11

Before he cut into Luke Armitage’s flesh, Dr. Glendenning made a thorough examination of the body’s exterior. Banks watched as the doctor examined and measured the head wound. Luke’s skin was white and showed some wrinkling from exposure to the water, and there was a slight discolouration around the neck.

“Back of the skull splintered into the cerebellum,” the doctor said.

“Enough to kill him?”

“At a guess.” Glendenning bent over and squinted at the wound. “And it would have bled quite a bit, if that’s any use.”

“Could be,” said Banks. “Blood’s a lot harder to clean up than most people think. What about the weapon?”

“Looks like some sort of round-edged object,” the doctor said. “Smooth-sided.”

“Like what?”

“Well, it’s not got a very large circumference, so I’d rule out something like a baseball bat. I can’t see any traces–wood splinters or anything–so it could have been metal or ceramic. Hard, anyway.”

“A poker, perhaps?”

“Possible. That would fit the dimensions. It’s the angle that puzzles me.”

“What about it?”

“See for yourself.”

Banks bent over the wound, which Dr. Glendenning’s assistant had shaved and cleaned. There was no blood. A few days in the water would see to that. He could see the indentation clearly enough, about the right size for a poker, but the wound was oblique, almost horizontal.

“You’d expect someone swinging a poker to swing downwards from behind, or at least at a forty-five degree angle, so we’d get a more vertical pattern,” Dr. Glendenning said. “But this was inflicted from sideways on, not from in front or behind, by someone a little shorter than the victim, if the angle’s to be believed. That means whoever did it was probably standing beside him. Unusual angle, as I said.” He lit a cigarette, strictly forbidden in the hospital, but usually overlooked in Glendenning’s case. Everyone knew that when you were dealing with the smells of a post-mortem, a ciggie now and then was a great distraction. And Glendenning was more careful these days; he rarely dropped ash in open incisions.

“Maybe the victim was already bent double from a previous blow?” Banks suggested. “To the stomach, say. Or on his knees, head bent forward.”

“Praying?”

“It wouldn’t be the first time,” Banks said, remembering that more than one executed villain had died on his knees praying for his life. But Luke Armitage wasn’t a villain, as far as Banks knew.

“Which side did the blow come from?” Banks asked.

“Right side. You can tell by the pattern of indentation.”

“So that would indicate a left-handed attacker?”

“Likely so. But I’m not happy with this, Banks.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, in the first place, it’s hardly a surefire way to kill somebody. Head blows are tricky. You can’t count on them, especially just one.”

Banks knew that well enough. On his last case a man had taken seven or eight blows from a side-handled baton and still survived a couple of days. In a coma, but alive. “So our killer’s an amateur who got lucky.”

“Could be,” said Glendenning. “We’ll know more when I get a look at the brain tissue.”

“But could this blow have been the cause of death?”

“Can’t say for certain. It could have killed him, but he might have been dead already. You’ll have to wait for the full toxicology report to know whether that might have been the case.”

“Not drowned?”

“I don’t think so, but let’s wait until we get to the lungs.”

Banks watched patiently, if rather queasily, as Dr. Glendenning’s assistant made the customary Y-shaped incision and peeled back the skin and muscle from the chest wall with a scalpel. The smell of human muscle, rather like raw lamb, Banks had always thought, emanated from the body. Next, the assistant pulled the chest flap up over Luke’s face and took a bone-cutter to the rib cage, finally peeling off the chest plate and exposing the inner organs. When he had removed these en bloc, he placed them on the dissecting table and reached for his electric saw. Banks knew what was coming next, that unforgettable sound and burnt-bone smell of the skull, so he turned his attention to Dr. Glendenning, who was dissecting the organs, paying particular attention to the lungs.

“No water,” he announced. “Or minimal.”

“Meaning Luke was dead when he went in the water?”

“I’ll send the tissues for diatomic analysis, but I don’t expect they’ll find much.”

The electric saw stopped, and seconds later Banks heard something rather like a combination grating and sucking sound, and he knew it was top of the skull coming off. The assistant then cut the spinal cord and the tentorium and lifted the brain out. As he carried it to the jar of formalin, in which it would hang suspended for a couple of weeks, making it firmer and easier to handle, Dr. Glendenning had a quick look.

“Aha,” he said. “I thought so. Look, Banks, do you see that damage there, to the frontal lobes?”

Banks saw it. And he knew what it meant. “Contre coup?”

“Exactly. Which might explain the unusual angle.”

If a blow is delivered while the victim’s head is stationary, then the damage is limited to the point of impact–bones splintered into the brain–but if the victim’s head is in motion, then the result is a contre coup injury: additional damage opposite the point of impact. Contre coup injuries are almost always the result of a fall.

“Luke fell?”

“Or he was pushed,” said Glendenning. “But as far as I can tell, there are no other injuries, no broken bones. And as I said, if there was bruising, if someone hit him, say, knocked him over, then unless there are any small bones in the cheek broken, we won’t be able to tell. We’ll be checking, of course.”

“Can you give me any idea about time of death? It’s important.”

“Aye, well…I’ve looked over Dr. Burns’s measurements at the scene. Very meticulous. He’ll go far. Rigor’s been and gone, which indicates over two days at the temperatures noted.”

“What about the wrinkling and whitening?”

“Cutis anserina? Three to five hours. Water preserves, delays putrefaction, so it makes our job a little harder. There’s no lividity, and I’m afraid it’ll be almost impossible to tell whether there was any other bruising. The water takes care of that.” He paused and frowned. “But there’s the discolouration around the neck.”

“What about it?”

“That indicates the beginnings of putrefaction. In bodies found in water, it always starts at the root of the neck.”

“After how long?”

“That’s just it,” Dr. Glendenning said, looking at Banks. “You understand I can’t be more specific, I can’t give you less than a twelve-hour margin of error, but not until at least three or four days, not at the temperatures Dr. Burns recorded.”

Banks made a mental calculation. “Bloody hell,” he said. “Even at the outside, that means Luke had to have been killed just after he went missing.”

“Some time that very night, by my calculations. Taking everything into account, between about eight p.m. and eight a.m.”

And Dr. Glendenning’s calculations, perhaps because of his insufferable habit of being unwilling to commit himself to a specific time, were usually not far from the truth. In which case, Banks thought, Luke had died before Annie had even paid her first visit to Swainsdale Hall, let alone before she had followed Martin Armitage to the site of the drop.

 

Before she went off duty–though such a thing was somewhat of an illusion in the thick of a major murder investigation–Annie had made a few enquiries around the bookshops, asking after the couple who had tried to sell Norman Wells books he believed were stolen, but she drew a blank. Before meeting Banks for a drink at the Queen’s Arms, she had also checked recent shoplifting reports but turned up nothing there, either. The artist’s impression would be in the evening paper, so she would see what happened after that. There was something else she had intended to do, but it was like that name you can’t quite remember, the one on the tip of your tongue. If she put it out of her mind, it would come to her eventually.

Banks was already waiting for her at a corner table, and she saw him before he saw her. He looked tired, Annie thought, and distracted, smoking and staring into the distance. She tapped him on the shoulder and asked him if he wanted a refill. He came back from a long way and shook his head. She bought herself a pint of Theakston’s bitter and walked over to join him. “So what was that mysterious message about your wanting to see me?” she asked.

“Nothing mysterious about it at all,” Banks said, brightening up a little. “I just wanted to deliver a message myself, in person.”

“I’m all ears.”

“It looks as if you’re off the hook as far as Luke Armitage’s death is concerned.”

Annie felt her eyes open wide. “I am? How?”

“Dr. Glendenning pegs time of death at least three or four days ago.”

“Before–”

“Yes. Before the first kidnap call even came in.”

Annie raised her eyes to the ceiling and clapped her hands. “Yes!”

Banks smiled at her. “Thought you’d be pleased.”

“How? He didn’t drown, did he?”

Banks sipped some beer. “No,” he said. “Pending tox results, it looks as if cause of death was a blow to the cerebellum, quite possibly the result of a fall.”

“A struggle of some sort, then?”

“Exactly what I thought. Perhaps with the kidnapper, very early on. Or whoever he was with.”

“And that person decided to try and collect anyway?”

“Yes. But that’s pure speculation.”

“So Luke died somewhere else and was dumped in the tarn?”

“Yes. Probably wherever he was being held–if he was being held. Anyway, there’d have been a fair bit of blood, the doc says, so there’s every chance of our still finding evidence at the original scene.”

“If we can find the scene.”

“Exactly.”

“So we are making progress?”

“Slowly. What about the girl?”

“Nothing yet.” Annie told him about her meeting with Norman Wells.

She noticed Banks was watching her as she spoke. She could almost see his mind moving, making the connections, taking a shortcut here and filing this or that piece of information away for later. “Whoever they are,” he said when she’d finished, “if Wells is right and they had been shoplifting, then that tells us they’re short of money. Which gives them a motive for demanding a ransom if they were somehow responsible for Luke’s death.”

“More speculation?”

“Yes,” Banks admitted. “Let’s assume they got into a fight over something or other and Luke ended up dead. Maybe not intentionally, but dead is dead. They panicked, thought of a suitable spot and drove out and dumped him into Hallam Tarn later that night, under cover of darkness.”

“They’d need a motor, remember, which might be a bit of a problem if they were broke.”

“Maybe they ‘borrowed’ one?”

“We can check car-theft reports for the night in question. No matter how much they covered up the body, there might still be traces of Luke’s blood.”

“Good idea. Anyway, they know who Luke’s parents are, think they might be able to make a few bob out of them.”

“Which would explain the low demand.”

“Yes. They’re not pros. They’ve no idea how much to ask. And ten grand is a bloody fortune to them.”

“But they were watching Martin Armitage make the drop, and they saw me.”

“More than likely. Sorry, Annie. They might not be pros, but they’re not stupid. They knew the money was tainted then. They’d already dumped Luke’s body, remember, so they must have known it was just a matter of time before someone found it. They could expect the footpath restrictions to work in their favour for a while, but someone was bound to venture over Hallam Tarn eventually.”

Annie paused to digest what Banks had said. She had made a mistake, had scared the kidnappers off, but Luke had already been dead by then, so his death wasn’t down to her. What else could she have done, anyway? Stayed away from the shepherd’s shelter, perhaps. Red Ron was right about that. She had guessed that the briefcase contained money. Did she need to know exactly how much? So she had behaved impulsively, and not for the first time, but it was all salvageable, the case, her career, everything. It could all be redeemed. “Have you ever thought,” she said, “that they might have planned on kidnapping Luke right from the start? Maybe that was why they befriended him in the first place, and why they had to kill him. Because he knew who they were.”

“Yes,” said Banks. “But too many things about this seem hurried, spontaneous, ill-thought-out. No, Annie, I think they just took advantage of an existing situation.”

“So why kill Luke, then?”

“No idea. We’ll have to ask them.”

“If we find them.”

“Oh, we’ll find them, all right.”

“When the girl sees her picture in the paper she might go to ground, change her appearance.”

“We’ll find them. The only thing is…” Banks said, letting the words trail off as he reached for another cigarette.

“Yes.”

“…that we need to keep an open mind as regards other lines of enquiry.”

“Such as?”

“I’m not sure yet. There might be something even closer to home. I want to talk to a couple of teachers who knew Luke fairly well. Someone should talk to the Battys again, too. Then there’s all the people we know he came into contact with the day he disappeared. Put a list together and get DCs Jackman and Templeton to help with it. We’ve still got a long way to go.”

“Shit,” said Annie, getting to her feet. She had remembered the task that had been eluding her all evening.

“What?”

“Just something I should have checked out before.” She looked at her watch and waved goodbye. “Maybe it’s not too late. See you later.”

 

Michelle sat back in her seat and watched the fields drift by under a grey sky, rain streaking the dirty window. Every time she took a train she felt as if she was on holiday. This evening, the train was full. Sometimes she forgot just how close Peterborough was to London–only eighty miles or so, about a fifty-minute train ride–and how many people made the journey every day. That was, after all, what the new-town expansion had been about. Basildon, Bracknell, Hemel Hempstead, Hatfield, Stevenage, Harlow, Crawley, Welwyn Garden City, Milton Keynes, all in a belt around London, even closer than Peterborough, catchment areas for an overflowing capital, where it was fast becoming too expensive for many to live. She hadn’t been around back then, of course, but she knew that the population of Peterborough had risen from about 62,000 in 1961 to 134,000 in 1981.

Unable to concentrate on The Profession of Violence, which she had to remember to post back to Banks, she thought back to her lunch with ex–Detective Inspector Robert Lancaster. He had quite a few years on Ben Shaw, but they were both very much cut from the same cloth. Oh, no doubt about it, Shaw was ruder, more sarcastic, a far more unpleasant personality, but underneath they were the same kind of copper. Not necessarily bent–Michelle took Lancaster’s word on that–but not above turning a blind eye if it was to their advantage, and not above fraternizing with villains. As Lancaster had also pointed out, he had grown up shoulder to shoulder with criminals like the Krays and smaller fry like Billy Marshall, and when it came to future career choices it was often very much a matter of there but for the grace of God go I.

It was interesting what he said about Graham Marshall, she thought. Interesting that he should even remember the boy at all. She had never considered that it might have been Graham’s own criminal activities that got him killed, and even now she found it hard to swallow. Not that fourteen-year-olds were immune to criminal activity. Far from it, especially these days. But if Graham Marshall had been involved in something that was likely to get him killed, wouldn’t somebody have known and come forward? Surely Jet Harris or Reg Proctor would have picked up the scent?

The real problem, though, was how she could gather any more information about Graham. She could go through the statements again, read the investigating detectives’ notebooks and check all the actions allocated, but if none of them focused on Graham himself as a possible line of enquiry, then she would get no further.

The train slowed down for no apparent reason. It was an InterCity, not a local train, so Michelle went to the buffet car and bought herself a coffee. The paper cup was far too hot, even when she used three or four serviettes to hold it. If she took the top off, it would spill when the train started moving again, so she tore a small hole in the plastic top and decided to wait a little while till it cooled.

Michelle looked at her watch. After eight o’clock. Getting dark outside. She had spent a couple of hours shopping on Oxford Street after parting with Lancaster, and she felt a little guilty that she had spent over £100 on a dress. Perhaps she was turning into a shopaholic? Like the drinking, the spending had to stop. She’d never get a chance to wear the damn thing anyway, as it was a party dress, elegant, strapless and stylish, and she never went to any parties. What could she have been thinking of?

When the train started up again half an hour later, with no explanation for the delay, Michelle realized that if Graham had been involved in anything untoward, there was one person who might know something, even if he didn’t know he did: Banks. And thinking of him made her once again regret the way she had left him at Starbucks the other day. True, she had resented his intrusion into what she regarded as her private life, a life she kept very guarded indeed, but she had perhaps overreacted a tad. After all, he had only asked her if she was married: a perfectly innocent question in its way, and one you might ask a stranger over a coffee. It didn’t have to mean anything, but it was such a raw nerve point with her, such a no-go area, that she had behaved rudely, and now she regretted it.

Well, she wasn’t married; that was certainly the truth. Melissa had died because she and Ted got their wires crossed. She was on surveillance and thought he was picking up their daughter after school; he had an afternoon meeting and thought she was going to do it. Possibly no marriage could survive that amount of trauma–the guilt, blame, grief and anger–and theirs hadn’t. Almost six months to the day after Melissa’s funeral, they had agreed to separate, and Michelle had begun her years of wandering from county to county trying to put the past behind her. Succeeding to a large extent, but still haunted, still in some ways maimed by what had happened.

She hadn’t had either the time or the inclination for men, and that was another thing about Banks that bothered her. He was the only man, beyond her immediate colleagues on the Job, with whom she had spent any time in years, and she liked him, found him attractive. Michelle knew that she had been nicknamed the “Ice Queen” at more than one station over the past five years, but it had only amused her because it couldn’t be further from the truth. She was, she knew, deep down, a warm and sensual person, as she had been with Ted, though that was a part of her nature she had neglected for a long time, perhaps even suppressed, out of punishment, being more preoccupied with self-blame.

She didn’t know if Banks was married or not, though she had noticed that he didn’t wear a ring. And he had asked her if she were married. In addition to being an intrusion, that had seemed like a come-on line at the time, too, and maybe it was. The problem was that part of her wanted him, against all her common sense and all the barriers she had built inside, and the result flustered and confused her almost beyond bearing. Banks might be one of the few people who could help her reconstruct Graham Marshall’s past, but could she bear to face Banks again in the flesh?

She would have no choice, she realized, as the train pulled up and she reached for her briefcase. Graham Marshall’s memorial service would be taking place in a matter of days, and she had promised to call and let him know about it.

 

It was almost dark when Banks turned into the laneway that ran in front of his small cottage, and he was tired. Annie had left by the time he got back to headquarters after finishing his beer, so he stuck around for an hour or so picking away at the pile of paperwork, then decided to call it a day. Whatever it was she was after, she’d tell him after the weekend.

Memories of Luke’s post-mortem hovered unpleasantly close to the surface of his consciousness, the way past cases also haunted him. Over the past few months, he had dreamed more than once of Emily Riddle and of the partially buried bodies he had seen in a cellar in Leeds, toes poking through the dirt. Was he going to have to add Luke Armitage to his list of nightmare images now? Was there never any end to it?

Someone had parked a car, an ancient clapped-out Fiesta by the looks of it, in front of the cottage. Unable to get past the obstacle, Banks parked behind it and took out his house keys. There was no one inside the car, so it wasn’t a pair of lovers seeking seclusion. Maybe someone had dumped it there, he thought, with a flash of irritation. The dirt lane was little more than a cul-de-sac. It dwindled to a riverside footpath when it reached the woods about twenty feet beyond Banks’s cottage, and there was no way for a car to get through. Not everyone knew that, of course, and sometimes cars turned down it by mistake. He ought to consider putting up a sign, he thought, though he had always thought it obvious enough that the track was a private drive.

Then he noticed that the living-room light was on and the curtains closed. He knew he hadn’t left the light on that morning. It could be burglars, he thought, moving carefully, though if it was, they were very incompetent ones, not only parking in a cul-de-sac, but not even bothering to turn their car around for a quick getaway. Still, he’d known far stupider criminals, like the would-be bank robber who had filled out the withdrawal slip with his real name before writing on the back: “Giv me yor munny, I’ve got a gun nife” and handing it to the teller. He didn’t get far.

The car was definitely a Fiesta, with rusted wheel arches. It would be lucky to pass its next MOT without major and expensive work, Banks thought as he gave it the once-over and memorized the number plate. This was no burglar. He tried to remember to whom he had given a key. Not Annie, at least, not any more. Certainly not Sandra. And just as he opened the door, it came to him. There was his son Brian stretched out on the sofa with Tim Buckley playing low on stereo: “I Never Asked to Be Your Mountain.” When he heard Banks come in, he uncoiled his long length, sat up, and rubbed his eyes.

“Oh. Hi, Dad, it’s you.”

“Hello, son. Who else were you expecting?”

“Nobody. I was just half asleep, I suppose. Dreaming.”

“Don’t you believe in telephones?”

“Sorry. It’s been a bit hectic lately. We’re doing some gigs around Teeside starting tomorrow night, so I thought I’d, you know, just drop in and say hello. I had a long drive. All the way from South London.”

“It’s good to see you.” Banks gestured with his thumb. “I’m surprised you made it in one piece. Is that pile of junk out there the car you borrowed two hundred quid off me for?”

“Yeah. Why?”

“I hope you didn’t pay any more than that for it, that’s all.” Banks put his car keys down on the low table, took off his jacket and hung it on a hook behind the door. “I didn’t know you were a Tim Buckley fan,” he said, sitting down in the armchair.

“You’d be surprised. Actually, I’m not, really. Haven’t heard him much. Hell of a voice, though. You can hear it in his son’s. Jeff’s. He did a great version of this song at a memorial concert for his dad. Most of the time he refused to acknowledge Tim, though.”

“How do you know all this?”

“Read a book about them. Dream Brother. It’s pretty good. I’ll lend it you if I can find it.”

“Thanks.” Mention of the Tim and Jeff Buckley relationship reminded Banks of Luke Armitage and the tape he still had in his pocket. Maybe he’d get Brian’s opinion. For the moment, though, a stiff drink was in order. A Laphroaig. “Can I get you anything to drink?” he asked Brian. “Drop of single-malt, perhaps?”

Brian made a face. “Can’t stand the stuff. If you’ve got any lager, though…”

“I think I can manage that.” Banks poured himself the whisky and found a Carlsberg in the back of the fridge. “Glass?” he called from the kitchen.

“Can’s fine,” Brian called back.

If anything, Brian seemed even taller than the last time Banks had seen him, at least five or six inches taller than his own five foot nine. He had inherited Banks’s constitutional thinness, by the looks of him, and wore the usual uniform of torn jeans and a plain T-shirt. He’d had his hair cut. Not just cut, but massacred, even shorter than Banks’s own close crop.

“What’s with the haircut?” Banks asked him.

“Kept getting in my eyes. So what are you up to these days, Dad? Still solving crime and keeping the world safe for democracy?”

“Less of your lip.” Banks lit a cigarette. Brian gave him a disgusted look. “I’m trying to stop,” Banks said. “It’s only my fifth all day.” Brian said nothing, merely raised his eyebrows. “Anyway,” Banks went on. “Yes, I’m working.”

“Neil Byrd’s son, Luke, right? I heard it on the news while I was driving up. Poor sod.”

“Right. Luke Armitage. You’re the musician in the family. What do you think of Neil Byrd?”

“He was pretty cool,” said Brian, “but maybe just a bit too folksy for me. Too much of a romantic, I guess. Like Dylan, he was a lot better when he went electric. Why?”

“I’m just trying to understand Luke’s relationship with him, that’s all.”

“He didn’t have one. Neil Byrd committed suicide when Luke was only three. He was a dreamer, an idealist. The world could never match up to his expectations.”

“If that were a reason for suicide, Brian, there’d be nobody left alive. But it had to have a powerful effect on the boy. Luke had a bunch of posters in his room. Dead rock stars. Seemed obsessed with them. Not his dad, though.”

“Like who?”

“Jim Morrison, Kurt Cobain, Ian Curtis, Nick Drake. You know. The usual suspects.”

“Covers quite a range,” said Brian. “I’ll bet you thought your generation had cornered the market in dying young, didn’t you? Jimi, Janis, Jim.” He nodded towards the stereo. “Present company.”

“I know some of these were more recent.”

“Well, Nick Drake was another one of your lot. And do you know how old I was when Ian Curtis was with Joy Division? I can’t have been more than six or seven.”

“But you have listened to Joy Division?”

“I’ve listened, yeah. Too depressing for me. Kurt Cobain and Jeff Buckley are a lot closer to home. But where’s all this going?”

“I honestly don’t know,” said Banks. “I’m just trying to get some sort of grip on Luke’s life, his state of mind. He was into some very weird stuff for a fifteen-year-old. And there was nothing in his room connected with his father.”

“Well, he’d feel pissed off, wouldn’t he? Wouldn’t you? Only stands to reason. Your old man does a bunk when you’re just a baby and then offs himself before you can get to know him at all. Hardly makes you feel wanted, does it?”

“Want to listen to some of his songs?”

“Who? Neil Byrd?”

“No. Luke.”

“Sure.”

Banks paused the Tim Buckley CD, put the tape in, and they both sat in silence sipping their drinks and listening.

“He’s good,” said Brian, when the tape had finished. “Very good. I wish I’d been that good at his age. Still raw, but with a bit of hard work and a lot of practice…”

“Do you think he had a future in music, then?”

“It’s possible. On the other hand, you see plenty of bands with no talent get to the top and some really terrific musicians struggle just to make a living, so who can say? He’s got what it takes in its raw form, though. In my humble opinion. Was he with a band?”

“Not that I know of.”

“He’d be a steal for some up-and-coming group. He’s got talent, for a start, and they could milk the Neil Byrd connection for all it was worth. Did you notice the voice? The similarities. Like Tim and Jeff.”

“Yes,” said Banks. “I did.” He started the Tim Buckley CD again. It was “Song to the Siren,” which always sent shivers up his spine. “How’s the CD going?” he asked.

“Haven’t bloody started it yet, have we? Our manager’s still haggling over the contracts. Hence that crappy pile of junk you saw outside.”

“I was expecting a Jag or a red sports car.”

“Soon, Dad. Soon. By the way, we’ve changed our name.”

“Why?”

“The manager thought Jimson Weed was a bit too sixties.”

“He’s right.”

“Yeah, well, we’re the Blue Lamps now.”

“The police.”

“No, that’s another band. The Blue Lamps.”

“I was thinking of Dixon of Dock Green.”

“Come again?”

“The Blue Lamp. It was a film. Fifties. It’s where George Dixon made his debut before it became a TV series. A blue lamp used to be sign of a police station. Still is in some places. I’m not sure you want to be going around associating yourself with that.”

“The stuff you know. Anyway, our manager thinks its okay, more modern–you know, White Stripes, Blue Lamps–but I’ll tell him what you said. Our sound’s hardened up a bit too, got a bit more grungy and less slick. I get to play some real down and dirty guitar solos. You must come and hear us again. We’ve come a long way since that last gig you were at.”

“I’d love to, but I thought you sounded just fine then.”

“Thanks.”

“I saw your grandparents the other day.”

“Yeah? How are they?”

“Same as ever. You should visit them more often.”

“Oh, you know how it is.”

“No. I don’t know.”

“They don’t like me, Dad. Not since I screwed up my degree and joined the band. Whenever I see them, it’s always Tracy’s doing this and Tracy’s doing that. They don’t care how well I do.”

“You know that’s not true,” said Banks, who suspected it probably was. After all, weren’t they the same way with him? It was all Roy, Roy, Roy, no matter what Banks achieved. He’d had a hard enough time reconciling himself to his son’s chosen career, just the same way his mother and father had with him. The only difference was that he had come to terms with Brian’s choice, whereas his own parents hadn’t even come to terms with his career, let alone their grandson’s. “Anyway, I’m sure they’d love to see you.”

“Yeah. Okay. I’ll try go and see them when I’ve got time.”

“How’s your mother.”

“Fine, I suppose.”

“Seen her lately?”

“Not for a few weeks.”

“How’s she doing with the…you know…. It must be due soon.”

“Yeah, I guess so. Look, Dad, is there anything to eat? I haven’t had any dinner yet, and I’m starving.”

Banks thought. He’d eaten a prawn sandwich earlier in the Queen’s Arms and wasn’t particularly hungry. He knew there was nothing substantial in the fridge or the freezer. He looked at his watch. “There’s a Chinese take-away down in Helmthorpe. They should still be open, if you like.”

“Cool,” said Brian, finishing off his lager. “What are we waiting for?”

Banks sighed and reached for his jacket again. So much for quality time.

 

Michelle could have walked to Rivergate, it wasn’t that far, but it also wasn’t a particularly pleasant walk, and the rain was still pouring down, so she decided to treat herself to a taxi from the station.

The first inkling she got that something was wrong in the flat was when she heard the creaking door of her Mystery screen saver and saw the lights going on and off in the creepy-looking mansion as the full moon slowly crossed the starlit sky. She knew she had turned her computer off after she’d checked her e-mail that morning. She always did; she was compulsive about it. Also, someone had pulled some of the books out of one of the boxes that she hadn’t got around to unpacking. They weren’t damaged or anything, just piled up on the floor beside the box.

Michelle jogged the mouse and the computer returned to its regular display. Only it was open at Michelle’s file of notes about the Marshall case, and she knew she hadn’t opened that since the previous night. There was nothing secret about her speculations, nothing she had thought would even interest anyone else, so she hadn’t bothered with password protection. In the future, she would know better.

With the hairs prickling at the back of her neck, Michelle stood still and strained her ears for any odd sounds in the flat. Nothing except the clock ticking and the humming of the refrigerator. She took her old side-handled baton from her uniform days out of the closet by the door. Gripping that made her feel a little more courageous as she went to explore the rest of the flat.

The kitchen light was on, and a couple of items that she knew she had put back in the fridge that morning–milk, butter, eggs–lay on the countertop. The butter had melted into a shapeless lump and it oozed over her fingers when she picked it up.

Her bathroom cabinet stood open, and the various pills and potions she kept there were not in their usual order. Her bottle of Aspirin sat on the edge of the sink, top off and cotton wool missing. Even as the chills went up her spine, Michelle wondered what the hell all this was about. If someone had searched the place, though she couldn’t imagine why anyone would want to, then why not just leave it in a mess? Clearly, whoever had done this had done it to scare her–and they were succeeding.

She went into the bedroom cautiously, gripping the side-handled baton more tightly, expecting the worst. Nobody jumped out of the wardrobe at her, but what she saw there made her drop her baton and put her hands to her mouth.

There was no mess. Perhaps some of her drawers weren’t completely closed, the way she had left them, but there was no mess. It was much, much worse.

Spread out neatly at the centre of the bed lay Melissa’s dress. When Michelle reached out to pick it up, she found it had been cut cleanly into two halves.

Michelle staggered back against the wall, half the dress clutched to her chest, hardly able to believe what was happening. As she did so, her eye caught the writing on the dressing table mirror: FORGET GRAHAM MARSHALL, BITCH. REMEMBER MELISSA. YOU COULD JOIN HER.

Michelle cried out, covered her face with the dress and slid down the wall to the floor.