“No.”
“Has he ever been here?” Banks asked. “In this flat?”
“Sure. Plenty of times.” Liz stood up, as if she sensed they were leaving.
“Did he ever leave anything here?”
“Like what?”
“Any of his stuff. You know – notebooks, poems, stories, clothes, that sort of thing. We’re looking for anything that might help us understand what happened to him.”
“He never left any clothes here,” Liz said coldly, “but he sometimes left tapes of songs for us, if that’s what you mean. And some lyrics, maybe. But…”
“Could you collect them all together for us?”
“I suppose so. I mean, I don’t know what’s here or where everything is. Do you mean right now? Can’t you come back later?”
“Now would be best,” said Banks. “We’ll help you look, if you like.”
“No! I mean, no. It’s all right. I’ll find them.”
“Is there something here you don’t want us to see, Liz?”
“No, nothing. There’s only a few tapes and some poems, notes for songs. I don’t see how they can help you. Look… will I get these tapes and things back?”
“Why would you get them back?” Annie asked. “They were Luke’s property, weren’t they?”
“Technically, I suppose. But he brought them for us. The band. To share.”
“They’ll still most likely go to the family,” Banks told her.
“Luke’s family! But they don’t care. They can’t…”
“Can’t what, Liz?”
“I was going to say they can’t appreciate his talent. They’ll just throw them away. How could you let something like that happen?”
“Can’t be helped. It’s the law.”
Liz shifted from foot to foot, arms folded, as if she needed to go to the toilet. “Look, couldn’t you go away and come back, just for a while, give me just a bit of time to get everything together?”
“We can’t do that, Liz. I’m sorry.”
“So you’ll just take everything and give it to Luke’s parents, just like that? You won’t even give me time to make copies.”
“This is a murder investigation,” Annie reminded her.
“But still…” Liz sat down, close to tears again. “It doesn’t seem fair. It seems such a waste… I don’t know. His parents don’t care. We were so close.”
“So close to what?”
“To making something of ourselves.”
Banks felt sorry for her. He suspected that she wanted to hang on to Luke’s tapes and writings for selfish reasons, so that the band could one day ride on Luke’s and his father’s coattails to success. If they couldn’t do it with Luke’s voice and talent, at least they could try to do it with some of his material. That Luke had been murdered would also, no doubt, help boost the public interest. Banks didn’t think particularly ill of Liz for this. He’d probably have wanted the same if he were in her situation and felt passionate about a career in music. He didn’t think it lessened her genuine feelings for Luke. But there was something else that bothered him – the way she had reacted when he had offered to help look around. He glanced at Annie. It was one of those rare moments when each knew what the other was thinking.
“Mind if we have a little look around?” Annie asked.
“What? Why? I’ve told you. I’ll give you everything you want.” She got up and went over to the tapes, picking out three. “These for a start. The writings are in-”
“Why are you so jumpy, Liz?”
“I’m not jumpy.”
“Yes, you are. I think we should have a look around the place.”
“You can’t do that. You need a search warrant.”
Banks sighed. Again. “Are you certain you want that?” he asked. “Because we can get one.”
“Go do it then. Get one.”
Banks looked at Annie. “DI Cabbot, will you please go-”
Liz looked from one to the other, puzzled. “Not just her. Both of you go.”
“It doesn’t work like that,” said Banks. “One of us has to stay here to make sure you don’t interfere with anything. We’d hardly be doing our jobs if we disappeared and let drug dealers flush their stuff down the toilet, would we?”
“I’m not a drug dealer.”
“I’m sure you’re not. But there’s something you don’t want us to find. I’ll stay here while DI Cabbot gets the warrant, then she’ll come back with four or five constables and we’ll tear the place apart.”
Liz turned so pale Banks worried she might faint. He could tell she was sensitive, and he didn’t like bullying her, but he didn’t like what had happened to Luke, either. “What’s it to be, Liz? Will you give us consent to look around now, or do we do it the hard way?”
Liz looked up at him, big eyes brimming with tears. “I don’t have much choice, do I?”
“There’s always a choice.”
“You’d find it anyway. I told Ryan he was stupid to keep it.”
“Find what, Liz?”
“It’s in the cupboard by the door, under the sleeping bag.”
Banks and Annie opened the cupboard by the door and moved aside the sleeping bag. Underneath it was a battered leather shoulder bag, exactly the kind that Luke Armitage had been carrying when the bullies taunted him in the market square.
“I think you and Ryan have got quite a bit of explaining to do, don’t you?” said Banks.
Chapter 15
The Bridge Fair came every March. As a young boy, Banks would go with his parents. He remembered sitting on his father’s knee in the Dodgem car, clinging on for dear life, remembered the feel of the rough nap and the raw-wool smell of his dad’s jacket, the sparks flashing off the high poles. He remembered strolling around holding his mother’s hand, eating candy floss or toffee apples while she nibbled at brandy snap and his father ate a hot dog smothered in fried onions. He would hear his father curse as he tried to throw biased darts at playing cards and his mother laugh as she tried to toss Ping-Pong balls into goldfish bowls.
But when Banks was fourteen, he wouldn’t be seen dead at the fair with his parents; he went with his mates, and Saturday night was the big night.
Why was it, he thought, as he drove past the small roadside fair that had sparked his memory, that they always seemed to be playing old rock and roll music at fairgrounds, even in the sixties? Whenever he thought of nights at the fair with Paul, Graham, Steve and Dave, it was always Freddy Cannon’s “Palisades Park” that played in his mind, or Eddie Cochran’s “Summertime Blues” as the Waltzers spun and the bright lights blazed in the dark, not The Beatles or The Rolling Stones.
His favorite ride was the Caterpillar, but you had to go on that one with a girl. As the train went faster and faster in undulating circles, the canvas cover, like a shop’s awning, would slowly unfurl until it covered up the whole ride – hence the name Caterpillar – and you were in the dark, riding fast with your girl. On his own, he liked the Waltzers and the Speedway best, but all rides were better shared with girls when you were fourteen.
For Banks and his friends, the fair began before it opened. He remembered passing the stretch of common ground with Graham one wet afternoon – it must have been 1965, because that was the only year Graham was around for the spring fair – and watching the brightly colored lorries roll in, watching the suspicious and unsmiling fair-workers unload sections of track and cars and begin the magical process of fitting the whole thing together. For the next two days, Banks would come back to check the progress, watch the men put the last section of the carousel into place, set up the booths, the stalls and the shies, and sure enough, everything was ready on opening night.
You had to go after dark. There was no point if the bright-colored lights didn’t flash and spin and if the music wasn’t loud, if the smell of fried onions and spun sugar didn’t waft through the night air to mingle with the discernible whiff of violence. For the fairs were where you went to pick a fight or settl
e your scores, and you could always see trouble brewing a mile off. First the looks, the whispers, the casual bumps, then someone running, others in pursuit, a scuffle and muffled cries, the fair-workers always somehow outside or beyond it all, stepping between the spokes as the Waltzers got faster and faster, collecting money, impressing the girls with their daredevil nonchalance.
And the girls… Well, the girls were all on parade at the fair, all bubble gum, miniskirts and eye shadow. “If you didn’t get shagged on Saturday night, you didn’t get shagged at all,” as the old rugby song went. Well, Banks didn’t get shagged, but he sometimes got kissed. That night it was Sylvia Nixon, a pretty little blonde from the girls’ school down the street. They’d been eyeing each other shyly all night, standing up on the boards right beside the rides, watching the riders scream and yell and cling on tight. She was with her quiet friend, June, that was the problem. Which Graham, bless his soul, helped solve. Soon they were off on the Caterpillar, and Banks felt that delicious anticipation as the cover started to close over them.
But something odd happened later.
Banks was persuading the girls to come with them to the park the next day if the weather was fine. There were plenty of sheltered, well-hidden areas where you could lie in the grass or stand up against a tree and snog. He was almost there, just overcoming the last, perfunctory shreds of resistance, when Graham said, “Sorry, I can’t go tomorrow.” When Banks asked him why, he just smiled vaguely and answered with his characteristic evasiveness, “I’ve got something else to do, that’s all.” The girls weren’t too thrilled with that, and Banks never got to go out with Sylvia Nixon again.
A fight broke out somewhere near the Dodgems, Banks remembered, and a couple of older men broke it up. But his chief memory, apart from kissing Sylvia on the Caterpillar and Graham’s weak reason for missing the next day’s rendezvous, was that Graham paid. Again. He had Benson amp; Hedges, too: ten of them, king-size, in the golden packet.
As Banks turned off the A1 to Peterborough, he racked his brains trying to remember if he had ever asked Graham where he got his money, but he didn’t think he had. Maybe he didn’t want to know. Kids are selfish, and as long as they’re having a good time they don’t feel the need to question where it’s coming from, or at whose expense it might be. But there weren’t many places a kid Graham’s age could get his hands on so much ready cash. The paper round wouldn’t cover it, but an occasional dip in the till might. Or perhaps he stole it from his mother’s purse?
The trouble was that it didn’t seem to matter so much, just as long as Graham had the money. That he was generous went without saying. But what had he done to get it, and where, and whom, had he got it from?
Now, Banks also found himself wondering what it was that Graham had to do that Sunday that was so much more important than snogging with Sylvia Nixon’s friend June in the park. And he remembered other occasions, too, right up until the day of his disappearance, when Graham simply wasn’t there. No reason, no excuse, no explanation.
Annie’s face was starting to ache when she went to interview Liz Palmer. She’d taken a couple of paracetamol earlier, but the effect was wearing off. She took another two and probed a loose tooth with her tongue. Wonderful. The last thing she needed was a trip to the dentist’s. That bastard Armitage. His high-priced lawyer had been down the station like a shot, and as soon as the custody officer had drawn up the papers charging Armitage with criminal assault, he’d been bound over to appear in front of the magistrate the following day and sent off home. Annie would have liked to see him cooling his heels in the custody suite at least overnight, but no such luck. He’d probably walk on the charges, too. People like him usually did.
Because the Luke Armitage murder was a high-profile case, Gristhorpe and DC Winsome Jackman were interviewing Ryan Milne at the same time next door. So far, since they had picked him up at the college, Milne had been about as forthcoming as Liz.
Annie took DC Kevin Templeton with her into interview room 2, made sure Liz was clear about her rights and started the tape recorders. As yet, Annie explained, no charges had been brought and nobody was under arrest. She simply wanted an explanation as to how Luke Armitage’s shoulder bag had got into Liz’s hall cupboard. The bag and its contents were already with forensics.
“You told me you last saw Luke at band practice in the church basement about a week before he disappeared, right?” Annie began.
Liz nodded. She slumped in her chair and worked at a fingernail, looking a lot younger than her twenty-one years.
“Did he have the shoulder bag with him?”
“He always had it with him.”
“Then what was it doing in your cupboard?”
“I’ve no idea.”
“How long has it been there?”
“Must’ve been since band practice.”
“He came to the flat first?”
“Yes.”
Annie glanced at Kevin Templeton and sighed. “Problem is, Liz,” she went on, “that the market square CCTV cameras caught Luke before he disappeared a week ago last Monday, and he had the bag with him then.”
“It must’ve been a new one.”
“No,” Annie said. “It was the same one.” She couldn’t be certain of that, of course – perhaps Luke had left his bag at Liz’s and bought a new one – but she thought it unlikely Luke would have left all his things there, too. After all, it wasn’t the bag itself that counted, but the possessions it contained: his notebook, his laptop computer, portable CD player, tapes and CDs.
Liz frowned. “Well, I don’t see how…”
“Me, neither. Unless you’re not telling us the truth.”
“Why would I lie?”
“Oh, come off it,” Kevin Templeton butted in. “Luke’s dead. I’d say that’s a pretty good reason to lie, wouldn’t you?”
Liz jerked forward. “I didn’t kill him! You can’t think I killed him.”
“I don’t know what we’re supposed to think,” said Annie, spreading her hands. “But I’m sure you can see our problem. Luke and his bag go missing, then Luke turns up dead, and we find his bag in your cupboard. Bit of a coincidence, don’t you think?”
“I’ve told you, I don’t know when he put it there.”
“Where were you that afternoon?”
“What afternoon?”
“The Monday Luke disappeared.”
“I don’t know. Home, I suppose.”
“Are you sure he didn’t call at the flat, then perhaps forget his bag when he went off somewhere else?” Annie knew she was giving Liz an out, but it seemed the only way to get her talking.
“I didn’t see him.”
“Did he have a key?”
“No.”
“So you couldn’t have gone out for a minute and he let himself in?”
“I don’t see how.”
So much for that line of questioning. “Liz, you’re not making our job any easier. I’ll ask you again: How did Luke’s bag find its way into your hall cupboard?”
“I told you, I don’t know.”
“And I don’t believe you.”
“Well, that’s your problem.”
“No, Liz. It’s your problem. And it’s going to be a very big one if you don’t tell us the truth soon.”
“Maybe it was Ryan,” Kevin Templeton suggested.
Liz looked confused. “Ryan? What do you mean?”
“Well,” Templeton went on, “let me tell you what I think happened.” Annie gave him the nod. “I think Luke went to your flat after he’d been in the market square-”
“No. I told you. He didn’t come that day.”
“Let me finish.”
“But it’s not true! You’re making it up.”
“Be quiet,” Annie said. “Listen to what DC Templeton has to say.”
Liz flopped back in her chair. “Whatever.”
“Luke came to your place after he’d been in the market square. It was late afternoon. Ryan was out and the two
of you thought you had time for a roll on the bed. He was a good-looking kid, fit, looked older than his age-”
“No! That didn’t happen. It wasn’t like that!”
“But Ryan came home and caught you at it. The two of them got in a scuffle and one way or another Luke ended up dead. I’m sure Ryan didn’t mean to kill him, but you had a body on your hands. What could you do? You waited until dark and then you loaded Luke’s body into the car and took it to Hallam Tarn, where Ryan hoisted him up the wall and dropped him over. He should have sunk the way dead bodies do, at least for a while, until they start to decompose and the gases build up and carry them to the surface, but he didn’t. His T-shirt snagged on an old tree root. Bad luck. Ryan wasn’t to know that. And nobody should have been in a position to find Luke because the whole area was quarantined due to foot-and-mouth restrictions. But a man from the Ministry had to take water samples. Bad luck, again. Ryan wasn’t to know that, either.” Templeton smiled, showing his white teeth, and folded his arms. “How am I doing so far, Liz?”
“It’s all lies. Nothing like that happened. You’re just making it up to get us in trouble. I’ve heard about the police doing things like this before.”
“You’re already in trouble,” Annie said. “We’re trying to help you out, find an explanation for what happened. Maybe it did happen the way DC Templeton suggested. Maybe it was an accident? If it was, we can help. But you have to tell us the truth.”
“Look, I don’t know how that bag got there,” Liz said. “We hadn’t seen Luke since the last band practice.”
“You’re not making it easy for us,” Annie said.
“I can’t help it! What do you want me to do? Make something up just to satisfy you?”
“I want the truth.”
“I’ve told you the truth.”
“You’ve told us nothing, Liz.”
“Look,” said Templeton, “we can check, you know. Our forensics people are very good.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean they’ll go through your flat with the proverbial fine-tooth comb, and if there’s any evidence of wrongdoing, even a drop of Luke’s blood, they’ll find it.”
Close To Home (aka The Summer That Never Was) Page 31