Not Dark Yet

by Peter Robinson

  “You thought she might have been killed?”

  “There was a possibility that the rapist might have feared his identity being revealed,” Gerry said. “We had to consider that he might have decided the best course of action was to get rid of Marnie. That’s why my ears pricked up when you mentioned she was talking to a man.”

  “I’m sorry,” said Trevelyan. “If I’d known any of what you’ve just told me before, I’d have made sure we tracked him down. But, as you saw, he wasn’t anywhere near her when she went over the edge. Nobody was. And she didn’t try to stop herself from falling. It seemed quite deliberate to me.”

  “But she may still have been running away from him.”

  “I suppose so.”

  “It’s not your fault,” Annie said. “There was no way you could have known what had happened to Marnie back up north. Or her parents. She didn’t tell anyone, as far as we know. We’re still only just putting it together ourselves, and we don’t know who raped her. Besides, this makes even more sense. I mean the suicide. Given her state of mind. Everyone says she’d been anxious and depressed ever since it happened.”

  Trevelyan seemed lost in thought for a moment, then he said, “It didn’t make a lot of sense to us at first, even though her parents pretty much echoed what you say. But what you’ve told me just now at least puts it in context. There’s more.”

  “More?”

  “Yes. We didn’t want to tell her parents at first. They were upset enough that their daughter had killed herself. But they would have found out one way or another. Post-mortems and coroners’ reports are a matter of public record, for a start. Not to mention the possibility of loose tongues.”

  “What is it?” Annie asked, though she already had an inkling.

  “The post-mortem revealed that Marnie was pregnant when she died.”

  BANKS AWOKE with a start when his phone played the blues riff. The Bill Evans CD had long since finished. It was late afternoon and shadows were lengthening across his garden and over the sloping stretch of land between the back of his cottage and the lower pastures of Tetchley Fell.

  Banks answered. It was Ray Cabbot. “Alan, I heard what happened. Annie told me you got hit on the head. Are you OK? Do you want me to come over?”

  “No, Ray. I’m fine. It’s OK. You’re better staying there in case . . . you know, in case Zelda shows up.”

  “Right. I don’t suppose you’ve found anything new? She’s been gone nearly four days now. I’m going crazy here.”

  “Afraid not,” said Banks. “But I’ve been out of commission all day and I don’t remember anything. Annie would have told you, though, if there was any news. Just hang on.”

  “Annie said something about a fire. I’ve tried calling her, but she’s not been answering her phone.”

  “No. She and Gerry are in Dorset following up a lead on a rape case. They’re probably pretty busy.”

  “Dorset? Are you sure Zelda hasn’t been hurt? Did you find her?”

  “People have mentioned fire to me,” said Banks. “Unfortunately it’s something I don’t remember.” But as soon as he said it, he had the strange sensation that it wasn’t true, that the state of his memory now was different from when he had drifted off to Bill Evans. That the pieces had rearranged themselves while he slept. He didn’t want to risk saying anything to Ray, but he wanted to explore what that difference was. Could it have come back? Nobody really understood how memory worked. Maybe it was the music. Or a dream. He had no idea what triggered it, but he felt that it was all back, what happened two nights ago, and if he could just get some quiet time alone he could access it. “I’m really knackered, Ray,” he said. “And the doc says I’ve got to take it easy, so let’s leave this for now, shall we? I can’t tell you anything. I’m sure I’ll be right as rain tomorrow. Let’s get together then, OK?”

  “OK,” said Ray. “Sorry about . . . you know . . . Have a good rest.”

  People kept saying that, but Banks was hardly likely to get a good rest until he had remembered what he could. The images were still fragmented, his memory in flux, but there were more of them now, and some were firming up into clear pictures. He found that it didn’t take much effort to put them into a linear narrative. Waking with Keane looming over him, the smell of the petrol, a dark figure emerging from the shadows, Keane stiffening, stabbed from behind, spilling petrol, then Zelda stepping forward to cut his bonds. And the flames. It got a bit blurred again after that, with a sudden whoosh of flame and heat and Zelda shouting for him to run. Then he had woken up in the hospital bed.

  There were still a few blank spots to fill in. The things Keane had said, for a start. There was something important in that, he remembered, without being able to grasp exactly what it was. He relaxed. It would come, and it was no good trying to force it. Perhaps some more music and another nap would help?

  But it wasn’t to be. No sooner had he put some solo Thelonious Monk on, than his phone went off again. He was tempted not to answer, as it was a withheld number, but he gave in at the last moment and paused the music. As he had suspected, it was Burgess on the line.

  “How’s the head?” he asked.

  “Word sure gets around. It’s fine, thanks.”

  “Memory?”

  “Still a bit untrustworthy.”

  “I’d keep it that way if Newry’s on your trail.”

  “You know about that?”

  “Sure. And him. He’s a real bastard. Guilty till proven guilty.”

  “Thanks for the warning.”

  “That’s not why I called you.”

  “Oh?”

  “No. We found an arm—at least, a recycling plant worker out Croydon way did. Severed just below the shoulder. Wrapped in a black bin liner. It fell out right in front of his forklift.”

  “Whose arm?”

  “No idea. And no other body parts yet. They’re still scouring the area. The bad news is that there’s no hand, therefore no prints.”

  “Why tell me?”

  “Thought you’d be interested. This arm, there’s some decomposition, but it’s not too badly preserved, and it’s got a tat. A bit faded, but still readable with our technology. Looks like someone tried to scrub it off with bleach but didn’t quite succeed.”

  “Of what?”

  “My experts tell me it’s the insignia of some Croatian crime gang. ‘Loyal unto death’ or some such codswallop.”

  “Croatian?”

  “Thought you’d be interested. I’ll send up the details. And make sure you get plenty of—”

  “I know. Rest. Believe me, I’ve been trying. Thanks. Talk to you later.”

  Banks ended the call. An arm, he thought. Interesting. Then he started the solo Monk again and lay back in his chair.

  THERE WAS a definite aura of mourning in the Sedgwick household, though the curtains weren’t closed and neither Mr. nor Mrs. Sedgwick was dressed in black. There was a family photo taken in happier days on the mantelpiece, but no shrine to Marnie with candles burning and a vase of flowers. The mourning resided more in the general atmosphere and the numb, mechanical way Mrs. Sedgwick—Francine, she asked them to call her—made tea and carried in the tray while her husband—Dennis, please—put out a gateleg table in front of the green velour sofa. It was an unremarkable house on an unremarkable street, and its view consisted almost entirely of other unremarkable houses, with just a glimpse of the rolling green Dorset countryside in a gap between two terraces.

  The Sedgwicks looked older than Annie had expected, given that Marnie had been only nineteen when she died, but both seemed fit and trim despite a few wrinkles around the eyes and a touch of grey. Francine wore her hair long with a ragged fringe, and Dennis had his neatly cut with a side parting and a forelock that flopped over his brow. They were both casually dressed in jeans and short-sleeved shirts.

  The rain continued to batter against the large arched window in the living room as they settled down to tea and the McVitie’s chocolate digestives Franc
ine had laid out on a plate. Annie took one, but Gerry and Dennis didn’t.

  “We’re sorry to bring up memories that might still be painful for you,” Annie said, “but we need to talk to you about Marnie. Is that short for Marjorie, by the way?”

  “It is,” said Francine. “Her name is Marjorie, but she couldn’t pronounce it when she was young. It came out as Marnie, and it just kind of stuck. Especially when she got older and thought Marjorie sounded too old-fashioned.”

  “Nothing to do with the movie then?” said Gerry.

  Francine frowned. “What movie?”

  “Never mind.”

  Annie gave Gerry a sharp glance and went on. “We were wondering how long Marnie had been home until she . . . you know . . .”

  “Committed suicide?” said Dennis. “I know you’re not supposed to say that these days. It’s no longer PC, though Lord knows why, but that’s what happened. How long was it, dear? Not long.”

  “She came down at the beginning of May,” said Francine. “I can’t remember the exact date. The third or fourth, I think. But she was only home for a couple of weeks or so before she died.”

  “And during that time how did her behaviour seem?”

  “There was something wrong. She wouldn’t tell us what it was, and we couldn’t guess, but we knew things weren’t right with her. She shut herself up in her room a lot, missed meals because she said she wasn’t hungry. And mood swings. She had mood swings. We were starting to think we should try to persuade her to see a doctor when . . . it happened.”

  “Did Marnie have any eating disorders? Anorexia? Bulimia?”

  “No, never. She’d always had a healthy appetite, that’s why it seemed so strange.”

  “She wasn’t drinking or taking drugs as far as you know?”

  “No,” said Dennis. “I’m not saying she might not have experimented while she was at uni or living up north, but not while she was here. I’ve done a drug awareness course, and I think I would have known the signs.”

  “What kind of work do you do?”

  “I’m a teacher. Local comprehensive. And Francie here works in human resources at the hospital. I started my summer break early, and Francie is still on medical leave. Her nerves are bad.”

  “Sorry to hear it,” Annie mumbled. “We’ll try not to take up too much of your time.”

  “There’s no point pussyfooting around us,” Dennis said. Even though his wife looked alarmed, he went on, “We know that Marnie was pregnant when she jumped.”

  “Dennis!”

  “Sorry, love.” Dennis leaned over and patted his wife’s hand. “But it’s the truth.”

  “We know,” said Annie.

  “What we’d like to know,” Dennis went on, “is why the police are coming around now, over a month after our Marnie killed herself. And why the North Yorkshire police?”

  “Marnie lived in York,” said Gerry. “That’s not technically North Yorkshire—they’re very much a nation of their own—but we think Marnie is connected with an incident that took place between Harrogate and Ripon.”

  “What sort of incident?” asked Francine.

  Gerry glanced at Annie, who gave her a slight nod. “It was a rape,” Gerry said. “At a party.”

  “I told you,” said Mr. Sedgwick to his wife. “I told you Marnie wasn’t the sort of girl to get herself into trouble.”

  “But, Dennis,” she said. “She was raped. Our Marnie was raped. Oh, God.” She wielded a handkerchief from beneath her cushions and started to cry.

  Annie thought it was true that Dennis Sedgwick had made rape sound preferable to getting pregnant through consensual sex, but she didn’t think he had intended it to come out that way. It had been a thoughtless statement, but not a cruel or brutal one. She distracted herself with her tea and a biscuit while the Sedgwicks settled themselves back down again, and said, “It’s more than likely she had no idea what was happening to her. It looks as if someone slipped something in her drink. Rohypnol, something like that.”

  “She was drugged?” said Dennis.

  “It appears that way.”

  “Where was this party?”

  “At the home of a man called Connor Clive Blaydon. Have either of you ever heard of him?”

  They both shook their heads.

  “What was she doing there?” Francine asked.

  “She was working,” Gerry said.

  “But I thought she worked at Pizza Express?”

  “She did,” Gerry explained. “But she had another job—part-time—working for an events organiser.”

  “Doing what?” asked Francine.

  “Backroom stuff. Mostly in the kitchen. Helping the caterers. Organising.”

  “Then how did she become a victim?”

  “We don’t know. One of the guests must have had his eye on her and managed to get her alone. He might have persuaded her to have a drink he had drugged.”

  “She was always too trusting,” Dennis said. “Even when she was a little girl.”

  “We can’t know for certain,” Annie said, “because we haven’t yet found any witnesses willing to speak to us, or anyone who admits to knowing anything.”

  “Why not?” asked Dennis.

  “Mr. Blaydon, the host, was murdered about a month after the party. The 22nd May, to be precise.”

  “And you think these events are connected? Marnie’s rape and Blaydon’s murder.”

  “Not necessarily,” said Annie. “We’re just keeping an open mind. As you can no doubt work out, this was after Marnie’s suicide.”

  “Well, at least you’re not trying to accuse her of murder.”

  “No,” said Annie. “But as I’m sure you understand, with both a rape and a murder occurring so closely together, on the same premises, we can’t leave any corner unexamined. This Blaydon was involved with some pretty shady characters, and we think our best bet is that he was killed by a member of the Albanian Mafia.”

  “Mafia?” gasped Francine. “What was our Marnie doing with the Mafia?”

  “Nothing,” said Annie. “She was helping to organise the party, that’s all. She had nothing to do with the guests. I doubt she even knew there were such dangerous characters around.”

  “Until it was too late,” said Dennis.

  “Yes.”

  “Who was she working for?”

  “A woman called Charlotte Westlake. She was Mr. Blaydon’s personal assistant, and her background is in events organising.”

  “How did Marnie come to be working for her?”

  “It seemed she just wanted another job. Needed the money. Mrs. Westlake told us that most people who apply to her for jobs do so via word of mouth, so clearly someone who already worked for her, or had worked for her, suggested Marnie try it.”

  “Who was this?”

  “We don’t know. We have a list of present and previous employees, so it’s something we can find out if we need to. But it probably doesn’t matter. The fact is that she was working at this party at Mr. Blaydon’s house when someone drugged and raped her. She didn’t tell anyone.”

  “Then how do you know?”

  “There was a recording,” Gerry said. “A very poor one—the cam wasn’t working properly—but we managed to re-create an image of her face. Mrs. Westlake’s secretary had met her when she came for a job interview and identified her from that image as Marnie.”

  “A camera?” said Francine. “My God, are you saying someone recorded all this? Are you sure? Couldn’t there be some mistake?”

  “There could be,” said Annie, “but we don’t think so. As I said, we know that she was working at the house the night the attack occurred. Would you like to see the picture?”

  “Is it . . .”

  “It’s just head and shoulders.”

  Mrs. Sedgwick nodded and Annie took out the photo and showed it to her. She put it down. “It could be anyone, couldn’t it?”

  Her husband picked it up. “Francine’s right,” he said, tossing it back
towards Annie. “This doesn’t prove anything.”

  “We think it was Marnie,” Annie went on, “and we think that was why people say she was behaving strangely after that party. Mood swings. Depression. Shutting herself away. She couldn’t concentrate on her job at Pizza Express, so she left, then came home. That’s when you were briefly reunited.”

  “Did she know she was pregnant?” Francine asked, moving the hankie away from her face.

  “We don’t know,” said Annie. “We don’t even know for certain that the rape caused her pregnancy. If she knew, she never mentioned it to anyone we’ve talked to. All we can say is that she might have known, might have sensed the change in herself, even after just a month or so, while she was back with you. A missed period, perhaps, cramps, nausea, bloating, mood swings. And she was certainly upset enough by the rape itself for that to affect her behaviour. Do you know if she saw anyone in the two weeks she was down here? Old friends, perhaps?”

  “They’ve all moved away. There’s not much for young people to do around here. Most of them leave. Besides, she hardly ever went out.”

  “Only the walks,” said Dennis.

  “Yes, that’s true. She went for long walks sometimes. Disappeared for hours. We were quite worried about her.”

  “A witness saw her walking and talking to a man on the cliffs the day she died,” Annie said. “Do you know who that might have been?”

  “The police mentioned that to us, too,” said Dennis. “We have no idea. Could it be important? Could it be the man who . . . who raped her?”

  “There’s no evidence that he had anything to do with what happened to her,” Annie said. “And we don’t know who raped her. But it’s always good to talk to people who . . .” She paused. “Well, I don’t suppose we’ll manage that now. Whoever he is, he’ll be long gone. It probably isn’t relevant.”

  “We always told her not to talk to strangers,” said Dennis.

  “It wasn’t a stranger,” Francine said. “That’s what they’re saying. If she was walking and talking with him, he was probably someone she knew.”