28

Next day and Alessandra Rossi has just listened to my latest theory.

‘No way, Ray,’ she says with certainty. ‘No way did that man kill his daughter.’

‘So why, then? Why run under a bus?’

‘Who knows?’ Ale is driving. Takes her eyes off the road in front of her to look at me. ‘Grief does crazy things to people.’

‘Couldn’t sleep for thinking about this last night.’ I repeat my theory. ‘Surely, as a parent you want answers? You want to know what happened and that keeps you going.’

‘No two people react the same way, Ray.’

I make a non-committal sound in answer and look out of my side of the car. We’re in a line of traffic on the M8, crossing the wide, grey ribbon that is the River Clyde. The driver in the blue Vauxhall alongside is moving his mouth rapidly. As if accompanying his favourite song on the radio. I study him some more. Read the furrowed brow and think, nah, he’s shouting at some poor sap on the other end of the phone. His top button is open and his tie unloosened. I can see his hair is damp with sweat. That’s technology for you. We don’t even get respite from the world when we’re in a car.

Ale speeds up and we lose him.

‘Seems we’re all under pressure, eh?’

‘What?’

‘Is grief the only pressure Kevin Banks is under?’

‘I think everything else will be relegated to the Who Gives a Fuck file.’ Pause. ‘Do you think she’ll be in?’ asks Ale.

‘If she’s not at home, she’ll be at the hospital, by her husband’s side. And we’ll get her there.’

‘What are they saying? Coma?’

‘A medically induced one until the swelling in the brain goes down. He’s also got a large selection of broken bones.’

‘Jeez.

We both lapse into our own thoughts, and fifteen minutes later we’re in suburbia and rolling up outside the Banks’s house.

Jennie Banks has a long, lean face that has been hardened by recent events into her judgement of the world. And planet Earth can go nuclear for all she cares. Her arms are crossed tight, as if to hold in her crushing disappointment.

‘Yes?’ she asks, with one foot placed behind the door as if she can only allow the world entry one tiny piece at a time.

I explain who I am and ask if we can come in. She simply turns round and walks into her living room without speaking. We follow, Ale first, and I close the front door behind me.

‘I was just heading out,’ Jennie says as she cushions herself into a chair. And not one person in the room is convinced by this statement. Least of all her. She drums the fingers of her right hand on the arm of the chair. Her left hand is wedged firmly into her armpit. She stills the movement of her fingers and stares at the carpet in front of her. Looks from me to Ale. Her sight lighting on each of us so briefly, as if to look at someone else hurts.

‘Need to go and visit my husband. He’s been in some sort of…’ It takes a real effort for her to speak, and I wonder if she has been medicated against the worst of her pain.

‘We know, Mrs Banks,’ I say. ‘Have you been in touch with the hospital to find out the latest news?’

‘I’ll get…’ she searches for the name of her neighbour, ‘…Tom from next door to phone for me.’ She wipes at her eyes as if trying to improve her vision. ‘It’s all so confusing. All that medical speak.’

Alessandra tells her what we know.

‘Oh,’ Jennie Banks says. ‘Right.’ She looks out of the window. ‘Funny that, eh? Another head injury. Like father, like daughter.’ Her bottom lip trembles for a moment. Then stops. It’s like she’s gone to the well to find there are no more tears.

‘We’re really sorry to bother you again, Mrs Banks. We just wanted to run through the events of that night again.’

‘I don’t…’ She shakes her head so slow it’s as if she’s on a different clock than us. ‘Aileen went out with her pal. Just like she’d done a hundred times before.’

‘She didn’t say where she was going? Who she hoped to meet? There were no new friends in her life that you were aware of?’ Ale asks in the most apologetic tone she can muster. And as she speaks, Jennie Banks’s head maintains the same slow movement from side to side.

‘Aileen was a secretive wee madam. Even kept changing her Facebook name so I couldn’t find what she was up to.’

‘And you and Mr Banks stayed in that night?’

‘Barely have a social life. Been married too long.’ A small snort is as close to laughter as she can manage. ‘I went to bed at my usual, just after ten. Kevin stays up late when Aileen is out. Says he can’t sleep till he knows she’s home and…’ she stumbles over the word, ‘…safe.’ She crosses her legs. ‘One thing you can take to the bank. That man truly cares for his daughter.’

From the way she trails off after saying this, I can’t help but read she doubts that the same level of care ever extended to her.

Ale stands up, signalling an end to the questions. She looks at me as if to say, enough, the poor woman can’t take any more.

‘Mind if I use your…’ Ale asks.

‘It’s at the top of the stairs.’

* * *

Back in the car. Before Ale drives off she turns to me.

‘Well?’

‘Seems Mr Banks still has his alibi,’ I answer.

‘Interesting though.’ She stares out of the window with an enigmatic smile.

‘Go on, spill,’ I say.

‘I didn’t need to go wee-wee,’ she says, and the smile is now a full-blown grin. ‘I was checking. Mrs Banks has a well-stocked drug cabinet up there.’

‘Aye?’

‘She’s got some heavy-duty stuff. And the thing is, the date on her pills is for a few months ago. She was prescribed this stuff yonks ago. She’s on 500mg for Christ’s sake. Something was not well in her world before this happened. Kevin Banks could have had a brass band playing in there and she wouldn’t have had a clue.’

‘So, he could have gone out and she would have been none the wiser.’

We both say at the same time, ‘The nosy neighbour.’

* * *

Tom Sharp is all but wringing his hands with excitement at the thought he might be able to help us. He offers to make us a cup of tea. We refuse, saying we don’t have time to come in. Last time we saw him, I remember thinking this guy could talk for Scotland.

‘You want to run through the events of that night again? Aye?’

‘Please,’ I say. ‘We’ll get you down to the office to make a formal statement in due course, but we just wanted to check a couple of things first.’

‘Sure, sure.’ He nods and runs through his original story. Dwelling on Aileen’s pal, Karen with the big boobies, for so long that I feel the urge to slap him out of it.

‘So, you’re having your toasted bagel with banana,’ I’m impressed by my own power of recall. ‘Aileen comes down the drive. Gets in the car and off they go.’

‘Sure, sure.’

‘Anything happen after that?’

‘You guys want a nice cuppa tea?’ he asks again.

‘No thanks, Mr Sharp,’ I answer. ‘We have a lot to get through today.’

‘Any more comings and goings from the Banks’ house?’ asks Ale.

He shakes his head. ‘I closed the curtains and put on the telly. If I remember right it was NCIS I was watching. Good stuff that. Keeps the old grey matter tuned in, you know. Must be right smart people coming up with all those stories. There was one…’

‘And what time did you go to bed that night?’ I interrupt before we get a blow by blow account of the entire series.

‘Same time as every other night. 10:30. A fella needs his routine, you know.’

‘And you heard nothing more from the Banks?’

He cocks his head back. Thinks. Shakes his head. ‘Nope. Not until the next morning at least. Soon as my head hits the pillow, I’m out. It’s all about the routine. You young people could learn something about that from your elders. I expect you are up and out and about till all hours?’

‘You don’t know the half of it, Mr Sharp,’ I say before he can continue, and take a step back from his door. ‘Thanks for your time.’

‘You’re welcome, son.’

I take another step. Stop and turn back.

‘One more thing. You said last time that about eighteen months ago you believed that Mr Banks was having an affair?’

‘Aye.’

‘Any more developments on that front recently?’ asked Ale.

‘I’m not exactly their confidante, hen. Who knows what’s going on in a marriage, eh? What I do know is that the shouting might have stopped, but Jennie Banks still wasn’t a happy woman. Always has that drawn look about her, you know? As if she’s the camel and she’s waiting for that one last straw to fall.’