Welcome to reality, thought Banks. He had come prepared to be hard on Craig Newton – after all, Craig had taken the nude photographs of Emily that had ended up on the GlamourPuss website for every pervert to drool over – but the lad was actually turning out to be quite likeable. If Craig was to be believed, he had genuinely thought that Emily was nineteen – and who wouldn’t, going by the evidence Banks had seen and heard so far – and the web photos had simply been a foolish lark. Craig also seemed to care about Emily – he hadn’t only been with her for the sex, or whatever else a sixteen-year-old girl had to offer a twenty-seven-year-old man – and that went a long way in Banks’s estimation.
On the other hand, this new boyfriend sounded like trouble, and Emily Louise Riddle herself sounded like a royal pain in the arse.
‘Why did you move out here?’ Banks asked. ‘Because of Louisa?’
‘Partly. It was around that time. It’s funny, but I’d mentioned getting out of London a couple of times and Louisa went all cold on me, the way she did when she wasn’t getting her own way or heard something she didn’t like. Anyway, I got the chance of a partnership in a small studio here with a bloke I went to college with. A straight-up, kosher business this time – portraits and weddings, mostly. No porn. I was fed up of London by then, anyway. Not just the thing with Louisa, but other things. Too expensive. Too hard to make a living. Too much competition. The hours I was putting in. You’ve really got to hustle hard there, and I was discovering I’m not much of a hustler at heart. I began to think I’d be better off as a bigger fish in a smaller pond.’
‘And?’
He looked up from his prawns and smiled. ‘It seems to be working out.’ Then he paused. ‘This is weird, though. I never thought I’d be sitting down having a curry with Louisa’s dad, chatting in a civilized manner. I’ve got to say, you’re not at all what I imagined.’
‘So you said. A boring old fart.’
‘Yeah, well, that’s what she said. Wouldn’t let her do anything, go anywhere. Kept her a virtual prisoner in the house.’
‘Lock up your daughters?’
‘Yeah. Did you?’
‘You know what she’s like. What do you think I should have done?’
‘With Louisa? I used to think I knew what she was like. Now I’m not so sure. From what you say, she told me a pack of lies right from the start. How can I believe anything about her? What do you do with someone like her?’
Indeed, thought Banks, feeling just a little guilty over his deception. What do you do? The thing was, that the more he found himself pretending to be Louisa’s father, the more he found himself slipping into the role. So much so that on the slow train back to Euston later that evening, after Craig had kindly given him a lift to the station, when he thought about what his own daughter might be up to in Paris with Damon, he wasn’t sure whether he was angry at Tracy or at Emily Riddle.
And the more he thought about the situation, the more he realized that it had never been finding Emily Riddle that concerned him; it was what he was going to do after he’d found her that really bothered him.
3
Saturday morning dawned cool and overcast, but the wind was quickly tearing a few holes in the ragged clouds. ‘Enough blue sky to make baby a new bonnet,’ as Banks’s mother would say. Banks lingered over coffee and a toasted teacake in a café on Tottenham Court Road, not far from his hotel, reading the morning papers and watching people checking out the electronics shops across the road.
He had slept well. Surprisingly so, since the hotel was the same one that he and Detective Sergeant Annie Cabbot had stayed in during his last case. Not the same room, thank God, but the same floor. Memories of her skin warm and moist against his kept him awake longer than he would have liked and made him feel vaguely guilty, but in the end he drifted into a deep and dreamless sleep, from which he awoke feeling unusually refreshed.
According to his A to Z, Ruth Walker lived quite close to the cramped flat off Clapham Road that Banks and Sandra had lived in for a few years in the early eighties, when the kids were little. Not exactly the ‘good old days’, but happy for the most part, before the job started taking too much of a toll on him. Simpler, maybe. Sandra worked part-time as a dental receptionist on Kennington Park Road, he remembered, and Banks was usually too busy out playing cops and robbers to take his wife to the theatre or help the kids with their homework.
It wasn’t much more than a couple of miles from the West End, as the crow flies, and he decided the walk would do him good. He had always loved walking in cities, and London was a great place for it. He had been cheated out of Paris, so he would have to make the best of where he was. If he set off now, he realized, he would probably arrive around lunchtime. If he got Louisa’s address from Ruth, he would go there in the early evening, between six and seven, which he had always found was a good time to catch people in. That should also leave him plenty of time to meet Sandra at eight in Camden Town.
A cool wind skipped off the murky river and whistled around his ears as he crossed Waterloo Bridge. He glanced back. Shafts of light lanced through the clouds and lit on the dome of St Paul’s. It was odd, Banks thought, but when you visit a place you used to live in for a long time, you see it differently; you become more like a tourist in your own land. He had never noticed Big Ben, the Houses of Parliament or St Paul’s in the days when he had lived there. Even now, his copper’s eye was more tuned to the two shifty-looking skinheads across the road, who seemed to be following a couple of Japanese tourists, than it was to the beauty of the London architecture.
It was pushing twelve thirty when Banks got to Ruth’s street just off Kennington Road. The brick terrace houses were four storeys high and so narrow they seemed pressed together like a mouthful of bad teeth. Here and there someone had added a lick of bright paint to a window frame, or put out a few potted plants in the bay window.
The name ‘R. A. Walker’ appeared by the third-floor bell, a dead giveaway that the occupant was a woman. Banks pressed and heard it ring way up in the distance. He waited, but nobody came. Then he tried again. Still nothing. After standing on the doorstep for a few minutes, he gave up. He hadn’t wanted to phone ahead and tip her off that he was coming – finding that surprise often worked best in situations like this – so he had been prepared to wait.
Banks decided to have his lunch and call back in an hour or so. If she wasn’t in then, he’d think of a new plan. He found a serviceable pub on the main street and enjoyed a pint as he finished reading the newspaper. A few regulars stood at the bar, and a younger crowd were gathered around the video machines. One man, wearing a tartan cap, kept nipping around the corner to the betting shop and coming back to tell everyone in a loud voice how much he’d lost and how the horse he’d backed belonged in the glue factory. Everyone laughed indulgently. Nobody paid Banks any mind, which was just the way he liked it. He glanced over the menu and settled finally on a chicken pie. It would have suited Annie Cabbot just fine, Banks thought as he searched in vain among peas and carrots for the meat; Annie was a vegetarian.
A short while later, he stood on Ruth Walker’s doorstep again and gave her bell a long push. This time, he was rewarded by a wary voice over the intercom.
‘Who is it?’
‘I’ve come about Louisa,’ Banks said. ‘Louisa Gamine.’
‘Louisa? What about her? She’s not here.’
‘I need to talk to you.’
There was a long pause – so long that Banks thought Ruth had hung up the intercom on him – then the voice said, ‘Come up. Top floor.’ A buzzer went off and Banks pushed the front door open.
The stairs were carpeted, though the fabric had worn thin in places and the pattern was hard to make out. A variety of cooking smells assailed Banks as he climbed the narrow staircase: a hint of curry, garlic, tomato sauce. When he got to the top, there was only one door. It opened almost immediately when he knocked, and a young woman looked at him through narrowed eyes. After she had studied him fo
r a while, she opened the door and let him in.
The best Banks could say of Ruth Walker was that she was plain. It was a cruel and unfair description, he knew, but it was true. Ruth was the kind of girl who, in his adolescence, always went around with an attractive friend, the one you really wanted. The Ruths of this world you usually tried to palm off on your friend. There was nothing distinguishing about her except, perhaps, the intelligence perceptible in her disconcerting and restless grey eyes. Already she seemed to have a permanent frown etched in her forehead.
She was dressed in baggy jeans and a T-shirt commemorating an old Oasis tour. Her hair, dyed black, gelled and cut spiky, didn’t suit her round face at all. Nor did the collection of rings and studs through the crescent edges of her ears. Her complexion looked dry as parchment, and she still suffered the ravages of acne.
The flat was spacious, with a high ceiling and one of those Chinese-style globe lampshades over the bulb. Bookshelves stood propped on bricks against one wall, not much on them, apart from tattered paperbacks and a few software manuals, and a computer stood on the desk under the window. A sheepskin rug covered part of the hardwood floor, and various quilts and patterned coverlets hung over the second-hand three-piece suite. It was a comfortable room. Ruth Walker, Banks had to admit, had made a nice home for herself.
‘I don’t usually let strangers in,’ she said.
‘A good policy.’
‘But you mentioned Louisa. You’re not one of her new friends, are you?’
‘No, I’m not. You don’t like them?’
‘I can take them or leave them.’ Ruth sniffed and reached for a packet of Embassy Regal resting on the coffee table. ‘Bad habit I picked up in university. Want a cup of tea?’
‘Please.’ It would set them at ease, Banks thought, create the right atmosphere for the sort of informal chat he wanted. Ruth put the cigarettes down without lighting one and walked into the kitchen. She had a slight limp. Not enough to slow her down, but noticeable if you looked closely enough. Banks looked at the books: Maeve Binchy, Rosamunde Pilcher, Catherine Cookson. A few CDs lay scattered beside the stereo, but Banks hadn’t heard of most of the groups, except for the Manic Street Preachers, Sheryl Crow, Beth Orton, Radiohead and P.J. Harvey. Still, Ruth probably hadn’t heard of Arnold Bax or Gerald Finzi, either.
When Ruth came back with the tea and sat opposite him, she still seemed to be checking him out, probing him with those suspicious grey eyes of hers. ‘Louisa,’ she said, when she had finally lit her cigarette. ‘What about her?’
‘I’m looking for her. Do you know where she is?’
‘Why?’
‘Does it matter?’
‘It might. You could be out to do her harm.’
‘I’m not.’
‘What do you want with her, then?’
Banks paused. Might as well do it again; after all, he’d got this far on a lie, and it was beginning to fit so well he almost believed it himself, even though he had never met Emily Riddle. ‘I’m her father,’ he said. ‘I just want to talk to her.’
Ruth stared at him a moment, her eyes narrowing. ‘I don’t think so.’ She shook her head.
‘You don’t think what?’
‘That you’re Louisa’s father.’
‘Why not?’
‘He wouldn’t come looking for her, for a start.’
‘I love my daughter,’ Banks said, which at least was true.
‘No. You don’t understand. I saw a photo. A family photo she had with the rest of her things. There’s no point lying. I know it wasn’t you.’
Banks paused, stunned as much by Emily’s taking a family photo as by Ruth’s immediate uncovering of his little deception. Time for a change of tack. ‘Okay,’ he said. ‘I’m not her father. But he asked me to look for her, to try to find her and ask her if she’d talk to him.’
‘Why didn’t he come himself?’
‘He’s afraid that if she knows he’s looking for her she’ll make herself even more scarce.’
‘He’s got that one right,’ said Ruth. ‘Look, why should I tell you anything? Louisa left home of her own free will, and she was of legal age. She came down here to live her own life away from her parents. Why should I mess things up for her?’
‘I’m not here to force her to do anything she doesn’t want,’ said Banks. ‘She can stay down here if she likes. All her father wants is to know what she’s doing, where she lives, if she’s all right. And if she’ll talk to him, great, if not—’
‘Why should I trust you? You’ve already lied to me.’
‘Is she in any trouble, Ruth?’ Banks asked. ‘Does she need help?’
‘Help? Louisa? You must be joking. She’s the kind who always lands on her feet, no matter what. After she’s landed on her back first, that is.’
‘I thought she was a friend of yours?’
‘She was. Is.’ Ruth made an impatient gesture. ‘She just annoys me sometimes, that’s all. Most people do. Don’t your friends piss you off from time to time?’
‘But is there any real reason for concern?’
‘I’m sure I don’t know.’
Banks sipped some tea; it tasted bitter. ‘Where did you meet her?’
‘Down near King’s Cross. She came up to me in the street and asked me the way to the nearest youth hostel. We got talking. I could tell she’d just arrived and she wasn’t quite sure what to do or where to go.’ Ruth shrugged. ‘I know how lonely and friendless London can be, especially when you’re new to it all.’
‘So you took her in?’
‘I felt sorry for her.’
‘And she lived with you here?’
Ruth’s cheeks reddened. ‘Look, I’m not a lezzy, if that’s what you’re thinking. I offered her my spare room till she got on her feet. That’s all. Can’t a person do someone a good turn any more without it being turned into some sort of sex thing?’
‘I didn’t mean to suggest that,’ said Banks. ‘I’m sorry if it upset you.’
‘Yeah . . . well. Just be careful what you go around saying to people, that’s all.’
‘You and Louisa are friends, though, you said?’
‘Yeah. She stayed here for a while. I helped get her a job, but it didn’t take. Then she met Craig, a bloke I knew from college, and she went off to live with him.’
Ruth spoke in a curiously dispassionate way, but Banks got the impression there was a lot beneath the surface she wasn’t saying. He also got the sense that she was constantly assessing, evaluating, calculating, and that being found out in his little lie had put him somehow in thrall to her. ‘I’ve talked to Craig Newton,’ he said, ‘and he told me she left him for a new boyfriend. Sounds like a nasty piece of work. Know who he is?’
‘Just some bloke she met at a party.’
‘Were you there? Did you meet him?’
‘Yes.’
‘Have you seen them since?’
‘They came round here once. I think Louisa was showing him off. He certainly didn’t seem impressed by what he saw.’
‘Do you know his name?’
‘Barry Clough.’
‘Do you know the address?’
Ruth fumbled for another cigarette, and when she had lit it and breathed out her first lungful of smoke, she nodded. ‘Yeah. They live in one of those fancy places out Little Venice way. Louisa had me over to a dinner party there once – catered, of course. I think she was trying to impress me that time.’
‘Did it work?’
‘It takes more than a big house and a couple of has-been rock stars. And maybe a backbencher and a bent copper or two.’
Banks smiled. ‘What does he do for a living?’
‘Some sort of businessman. He’s got connections with the music business. If you ask me, he’s a drug dealer.’
‘What makes you say that?’
‘Fancy house. Always lots of coke around. Rock stars. Stands to reason, doesn’t it?’
‘Does Louisa take drugs?’
‘Is the Pope Polish?’
‘How long ago did they meet?’
‘Bit over two months.’
‘Have you seen much of her since that time?’
‘Not much. You’re beginning to sound like a copper, you know.’
Banks didn’t like the way she was looking at him, as if she knew. ‘I’m just worried, that’s all,’ he said.
‘Why? She’s not your daughter.’
Banks didn’t want to explain about his own daughter, at this moment no doubt walking around Paris hand in hand with Damon, or perhaps not even bothering with the sights, deciding instead to spend the weekend in bed. ‘Her father’s a good mate of mine,’ he said instead, the words almost sticking in his throat as he uttered them. ‘I’d hate to see any harm come to her.’
‘Bit late for that, isn’t it? I mean, it was nearly six months ago when she first came down here. He should have put a bit more effort into finding her back then, if you ask me.’ She paused, narrowed her eyes again, then said, ‘I’m not sure about you. There’s something you’re not telling me. You weren’t screwing her, were you? I wouldn’t put it past her. She was no innocent from the provinces, even when she first came here. She knew what was what.’
‘She’s a bit young for me,’ Banks said.
Ruth gave a harsh laugh. ‘At your age I should think it’s often a matter of the younger the better. Why do you think they have prostitutes as young as thirteen, fourteen? ’Cos the girls like it?’
Banks felt the sting of her remark, but he couldn’t think of an appropriate response. ‘We’re getting off track here.’
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