Careless Love

by Peter Robinson

  “What did your father do, exactly? I know he was in finance, but in what way?”

  Poppy shook her head. “I really have no idea. That world is beyond me. Don’t you know I’m just a good-time girl? I’m thick. I hardly got any more ‘O’ levels than Princess Diana. As long as the money keeps coming in, I don’t ask where it’s from, I just spend it. Daddy did deals, facilitated things for people. Offers bribes and loans for all I know. I never asked him and he never said. Why?”

  “The circumstances of his death are a little unusual, to say the least.”

  “Are you saying he was murdered?”

  “No. There’s no evidence of that. But there are a lot of questions to be answered.”

  “You think it could have had something to do with his work?”

  “Possibly something to do with the world he worked in. It’s easy to make enemies when you’re handling huge amounts of money. Easy to upset the wrong people.”

  “Oh, I’m sure Daddy pissed off the odd CEO or two.” Poppy went back to her drink. She seemed much calmer now, even lucid, and far less likely to need to create a scene.

  “Did you visit him up here often?”

  “Now and then, when I felt the need to get away for a few days.”

  “Did you ever see him with anyone?”

  “What do you mean? Like a woman? A girlfriend?”

  “Maybe.”

  “No. Never. Not since Mummy died. I’m sure he must have had some female company, but if he did he was very discreet about it.”

  “Other friends?”

  “He had people around occasionally. Other businessmen. Local bigwigs. But he’d usually advise me not to come if he was going to be busy networking. They were all such bores.”

  “Oh? I thought you just dropped in when the spirit moved you?”

  Poppy snorted. “You must have been listening to Balter. She thinks I’m the devil incarnate, or some female version of it.”

  “So you don’t just drop by whenever you feel like it?”

  “I always check with Daddy first. If he’s going away or going to be busy, I put off my visit. I wouldn’t want to drop in and find him . . . you know . . . with someone. There are plenty of places I can go when I want a break from the city.”

  “But I thought you arrived at all times of the day and night whenever you needed to get away?”

  “Balter again. I like driving at night. I’m afraid of the dark. It helps to be doing something like driving up the M1 with a lot of other cars around and the music playing loud.”

  “I see. And that’s what you did last night?”

  “Yes.”

  “When did you last speak to your father?”

  “I rang him on Friday and asked if I might come up for the weekend. He told me he was busy, but it would be OK to come midweek.”

  “Was that unusual?”

  “Not at all.”

  “Did he say what he was going to be busy with over the weekend?”

  “No. Like I said, he never explained his business to me, and I never questioned him about it.”

  “Were you here the weekend before?”

  “No. I went to Brighton. Well, just outside. A country house party. Lady Barton. You wouldn’t know her.”

  Poppy excused herself to “powder her nose.” Annie stared at a hunting scene and felt sorry for the fox. Poppy came back. Her expression was set, lips downturned at the edges, eyes still watery. She sniffled occasionally, and Annie couldn’t tell whether it was due to a quick snort of coke or grief. Probably a bit of both.

  “What time did you arrive last night?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t wear a watch. Time’s a nuisance.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  Poppy squinted at her. “You’re weird, you are.”

  “So I’m told. Guess what time you arrived.”

  “Maybe two, three in the morning. I know I was tired, too tired to unpack.”

  “Did you expect your father to be awake at that time?”

  “Not really. But he knew I was coming. I assumed he’d be home.”

  “So you were worried when you arrived and found him absent?”

  “Not at first. Like I said, I was tired. He didn’t usually wait up for me. I thought he was probably in bed asleep. I tried to keep quiet, so as not to disturb him. I had a few drinks, just to take the edge off, like. Next thing I knew it was the following morning and Balter was knocking at the bedroom door.”

  “You were worried then?”

  “Yes, when he wasn’t anywhere to be found. I’d tried to phone him on his mobile earlier, when I first woke up. He never goes anywhere without it. But it went straight to voicemail.”

  “It was in his study. Didn’t you hear it ring?”

  “No. I was in bed when I called. It’s a long way.” She put her fingers in her ears. “Besides, my hearing’s not great at the best of times. Too many loud rock concerts. Tinnitus. I didn’t hear anything until Balter started banging on the door.”

  “You were once connected with Nate Maddock, right?”

  “I’d rather not talk about that period of my life. Besides, it’s not relevant to my father’s death.”

  “And now you’re connected with a supermodel?”

  “That’s rubbish,” Poppy snorted. “Just the fucking tabloids wanking themselves off as usual. Gretchen’s just a drinking buddy. I’m unattached at the moment, and not looking for anyone, either. Man or woman.” She slugged back the rest of the gin. “I want to go home.”

  “London?”

  “No. Rivendell.”

  “Was your father a Lord of the Rings fan?”

  “Do you know, I think he was a bit of a hippy back in the day, before he got bitten by the money bug. He still listens to Pink Floyd and King Crimson.”

  Not unlike Banks and Ray, Annie thought. They stood up and walked towards the car. “What are your plans now?” Annie asked.

  Poppy shook her head. “Not a clue. I suppose I might as well hang about up here until . . . well, you know . . . the funeral and all that.”

  “It could be some time until the funeral, depending on what we uncover.”

  “I told you, I don’t fucking know.”

  They went out and got in the car. Annie started it up.

  Poppy stretched herself out in the passenger seat and yawned. “No doubt my arsehole brother will be arriving this evening. I’m not sure I could stand being in the same house as him for very long, so maybe I’ll just go back down south, anyway. Why? Am I not supposed to leave town?”

  “Just stay in touch, that’s all,” said Annie. “There may be developments very soon, and I may have to talk to you again.”

  “Yeah. Sure. Fine.” Poppy dug around in her bag and found a pair of sunglasses. She put them on, rested her head back on the car seat and feigned sleep. Annie tapped her fingers on the wheel as she drove, wondering how she could break it gently to Poppy that she couldn’t return to Rivendell to spend the night now that they knew the suspicious death was that of her father. That the house was a crime scene, at least technically. Even letting her inside to repack her bag under supervision was pushing it at this point, but Annie reckoned she could balance that against showing consideration for the victim’s daughter and give her a few minutes to pick up her pills and tampons.

  THE GIRL behind the bar pointed out Colin Fairfax, who sat alone hunched over a laptop at a booth in the student pub, a pint beside him. It was a dim, cavernous place, full of little nooks and alcoves, along with open areas with large tables, all done in dark wood. The music wasn’t too loud to prohibit conversation. Banks thought it was Vampire Weekend, but he couldn’t be certain; he didn’t know their music well enough.

  He edged into the booth next to Fairfax, showing his warrant card, and Winsome took a chair opposite them. Fairfax glanced from one to the other and closed his laptop.

  “Adrienne?” he said.

  Banks nodded, then glanced at his glass. “Can I buy you another drink?
”

  Fairfax shrugged. “Why not?”

  Banks went back to the bar.

  “Man, this really does my head in,” Fairfax said when Banks put the pint down in front of him.

  “In what way?” Winsome asked.

  “Adrienne. I loved her.”

  “But she didn’t love you?”

  “I guess not. I don’t know where her mind was these days. I don’t even know if she cared for me or not. She just wasn’t herself at all.”

  Winsome took out her notebook and made a few jottings.

  “Let’s start at the beginning,” Banks said.

  Fairfax was a skinny youth in jeans and a T-shirt, with a wispy goatee beard, a few spots and spiky fair hair. Nothing to write home about, Banks thought. But there was no accounting for taste. Everyone had said he was a decent kid.

  “The beginning?”

  “When you and Adrienne first met.”

  “It was at a party early in our first year. November, I think. Just over a year ago. She was a wall-hugger. You know, just leaned back against the wall with her drink in her hand watching everyone. She found it hard to approach people. Shy. So I went over to her and we hit it off right away. After that we went out together all year and part of the summer.”

  “Only part?”

  “We both had to work to save up. I was at home in Doncaster working nights at a frozen food factory. Adrienne was back living with her parents in Stockton and working at the animal shelter in Darlington. It was hard for either of us to get time off, so we didn’t see a lot of each other during the summer. I went up once, for her birthday. I’d bought her a charm for her bracelet. Cost me an arm and a leg, but I knew she liked them. I didn’t want to just put it in the post, you know. I wanted to see her open it. See the expression on her face. So I took the train up.”

  “And?”

  He smiled wistfully. “It was worth it.”

  “And after that?”

  “We went to Glasto and the Green Man festival. It rained all the time, but we didn’t care.”

  “And since then?”

  “We went out a couple of times right at the beginning of the year, but she seemed a bit cool. I’d ask her what was wrong, but she wouldn’t say. A few days later she told me it had been fun, but she couldn’t see me anymore.”

  “Colin,” Banks said, “I want you to think carefully about this. Did you get the impression that something might have happened to Adrienne over the summer to cause her to become deeply upset or depressed?”

  “Like what?”

  “Some traumatic event. Was she assaulted, robbed, raped?”

  “No!”

  “How do you know? It might have been something she didn’t want anyone to know about, something she hid away, buried deep.”

  “If you put it like that, I suppose anything’s possible, but if there was something like that, I had absolutely no sense of it. I mean, things weren’t that different. She wasn’t that different. She just dumped me, that’s all.”

  “How did you feel about that?”

  “How do you think I felt? Devastated. I was gutted.”

  “What reason did she give?”

  A group of laughing students came in and took a table some distance away.

  Fairfax remained quiet for a few moments until the hubbub died down. He was soft-spoken, Banks noticed. “She didn’t. She just said that she wanted to concentrate on her work. I suggested we maybe just see less of each other, but she said that wouldn’t work and it would be easier in the long run to stop altogether. I asked her if there was someone else, but she assured me there wasn’t.”

  “Did you believe her?”

  “Not at first, but later, I think I did. I mean, if I saw her at all, she was with the usual crowd. Neela, Cameron, Chloe and the rest. Never just with one special guy or anything.” He paused for a moment.

  “Thought of something?” Banks prompted him.

  “There was this girl. Mia. That was right at the beginning of term, when things were starting to go wonky with me and Adrienne. I must admit, I was a bit worried there for a while.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “They were hanging out together so much. I mean, it wasn’t that I thought Adrienne was gay or anything, not that there would be anything wrong with that, but it just gave me a funny feeling, like it was some club I couldn’t join. They seemed really intense. They always made me feel left out.”

  “I assume,” Banks said, “that you were being politically correct just then, and there would be something very much wrong with Adrienne being gay if you were in love with her?”

  “Well, yeah, but you know what I mean. She wasn’t. OK?”

  “So what about Mia?”

  “I just got a bad vibe from her, that’s all. She didn’t like me, and Adrienne behaved different when she was with her, as if I was, like, on the outside and they had some little private thing going. I was worried she was having some sort of adverse influence on Adrienne.”

  “How? What for?”

  “I don’t know. Like manipulating her or something. Adrienne was easily led, that’s all. I suppose Mia was sort of charismatic.”

  “Where did you think she was leading Adrienne?”

  “I don’t know. Nowhere. There wasn’t anything in particular. It was just a feeling. It was my imagination, my jealousy, my fears. Haven’t you ever had anything like that happen, man, when you imagine all kinds of awful things happening to someone you love? It really distorts your vision.”

  Banks knew what he meant. He remembered nights sitting up staring out of the window if his girlfriend was late coming home, imagining all kinds of terrible things that might have happened to her, from falling into the hands of a serial killer to sleeping with another man, though admittedly, the second of these would have been far more terrible for him than for her. He assumed it was a pretty normal form of insecurity. “How long did this go on?” he asked.

  “Dunno. Couple of weeks, maybe, into October. Then Mia just seemed to disappear from the scene. Adrienne told me she’d dropped out. No explanation. Nobody even knew what department she was in.”

  “How was Adrienne after Mia left?”

  “She was fine at first. I mean, that was when I knew, you know, that there was nothing in it, my fears and so on, that it wasn’t a lesbian thing. Adrienne wasn’t upset or heartbroken or anything. Maybe just a bit more distant. I saw less and less of her. But that was happening anyway. She seemed to be a bit weird. I don’t know. Just not her usual self.”

  “Do you think they could still have been seeing one another?”

  “No. I don’t think so. I mean, I never saw hide nor hair of Mia again.”

  “What if Adrienne wanted to keep their meetings secret?”

  “I suppose she could have been doing that if she wanted, but why?”

  “Did you ever suspect that drugs were an issue with Adrienne and Mia?”

  “Not at first. Adrienne was so antidrug. But I must admit it crossed my mind later, when she seemed a bit out of it sometimes.”

  “Out of it?”

  “You know, not really following conversations, not responding to texts or emails, as if her mind was always somewhere else.”

  “Any idea where that might have been?”

  Fairfax shook his head. “Sorry, no. I still find it really hard to believe it was drugs, but . . . well . . . it’s an obvious option, isn’t it? People change.”

  Vampire Weekend, or whoever it was, gave way to The Killers.

  “Colin,” said Winsome, “we’ve been investigating Adrienne’s mobile use, and it seems you called her quite often.”

  “Yeah. So what?”

  “Well, you’d split up. Why were you still pestering her?”

  “Who says I was pestering her?”

  “There’s quite a lot of calls. Were you stalking her, Colin?”

  “No way. She liked me to call. If you check it out you’ll see she called me sometimes, too. It wasn’t all one way.
She still liked to talk about stuff we had in common, like movies and music and stuff. And environmental issues, anti-fracking demonstrations and so on. We were both interested in politics, Jez and all that. Hope for the future, for the many, that was something we still shared.”

  “Jez?” said Banks.

  “You know. Jeremy. Jeremy Corbyn.”

  “Oh, Jeremy Corbyn. Yes, I know who you mean. I just don’t understand the link.”

  “You wouldn’t understand. You’re too old. Adrienne and I were both members of the Marxist Society. We talked about politics a lot. How to change the world. Get rid of inequality and starvation and all the other evils.”

  Maybe Banks was too old for Jeremy Corbyn. He had believed in all the man’s policies when he was sixteen, but that belief had faded by the time he reached thirty. Though he still considered himself to be part of the liberal left, perhaps he had become more cynical over the years, more conservative, even. As far as Corbyn himself was concerned, Banks detected a whiff of the demagogue, the steely glint of Stalinism in his eye, and he didn’t like that at all. Not that any of the alternatives seemed much more acceptable.

  “And how did this make you feel, this telephone relationship?” he asked.

  “I enjoyed it. I mean, it wasn’t as good as being with her, but I suppose I felt there was always a chance, like, as long as we were still communicating, still on the same wavelength, that we might get back together as long as we stayed friends and had lots in common. That whatever it was that was bothering her would go away and she’d see the light. But they made me sad, too, the phone calls. Like, I always felt really lonely and a bit down after our conversations.”

  “But you were happy to remain just friends?” Winsome asked.

  “Yeah. We talked. It’s just that I didn’t see her so often, and I felt like a bit of an afterthought. Why are you asking me all these questions? First the papers implied it was a drug overdose, then they said it was suicide. I have to say, I can’t imagine her doing that. She was such an alive, positive person most of the time. I just can’t see her killing herself. But you know more about the circumstances than I do, and you’ve no reason to lie about it. So why? Tell me. Why did she do it?”

  “We don’t know,” Winsome said. “That’s why we’re talking to her friends, to try and make sense out of all this.”