Aitcheson sat down and clasped his hands behind the back of his neck, still smiling. Up close, he looked older than Banks had first guessed – maybe late thirties – balding, with yellowing front teeth that were rather long and lupine. A few flakes of dandruff speckled the shoulders of his suit. It was hardly fair, Banks thought, that even when you’re going bald you still get dandruff. ‘Okay, Mr Banks,’ said Aitcheson, ‘what can I do for you? You mentioned a business proposition.’
Banks felt a little more at home now. Smarmy smile and suit aside, he had dealt with pillocks like Aitcheson before, even if their offices weren’t as pretty and they didn’t bother to offer up a smug façade of decency. He took the truncated picture of Emily Riddle from his briefcase and put it on the desk, turning it so that Aitcheson could see the image the right way up. ‘I’d like you to tell me where I can find this girl,’ he said.
Aitcheson studied the photo. His smile faltered a moment, then returned full force as he pushed the photograph back towards Banks. ‘I’m afraid we don’t give out that sort of information about our models, sir. For their own protection, you understand. We get some . . . well, some rather strange people in this business, as I’m sure you can understand.’
‘So she is one of your models?’
‘I was speaking generally, sir. Even if she were, I couldn’t give you the information you want.’
‘Do you recognize her?’
‘No.’
‘What if I told you this came from a website run by your company?’
‘We operate several websites, sir. They act as a major part of our interface with the public.’ He smiled. ‘You have to be on the web these days if you want to stay in business.’
Interface. That word again. It seemed to be a sort of buzzword around GlamourPuss Ltd. ‘Are escort services part of your business?’
‘We have an escort agency as one of our subsidiary companies, yes, but you can’t just bring in a girl’s picture from one of our websites and place an order for her. That would be tantamount to pimping on our part.’
‘And you don’t do that?’
‘We do not.’
‘What exactly is your business?’
‘I should have thought that was obvious. Erotica in all its forms. Sex aids, videos, magazines, erotic encasement equipment and services, website design and hosting, CD-ROM, travel arrangements.’
‘Erotic encasement equipment and services?’
Aitcheson smiled. ‘It’s a variation on bondage. Mummification’s the most popular. Some people liken it to an erotic meditative state, a sort of sexual nirvana. But there are those who simply prefer to be wrapped in cling film with rose thorns pressed against their flesh. It’s all a matter of taste.’
‘I suppose it is,’ said Banks, who was still trying to get his head around mummification. ‘And travel arrangements? What travel arrangements?’
Aitcheson graced Banks with a condescending smile. ‘Let’s say you’re gay and you want a cruise down the Nile with like-minded people. We can arrange it. Or a weekend in Amsterdam. A sex tour of Bangkok.’
‘Discount vouchers for brothels? Fifty pee off your next dildo? That sort of thing?’
Aitcheson moved to stand up, his smile gone. ‘I think that’s about all the time I can spare you at the moment, sir.’
Banks stood up, leaned over the desk and pushed him back down into his chair. It wheeled back a couple of inches and hit the wall, taking out a small chunk of plaster.
‘Just a minute!’ Aitcheson said.
Banks shook his head. ‘You don’t understand. That picture came from your website. Even if you don’t remember putting it up there yourself, you can find out who did and where it came from.’
‘What’s this got to do with you anyway? Wait a minute. Are you a copper?’
Banks paused and glanced down at the photo again. The younger version of Rosalind Riddle’s features – pale skin, pouting lips, high cheekbones, blue eyes – looked up at him from under her fringe with a sort of mocking, come-hither sexuality. ‘It’s my daughter,’ he said. ‘I’m trying to find her.’
‘Well, I’m sorry, but we don’t run a location service for missing kids. There are organizations—’
‘Pity, that,’ Banks cut in. ‘Her being so young, and all.’
‘What do you mean?’
Banks tapped the photo. ‘She can’t have been more than fifteen when this was taken.’
‘Look, I’m not responsible for—’
‘I think you’ll discover that the law says otherwise. Believe me, I’ve read up on it.’ Banks leaned forward and rested his hands on the desk. ‘Mr Aitcheson,’ he said, ‘here’s my business proposition. There are two parts to it, actually, in case one of them alone doesn’t appeal. I must admit, I’m not always certain justice is done when you bring in the police and the lawyers. Are you? I mean, you could probably beat the charges of distribution and publication of indecent photographs of minors. Probably. But it could be an expensive business. And I don’t think you’d like the sort of interface it would create with your public. Do you follow? Child pornography is such an emotive term, isn’t it?’
Aitcheson’s smile had vanished completely now. ‘You sure you’re not a copper?’ he whispered. ‘Or a lawyer?’
‘Me? I’m just a simple working man.’
‘Two parts. You said two parts.’
‘Ah, yes,’ said Banks. ‘As I said, I’m a simple working man, and I wouldn’t want to get tangled up with the law myself. Besides, it would be bad for young Louisa, wouldn’t it? All that limelight, giving evidence in court and all that. Embarrassing. Now, I work on a building site up north, and my fellow workers tend to be a conservative, even rather prudish lot when it comes to this sort of thing. It’s not that they mind looking at a pair of tits on a Playboy centrefold or anything like that, mind you, but, believe me, I’ve heard them talking about child pornography, and I wouldn’t want to be on the receiving end of some of the actions they propose to deal with the people who spread it, if you know what I mean.’
‘Is this a threat?’
‘Why not? Yes, let’s call it that: a threat. Suits me. Now, you tell me what I want to know, and I won’t tell the lads at the building site about GlamourPuss exploiting young Louisa. Some of them have known her since she was a little baby, you know. They’re very protective. As a matter of fact, most of them will be down here next week to see Leeds play Arsenal. I’m sure they’d be happy to find the time to drop by your offices, maybe do a bit of remodelling. Does that sound like a good deal to you?’
Aitcheson swallowed and stared at Banks, who held his gaze. Finally, he brought out his smile again, a bit weaker now. ‘It really is a threat, isn’t it?’
‘I thought I’d already made that clear. Do we have a deal?’
Aitcheson waved his arm. ‘All right, all right. I’ll see what I can do. Can you come back on Monday? We’re shut over the weekend.’
‘I’d rather we got it over with now.’
‘It might take a while.’
‘I can wait.’
Banks waited. It took all of twenty minutes, then Aitcheson came back into the office looking worried. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, ‘but we just don’t have the information you require.’
‘Come again?’
‘We don’t have it. The model’s address. She’s not on our books, not part of our . . . I mean, it was an amateur shoot. I seem to remember she was the photographer’s girlfriend. He used to do some work for us now and then, and apparently he took those photos as a bit of a lark. I’m sure he didn’t know the model’s true age. She looks much older.’
‘She’s always looked older than her years,’ Banks said. ‘It’s got a lot of boys into trouble. Well, I’m relieved to hear she’s not on your books, but I don’t think we’re a lot further forward than when I first arrived, do you? Is there anything you can do to make amends?’
Aitcheson paused, then said, ‘I shouldn’t, but I can give you the photographer�
�s name and address. Craig Newton. As I said, he used to do a spot of work for us now and then, and we’ve still got him on file. We just got a change of address notice from him a short while ago, as a matter of fact.’
Banks nodded. ‘It’ll have to do.’ Aitcheson scribbled down an address for him. It was in Stony Stratford, commuter country. Banks stood up to leave. ‘One more thing,’ he said.
‘Yes?’
‘Those photos of Louisa on your website. Get rid of them.’
Aitcheson allowed himself a self-satisfied smile. ‘Actually,’ he said. ‘I’ve done that already. While you were waiting.’
Banks smiled back and tapped the side of his nose with his forefinger. ‘Good lad,’ he said. ‘You’re learning.’
Back at his hotel, Banks picked up the telephone and did what he had been putting off ever since he discovered he was bound for London the previous day. Not because it was something he didn’t want to do, but because he was nervous and uncertain of the outcome. And there was so much at stake.
She answered on the fourth ring. Banks’s heart pounded. ‘Sandra?’
‘Yes. Who is this? Alan?’
‘Yes.’
‘What do you want? I’m in a bit of a hurry right now. I was just on my way out.’
‘Off somewhere with Sean?’
‘There’s no need to make it sound like that. And as a matter of fact, no, I’m not. Sean’s away photographing flood damage in Wales.’
Let’s hope the flood water carries him away with it, Banks thought, but bit his tongue. ‘I’m in town,’ he said. ‘In London. I was wondering if, maybe, tomorrow night you might be free for a meal. Or we could just have a drink. Lunch, even.’
‘What are you doing down here? Working?’
‘In a manner of speaking. Are you free?’
He could almost hear Sandra thinking across the wires. Finally, she said, ‘Yes. Actually. Yes, I am. Sean won’t be back until Sunday.’
‘So will you have dinner with me tomorrow night?’
‘Yes. All right. That’s a good idea. There’s a few things we have to talk about.’ She named a restaurant on Camden High Street, not far from where she lived. ‘Seven thirty?’
‘Can you make it eight, just to be on the safe side?’
‘Eight, then.’
‘Fine. See you there.’
‘See you.’
Sandra hung up and Banks was left with the dead line buzzing in his ear. Maybe she hadn’t exactly welcomed him with open arms, but she hadn’t cut him off, either. More importantly, she had agreed to see him tomorrow. And dinner was far more intimate than lunch or a quick drink in the afternoon. It was a good sign.
It was already dark by late afternoon when Banks took the train out of Euston. The Virgin InterCity sped through Hemel Hempstead so fast he could hardly read the station nameplate, then it slowed down near Berkhamsted for no reason Banks was aware of except that trains did that every now and then – something to do with leaves on the tracks, or a cow in a tunnel.
Berkhamsted was where Graham Greene came from, Banks remembered from A Sort of Life, which he had read a year or two ago. Greene had been one of his favourite writers ever since he first saw The Third Man on television back in the old Met days. After that, in his usual obsessive fashion, he collected and read everything he could get his hands on, from the ‘entertainments’ to the serious novels, films on video, essays and short stories.
He was particularly taken by the story of the nineteen- or twenty-year-old Greene going out to Ashbridge Park in Berkhamsted with a loaded revolver to play Russian roulette. It was eerie now to imagine the awkward, gangly young man, destined to become one of the century’s most famous writers, clicking on an empty chamber that autumn more than seventy-five years ago, not far from where the train had just stopped.
Banks had also been impressed by Greene’s writings on childhood, about how we are all ‘emigrants from a country we remember too little of’, how important to us are the fragments we do remember clearly and how we spend our time trying to reconstruct ourselves from these.
For years, Banks hadn’t dwelled much on his past, but since Sandra had left him a year ago, he had found himself returning over and over again to certain incidents; the heightened moments of joy and fear and guilt, along with the objects, sights, sounds and smells that brought them back, like Proust’s madeleines, as if he were looking for clues to his future. He remembered reading that Greene, as a child, had had a number of confrontations with death, and these had helped shape his life. Banks had experienced the same thing, and he thought that in some obscure, symbolic way they partly explained why he had become a policeman.
He remembered, for example, the hot summer day when Phil Simpkins wrapped his rope around the high tree in the churchyard and spiralled down, yelling like Tarzan, right onto the spiked railings. Banks knew he would never forget the squishy thud that the body made as it hit. There had been no adults around. Banks and two others had pulled their writhing, screaming friend off the railings and stood there wondering what to do while he bled to death, soaking them in the blood that gushed from a pierced artery in his thigh. Someone later said they should have tied a tourniquet and sent for help. But they had panicked, frozen. Would Phil have lived if they hadn’t? Banks thought not, but it was a possibility, and a mistake he had lived with all his life.
Then there was Jem, a neighbour in his Notting Hill days, who had died of a heroin overdose; and Graham Marshall, a shy, quiet classmate who had gone missing and never been found. In his own way, Banks felt he was responsible for them, too. So many deaths for one so young. Sometimes Banks felt as if he had blood on his hands, that he had let so many people down.
The train stopped in Milton Keynes. Banks got off, walked up the stairs and along the overpass to the station exit.
He had never been to Milton Keynes before, though he had heard plenty of jokes about the place. One of the new towns built in the late 1960s, it was constructed on a grid system, with planned social centres, hidden pedestrian paths rather than pavements, and hundreds of roundabouts. It sounded like the sort of design that would go down well in America, but the British sneered at it. Still, at not much over half an hour by train from London, and a much cheaper place to live, it was ideal commuting territory.
As it was, it was too dark to see much of the place. The taxi seemed to circle roundabout after roundabout, all of them with numbers, like V5 and H6. Banks didn’t see any pavements or people out walking. He hadn’t a clue where he was.
Finally, when the taxi turned into Stony Stratford, he found himself on a typical old village high street, with ancient pubs and shop façades. For a moment, he wondered if it was all fake, just a faux finish to give the illusion of a real English village in the midst of all that concrete and glass modernity. It seemed real enough, though, and when the taxi pulled into a street of tall, narrow pre-war terraced houses, he guessed that it probably was real.
The youth who answered the door looked to be in his mid- to late twenties; he wore black jeans and a grey sweatshirt advertising an American football team. He was about Banks’s height, around five foot eight or nine, with curly dark hair and finely chiselled features. His nose had a little bump at the bridge, as if it had been broken and not properly set, and he was holding something that looked like a squat vacuum flask, which he kept tipping gently from side to side. Banks recognized it as a developing tank.
Craig Newton, if that indeed was who it was, looked both puzzled and annoyed to find a stranger on his doorstep early on a Friday evening. Banks didn’t look like an insurance salesman – besides, how many salesmen still called at houses in these days of direct mail and electronic advertising? He also didn’t look like a religious type, or a copper.
‘What are you collecting for?’ Newton asked. ‘I’m busy.’
‘Mr Newton? Craig Newton?’
‘Yes. What do you want?’
‘Mind if I come in for a moment?’
‘Yes, I do. Tell m
e what you want.’
‘It’s about Louisa.’
Craig Newton stepped back a couple of inches, clearly startled. ‘Louisa? What about her?’
‘You do know her, then?’
‘Of course I do. If it’s the same person we’re talking about. Louisa. Louisa Gamine.’ He pronounced it in Italian fashion, with a stress on the final e. ‘What’s wrong? Has something happened to Louisa?’
‘Can I come in?’
He stood back and gave Banks enough room to enter. ‘Yes, I’m sorry. Please.’
Banks followed him down a narrow hall into the front room. These old terrace houses weren’t very wide, but they made up for it in length, with both kitchen and bathroom tacked on at the back like afterthoughts. Comfortably messy, the first thing the room told Banks was that Newton probably lived alone. A number of magazines, mostly to do with photography or movies, littered the coffee table, along with a few empty lager cans. A TV set stood at the far end. The Simpsons was showing. There was also a faint whiff of marijuana in the air, though Newton didn’t appear stoned at all.
‘Has something happened to Louisa?’ he asked again. ‘Is that why you’re here? Are you a policeman?’
‘Nothing’s happened to her as far as I know,’ said Banks. ‘And no, I’m not a policeman. I’m looking for her.’
Craig frowned. ‘Looking for Louisa? Why? I don’t follow.’
‘I’m her father.’ The lies were starting to come rather more easily now, after just a little practice, and Banks wasn’t sure how he felt about that. Something to do with the end justifying the means crossed his mind and made him feel even more uneasy. Still, it wasn’t as if he hadn’t told plenty of lies in the course of his work, so why worry about it now he was doing the same thing as a private citizen? All in a good cause, if it could help a teenage runaway get herself sorted and get Jimmy Riddle off his back for good.
Craig raised his eyebrows. ‘Her father . . .?’ Then he seemed suddenly to notice the developing tank he was shaking. ‘Shit. Look, I’ve got to finish this off properly or it’s a week’s work down the drain. Come up if you like.’
Cold is the Grave Page 4