Innocent Graves

by Peter Robinson

  “You bitch.”

  Owen stepped towards her. She stood her ground by the cabinet and sipped her drink. Then she jerked her head back to toss her hair over her shoulders again. It was a gesture he remembered. She looked at him down her nose, lips curled in a sneer of contempt.

  “Oh, come on, Owen,” she said, twisting the belt of her robe around one finger. “You can do better than that. Or can’t you? Do you have to murder schoolgirls these days to get your rocks off?” The smile tormented him: a little crooked, icy in the eyes and wholly malevolent. “I’m glad you’ve found something that turns you on at last. What are you going to do, Owen? Kill me, too? Do you know what? I don’t think you can do it. That’s why you have to do it to the schoolgirls and pretend it’s me. Isn’t that true, Owen?”

  Owen snatched the tumbler from her hand and tossed it back in one.

  “More Dutch courage? Is that what you need? I still don’t believe-”

  He didn’t know how it happened. One moment he was looking at his own reflection in her pupils, and the next he had his hands around her throat. He shoved her back against the cabinet, knocking bottles and glasses over. She clawed at his eyes, but her arms weren’t long enough. She scratched and pulled at his wrists, making gurgling sounds deep in her throat, back bent over the cabinet, feet off the ground, kicking him.

  He was throttling her for everything she’d ever done to him: for being a faithless whore and spreading her legs for anyone who took her out for an expensive dinner; for telling the whole country he was a sick pervert who would be in jail if there were any real sting in the justice system; for framing him.

  And he was strangling her for everything else, too: his arrest; the humiliation and indignity of jail; the loss of his friends, his job. The whole edifice that had been his life exploded in a red cloud and his veins swelled with rage. For all that, and for treating him like a fool, like someone she could keep on a string and order around. Someone she didn’t even believe had the courage to kill her.

  He pressed his fingers deep into her throat. One of her wild kicks found his groin. He flinched in pain but held on, shoving her hard up against the wall. She was sitting on the top of the cabinet among the broken crystal and spilled liquor, her legs wrapped around him in a parody of the sex act. He could smell gin and whisky. The robe under her thighs was sodden with blood and booze, as if she had wet herself.

  Michelle continued to flail around, knocking over more bottles, making rasping sounds. Once she pushed forward far enough that her nails raked his cheek, just missing his eyes.

  But just as suddenly as it had started, it was over. Owen loosened his grip on her throat and she slid off the cabinet onto the floor, leaning back against it, not moving.

  Someone hammered on the door and yelled, “Michelle! Are you all right?”

  Owen stood for a moment trying to catch his breath and grasp the enormity of what he had done, then he opened the door and rushed past the puzzled neighbor back down to the street.

  VII

  “I think Deborah Harrison lied to her mother about losing her diary,” Banks said to Gristhorpe as they waited for Ken Blackstone’s call. It was well after closing-time. No hope of a pint now. “I think she kept it hidden.”

  “So it would seem,” Gristhorpe agreed. “The question is, how did it get into Jelačić’s hands? We already know he couldn’t have been in Eastvale the evening she was killed. Even if the diary had been in her satchel, Jelačić couldn’t have taken it.”

  “I think I know the answer to that,” Banks said. “Rebecca Charters surprised someone in the graveyard yesterday, in the wooded area behind the Inchcliffe Mausoleum. I thought nothing of it at the time-she didn’t get a good look at whoever it was-but now it seems too much of a coincidence. I’ll bet you a pound to a penny it was Jelačić.”

  “It was hidden there?”

  Banks nodded. “And he knew where. He’d seen her hide it. When Pierce was released, and I went to question Jelačić again last week, he must have remembered it and thought there might be some profit in getting hold of it. It’s ironic, really. That open satchel always bothered me. When I first saw it, I thought the killer might have taken something incriminating and most likely got rid of it. But Lady Harrison told me Deborah had lost her diary. I saw no reason why either of them would lie about that.”

  “Unless there were secrets in it that Deborah didn’t want anyone to stumble across?”

  “Or Lady Harrison. If you think about it, either of them could have lied. Sir Geoffrey had already told me that Deborah did have a diary, so his wife could hardly deny its existence.”

  “But she could say Deborah had told her she lost it, and we’d have no way of checking.”

  “Yes. And we probably wouldn’t even bother looking for it. Which we didn’t.”

  “Didn’t the SOCOs search the graveyard the day after Deborah’s murder?”

  “They did a ground search. We weren’t looking for a murder weapon, just Deborah’s knickers and anything the killer might have dropped in the graveyard. All we found were a few empty fag packets and some butts. Most of those were down to Jelačić, who we knew had worked in the graveyard anyway. We put the rest down to St. Mary’s girls sneaking out for a smoke. Besides, it’s only in books that murderers stand around smoking in the fog while they wait for their victims. Especially since now everyone knows we’ve a good chance of getting DNA from saliva.”

  “What about the Inchcliffe Mausoleum? Deborah could have gained access to that, couldn’t she?”

  “Yes. But we searched that, too, after we found the empty bottles. At least-”

  The phone rang. Banks grabbed the receiver.

  “Alan, it’s Ken Blackstone. Sorry it took so long.”

  “Any luck?”

  “We’ve got him.”

  “Great. Did he give you any trouble?”

  “He picked up a bruise or two in the struggle. Turns out he’d just left Pavelič’s house when our lads arrived. They followed him across the waste ground. He saw them coming and made a bolt for it, right across York Road and down into Richmond Hill. When they finally caught up with him he didn’t have the diary.”

  Banks’s spirits dropped. “Didn’t have it? But, Ken-”

  “Hold your horses, mate. Seems he dumped it when he realized he was being chased. Didn’t want to be caught with any incriminating evidence on him. Anyway, our lads went back over the route he’d taken and we found it in a rubbish bin on York Road.”

  Banks breathed a sigh of relief.

  “What do you want us to do with him?” Blackstone asked. “It’s midnight now. It’ll be going on for two in the morning by the time we get him to Eastvale.”

  “You can sit on him overnight,” Banks said. “Nobody in this case is going anywhere in a hurry. Have him brought up in the morning. But, Ken-”

  “Yes, it is Deborah Harrison’s diary.”

  “Have you read it?”

  “Enough.”

  “And?”

  “If it means what I think it does, Alan, it’s dynamite.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  And Blackstone told him.

  Chapter 20

  I

  At ten o’clock the next morning, with Jelačić cooling his heels in a cell downstairs, Banks sat at his desk, coffee in hand, lit a cigarette and opened Deborah Harrison’s diary. Ken Blackstone had given him the gist of it over the phone the previous evening-and he had not slept well in consequence-but he wanted to read it for himself before making his next move.

  Like the inside of the satchel flap, it was inscribed with her name and address in gradually broadening circles, from “Deborah Catherine Harrison” to “The Universe.”

  First he checked the section for names, addresses and telephone numbers, but found nothing out of the ordinary, only family and school friends. Then he started to flip the pages.

  He soon found that many of her entries were factual, with little attempt at analysis or poetic descri
ption. Some days she had left completely blank. And it wasn’t until summer, when she had supposedly “lost” it, that the diary got really interesting:

  August 5

  Yawn. This must be the most boring summer there has ever been in my entire existence. Went shopping today in the Swainsdale Center, just for something to do. What a grim place. Absolutely no decent shoes there at all and full of local yokels and horrible scruffy women dragging around even more horrible dirty children. I must work hard on mummy and persuade her to take me shopping to Paris again soon or I swear I shall just die from the boredom of this terrible provincial town. In the shopping center, I met that common little tart Tiffy Huxtable from dressage. She was with some friends and asked if I’d like to hang around with them. They didn’t look very interesting. They were all just sitting around the fountain looking scruffy and stupid, but there was one fit lad there so I said I might drop by one day. Life is so (yawn) boring that I really might do. Oh, how I do so need an adventure.

  There were no entries for the next few days, then came this:

  August 9

  Tiffy’s crowd are a bunch of silly, common bores, just as I thought. All they can talk about is television and football and sex and pop music. I mean, really, darling, who gives a damn? I’m sure not one of them has read a book in years. Quite frankly, I’d rather stay at home and watch videos. Tracy Banks seems quite intelligent, but it turns out that she’s a policeman’s daughter, of all things. One boy looks a bit like that really cool actor from “Neighbors” and wears a great leather jacket. He really does have very nice eyes, too, with long lashes.

  After that, things started to move quickly:

  August 12

  John (Oh, such disappointment! What a terribly common, dull and ordinary name, like “Tracy”!) stole a car tonight and took me for a joy-ride. Me!! Little miss goody-two-shoes. It was brill! If Daddy knew about it he would have apoplexy. It wasn’t much of a car, just a poky little Astra, but he drove it really fast out past Helmthorpe and parked in a field. It was so exciting even though I was a bit frightened we’d get caught by the police. When we parked he was like an octopus! I told him I’m not the kind of girl who does it the first time you go out, even if he did steal a car for me. Lads! I ask you. He asked me what he could do the first time, and I told him we could just kiss. I really didn’t mind when he put his tongue in my mouth but I wouldn’t let him touch my breasts. I didn’t tell him I had never done it before. Though I came close with Pierre at Montclair last year, and if he hadn’t been too much in a hurry and had that little accident first we might have done it.

  Then, three days later, she wrote:

  August 15

  Tonight, in another “borrowed” car, as John calls them, we actually did it for the first time! I made him take a van this time, because it’s cramped in a little Astra, and we went in the back. I wasn’t going to go all the way at first but things just got out of control. It didn’t hurt, like they say it does. I don’t know if I like it or not. I did feel excited and sinful and wicked but I don’t think I had an orgasm. I don’t really know, because I don’t know what they feel like, but the earth didn’t move or anything like that, and I didn’t hear bells ringing, just a funny feeling between my legs and I felt a bit sore after. I wonder if I will ever have multiple orgasms? Charlene Gregory at school told me she can have orgasms just from the vibrations of the engine when she’s on a bus, but I don’t believe her. And Kirsty McCracken says she can get them from rubbing against her bicycle saddle while she’s riding. Maybe that’s true. I sometimes feel a bit funny when I’m horse-riding. Anyway, when he finished, it was really disgusting the way he just tied a knot in the condom and threw it out of the window into the field, and then he didn’t even seem to want to talk to me all the way back. Is this what happens when you give in to lads and let them have what they want? That’s what Mummy would say, even though she is French and they’re supposed to be so sexy and all.

  August 17

  John came to the house today. Mummy was out and he wanted us to go and do it upstairs but I was too frightened we’d get caught. Anyway, we barbecued some hot dogs on the back patio and I took a bottle of Father’s special wine from the cellar and we drank that. Of course, Mother came home! She was very nice about it, really, but I could tell she didn’t like John. Uncle Michael was there, too, and I could tell he really hated John on sight. John says nobody ever gives him a chance.

  August 20

  They all went to Leeds today-Mummy and Daddy and Uncle Michael-to some naff cocktail party or other, so I told John he could come over to the house again. This time I knew they’d be gone a long time so we did it in my bed! How sinful! How wickedly, deliciously sinful! I don’t know if I had an orgasm or not, but I certainly tingled a bit, and I didn’t feel at all sore. John wants me to do it without a condom, but I told him not to be stupid. I wouldn’t even think of it. I don’t want to get pregnant with his baby or get some sexual disease. That hurt him, that I thought he would have some disease to pass on to me. He can be so childish at times. Childish and boring.

  But it wasn’t until a later entry that Banks found out for himself what Ken Blackstone meant when he said the diary might be “dynamite.”

  August 21

  I can hardly believe it, Uncle Michael is in love with me! He says he has loved me since I was twelve, and has even spied on me getting undressed at Montclair. He says I look like Botticelli’s Venus! Which is stretching it a bit, if you ask me. I remember seeing it in the Uffizi when Mummy and I went to Florence last year, and I don’t look a bit like her. My hair’s not as long, for a start, and it’s a different color. I never thought Uncle Michael knew literature and art at all. Some of what he wrote sounds very poetic. And it’s all about me!! I don’t know what I shall do. For the moment, it will be my little secret. He’s not really my uncle of course, just my dad’s friend, so I suppose it is all right for him to be in love with me, it’s not incest. It feels funny, though, because I’ve known him forever. Oops, I forgot to say how I know. Last night John and me stole Uncle Michael’s car because he was so beastly to him last week at the barbecue (now I know why: Uncle Michael must have been jealous!!). Well, Uncle Michael had left his computer in the back seat. We took it to John’s house (and thank the lord his horrible smelly mother was out-she really gives me the creeps)-and I couldn’t get into all his technical stuff but it only took me about fifteen minutes to get the password to his word-processing directories: it’s MONTCLAIR, of course. After that, it was easy. Uncle Michael puts everything on his computer, even his shopping-lists! When I’d finished, I reformatted his hard drive. That’ll show him!

  Banks put the diary aside and walked to the window. Mid-morning on a hot and humid June day, cobbled market square already full of cars and coaches. He wondered if this summer was going to be as hot as the last one. He hoped not. Naturally, there was no air-conditioning in Eastvale Divisional HQ, or in the whole of Eastvale, as far as he knew. You just had to make do with open windows and fans-not a lot of use when there’s no breeze and the air is hot.

  The diary wasn’t evidence, of course. Deborah Harrison had read some of Michael Clayton’s private files and discovered that he was sexually infatuated with her; it didn’t mean that he had killed her. But as Banks sat down again and read on, it became increasingly clear that Clayton, in all likelihood, had killed Deborah.

  The telephone rang. Banks picked it up and Sergeant Rowe told him there was a Detective Sergeant Leaside calling from Swiss Cottage.

  Banks frowned; he didn’t recognize the name. “Better put him on.”

  Leaside came on. “It’s about a woman called Michelle Chappel,” he said. “I understand from the PNC that she was part of a case you’ve been involved in recently up there?”

  Banks gripped the receiver tightly. “Yes. Why? What’s happened?”

  “She’s been assaulted, sir. Quite badly. Lacerations and bruises, attempted strangulation.”

  “Rape?”
/>   “No, sir. I was wondering…We got a description of the suspect from a neighbor…” He read the description.

  “Yes,” Banks said when he’d finished. “Dammit, yes. That sounds like Owen Pierce. All right, thanks Sergeant. We’ll keep an eye open for him.”

  II

  Ive Jelačić was surly after his night in the cells. Banks had him brought up to an interview room and left him alone there for almost an hour before he and Superintendent Gristhorpe went in to ask their questions. They didn’t turn the tape recorder on.

  “Well, Ive,” said Banks, “you’re in a lot of trouble now, you know that?”

  “What trouble? I do nothing.”

  “Where did you get that diary?”

  “What diary? I never see that before. You policeman put it on me.”

  Banks sighed and rubbed his forehead. He could see it was going to be one of those days. “Ive,” he said patiently, “both Mile Pavelič and Vjeko Batorac have seen you with the diary. You asked them to read it for you. You even hit Vjeko when he tried to hang onto it.”

  “I remember nothing of this. I do nothing wrong. Vjeko and I, we quarrel. Is not big deal.”

  “Come on, lad,” said Gristhorpe, “help us out here.”

  “I know nothing.”

  Gristhorpe gestured for Banks to follow him out of the room. He did so, and they stood silently in the corridor for a few minutes before going back inside. It seemed to work; Jelačić was certainly more nervous than he had been before.

  “Where you go?” he asked. “What you do?”

  “Listen to me, Ive,” said Banks. “I’m only going to say this once, and I’ll say it slowly so that you understand every word. If it hadn’t been for you, an innocent man might not have spent over six months in jail, suffered the indignity of a trial and incurred the wrath of the populace. In other words, you put Owen Pierce through hell, and even though he’s free now, a lot of people still think he really killed the girls.”