry-red. “How much carbon monoxide does it take to cause death?” he asked.

“Anything over forty percent is likely to cause impaired judgment, unconsciousness and death, but it depends on the person’s state of health. The generally accepted fatal level is fifty percent. All right, Wendy, you can go on now.”

“Yes, Doctor.” Wendy Gauge pulled up the chest flap and took a bone cutter to the rib cage, which she cracked open to expose the inner organs.

At that moment, the door opened and Billings appeared from the lab. The scene of carnage being played out on the stainless-steel postmortem table didn’t faze him, but he was clearly terrified of Dr. Glendenning and developed a stutter whenever he had to deal with him. “H-here it is, Doctor,” he said. “The c-carbon monoxide results.”

Glendenning glared at him and studied the report. “Do you want the short answer or the long one?” he said to Banks, after dismissing Billings with an abrupt jerk of his head.

“The short one will do for now.”

“He has a CO level of twenty-eight percent,” Glendenning said. “That’s enough to cause dizziness, a nasty headache, nausea and fatigue.”

“But not death?”

“Not unless he had some serious respiratory or heart disease. Which we’d know about if we had his medical history. In general terms, though, no, it’s not enough to cause death. And given the levels of soot and particulate matter in the airways, I’d say he was alive, but most likely unconscious, when the fire started, in which case the cause is probably asphyxia caused by smoke inhalation. And don’t forget, there are plenty of other nasty gases released during fires, including ammonia and cyanide. A full analysis will take more time.”

“What about tox screening?”

“Don’t try to tell me my job, laddie,” Dr. Glendenning growled. “It’s being done.”

“And dental records?”

“We can certainly get impressions,” said Glendenning, “but you can hardly check his chart against every bloody dentist in the country.”

“There’s a chance he may have been local,” said Banks, “so we’ll start with the Eastvale area.”

“Aye, well, that’s your job.” Glendenning glanced at the clock and turned back to the body. “There’s still a lot to be done here,” he said, “and I’m afraid I can’t promise you I’ll get to the second victim tonight. I might even miss my dinner engagement as it is.”

Wendy Gauge removed the inner organs en bloc and placed them on the dissecting table.

“Well,” said Banks, looking at Hamilton and Annie, “whether our victim was hit on the head, whether his brains blew out through his skull, or whether he had a bad heart and died of low-level carbon monoxide inhalation, we know from the evidence so far that someone set the fire, so we’re looking at murder. The best thing we can do now is try to find out just who the hell he was.” Banks glanced again at the loathsome hulk on the table, the charred and leathery skin, the exposed intestines and dribbles of reddish-pink blood. “And,” he added, “let’s hope we’re not dealing with a serial arsonist. I wouldn’t want to be attending any more of these postmortems if I could help it.”

“Isn’t this intimate?” said Maria Phillips, settling into her chair at a dimpled copper-topped table in a quiet corner of the Queen’s Arms. “Go on, then, I’ll be a devil and have a Campari and soda, please.”

Banks hadn’t asked her if she wanted a drink yet, but that didn’t seem to bother Maria as she set her faux fur coat on the chair next to her, patted her bottle-blond curls, then reached into her handbag for her compact and lipstick, with which she busied herself while Banks went to the bar. He had given her a ring at the community center that afternoon and discovered she was working late, which suited him fine. He was glad to be in a friendly pub after the ordeal of the postmortem and wanted nothing more than to be surrounded by ordinary, living people and to flush the taste of death by fire out of his system with a stiff drink or two.

“Evening, Cyril,” he said to the landlord. “Pint of bitter and a large Laphroaig for me and a Campari and soda for the lady, please.”

Cyril raised his eyebrows.

“Don’t ask,” Banks said.

“You know me. The soul of discretion.” Cyril started pulling the beer. “Wouldn’t have said she was your type, though.”

Banks gave him a look.

“Nasty fire down Molesby way.”

“Tell me about it,” said Banks.

“You involved already?”

“From the start. It’s been a long day.”

Cyril looked at the scratch on Banks’s cheek. “You look as if you’ve been in the wars, too,” he said.

Banks put his hand up and touched the scratch. “It’s nothing. Just a disagreement with a sharp twig.”

“Pull the other one,” said Cyril.

“It’s true,” said Banks.

“But you can’t talk about the case, I know.”

“Nothing much to say, even if I could. We don’t know anything yet except two people died. Cheers.” Banks paid and carried the drinks back to the table, where Maria sat expectantly, perfectly manicured hands resting on the table in front of her, scarlet nails as long as a cat’s claws. She was an unfashionably buxom and curvaceous woman in her early thirties, and she would look far more attractive, Banks had always thought, if she got rid of all the war paint and dressed for comfort rather than effect. And the perfume. Especially the perfume. It rolled over him in heavy, acrid waves and soured his beer. He took a sip of Laphroaig and felt it burn pleasantly all the way down. He didn’t usually drink shorts in the Queen’s Arms, but this evening was an exception justified by a particularly nasty postmortem and Maria Phillips both within the space of a couple of hours.

Maria made it clear that she noticed the scratch on Banks’s cheek, but that she wasn’t going to ask about it, not yet. “How’s Sandra doing?” she asked instead. “We do so miss her at the center. Such energy and devotion.”

Banks shrugged. “She’s fine, far as I know.”

“And the baby? It must be very strange for her, becoming a mother all over again. And at her age.”

“We don’t talk much these days,” said Banks. He did know, though, through his daughter Tracy, that Sandra had given birth to a healthy seven-pound girl on the third of December, not much more than a month ago, and that she had named her Sinéad, not after the bald pop singer, but after Sean’s mother. Well, good luck to her. With a name like that, she’d need it. As far as he knew, via Tracy, both mother and daughter were doing fine. The whole business churned his guts and changed everything, especially the way he related to his past, their shared life together. In a strange way, it was almost as if none of their twenty-plus years together had happened, that it had all been a dream or some sort of previous existence. He didn’t know this woman, this child. It even made him feel different about Tracy and his son, Brian. He didn’t know exactly why, how, or in what way, but it did. And how did they feel about their new half sister?

“Of course not,” Maria said. “How insensitive of me. It must be very painful for you. Someone you spent so many years with, the mother of your children, and now she’s had a baby with another man.”

“About this artist, Tom?” Banks said.

Maria waved a finger at him. “Clever, clever. Trying to change the subject. Well, I can’t say I blame you.”

“This is the subject. At least it’s the one I intended to talk about when I asked you for a drink.”

“And here’s silly old me thinking you just wanted to talk.”

“I do. About Tom.”

“You know what I mean.”

“Have you ever encountered or heard of a local artist whose first name is Tom?”

Maria put her hand to the gold necklace around her throat. “Is this what you’re like when you interrogate suspects?” she said. “You must terrify them.”

Banks managed a weak smile. He hadn’t been lying when he told Cyril it had been a long day, and it was getting longer. Every minute spent with Maria felt like an hour. “It’s not an interrogation, Maria,” he said, “but I am tired, I don’t want to play games, and I really do need any information you might have.” He felt like adding that he had just seen the charred remains of a corpse, watched Dr. Glendenning peel away the blackened flesh and pull out the shiny organs, but that would only make things worse. Patience. That was what he needed. And plenty of it. Problem was, where could he get it?

Maria pouted, or pretended to pout, for a moment, then said, “Is that all you know about him? That his name was Tom?”

“So far, yes.”

“What did he look like?”

Banks paused, again recalling the ruined face, melted eyes, exposed jawbone and neck cartilage. “We only have a vague description,” he said, “but he was fairly short, thick-set, with long greasy brown hair. And he didn’t shave very often.”

Maria laughed. “Sounds like every artist I’ve ever met. You’d think someone capable of creating a thing of beauty might take a little more pride in his appearance, wouldn’t you?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” said Banks. “It must be nice to be able to wear what you want, not to have to put a suit on and worry about shaving every morning when you go to work.”

Maria looked at him, her blue eyes twinkling. “I don’t suppose you’d have to wear anything at all, would you, if it was really warm?”

“I suppose not,” said Banks, gulping more Laphroaig, followed by a deep draft of beer. “But does that description ring any bells?”

She gazed at him indulgently, as if he were a wayward schoolboy, then frowned. “That could be Thomas McMahon,” she said. “He’s certainly the shortest artist I’ve ever met. I suppose Toulouse-Lautrec was shorter, but he was before my time.” She smiled.

Banks’s ears pricked up. “But he fits the description, this Thomas McMahon?”

“Sort of. I mean, he was short and squat, a bit toadish, really. He had a beard back then, but his hair wasn’t really long. One thing I do remember, though…”

“What?”

“He had beautiful fingers.” She held out her own hand, as if to demonstrate. “Long, tapered fingers. Very delicate. Not what you’d expect for such a small man.”

Wasn’t that what Mark had said about Tom? That he had long fingers? It wasn’t a lot to base an identification on, but it was the best they had so far. “Tell me more,” Banks said.

Maria waved her empty glass. “Well, I could be bribed,” she said.

Banks had finished his Laphroaig and he still had half a pint left, but he wasn’t having any more, as he had to drive home. He went to the bar and bought Maria another Campari and soda. The pub was filling up now, and he had to wait a couple of minutes to get served. Someone put an old Oasis song on the jukebox. The Queen’s Arms was certainly a lot different from the previous summer, Banks thought, when foot-and-mouth had emptied the Dales, keeping even the locals away, and Cyril hardly had a customer from one day to the next. And this was only January, most of the people here local. Maybe the coming summer would be a boom time for the Dales businesses. They certainly needed it. Back at the table he handed Maria her drink and said, “Well?”

He was surprised when she opened her handbag and brought out a packet of Silk Cut and a slim gold lighter. He didn’t remember her as a smoker. “Do you mind?” she asked, lighting up.

It wouldn’t have mattered if he did mind; the smoke was already drifting his way, along with the perfume. “No,” he said, surprised to find that instead of a craving, for the first time he felt revulsion. Was he going to turn into one of those obnoxious, rabid antismokers? He hoped to hell not. He sipped some beer. It helped a little.

“I can’t tell you much about him,” Maria said. “If indeed he is the one you think he is.”

“Let’s assume that he is, for the sake of argument,” said Banks.

“I mean, I wouldn’t want to be responsible for sending you off in the wrong direction, wasting police time.”

Banks smiled again. “Don’t worry about that. I won’t arrest you for it. Just tell me what you know and leave the rest to us.”

“It must have been about five years ago,” Maria said. “Sandra was still with us at the time. She used to talk to him quite a bit, you know. I’m sure she’d remember even better than me.”

Wonderful! Banks thought. Was he going to have to go and talk to his ex-wife to get information about a case? Maybe he’d send Annie. No, that would be cruel. Jim Hatchley, then? Or Winsome? But he knew, if it came to it, that he’d have to go himself. It would be rude and cowardly not to. No doubt he’d get to see the new baby, bounce little Sinéad on his knee. Maybe Sean would be there, too, and they’d ask him to stay for dinner. Happy families. Or he might end up baby-sitting while they went out to the cinema or the theater for the evening. On the other hand, maybe it could be avoided altogether if he pressed Maria just a little harder. “Let’s start with what you remember,” he said.

“Well, as I said, it was a long time ago. McMahon was a local artist, lived on the eastern edge of town, as I recall. It was part of our job to encourage local artists – not financially, you understand, but by giving them a venue to exhibit their work.”

“So Thomas McMahon had an exhibition of his work at the community gallery?”

“Yes.”

“And there’d be records of this? A catalog, perhaps? A photograph of him?”

“I suppose so. Down in the archives.”

“Was he any good?”

Maria wrinkled her nose. “I won’t pretend to be an expert on these matters, but I’d say not. There was nothing distinguished about his work, as far as I could see. It was mostly derivative.”

“So he’d have a hard time making a career of it?”

“I imagine he would. He sneaked a couple of ghastly abstracts in, too, at the last moment. I have a feeling they were what he really wanted to paint, but you can’t make a living from that sort of thing unless you have real talent. On the other hand, you can make a fair bit from selling local landscapes to tourists, which he did.”

“Any chance that his death might affect the value of his work?”

Maria’s eyes widened. “My, my, you do have a devious mind, don’t you? What a delicious motive. Kill the artist to increase the value of his paintings.”

“Well?”

“Not in his case, I shouldn’t think. A bad watercolor of Eastvale Castle is a bad watercolor of Eastvale Castle, whether the painter is alive or dead. Perhaps a dealer might know more than I do, but I think you’ll have to look elsewhere for your motive.”

“Was he a drinker?”

“He liked his drink, but I wouldn’t say he was a drunk.”

“Drugs?”

“I wouldn’t know. I saw no signs, heard no rumors.”

“And you’ve neither seen nor heard anything of him since?”

“Oh, yes. He’s dropped by a couple of times, for other artists’ openings, that sort of thing. And he was at the Turner reception, of course.”

“I see,” Banks said. The Turner. By far the most valuable and famous painting ever to be housed in the modest community center gallery, a Turner watercolor of Richmond Castle, Yorkshire, believed lost for many years, had spent two days there after being discovered under some old insulation during a cottage renovation. Nobody knew how it had got there, but the speculation was that the original owner died and whoever had the insulation put in didn’t know the value of the small painting. There had been a private reception for local bigwigs and artsy types. Annie had been involved in the security, Banks remembered. It had happened last summer, while Banks had been in Greece, and he had missed all the excitement.

“Other than that?”

“No. He dropped out of the local scene shortly after the exhibition, five years ago. I understand that his dealer had trouble selling his work, and that McMahon went through some sort of personal crisis. I don’t know the details. Leslie Whitaker might be able to help. I know they were friends, and he tried to sell some of McMahon’s serious paintings as well as the junk he painted for the tourist trade.”

“So Whitaker was McMahon’s agent?”

“Sort of, I suppose.”

“Recently, too?”

“Yes. I’ve seen Thomas McMahon coming out of Leslie Whitaker’s shop once or twice this month. He looked as if he’d been buying some books. He was carrying a package, at any rate.”

“Did you talk to him?”

“Only to say hello.”

“How did he seem?”

“Remarkably fit, actually. Though, as you mentioned earlier, his hair was a bit long, and it could have done with a wash. He also hadn’t shaved for a few days, by the look of him.”

“Do you think you could dig out a catalog and give me the names of the artists whose openings he attended?”

“Why?”

“The catalog might help identify any of his works that show up, and we’d like to talk to anyone who might have known him. A photograph would help, too.”

“I can try. I’d have to look at the center’s records, though.”

“Could you do it first thing?”

Maria eyed him for a moment and sipped some Campari and soda. Her glass was almost empty again. “I suppose I could. You do realize it’s Saturday tomorrow, though, don’t you?”

“The center’s open.”

“Yes, but it’s my day off.”

“I’ll send one of my DCs along then,” said Banks. “It might take him a bit longer, but…”

“I didn’t say I wouldn’t do it.”

“Then you will?”

“All right, yes. If you want.”

“And you’ll ring me at the station, send anything you find down there?”

“Yes.” She held out her glass. “You never know; I might even deliver it myself.”

“You want another drink?” Banks asked.

“Please.”

“All right. But I’m afraid you’ll have to drink this one by yourself. I’ve got a long drive home.”

Maria looked disappointed. “Oh, well, in that case I won’t bother… But I thought…”

“What?”

“Well, I don’t live that far away. Maybe you’d like to come for a nightcap, or just a coffee or something?” She wrinkled her nose. “It might perk you up a bit.”

“Thanks for asking,” Banks said, hurriedly finishing his beer. “But perking up’s the last thing I need right now. I really do have to get some sleep.”

“Never mind, then. Some other time.” Maria gathered her things together and stood up to put on her coat. “I’ll ring you in the morning,” she said, and made a hasty exit.

Oh, shit, thought Banks, embarrassed by the looks he was getting from others in the pub. Surely he had never given Maria Phillips any reason to think he wanted more from her than information about the artist? He had only seen her two or three times since Sandra had left, and on those occasions they had simply bumped into each other on the street, or he had visited the community center for one reason or another and had seen her there. They had done nothing but exchange small talk. Still, she had always been a strange one, he remembered, always superficially flirtatious, even when he was married to Sandra. He had thought it was just her way of relating and had never taken her seriously. And maybe that’s all it was, even now. He picked up his overcoat and briefcase. At least she was going to ring him with the information he wanted in the morning, information that might take him a bit closer to the mystery that was Tom.

Annie drove her aching bones home after the postmortem, on Banks’s advice. There was nothing more to be done tonight, he had told her, so best get some rest. That was exactly what she intended to do, she thought, as she locked the door of her small Harkside cottage behind her, the cottage that seemed to be at the center of a labyrinth of narrow winding streets, as Banks had once pointed out. She would have a glass of Chilean cabernet and a long hot bath, then take a couple of nighttime cold-relief capsules and hope for a peaceful night’s sleep. Maybe she’d feel better in the morning.

There was one message waiting for her on her answering machine, and she was absurdly pleased to hear that it was from Phil. He would definitely be coming up to Swainsdale tomorrow and would be staying a few days at his cottage in Fortford. Would Annie care to have dinner with him one evening over the weekend, perhaps, or even early next week, if she wasn’t too busy?

Well, she would, but she didn’t know if she could commit herself right now, what with a big new case on the go and this damn cold dragging on. Still, being a DI gave her some perks, even if it did mean no overtime, and her evenings should be free, barring the necessity to head out somewhere overnight. If she felt well enough, there was no reason why she shouldn’t tentatively agree to dinner tomorrow.

Annie dropped her keys on the table, poured herself a glass of wine and picked up the telephone.

When Banks arrived home after his drink with Maria Phillips, he also found one message waiting for him. It was from Michelle Hart, whom he realized he had forgotten to call. She just wanted to tell him that she wouldn’t be able to see him this weekend as they were all working overtime on a missing-child case. Banks could well understand that. Missing children were the worst, every policeman’s nightmare. It was while Michelle was looking into the disappearance of Banks’s childhood friend, Graham Marshall, whose bones had been discovered the previous summer, over thirty-five years since he had disappeared, that they had met.

Even though he couldn’t get away either, he still felt disappointed. This sort of thing was happening more and more often lately, so much so that they felt and acted like strangers for the first few hours every time they did meet. It was no way to sustain a relationship. First the distance, the long winter drives in fog, driving rain or hail; then the Job, the unpredictable hours. Sometimes he wondered if it was possible for a copper to have anything but the most superficial and undemanding of relationships.

He had also wondered more than once over the past few months where things were going with Michelle. They met up when they could, usually managed to have a good time, and the sex was great. But she always seemed to hold a part of herself back. Most people did, Banks realized, including himself, but with Michelle it was different, as if she were carrying around some great weight she couldn’t, or wouldn’t, share, and in a way it made their relationship feel superficial.

With Annie, Banks had developed a deeper relationship. That was the problem, what had made Annie run: the intimacy, and Banks’s residual feelings for Sandra. And the kids, of course. The idea of Banks’s two children seemed to scare Annie to death. Michelle never talked about children. Banks wondered if she had been deeply wounded by her past in some way. Annie had been raped, and they had talked about that, got it out in the open, but with Michelle… she just wouldn’t open up.

Banks sorted through his post, pleased to see that his copies of Gramophone and Mojo had both arrived, and poured a wee dram of ten-year-old cask-strength Laphroaig, which DS Hatchley had bought him at a duty-free shop. Talk about a drink with teeth; it bit deep into your tongue, throat and gut and didn’t let go. The aroma alone was enough to make you feel pissed.

Banks thought about Michelle again. Was he attracted only to wounded women? he wondered. Did he see himself as some sort of healer, a Travis McGee figure, remembering the books he’d read with prurient interest as an adolescent, along with James Bond, the Saint, Sexton Blake and Modesty Blaise. Just a few days on the Busted Flush with old Travis and you’ll be right as rain. Well, if he did see himself that way, he wasn’t making a very good job of it, was he? And you didn’t get to his age, or Michelle’s, without taking a hefty emotional, even physical, knock or two along the way. Especially if you happened to be a copper. Banks laughed at himself, tilted his head back and tipped his glass.

He phoned back, but Michelle was out, so he left a message of regret on her answering machine. Maybe next weekend, he said, though he doubted either of their cases would have wound down by then.

At least he had had one bit of good news when he called back at the station after his little chat with Maria Phillips: their body was definitely Thomas McMahon. There was only one dentist in the village of Molesby, the nearest settlement to the narrow boats, and DC Templeton had had the good sense to check there first with the dental impression. Thomas McMahon had been there for a filling less than a week before.

Sometimes it was that easy.

It was cold in the cottage, and Banks considered lighting a peat fire. Then he decided it wasn’t worth it; he was sure he wouldn’t be able to stay awake long enough to enjoy it. Besides, after today, there was something about the idea of even the most innocent domestic fire that frightened him. He checked the smoke detectors to see if they were both still working. They were. Then he turned on two bars of the electric fire and poured himself another drink.

He thought of watching a movie on DVD. He had recently bought a player and it had revitalized his interest in movies. He was starting to collect them the way he did CDs. In the end he decided that it was too late; he knew he would fall asleep on the sofa halfway through. Instead he put on Cassandra Wilson’s Belly of the Sun CD and browsed through the Gramophone reviews. God, what a deep, rich sensuous voice Cassandra had, he thought, like melting chocolate as she worked each syllable for all she could get, stretched them out until you thought they’d break, dropped on them from high or crept up underneath them and licked and chewed them out of shape.

The whiskey tasted good, sharp, peaty and a little bit medicinal, and he wished he could go outside and stand by Gratly Falls and look down the daleside to the lights of Helmthorpe the way he did when the weather was good, but it was too cold. Oh, certainly it was mild enough for January, but after dark a chill came to the air that defied even the properties of a fine single malt whiskey to warm the cockles of one’s heart. A wind had sprung up, too, and he felt as if he were marooned in his little cottage, straining against its ropes to stay on the ground.

As he put the magazine aside and settled back with his feet up, only a dim table light on, Cassandra singing Dylan’s “Shelter from the Storm,” his mind drifted over the day’s events, as it often did at times like this. He wasn’t so much thinking as just riffing, improvising on a theme, the way a jazz player did, or the way Elgar had written his Enigma variations.

Enigma was a good place to start. Everything about today’s events seemed infused by that very quality. Elusive, inchoate, equivocal. On the one hand, it appeared as if Thomas McMahon had been the intended victim, but there were no signs of external injury other than the fire damage, and they knew nothing about any possible motive. On the other hand, Mark Siddons had had a row with his drug-addict girlfriend Tina and stormed off, but his alibi held tight, and the physical evidence exonerated him.

Tina, or Mark, had also bought drugs from Danny Boy Corcoran, and wherever drugs are concerned you have to look closely at everyone involved. Then there was Tina’s stepfather, Dr. Patrick Aspern. Banks hadn’t particularly liked him, but that didn’t mean much in itself. He had disliked innocent people before. But if what Mark said about Aspern and his stepdaughter was true, that was enough to give the doctor a strong motive. And both Aspern and his wife had been evasive, to say the least, when it came to alibis. On the other hand, perhaps something in Mark’s own background had made him only too eager to believe Tina’s story without question. That background might well be worth looking into, Banks thought, making a mental note to put DS Hatchley on it in the morning.

Andrew Hurst was another problem. Hurst haunted the canal side, he had lied about his activities, he had washed his clothes, and he had no alibi. But what motive did he have? Perhaps he didn’t need one. He had first approached the scene, then he had rung the fire brigade. Maybe he was an arsonist who just liked to start fires, a pyromaniac. From what Banks knew of the basic psychology of pyromaniacs, many of them liked not only to report, hang around and watch their own handiwork, but they liked to take part in the firefighting operation, too, and help the police. Banks would see just how helpful Andrew Hurst wanted to be.

Banks thought about another Laphroaig as the CD came to an end, but decided against it. Instead, he took himself off to bed.