Sleeping in the Ground

Chapter 7

Eastvale was throbbing with excitement on Tuesday morning, from what Banks could see when he drove in with Annie through the throng of reporters and cameramen. Banks had not managed to get much sleep, and as a consequence he felt groggy as he dodged questions and headed inside. Annie didn’t seem much more lively. At least Ray had done a bit of shopping the previous day and cooked them some eggs and bacon with their morning coffee. He said he would be out house-hunting most of the day, so not to worry about him.

The desk sergeant told Banks that Mike Trethowan, head of the firearms cadre, had left a message to meet him in the lab as soon as possible. Also, Dr Glendenning sent his regrets, but he was still busy with the victims of the wedding shooting and wouldn’t be able to get around to Martin Edgeworth’s post-mortem until tomorrow morning, if then.

They were lucky that the Eastvale Regional HQ was attached to a small forensic laboratory in the building next door, though the lab was constantly under threat due to budget cuts. Even though the technicians there handled jobs from all over the county, Banks could generally get priority on most matters. Unfortunately, the lab wasn’t equipped to deal with ballistics. For that, Edgeworth’s weapons, bullets and casings had to be sent to LGC Forensics in Wakefield.

Trethowan was chatting with CSM Stefan Nowak and Vic Manson, the fingerprints expert, when Banks and Annie dropped by.

‘Good timing,’ Trethowan said. ‘Vic here has just confirmed Martin Edgeworth’s prints on both weapons, and there was gunshot residue on his hand, too.’

‘Good. No other prints?’

‘None,’ said Manson.

‘What about the shell casings and the remaining bullets?’

‘Clean.’

‘You mean no prints at all?’ Banks said.

‘That’s right,’ said Trethowan. ‘It doesn’t mean much, though. People often wear thin gloves, latex or cotton, when they’re handling explosive materials. Edgeworth made his own bullets.’

‘Even so...’

‘We’re just waiting for the designated firearms officer to pick the guns up and take them to Wakefield for further testing,’ Trethowan went on. ‘I’ve had a quick shufty at them myself, and I honestly don’t think there’s much doubt that the rifle is the one used at St Mary’s, and the Taurus is the gun that killed Edgeworth.’

Banks nodded. Trethowan led him and Annie over to the table where the guns lay sealed in carefully labelled plastic bags.

‘Ugly things, aren’t they?’ Annie said.

‘Do you think so?’ said Trethowan. ‘I think they have a sort of beauty all their own, a shapeliness, a form that perfectly suits their purpose. They’re actually rather sleek and elegant machines, when you think about it.’

‘It’s not so much their form I think about as their purpose.’

‘Don’t you mean their owner’s purpose?’

‘Oh, we’re back to that hoary old chestnut, are we?’ Banks cut in.

Trethowan laughed. ‘I suppose it’s become one of the great conundrums, hasn’t it?’

‘Not to me it hasn’t,’ said Annie, fingering the scar on her chest where a bullet had entered her several years ago, narrowly missing her heart.

‘Sorry,’ said Trethowan.

‘No matter.’

Banks stood over the two weapons, the one matte black, the other stainless steel with a hard black rubber butt. As per regulations, the Taurus had a barrel extension, which resembled a silencer, to comply with the twelve-inch legal requirement, and there was a long metal tubular extension sticking out from the butt, so that the gun as a whole was over twenty-four inches in length, also as required by law. Handguns were barely tolerated these days, and those that were had to be almost as long as rifles, far too long and bulky to hide easily in your pocket or stick down your trousers like the gangsters did on TV, but still easy enough to stick in your mouth and pull the trigger.

Trethowan stood beside them. ‘Both perfectly legal and both registered to Martin Edgeworth,’ he said.

‘I assume all the regular checks were made when Edgeworth applied for his certificate?’ Banks said.

‘Certainly,’ said Trethowan. ‘I’ve verified the documents, and there’s no doubt that Edgeworth was deemed fit to own firearms. No charges or convictions, not even a speeding ticket, and no health issues raised by his doctor. Solid guarantors. All above board.’

‘What did he use the guns for? Hunting?’

‘Competitive shooting, mostly. Targets more than clay pigeons, of course. For clay pigeons you’d generally use a shotgun of some sort.’ He touched the bag with the revolver inside. ‘This baby here is a Taurus 66.357 long-barrelled revolver, using a.357 Magnum FMJ 158 grain bullet. One bullet fired and fragments dug out of the wall of Edgeworth’s cellar.’ He moved on to the AR15. ‘And this daddy, as you know already, is an AR — Armalite Rifle — 15, emasculated for legal use under a firearms certificate in the UK.’

‘Do you think you could stop referring to the weapons in familial terms, please?’ Annie said. ‘I mean, it makes me cringe to hear someone talking about guns as babies and daddies. And “emasculated”? Give us a break.’

Trethowan reddened. ‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘Just a piece of AFO slang.’

‘And you’re still certain that Edgeworth would have been able to work the bolt fast enough to get off ten shots in under a minute?’ Banks asked.

‘Yes. Easily. There are ten bullets missing from the thirty-round clip of 5.56mm bore ammunition, which qualifies for small-bore calibre designation. But it’s small-bore with full-bore performance, as they say, if it’s loaded with the right ammo. In this case, he used.223 Remington 55 grain bullets. They travel at three thousand feet per second and carry eleven hundred foot-pounds of energy.’

‘More than enough to do the job from that distance, I take it?’

‘More than enough. Especially with the hollow points.’

Annie had wandered away to talk to Stefan Nowak. Banks couldn’t blame her. He wasn’t especially comfortable around firearms himself, though he had been through some basic training. And it did sometimes seem to him that the relish with which some AFOs talked about weapons was more than a little OTT.

The AFO charged with delivering the guns for ballistic examination arrived, signed the necessary papers, put the plastic bags inside a large messenger bag and headed out. Banks couldn’t think of anything else to ask Trethowan, so he made his farewells and they left.

Chief Superintendent Gervaise’s office was set up in a similar way to Banks’s, but everything was bigger, befitting her senior rank, even the conference table they sat around. And the chairs around her conference table were more comfortably padded.

Adrian Moss had joined Banks and Gervaise for a quick briefing. The young MLO was wearing so much black that he might have been going to a funeral, Banks thought. His gelled black hair shone and his perpetual five o’clock shadow and black-rimmed spectacles completed the style. Banks supposed his attire was appropriate for someone who had to face the media at a time like this. Much as he liked to criticise Moss, he didn’t envy him his job today. The poor boy was stressed out enough already, and Banks doubted he had managed to get much sleep lately. There had been too much going on behind the scenes. For a start, the firearms cadre versus emergency services issue hadn’t been resolved yet, and it probably wouldn’t be without the appointment of a special commission and the preparation of a thousand-page report, which would cost the taxpayers a fortune and probably be so ambiguous as to leave all parties scratching their heads as to what to do after they had read it.

Moss crossed his legs and balanced a yellow A4 pad on his knee. He had a press conference coming up soon and was anxious for angles. He could handle the spin himself, but he needed something to work with in the first place, something suitable for spinning.

‘It’s the usual ending to this kind of saga, isn’t it?’ Moss began. ‘Killer mows down a congregation then goes home and tops himself.’

‘Is that what you think happened?’ Banks said.

‘Well, it is, isn’t it?’

‘I think what Superintendent Banks means,’ said Gervaise, ‘is that there could easily have been a number of different outcomes to yesterday’s actions.’

Moss frowned, pen poised. ‘Such as?’

Gervaise flashed Banks a wry smile, as if to tell him he had got himself into this and must get himself out. ‘Alan?’

‘Well,’ Banks said, ‘Edgeworth could easily have gone on a rampage and shot a lot more people before either forcing us to take his life or killing himself when we had him cornered.’

Moss made a few scratches on his pad. ‘But he didn’t, did he?’ he said. ‘I mean, he didn’t get the chance. So we’re golden, aren’t we? We saved lives. It’s win — win.’

Banks took a deep breath. ‘I suppose you could say that,’ he said. ‘Apart from one or two minor ticks.’

‘Minor ticks...?’

‘Laura Tindall, Francesca Muriel, Katie Shea, Benjamin Kemp, Charles Kemp. Need I go on? Edgeworth killed five people and wounded four. He put Diana Lofthouse in a wheelchair. And he’s ruined even more lives. Do you think people just return to normal, pick up and carry on, after something like this? Some of them never will. If you ask me, that’s the story the media will be going with, the aftermath, the human story, not how it was a “win — win” situation for us. We did nothing. We got lucky.’

Moss scratched on his pad. ‘I like that,’ he said. ‘ “The human story”. But you’re not being fair to yourself. You did track the killer down.’

‘It was routine police work, a paper trail, and that’s not very exciting to our friends out there. A helicopter and jeep chase over moorland terrain in zero visibility followed by a stand-off and shootout would have made much better copy.’

Moss tapped his pen on his pad and chewed on his bottom lip. A few of his abundant glossy curls were hanging over his creased brow above his glasses. ‘That’s what I was getting around to,’ he said. ‘I mean, when you get right down to it, it’s all rather boring, isn’t it? I mean, as a story.’

‘Not for the victims and their families.’

‘No, I know that. I didn’t mean to be disrespectful or anything. But try to see it from my point of view.’ He gestured towards the window. ‘And theirs. We don’t have much to give them, do we? I mean, the whole gun law business is getting rather predictable, for a start. They’ve just about done that one to death. No pun intended.’

‘None heard,’ said Banks. ‘And since when hasn’t a bit of blood and gore been enough for them?’

‘I don’t mean to be critical, Superintendent,’ said Moss, ‘but I don’t think you fully understand the situation. I mean my situation. The media situation in general. I’m sensing resistance here. You underestimate them. They’re not simply a bunch of children suffering from attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.’

‘Oh, I see,’ said Banks, with a questioning sideways glance at Gervaise. ‘They’re not? Do enlighten me, then.’

‘There’s no need to be sarcastic,’ said Moss. ‘We simply see the world in different ways. That’s all. But we do need to be on the same page here.’

‘And how do you see all this?’

‘That there must be another story. A better story. This can’t be the end.’

‘Isn’t it the bridal party they’ll all be writing about?’ Banks asked. ‘That’s where the glamour and tragedy lie. Laura Tindall was a sexy model; Ben Kemp a war hero. Martin Edgeworth was a nobody. A bloody retired dentist, for crying out loud. What are you going to do, dredge up the statistics about how many retired dentists become rampage killers?’

‘A possibility,’ said Moss, jotting down another thought, ‘but they’ve already had enough of the victims. They’ve been running pictures of Laura Tindall on the catwalk and Benjamin Kemp in his fatigues holding a weapon that, in my opinion, is similar to the one the victims were shot with. People are getting tired of the ex-supermodel and the war hero.’

‘And you say we’re not dealing with a bunch of kids suffering from ADHD?’ said Banks.

Gervaise gave him a warning glance. ‘So, what’s your suggestion, Adrian?’ she asked. ‘I assume you have an alternative in mind?’

‘Yes.’ Moss paused for effect before his pronouncement. ‘It’s Edgeworth’s story now.’

‘What?’ said Banks.

‘You said it yourself. The details of the investigation aren’t very interesting. The manhunt wound down too soon, held no real excitement, and the weather’s been too bad to do much location filming, anyway. You followed a paper trail. It led you to Edgeworth. Simple.’

‘You’re saying we solved the case and stopped a mass murderer too quickly?’ Banks said.

Moss managed a thin smile. ‘If you care to put it that way, yes. You’ve left the table bare, Superintendent. Well, not quite.’

‘Once again,’ said Gervaise, ‘what do you suggest?’

Moss leaned forwards, put both feet firmly on the floor and tossed his pad on the table, where it landed with a loud slap. ‘People are fascinated by what motivates killers like Edgeworth,’ he said. ‘What makes them tick. Look at all the books on mass murderers like Moat and Bird and the rest. Dunblane. Hungerford. Or Columbine and Sandy Hook in the States. The Pulse nightclub in Orlando. And serial killers? For crying out loud. Just pick one. They give them nicknames and make movies about them: the Yorkshire Ripper, Son of Sam, the Moors Murderers, the Boston Strangler, the Zodiac Killer, the Green River Killer. I mean, why are we still fascinated with Jack the Ripper after all these years? How many people can remember the names of any of his victims? But how many books have been written about him and these killers? Most of them by journalists.’

‘Mary Kelly,’ said Banks.

‘What?’

‘Mary Kelly. One of the Ripper’s victims.’

‘Oh, I see. Right.’

‘OK, Adrian,’ said Banks, holding up his hand. ‘I take your point. People are interested in the grotesque, in the aberrations, deviations from the norm. That’s why they read Silence of the Lambs and so on. Why Hannibal Lecter and Norman Bates are such cultural icons.’

‘Exactly! And they’re interested because, no matter how much has been written, no matter how many of these monsters we’ve studied, no matter how many reports and learned dissertations there have been, we still don’t understand them. There’s still a need, a hunger, for more knowledge about such things, such people. What makes them tick. What went wrong. How they became defective. They can’t be pigeon-holed, filed, put away in a box marked read and understood. They’re still viable. No matter how much we think we know, the bloke next door could still be a serial killer or a mass murderer. That’s the angle to exploit.’

‘But that isn’t our job,’ said Banks. ‘And to be perfectly honest, neither is this. I certainly didn’t sign up to waste my time sitting around coming up with angles for the media to use.’

Banks moved to stand up, but Gervaise waved him down. ‘Hang on a minute, Alan. Hear him out.’

Banks sat reluctantly.

‘Please don’t think for a minute that I’m trying to tell you how to do your job,’ said Moss, ‘or what your job is, but it’s been my experience over the years that the boundaries have changed, and the media expect people like you to do a lot more than keep order and put bad guys away — in fact, half the time they criticise you for doing those very things.’

‘What then?’ asked Gervaise.

Moss leaned back and crossed his legs again. ‘They want to understand, to explain to their readers, listeners, viewers, and they want us to help them to understand. Half the explanations the police come up with for what’s happening in society are unbelievable. Hardly surprising, as they’re cobbled together from lies and bullshit and obfuscated by the appalling use of language. Have you ever tried to read a chief constable’s report? People would like to trust us, but they don’t. They’d like to understand us, but we don’t make ourselves clear. We come on as if we’re always trying to cover something up, keeping our guilty secrets from the general public and failing to face up to things. As if we’re some sort of superior private club. They think we know something they don’t, and that we’re deliberately keeping it from them. And they’re right. They feel excluded. The only thing that dispels that feeling and is likely to bring us any closer together is if we attempt to publicly make sense of things like this. Of people like Martin Edgeworth.’

‘So you’re saying we should be psychologists as well as officers of the law?’ Banks argued.

‘You already are, to a large extent. One could hardly do your job without some understanding of the criminal mind. But there are criminal minds, and then there are people like Martin Edgeworth. He’s not a drug dealer or a mugger or a burglar or a wife-beater. He passed all the psychological and physical tests he needed to acquire his firearms certificate. How many more people like him are out there? That’s what people are interested in. They want to know what makes him different. Is that so difficult to understand?’

‘No, Adrian,’ said Gervaise. ‘Not at all. It’s just that we’ve been rather too busy catching the man to think very much about what set him off.’

‘I know. Believe me, I understand your priorities. But now you’ve got him, one way or another, you can afford to direct your attention elsewhere. We all know that it was a terrible thing he did, but what we want to know now is why he did it. And maybe how we can stop something like that from happening again. You’ve already been using a profiler, Dr Jenny Fuller. I’ve met her. It’s not as if you’ve had zero interest in what sort of person did this.’

‘Not at all,’ said Banks. ‘That kind of profile can be very important. And if things had gone on much longer, and we’d had more information to feed Dr Fuller, then her work might well have been instrumental in leading us to Edgeworth. It just wasn’t the way things worked out this time.’

‘And now?’ asked Moss.

‘You said it yourself. Now we’ve got him.’

‘So it’s all over?’

‘The killing is over, which is the main thing. And the killer himself has saved us the expense of a trial.’

‘And your Dr Fuller? Do you just pat her on the head and send her home? You might not have noticed, but she also happens to be very photogenic. Perhaps a bit long in the tooth, but most presentable for a woman her age. She’ll do well on Newsnight or Panorama. The media will lap her up.’

Banks held back from punching Moss. ‘Don’t be so fucking patronising,’ he said.

‘I’m sorry, but I think you know what I mean.’

Banks glanced at Gervaise then turned back to Moss and said, ‘I, for one, am certainly still interested in Edgeworth’s psychology, in who he is and why he did what he did. Just because it’s over on one level doesn’t mean we’re going to stop studying him. All I’m saying is that our main job is over.’ Banks knew that Jenny would continue with her profile, and he was intending to put Annie Cabbot and Gerry Masterson on the other angles of the case. Gerry was good at digging up stories and background, seemed to have a pretty firm grasp of basic human psychology, and she could use the experience. Annie could steer her. ‘We also need to make absolutely certain that Edgeworth was acting alone,’ he added.

‘What do you mean?’ said Moss. ‘Are you suggesting he had a sidekick? Someone who helped him? Is there evidence of this? Why didn’t you mention it before?’

‘Don’t get your knickers in a twist, Adrian,’ said Banks. ‘It’s merely a box to tick. We have no evidence that anyone else was involved. It’s just an avenue that needs to be thoroughly investigated and cleared.’

‘Superintendent Banks is right,’ Gervaise added. ‘And perhaps the investigation is not as high-powered now as it was when Edgeworth was on the loose and a danger to the public, but it’s not over yet. We are perfectly aware that profilers such as Dr Fuller often rely on us for access to information that may give them a deeper understanding of the killer’s psychology.’

‘Good,’ said Moss. ‘Then I think we’re on the same page at last.’

That was a rather frightening thought for Banks, but he said nothing.

‘But back to this business about the accomplice—’

‘There was no accomplice,’ said Banks, wishing to God he’d never mentioned the possibility. ‘And I’d appreciate it if you didn’t suggest that there was in any of your releases. We don’t want a panic on our hands, do we? Especially one caused by an MLO who got hold of the wrong end of the stick?’

Moss swallowed. ‘But you’ll keep me informed on anything more you find out about Edgeworth?’

‘We’ll keep you informed, Adrian.’

‘Including Dr Fuller’s profile?’

‘Including the profile.’

‘Right. OK, then.’ Moss gave them each a nervous smile and made his way crabwise out of the office.

‘So can you clarify the point of all that for me?’ Banks asked Gervaise when the door had closed. ‘Am I to do anything different than I was intending to do?’

‘No, Alan. Like it or not, we’ve been on the same page all along, as Adrian says. He just needed to vent his spleen a bit. He’s under a lot of pressure. He needs a bit of babying every now and then.’

‘Thought so.’ Banks left shaking his head.

The river was not much more than a beck swollen with the recent rains where it ran through Swainshead village from its source high in the dale. The weather seemed to be offering a brief respite that afternoon. By the looks of the iron sky, though, that wouldn’t last long.

Now that he could see them in daylight, Banks remembered the rows of limestone cottages with their flagstone roofs, facing one another across the river, the waterside benches and the stone bridge where the old men in flat caps stood talking, passing the time. Three of them were out there today, no doubt talking about the recent excitement, and Banks wouldn’t have been at all surprised if they were the same old men who had stood there almost twenty-five years ago, when he had worked on his first case in Swainshead. Two major incidents in twenty-five years wasn’t bad going for such a small village.

He ejected David Gilmour’s Rattle that Lock and parked outside the whitewashed facade of the White Rose, founded in 1615, or so the sign proclaimed. Further up the road stood the empty Collier house, a Victorian pile of stone cluttered with porticos, oriels and turrets, with most of its windows boarded up. Banks glanced across the river. The Greenock Guest House, which had played a pivotal role in the first Swainshead case, was now a pottery centre and gift shop. Banks wondered what had happened to Sam and Katie Greenock, the former proprietors. Katie had been a natural beauty, he remembered, and an innocent, but a woman confused by her attractiveness and uneasy mix of sexuality and innocence, like Hardy’s Tess. She had been in her twenties back then, so she would be fifty or more by now. He wondered where she was, what she was doing with her life. Was she still married to Sam? Or was she dead, like Emily and Katie Shea, her namesake at the wedding?

The pub was busy for a Tuesday lunchtime. Most of the customers were locals, Banks guessed by their easy manner and casual clothing, but there was a smattering of reporters, no doubt grubbing for the nitty-gritty on Martin Edgeworth. Adrian Moss had said that Edgeworth was their subject now, and Banks thought he was probably right. No doubt they were hoping to stumble across someone who had seen him pull the wings off a fly when he was five.

Banks was on his way to the Edgeworth house to meet up with Annie. The CSIs and search teams were still working there, packing anything that might be possible evidence of Edgeworth’s actions or motives into boxes. He might be dead, but the reverberations of his deed lingered on, as Banks had told Adrian Moss, and if anything could be learned from his actions to prevent such a thing happening in the future, it needed to be discovered. Profilers such as Jenny Fuller, for example, were always interested in as much data as they could get on forms of deviant behaviour in order to build up more accurate and comprehensive profiles. Jenny hadn’t had much to do this time before they found their man, but she might still be able to learn something useful from the case. Banks had phoned her on his way, and she had agreed to have dinner with him that evening. He couldn’t deny, even to himself, that he was still attracted to her after all these years, but he also knew he could hardly forge ahead on the assumption that she felt the same way.

First, though, as the sense of urgency had disappeared with Edgeworth’s suicide, Banks realised he hadn’t eaten much over the past couple of days, so he decided to eat a pub lunch while he had a casual word with the landlord. The people in the village who had known Edgeworth — including friends, neighbours, shopkeepers and publicans — would all be officially interviewed over the next few days, but Banks saw no reason not to try to get a general picture of the killer, and what better means than through the landlord of his local pub?

The White Rose had clearly undergone a face lift since Banks had last been there. The dark wood panelling was still on the walls, but above it, the pale blue paint was much brighter and fresher than the previous dun colour. Perhaps the years of accumulated tar and nicotine from cigarette smoke had been scraped off the walls and ceiling, too, since the pub smoking ban. The lounge even smelled of air freshener. A number of framed photographs of local attractions hung on the walls: waterfalls, the hanging valley nearby, a panoramic view of the village, the mouth of a cavern. The tables were more modern and less wobbly than before, square with wooden legs rather than the old cast-iron type. There was a fire burning in the hearth, and along with the Christmas lights and decorations, it gave the place a warm, cosy atmosphere.

The man behind the bar was a lot younger than old Freddie Metcalfe, who used to run the pub, though he had old Freddie’s craggy brow. It turned out his name was Ollie Metcalfe, Freddie’s nephew. He was a broad-shouldered lad with a bristly beard and weathered outdoorsman’s face, the type who would make a good second-row forward, and probably even had, as his nose seemed to have been broken more than once. Banks introduced himself, ordered a pint of Sneck Lifter and glanced over the menu, which was more gastronomically adventurous than its counterpart from twenty-five years ago. Not that he fancied anything adventurous right now. In the end, he went for a simple steak and mushroom pie and chips, introduced himself and indicated to Ollie Metcalfe that he would prefer to eat at the far end of the bar, away from the reporters, and would appreciate a quiet word when his food arrived. Metcalfe nodded and set off about his business.

Banks didn’t recognise any of the reporters, though he prided himself on guessing who they were, if not exactly what newspapers they represented. It used to be a lot easier to tell them apart, but these days it wasn’t even easy to find much difference between the newspapers themselves. He got a few suspicious glances, noticed several whispered exchanges, and assumed that he had been recognised, but nobody approached him. Now they had a bigger story, they were far less interested in any police investigation, unless it related to the now very public row between the firearms cadre and emergency services.

Banks had managed no more than a couple of pulls on his beer when his pie arrived, delivered by Metcalfe himself, who had left his young helper to handle the bar. The pastry was a puffy, crusty hat plonked on top of the stewed beef and mushrooms, but it would do. Anything would do at the moment. The chips were crispy and hot.

Metcalfe leaned on the bar opposite him. One or two reporters eyed them enviously — Banks could almost see their ears twitching — but nobody made a move to get any closer. If they knew Banks, they also knew his reputation. ‘What can I help you with, Mr Banks?’ Metcalfe asked.

‘Nothing specific,’ said Banks. ‘I’m just after a spot of lunch and a nice chat. Case like this plays havoc with your meal times.’

‘I’ll bet it does.’ He jerked his head. ‘Up the road with that lot last night, were you?’

‘Until about four.’

‘I still can’t believe it,’ said Ollie. ‘Nobody around here can.’

‘Popular bloke, Mr Edgeworth?’

‘Very.’

‘Isn’t that always the case with these mass murderers and serial killers?’ Banks said. ‘Butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth, they say. Quiet as a mouse.’

‘I wouldn’t know about that. I’ve never met anyone who did such a thing before. Are you sure you’ve not got it wrong?’

‘Everything adds up so far.’

‘But why? Why would a man like Martin Edgeworth do something like that?’

‘What sort of a man was he?’

‘A decent one. Good sense of humour, took a keen interest in local events, clubbable, went to meetings and so on. He liked to cook. Said if he hadn’t been a dentist he’d have trained as a chef. Keen amateur photographer, too.’ He pointed to a picture of a landscape. ‘And very good. He took that one over there. Even paid to have it enlarged and framed specially for our wall.’

Banks glanced at the photo. ‘You mentioned clubs. What clubs?’

‘Well, the shooting club, for a start. Swainsdale Rifle and Pistol. But I suppose you know all about that.’

Banks was intending to visit the club after stopping in at the Edgeworth house. ‘Was he any good?’

‘I think he must have been. He went in for competitions, won awards and so forth. They did a lot of shooting on the army range about five miles up the road, too. Proper supervision there, see, so you can use the real McCoy. Or so he said.’

‘What about grouse and the like?’

‘Occasionally. But he got rid of his shotgun a while back.’

‘Why?’

‘Lost interest in shooting defenceless little birds, I should imagine.’

‘What did he do with it?’

‘I’ve no idea. Whatever it is people do with used shotguns. Sold it, I suppose, or handed it in to some government agency.’

‘Do you know if he had any strong political leanings or connections?’

Metcalfe laughed. ‘If you’d known Martin, you wouldn’t have got him started on politicians. Hated the lot of them. Thought they were only in it to line their own pockets.’

‘So he had strong views?’

‘I didn’t mean to suggest there was anything unnatural about his ideas. It was just pub banter, blethering, like. A joke or two. He just didn’t care much for politicians, that’s all.’

‘How long had Mr Edgeworth lived up at the house?’

Metcalfe scratched his head. ‘Twenty years or more. He was here when I took on this place from my uncle, and that’s seventeen years back.’

‘Was he always a regular here?’

‘Aye, certainly all the years I’ve been here. Dropped by most days for a jar or two. Not a big drinker, mind you. Just the odd pint or two now and then.’

‘Beer man?’

‘Occasional splash of single malt. Special occasions.’

‘Was he popular?’

‘Aye, I’d say that he was. Yes. Very.’

‘Any particular close friends, drinking companions?’

‘Geoff McLaren, manager of that gun club he belonged to. Nice bloke. George and Margie, a couple of friends of his from the club. Sometimes his old partner came in with him. Jonathan Martell.’

‘Did Mr Martell come here often?’

‘Now and then. He’s retired now, too. Lives out Sedburgh way.’

‘Did Mr Edgeworth bring any new friends in here during the past month or so, anyone you hadn’t seen before?’

‘Once in a while, aye. I mean, we didn’t live in each other’s pockets. He knew plenty of people, and I was quite happy if he wanted to meet any of them in here for a drink and a bite to eat.’

‘So he sometimes came in with people you didn’t know?’

‘Now and then. Yes.’

‘Singly or in groups?’

‘Both. I mean, but not with groups that often, not unless the family was around, like.’

‘Did he ever strike up conversations with strangers?’

Metcalfe considered the question. ‘Sometimes,’ he answered. ‘Martin was sociable enough. He’d get chatting with other customers from time to time. Especially the ramblers. Martin liked walking, himself, and he knew a lot about local history, so if a customer had a question I’d usually point them in his direction.’

‘Anyone in particular?’

‘Not as far as I recollect. Certainly not in the past few months.’

‘Anyone stand out for any reason at all shortly before the shootings? Say November, early December?’

‘We get a lot of people in, believe it or not. And that’s a busy time. I’m sorry, but I can’t remember anyone in particular. I’m not saying he didn’t come in with anyone just that no one stands out in my memory. Sorry.’

‘Who else did he come with regularly?’

‘Nobody special. I mean, most of my regulars knew him. I’m not saying he was a saint, but ask any one of them, and I don’t think you’ll hear a bad word.’

‘We’ll get around to that eventually,’ said Banks. ‘Had he been behaving any differently lately, say this past month or so?’

‘Not at all. Same as normal.’

‘When did you last see him?’

‘Friday night.’

That was the day before the murders. ‘And he behaved as normal?’

‘Aye.’

‘Was he with anyone?’

‘No. He came in by himself and sat by the fire with Les and Barry most of the time he was here. They’re regulars, like Martin. They’ll be gutted.’

Banks made a note of the names. ‘Did he say anything odd at all, anything that struck you as out of character or mysterious?’

‘No. Like I said, he was the same as ever. Said good evening to me and the other regulars, ordered his pint and we chatted for a bit. It wasn’t a busy night, as I remember. He didn’t stay long after his drink with Les and Barry, though. Only had the two pints. Something on telly he wanted to see.’

‘What did he talk to you about?’

‘Oh, this and that. The weather. Christmas, how commercial it is these days. What everyone’s holiday plans were.’

‘What were his?’

‘He was going to stop with his son and daughter-in-law in Derby. They’ve got a couple of wee ones. See, when Martin and Constance split, like, I know people say they don’t take sides and all, but they do. Kids especially. The daughter, Marie, were always much closer to her mother. Not that she didn’t come and see Martin now and then, of course, but when it comes to summat like Christmas, well, she’s with her mother, isn’t she? And she’s divorced, like. Lives in Norwich, too, which is a bit of a bugger to get to and from.’

Banks thought about his own Christmas arrangements. It was coming up fast. He didn’t think he would get to see either of his children this year, as it was his ex-wife Sandra’s turn to have Tracy down in London, and Brian was still in LA with his band, the Blue Lamps. ‘But his son stuck with him?’

‘Aye, I suppose so. Nice lad. Colin, his name is. He’ll be bloody heartbroken. And his wife Mandy. Pretty lass. Thought the world of Martin. They always used to drop in here for a pint and a pub lunch whenever they were up visiting.’

Officers in Derby, Norwich and Carlisle had called on the various members of Edgeworth’s family early that morning, so they wouldn’t have to read about what happened to him first in the papers, or see it on TV. According to their brief reports, there had been the predictable outbursts of tears and disbelief, and the upshot was that both his children said they’d be up in Eastvale to sort things out as soon as possible. His ex-wife in Carlisle had been stunned by the news, too, but she hadn’t mentioned making the journey. By now, Banks calculated, the media would be camping out in their gardens and their telephones would be ringing off the hook.

‘Have you any idea what his movements were on Saturday morning?’

‘What they usually were, I suppose,’ said Metcalfe.

‘What was that?’

‘He usually went for a long walk along the tops on a Saturday and a Sunday morning, come rain or shine. It’s a bit of a bloody hike to get up there from the back of his house, like, but he did it. You certainly wouldn’t catch me trying it. But Martin kept himself fit. And he said the view’s magnificent. You can see Pen-y-Ghent on a good day.’

‘Any break-ins, or anything unusual happen in the village recently?’ Banks asked. ‘Crimes of any sort, unexplained events?’

‘Nay, wouldn’t you be the first one to know about something like that?’

‘Only if it was reported. There’s plenty goes on never reaches our ears. You must know that.’

‘Aye, well, not that I can think of.’ Metcalfe paused. ‘Why are you asking me all these questions? I mean, Martin’s dead. What does it matter?’

‘We have to cover every angle, Ollie.’

‘Well I can’t think of anything along those lines. And he wasn’t a nutter, if that’s what you’re saying.’

‘That’s not what I’m saying. We need to understand him, that’s all. Did you ever see him get drunk, get involved in any trouble, any arguments?’ Banks asked.

‘Not in here. Like I said, Martin were no saint, and he did have a bit of a short temper, but I never saw him drink to excess. Well... maybe once.’

‘Trouble?’

‘Martin? No. Except...’ He rubbed his beard.

‘Yes?’

‘Remember, I just mentioned that wife of his? Ex-wife. Constance. About two or three years ago, it were now, the split.’

‘Not long after he retired, then?’

‘Aye. Not long at all. It hardly seems to matter now, does it? I mean now that he’s dead.’ He gestured towards the group Banks thought were reporters. ‘It’s just for them vultures to pick his bones clean now, isn’t it?’

Banks glanced over. ‘I suppose they’ll do their jobs,’ he said. Then he leaned forwards slightly. ‘I’ll give you a word of warning for when you’re dealing with the press, Mr Metcalfe. Be careful what you say. Be very careful. They’re experts at twisting the simplest thing. You could tell them you make meat pies and you’ll come out sounding like Sweeney Todd. Know what I mean?’

Metcalfe laughed. ‘Thanks, but I’ve dealt with their like before. Used to be in public relations for Newcastle United. You know footballers.’

‘Well, you’ll understand, then. We have to employ a bloke specially to deal with them. Media relations officer, he’s called. I ask you. Course, we have to try and stay on their good side. It galls me to say it, but they can be useful.’

‘That’s the problem. And don’t they know it?’

Banks drank some beer and held up his glass to inspect it. ‘You keep a good pint, Ollie, I’ll say that for you.’

‘Thanks. But what use is a pub but for fine company and a decent pint of ale?’

‘If only all landlords thought that. Now, about this bit of trouble...’

‘It were summat and nowt.’

‘Usually is, in my experience. What happened?’

‘Martin was in here one evening enjoying his pint, like, keeping himself to himself, when this bloke Norman Lavalle came in.’

‘Was he a regular?’

‘No. I’d only seen him a couple of times before. And I didn’t like him much. Too smarmy by half, too full of himself.’

‘How long ago was all this?’

‘About two years.’

‘So what happened?’

‘Well, we all knew what was going on, like, that this Lavalle bloke was having it off with Connie, Martin’s wife. She were a bit flighty, like, but a nice enough lass, or so I thought. I suppose life with Martin was just too quiet and boring for her, especially after he stopped working and spent more time at home. Must’ve cramped her style. She were a good ten years younger than him. Anyway, she’d left him by then and was living down the dale a mile or two with a friend. This Lavalle bloke was panting after her. Well, Martin was none too pleased to see him. He’d been down in the dumps of late, a bit depressed, like, and who could blame him, so he makes some comment like, “What are you doing here? Can’t you just leave me in peace?” or something innocuous like that. Lavalle replies, “What’s it got to do with you? I’ll drink where I want.” At which point I’m about to come in and say not here you bloody well won’t, but Martin shoves him, and Lavalle takes a swing at him. Misses by a mile. Then Martin takes his shot. Connects, too. Lavalle staggers back a bit, with a bloody nose, but by then I’m round the bar like a shot, holding them apart. I get Lavalle out and get Martin sat down again with his drink. He’s a bit upset, so I leave him to it. He knocked back a bit more than usual that night, that’s all.’

‘Did he get angry when he was drinking?’

‘No, not at all. Only earlier. Lavalle was long gone by then. Martin usually got a bit morose when he drank too much, if truth be told. Quiet. Subdued.’

‘Did he say anything.’

‘When I asked him later if he was all right, like, he just says summat like, “If Connie runs off with that slimy bastard, I swear I’ll top myself.” ’ Metcalfe gave a nervous laugh. ‘It wasn’t like he really meant it or anything, it were just the way he felt at the time. Sort of thing we all say sometimes.’

‘So you didn’t believe he meant it?’

‘Certainly not.’

‘But he did threaten to commit suicide if his wife left him?’

‘That’s the long and the short of it. But it were just sort of something you say, like, when you’re upset. And he didn’t. Top himself, that is.’

Not two years ago, he didn’t, Banks thought. ‘He didn’t threaten to harm Lavalle or Constance?’

‘Never anything like that.’

‘Any further incidents?’

‘None. That’s just what I can’t understand, Mr Banks. Martin Edgeworth just wasn’t a violent man. Fair enough, he took a pop at the bloke who was bonking his wife, but what man wouldn’t? And then he goes and does something like this out of the blue. I can’t fathom it.’ He scratched his head.

‘What happened to Lavalle?’

Metcalfe snorted. ‘He and Connie got married. Live out Carlisle way now.’

Banks drained his pint. He had eaten what he wanted of the pie and chips a while ago. ‘Something caused Martin Edgeworth to snap,’ he said. ‘We don’t know what it was, but that’s what I’m after finding out. Maybe some people think it doesn’t matter now that he’s dead, but let’s not forget, he killed five people and ruined a lot of other lives. I like to close my books, Ollie, and I like them to be properly balanced when I do.’

Banks picked up Annie at the Edgeworth house, where nothing new had come to light, and drove to the Upper Swainsdale District Rifle and Pistol Club, which was three miles up the road, then another half mile along a gravel drive.

The clubhouse was an old stone structure, much like a rambling country pub, and inside, beyond the small deserted reception area with its racks of brochures about shooting safely, was a bar. There were several wooden tables with blue-and-white checked tablecloths, only three of them occupied. The diners turned to see who had come in, then, not recognising Banks and Annie, went back to their conversations and their meals. The walls were bare, rough stone, and there were a couple of glass-fronted cabinets along one side filled with trophies and photographs of men holding guns. There were, however, no real guns anywhere in sight, for which Banks was grateful. A young man in a white jacket stood drying glasses behind the bar. Banks was surprised to find a fully stocked bar at a shooting club, but he realised there was no law against it.

‘Can I help you?’ said the young man, whose name badge identified him as Roger. ‘Are you members? I haven’t seen you here before. The bar’s for members only.’

Banks and Annie flashed their warrant cards.

‘Oh. I suppose it’s about Martin, isn’t it?’

‘Boss around?’ Banks asked.

‘Mr McLaren isn’t in today.’ Roger gestured towards the grey weather outside. ‘Not much point being open on a day like this, but some of the regulars like to come in for a bite and a natter, so we usually open for lunch.’ He checked his watch. ‘We’ll be closing up for the day in half an hour.’

‘Maybe we can have a quick chat with you?’ Banks suggested, sitting on one of the high bar stools. Annie sat next to him.

‘I can’t tell you much,’ Roger said. ‘It’s George and Margie over there you want.’ He pointed to a man and woman sitting at one of the tables nearer to the door. ‘George and Margie Sykes. They were close to Martin.’

Banks glanced over. The man had an almost full pint in front of him, enough to last him a while yet. Banks guessed that his wife’s drink, with a piece of lime floating in it, was a gin and tonic. ‘We’ll talk to them in a minute,’ he said. ‘How long had Martin Edgeworth been a member here?’

‘Dunno,’ said Roger. ‘Since well before my time. Ten years, say. Mr McLaren will be able to tell you.’

‘You can’t show us the membership records yourself?’

Roger shook his head. ‘Mr McLaren always keeps the club office locked when he’s not here, and I don’t have a key.’

‘OK,’ said Banks. ‘We’ll deal with him later. Any trouble recently?’

‘Trouble?’

‘Yes. You know, disagreements, arguments, scenes, fights, shootouts, that sort of thing.’

‘Good lord, no. Never. Mr McLaren wouldn’t stand for anything of that sort. You’d be out on your arse.’

‘When did you last see Mr Edgeworth?’ Annie asked.

‘Last week. Early on. Tuesday, I think.’

‘Anything unusual about his behaviour? Was he upset, depressed, angry, anything like that?’

‘No. Just normal.’

‘And that was?’

‘Cheerful, polite, generous with his tips.’

‘Did you ever hear him mention the Tindall — Kemp wedding?’ Banks cut in.

‘No, never. Why would he?’

‘I don’t know. That’s why I’m asking you. Did he ever mention Benjamin or Charles Kemp, or Laura Tindall?’

‘No.’

‘Were any of them members? Have they ever been here?’

‘Not that I know of. And if they’d been in the last four years, I’d remember.’

Banks thanked him and slid off his stool. He turned to Annie. ‘Let’s go talk to George and Margie.’

They reached the table and introduced themselves. George and Margie made room while Banks pulled up a couple more chairs. ‘Thought you were damned reporters at first,’ said George apologetically. ‘Was just about to give you a piece of my mind.’ He had a shiny head, striped by a few dark hairs, and a handlebar moustache the likes of which Banks hadn’t seen outside of an old TV programme about the RAF. Margie had a moustache, too, but it was far less well developed. She also had bottle-blond hair starched into place like Margaret Thatcher’s.

‘Been around already, have they?’ Banks asked.

‘First thing,’ said George. ‘I wouldn’t mind, but it’s the usual rot about should there be shooting clubs at all. What on earth can we get out of it? Isn’t it dangerous? Very aggressive some of them are.’

‘Well,’ said Banks. ‘They’re men and women of great moral character.’

George guffawed. ‘ “Great moral character”. I like that. What can we do for you?’

Banks sat back and let Annie do some of the talking. ‘I understand, according to Roger over there, that you were good friends of Martin Edgeworth?’

‘Known him for years,’ said George. ‘Haven’t we, Margie?’

‘Years,’ said Margie. ‘George and I are absolutely devastated about what’s happened. Just devastated.’ There was the hint of a slur in her voice, and Banks guessed it wasn’t her first G&T.

‘I take it all this has been a great surprise, then?’ Annie went on.

‘You can say that again, love. Completely.’

‘So neither of you would have considered Martin Edgeworth to be capable of something like this?’

‘Never in a million years,’ said Margie. ‘He was a true gentleman, was Martin.’

‘A true gentleman,’ her husband echoed. ‘Martin Edgeworth was one of the gentlest souls you could ever hope to meet. Wouldn’t harm a fly. Mind you...’

‘What?’ Annie asked.

‘He didn’t like to lose. Did he, Margie?’

‘No, he didn’t like that at all.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘You know, competitions and the like. Got all huffy if he lost.’

‘Why all the interest in guns and shooting?’ Annie asked.

‘Why?’ said George, a suspicious gleam in his eye. ‘You’re not one of these anti-firearms lot, are you?’

‘Not at all,’ said Annie. ‘Just wondering what the appeal is.’

‘It’s a hobby, that’s all. Gets you out of the house. And I suppose it’s a sport, too. At least it’s competitive. In the Olympics, you know. We have regular competitions. Won a few trophies, as you can see. As far as I’m concerned, shooting’s no more about hurting anyone, or anything, than darts or cricket. You’ve got to be careful around guns, no doubt about that, but if you follow a few simple rules, you’re safe as houses. Martin just enjoyed the sport, getting out and meeting people. That’s all there is to it.’

‘Do you remember when he split up with his wife?’ Annie asked.

George’s expression darkened. ‘Connie, that little minx. Oh, yes. We remember, all right.’

‘He was upset about that, right?’

‘Naturally.’

‘Did he ever express any desire for revenge, to hurt her or the man she ran off with?’

‘Not to me he didn’t. Besides, that was over two years ago, and he didn’t go anywhere near Connie again.’

‘Was he angry about the idea of marriage?’ Annie asked. ‘Seeing as it had gone so wrong for him.’

‘He never said as much. And as far as I can tell, he didn’t know those people at the wedding from Adam, either, if that’s what you’re hinting at.’

‘Why did he shoot them, then?’ Banks asked.

George glanced back and forth from Annie to Banks and gripped his wife’s hand. ‘I’ve no idea,’ he said in a quiet, trembling voice. ‘He was my friend. I don’t understand any of what’s happened. To tell you the truth, I’m not even convinced that he did it.’

‘Oh, why’s that?’

‘Just not in his nature.’

‘But we know he had a short temper, and you said yourself he was a bad loser,’ said Annie.

‘Don’t try to twist my words,’ George said. ‘I’m not saying he was perfect. There’s plenty of people like that, and they don’t go around killing strangers.’

‘There was nothing on his mind, nothing erratic in his behaviour lately?’ Annie asked.

‘No,’ said Margie. ‘We saw him just last week, and he was the same as normal.’

‘When was this?’

‘Tuesday.’

‘What did you talk about?’

‘Nothing much. Just an upcoming competition, the prices in the new gun catalogue, membership fees going up. Nothing important. Club gossip.’

‘Was that the last time either of you saw him?’

‘Yes,’ said George.

‘Do you shoot, Mrs Sykes?’ Annie asked.

‘Me? Good lord, no,’ said Margie. ‘I just come along for the company. It’s a bit empty here today, but it’s usually more lively. Quite a few of the wives come along, and we have some fine female shooters as members. But me? I don’t think I could hit a barn door at ten paces.’

‘It’s probably a good thing you don’t shoot, then,’ said Annie with a smile.

‘Yes.’

‘Was Martin any good?’ she asked George.

‘He was. Yes. Beat me nearly every time.’

‘Do you know where or when he became interested in shooting? He didn’t have any military training or background, did he?’

‘Martin? Military? Heavens, no. Though he did go up to their range now and then. It’s the only place you can fire the full-bore rifles, you see. Under strict military supervision, of course. Quite a few of our members enjoy the hospitality there from time to time.’

‘Did you go, too?’

‘Me? No. I’m happy enough with small-bore.’

‘It was a small-bore gun Mr Edgeworth used at St Mary’s.’

‘Well, it would have to be, wouldn’t it, unless he’d acquired something else illegally?’ George leaned forwards. ‘Now listen here, young lady, I respect that you have a serious job to do and all.’ He glanced at Banks. ‘Both of you. But if you’re expecting me to imagine my friend, my best friend, getting up one day, heading out with his gun and shooting into a crowd of people from the top of a hill, then driving back home and blowing his own head off, then you’re in for a disappointment. Because I can’t. I can’t relate to it. Don’t you see. I just can’t...’ There were tears in his eyes.

Margie gripped his hand more tightly and patted it. ‘Now, now, George,’ she said gently. ‘There, there.’

‘I’m sorry if it’s hard to take in,’ Annie said, ‘but we’re just trying to understand why it happened ourselves.’

‘I know. And I’m telling you I can’t help you. I don’t know. I don’t even believe it. Martin was just an ordinary bloke. Sure, he had a bit of a temper. Yes, he didn’t like to lose. I think he might have cheated on his income tax, too, if truth be told. But none of that makes him a killer. He was neither so quiet and polite you might be worried what was really going through his mind, or loud and violent and abusive. He was just Martin. And don’t give me any of that guff the reporters tried on, like your neighbours not being what they seem. With Martin, what you saw was what you got, and it was him.’

‘We’re not just making it up, you know,’ said Banks. ‘There’s often more to people than we think. We do have evidence that Martin Edgeworth shot those people, Mr Sykes. And himself.’

‘I’m sure you do. All I’m saying is that I can’t believe it. No more than you would if I told you...’ He paused, then pointed at Annie. ‘If I told you that she had done it.’

‘So what do you think happened?’ Banks asked.

‘I don’t know. All I know is it can’t have been Martin Edgeworth. It must have been someone else.’

Banks pulled up outside Jenny’s front gate at seven o’clock that evening and tooted his horn. The rain was coming down in buckets again. He thought perhaps he should dash to the door and hold his umbrella for her — it would be very gallant — but the door opened almost immediately, and out she came with an umbrella of her own. A large, striped one.

‘Sometimes I wish I’d stayed in Sydney,’ she complained as she slid into the passenger seat. ‘Not that it never rains there. Mm, nice car. When did you get this? And how did you afford it? Been taking backhanders from drug dealers?’

‘My, my,’ said Banks, ‘we do have a lot to catch up on, don’t we? And I believe you’ve developed an accent.’ He turned down the volume a notch on Van Morrison’s ‘Warm Love’ and set off. Though not quite a match for the opulence and grandeur of the Heights, the Green was a pleasant and relatively wealthy enclave of Eastvale just south-east of the River Swain, where it curved through the town, opposite the terraced gardens and falls. Those fortunate enough to live in one of the detached Georgian houses by the water had a magnificent view of the castle towering above them on the opposite bank.

Jenny now lived only a street away from the house she had sold when she left Eastvale. Her semi overlooked the green itself, a swathe of parkland, dotted with poplars and plane trees, wooden benches, marked pathways and notices about cleaning up after your dog. Though the area attracted its fair share of tourists in season, especially with a famous ice-cream shop and a bakery nearby, it was far enough from the town centre to be quiet for the most part of the year. Professionals and some of the better-off academics lived around there, along with a fair number of retired couples and even a few successful artists and writers. It wasn’t the sort of area that would suit Ray, though, Banks thought. Far too bourgeois for him, and perhaps too claustrophobic.

Luigi’s wasn’t far, just over the bridge and up the road past the formal gardens to Castle Hill, but on a night like this, it wasn’t a walk anyone would care to make. The rain bounced in puddles on the road and pavement and ran like rills down the gutters, warping the reflections of the street lamps and the occasional green or red neon shop sign. Banks could hardly hear Van Morrison for the noise it made.

Even though it was a wet Tuesday evening, it wasn’t long until Christmas, the shops were open late, and Banks was lucky to find a parking spot almost right outside the small restaurant. They shared Jenny’s umbrella briefly on the way in and Banks smelled her familiar scent. He could swear it was the same she used all those years ago, and he still couldn’t put a name to it. Whatever it was, it smelled fresh and natural as a perfume carried on a light summer breeze, and it reminded him of childhood trips to Beales with his mother. It seemed they always had to walk through the perfume and make-up department to get to the toys or children’s clothing.

The maître d’ fussed over them, took their wet things and led them to a corner table for two beneath a romantic oil painting of Venetian canals in a scratched old gilt frame. The white tablecloth was spotless, with two red candles at its centre casting shadows on the walls. It was still early, and there were only six other diners, one table of four and another of two, but it was a small and very popular restaurant, and it would soon fill up. The ambience was dim and muted, and Banks thought he could hear Elvis Presley singing ‘Santa Lucia’ in the background.

‘Have you caught up on your sleep yet?’ Banks asked.

‘I don’t think so. I don’t seem to be sleeping regular hours, or for very long periods.’

‘I imagine it takes a while.’

The menus were printed in italics. Jenny pulled her tortoiseshell reading glasses from her voluminous handbag, and Banks put on his own Specsavers specials. They both laughed and studied the menus in silence. The waiter came and asked about drinks, and after consulting with Jenny, Banks ordered a bottle of Amarone. Pushing the boat out, perhaps, but then, he reminded himself, it was a special occasion: dinner with a lovely woman he hadn’t seen in over twenty years.

Jenny had been a friend, not a lover like Emily, but they had come close, and there was no doubt about their mutual attraction. Perhaps if he hadn’t been married, things would have turned out differently. As the waiter poured the wine, Banks looked across the table at Jenny in the candlelight and thought how lovely she still was. As she studied the menu, she gently bit the end of her tongue between her front teeth. The candlelight was reflected in her eyes. She had a silk scarf around her neck and was wearing a V-neck rust-coloured top, which showed just enough cleavage. Her arms were bare, and she had silver bangles around her left wrist that moved and jingled as she turned the pages, and a tiny watch with a loose chain on her right. He had forgotten that Jenny was left-handed.

‘What?’ she said, flashing him a smile.

‘I didn’t say anything,’ muttered Banks, flustered at being caught staring. He reminded himself that this was a working dinner, though he didn’t think he could sneak the expense of the Amarone past AC Gervaise’s eagle eye.

‘My mistake. So what do you fancy?’

Banks buried his head in the menu again. ‘I thought I might start with a small Caesar salad and then perhaps the lobster ravioli or spaghetti and meatballs. You?’

Jenny closed her menu. ‘I’ll have the same.’

‘Are you certain?’

‘Of course. I always find it easiest to do that when I’m out with somebody.’

‘What if you absolutely hate what he orders?’

‘Then I get a little more creative. But it’s not always a “he”. Honestly, Alan, spaghetti and meatballs sounds fine, and I’m sure it will go with the wine a lot better than lobster ravioli, delightful as that sounds.’

Banks closed his menu. ‘Done, then.’ They gave the waiter their orders and returned to the wine. ‘Am I losing my mind, or didn’t you used to be a redhead?’

Jenny laughed. ‘Can’t a girl change her mind? We women are arch-deceivers when it comes to things like hair colour. It was henna,’ she said. ‘Couldn’t you tell?’

Banks had believed the red hair to be genuine. ‘I never got close enough to find out,’ he said.

Jenny arched her eyebrows. ‘And whose fault was that?’ She touched her head. ‘This is my natural colour. I grew into it. You were going to tell me about the Porsche.’

‘I’m afraid it’s not a happy story. That’s why I went for a diversion when you first mentioned it. It used to be my brother’s.’ Banks explained about Roy’s murder and the new-found wealth for his parents that resulted from it, along with the Porsche for him.

‘That is sad,’ said Jenny when he’d finished. ‘But you solved the case, found the killer?’

‘Oh, yes. That’s not always... I mean, it doesn’t always help. You know. Whatever’s lost, you can’t quite make up for that.’

‘True,’ said Jenny. ‘You know, I’ve often thought of this moment, or one like this, over the years. Us, meeting again. Wondering what it would be like. I was so nervous. Would it be awkward? Would we have moved so far apart we had no common ground? Other than murder, that is. Would there just be nothing at all, like two strangers?’

‘And?’

Jenny laughed. ‘In some ways it’s like I’ve never been away. I know it’s a bit of a paradox, that so much has changed, that we have both changed, but I honestly don’t feel any different in your company than I used to do.’

Banks leaned back in his chair. ‘Comfortable like an old pair of slippers, eh? But you’re right that so much has happened. Sandra left me, for a start.’

‘Oh, I know, but I’m not talking about that. Not the details. Just the essence. We have to be something more than the accumulation of things that happen to do us, don’t you think?’

Banks worked on that one as he tasted some more Amarone. As he looked into her eyes again, he realised that what he thought had been sadness the other day was a depth of experience, an air of having lived, with all the suffering, joy, hope, loss, dreams, grief and occasional despair that living involved. Their salads arrived and they put their wine aside. The waiter quietly topped up their glasses. Banks had heard the door open a few times and he looked around to see that the place was now almost full.

‘I hate it when they do that,’ Jenny said. ‘I get so pissed. I can’t tell how much I’ve had to drink.’

‘You’d rather count your glasses, mark your bottle?’

‘Well, no. That’s a bit sort of anal, I suppose.’

Banks laughed. ‘At these prices, I don’t think getting pissed is an option.’

‘Then I won’t worry about it again.’

‘So what happened? In Australia. Why did you come back?’

‘Just couldn’t stay away, I suppose. The English weather, the healthy food, the politics. You. And then the job offer.’

‘Seriously.’

‘I got divorced.’

‘I’m sorry to hear it.’

‘Don’t be. Anyway, the job offer was important. I’m not independently wealthy. But the marriage? The divorce wasn’t nice. I don’t suppose it ever is, is it?’

‘No,’ said Banks. ‘Mine certainly wasn’t. After all those years, you think you know somebody, then... they’re strangers.’

‘Yes... Well, I’m sure you’ve heard about Australian men. All they’re interested in is beer, Aussie rules football and dwarf-tossing.’ She shook her head. ‘No. That’s not fair. Henry was a dear fellow, a true thinker and a very creative type. Sensitive. Things just didn’t work out for us, that’s all. I don’t know why. Listen to me, the psychologist who can’t even understand her own psychology.’

‘Physician, heal thyself?’

‘Something like that. Mutually incompatible, let’s say. That covers a multitude of sins. Best leave it at that.’

‘There’s no possibility of a reconciliation?’

‘No. You?’

‘Lord, no,’ said Banks. ‘It’s been years now. Sandra’s happily married to another man. They’re living in London. They have a child together.’

‘Do you ever see one another?’

‘No. Not for years. I’ve lost track. I see the kids often enough, though. Brian. Tracy.’

‘The Blue Lamps are pretty big down under, you know. You must be a proud father.’

‘Don’t tell him that, but yes, I am. And Tracy’s had her ups and down, but she’s turned out all right, too. Seems to have settled down. She’s living in Newcastle now, working and studying at the uni.’

‘You’re lucky then.’

‘I suppose I am. Kids?’

‘No. It was a matter of choice on both our parts, so it’s OK. I never thought of myself as the maternal type. Lovers?’

‘One or two,’ said Banks. ‘You?’

‘Three or four.’ Jenny’s expression was inscrutable.

The waiter delivered their main course and emptied the last of the wine into their glasses.

‘You never wrote,’ said Banks, when the waiter was out of earshot.

‘Nor did you.’

‘I didn’t have your address.’

‘You’re a detective. You could have tracked me down.’ Jenny stared at the table. When she looked up again, her mouth had taken a downward turn. ‘You don’t get it, do you?’

‘What?’

‘Never mind.’

‘No, really.’

‘I mean it. Never mind. It’s nothing. I just needed to get away. Completely away. That’s all. Now eat your spaghetti like a good boy.’

They tucked in. The food was good, the tomato-based sauce piquant and the meatballs moist and spicy.

‘I don’t suppose you’ll be needing me any more, now you’ve got your man,’ Jenny said after a while.

‘That’s one of the things I wanted to talk to you about.’

‘Well, I must say, this is a nice way of giving someone the push. Do thank your boss for using the velvet-glove approach.’

Banks laughed. He had almost forgotten how much he laughed when he was with Jenny. ‘You’ve got the wrong end of the stick. Yes, we’ve got our man — or he got himself — but there’s so much we still don’t know. I’d like you to keep working on the profile, if you’d be willing.’

Jenny’s expression brightened. ‘Of course. If nothing else, it might prove useful as research. One of the problems with this type of killer is that we don’t have any useful profiles to work from. They’re so few and far between, and most of them kill themselves before we get a chance to talk to them.’

‘Well, this one’s no exception to that rule.’

‘In a strange way, not talking to them doesn’t matter that much. I’ve always thought that talking to serial killers and mass murderers was overrated. All they do is whine and lie and blame society or their parents for their crimes. You don’t learn very much. It’s their behaviour and the way they present themselves in the world that I find more interesting. And the cracks, of course. What builds up to such a point that it bursts the dam, so to speak, sets them on an unalterable course with only one possible outcome. That’s far more interesting.’

‘I’m glad you think so.’

‘So tell me everything you know about him.’

They finished their main courses, and Banks told her what he had discovered and heard so far about Martin Edgeworth, most of it that very day from Ollie Metcalfe and George and Margie Sykes at the shooting club. Annie and Gerry Masterson would be trying to dig up a lot more background, but that was all he had for now. While he spoke, Jenny rested her chin on her fists, elbows planted on the table. When he had finished, she seemed thoughtful, moved one hand to pick up her glass and drank some more wine. Her glass was nearly empty.

‘Do we want another?’ Banks asked. ‘I can’t. I’m driving. But...’

‘I don’t think I could manage it,’ said Jenny. ‘This tiredness just washes over me.’

‘Want to go?’

Jenny waved her glass. ‘Not just yet. There’s still a mouthful or two left. So, basically,’ she went on, ‘everyone you talked to told you that Martin Edgeworth was sociable, generous, clubbable, uncomplaining, caring and successful?’

‘Basically, yes,’ said Banks. ‘Apart from the broken marriage, the quick temper and bad-loser bit.’

‘Well, we all know about broken marriages, don’t we? If a difficult divorce were a trigger for mass murder, there’d be a lot more dead people in the streets. Same with a bad temper and being a poor loser.’

‘Too true. We haven’t interviewed his wife or children yet. The children — grown-ups now, actually — should be here tomorrow. The wife didn’t mention coming over from Carlisle when Gerry spoke to her on the phone, so who knows? We may have to go there to talk to her.’

‘Your man certainly doesn’t fit any profile that I’m aware of,’ said Jenny. ‘Usually mass murderers tend to be profoundly alienated and embittered. They want revenge against the world, and they want to show everyone they’re not failures, that they can’t be used as doormats. There’s no evidence that Martin Edgeworth was a failure, or even felt he was. Sometimes the revenge is specific, and sometimes it’s just a sort of random rage against society in general. That doesn’t seem to fit, either, unless Edgeworth was very, very good at hiding his true self. He wasn’t a loner, and he wasn’t a failure. True, he was divorced and probably felt angry with his wife for humiliating him, but that’s hardly an indication of psychopathy. Some killers are good at hiding their true selves. I’m sure you’ve seen it often enough on the news, how the serial killer next door wouldn’t harm a fly, according to his neighbours. Was just a quiet lad, never any trouble, and he’s got five dismembered corpses buried in his back garden. Sure, it happens. But not that often. Most people demonstrate some clues as to what they are. I mean, there’s been plenty of meek little men finally snapping and killing their wives and families and then themselves. But going out with an assault rifle and mowing down a wedding party? That’s something else. We need to dig a lot deeper.’

‘I think Raymond Chandler wrote something about meek little wives holding a carving knife and studying their husbands’ necks, didn’t he?’

‘Yes,’ said Jenny. ‘But that was in Southern California during the Santa Ana. The hot wind makes people crazy.’

‘Not only is the woman beautiful, but she knows her Raymond Chandler,’ said Banks, before he realised exactly what he was saying.

Jenny didn’t miss a beat. She fluttered her eyelashes and said, ‘Of course, I’m not just a pretty face. You ought to know that by now.’

But Banks could see her blushing beneath the bravado. Yes, he thought, people do demonstrate clues as to what they are, or feel, or think. Most of us can only hide so much from the rest of the world. We have tells, giveaways. Body language. ‘So what do you think?’ he said. ‘About Edgeworth.’

Jenny knocked back the rest of her wine. ‘I’m not sure what to think,’ she said. ‘But from what you’ve told me, if I were you there’s one question I would most certainly be asking myself.’

‘What’s that?’

‘Despite all the evidence to support my position, am I sure, am I absolutely sure, that I’ve got the right man?’

‘You’re not the first person to say that to me today,’ Banks grumbled. ‘Shall we go?’

When he stopped outside Jenny’s house to drop her off, the rain was still teeming down. They sat in silence for a while, then Jenny said, ‘I’m not going to ask you to come in for a nightcap tonight, Alan. Partly I’m just too damn tired, and partly... I don’t know... I’m still not quite sure where I am in the world yet. I’m out of sync. I don’t know if it’s day or night.’

Banks leaned over and kissed Jenny on the cheek. She smiled and touched his arm with her fingertips before moving away, grabbing her umbrella and dashing out into the rain. He waited until she had got her front door open. She turned, silhouetted by the light, waved to him and closed the door behind her. Van Morrison was singing ‘Wild Children’ as Banks drove back over the bridge, across the market square, where the cobbles glistened with rain under the coloured lights, and headed for home.