Owen followed the tarmac path where it curved past the church and arrived at the Kendal Road exit. There, he walked up to the bridge and stared down at the swirling water, the color of a pint of bitter, from the peat it picked up on its way through the dale. Ahead, facing south, he could see the formal gardens, the riverside willows and the castle high on its hill, dominating the town. It seemed so long ago he had stood here that foggy November night. No, he would not think about that again.
He took the river path home, and as he passed by the vicarage, he saw, over the garden gate, a woman hanging up washing on the line and stopped to watch her.
The plain white T-shirt she was wearing stretched taut against her heavy round breasts as she reached to peg up a sheet. Owen fancied he could see the dark nipples harden at the wind’s caress.
Then she looked his way. He recognized her; he had seen her in court. She was the woman who had found the body, the one whose husband had been accused of molesting a church worker.
For a moment, she seemed about to smile and say hello, then she frowned, her jaw dropped, and she backed away inside the house, shutting the door behind her. Owen could hear the sound of a chain being fastened. She hadn’t hung the sheet properly on the washing-line, and at the first light gust of wind it filled like a sail then broke free and fluttered onto the flower-bed like a shroud.
III
Banks saw the curtain in the bay window twitch just after he rang the vicarage bell, and a few moments later a nervous and jumpy looking Rebecca Charters answered the door. She looked relieved to see him and ushered him down the hall into the living-room.
It was a lot more cozy than on his previous visits, he noticed immediately, and it felt much more like a family home than a temporary encampment. The whole place had been redecorated: new wallpaper, cream with rose patterns; a new three-piece suite in a matching floral design; and three vases of flowers placed around the room. Ezekiel, the mound of brown-and-white fur, was in his usual place by the empty fireplace.
“How about some tea?” Rebecca asked. “Freshly brewed. Well, ten minutes ago.”
“That’ll be fine,” said Banks. “No milk or sugar, thanks.”
Rebecca went into the kitchen and returned seconds later with two mugs of tea. Today, she wore her hair tied back, fixed in place by a tooled-leather slide and a broad wooden pin. The style made her olive-complexioned face seem to bulge forward a little, emphasizing the slightly long nose, weak chin and curved brow, like a photograph through a fish-eye lens, but she still looked attractive, especially the dark eyes and full lips.
“I noticed you were in court for the verdict,” Banks began.
Rebecca cradled her mug in her hands. “Yes,” she said. “I can hardly believe it. He was here earlier. That was why I was a bit nervous when you rang.”
“Owen Pierce was here? Why?”
“Not actually here, but he walked past on the river path. I was in the garden. I saw him.”
“It’s a free country, I suppose,” Banks said. “And he’s a free man.”
“But isn’t he dangerous? I mean, people still think he did it, even if he did get off.”
“They’re free to believe what they want. I don’t think you have anything to worry about, though.”
“Easy for you to say.”
“Perhaps. Keep your doors and windows locked if it makes you feel better.”
“I’m sorry,” Rebecca said. “I don’t mean to be sharp. I…”
“It’s all right,” said Banks. “You’re worried. You think there’s a killer been set free and he’s got his eyes on you. The quicker we find out whether he did it or not, the sooner you’ll feel safe again.”
“Do you think he did it?”
Banks scratched the little scar beside his right eye. “Right now, I don’t know,” he admitted. “There were times when I did, certainly, but the more I look at some of the things that struck me as odd before we latched onto Pierce, the more I start to wonder. The courts set innocent people free as well as guilty ones, sometimes, and if anyone knows the truth, he’s a lucky man.”
“What brought you back here?”
“I’m not really sure, except that this is where it all started.”
“Yes,” said Rebecca. “I remember.” She gave a small shudder and fingered the neck of her dress. “And I’d like to apologize.”
“For what?”
“For the last time we met. In the Queen’s Arms. I seem to remember I was very rude to you. I seem to be making a habit of it.”
“Don’t worry,” Banks said. “You get used to it in my job.”
“But you shouldn’t have to. I mean, I shouldn’t have behaved the way I did.” She put her mug down on the table. “I’m not that kind of person. Rude…I… Look, I don’t know why I’m telling you this, except that your coming here again brings it all back.”
“Brings what back? Finding the body?”
“That, yes, certainly. But it was a terrible time for me all round. The charges against Daniel, all the turmoil they caused.” She took a deep breath. “You see, Chief Inspector, you didn’t know the half of it. Of course you didn’t, it wasn’t relevant, not to your inquiries, but I lost a baby about three months before that business with Jelačić, and the doctor said it would be dangerous for me to try for another. Daniel and I hadn’t talked about it as much as we should, and we had started drifting apart. We had just made some tentative inquiries about adoption when Jelačić brought the charges. Of course, everything fell through. It was worse than it was before. I’m afraid I withdrew. I blamed Daniel. There was even a time when I thought he was guilty. Since I lost the baby, we hadn’t been…well, you know…and I thought he’d lost interest in me. It was easier to explain that by assuming he was really interested in men. What can I say? I started to drink too much. Then there was Patrick.” She laughed nervously. “I don’t know why I’m telling you all this. Except that you witnessed the final scene.”
Banks smiled. “You’d be surprised the things people tell us, Mrs. Charters. Anyway, I hope life has improved since then.”
She beamed. “Yes. Yes, it has. Daniel and I are stronger than we’ve ever been. There are still…well, a few problems…but at least we’re working together now.”
“How’s the Jelačić problem progressing?”
“It drags on. We’ve not heard anything for over a month now, but I believe he’s got some human-rights lawyer working on it.”
“And the drink?”
“Six months without.”
“Patrick Metcalfe?”
“Not since that time you were here, when he caused all that fuss.”
“Has he pestered you at all since then?”
She smiled. “No. I think he realized pretty quickly how carried away with himself he was getting. And I think your interest in him helped keep him at bay, too. I should thank you for that. You don’t still suspect him, do you?”
“He’s not off the hook yet,” Banks said. “Anyway, that’s not why I came. Actually, I was hoping for another look at the area where the body was found.”
“Surely you don’t have to ask my permission to do that?”
“No, but it’s partly a matter of courtesy. And you know the area better than I do. Will you come with me?”
“Certainly.”
To retrace Deborah’s steps, they walked first along the riverside path from the vicarage towards the Kendal Road bridge, where worn stone steps led up to the pavement. It was another beautiful day, and over the road in St. Mary’s Park, lovers lay entwined, students sat reading in the shade of the trees, and children played with balls and Frisbees.
“This was where she would enter,” said Rebecca, holding the wooden gate open for Banks. It was a lych-gate, with a small wooden roof, where the coffin would await the arrival of the clergyman in days gone by. “Seventeenth century,” Rebecca said. “Isn’t it superb?”
Banks agreed that it was.
“This is the main path we’re on now,” Re
becca explained.
It was about a yard and a half wide and had a pitted tarmac surface. Ahead, it curved around slightly in front of the church, separated from the doors only by a swath of grass, across which led a narrow flagstone path.
“It leads to North Market Street,” Rebecca said, “near the zebra crossing where Deborah would cross to go home. And this path,” she said, taking Banks by the elbow and diverting him to the right, where the entrance to the path was almost obscured by shrubbery, “is the path that leads to the Inchcliffe Mausoleum.”
It was the gravel path Banks remembered from last November. After a couple of yards, the shrubbery gave way to yews and lichen-stained graves. Warm sunlight filtered through the greenery and flying insects buzzed around the dandelions and forget-me-nots.
Some of the graves were above-ground tombs with heavy lids and flowery religious epitaphs. By far the most impressive and baroque was the Inchcliffe Mausoleum, to the right.
“Now,” said Banks, “we were assuming that Deborah reached the junction between the main path and this one when someone either grabbed her and dragged her up here or persuaded her to go with him of her own free will.”
“But why couldn’t she have come this way herself?” Rebecca asked.
“Why should she? It’s out of her way.”
“She had done before. I noticed her do it once or twice.”
Banks raised his eyebrows. “You never mentioned this before.”
Rebecca shrugged. “You never asked. And it didn’t seem relevant.”
“But didn’t it strike you as odd?”
“No. I’m sorry. It wasn’t something I was paying a lot of attention to. I suppose I assumed that she liked graveyards, as I do. And this is where the most interesting old tombs are, and the Inchcliffe Mausoleum, of course.” She blushed. “Maybe she went to talk to the angel, like I did.”
“When did she start using the path?”
“I’ve no idea. I don’t remember noticing her go that way before last September, when school started up, but that doesn’t mean she never did.”
“Did you ever see anyone else with her? Or anyone going along the path before or after her?”
“No. You did ask me about that before, and I would have told you if I’d seen her meeting anyone. I would have noticed something like that. Do you think it’s important that she took this path?”
Banks paused. “From the start,” he explained, “I’d been working on the theory that if Owen Pierce or someone else hadn’t followed Deborah into the graveyard, dragged her off the main path and killed her, then she might have been meeting the person who did. Now you’re telling me you’ve seen her take this path before. I’m wondering if this is where she arranged the meeting. By the mausoleum. Her friend Megan Preece said Deborah had a morbid streak, that she liked spooky things. A rendezvous in the depths of a foggy graveyard beside an old mausoleum might have appealed to her.”
“To meet someone she knew?”
“Yes. A lover, perhaps. Or someone else. We know that Deborah had a secret. It did cross my mind that she might have arranged to meet the person involved to discuss it, what to do about it.”
“But what could she have possibly known that was so important?”
“If we knew that, then we’d probably know who the killer is.”
“And do you still believe that she was meeting someone?”
“I think it’s a strong possibility. She didn’t tell Megan, but perhaps she wanted to be really secretive. Ive Jelačić told me he never saw her meeting anyone, but he’s a pathological liar. On the other hand, you just told me yourself that you never saw anyone else around.”
“It doesn’t mean that there couldn’t have been someone,” Rebecca said. “The woods are quite deep here. And it was a foggy night. I just wish I could be of more help.”
Banks stood and looked around. Rebecca was right. You could just about see the church through the trees to the south, but to the north, between the Inchcliffe Mausoleum and Kendal Road, it was a different matter. There, the yews were thicker, the undergrowth denser. It would be an ideal place for a secret meeting. And if he had learned anything from returning to the scene, it was that Deborah might have taken the gravel path of her accord, and that she had done so before.
He looked up at the Inchcliffe Mausoleum. It could have been the angle he was viewing it from, or perhaps a trick of the light, but he could have sworn the marble angel with the chipped wings was smiling.
Chapter 15
I
“Let’s assume Pierce didn’t do it, just for the moment,” said Banks. “That’ll make things easier.”
It was the first Friday in June, and the rays of late morning sunlight flooded the market square. Banks sat in Gristhorpe’s office trying to get a fresh perspective on the Deborah Harrison murder.
Gristhorpe, a bulky man with a pock-marked face and bushy eyebrows, sat sideways at his large teak desk, one leg stretched out and propped up on a footstool. He insisted that the broken leg had healed perfectly, but he still got the odd twinge now and then. Given that it was same leg he had also been shot in not so long ago, that wasn’t surprising, Banks thought.
Banks took a sip of coffee. “On the generous side, I’d say we’ve got maybe five or six suspects. If Deborah didn’t have a lover we don’t know about-and I don’t think she did-then the key to it all might lie in the secret she had. And if Deborah knew something about someone, she might easily have misjudged the importance of what she knew, underestimated the desperation of that person. Adults can have some pretty nasty secrets. The Pierce trial redirected all our time and energy towards proving that the killer didn’t know her, that she was a random victim, or became a victim because she had the misfortune of resembling Pierce’s ex-girlfriend Michelle Chappel.”
“What’s happening with that now?”
“I talked to Stafford Oakes about an hour ago,” Banks said, “and he’s ninety-nine per cent certain the Crown will appeal the verdict on the basis of the similar fact evidence being declared inadmissible. If they get a judge who allows it in, another trial could be disastrous for Pierce, whether he did it or not.”
Gristhorpe scratched his chin. “As you know, Alan,” he said, “I’ve been able to keep an open mind on this because I wasn’t part of the original investigation. I’d just like to say in the first place that I think you did good detective work. You shouldn’t flagellate yourself over the result. It may still turn out that Pierce didn’t do it. But I agree we should put that aside for a moment. From what I’ve read so far, Barry Stott seemed particularly sold on Pierce. Any idea why?”
“It was his lead,” Banks said. “Or so he thought. Actually, if it hadn’t been for Jim Hatchley stopping for a pint in the Nag’s Head, he might never have turned it up. But Barry’s ambitious. And tenacious. And let’s not forget, Jimmy Riddle was dead set on Pierce, too.”
“He’s a friend of the family,” Gristhorpe said. “I should imagine he just wanted an early conclusion, no matter who went down for it.”
Banks nodded.
“Now,” Gristhorpe went on, “the two things we have to ask ourselves are what possible secret Deborah Harrison could have learned that was important enough to kill for, and who, given the opportunity, could have killed her because of it.”
Banks told him about his visit to Rebecca Charters and what he had learned about Deborah’s occasional detours from the main path.
“You think she had arranged to meet her killer?” Gristhorpe asked.
“Rebecca never actually saw her meet anyone, but it’s one possibility.”
“Blackmail?”
“Perhaps. Though I’m not sure from what I know of Deborah that she was the type to do that. I suppose it is possible. After all, her satchel was open when we found her, and that has always bothered me. Perhaps she had some sort of hard evidence and the killer took it. On the other hand, maybe she just wanted to let whoever it was know that she knew the secret, or how she had found out.
Perhaps she just wanted to flaunt her knowledge a little. Her friends say she could be a bit of a show-off. Anyway, let’s say she didn’t know the power or the value of what she was playing with.”
“Which takes us to my questions: why and who?”
“Yes.” Banks counted them on his fingers, one by one. “For a start, there’s John Spinks. He was Deborah’s boyfriend for part of the summer, and he’s a nasty piece of work. They parted on very bad terms and I think he’s the type to bear a grudge. He also has an alibi that doesn’t hold much water. Ive Jelačić has a solid alibi, I’d say, in Vjeko Batorac, but I’m still certain he’s involved, he knows something.”
“Any idea what?”
“I’d guess he might have seen Deborah meeting someone.”
“Why not tell us who, then?”
“That’s not Jelačić’s style. If you ask me, I’d say he’s trying to work out what might be in it for him first. For crying out loud, he even asked me if there was a reward.”
“What do we do, beat it out of him?”
“Believe me, that thought’s crossed my mind. But no. We’ll get him one way or another, don’t worry about that. I’m not finished with Mr. Jelačić yet.”
“Who else have we got? What about that schoolteacher?”
“Patrick Metcalfe? Another possibility. Though I doubt very much that he’s got the bottle, we have to consider him. He was Deborah’s history teacher and he was having an affair with Rebecca Charters, the vicar’s wife. One might reasonably assume that’s a poor career move for a male teacher at an Anglican girls’ school. If Deborah knew about the affair-and she could easily have seen Metcalfe entering or leaving the vicarage on occasion-then it could have cost Metcalfe not only his job, but his entire teaching career.”
“And as I recall from the statement,” Gristhorpe said, “he says he stayed home alone in his flat after Daniel Charters left.”
Banks nodded. “And we’ve no way of confirming or denying that unless someone saw him, which no-one has admitted to so far.”
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