“It’s about the murder of Pamela Morrison,” Banks began.
“Yes, I heard. Tragic business.”
“Word has it that you knew the girl.”
“I wouldn’t say I knew her. Certainly not in the carnal sense. I’ve seen her around the clubs, that’s all.”
“You frequent many clubs in Soho?”
“Many? There aren’t many left,” said Micallef. “Not since the City of Westminster started its clean up Soho campaign. But I think vice will always flourish in such an environment, don’t you, Inspector?” Micallef shrugged in a man-of-the-world sort of way. “Anyway, I frequent one or two of the handful that remain. I’m a red-blooded male. What can I say? You have some very beautiful women here in London.”
“Where are you from?”
“Valletta. Malta. Though I was educated here. My mother insisted. Harrow and King’s College, Cambridge. I read mathematics, if you’re interested.”
“I see you put your education to good use,” Banks said.
“I’m a property developer,” Micallef announced proudly, “and I like to play the stock market. I find a little background in arithmetic doesn’t go amiss.”
“What about your other business?” Banks asked.
“What would that be? I have a number of side interests.”
“The girls. Pimping.”
Micallef wagged his finger. “You should know better than that, Inspector. That’s illegal, and I don’t do anything illegal.”
“You own the building where Pamela Morrison’s body was found.”
Micallef swirled the wine in his glass. “My company owns it, as you are obviously aware. Are you saying that makes me responsible?”
“No. I’m saying she was found dead in a room you let her use—or rented for her use—to entertain men for money. Who had Pamela arranged to meet in that room, or take there, two nights ago?”
“How should I know? As I said, what she did in the room was her business. I have nothing to do with such things. Even if I did let this woman use the room, as you suggest, or rented it to her, I had no idea what she did in it. How could I? I don’t spy on my tenants, Inspector.”
“What about the other rooms in the building? What are they used for?”
“I don’t know.”
“Perhaps it could be called a brothel?”
“I wouldn’t know.”
“Don’t you think you should take a closer interest in your business affairs.”
“I employ others to do that for me. That’s why I have nominees.”
“Who are they? Will you give me some names?”
Micallef smiled. It was a reptile’s smile. “Help the police with their inquiries? Of course. No doubt you already have some, or you wouldn’t be here making these wild accusations. Talk to Benny on your way out.” Micallef gestured toward the entrance, and Banks noticed one of the men who had been sitting at the table earlier was now chatting and laughing with the maître d’ near the front desk. Perhaps he wasn’t a gorilla, but “Benny” certainly had the appearance of a minder—broad chest, arm muscles bulging none too discreetly under his tight-fitting Armani suit. Micallef glanced at his watch again. “I have to leave. Why don’t you stay here and enjoy Yuan’s excellent hospitality? I assume I’m free to terminate this interview at any time?”
“Of course,” said Banks.
“Then I’m sure you understand that I really have nothing more to say on the matter.”
Micallef stood up to move away, but Banks grabbed his wrist. He noticed Benny stiffen over by the door, and he also noticed the subtle shift in position and sudden alertness that meant Albright was ready for action. Nobody else moved as Banks slowly pulled Micallef toward him. Though the Maltese was tall, he was not especially strong. “Mr. Micallef,” said Banks. “Do you have any idea who Pamela Morrison met in that room two nights ago? Or do you know the name of anyone who might know?”
“No, I don’t,” said Micallef, gently freeing himself from Banks’s grip and dusting off his cuff with his hand. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a business to run.”
And with that, he was gone.
“Well, that went well, sir, didn’t it?” said Albright.
“About as well as can be expected,” said Banks, smiling. “At least we’ve rattled his cage. Come on, let’s go. There should still be somewhere open around here where we can get a decent pint.”
It was shortly after closing time when Banks got back to the Kennington flat that evening, and Sandra was waiting up for him. He poured a large Scotch, then flopped next to her on the living room sofa and lit a cigarette.
“Do you really need that?” she said, meaning the whiskey.
“It’s been a rough day.”
“It’s always a rough day. But by the smell of you, you’ve been in the pub most of the evening already.”
“What if I have?”
“Oh, Alan, come on. You know what I’m saying. Stop acting like a spoiled child. You’re never home anymore. You never spend any time with us.”
“What do you mean?”
“Us. When was the last time you saw Tracy or Brian? Remember them, your children? Our children. Us.”
“Last night. I looked in—”
“I mean really saw them. Talked to them. Found out what they’re doing at school, what they’re interested in, what’s happening in their lives. When’s the last time we ever did anything together as a family?”
“Like what?”
“Oh, I don’t bloody know. A day at the zoo or something. That’s not the point.”
“Then what is?”
“That you just don’t seem like you want to be a member of this family anymore. You just don’t care. You’d rather hang out boozing with your cop cronies or visit the Soho clubs watching strippers and talking to pimps and prostitutes. What kind of life is that?”
“It’s my life, Sandra. It’s a copper’s life. It’s—”
“Oh, don’t give me that crap, Alan. I’ve heard it all before. You should know better than that. It’s worse now than when you worked undercover. At least then we never saw you at all. Now you just pop up whenever you feel like it, whenever you need a place to sleep or eat, like some eccentric down-and-out uncle. And sleep is the right word. I can’t remember the last time we made love. God knows where you’ve been till all hours. You could have another woman for all I know.”
“Oh, come on, Sandra—”
“No. I mean it. I don’t know what’s going on in your life—you don’t talk to me—and you don’t know what’s going on in ours. And what’s more, you don’t care.”
Banks sat up straight. “I do bloody care, if you’d just give me a chance!”
“How? Show me how you care. How much you care. What have you done lately to let us know you care? When did we last have sex?”
“I told you, things have been a bit tough, lately, I’m tired when I get home, or you’re out down at the arts center…. I—”
“Oh, bollocks, Alan. Bollocks. It’s just excuse after excuse with you.”
“I’m thinking of transferring up north,” Banks blurted out.
Sandra’s jaw dropped. “You’re what?”
Now he’d said it, there was no going back. “Well, all of us, of course. Not just me. But if I can get a transfer—”
Sandra put her palm to the side of her head and tapped gently. “Hang on a minute. Am I hearing you right? Am I missing something here? Did you ever hear me say I wanted to move up north?”
“Well, not in so many words, but you’ve complained often enough about the size of the flat here, and we’d be able to afford somewhere bigger up there. Maybe in the country. We—”
“I complain about the flat because it is too small for the four of us. Maybe it’s not a bad thing that you are out all the bloody time. Makes the place seem less crowded.”
“That’s not fair.”
“Anyway, since when have you been entertaining this idea?”
“I heard abo
ut a position coming up. DCI. It’d mean more money, too. Maybe fast track to superintendent. I’d be home more. Stands to reason. Smaller place, less crime.”
“Where is this Shangri-la?”
“Place called Eastvale.”
“Never heard of it.”
“It’s on the map. North Yorkshire. I’m going up there. Sort of informal interview with the super.”
“When is this? You never told me.”
“It’s all very recent. I just haven’t had time. This murder and all…. Couple of days, anyway. When I can get a break from the case. The weekend, maybe, if I can get away.”
“But, Alan, we’re supposed to be having Charlie and Rose over for dinner on Saturday. Don’t you remember?”
Banks didn’t. “Of course. I’ll go Sunday,” he said. “I can get there and back in a day if I leave really early. I don’t mind the driving. Maybe you can come? Maybe we can all go?” He stood up, excited by the idea. “I’ll drop you off in the town center while I go for my chat—he lives out of the town—then pick you up later on the way back. We’ll have a nice drive in the country, a pub lunch.”
“It’s not exactly my idea of a perfect Sunday out,” said Sandra. “That’s a lot of hours in the car, and you know Tracy gets carsick.”
“She can take a Kwell.”
“They just put her to sleep. But I’ll see. You must promise you’ll be here on Saturday evening for dinner, though. It’s Rose’s birthday.”
“I’ll be here.”
Sandra ran her hand through her hair. “Christ, your job is turning me into a bloody shrew,” she said. “I never used to be like this before. It’s just that I don’t know where we stand anymore. All we ever seem to do when we are together is argue. And I’m not sure moving is the answer. I don’t know about moving up north. I don’t know the north. You should have asked me first.”
“Nothing’s been decided yet. I might not get it even if I do apply. And, of course, if you don’t want to move…”
“I know. I know. It’s just so sudden. The way you sprung it on me. It’s just…well, I like London. I like the galleries, the parks, the pubs, the restaurants, the theaters. I just want to do it all with you, that’s all. Can’t you see that? You’re like a stranger to me these days. Is there someone else, Alan? Is that what it is?”
Banks put his arm around her. “Of course not,” he said. “Of course there’s no one else. It’s the job, love. It’s just the job.”
There were no developments over the next few days. One possible lead—a man Pamela had been seen talking to a couple of times in Naughty Nites—got everyone excited, then fizzled out when it turned out that he was in Barcelona on business at the time of the murder. The other girls Pamela worked with were interviewed, along with Micallef’s nominees and employees, then club owners, bouncers, johns, pub managers and local shopkeepers, all to no avail. Pamela Morrison had met her death in a cramped room in Soho and nobody seemed to know a thing about it. Except her killer.
The psychologist Banks and Albright spoke with didn’t have much to add at such an early stage, either, but he stressed the ritualistic element and that however odd the actions seemed, the killer would be able to justify them to himself. The killer was controlled, too, he said, and the way the body was posed not only accorded with his idea of innocence but hid the reality of what he had done from himself. In a way, he couldn’t face his acts. There was a strong chance, the psychologist said, that the killer could unravel before long, but there might be other victims first. The press was kept briefed and up to date, but Hatchard was as good as his word and careful not to let slip any of the unusual details: the posing of the body, the Sellotape, the makeup wiped off.
Saturday’s dinner was a success, and Banks was only three-quarters of an hour late. He had a nagging hangover early on Sunday morning when they set off through the deserted London streets toward the M1. Brian was quiet, gazing out of the window, and Tracy was sleepy after taking her Kwell. The old Cortina moved along smoothly and Banks slipped in a cassette of Bags Groove. Miles Davis, Monk and Milt Jackson. Nice music for a peaceful, sunny morning in London. It could have been a sound track for the opening of a movie. Tracy didn’t stir and nobody else complained, so Banks left it on. Soon, he felt worlds away from Soho, Pamela Morrison, Jackie Simmons and Matthew Micallef.
The journey up the M1 was easy enough, not so many lorries, but a few Sunday drivers slowing down the lanes, crawling a mile or two from one junction to the next to visit their children or grandchildren. Banks had a bit of trouble negotiating the stretch between the M1 and the A1—he left the motorway too soon—and he found himself passing road signs to Normanton, Featherstone, Pontefract, Castleford and Knottingley. He passed through some small mining communities and realized he was in Pamela Morrison’s part of the world. None of them had ever been farther north than Peterborough before, so everyone was very excited, the kids with their noses pressed against the car windows.
But soon everyone became quiet.
Banks hadn’t really known what to expect; he had only seen images on the news, usually of miners fighting pitched battles with the riot police. The reality was grim, even in the sunshine of a beautiful summer’s day, from the rows of grimy back-to-back terrace houses to the newer redbrick council estates put up in the sixties and already shabby, and the weed-covered patches of waste ground where groups of children organized makeshift games of football, using their jackets to mark the goalposts. He drove past rows of shops, most of them boarded up or advertising closing-down sales, the rest selling secondhand clothing or market-stall-priced household cleaners and utensils.
There was an aura of gloom about the place, but it was the gloom of poverty and despair, not lack of sunlight. The same bright sun shone on the soot-blackened civic buildings up here as it did on the majestic architecture of Westminster or the dome of St. Paul’s. The few people Banks noticed on the streets seemed to shuffle along, hands in their pockets, heads hung low, avoiding eye contact with anyone else. Across a field, Banks saw a still pit-wheel silhouetted against the blue sky and a slag heap covered in weeds. In the distance, smoke poured from the huge cooling towers of Ferrybridge power station.
Banks couldn’t imagine anyone wanting to be a miner. Certainly the long hours, claustrophobic conditions, the danger and filth of it put him off. But people did it. Generation after generation. And they fought long and hard for such basic rights as showers at the pit-head and permission to use them after their shifts. Now it was gone, wiped out. You could argue all you wanted about the economic necessity of closing the pits, he thought, but none of that took into account the level of human misery it caused in some of these communities. It was more than just the loss of jobs, of income, as if that weren’t bad enough. It was the loss of a community’s identity, its way of life, traditions, history and culture. He felt as if he were driving through a vanishing world.
Banks found the A1 just beyond Fryston and Fairburn and carried on north past Wetherby, turning off just north of Ripon. Nobody had spoken much since the detour through industrial West Yorkshire, but the general consensus was that lunch was in order. Banks stopped at the first village they came to on the Eastvale road. He had arranged to go and see Detective Superintendent Gristhorpe at his home in a village called Lyndgarth at two thirty, which gave them plenty of time to enjoy a pub lunch in the country.
They sat at a wooden bench outside a seventeenth-century limestone pub, looking out over the village green and enjoying the sunshine and fresh air. Beyond the green and the houses on the other side, Banks could see the beginnings of the Dales, humpbacked hills that rolled into the hazy distance like giant frozen waves.
Because he was driving and attending an interview, however informal, Banks was off the booze for the day, and he drank warm fizzy lemonade instead. The kids had the same, while Sandra asked for a half pint of cold lager. It was good to see her relaxing and unwinding for a change, Banks thought. Years of care seemed to slip off her shoulders as
she smoked a rare cigarette and smiled mischievously at him, sipping her lager and gazing at the view. She even got out her camera and took a few photos.
When they had finished their roast beef and Yorkshire pudding, they set off for Eastvale. It seemed like a pleasant market town, with a cobbled square, church and ancient market cross, a ruined castle looming over it all, a sign pointing down a hill to the river. It was worlds away from what they had seen in West Yorkshire. None of the shops were boarded up, and those that weren’t open were closed only because it was Sunday. The darkness that had swallowed up much of the rest of the country beyond the Home Counties didn’t seem to have cast much of a pall up here.
There were quite a few tourists about, many kitted out for walking. The outside tables at the pubs were busy, and it was impossible to find a parking spot in the square. Banks just dropped Sandra, Brian and Tracy off outside a Tudor-fronted building that appeared to be the police station, and said he’d pick them up at the same spot in a couple of hours. They waved good-bye as he drove away. Just like a real family.
Banks pulled up outside the isolated farmhouse at the end of the rutted drive and turned off his engine. He got out of the car and stood for a moment and just took in the countryside, silent but for the sounds of the birds and someone hammering in the distance. The farm stood outside the village of Lyndgarth, about halfway up the northern dale-side, and it commanded a magnificent view down the slope toward the winding, wooded river, then across and all the way up the other side, green fields marked out into odd shapes by drystone walls—a teacup, a milk churn, a teardrop. Sheep grazed on the lower pastures, and higher up the green paled to a dry brown, and outcrops of limestone broke through the rough grass. At the very top was a long limestone scar, which gleamed like a row of giant teeth in the sunlight. Banks thought he could see a line of walkers moving along the top, tiny dots in the distance.
The Price of Love and Other Stories Page 34