Cold is the Grave

by Peter Robinson

  ‘I can take them or leave them.’

  ‘You sure?’

  ‘Sure. I never did much anyway. Just a bit of coke, crystal meth, V and E.’

  ‘Viagra and Ecstasy?’

  ‘You remember.’

  ‘You took that?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘But Viagra’s . . . I mean, what does it do? For a woman?’ She came up with a wicked grin and tapped his arm. ‘Well, it doesn’t exactly give me a hard-on, but it does make fucking really good. Mostly, it gives you a real rush, sort of like speed.’

  ‘I see. And you’ve had no problems giving up all this stuff?’

  ‘I’m not an addict, if that’s what you’re getting at. I can stop any time I want.’

  ‘I’m not suggesting that you’re an addict, just that it can be difficult without outside help.’

  ‘I’m not going on one of those stupid programmes with all those losers, if that’s what you mean. No way.’ She pouted and looked away.

  Banks held his hands up. ‘Fine. Fine. All I’m saying is that if you find you need any help . . . Well, I know you can hardly go to your father. That’s all.’

  Emily stared at him for a while, as if digesting and translating what he had said. ‘Thanks,’ she said finally, not meeting his eyes, and managed a small smile. ‘You know why my dad hates you?’

  Startled, Banks almost choked on his drink. When he had regained some of his composure, he suggested, ‘Personality clash?’

  ‘Because he envies you. That’s why.’

  ‘Envies me?’

  ‘It’s true. I can tell. I’ve heard him going on to Mother. Do you know, he thinks you’ve been having it off with some Pakistani tart in Leeds?’

  ‘She’s not Pakistani, she’s from Bangladesh. She’s not a tart. And we’ve never had it off.’

  ‘Whatever. And the music. That drives him crazy.’

  ‘But why?’

  ‘Don’t you know?’

  ‘I wouldn’t be asking if I did.’

  ‘It’s because you’ve got a life. You have a woman on the side, you listen to opera or whatever, and you get the job done, you get results. You also do it the way you want. Dad’s by the book. Always has been.’

  ‘But he’s one of the youngest chief constables we’ve ever had. Why on earth should he be jealous of my achievements?’

  ‘You still don’t get it, do you?’

  ‘Obviously not.’

  ‘He’s envious. You’re everything he’d like to be, but can’t. He’s locked himself on a course he couldn’t change even if he wanted to. He’s sacrificed everything to get where he’s got. Believe me, I should know. I’m one of the things he’s sacrificed. All he’s got is his ambition. He doesn’t have time to listen to music, be with his family, have another woman, read a book. It’s like he’s made a pact with the devil and he’s handed over all his time in exchange for earthly power and position. And there’s something else. He can handle the politics, pass exams and courses by the cartload, manage, administrate better than just about anyone else on the force, but there’s one thing he could never do worth a damn.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘He couldn’t detect his way out of a paper bag.’

  ‘Why should that matter?’

  ‘Because that’s why he joined up in the first place.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘I don’t. I’m only guessing. But I saw his old books once, when we were staying at my grandparents’ house in Worthing. They’re all, like, sixties paperback editions and stuff, with his name written inside them, all very neatly. A lot of those Penguins with the green covers. Detective stories. Sherlock Holmes. Agatha Christie. Ngaio Marsh. All that boring old crap. And I looked in some of them. Do you know what he’s done? He’s made his own notes in the margins, about who he thinks did it, what the clues mean. I even read one of them while we were there. He couldn’t have been more wrong.’

  Banks felt queasy. There was something obscene about this intimate look into Riddle’s childhood dreams that made him uncomfortable. ‘Where did you learn pop psychology?’ he said, trying to brush the whole thing off.

  Emily smiled. ‘There is a kind of logic to it. Think about it. Look, it’s been great seeing you, but I really have to be going. I have to meet someone at three. Then I’m off clubbing tonight.’ She gathered her handbag, more the size of a small rucksack, really, patted her hair and stood up. ‘Maybe we can do this again?’

  ‘I’d like that,’ Banks said. ‘But it’s on my terms next time, or not at all.’

  ‘Your terms?’

  ‘No booze.’

  She stuck her tongue out at him. ‘Spoilsport. Bye.’ Then she picked up her jacket, turned with a flourish and strutted out of the pub. The men all watched her go with hangdog expressions, some of them brought crudely back to reality by harsh remarks from their wives sitting next to them. One woman gave Banks a particularly malevolent look, the kind she probably reserved for child molesters.

  After Emily had gone, Banks spent a few moments thinking over what she had said. Self-analysis had not been a habit of his, and it was something he had only really indulged in since the split with Sandra, since his move to the cottage, even. There he had spent many a late evening watching the sunset over the flagstone roofs of Helmthorpe as shadows gathered on the distant valley sides, and probing himself, his motives, what made him the man he was, why he had made the mistakes he had made. There he was, a man in his forties taking stock of his life and finding out it wasn’t at all what he thought it had been.

  So Riddle hated him because he was a natural detective and because he appeared to have a life, including this illusory mistress. Some of Riddle’s envy, then, if that was what it was, was based on error. What could be more pathetic than envying a man the life you only imagine he has? It was just a precocious teenager’s analysis, of course, but perhaps it wasn’t too far from the mark. After all, it wasn’t as if Riddle had ever given Banks a chance, right from the start. Still, he thought, knocking back the last of his pint, that wasn’t his problem any more. With Riddle in his corner, things were bound to change for the better. As he pulled up his collar and left the pub, he was aware of the women’s eyes burning holes in the back of his raincoat.

  7

  DS Jim Hatchley was the last to arrive at the scheduled meeting that Thursday afternoon, rolling in a little after quarter past five smelling of ale and tobacco and looking as if he’d been dragged through a hedge backwards. Banks, Annie Cabbot and DCs Rickerd, Jackman and Templeton were already gathered in the ‘boardroom’, so called because of its panels, wainscoting and oil portraits of dead mill owners. A thin patina of dust from the renovations had even reached as far as the long banqueting table, usually so highly polished you could see your reflection in it.

  ‘Sorry, sir,’ muttered Hatchley, taking his seat.

  Banks turned to Annie Cabbot, who had just started an account of her afternoon at the Daleview Business Park. ‘Go on, DS Cabbot,’ he said. ‘Now that we’re all here.’

  ‘Well, sir, there’s not a great deal to add. Charlie turned up for work on Sunday afternoon, as usual, logged in, and he went home at midnight. His replacement for the midnight-to-eight shift, Colin Finch, says he actually saw him at four and at midnight, so we know he was still alive when he left the park.’

  ‘Did this Finch have anything more to tell us?’ Banks asked.

  ‘Said he hardly knew Charlie. They were ships that passed in the night. His words, not mine. And he’d no sense of anything dodgy going on at Daleview. Nobody else I spoke to there admits to knowing Charlie, either – not surprising, when you consider he was usually at work when the rest had gone home – and there had been no incidents reported at the park, so he didn’t even have very much to do.’

  ‘Could his death be unrelated to his work, then?’ Banks asked.

  ‘It’s possible,’ Annie said, glancing at Hatchley. ‘After all, he did have form. Mixed with some pretty rough c
ompany in his time. But there was one odd thing.’

  ‘Yes?’

  She took an envelope out of her briefcase and set it on the table. ‘One of the companies operating out of Daleview – PKF Computer Systems – cleared out lock, stock and barrel on Sunday evening.’

  ‘Moonlight flit?’

  ‘No, sir. All above board, according to Colin Finch. Just very short notice. They were gone by midnight, when he started his shift.’

  ‘Couldn’t pay their bills?’

  ‘They weren’t owing when they left, but I should imagine a cash-flow problem might be at the back of it all.’

  ‘Likely,’ said Banks. ‘But they did nothing wrong?’

  ‘No. Interesting timing, though, wouldn’t you say?’

  ‘I would.’ PKF had cleared off during Charlie Courage’s final evening shift. Banks didn’t like coincidences any more than any other copper worth his salt. ‘Go on.’

  ‘Anyway, Ian Bennett had given me carte blanche and the keys were all there in Mr Courage’s old office, so I had a quick shufti around the PKF unit.’

  ‘Find anything?’

  ‘Clean as a whistle. They’d obviously taken care to make sure they left nothing behind. Except this. I found it lodged behind the radiator. It must have fallen there.’ She held the envelope and tipped it. A cracked plastic case about five by five and a half inches fell onto the polished table’s surface.

  ‘A CD case,’ said Banks. ‘I suppose you’d expect to find something like that if they were in the computer business. Software and all that.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Annie. ‘It probably means nothing. In fact, the whole PKF thing’s probably nothing, but I handled it carefully just in case. We might want to check with fingerprints.’

  ‘You think there’s something dodgy about PKF?’

  Annie leaned back in her chair. She even looked comfortable in the notoriously hard and bum-unfriendly boardroom chair, thought Banks. ‘I don’t know, sir. It’s just the timing, them leaving the same weekend Courage disappeared. It might be worth looking into the company, see who they are, what they do. It might help explain Charlie’s sudden riches.’

  Banks nodded. ‘Right you are. You can get stuck into that tomorrow. And it wouldn’t do any harm to get in touch with Vic Manson about those prints, either. If someone working at PKF turns up in our records, as well as Charlie . . .’ He glanced over at the three DCs at the far end of the table. They had been on a house-to-house to find out if anyone had seen Charlie Courage after Sunday lunchtime. ‘Anything on the victim’s movements?’

  Winsome Jackman spoke first. ‘A neighbour saw him going to work late on Sunday afternoon, sir, and the man across the street saw him taking his milk in at about eight o’clock on Monday morning.’

  ‘Anyone else?’

  Winsome shook her head. Kevin Templeton said, ‘The woman at number forty-two, Mrs Finlay, noticed something. She says she thought she saw Charlie get into a car with a couple of men later on Monday morning.’

  ‘Description?’

  ‘Nothing very useful, sir.’ Templeton doodled in the dust on the table as he spoke. ‘One was medium height, the other was a bit taller. They wore jeans and leather jackets – brown or black. The taller one, he was going bald; the other had short fair hair. She said she didn’t get a good look and wasn’t really paying attention. I asked her if she thought Mr Courage was being forced into the car in any way, and she told me she didn’t get that impression, but she could have been wrong.’

  Banks sighed. It was typical of most witness statements. Of course, if you didn’t know you were witnessing anything momentous, such as a man’s final journey, you didn’t pay that much attention. Most people don’t see much on the peripheries; they’re more concerned about where they’re going, what they’re doing and thinking. ‘What about the car?’

  ‘Light coloured. Maybe white. That was the best she could say. Nothing fancy, but new-looking, with a nice shiny finish.’

  ‘Okay,’ said Banks. ‘Time? Did we fare any better there?’

  ‘A little bit, sir,’ said Templeton. ‘She said it must have been not long after ten o’clock, because she had just started listening to Woman’s Hour, and that starts at ten.’

  ‘Interesting.’

  ‘Maybe the trip was pre-arranged?’ Annie suggested. ‘It could have been something he was looking forward to. Maybe he thought he was going somewhere nice, getting some more money?’

  ‘Could be.’ Banks turned to Hatchley. ‘What did your afternoon in the fleshpots of Eastvale turn up, Jim?’

  Hatchley scratched the side of his bulbous nose. ‘Charlie was up to something dodgy, I can tell you that much.’

  ‘Go on.’

  Hatchley got his notebook out. Workmen started hammering somewhere in the extension. Hatchley raised his voice. ‘According to Len Jackson, one of his old colleagues, Charlie was on to a nice little earner, and it wasn’t his job at Daleview, either.’

  ‘Was it connected with that?’

  ‘Charlie didn’t say. He was pretty vague about it all. What he did say, though, was that he was already bringing in a bit of extra and pretty soon he’d be in for a much larger slice of the pie. What he was getting now was peanuts to what he’d have soon.’

  ‘Interesting. But he didn’t say what pie?’

  ‘No, sir. Charlie was pretty cagey about it, apparently. He wanted his old mates to know he was doing well, but not how he was doing it. Scared of the competition, I suppose.’

  ‘Okay,’ said Banks. ‘Well, at least that tells us we’re on the right track. All we need to know now is what he was into and who was running it. Makes it sound easy, doesn’t it?’ He shook his head. ‘Charlie, Charlie, you should’ve stayed on the straight and narrow this time.’

  ‘He never was big time, wasn’t Charlie,’ added Hatchley. ‘He must have got in way over his head, not known who he was dealing with.’

  Banks nodded. ‘Okay, that’s it for now,’ he said.

  Back in his office, with his door tightly shut to keep the noise out, Banks phoned DI Collaton down in Market Harborough to give him an update, more out of professional courtesy than anything else, as there wasn’t much to report. After that, he decided to call it a day. He tidied his desk and locked up, then headed for the door. Annie Cabbot was a flight ahead of him on her way down the stairs. She turned at the sound of his footsteps. ‘Oh, it’s you. Off home?’

  ‘Unless you’d like to go for a quick drink or something?’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ she said. ‘That bloody rain’s soaked right into my bones. All I want is to pick up something for dinner, then a long hot bath and a good book to curl up with.’

  ‘Some other time?’

  She smiled and pushed open the door. ‘Yes. Some other time.’

  Maybe she should have accepted Banks’s offer of a drink, Annie thought, as she crossed the market square. It wouldn’t have done any harm, just a quick drink and a chat. She didn’t want to seem to be always giving him the brush-off, and it wasn’t as if the men were exactly queuing up to take her out. But things were still a little sensitive, and her inner voice told her to back off, so she did. Not that she always did what her inner voice told her to; if she had done that she would never have got in trouble in her life, and what a boring old time that would have been. But this time, she listened; at least for now.

  Though she could still smell it in the air, the rain had stopped and the evening had turned quite mild. Coloured lights hung across Market Street and around the cross, and the shoppers were out in force. She was lucky that most of the shops were staying open late until Christmas, or she’d have nothing but a couple of mouldy old carrots and potatoes for dinner. There was the Indian shop on Gallows View that was always open, but they didn’t have much selection; besides, that was too far away in the wrong direction. What she wanted was something easy, something she could boil in the bag or stick in the oven for half an hour, no fuss.

  In the end, it was a toss-u
p between vegetarian lasagne and Indonesian curry. The lasagne won, mostly because she had a bottle of Sainsbury’s Chianti at home that would complement it nicely. She also needed eggs, milk, cereal and bread for breakfast.

  As she wandered the busy aisles casting her eyes over the myriad varieties of meals specially prepared for those who dined alone, she remembered a book she had read many years ago – something her father had given her – that explained the underhand strategies supermarkets use to make you buy things you don’t want. The lighting, for a start, and the soft, hypnotic music. At this time of year, of course, it was all Christmas music played in a cheery, sugary sort of style. Annie sometimes thought that if she heard one more ‘fa-la-la-la-la’ she would scream. The manufacturers also used certain colours in packaging their products, and there was something about bright things being placed at eye level that just made you reach out and grab them. She couldn’t remember all the details, but the book had made an impression on her, and she always felt manipulated when she left a supermarket with more than she had intended to buy. Which she always did. It was the chocolate ice cream this time; it had hardly been at eye level, nor was the package of a colour that made you reach for it, but even stuck away in the freezer it had seemed to be screaming, ‘Buy me! Buy me!’ and now it nestled in her basket as she waited in the queue to pay.

  Maybe if she had been at Eastvale a couple of months, she thought, then she might have taken Banks up on his offer. It was just too soon: too soon after their affair, and too soon after her transfer. If truth be told, she still didn’t trust herself with him, either. A couple of drinks might loosen her inhibitions a bit too much, as they almost had the last time she’d been out with him. Then where would she be? It had been all right sleeping with Banks when she worked out of Harkside and he worked out of Eastvale, but if they were both in the same station, it could be awkward.

  Suddenly Annie saw someone she knew, someone she had never expected to see again, not here, not anywhere. And someone she had never wanted to set eyes on again. He was walking into the wines and spirits section. As far as she could tell, he hadn’t seen her. What the hell was he doing here? Annie felt her skin turn clammy and her heart start to pound.