Strange Affair

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

After dropping his car off outside Roy’s – he didn’t fancy spending the day driving in London traffic, trying to find parking spots, and the tube was much faster – Banks tried Lambert’s travel operation on Edgeware Road but was told that Mr. Lambert was unavailable. Next he went back to the Chelsea flat, not far from Sloane Square, and found Gareth Lambert just on his way out of the front door.

“Going somewhere, Gareth?” he said.

“Who the fuck are you?” Lambert tried to push past him.

Banks stood his ground. “My name’s Banks. Detective Chief Inspector Alan Banks.”

“You’re Roy’s brother.” Lambert stood back and eyed Banks up and down. “Well, fuck a duck. The old killjoy himself.”

“Can we go back inside?”

“I’m busy. I’ve got to get to the office.”

“It won’t take long.” Banks stared Lambert down. Finally Lambert shrugged and led Banks upstairs to a first-floor flat. The interior was functional enough but lacked the personal touch, as if Lambert’s real life lay elsewhere. The man himself looked just the same as he did in Roy’s photo: bearish, a bit overweight with a red complexion – part sun, part hypertension, Banks guessed – and a thick head of curly gray hair. He was dressed in ice-blue jeans and an oversized, baggy white shirt. Burgess had made a comparison with Harry Lime, but as far as Banks could remember, Lime was suave and charming on the surface, more like Phil Keane. Lambert was rougher around the edges and clearly didn’t seem to rely on charm to get by. They sat down opposite each other like a pair of chess players, and Lambert regarded Banks with a vaguely amused look in his eyes.

“So you’re Roy’s big brother, the detective.”

“That’s right. I understand the two of you go back a long way?”

“Indeed we do. I met Roy just after he’d graduated from university. We were a bit wet behind the ears back then, 1978. As I remember it, all the kids were wearing torn T-shirts and safety pins in their ears, listening to the Sex Pistols and the Clash, and there we were in our business suits sitting in some square hotel bar planning our next venture. Which was probably marketing torn jeans and safety pins to the kids.” He laughed. “They were good days. I was very sorry to hear about what happened to Roy, by the way.”

“Were you?”

“Of course. Look, I really am a busy man. If you’re just going to sit there and-”

“Because you really don’t seem to be grieving very deeply for someone you’d know for so long.”

“How do you know how much I’m grieving?”

“Fair enough. Did your ventures together involve arms dealing?”

Lambert’s eyes narrowed. “Why bring that up?” he said. “It’s ancient history. Yes, we were involved in what we thought was a perfectly legitimate weapons sale, but we were hoodwinked and the shipment was misdirected. Well, that was enough for me. What do they say? Once bitten, twice shy.”

“So you stuck with less risky ventures after that?”

“I wouldn’t say any of our ventures were without risk, but let’s just say the risk was of a more monetary kind, not the sort of risk where you could end up in jail if you weren’t careful.”

“Or dead.”

“Quite.”

“Insider trading can carry a hefty penalty.”

“Hah! Everybody was doing it. Still are. Have you never had a hot tip from the horse’s mouth and made a few bob on it?”

“No,” said Banks.

“So if I said right now such and such a company is making an important merger next week and their share prices will double, you can honestly say you wouldn’t run right out and buy as many shares as you could get your hands on?”

Banks had to think about that one. It sounded easy, and perhaps just a little bit naughty, put that way. Hardly criminal. But he didn’t understand the stock market, and that was why he didn’t play it. Besides, he never felt that he had the money to spare for such gambles. “I might splurge on a couple,” he said in the end.

Lambert clapped his hands. “There you are!” he said. “I thought so.” It sounded as if he were welcoming Banks to a club he had no desire to join.

“I’ve also heard rumors that you have been involved in smuggling,” Banks said.

“That’s interesting. Where did you hear these?”

“Are they true?”

“Of course not. The word has such negative connotations, don’t you think? Smuggling. It’s so emotive. I regard what I’ve done more as a matter of practical geography. I move things from one place to another. With great efficiency, I might add.”

“I’m glad you’ve got no time for false modesty. What things?”

“Just things.”

“Arms? Drugs? People? I hear you know the Balkan route.”

Lambert raised an eyebrow. “You do have your ears to the ground, don’t you? Roy never told me how sharp you are. The Balkan route? Well, I might have known it once, but these days… those borders change faster than you can draw them. And you’d better stop accusing me of breaking the law right now or I’ll have my solicitor on you, Roy’s brother or no. I’ve never been convicted of anything in my life.”

“So you’ve been lucky. Still, lots of opportunities for entrepreneurs in the Balkans, though. Or the ex-Soviet states.”

“Much too dangerous. I’m afraid I’m too old for all that. I’m semi-retired. I have a wife I happen to love very much and a travel agency to run.”

“When did you last see Roy?”

“Friday night.”

Banks tried not to let his excitement show. “What time?”

“About half past twelve or one o’clock in the morning. Why?”

“Are you sure it was Friday night?”

“Of course I am.”

Lambert was playing with him, Banks sensed. He could see it in the man’s restless, teasing eyes. Lambert knew that the neighbor had seen him getting into his car with Roy, and that Banks had no doubt talked to the neighbor and got his description. But that was at half past nine. What were they doing until half past twelve or one o’clock?

Lambert picked up a box of cigars from the table and offered one to Banks. “Cuban?”

“No, thanks.”

“Suit yourself.” Lambert fiddled with a cutter and matches and finally got the thing lit. He looked at Banks through the smoke. “You seem surprised that I said I saw Roy on Friday evening. Why’s that?”

“I think you know why,” said Banks.

“Indulge me.”

“Because that’s when he went missing. He hasn’t been seen alive since half past nine on Friday.”

“I can most sincerely assure you that he has. By me and countless other members of the Albion Club.”

“The Albion Club?”

“On The Strand. It’s a rather exclusive club. Membership by invitation only.”

Banks remembered that Corinne had told him Roy went to a club on The Strand with Lambert a few weeks ago. “What goes on there?”

Lambert laughed. “Nothing illegal, if that’s what you’re thinking. The club has a gaming license. It also has a top-class restaurant and an exceedingly comfortable bar. Roy and I are both members. Have been for years. Even when I was living abroad I’d drop by if I happened to be in the city.” He puffed on his cigar, eyes narrowed to calculating slits, as if daring Banks to challenge him.

“Let’s backtrack, then,” said Banks

“Of course.”

“What time did you first see Roy on Friday night?”

“About half past nine,” said Lambert. “I dropped by his place and picked him up.”

“Was this a regular arrangement?”

“I wouldn’t say regular, but we’d done it before, yes. Roy prefers to leave the car when he goes out drinking, and I hardly touch the stuff these days, so I don’t mind driving. It’s not far out of my way.”

“And you’d arranged to pick him up and take him to the Albion Club on Friday?”

“Yes.” The cigar had gone out. Lambert lit it again. Banks got the impression that it was more of a prop than anything else.

“What happened when you got there?”

Lambert shrugged. “The usual. We went into the bar and got a couple of stiff brandies and chatted for a while. No, I tell a lie. I had a brandy – my only drink of the night – and Roy had wine. The club does a decent house claret.”

“Who did you talk to?”

“A few of the other members.”

“Names?”

“Look, these are important people. Influential people. They won’t take too kindly to being harassed by the police, nor to knowing it was me who set you on them.”

“Maybe you haven’t quite grasped the seriousness of this,” Banks said. “A man has been murdered. My brother. Your friend. You were one of the last people to see him alive. We need to trace his movements and activities on the evening he disappeared.”

“This puts me in a difficult position.”

“I don’t bloody care what position it puts you in. I want names.” Banks locked eyes with him. Eventually Lambert reeled off a string of names and Banks wrote them down. He didn’t recognize any of them.

“How did Roy seem?” Banks asked. “Was he depressed, worried, on edge?”

“He seemed fine to me.”

“Did he confide in you about any problems or anything?”

“No.”

“What did he talk about?”

“Business, golf, cricket, wine, women. You know, the usual man talk.”

“Did he mention me?”

Lambert gave a tight little smile. “I’m afraid he didn’t, no.”

Banks found that hard to believe, given that Roy had just phoned him out of the blue with an urgent problem, a “matter of life and death,” but he let it go for the time being. “Did Roy ever mention a girl called Carmen Petri?”

It was over in a second, but it was definitely there, the shock, the slight hesitation before answering, a refusal to look Banks in the eye. “No,” Lambert said.

“Have you ever heard the name before?”

“There’s an actress, Carmen Electra, but I doubt that it’s her you’re thinking of.”

“No,” said Banks. “There’s also an opera called Carmen, but it’s not her, either.” Casually, he slipped a copy of the photograph he had printed from Roy’s CD out of his briefcase and set it on the low table. “Who’s the other man sitting with you in this photo?” he asked.

Lambert peered closely at the photograph, then looked at Banks sideways. “Where did you get this?” He gestured at the photo with his cigar.

“Roy took it.”

Lambert sat back in his chair. “How strange. He never told me.”

“I assume you do know who the man you’re sitting with is?”

“Of course I do. It’s Max. Max Broda. He’s a business colleague. I can’t imagine why Roy would want to take a photo of us together.”

“What business would that be?”

“Travel. Max puts tours together, recruits guides, works out itineraries, hotels, suggests destinations of interest.”

“Where?”

“Mostly around the Adriatic and Mediterranean.”

“Including the Balkan countries?”

“Some, yes. If and when they’re safe to visit.”

“I’d like to talk to him,” said Banks.

Lambert scrutinized the end of his cigar and took another puff before answering. “I’m afraid that will be rather difficult,” he said. “He’s gone home.”

“Where’s that?”

“Prague.”

“Do you have an address?”

“Are you thinking of going there? It’s a beautiful city. I know someone who can fix you up with the best guided tour.”

“Maybe,” said Banks. “I would like his address, though.”

“I might have it somewhere.” Lambert scrolled through the files on his PDA and finally spelled out an address for Banks, who copied it down.

“What time did you leave the club?” he asked.

“Roy left sometime between half past twelve and one o’clock.”

“You weren’t still together at that time?”

“No. We weren’t joined at the hip, you know. Roy likes to play the roulette tables. I prefer poker, myself.”

“Did he leave alone?”

“As far as I know.”

“Where did he go?”

“I’ve no idea.”

“What time did you leave?”

“About three. I was knackered by then. Not to mention broke.”

“Where did you go?”

“Back here.”

“Not home to your wife?”

Lambert leaned forward, face thrust forward, and stabbed the air with his cigar. “You leave her out of this.”

“Very understanding, is she?”

“I told you. Leave her out of it.” Lambert relit his cigar and his tone softened. “Look,” he said, running his free hand through his curly gray hair, “I was tired, I came back here. I don’t know what you suspect me of, but Roy was a good friend and a colleague of many years’ standing. I didn’t kill him. Why would I? What possible motive could I have?”

“Are you sure he didn’t say where he was going?”

“No. I assumed he was going home.”

“Was he drunk?”

Lambert tipped his head to one side and thought for a moment. “He’d had a few,” he said. “Mostly wine. But he wasn’t staggering or slurring his speech. Not fit to drive, I’d say, but fit enough to get a taxi.”

“Is that what he did?”

“I’ve no idea what happened once he got outside.”

“And you didn’t see him again?”

“No.”

“Okay,” said Banks, standing to leave. “I suppose we could always ask around the taxi drivers.”

“One thing,” said Lambert, as he walked Banks to the door. “You already know about the arms deal, years back. You mentioned it earlier.”

“Yes?”

“I think he wanted to get involved in that sort of thing again. At least, it might be a direction worth looking in. I mean, Roy had been making a few noises, you know, sounding me out, asking about old contacts and such.”

“On Friday?”

“Yes. In the club.”

“And?”

“I told him I’d lost touch. Which is true. The world has changed, Mr. Banks, in case you haven’t noticed. And I warned him off.”

“How did he respond?”

Lambert clapped a hand on Banks’s shoulder as they stood near the door. “You know Roy,” he said. “Or maybe you don’t. Anyway, once he’s on the trail of something, he’s not easily deterred. He persisted, got a bit pissed off with me, as a matter of fact, thought I was holding out on him, depriving him of a business opportunity.”

“So you ended the evening on a sour note?”

“He’d have got over it.”

“If he hadn’t been killed?”

“Yes.”

“Why did you fall out with Julian Harwood, by the way?”

Lambert looked surprised. “You know about that?”

“Yes.”

“It was years ago. Storm in a teacup. Harwood insisted I’d cheated him out of some money in a land sale, that I knew the new motorway was going to run right by it.”

“And did you?”

Lambert did his best to look innocent and outraged, but it came out like a poor parody. “Me? Of course not. I wouldn’t do a thing like that.”

“Of course not,” Banks echoed. “Is there anything more you can tell me?”

“I’m afraid not. Except…”

“What?”

Lambert stood by the door and scratched his temple. “Don’t take this amiss,” he said. “Just a piece of friendly advice. Roy’s dead. I can’t change that. I don’t know anything about it, and I certainly don’t know who did it, but don’t you think you should think twice, take heed of what you’re getting into, and perhaps be a bit more careful lest you disturb a nest of vipers?”

“Is that a warning, Mr. Lambert?”

“Take it as you will.” Lambert looked at his watch. “Now I’m afraid I really must head for the office. I’ve got business to take care of.”

Annie hardly had time to call at her cottage in Harkside and water the wilting potted plants before heading to Eastvale for the three-o’clock team meeting. It was another beautiful Dales day, a little cooler than it had been, with one or two fluffy white clouds scudding across the pale blue sky, but she didn’t have time to pause and enjoy any of it. Sometimes she wondered what the point of living in the country was, given her job and the hours she put in.

They were all waiting in the boardroom: Gristhorpe, Hatchley, Winsome, Rickerd, Templeton and Stefan Nowak, crime scene coordinator. The long table was so highly polished you could see your reflection in it, and a whiteboard hung on the wall at one end of the room, surrounded by corkboards where Stefan had pinned the crime scene photographs. They made quite a contrast to the paintings of the wool barons on the other walls.

After Annie had brought everyone up to speed on the Berger-Lennox Centre, Roy Banks, Carmen Petri and their possible connection with Jennifer Clewes’s murder, Gristhorpe handed the floor over to Stefan Nowak.

Stefan stood by the boards and the photographs and cleared his throat. Not for the first time Annie wondered what sort of life Stefan led outside of work. He was one of the most charming and elegant men she had ever known, and his life was a complete mystery to her.

“First of all,” said Stefan, “we have fingerprints from DCI Banks’s door that don’t match the builders’, we have tire tracks from his drive and…” Here he paused dramatically and lifted up a plastic bag. “We also have a cigarette end found near the beck on DCI Banks’s property, fortunately before the rain came. From this we have been able to get the saliva necessary for DNA.”

“What about the tire tracks?” Annie asked.

“They’re Michelins, of a type consistent with tires often used on a Mondeo,” said Stefan. “I’ve sent the necessary information to Essex for comparison with what’s left of the Mondeo that crashed outside Basildon. I’m still awaiting results.”

“So,” Gristhorpe said, “you’ve got prints, tire tracks and DNA from DCI Banks’s cottage, and if and when we find a suspect, these will tie him to the murder of Jennifer Clewes and Roy Banks?”

“Well,” said Stefan, “they’ll tie him to DCI Banks’s cottage.”

“Exactly,” said Gristhorpe. “And no crime was committed there.”

“That’s not strictly true, sir,” said Annie. “Someone definitely broke in.”

Gristhorpe gave her a withering look and shook his head. “Not enough. Is there anything else?”

“We’ve got Jennifer Clewes’s mobile records from the network,” Winsome said. “Not that they tell us a great deal. As far as I can gather, the calls are all to and from friends and family.”

“What about the last call?” Annie asked. “The one Kate Nesbit remembered on Friday evening.”

“Yes, I was coming to that,” said Winsome. “Jennifer received a phone call at ten forty-three P.M. on Friday, the eleventh of June, duration three minutes. The problem is that it’s an ‘unknown’ number. I’ve got the mobile company working on it, but they’re not offering a lot of hope.”

“Thanks for trying,” said Annie.

Gristhorpe looked at his watch. “I’ve got to go,” he said. “I’ve got ACC McLaughlin and the press breathing down my neck. I appreciate your progress so far, but it’s not enough. We need results, and we need them fast. Annie, you’d better get back down to London tomorrow and keep pushing the Berger-Lennox connection. The rest of you keep at it up here. Winsome, get back to the mobile company and see if they can come up with a number for us. Get them to cross-check with Jennifer’s outgoing calls. That’s it for now.”

When Gristhorpe left the room, everyone breathed a sigh of relief.

“He’s in a bit of a grumpy mood this morning, isn’t he?” said Stefan to Annie as they all filed out a few moments later.

“I think he’s had the chief constable as well as ACC McLaughlin on his case,” said Annie. “And it’s my guess that however enlightened he thinks he is, he still doesn’t like being given a bollocking by a woman.”

Stefan smiled. “Ouch,” he said.

“Ma’am, can I have a word?”

It was DC Templeton. “Of course, Kev,” said Annie, waving good-bye to Stefan. “Let’s grab a coffee in the canteen.”

Templeton pulled a face. “With all due respect, ma’am…”

“I know,” said Annie. “It tastes like cat’s piss. You’re right. We’ll go to the Golden Grill.”

They threaded their way through the crowd of tourists on Market Street and were lucky to find a free table. The sole waitress was rushed off her feet but she managed to bring them each a cup of coffee quickly enough. “What is it, Kev?” Annie asked.

“It’s this Roger Cropley business,” Templeton said. “I haven’t bothered you with it much so far because, well, you’ve been down south and you’ve had lots of other things on your plate. I mean, it might be a bit tangential, but I really think we’re on to something here.”

“What?”

“The Claire Potter murder.”

“I don’t know,” said Annie. “Seems like a bit of a coincidence, doesn’t it?”

“That’s what I thought at first,” said Templeton, warming to the subject, “but if you really think about it, if Cropley has been preying on young women alone on the motorway on Friday nights, then the only coincidence is that he was at the Watford Gap services at the same time as Jennifer Clewes, and that’s exactly the kind of coincidence he’d always be hoping for. He trolls those places: Watford Gap, Leicester Forest, Newport Pagnell, Trowell. Claire Potter and Jennifer Clewes were exactly what he was looking for.”

“I see your point,” said Annie. “But I mean it’s a coincidence that this time he picked on a girl who was already singled out by someone else to die.”

“Okay, but strange things happen sometimes. It still doesn’t mean Cropley’s harmless.”

“You don’t need to tell me that, Kev,” said Annie.

“There was another woman, too: Paula Chandler. Someone drove her off the road late on a Friday night in February and tried to open her car door, only it was locked and she managed to get away.”

“Did she get a good look at him?”

“Just his hand.”

Annie thought for a moment. “It still doesn’t mean Cropley’s the killer.”

“Maybe there’s a way we can find out.”

“Go on.”

Templeton leaned forward, the excitement clear. “I met with DS Browne from Derby,” he went on, “and she agrees it’s worth a shot. I’ve talked with Cropley and his wife again since then and I’m still convinced there’s something there. Anyway…” He went on to tell Annie about the dandruff.

“I must say,” Annie commented when he’d finished, “that’s very clever of you, Kev. I didn’t know they could get DNA from dandruff.”

“They can,” said Templeton. “I checked it out with Stefan, and DS Browne confirmed it when she phoned to tell me she put a rush on it. They can also process DNA pretty quickly these days when they’ve a mind to.”

“Leaving aside the problem of its being inadmissible,” Annie went on, “what do you expect to happen next?”

“It doesn’t need to be admissible,” Templeton explained, as he had done to DS Browne. “We just need some concrete evidence that we’ve got the right guy, then we can pull out all the stops and nail him the right way. We get legitimate DNA samples. We interview him again. We get him to account for every minute of every Friday night he’s ever spent on the motorway. We get his coworkers and his employers to tell us what they know about him and his movements. We interview people at all the motorway garages and cafés again. All the late-night lorry drivers. Someone has to have seen something.”

Templeton was looking at her with such keenness in his eyes that Annie felt it would be churlish to disappoint him, despite her misgivings. And if Derby CID was involved, too, at least he couldn’t go too far off the rails. Templeton was beginning to show all the signs of becoming a bit like Banks, Annie thought, and two of them she didn’t need. But he had at least talked to her, told her about his thoughts, which was more than Banks did most of the time.

“Okay,” she said finally. “But I want you to work directly with Derby CID on this. If you talk to Cropley, I want this DS Browne or someone else from Derby with you. I don’t want you going off on your own with this, Kev. Understood?”

Templeton nodded, still looking like the dog who’d got the bone. “Yes, ma’am. Don’t worry. It’ll be a solid case, by the book.”

Annie smiled. “Don’t make promises you can’t keep,” she said. “But when it comes to it, I do expect a case that CPS will be willing to take to court.”

“That’s a tall order.”

Annie laughed. The Crown Prosecution Service was notoriously reluctant to take on anything they didn’t feel gave them a hundred percent chance of getting a conviction. “Do your best,” she said. “Let’s get back to the office.”

They finished their coffees, paid and set off back across Market Street. Annie had no sooner got inside the station doorway than her mobile rang. She gestured for Templeton to go on ahead of her.

“Detective Inspector Cabbot?” a familiar voice asked.

“Yes, Dr. Lukas.”

“I’d like to talk to you.”

“Go ahead.”

“Not on the telephone. Can we meet?”

Well, thought Annie, there went her evening at home relaxing in the tub with a good book. It had better be worth it. “I’m up north,” she said, glancing at her watch. “It’s twenty to four now. Depending on the trains, I should be able to get down there by about eight.”

“That will be fine.”

“At the house, then?”

“No.” Dr. Lukas named a French restaurant in Covent Garden. “I will wait for you there,” she said, and hung up.

After his talk with Gareth Lambert, Banks took the tube to Charing Cross and headed for the Albion Club. It didn’t open until late evening and the doors were locked. He tried knocking a few times, then he rattled them, but no one answered. A few passersby gave him disapproving glances, as if he were an alcoholic desperate for a drink. In the end he gave the door a hard kick, then walked to Trafalgar Square and wandered among the hordes of tourists for a while, trying to rid himself of the sense of frustration and anxiety that had been building up in him ever since he had seen Roy’s body laid out on the shingle bank.

It was mid-afternoon, and Banks felt hungry despite the full English breakfast at Annie’s hotel that morning. He found an American-style burger joint near the top of Old Compton Street, just across from a body-piercing studio, and ordered a cheeseburger and a Coke.

As he sat eating and watching the world go by outside, he thought about his talk with Gareth Lambert: the theatrics with the cigar, the joke about Carmen Electra, the reference to Roy’s being interested in arms deals again, the garbled warning as he was leaving – none of these things had been necessary, but Lambert hadn’t been able to resist. Innocence? Arrogance? It wasn’t always easy to tell them apart.

But there was something else that left him feeling very unsatisfied indeed. Banks, perhaps more than anybody, felt that Roy might have been less than legal in his business dealings over the years, and as Corinne had pointed out, Banks had always been ready to think the worst of his brother. It wasn’t something he was proud of, but he thought he was right.

After the talk with the Reverend Ian Hunt, though, not to mention after looking a bit deeper into Roy’s life, he had come to believe that Roy really had learned a lesson from the foolhardy arms deal he had been involved in once. What he had seen in New York on the eleventh of September, 2001, had shaken him to the core and had brought home to him the stark reality of terrorism. It was no longer a busful of strangers in Basra or Tel Aviv on a television screen, but people just like him going about their daily routine, some of whom he knew, dying right in front of his eyes.

Banks was starting to think that perhaps Gareth Lambert had overplayed his hand. He didn’t believe that Roy wanted to get into arms dealing again and had been asking Lambert about old contacts. Unless he intended to seek retribution, which was unlikely at this late stage in the game. If Roy had any old scores he wanted to settle, he would have done so years ago in the white heat of his rage after 9/11. But he hadn’t. Which made Banks think that Lambert was lying. And there was only one clear explanation of that – to put Banks off the scent, divert him from the real business. More and more he was beginning to believe that that had something to do with the goings-on at the Berger-Lennox Centre, with Jennifer Clewes and Roy, with Dr. Lukas, with the mysterious Carmen Petri and the late girls. But how Lambert himself fit in, Banks still didn’t know. So what was the missing piece?

He doubted that Lambert would give it up. He was far too shrewd for that. He had enjoyed toying with Banks, telling him he had seen Roy on Friday when he already knew from the newspapers that was the day Roy disappeared. But he had done that because he knew Banks had got a description from Malcolm Farrow and because he thought there was nothing in his actions that night to incriminate him. No doubt it was true that Roy had left the Albion Club between half past twelve and one o’clock, and that Roy hadn’t left till three. Banks would go back to the club and check later that evening.

He finished his burger and took the tube back to South Kensington with a view to nosing around Roy’s files again to see if there was anything there relating to the Albion Club or any of the members’ names Lambert had given him. Perhaps he could phone some of them and see if they would verify Lambert’s story. He also wanted to get in touch with his parents and the Peterborough police again and make sure everything was all right.

All was still quiet inside Roy’s house. Banks locked the door behind him, slipped the keys in his pocket and headed for the kitchen. When he got there, he was surprised to see a man sitting at the kitchen table. He was even more surprised when the man turned and pointed a gun at him.