Sleeping in the Ground: An Inspector Banks Novel (Inspector Banks Novels)

by Peter Robinson

  14

  AC Gervaise had offered Gerry only DC Doug Wilson and PC Neil Stamford to help trace Mark Vincent, and while Stamford worked the phones from the incident room downstairs, and Doug Wilson questioned Edgeworth’s friends at the White Rose and the shooting club, Gerry cracked her knuckles and tilted the screen to suit her angle of vision. Where to begin? That was the question. She needed to find out as much as she could about Mark Vincent as quickly as possible, so they could make an assessment as to whether they were dealing with the killer or a red herring. Detective Superintendent Banks had phoned from Leeds and told her that Mark seemed to resemble Ray’s sketch, and why he might have had a motive for the shooting.

  In the first place, no matter what tricks PC Stamford tried, he couldn’t come up with a current address for a Mark Vincent. Gerry had half expected that and assumed he was operating under an alias. Gord, perhaps? It would be Wilson and Stamford’s job to see if that were the case and they could get past that little problem and find out what name he was using.

  Banks had already told her the basic details of what happened to him after Wendy’s murder. Digging a little deeper, she found that he had been born on 24 April 1953, and in 1964, after failing his eleven plus, he had attended Armley Park Secondary Modern School. Not long after his sister’s murder, his parents split up and he was sent to live with an aunt and uncle near Castleford, where he attended a local secondary modern.

  In the army, after basic training at Catterick, where he was apparently discovered to be an excellent marksman, he assumed active duty as a private in the 1st Battalion. Shortly after his eighteenth birthday, he was posted to Northern Ireland. His history there was sketchy. Gerry also discovered that the emblem of the regiment was a pair of wings with a parachute at their center, and that many soldiers had this tattooed on their upper arms or chests, sometimes with the words parachute regiment tattooed in a semicircle above or below the emblem. Banks had told her that Michael Charlton, one of the old gang members, had seen this tattoo less than a year ago.

  As Gerry went through the main points, she made notes. Later she would make some phone calls. The forces could be very cagey about giving out information, but she knew a major in the army equivalent of Human Resources at Catterick who had helped her in the past. Aunt Jane would be able to fill a few gaps, she was certain. It might cost Gerry a posh meal, as Aunt Jane loved her gourmet food, but it would be worth it. She was also good company.

  Mark Vincent later turned up as a corporal in Falklands War at the age of twenty-nine then disappeared again until he was promoted to sergeant in 1988. That didn’t last long, and he remained a corporal from then on. He would have been forty-seven by the time he turned up in Kosovo in 2000, Gerry reckoned. It didn’t seem like a very distinguished career, and the details of his discharge were vague to the point of being useless. Reading between the lines, Gerry guessed at best dishonorable, and at worst something to do with a massacre of innocent women and children, but again, perhaps Aunt Jane would be able to help.

  Vincent had been in Iraq for just a few months, in Basra, when he finally parted company with the army in 2003 at the age of fifty. The silences were beginning to tell her a lot more than skimpy details at this point. In the early noughties, it seemed that Vincent turned to a life of crime. He spent a short term in prison between 2008 and 2010 for burglary, then another, longer sentence for arson in 2012. Apparently, he had set fire to a failing business on the owner’s instructions for a share of the insurance money. He had also been suspected of involvement in people-trafficking young girls from the Balkans for sex, but the police had insufficient evidence to charge him. He didn’t come out of jail until February 2016, shortly after Frank Dowson had been convicted of Wendy Vincent’s murder.

  Jenny Fuller might be able to fill in some of the psychological insights once Gerry had managed to flesh out Vincent’s biography, but the skeleton of it was already in place. With any luck, Aunt Jane would be able to provide some illumination on the army’s role. And there would certainly be more details of his criminal activities in the West Yorkshire police files. She had asked Banks to ask if he would get DCI Blackstone to dig around in the records a bit. Banks said he would. Gerry was beginning to think that the super was as convinced as she was that Mark Vincent was their man, and that he was still somewhere within their reach.

  Perhaps the most important thing Gerry had learned was that Vincent had a criminal record, which meant there would be a photograph of him in the online archive.

  All in all, she thought, turning away from the screen and scribbling more notes on her pad, it hadn’t been a bad afternoon’s work.

  Ken Blackstone remained a staunch curry fan, though Banks found that spicy food was giving his digestion more gyp the older he became. He made sure to take an acid reducer before they settled down in the Indian restaurant on Burley Road that evening, on the southern fringe of the University of Leeds student area, and ordered a couple of pints of lager, samosas to start, then vindaloo for Blackstone and a lamb korma for Banks, with aloo gobi, rice and plenty of naans. Streetlights reflected in the wet dark streets through the plate-glass window. Passing cars sent up sheets of water from the gutters. Inside, the mingled smells of the cumin, cardamom and coriander overcame all Banks’s initial reservations, but he tapped his pocket to make sure he had more antacid tablets with him, just in case. Blackstone smiled.

  “It’s all very well for you to smirk,” said Banks. “We don’t all have cast-iron stomachs.”

  “Obviously not.”

  “Anyway, cheers.” They clinked glasses.

  “What brings you down to our fair city?” Blackstone asked.

  Banks explained about Martin Edgeworth and how an old murder had turned up in the background of the mother of the bride.

  “So you didn’t get the right man?”

  “I don’t think so. I think he was set up, poor sod.”

  “And this old murder is the answer?”

  “Could be. It might help provide us with one, at any rate. I was skeptical at first. Gerry’s apt to go running after any new idea that comes her way. But she’s sharp, and she has good instincts.”

  “So what can I do?”

  “It was on your patch, quite a bit before your time, but you might have heard of Frank Dowson.”

  “Of course. One of our big cold-case successes. He raped and stabbed a teenage girl in 1964.”

  “Right.”

  “But he’s dead,” said Blackstone. “Died in prison last March.”

  “I know that. It’s not him I’m after. It’s the victim’s brother.”

  “Wendy Vincent’s brother?”

  “Yes. Mark. He was eleven at the time.”

  Blackstone bit into a samosa and washed it down with lager. “Why now, after so long?”

  “I’ve thought about that a lot,” said Banks. “It was one of my first objections against Gerry’s theory. But people do nurse grudges. Feelings do fester. All they need is the right trigger, or triggers, and there were plenty of those.”

  “The trial?”

  “Among other things.” Banks told him about his chat with Michael Charlton and Wendy waiting for Maureen at the bus stop. “And after him,” he went on, “I tracked down a second old ‘gang’ member. A bloke called Ricky Bramble. Quite happily retired, and devoted to his allotment.”

  “Was he any use?”

  “Well, he confirmed what Charlton told me about his sister talking to Wendy Vincent at the bus stop, and about Mark Vincent’s reaction. He also confirmed that Mark Vincent doted on his big sister.”

  “Nobody dotes on their big sisters,” said Blackstone. “Believe me. I know. I have two.”

  Banks laughed. “Well,” he went on, “everyone knew that Wendy did sort of take care of her little brother, look out for him. Their parents weren’t always a lot of use, especially when they’d been drinking, which was most of the time, and Wendy took Mark under her wing. Protected him. But it seems that it was the memo
ry of Wendy that haunted Mark. According to Bramble, after the murder, and years later, when they met up again only a year or so ago, Mark used to talk about places he and Wendy had been when they were kids, hiding places from their parents, the little kindnesses she’d done for him, how she made him laugh and how angelic she was. He carried a photograph of her in his wallet. He even tried to describe what he thought she would look like today if she were still alive. It’s pretty weird stuff. And Ricky Bramble also verified that the sketch looked a lot like the Vincent he met last year.”

  “So her brother idolized her after her death?”

  “Yes,” said Banks. “Like Thomas Hardy did with his first wife, Emma. They hardly talked for years, but when she died, he wrote some beautiful poems about their early days, being in love, traveling around the Cornish coast.” As he spoke, Banks thought about Emily Hargreaves. Was he doing the same with her, despite what Julie Drake had told him? Perhaps. He certainly found it impossible to blame her for the action she had taken, hurtful though it was to him. And when he pictured her, it was the youthful, beautiful “first girl I ever loved” that he saw. Life can push people in unexpected directions, but he thought he would probably always feel that way about Emily. She was one of those rare girls that you just felt you wanted to be always happy, even if you weren’t going to be the source of that happiness.

  “And then Ricky Bramble comes out with a story about Wendy and Maureen that Mark never knew before,” Banks went on, “and it knocks him for six.”

  Suddenly, Banks thought, Maureen was a slag who was snogging some kid in an old house instead of meeting her friend to go shopping, and that cost her friend her life. Mark had made a paragon of Wendy and a pariah of Maureen. The angel and the whore. And as much as Wendy had become a symbol of purity to him over the years, enshrined in loving memory, the more easily Maureen now became the harlot, the betrayer, the destroyer. At least that was how Banks saw it. And the last straw: the wedding announcement. Maureen Tindall, mother of the happy, affluent, successful bride, marrying not just an ex-soldier, but a successful one, a true hero. All the things Mark Vincent had never had or had never been. That must have hurt.

  Banks picked up his briefcase. “Gerry found out that Vincent has picked up a criminal record since he left the Paras.” He told Blackstone about Mark Vincent’s prison terms for burglary and arson and suspicion of being involved in the traffic of young girls from Eastern Europe. “It happened on your patch, so I’m hoping you’ve got something on him in records. Particularly a good photograph.”

  Blackstone flipped through the file. “I’m sure we do,” he said. “We photograph everyone we charge, and it should all be on the national database, along with DNA and fingerprints. But you already know that.”

  “I was just hoping you might be able to dig out something a bit better than the mug shot from the archive.”

  “I suppose we could try. We might have something. It’s not as if you’re asking about a fifty-year-old case this time, the way you usually do. Our recent records are actually in pretty good shape. And I even know where to get my hands on them.”

  Banks scooped up a mouthful of korma with his naan. “I’m sure you do,” he said, when he had eaten it. It burned all the way down, even though the waiter had assured him it was mild. Banks glugged some chilled lager.

  “When would you like this information?”

  “Tomorrow morning will do.”

  Blackstone made a mock salute. “No problemo, sir. I’ll have one of my lads get right on it. Would you be requiring a scan, JPEG or courier job?”

  “What a bewildering array of choices. What’s fastest?”

  “JPEG, probably. I can email it to you.”

  “That’ll do nicely, then.”

  “Your wish, my command.”

  Banks grinned. “Thanks, Ken. I owe you.”

  “I’ll add it to the list.”

  They ate and drank in silence for a while, then Blackstone ordered a couple more pints of lager. Banks could use another one by then; his gut was burning. The nachos had had the same effect the other day. He wondered if there was something seriously wrong with him. Cancer, or something. Or a heart attack. Didn’t they sometimes start with what felt like indigestion? Maybe he should get checked out. On the other hand, it could just be a simple case of indigestion. In fact, the more he thought about, the more he felt it easing off, fading into the distance. He’d take another antacid later.

  “So tell me about your love life,” Blackstone said.

  “What love life?”

  “A little bird tells me that your profiler is back in town. Jenny Fuller.”

  “Are there no secrets?”

  “Word travels fast, old son. So? Is it true?”

  “That she’s back? Yes. She’s been gone a long time, Ken. A lot of water under the bridge.”

  “Oh, don’t try to fob me off with clichés.”

  “I’m not. There’s nothing to tell.”

  “You must know whether you’re in with a chance.”

  “I don’t, Ken. Really, I don’t. I don’t even know if I want to be.”

  “But you’ve talked about it, haven’t you? I can tell. That’s how it starts, you know.”

  “She’s still finding her feet. She thinks our moment may have passed.”

  “Bollocks. I doubt it’s her feet you’re interested in, though who knows? It takes all sorts. But I’d hurry up if I were you, mate, or believe me, someone will get there before you. From what I heard she’s still a bit of all right.”

  “A bit of all right? Christ, Ken, I haven’t heard that expression in years. Not since I was a teenager, at any rate. A bit of all right?”

  “OK, sorry. Getting carried away. But you’d be a fool not to go for it, you mark my words. Unless you’re too busy dallying with that poet of yours.”

  “She’s not mine, and I’m not dallying with her.”

  “‘Had we but world enough, and time . . .’”

  Banks laughed. “Who’s the poetry fan now?” He realized that he sometimes got too lost in morose thoughts and memories when he was alone for too long, and someone like Ken brought him out of himself. Banks was a man who took his life and his job very seriously indeed, but he was able to laugh at himself, too. He was tempted to tell Blackstone about Emily, and what Julie Drake had revealed to him on Saturday night, but that still felt too close to home, too private, too raw. He didn’t think he could bear to tell anyone. Not yet. Maybe not ever.

  “It’s one of the few I know,” said Blackstone. “I’ve even tried it out a couple of times on dates but it’s never worked.”

  They finished their food, paid the bill and lingered over their drinks for a while longer. Eventually Blackstone said, “You’re obviously not driving home tonight. Let’s get a cab, go back to mine and have a nightcap. I just picked up a jazz CD that might interest you. Maria Schneider, The Thomson Fields. Heard it?”

  “No.”

  “You’ll like it. But let’s go, before it gets too late. I don’t know about you, but I’m not the night owl I used to be anymore. You can come to the station with me in the morning before you set off home, and we’ll see what we can find on your Mark Vincent.”

  Banks finished his pint. “Sounds like a plan to me,” he said.

  Gerry made her way up the A1 for her meeting with Aunt Jane that evening. It was full dark already, and the road was busy with the last of the rush-hour traffic. Her windshield wipers were whipping back and forth at top speed to clear the filthy spray thrown up by the lorries ahead of her. The A167 through Northallerton would probably have been a more pleasant drive, Gerry thought as she slowed down for the roadworks north of Scotch Corner. Though the rain had stopped for now, for which Gerry was grateful, when she looked out from side to side, she saw lights gleaming on lakes where there should be fields. This was the danger point. The ground was so waterlogged that it couldn’t absorb any more moisture. One more heavy shower and banks would be broken and barriers breached. L
ow-lying neighborhoods would be flooded, streets evacuated, and perhaps even people would be killed.

  She pulled into the village of Hurworth-on-Tees and parked outside the church opposite the Bay Horse, where she had arranged to meet Aunt Jane for dinner. It was an expensive restaurant, she knew. She had been once before with a potential boyfriend who had been trying to impress her. The meal had impressed her very much, but unfortunately the suitor hadn’t. Her girlfriends had always said she was too fussy when it came to boyfriends, that she never gave anyone long enough to get to know them, but from Gerry’s point of view, she wasn’t so desperate for a man that she was willing to take the second rate. And in her experience the second rate didn’t take long to spot, and was second rate for good reason.

  Aunt Jane was already waiting at a table Gerry had reserved in the warm, soft glow of the dining room. The voices of the other diners were muffled and the servers came and went without fuss. She hoped she might be able to get some useful information tonight. She had been disappointed by the mug shot on the police Internet archive. It resembled the person in Ray Cabbot’s sketch, but not enough.

  Aunt Jane stood up to greet her, all six foot two of her. Gerry thought herself tall at six foot, and indeed she seemed so at work around her colleagues—only Winsome Jackman matched her—but Aunt Jane put her in the shadow. She was broad-shouldered and full-figured, clearly fit and sturdy, but in no way unfeminine. In fact, Gerry noticed a number of men in the dining room sneak an admiring glance as she stood up. Jane also looked a good ten or more years younger than fifty. Her blond hair was piled high, and that made her seem even taller. “Statuesque” was the word that came into Gerry’s mind. She wasn’t wearing a uniform tonight, but a simple black dress with a high neckline and a red waistcoat buttoned up the front. Bangles jingled like wind chimes around her wrists, and a simple string of pearls hung around her neck. The hoop earrings were just the right size. As usual, Gerry marveled at her elegance just as much as she had marveled years earlier.