Not Dark Yet

by Peter Robinson

  Trevelyan pointed to the west. “See that arch sticking out into the water there,” he said, “the one with the hole in it?”

  Annie saw it. From a distance it resembled a petrified brontosaurus, its long neck bent to drink from the sea. Still, she remembered, this area was supposed to be part of the Jurassic Coast, so why not? “From there?” she said.

  “Aye,” he said. “She ran out there and jumped right off the end, bounced off the cliff, and landed in the sea. It wasn’t as rough as it is today, but it still took a while to find her. Too late, of course.”

  They stood gazing at the spot, each lost in thought, the wind howling and raging around them. Annie tried to put herself in the mind of the young girl, humiliated and shamed by a rape that was no fault of her own, standing on that edge. What thoughts must have been whirling about in her mind? Was she already determined to jump, or did she suddenly decide to do it on the spot? Spur of the moment. Bad pun, she told herself, but unintentional.

  After a few minutes, Trevelyan broke the silence. “Seen enough?”

  Both Annie and Gerry nodded.

  “Right. I know a nice little tea shop not too far away that should be opening its doors just about now. Shall we go and have a chat?”

  THAT SAME morning, as Annie and Gerry were watching the rain in Dorset, an ambulance took Banks over to the Friarage hospital, in Northallerton. He didn’t think he needed it—he could have driven himself if someone had brought his car—but the rules were the rules. All his tests had shown good reflexes, and the MRI—noisy and claustrophobic, but otherwise painless—revealed no brain injury, so Banks was discharged.

  Dr. Chowdhury had already given him a list of symptoms to watch out for—including problems with speaking, walking or balance, numbness, blurred vision, fits, or personality changes—and told him not to watch TV or use his iPhone, to lay off the booze, take paracetamol for his headache, and to get in touch if his memory didn’t return within a few days.

  Most of all, he was supposed to avoid stress and get plenty of rest. But how was he supposed to do that, he wondered, with Zelda still missing, two burned bodies in the treatment plant, and his memory of events scrambled beyond recognition? Superintendent Newry from IOPC would no doubt be on his case again soon. If you were a policeman, you didn’t get to stumble out of a burning building leaving two bodies behind you and not remember a thing without at least a stiff interrogation.

  The doctor also suggested that it might be a good idea to get someone to stay with him for the first forty-eight hours to watch out for any danger signs that may be more easily spotted by an outside observer, such as personality changes. As far as Banks was concerned, that was a no-no. He had had enough being woken up at regular intervals during his two nights in hospital. Besides, he didn’t know anyone who would do it, or who he wanted to do it. Ray Cabbot probably would, but Banks knew that Ray was in no shape to play babysitter with Zelda gone. And Ray’s presence would just make him feel edgy and guilty about not having found her.

  It would be too awkward having Annie around, even if she wasn’t away in Dorset. They had ended their relationship some years ago, mostly because they worked together, and he was of higher rank, but there were enough sparks remaining to make both wary of too close contact. Talk about stress. Anyone else, like Ken Blackstone in Leeds and Burgess in London, was simply too far away. Family was out of the question, too. He wasn’t going to burden Brian with his problems when he only had two or three more gigs to play with the band, or intrude on Tracy’s newly-wedded bliss with Mark. He figured he could probably keep an eye on himself.

  Getting home was another matter, though, as his car was still in the drive outside Newhope Cottage. He had no qualms about asking a local constable to drop him off.

  When he got there, three CSIs were still puttering around the front, and they gave Banks an embarrassing round of applause when he got out of the car. Wonderful, he thought, now even his home was a crime scene. He thanked the constable, and she drove off back to Northallerton.

  “Found anything yet?” Banks asked Stefan Nowak, the Crime Scene Manager.

  “Tyre tracks,” answered Nowak. “Fingerprints on your door frame. Most of them probably yours. A few drops of blood, also probably yours, but hardly enough to cause anyone great concern. And cigarette ends. Whoever did it must have had a long boring wait. They’re similar to the ones we found near Ray Cabbot’s cottage a few days ago. Ronhill. Croatian. Go ahead and get some rest. You look terrible. We’re done now. We’ve got all there is to find. Oh, and maybe you should check your valuables, you know, just to make sure they didn’t take anything. There’s no evidence they even entered the house, but just to be on the safe side.”

  “Thanks, Stefan. I will,” said Banks, trying to think exactly what his valuables might be. “Though I very much doubt that was what it was about.”

  “Seeing as it’s not a serious crime scene, and the house wasn’t broken into, you can go in. We won’t seal the place up with tape.”

  “You mean me getting bashed on the head and abducted isn’t serious?”

  “Well, if you put it that way. John! Bring that crime scene tape over here.”

  “Away with you,” said Banks, smiling. “On your way.”

  Nowak walked towards the CSI van, grinned back over his shoulder and waved.

  It was strange, Banks felt, that he could understand all the events Stefan was talking about—fingerprints, Croatian cigarettes, blood—but he still couldn’t remember a thing about what happened to him two nights ago. Apart from a flickering image of flames and a voice—Zelda’s voice?—telling him to run, it was still a blank.

  He went into the cottage and saw that nothing appeared to have been disturbed in the front room. His computer was still intact. The entertainment room and kitchen were also untouched. Nothing was missing or out of place. They had come for him, not his possessions.

  Besides, what other people might call valuables were just things as far as Banks was concerned: electronic equipment, books, CDs, DVDs, and so on could all be replaced. Most of them, at any rate. The only true valuables he owned consisted of mementos of his own and his children’s growing up: letters, old photographs, certificates, newspaper cuttings, and odds and ends from his grandparents, like a World War One bullet, a fragment of shrapnel, and a tarnished cigarette lighter with a dent in it, which his grandfather had said saved him from a German bullet. Banks smiled. Everyone in the family knew that was a tall tale, but they all pretended they believed it for the sake of the old man’s pride. After all, he had fought at the Somme and survived.

  Thieves often took or destroyed things like this, with sentimental value for only the owner, but in this case, the box in which Banks stored them still nestled securely beside a similar box of his old Beano and Dandy annuals on top of his wardrobe.

  Feeling tired, Banks thought he would go into the conservatory, have a glass of wine, and maybe doze for a while. He remembered Dr. Chowdhury’s strictures against alcohol, but doctors were always saying things like that. One glass wouldn’t do any harm. He opened a bottle of Languedoc and put on an old Bill Evans CD, the Half Moon Bay concert, then settled down in his favourite wicker chair, feet up on a low stool. He wasn’t supposed to watch TV or work on his computer, or even play games on his iPhone, but he didn’t feel like doing any of those things, anyway. Surely a little cool jazz wouldn’t do any harm? It was good for the soul, as was the wine. Dr. Chowdhury had cleared him for sleep, and the tests showed no serious damage. Which was just as well, as he started drifting off during “Autumn Leaves.”

  “UNFORTUNATELY, IT’S not the right time of day for one of our famous cream teas,” said Trevelyan, “but if you’re still around this afternoon, may I recommend that you sample one here?”

  Annie wasn’t hungry so soon after breakfast, but she thought they might stick around another night, as they had to go to Wool to talk to the Sedgwicks later. Tea time would be very late to set off on such a long drive back up nor
th if the weather remained so bad. Was there anything in a cream tea she wasn’t supposed to eat? Only calories, she thought. She wondered how Alan and Ray were doing back up in Eastvale. She didn’t want to phone and spoil Banks’s rest, if that was what he was doing, and she trusted AC Gervaise to call if there were any developments.

  The three of them sat at a window table in a twee cafe in West Lulworth watching the passers-by hurry past, heads down, umbrellas up. The inside of the window was slightly steamed up, and along with the splattering of rain, it gave the view an Impressionist effect. And it was too hot in the cafe. Why did everyone have to turn the heating up when it rained? Annie sipped some tea and turned her mind back to the place they had just visited. Lulworth Cove and Durdle Door. Again, her heart weighed heavy at the thought of Marnie standing there, her life in pieces, then falling. No, jumping. And not standing. Running.

  “It was a lovely day,” Trevelyan said.

  Annie thought she might have missed something as she had been so lost in reverie. “What? When?”

  “The day Marnie Sedgwick died.” He gestured towards the window. “It wasn’t like this. The sun was shining, not a cloud in the sky, the water was all blue around the cove from the minerals in the rocks. There were boats out.”

  “It was daylight?”

  “Mid-afternoon.”

  “I meant to ask you this before,” Annie said, “but can you be absolutely certain that Marnie took her own life? There was no one else around?”

  “There were lots of people around for a weekday,” said Trevelyan. “That’s why we can be sure. More eyewitnesses than you could shake a stick at. There was one group of Japanese tourists saw the whole thing. In shock, they were. We had to get an interpreter. They were on some sort of Hardy tour—Thomas, that is, our local celeb. One of his characters goes for a swim in the sea at Lulworth in Far from the Madding Crowd, and they all come by the coachload to see the spot. Can’t understand it myself, as it never happened, it was all just made up.”

  “Terence Stamp,” said Gerry.

  Annie looked at her. “Come again?”

  “The one who swam out to sea, faked his suicide. Sergeant Troy, played by Terence Stamp. I’ve seen the film. Julie Christie as Bathsheba Everdene. There’s a more recent version with Carey—”

  “OK, Gerry. But remember, we’re not on a Hardy tour.”

  “Sorry, guv. My dad was a movie buff. I can’t help it. And I was just thinking, you know, the suicide connection.”

  Trevelyan smiled at the exchange. “It’s a good point,” he said to Gerry. “Though Marnie Sedgwick wasn’t faking it. At least twenty people saw her run out on Durdle Door and launch herself off the end. As you saw, the arch bellies out a bit and she hit the rock face as she went down. The pathologist says that was what killed her. A head wound. Fractured skull. After that she dropped in the sea and the waves battered her against the base of the arch until a boat managed to get close enough to haul her out. It was too late by then.”

  Both Annie and Gerry silently contemplated Marnie’s fate. “Do you get a lot of people jumping off this Durdle Door?” Annie asked.

  “Every summer. It’s quite a popular sport among the young folk.”

  “But they don’t all die.”

  “Of course not. We have the occasional serious accident, though, and the air ambulances are out there often enough, but there are spots where you can jump safely and avoid the outfling and the rocks at the bottom. The tides, too, of course.”

  “But Marnie didn’t do that?”

  “No.”

  “Would she have known the lie of the land?”

  “According to her parents, Lulworth was one of her favourite spots. She loved the whole Jurassic Coast, no matter what the season.”

  “Did she leave a note?”

  “No. But there again—”

  “Many suicides don’t,” said Annie. “We know. But there’s no doubt in your mind that it was suicide?”

  “None at all. Either that or she slipped and fell, but the majority of our witnesses say she definitely ran off the end.”

  “Ran,” said Annie. “You’ve mentioned that a few times and it strikes me as odd. Why was she running?”

  “Nobody knows. Maybe she didn’t want to give herself a chance to change her mind.”

  “Or maybe she was being chased,” said Annie.

  Trevelyan flashed her a stern glance. “We’re not the country hicks you might think we are down here, DI Cabbot. While there was hardly a major investigation, we did ask around. Marnie had been seen walking with and talking to a man in the car park and on the cliffs earlier. We couldn’t get any sort of decent description except he was older, slender, medium height, with a touch of grey and, whoever he was, he was never seen again. The only unusual thing about him was that he was wearing a suit. You don’t get a lot of that around here. There was certainly no one chasing her when she ran out on to the Door and jumped off the end.”

  “What were they doing? Arguing? Holding hands?”

  “Just walking and talking, as far as we know,” said Trevelyan. “Nobody noticed anything unusual or potentially alarming.”

  “Any photos or videos of him?”

  “None that we saw.”

  “Was there an investigation?”

  “Only a cursory one, as I said, for the coroner’s court.” Trevelyan took a tablet from his briefcase. “And there’s more. I don’t want to upset you, but . . .” He turned the tablet on and went to the menu, then passed it to Annie. “One of the Japanese tourists was taking videos of Durdle at the time.”

  Annie held the tablet so that only she and Gerry could see it and pressed the start button for the video clip Trevelyan had selected. It began with a slow panorama of the sea and cliffs, the wind whistling in the microphone, white gulls swooping over the water’s surface. Then there was an audible human gasp and the image jumped chaotically before it caught the end of Durdle Door and a human figure running. She didn’t launch herself so much as fall like a rag doll and bounce off the cliff face. Annie felt sick and Gerry looked pale. But they watched it again. There was no indication that she had simply overbalanced or tried to dive into the sea.

  “Sorry,” said Trevelyan, “but that’s pretty conclusive, I’d say. There’s no sign of anyone chasing her. Naturally, we made sure the video was never shared on social media.”

  “What about her stuff? Her mobile and so on?”

  “The mobile must have gone with her over the cliff. We never found it. She had nothing else except a few quid and a set of car keys in her jeans pocket. Her car was in the car park. She’d even paid.”

  “How long?”

  “Two hours. She arrived at 12:27.”

  “And was seen with the man when?”

  “Around that time in the car park and about fifteen minutes later on the cliffs.”

  “After that?”

  “She jumped at 12:54, according to the timer on the video.”

  “What happened to the man she was talking to?”

  “Someone saw him get into a car at about ten to or five to one. They couldn’t be certain.”

  “What sort of car?”

  “A posh one was all we heard. Maybe a Jag or a Beemer. Silver.”

  “CCTV? ANPR?”

  Trevelyan shook his head. “It was too late by the time we heard all this. Recordings had been wiped over. To be honest, we didn’t scour every possible source. There was no evidence that the man had anything to do with Marnie’s suicide.”

  “But he might have given her cause,” Gerry said.

  “We’d still no reason to suspect him of any crime.”

  “Isn’t it a bit odd, though,” Gerry went on, “that Marnie would bother paying for the parking when she was intending to take her own life?”

  “People follow habit, as often as not,” said Trevelyan. “If you’re the sort of person who always pays your way, you’ll just as likely do that even if you’re planning suicide. Still, it’s true that we
don’t know she was planning any such thing. It might have been a sudden decision—it might even have had something to do with the man she was talking to—but as far as we were concerned, her death did not involve foul play or suspicious circumstances. Maybe you see it differently.” Trevelyan put the tablet back in his briefcase and paused a moment. “Now,” he said, “I think you’d agree that I’ve been both patient and helpful so far. But you still haven’t told me anything about why you’re interested. Wouldn’t this be a good time to tell me?”

  “I’m sorry,” said Annie. “You’re right, of course. We have evidence that Marnie Sedgwick was raped at a party in the house of a man called Connor Clive Blaydon back on 13 April of this year.”

  “Do you have any idea who did it?”

  “No,” said Annie. “The only evidence so far consists of a poor quality microSD recording from which we managed to enhance a picture of Marnie, but not of the rapist. We only found the recording some time after the event, while our CSIs were searching Blaydon’s house. He was murdered in a particularly brutal fashion about a month later.”

  “And you think that’s connected with what happened to Marnie?”

  “We don’t think anything. We don’t necessarily think Blaydon was the one who raped her. He could have been, but now we know for certain that Marnie didn’t kill him. She died five days before he did. But everyone we’ve talked to has told us about the change in her after the date of the rape. How she became depressed, moody, anxious. Now you tell us—show us—that she took her own life about a month later.”