Cold is the Grave

by Peter Robinson

  Now, however, as she came out of the meeting and headed for her office in what little light of day there was, she realized that she wasn’t physically afraid of Dalton. She had always known he was the type who could only act violently as part of a gang. His appearance had shaken her, that was all, stirred up memories of that night she would rather forget. The only problem was that she didn’t know quite what to do, if anything, about him.

  She thought of telling Banks but dismissed the idea quickly. If truth be told, she was pissed off at him. Why hadn’t he told her about his relationship with the victim last night? There had been plenty of time. It would have made her feel more like a DIO and less like a bloody idiot this morning when the ACC brought the matter up.

  In a way, she regretted now that she had even told Banks about the rape in the first place, but such intimacy as they had had breeds foolish confessions; she had certainly never told anyone else, not even her father. And now that she was actually working with Banks, even though she still fancied him, she was going to try to keep things on a professional footing. Her career was moving in the right direction again, and she didn’t want to mess things up. ACC McLaughlin had given her a great chance by making her DIO. The last thing she wanted to do was go crying to the boss. No, Dalton was her problem, and she would deal with him one way or another.

  Banks found DI Dalton standing in his office facing the wall, styrofoam cup of coffee in his hand, looking at the Dalesman calendar. December showed a snow-and-ice-covered Goredale Scar, near Malham. Dalton turned as Banks entered. He was about six feet tall and skinny as a rake, with pale, watery blue eyes and a long, thin face with a rather hangdog expression under his head of sparse ginger hair. Banks put his age at around forty. He was wearing a lightweight brown suit, white shirt and tie. A little blood from a shaving cut had dried near the cleft of his chin.

  He stuck his hand out. ‘DI Wayne Dalton. I seem to have come in the middle of a flap.’

  ‘Haven’t you heard?’

  ‘Heard what?’

  ‘The chief constable’s daughter was killed last night.’

  Dalton rolled his eyes and whistled. ‘I’d hate to be the bastard who did that, when you catch him.’

  ‘We will. Sit down. What brings you this far south?’

  ‘It’s probably a waste of time,’ said Dalton, sitting opposite Banks, ‘but it looks like one of our cases stretches down to your turf.’

  ‘Wouldn’t be the first time. We’ve quickly become a very small island indeed.’

  ‘You can say that again. Anyway, late Sunday night – actually, early Monday morning – about twelve thirty, to be as precise as we can be at this point – a white van was hijacked on the B6348 between the A1 and the village of Chatton. The contents were stolen and the driver’s still in a coma.’

  ‘What’s his name?’

  ‘Jonathan Fearn.’

  Banks tapped his pencil on his desk. ‘Never heard of him.’

  ‘No reason you should have. He lived here, though.’ Dalton consulted his notebook. ‘Twenty-six Darlington Road.’

  ‘I know it,’ said Banks, making a note. ‘We’ll look into him. Any form?’

  ‘No. What’s interesting, though, is that it turns out this white van was leased by a company called PKF Computer Systems, and—’

  ‘Hang on a minute. Did you say PKF?’

  ‘That’s right. Starting to make sense?’

  ‘Not much, but go on.’

  ‘Anyway, we ran a check on PKF and, to cut a long story short, it doesn’t exist.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Exactly what I say. PKF Computer Systems is not registered as an operating business.’

  ‘That means someone made up the name . . .’

  ‘ . . . printed some letterhead paper, got a phone line installed, opened a bank account . . . exactly. A dummy company.’

  ‘Any idea who?’

  ‘That’s where I was hoping you might be able to help. We traced PKF to the Daleview Business Park, just outside Eastvale, and we confirmed that the van must have been on its way to a new trading estate near Wooler. At least PKF had rented premises there starting that Monday morning.’

  ‘Let me get this straight,’ said Banks. ‘PKF, which doesn’t exist, moves lock, stock and barrel from the Daleview Business Park, where they haven’t been operating more than two or three months, on Sunday night and heads up the A1 towards another business park near Tyneside, where they’ve also rented premises. A few miles short of their destination, the van’s hijacked and its contents removed. Right?’

  ‘So far.’

  ‘On Tuesday,’ Banks continued, ‘the nightwatchman of the Daleview Business Park was found dead in some woods near Market Harborough, Leicestershire. Shotgun wound.’

  ‘Execution?’

  ‘Looks that way. We think he was killed Monday afternoon.’

  ‘Connection?’

  ‘I’d say so, wouldn’t you? Especially when it turns out our nightwatchman had been putting away another two hundred quid a week over and above his wages.’

  ‘And PKF is a phony.’

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘Any idea what that van might have been carrying?’ Dalton asked.

  ‘The only thing my DS found when she checked out the PKF unit at Daleview was an empty case for a compact disc.’

  ‘Compact discs? First time I’ve ever heard of a CD hijack.’

  ‘We don’t know that that’s the reason. All I’m saying is that we found a CD case at PKF, which fits with their working in the computer business. Maybe it was computer equipment the thieves were after?’

  ‘Could be. That stuff can be valuable.’

  ‘Any leads at all?’

  Dalton shook his head. ‘We’ve been keeping an eye on the unit they rented near Wooler, but no one’s shown up yet. Given what’s happened, we don’t expect them to now. It was late, on a quiet road, so there were no witnesses. They left the van in a lay-by. As I said, the driver’s still in a coma and fingerprints will be working to sort out their findings till kingdom come. You and I both know that anyone doing a professional job like this would be wearing gloves, anyway. This was the only lead we got – PKF and the Daleview Business Park.’

  ‘Okay,’ said Banks, standing. ‘We’ll keep in touch on this one.’

  ‘Mind if I stick around a day or two, have a look at the business park, poke about?’

  ‘Be my guest.’ Banks pulled his pad towards him. ‘The way things are right now we can use all the help we can get. You could also get in touch with DI Collaton at Market Harborough. It looks as if this is all connected. Where are you staying?’

  ‘Fox and Hounds, on North Market Street. Got in yesterday evening. Nice little place.’

  ‘I know it,’ said Banks. ‘Let us know if you find anything.’

  ‘Will do.’ Dalton touched the tips of his fingers in a friendly salute, then left the office.

  Banks walked over to the window and looked out on the cobbled market square. The gold hands against the blue front of the church clock stood at quarter past ten. The morning mist had disappeared and it was as light now as it was likely to be all day. He saw DI Dalton walk across the square, pause and linger a moment at the taped-off, guarded entrance of the Bar None, then turn left on York Road towards the bus station and the Swainsdale Centre.

  It was difficult for Banks to drum up much enthusiasm for the Charlie Courage investigation since Emily’s murder, but he knew he had to keep on top of it. He also knew that they should have checked into PKF the way Dalton had. Any further signs that he was dragging his feet, and Red Ron would, quite rightly, have him on the carpet. Emily was a priority, yes, but that didn’t mean poor Charlie counted for nothing. Maybe Dalton would come up with something useful. Banks would put him in touch with Hatchley, and with Annie, so she could share what she’d discovered at Daleview.

  Looking at the weak grey light that seemed to cling to everything, bleeding the townscape of all colour,
Banks wished he could escape to somewhere warm and sunny for a couple of weeks, find a nice spot on the beach and read novels and biographies and listen to the waves all day. Normally he didn’t like that kind of holiday, preferring to explore a foreign city on foot, but there was something about the long, dark Yorkshire winters that made him yearn for the Canaries or the Azores. Or Montego Bay. If he could afford it, though, he thought he would like to go to Mexico for a while, see some Mayan ruins. But that was out of the question, especially with the mortgage on the cottage and Tracy at university.

  Besides, Banks thought, opening the window a few inches and lighting a cigarette, he couldn’t desert Emily now. He was responsible for what had happened to her, at least in part. There was no escaping that. If he hadn’t gone down to London and stirred things up with Clough, then it was unlikely that she would have come back home and ended up dead in a crummy Eastvale nightclub. She had gone the way of Graham Marshall, of Jem and of Phil Simpkins, and he couldn’t, wouldn’t, just let it go; he had to do something.

  ‘Let it roll, Ned,’ said Banks. He was in the CCTV viewing room downstairs along with DCs Winsome Jackman and Kevin Templeton, Annie Cabbot and their civilian video technician, Ned Parker.

  The screen showed the market square from the police station, including the edge of the Queen’s Arms to the right, the church front to the left and all the shops, pubs and offices directly opposite, including the entrance to the Bar None. The picture was grainy black and white, with a slight fish-eye effect, and the glare of the Christmas lights caused one or two problems with the contrast, but it was still possible to make out figures coming and going. Whether they would be able to identify someone coming out of the Bar None from this tape alone, Banks was doubtful.

  The time appeared in an on-screen display at the bottom right-hand side, and, starting at 10.00, Parker advanced it quickly so that the people crossing the market square looked like extras in a Keystone Kops chase. Sometime around twenty-five past, Banks noticed a group of people enter the screen from the right, the exit of the Queen’s Arms, and told Parker to slow down to normal speed. He then watched Emily walk across the market square. She seemed a little unsteady on the cobbles as she crossed the square, which didn’t surprise him, considering the platform heels she was wearing and the amount she had had to drink that day.

  When she got to the market cross, she turned to face the police station and did a little dance, and when she finished, she bowed with a flourish to the camera, but before walking away she gave it the finger, just one, in the American style, then she turned and swung her hips exaggeratedly as she walked on to the nightclub. The others laughed. Banks himself smiled as he watched her, almost forgetting for a moment that this was a little cheeky gesture that would never be repeated.

  Banks watched them enter the club and asked Parker to keep it running at normal speed as he watched others follow. As far as he could make out, there was no suspicious activity in the market square. No little packages of white powder exchanging hands. As he watched, he realized how much he wanted to be watching what was happening inside the club, but there were no cameras there.

  At 10.47, two people walked out of the club and headed down York Road. Banks couldn’t make out their features, but it looked like a boy in jeans and a short leather jacket and a girl in a long overcoat and a floppy hat. He asked Parker to freeze the frame, but it didn’t help much.

  After that, another three couples went in, but no one came out. When DC Rickerd and Inspector Jessup entered the frame, Banks told Parker to turn the machine off.

  It was beginning to look very much as if Emily had scored her coke long before she went to the Bar None, as Banks had guessed, and that would make it all the more difficult to find out who had supplied her with the lethal concoction.

  ‘Okay,’ Banks said, standing up and stretching. ‘That’s all your entertainment for today. Winsome, bring in Darren Hirst, would you? Maybe he can help us with the two who left.’

  ‘Friendly, sir?’

  ‘Friendly. He’s not a suspect, just helping us with our inquiries.’

  Winsome smiled at the hackneyed phrase. ‘Will do, sir.’

  ‘Kevin, I’d like you to work with Ned here and see if you can get a decent image of those two who left. Something we can show around.’

  ‘Okay, Guv.’

  ‘And Kevin?’

  ‘Guv?’

  ‘Please don’t call me “Guv”. It makes me feel as if I’m on television.’

  Templeton grinned. ‘Right you are, sir.’

  Then Banks looked at his watch and turned to Annie. ‘We’d better go,’ he said. ‘We’ve got an appointment with Dr Glendenning in a few minutes.’

  Banks drove out to the Old Mill after Emily Riddle’s post-mortem, Fauré’s Requiem playing on the stereo. He still felt angry and nauseated at what he had just seen. It wasn’t the first young girl he had watched Dr Glendenning open up on the slab, but it was the first whose vitality he had known, whose fears and dreams had been shared with him, and watching Dr Glendenning calmly bisecting the black spider tattoo with his scalpel as he made his incision had almost sent Banks the way Annie went down in Market Harborough. Annie had been fine this time, though. Quiet and tense, but fine, even when the saw ripped into the bone of Emily’s skull.

  Dr Glendenning had confirmed Dr Burns’s original determination that strychnine, mixed in a high ratio with pharmaceutical cocaine, had caused Emily’s death. Glendenning had performed the simple toxicology test for strychnine himself, dissolving some of the suspect crystals in sulphuric acid and touching the edge of the solution with a crystal of potassium chromate. It turned purple, then crimson, then all colour faded. Proof positive. Further tox tests would be done at Wetherby, but for now, this was enough. So far, all the media knew was that she had died of a suspected drug overdose, but it wouldn’t be long before some bright spark of a reporter sniffed out the truth. Sometimes the press seemed even more resourceful than the police.

  As it turned out, Emily’s neck wasn’t broken; she had died of asphyxiation. Other than the fact that she was dead, Glendenning had also told Banks, she was in extremely good health. The drugs and drink and cigarettes clearly hadn’t had time to take their toll on her.

  The Old Mill stood at the end of a cul-de-sac, like Banks’s more humble abode, so the uniformed officers on guard could stand well over a hundred yards away, where the lane turned off the main road, and keep reporters away without even being seen by the Riddles. Banks showed his warrant card and the officer on duty waved him through. Rosalind answered the door and led him through to the same room where he had given Riddle the news. She was dressed in black and her eyes looked dark with lack of sleep. Banks guessed that Riddle must have woken her as soon as he had left last night. They wouldn’t have had any sleep since then.

  ‘Banks.’ Riddle got slowly to his feet when Banks entered the room. He was dressed in the same clothes he had been wearing last night, a little more the worse for wear. He looked haggard, and there was a listlessness and a defeated air about his movements that Banks had never seen him exhibit before. He had always been energetic and abrupt. Perhaps he had taken a tranquillizer, or perhaps this was the toll recent events had taken on his system. Whichever it was, the man looked as if he could use a doctor as well as a good night’s sleep. ‘Any news?’ he asked, without much hope in his voice.

  ‘Nothing yet, I’m afraid.’ Banks didn’t want to mention the post-mortem, though he knew Riddle would be aware that it had been conducted. He only hoped the CC had enough common sense not to bring something like that up in front of his wife.

  ‘Confirmed cause of death?’ he asked.

  ‘It’s what we thought.’

  Rosalind put her hand to her throat. ‘Strychnine. I’ve read about that.’

  Banks glanced at Riddle. ‘You’ve told her . . .?’

  ‘Ros understands she’s to talk to no one about the cause of death. I don’t suppose it’ll be a secret for long, though?
’

  ‘I doubt it,’ said Banks. ‘Not now the post-mortem’s over. Glendenning’s sound as a bell, but there’s always someone there who lets the cat out of the bag. Mrs Riddle,’ he said, perching on the edge of his armchair, ‘I need to ask you some questions. I’ll try to make it as painless for you as possible.’

  ‘I understand. Jerry explained it to me.’

  ‘Good. Emily had been back from London about a month. During that time, had she given you any cause for concern?’

  ‘No,’ said Rosalind. ‘In fact, she’d been extremely well behaved. For Emily.’

  ‘Meaning?’

  ‘Meaning, Chief Inspector, that if she wanted to stay out all night at a rave, she would. Emily always was a wilful child, as I’m sure you’re aware, difficult to control. But I saw no evidence of drug use, and she was generally polite and good- natured in her dealings with me.’

  ‘I gather that wasn’t always the case?’

  ‘It was not.’

  ‘Had she been out a lot since her return?’

  ‘Not much. Last night was only the second or third time.’

  ‘When was the previous time?’

  ‘The night before. Wednesday. She went to the pictures with some friends; that new cinema complex in Eastvale. And a week or so ago she went to a birthday party in Richmond. She was home shortly after midnight both times.’

  ‘What did she do with her time?’

  ‘Believe it or not, she stayed in and read a lot. Watched videos. She also made inquiries about getting into a sixth-form college. I think she was finally deciding to take life a bit more seriously.’

  ‘Did she ever confide in you about any problems she might be having? Boys, or anything like that?’

  ‘That wasn’t Emily’s way,’ said Rosalind. ‘She was always secretive, even when she was little. She liked a sense of mystery.’