Cold is the Grave

by Peter Robinson

  Disappointed, Annie headed for the Jolly Roger, still fuming from her run-in with Banks. After her confrontation with Dalton, she had actually felt better, more confident, ready to get on with the job without distractions. She might even have told Banks why she had been distracted in the first place if he hadn’t taken such a high-handed attitude.

  The bloody nerve of him, having her on the carpet like that. He knew she hated that sort of thing. Annie had never been able to handle authority well, which can be something of a liability in the police force, but most of the time she could pay lip-service when required. Not with Banks, though. This time, he had hit her where it really hurt: her professionalism. And the fact that he was partly right hurt even more. She would show him, though. She wasn’t going to wallow in self-pity; she was going to get back on the damn horse and ride again.

  Annie paused briefly at the market square to watch the awestruck expressions on the children’s faces as they gathered around the Christmas tree. It took her back to her own childhood in St Ives. There had been few, if any, practising Christians down at the commune where she had grown up. Most of the people who passed through had no religion at all, other than art, and those who did subscribe tended towards the more esoteric kinds, such as Zen Buddhism and Taoism, the ones without God, where you could ponder the meaning of nothingness and the sound of one hand clapping. Annie herself, with her meditation and yoga, came closer to Buddhism than anything else, though she never professed to be a Buddhist. She wasn’t detached enough, for a start; she knew that desire caused suffering, but still she desired.

  Christian or not, every Christmas had been a festive time for Annie and the other kids there. There were always some other children around, though most of them never stayed long, and she got used to her friends moving away, being dependent on herself, not on others. But at Christmas, someone always came up with a tree, and someone else scrounged around for some tinsel and decorations, and Annie always got Christmas presents, even if many of them were just sketches and small hand-carved sculptures from whoever was living there at the time. She still had most of them, and some were worth a bit now – not that she would ever sell them. Christmas was as much a tradition at the commune as anywhere else, and it always brought back memories of her mother. She still had a photograph of her mother holding her up to look at the tree decorations. She must have been two or three years old, and though she couldn’t remember the moment itself, the photograph always brought back waves of nostalgia and loss.

  Shrugging off the past, she walked on to the Jolly Roger.

  Eastvale didn’t have a large student population, and the college itself was an ugly mess of red-brick and concrete boxes on the southern fringes of the town, surrounded by marshland and a couple of industrial estates. Nobody wanted to live out there, even if there had been anywhere to live. Most of the students lived closer to the town centre, and there were enough of them to turn at least one pub into the typical student hangout, and the ‘Roger’, as they called it, was the one.

  On first impressions, Annie thought, the Jolly Roger was no different from any other Victorian-style pub in the touristy neighbourhood around King Street behind the police station, but when she looked around inside, she noticed it was more run-down, and there was an odd selection of music on the jukebox, including far more angry, alternative stuff than pleasant pop and big-name bands. The clientele at that time in the afternoon consisted mostly of students who had finished early or had been there since lunchtime. They sat in small groups, smoking, chatting and drinking. Some favoured the scruffy, Marxist look of old, while others cultivated a more clean-cut Tony Blair style, but they all seemed to mix cheerfully together. One or two loners in thick glasses sat at tables reading as they slowly sipped their pints.

  Annie went up to the bar and pulled out the fuzzy image taken from the CCTV video.

  ‘I’ve been told you might know this couple,’ she said to the young man behind the bar, who looked like a student himself. ‘One of our lads had a word yesterday.’

  ‘Not me, love,’ he said. ‘I wasn’t on yesterday. That’ll be Kath over there.’ He pointed to a petite blonde busy pulling a pint and chatting to another girl across the bar. Annie walked over and showed her the photo.

  ‘Any more thoughts on who this might be?’ she asked, after introducing herself.

  ‘I’ve given it a bit of thought,’ said Kath, ‘but I can’t say as I have. I know I’ve seen them here, but I just can’t place them.’

  ‘Let’s have a look, Kath,’ said the girl. She didn’t look old enough to be drinking, but Annie wasn’t there to enforce the licensing laws. She was dressed all in black, including lace-trimmed gloves, with orange hair and a pale, pixieish face.

  She looked at Annie. ‘If that’s all right with you?’ she added.

  ‘That’s fine,’ said Annie. ‘We need all the help we can get.’

  ‘I’m Sam. Short for Samantha.’

  Annie didn’t think it was short for Samuel, but you never knew. ‘Pleased to meet you, Sam.’

  ‘Lousy picture,’ Sam commented. ‘That from the Big Brother video?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Annie, ‘it’s from the CCTV cameras in the market square.’

  ‘Talk about an invasion of privacy,’ the girl began. ‘You know—’

  ‘I’d like to spend some time arguing the pros and cons of city-centre CCTV with you, Sam,’ said Annie sweetly. ‘Really I would, but a young girl, probably no older than you, was murdered in the Bar None last week, and we’re trying to find out who killed her.’

  ‘Yeah, I heard,’ said Sam, looking away. ‘It’s a fucking shame a woman can’t go anywhere by herself these days.’

  ‘Any idea who they are?’

  ‘Course I have.’

  ‘Will you tell me?’

  ‘Did they do it?’

  ‘I very much doubt it. But they might have seen something.’

  ‘It’s Alex and Carly. Alex Pender and Carly Grant. Carly and I do art together.’

  ‘Know where they live?’

  ‘They’ve got a flat together on Sebastopol Avenue, you know, one of those big old Victorian terraces. Landlords divide them up into poky flats and rent them out for a fortune. Talk about exploitation.’

  ‘Do you know the number?’

  Sam told her.

  Knowing now the reasons for Annie’s erratic behaviour didn’t make Banks feel any better. In fact, as the afternoon wore on, it made him feel worse. When she had stormed out of his office, he had stood for a moment to let it sink in, then felt the bile rise and burn in his throat. He might not be sleeping with Annie any more, but the thought of her being with Dalton hurt. He had been through the same thing with Sandra. For months after she left, when he knew she had moved in with Sean, the intolerable images crowded his mind, and during the long nights of drinking alone with random phrases from bitter Bob Dylan love songs echoing around his mind, the jealousy burnt like acid on his soul.

  Perhaps it wasn’t even jealousy, but envy; he couldn’t have Annie, but he couldn’t bear thinking about Dalton having her. Whatever it was, it hurt, and Banks had to make an effort to put it out of his mind for the time being and get on with the job.

  First, he sent DC Templeton off to get copies made of the photo of Clough he had got from Craig Newton. It was a good shot, candid or not, and Craig had cropped it so that it showed only Clough in full, mean face. When that was done, he would send a team out to check every hotel and guest house in the area to see if Clough had been staying there recently. He would also have Jim Hatchley and Winsome Jackman show it around Daleview and Charlie Courage’s neighbourhood. In the meantime, information had started trickling in now the working week had begun again.

  He didn’t learn much from the Riddles’ phone records. British Telecom’s Investigations Department had furnished DC Templeton with a list of numbers called on the Riddles’ house telephone for the last month, and a subscriber check had supplied the names and addresses. Most seemed to be
political cronies of Jimmy Riddle, or calls to Rosalind’s law office. Someone, Emily presumably, had phoned Ruth Walker’s number twice, but not within ten days of her death. There were no calls either to Craig Newton, Andrew Handley or Barry Clough. The only other calls Emily seemed to have made had been to Darren Hirst and to a sixth-form college in Scarborough. Banks thought it might be a good idea to get hold of Craig’s and Clough’s records, and do a cross-reference. It would take time, but it might throw up a lead of some sort. Oddly enough, Banks couldn’t find the call that Emily had made to him the day before she died. Then he remembered the background noise and realized she must have used a public telephone.

  Now that Jonathan Fearn was dead, Banks also had another murder on his plate, or manslaughter at least. Strictly speaking, it was DI Dalton’s case, the way Charlie Courage’s murder was Collaton’s, but there was a strong Eastvale connection, the Daleview Business Park and PKF Computer Systems being at the heart of both. Banks was just about to check if anything was happening in the incident room when his phone rang. It was Vic Manson, the fingerprints expert.

  ‘It’s about that CD case you had sent over,’ Manson said.

  ‘Find anything?’

  ‘Some very clear prints. I’ve checked the national index and, lo and behold, they belong to a bloke called Gregory Manners.’

  ‘Who the hell’s he when he’s at home?’

  ‘You may well ask. He’s been a naughty boy, though. Did six months a couple of years back for attempting to defraud Customs and Excise.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Smuggling, to you and me.’

  ‘Well, well, well.’

  ‘Ring any bells?’

  ‘So loud they’re deafening me. Thanks, Vic. Thanks a lot.’

  ‘No problem.’

  The minute Banks got off the phone with Manson he called Dirty Dick Burgess at the National Criminal Intelligence Service.

  ‘Banks. Solved your murder yet?’

  ‘Murders. And no, I haven’t.’

  ‘How can I help?’

  ‘I’ve got a few loose strands that seem to be coming together. Remember that PKF business I asked you about?’

  ‘Something to do with computers, wasn’t it?’

  ‘That’s right. Charlie Courage, nightwatchman and onetime con, gets murdered the day after a van clears out PKF’s Daleview offices, heading for another business park up Tyneside way. Over the past four weeks he’s made five two-hundred-pound cash deposits at his bank. With me so far?’

  ‘Hanging on your every word.’

  ‘The van itself gets hijacked north of Newcastle and the entire contents disappear. The driver, Jonathan Fearn, who, by the way is a known associate of Courage’s, has just died of injuries received.’

  ‘Another murder, then.’

  ‘Looks that way. But let me finish. PKF is a phony company and we can’t trace anyone involved in it. The only bit of evidence we’ve got is a CD case.’

  ‘That’s hardly evidence, is it?’ Burgess commented. ‘Stands to reason there’ll be CD cases around computer people.’

  ‘That’s not all. I’ve just found out that the prints on this case are those of one Gregory Manners, late of Her Majesty’s first-class hotel in Preston. Manners did six months for smuggling a lorry-load of cigarettes through Dover. Or trying to. When questioned he said—’

  ‘—he was working alone, and nobody was able to prove any different. All right, you’ve got a point. As a matter of fact, I do remember that one. It was one of Customs and Excise’s few successes that year.’

  ‘Let me guess who was behind it: Barry Clough?’

  ‘The man himself. Seems he’s everywhere we look, isn’t he?’

  ‘He certainly is. This Manners connection links him directly to PKF, whatever it was up to, and by extension to the murders of Charlie Courage and Jonathan Fearn.’

  ‘Still like him for the girl’s murder, too?’

  ‘Very much. But we don’t have enough to bring him in yet. You told me yourself how slippery he is.’

  ‘As a jellied eel. You know what I’m thinking, Banks?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘This hijack you told me about. It sounds very much as if someone ripped Barry Clough off.’

  ‘Indeed it does.’

  ‘And we know Barry doesn’t like that. Barry throws tantrums when people upset him.’

  ‘Enough for two people to end up dead?’

  ‘I’d say so.’

  ‘So maybe Courage was on Clough’s payroll, then he decided to work his own scam, selling information about when PKF was moving and where they were going. He’d hardly have looked the other way during a robbery at Daleview because it would have seemed far too obvious.’

  ‘A hijacked van’s pretty obvious, too, if you ask me,’ said Burgess.

  ‘Charlie wasn’t that bright.’

  ‘Obviously not. Anyway, it all sounds possible. It must have been valuable merchandise, though, to make it worth the risk.’

  ‘There wasn’t much risk to speak of, believe me. Not up there at that time on a Sunday night.’

  ‘Ah, the provinces. They never cease to amaze me. Ever wondered where the stuff’s got to?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Banks. ‘Whatever it was, I’m assuming it’s either been sold or it’s in someone’s lock-up waiting to cool down. I’m trying to run a check on other business parks around the country, see if there’ve been any more PKF-type scams lately, but that’ll take for ever.’

  ‘What do you want me to do?’

  ‘Can you fax me what you’ve got on Gregory Manners, for a start?’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘And have you got any photos of Andrew Handley and Jamie Gilbert on file?’

  ‘Indeed we have.’

  ‘Could you fax them up here, too? It might not be a bad idea to have someone show them around Daleview and Charlie Courage’s neighbourhood along with Clough’s.’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘Thanks. And will you keep a close eye on Clough?’

  ‘It’s being done as we speak.’

  ‘Because I’ll be wanting to talk to him again soon, if anything breaks, and this time I think we’ll have him up here.’

  ‘Oh, he’ll like that.’

  ‘I’ll bet. Anyway, thanks. I’ll be in touch.’

  ‘My pleasure. By the way, there’s nothing on Andy Pandy yet. It seems that when he wants to hide, he stays hidden. The lads are still on it, though. I’ll keep you informed.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  Banks hung up the phone and tried to piece together what he’d got. Not much, really, just a lot of vague suspicions as far as both cases were concerned. There was still something missing; the magnet, the one piece that would arrange the chaotic jumble of iron filings into a discernible pattern. Until he had that, he would get nowhere. He had a feeling that part of the answer, at least, lay with PKF and whatever it had been doing. At least he could have Gregory Manners brought in and find out what he had to say about the operation.

  Annie found a place to park outside number 37 Sebastopol Avenue, walked up the front steps and rang the doorbell to flat four.

  Luck was still with her; they were in.

  The flat was quite nicely done up, Annie thought, when they let her in and offered her a cup of tea. The furniture looked used, probably parental donations, but it was serviceable and comfortable. The small living room was clean and uncluttered, and the only decoration was a poster of a Modigliani nude over the tiled mantelpiece. Annie recognized it from one of her father’s books; he had always been a big fan of Modigliani, and of nudes. Under the window was a desk with a PC, and a mini stereo unit stood in a cabinet along with stacks of compact discs. There was no television.

  ‘What are you studying?’ Annie asked as Alex brought the tea.

  ‘Physics.’

  ‘Beyond my ken, I’m afraid.’ She nodded towards the painting. ‘Someone likes art, though, I see.’

  ‘That’s me,’ said Carly. ‘I
’m studying art history.’ She was a slight girl with dyed black hair, a ring through the far edge of her left eyebrow and another through the centre of her lower lip, which gave her voice a curious lisp.

  They talked about art for a while, then when they both seemed relaxed, Annie got down to business. It wasn’t as if she was there to interrogate them, but people often got nervous around the police, the way Annie did around gynaecologists.

  ‘Have you any idea why I’m here?’ she asked.

  They shook their heads.

  ‘I found someone in the Jolly Roger who told me where you lived. Why haven’t you come forward before now? You must know of all the appeals for information we’ve had out.’

  ‘Information about what?’ Alex asked, a puzzled expression on his face. He was good-looking enough, in a boyish sort of way, though his hair looked as if it needed a wash and he had an Adam’s apple the size of a gobstopper. Could do with a shave, too, Annie thought, or was she just getting conservative in her old age? There was a time, she reminded herself, when she hadn’t minded a little stubble on a man. She had even worn a stud through her nose. It wasn’t that long ago, either.

  ‘About the murder,’ she went on. ‘Emily Riddle’s murder. Surely you know it happened at the Bar None shortly after you left on Thursday night?’

  Alex and Carly looked blank. ‘No.’

  ‘It was in all the papers. On telly. Everyone’s talking about it.’

  ‘We don’t have a TV set and, well, to be honest,’ Alex said, ‘we haven’t looked at a paper in days. Too busy at college.’

  Seems like it, Annie thought. ‘But haven’t you heard anyone talking about it?’

  ‘I’ve heard people talking about a drug overdose,’ Carly said. ‘But I didn’t make the connection. I didn’t pay much attention. It’s so negative. I never read about things like that. It upsets my balance. Why are you here?’