Careless Love

by Peter Robinson

  Neela shook her head. “She certainly didn’t say anything like that to me, and I’m sure she would have done if there was a problem like that. Anyway, Colin’s not particularly scary.”

  “So you never noticed him hanging around when he wasn’t wanted, that sort of thing?”

  “No. Like I said, we just saw him in the coffee shop or the library sometimes.”

  “OK, Neela,” said Winsome. “Have there been any wannabe boyfriends since Colin Fairfax? Anyone Adrienne was interested in, or who was interested in her?”

  Neela made a snorting sound. “There was always someone interested in Adrienne. You should have seen her. She was so pretty. Boys fell all over themselves to buy her drinks and stuff.”

  “But she didn’t single out anyone in particular for her affections?”

  “No. She wasn’t interested. Just wanted to save up and go to Africa. That was her dream. We always did stuff as a group, like. Not pairing off in couples.”

  It was what a lot of young people today did who didn’t want commitment or unwanted attentions, Banks knew. “What about money?” he asked.

  “What about it?”

  “Was it a problem for her?”

  “Money’s always a problem. It’s very expensive to go to university.”

  “But surely the scholarship must have helped?” said Winsome.

  Neela frowned. “Scholarship? What scholarship?”

  “The one she got this year. The one that paid her fees and allowed her to avoid taking out student loans.”

  Neela shook her head. “I know nothing about any scholarship.”

  “She never told you?”

  “No. But come to think of it, she was a bit more flush this year. She didn’t go on about money problems as much as she did last year. Never asked to borrow any. She even paid me some back. I thought maybe she’d got a raise at the shelter as well as working extra hours there, but they don’t really do things like that, do they, not in jobs like that? Mostly they expect you to volunteer because you love animals. Adrienne would have done it for nothing. As it was, they barely paid her the minimum wage.”

  “Did she work there more hours this year?” Banks asked.

  “Yes. Most of the weekend. All of it, sometimes.”

  “And you know nothing about any scholarship?”

  “No. And it’s not the sort of thing she’d keep secret. I mean, she wouldn’t have any reason not to tell me, would she? She’d have been over the moon.” Neela laughed. “She’d probably have taken us all out for a slap-up meal and bought us a bottle of champagne. That’s what Adrienne was like.”

  Banks could think of a couple of reasons Adrienne might not have mentioned her good fortune. Perhaps she had wanted to keep the money to herself, add it to her Africa fund, or perhaps its origins were connected with the drug trade. If she really was as generous as Neela thought, then perhaps she would have treated her friends. So why didn’t she? It was odd that Adrienne hadn’t told her best friend about the scholarship. He remembered how excited Tracy was when she got a postgraduate scholarship in Newcastle. She couldn’t wait to tell everyone.

  “Can you think of any reason at all why Adrienne might have committed suicide?” Banks asked finally.

  Neela was silent for a few moments, her lower lip quivering, tears in her eyes. Then she said, “No.” The tears spilled over and she started to sob, burying her face in her hands. “I should have known, shouldn’t I? I should have seen it coming. I was supposed to be her best friend, and I let her down. Why would she do something like that? She was beautiful, she was a sweet person, she was clever, she had everything going for her.” Neela looked up at Banks, imploring through wet, reddened eyes. “Why?”

  6

  IT WAS QUITE CLEAR WHEN POPPY WOBBLED DOWN THE stairs that she had taken more than the recommended dose of Valium, perhaps even washed it down with vodka or brandy. Nevertheless, she seemed used to being perpetually stoned, and she carried it off well. Annie and Gerry certainly didn’t plan on babysitting her until her brother showed up, but they did want to talk to her. Which left them in a bit of a conundrum. They also needed to take Adele Balter to Eastvale mortuary to identify the body as soon as possible. The key fitted the door, which was a start, but only if and when they had a positive identification of the body could they really set an investigation in motion. But they didn’t dare leave Poppy alone in the house. The way things were going, it could be a crime scene and as such would need to be preserved. They certainly couldn’t have the Hadfield offspring walking around the place willy-nilly. Neither Poppy nor Ronald would be too pleased to hear that, Annie thought, but too bad.

  In the end, Adele agreed to drive Gerry to the infirmary and then back to the police station to make a formal statement, and Annie would use the car she had signed out of the police garage. She certainly didn’t want Poppy driving, the state she was in, however nice her sports car was.

  Gerry had come up with a simple solution to the Poppy problem earlier, which was to get her out of the house, somewhere neutral, and ask her the questions they wanted answered. Annie knew a country pub by the side of the middle reservoir and, though it was risky taking Poppy on licensed premises, it would certainly offer the most peaceful and soothing prospect for a chat. Then, depending on Adele Balter’s identification, Annie would already have Poppy out of the house and would simply have to prevent her from going back inside. Well, perhaps it wouldn’t be exactly simple, but a couple of burly uniformed constables guarding the scene should be able to see to it. On the other hand, with Poppy Hadfield, she was beginning to realize, you could never be quite sure.

  The lounge bar wasn’t especially crowded just after lunch, when Annie and Poppy arrived. It was a pleasant enough space, with plush red covers on the chairs and banquettes and a number of hunting scenes on the walls. Keeping Poppy in view, Annie went to the bar and bought two Diet Cokes then took them back to the table.

  Poppy took a sip of her drink and pulled a face. “What the fuck is this?” she said, then proceeded to pour it on the floor.

  So much for the soothing effects of Valium. Annie looked around in horror, but nobody had seen them. She managed to grab the glass from Poppy before it had been completely emptied. Luckily most of the Coke had gone under the table, where it was more or less hidden from view.

  “Stop being so fucking childish,” she said, then managed to hold her anger in check and said, “I can get you a tea or coffee, if you’d prefer.”

  “What I’d like is a fucking gin and tonic, love. A double.”

  “Sorry. No can do.”

  “What do you mean, ‘no can do?’ ” She did a passable imitation of Annie’s clenched tone.

  “I mean exactly what I say,” Annie said. “And if you give me any more lip, I’ll have the handcuffs on you and drive you down to the station before you can say crack cocaine.”

  Poppy snorted. “What planet have you been on? Nobody does crack anymore.”

  Annie reached for her handcuffs. “We’ll see what a night in the cells does for your temperament.”

  “All right, all right,” Poppy said. “Enough with the hard-arsed act. I’ve seen Scott & Bailey.”

  “Where have you been? Nobody watches Scott & Bailey anymore.”

  Poppy scowled, then giggled. “Well, aren’t you the witty one? Tell me, are you gay?”

  Annie just glared at her and drank some Coke.

  “OK. I promise to be good.”

  “I want you to understand the seriousness of the situation,” Annie said. “Your father may well be dead. We’ll find out when Gerry phones me from the mortuary. We don’t know how he ended up that way, but you might be able to help us.”

  “Me, how? I told you, I just got here last night and he wasn’t around. I haven’t seen him for at least three weeks.”

  “So what did you do when you got here?”

  “I went to bed.”

  “After doing major damage to a bottle of cognac first, it appears.”

>   “What’s that got to do with you? Why should you care what I drink?”

  “I care about the state of mind you’re in, and from where I’m sitting, it doesn’t look good.”

  “Well, fuck you. You don’t look so hot yourself. Besides, the bottle was already half empty.”

  “Oh, goody. That makes it so much better.”

  “You’re a real sarky bitch, do you know that?”

  “So I’ve been told on occasion.”

  Annie’s phone rang like a sixties police car. Poppy laughed. “That was quick,” Annie said, when Gerry spoke. “So what’s the verdict.”

  “Adele identified the body as that of Laurence Edward Hadfield. We’re just about to head up to the station to take her statement. I thought you’d want to know as soon as possible.”

  “Thanks,” said Annie. “Appreciate it.”

  “How’s Poppy?”

  “Don’t ask.”

  “That bad?”

  “I’ll talk to you later. Bye.”

  “Bye.”

  Annie put her phone away and turned to Poppy. “I’m sorry, but I’ve got some really bad news for you. That was my partner, Gerry. Adele Balter has just identified the body we found as that of your father.”

  Poppy stared at her in silence for a moment, then she burst into tears.

  AFTER HIS lunch with Ray, Banks returned to his office on Friday afternoon and closed the door. Winsome would probably be back soon with the fruits of her morning’s labors, but in the meantime, Banks had paperwork to catch up with. As he did so, he listened to the Grateful Dead’s Cornell 5/8/77 concert.

  Mostly the paperwork was a matter of signing memos to say he’d read them, then putting them back in their envelopes and posting them in the internal mail system again. Boring work, but the music helped. Garcia’s solo on “Scarlet Begonias” was a joy to hear. In fact, any version of “Scarlet Begonias” was guaranteed to lift Banks’s mood, no matter what menial task he was doing at the time.

  Winsome knocked and entered during “Morning Dew,” an old favorite, and he reluctantly turned down the volume. Rather than have her sit across from him at the large work desk, they adjourned to the low glass coffee table and low-slung tube chairs. Winsome got out her notebook.

  “Busy day?” Banks asked.

  “But fruitful, guv. Very fruitful.”

  “I’m all ears.”

  “First and easiest stop was the bursar’s office. No scholarship.”

  “You mean she lied to her parents?”

  “Well, I suppose she had to explain why she wasn’t hitting them up for money somehow. It wouldn’t make any difference to Luke Stoller, or to Neela.”

  “I suppose not. So where did the money come from?”

  “Your guess is as good as mine. Apparently she paid her fees directly out of her bank account. I’ve put a request in for her banking records for the last two years, but you know what they’re like. They take their time.”

  “OK, keep at them. Find out who deposited the money, and how. Check, electronic transfer, cash? So . . . she paid her own fees. Anything else?”

  “Well, that’s about it from the bursar. Next, I paid a visit to the student health center.”

  “And?”

  “Nothing. They were a bit tougher, but luckily one of the nurses there is Jamaican, and she comes from a village not so far from me, so she was quite happy to tell me that Adrienne Munro had not availed herself of their services in either her first or her second year, except for a minor ear infection last February, for which the doctor prescribed a course of antibiotics. That was all. She balked at the mere suggestion they would hand out sleeping pills to students. They’re quite aware of problems with teen and student suicides and what have you. I must say, it seemed to me you’d have to have the signature of the Surgeon General to get a bloody Valium out of that lot, let alone a sleeping pill.”

  Banks laughed. “Well, I suppose it’s good to know they’re in control of the situation. It doesn’t do us much good, though, does it? We still don’t know where the pills came from.”

  “Students usually manage to find drugs when they want them.”

  “I suppose so,” Banks agreed.

  “I talked to Steph Dobyns from the drugs squad. They don’t know about anyone selling sleeping pills at The Cellar Club or any other of the student hangouts. Seems the market’s still mostly for E, a little coke and the occasional amphetamine. They want to stay awake, not fall asleep.”

  “Another blank.”

  “I made one more visit.”

  “Where to?”

  “Darlington. The animal welfare shelter.”

  “There’s a good chance that a place like that would stock some sort of animal tranquilizers, isn’t there? Jazz Singh is still working to identify exactly what pills Adrienne took.”

  “Apparently, they don’t,” Winsome said. “They leave that sort of stuff to the vets. What’s interesting, though, is that no one there has seen Adrienne since summer.”

  “What? You mean she hasn’t been working weekends there?”

  “That’s right, guv. It surprised everyone because she loved her job, loved working with the animals. Was very good at it, too, so everyone told me.”

  “Did she just quit?”

  “Didn’t turn up. Not a word.”

  “When?”

  “Second week of term. She’d put a bit of time in over the summer and seemed set on carrying on with weekends like before, but . . .”

  “Now that is definitely strange. Everyone believed that’s where she spent her weekends. Her parents. Neela.”

  “I know. She’s been lying to them all. I talked to the girl Paula, the friend she sometimes stayed with in Darlington on weekends. She hasn’t seen or heard from Adrienne for weeks.”

  “So what was she doing?”

  “We don’t know. I also checked with Steph, and DI MacDonald over at criminal intelligence. They’ve got nothing on Adrienne Munro or any of her friends as far as drugs are concerned. Remember those names Neela mentioned?”

  “I remember,” said Banks.

  “I managed to get a few more details out of the bursar’s office. They’re Jessica Mercer, Cameron Macrae, Chloe Sharma and Callum O’Brien. I ran them through the system. None of them have as much as a traffic offense or drunk and disorderly against them. And Steph says she knows quite a few of the Eastvale students do E, but this lot doesn’t come up in any of their more serious drug offense intelligence.”

  “So nothing?”

  “Clean records all. Including Colin Fairfax.”

  “Didn’t Neela mention someone called Mia?”

  “She did. But there’s no trace of a Mia anywhere in the college records.”

  “Odd. Maybe it was a nickname? Or perhaps she wasn’t a student? You do get a few townies hanging about now and then.”

  “And sometimes it’s the townies who bring in the drugs,” said Winsome.

  “Well,” said Banks, “we seem to be developing a bit of a narrative here. A bright, attractive young woman dumps her ‘nice’ boyfriend for no apparent reason, lies about a nonexistent scholarship and a weekend job, even to her best friend, has mood changes, seems a bit anxious, distracted, even apprehensive, isn’t doing so well at her course work, doesn’t hang out with her friends like before. There’s something we’re missing here. The question is, what’s it all adding up to?”

  “Drugs,” said Winsome. “Neela admitted that they did E once in a while, but it could have become more serious than that. For Adrienne, at any rate. It’s not a great stretch from that to maybe selling some E. Other stuff, too. We know there’s a drug problem at the college, and we know the big city gangs use kids as mules to get the stuff into rural areas.”

  “Check out this mysterious Mia a bit more. Perhaps she’s the connection, the catalyst, setting up a pipeline then disappearing into the background. See if you can find out anything about her.”

  Winsome nodded. “Will do, guv.”
/>   “What about the ex-boyfriend, Colin Fairfax? You said he’s clean, too, right?”

  “As a whistle. I did a more in-depth check on him. No form. Good student. Fine cricketer, too, apparently. He’s in the modern languages department. Last lecture is two to three this afternoon. After that, he can usually be found in the student pub.”

  Banks glanced at his watch. “What are we waiting for, then?”

  “I SUPPOSE I was just trying to pretend to myself that it wasn’t Daddy,” said Poppy, dabbing at her eyes. “That he was really all right, you know. I don’t care what you think of me, maybe I am a total fuck-up, but I did love him.” She put the handkerchief to her eyes again, now smeared black with mascara. When Annie realized the genuineness of her grief, she relented and went back to the bar and bought her a double gin and tonic along with another Diet Coke for herself. One or two people were staring at them now, but Annie ignored them. Poppy took a swig then set the drink down, gave Annie a ghost of a smile and whispered, “Thank you.”

  Annie also found herself feeling sorry for Poppy because she was clearly going to have to deal with her father’s death on her own. Ronald Hadfield turned out to be unavailable. According to his personal assistant, he was in Tokyo for a series of important business meetings and wouldn’t be back until after the weekend. The PA said she would attempt to contact him about his father, but even if he dropped everything right now, it would still take some time to arrange flights and get back. Then there was the time difference. “Tell me about your father,” Annie said.

  “I told you. I loved Daddy. I suppose I was his favorite, ‘daddy’s girl,’ though I never tried to seek his approval. Quite the opposite, really. It was Ronald who was desperate to impress and please him, but it never got him very far. Daddy was a complex person.”

  “Didn’t he and Ronald get along?”

  Poppy shook her head. “Too alike. Peas in a pod. Fractious. I suppose that’s how I’d describe their relationship.”

  “And yours?”

  She widened her eyes. “With Ronald? He’s a stuffy old bore as far as I’m concerned. And a cold fish, to boot.”