Friend of the Devil

by Peter Robinson

  “Did you ask if she noticed anyone paying them much attention?”

  “I did. She said it was pretty quiet around then, but there was one bloke by himself in a corner giving the girls the eye. In all fairness, the barmaid said she didn’t blame him, given how little they were wearing.”

  “Name?”

  “Didn’t know,” said DC Wilson. “Said he was vaguely familiar, thought she’d seen him before but couldn’t think where. Thought he might be one of the local shopkeepers having a quiet drink after work. Anyway, I gave her my mobile number in case she remembered.”

  “That’s good work, Doug,” said Banks. The pub was filling up and getting noisy around them. It was hardly a day for tourists, but a coach had pulled up in the market square nevertheless, and they all came dashing toward The Queen’s Arms, plastic macs over their heads, mostly aging mothers led by their sons and daughters.

  “So DC Wilson found one place they had drinks at, and I found three,” Hatchley said. “Did we miss anywhere, lad?” Hatchley glanced at Wilson, who didn’t need telling twice. He shot up from his seat and hurried to the bar ahead of the tourists.

  “He’ll be all right,” said Hatchley, winking at Banks.

  “Find out anything else about Hayley?” Banks asked.

  “Well,” said Hatchley, “she had quite a mouth on her, according to Jack Bagley at The Trumpeters, especially when he refused to serve her. Wouldn’t believe the stream of foul language that came out of such a pretty young thing, Jack wouldn’t, and there’s not much he hasn’t heard.”

  “It’s the drink,” said Banks. “Lord knows, I don’t mind a drop or two myself, but some kids don’t know when to stop these days.”

  “It’s not just these days,” said Hatchley, scratching the side of his nose. “I could tell you a rugby club tale or two that would curl your toes. And what’s binge drinking, anyway, when you get right down to it? Five or more drinks in a row, three or more times a month. That’s how the so-called experts define it. But you tell me which one of us has never done that. Still, you’re right. Drinking’s quite the social-order problem these days, and Eastvale’s up there with the worst, for a town its size. And it was Saint Paddy’s Day yesterday, too. You know the Irish. Couple of drinks, a punch-up, a few songs and another drink.”

  “Come on, Jim,” said Banks. “I promised Superintendent Gervaise you weren’t going to offend anyone.”

  Hatchley looked hurt. “Me? Offend?”

  DC Wilson rejoined them looking pleased with himself. “Seems they were here later on in the evening,” he said.

  “And Cyril served them?”

  “Cyril wasn’t here last night. The young lad at the far end was, though. He said they were quiet enough by then. Maybe a bit the worse for wear, but nobody was acting so drunk he thought he ought to refuse to serve them. They had a drink each, just the one, and left in orderly fashion half an hour or so before closing time.”

  “That would be about half past eleven, then,” said Banks.

  “Did he see where they went?” Hatchley asked.

  “Over to The Fountain.”

  The Fountain was the pub on the far side of the square, on the corner of Taylor’s Yard, and it was known to stay open until about midnight, or not long after. “The others must have quietened Hayley down after that fracas in The Trumpeters so they could get more drinks,” Hatchley said. “I wonder if they went to the Bar None when The Fountain closed? They’ve been stricter about who they serve in there since the last time they were in trouble, but it’s the only place in town you can get a drink after midnight, unless you fancy a curry and lager at the Taj.”

  DC Wilson’s mobile buzzed and he put it to his ear. When he had asked a couple of questions and listened for a while, the frown deepened on his brow.

  “What is it?” Banks asked when Wilson turned the phone off.

  “It was that barmaid at The Duck and Drake,” he said. “She remembered where she’d seen the bloke sitting by himself. Got a tear in her leather jacket a couple of months ago and someone recommended that shop on the corner of Taylor’s Yard for invisible mending. Said she didn’t know the bloke’s name, but it was him, the bloke from the leather shop.”

  MEL DANVERS, Karen Drew’s assigned carer, was a slender young thing of twenty-something with doe eyes and a layered cap of chocolate-brown hair. Grace Chaplin seemed in control, but Mel seemed nervous, fiddling with a ring on her finger, perhaps because she was in front of her supervisor. Annie didn’t know if the nervousness meant anything, but she hoped she would soon find out. Someone had managed to get her hands on an assortment of sandwiches, she noticed, along with some digestive biscuits and a pot of tea. Things were looking up in the conference room.

  Mel turned from Annie to Grace. “I can’t believe it,” she said. “Karen? Murdered?”

  She had checked Karen’s room, and her colleagues had searched the rest of Mapston Hall, just in case Karen had somehow returned without anyone knowing, but she was nowhere to be found. And Karen fit the description that Annie gave Grace and Mel. Tommy Naylor was busy searching her room.

  “Tell me what happened?” Annie said. “Were you there when she left?”

  “Yes. I even advised her against it. The weather…but her friend was quite adamant. She said a bit of wind and rain never bothered her, and it would be a long time before she could come again. I couldn’t stop her from going. I mean, she wasn’t a prisoner or anything.”

  “It’s all right,” said Annie. “Nobody’s blaming you. What was her friend’s name?”

  “Mary.”

  “No surname?”

  “She didn’t give me one. It should be in the log,” Mel said, with a glance at Grace. “They have to sign the log.”

  Annie showed her the signature. Mel narrowed her eyes and shook her head. “I can’t read it,” she said.

  “Nobody can,” said Annie. “I think that was the intention.”

  “But you can’t mean…Oh, dear God!” She put her hand to her mouth.

  Grace touched her shoulder gently. “There, there, Mel,” she said. “Be strong. Answer the inspector’s questions.”

  “Yes,” said Mel, stiffening and straightening her uniform.

  “Is the time right? Nine-thirty?” Annie asked.

  “Yes,” Mel answered.

  Well, that was something, Annie thought. “Do you require any sort of identification from people signing patients out?” she asked.

  “No,” said Grace. “Why would we? Who would want to…” She let her words trail off when she realized where she was heading.

  “I understand,” said Annie. “So basically anyone can walk in and take any one of your patients out?”

  “Well, yes,” said Grace. “But usually they’re friends or relatives, unless they’re social workers or volunteers, of course, and then they take whoever requires them.” She paused. “Not all our patients have relatives who recognize their existence.”

  “It must be difficult,” Annie said, not entirely sure what she meant. She turned to Mel again. “Had you ever seen this Mary before?” she asked.

  “No.”

  “Are you certain it was a woman?”

  “I think so,” Mel said. “It was mostly her voice, you know. I couldn’t see much of her face because she was wearing a hat and glasses, and she had a long raincoat on with the collar turned up so, you know, it sort of hid her shape, her figure and her neck. I’m pretty sure, though.”

  “What was her voice like?”

  “Just ordinary.”

  “Any particular accent?”

  “No. But not Yorkshire, like, or Geordie. Just sort of neutral. She didn’t say very much, just said she was a friend and had come to take Karen for a walk.”

  “What did you notice about her?”

  “She was quite slight. You know, wiry. Not very tall.”

  “Did you catch a glimpse of her hair color at all?”

  “Not really. I think it must have been under the hat.�
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  “What kind of hat?”

  “I don’t know. A hat. With a brim.”

  “What color?”

  “Black.”

  “Any idea what age she was?”

  “Hard to say. I didn’t get a real look at her face. Old, though. From the way she moved and her general appearance, I’d say maybe late thirties or forty.”

  Annie let that go by. “Anything distinguishing about her?”

  “Just ordinary, really.”

  “Okay. Did you see her car? She couldn’t have walked here.”

  “No,” said Mel. “I mean, I was inside all the time. Someone might have seen it in one of the parking spots.”

  “Do you have CCTV in the car park?”

  “No. We don’t have it at all here. I mean, it’s not as if the patients are under guard or they’re going to do…you know, run away or anything.”

  “How did Karen react to the idea of a walk with Mary?”

  Mel fiddled with her ring and reddened. “She didn’t. I mean, sh-she couldn’t, could she? Karen was a quadriplegic. She couldn’t communicate.”

  “Did she have any particular friends here?” Annie asked. “Anyone she spent a lot of time with?”

  “It’s difficult when a person can’t communicate,” Mel said. “You tend to be confined to a pretty solitary existence. Of course, the staff here make sure she has all she needs. They talk to her, tell her what’s going on. They’re all truly wonderful people. And she has her television, of course. But…well, it all goes in, but nothing comes out.” Mel shrugged.

  “So you had no way of knowing whether she recognized Mary or not? Or, indeed, wanted to go with her?”

  “No. But why would this Mary…I mean…” Mel started crying. Grace passed her a handkerchief from her pocket and touched her shoulder again. “Why would anybody want to take Karen out if they didn’t know her?” Mel went on. “What would be the point?”

  “Well, I think we know the answer to that,” Annie said. “Someone wanted to get her alone in an isolated spot and kill her. The puzzle that remains is why. Was Karen wealthy?”

  “I believe she had some money from the sale of her house,” Grace said, “but that would all have been put toward her care. I wouldn’t say she was wealthy, no.”

  “How did she end up here, by the way?” Annie asked.

  “Drunk driver,” said Grace. “Broke her back. Awkward area. Spinal cord damage. It happens far more often than you would imagine. Tragic case.”

  “There’d be insurance, then?”

  “Whatever there was, it would have also gone toward her care.”

  “How long had she been here?”

  “About three months.”

  “Where did she come here from?”

  “A hospital called Grey Oaks, just outside Nottingham. Specializes in spinal injuries.”

  “How did she end up here? What’s the process?”

  “It varies,” said Grace. “Sometimes it’s people’s families who’ve heard of us. Sometimes it comes through social services. Karen’s stay in the hospital was up—there was nothing more they could do for her there, and they need all the beds they can get—so the social services helped and came up with us. We had a room available, and the details were worked out.”

  “Do you know the name of the social worker involved?”

  “It should be in the file.”

  “Does Karen have any relatives?”

  “None that I know of,” said Grace. “I’d have to check the files for the information you want.”

  “I’d like to take those files.”

  Grace paused, then said, “Of course. Look, do you seriously think the motive was money?”

  “I don’t know what it was,” said Annie. “I’m just covering all the possibilities. We need to know a lot more about Karen Drew and the life she lived before she ended up here if we hope to get any further. As nobody seems to be able to help us very much on that score, perhaps we’d better concentrate our efforts elsewhere.”

  “We’ve told you all we can,” said Grace. “You should find more information in her files.”

  “Maybe.” Annie looked at Mel, who seemed to have pulled herself together and was nibbling on a digestive biscuit. “We’ll need a description of this Mary as soon as possible. Someone might have seen her locally. Mel, do you think you could work with a police artist on this? I don’t know how quickly we can get someone here at such short notice, but we’ll do our best.”

  “I think so,” said Mel. “I mean, I’ve never done it before, but I’ll have a try. But like I said, I never got a good look at her face.”

  Annie gave her a reassuring smile. “The artist’s very good,” she said. “Just do your best. He’ll help steer you in the right direction.” Annie stood up and said to Grace, “We’ll be sending some officers over to take statements from as many staff members and patients as possible. DS Naylor will be picking up the files before we leave. I hope you’ll be cooperative.”

  “Of course,” said Grace.

  Annie remained in the conference room and ate a potted meat sandwich, washed down with a glass of water, until Tommy Naylor came in with the files, then they left together. “What do you think?” she asked Naylor when they got outside.

  “I think we’ve got our work cut out,” he said, waving a file folder about half an inch thick. “I’ve had a quick glance, and there’s not a lot here except medical mumbo jumbo, and we don’t even have a next of kin to go on.”

  Annie sighed. “These things are sent to try us. See if you can get the artist organized, not that it’ll do much good, by the sound of things, and I’ll find out if DS McCullough and the SOCOs have anything for us.”

  3

  WINSOME WONDERED IF SHE WAS DOING THE RIGHT thing as she parked outside the Faversham Hotel that afternoon. She had told Donna McCarthy that Geoff was at a meeting and unavailable over the telephone. Rather than try to reach him later, leave a message, or wait for him to come back to Swainshead, she said she would go to find him and break the news herself. Donna had been grateful and relieved that someone else was going to tell Geoff about his daughter. Winsome had tried his mobile and the hotel switchboard a couple more times on her way to Skipton, but with no luck.

  The hotel lay just outside the town, not far from where the wild millstone grit of the Brontë moorland metamorphosed into the limestone hills and valleys of the Dales National Park. Winsome knew the area reasonably well, as she had been potholing with the club in the Malham area on several occasions, but she didn’t know the Faversham. It resembled a big old manor house with a few additions tacked on. A stream ran by the back, and Winsome could hear it burbling over the rocks as she went in the front door. Very rustic and romantic, she thought, and not at all the sort of place for a convention of used-car salesmen.

  She showed her warrant card at the front desk and explained that she needed to talk to Mr. Daniels. The receptionist rang the room, but got no answer. “He must be out,” she said.

  “What’s his room number?”

  “I can’t—”

  “This is police business,” Winsome said. “He forgot to bring his medicine, and without it he could die. Bad heart.” It was a quick improvisation, but the word “die” did the trick. You didn’t have to see Fawlty Towers to know what problems a dead body in a hotel room could cause.

  “Oh my God,” said the receptionist. “He hasn’t been answering his phone all morning.” She called someone in from the back room to take over from her, then asked Winsome to follow her. They made their way in silence on the lift to the second floor and along the corridor where trays of empty plates and cups sat outside doors.

  Outside number 212 was a tray with an empty champagne bottle in a cooler—Veuve Clicquot, Winsome noticed, the ice long melted to water—and a couple of plates bearing the discarded translucent pink shells of several prawns. A “Do Not Disturb” sign hung on the door handle.

  Winsome was immediately transported back to the time
when she worked at the Holiday Inn outside Montego Bay, cleaning up after the American and European tourists. She had hardly been able to believe the state of some of the rooms, the things people left there, shamelessly, for a young impressionable girl, who went to church in her best frock and hat every Sunday, to clean up or throw away. Winsome remembered how Beryl had laughed the first time she held up a used condom and asked what it was. Winsome was only twelve. How could she be expected to know? And sometimes people had been in the rooms, doing things, though they hadn’t posted a sign. Two men once, one black and one white. Winsome shuddered at the memory. She had nothing against gays, but back then she had been young and ignorant and hadn’t even known that such things happened.

  Winsome looked at the receptionist, who held the pass card, and nodded. Reluctantly, the receptionist stuck the card in the door, and when the light turned green, she pushed it open.

  At first Winsome found it hard to make out what was what. The curtains were drawn, even though it was past midday; the air was stale and filled with the kind of smells only a long night’s intimacy imparts to an enclosed space. The receptionist took a step back in the doorway and Winsome turned on the light.

  A man lay spread-eagled on the bed, tied to the frame by his ankles and hands with black silk scarves, wearing a thick gold chain around his neck, and nothing else. A woman in the throes of ecstasy squatted on his midparts, wearing a garter belt and black stockings, and when the light came on, she screamed and wrapped a blanket around herself.

  “What the fuck’s going on?” the man yelled. “Who the fuck are you?”

  The receptionist headed off down the corridor muttering, “I’ll leave this to you, then, shall I?”

  “Police.” Winsome showed her warrant card. She didn’t think of herself as a prude, but the scene shocked her so much that she didn’t even want to look at Daniels lying there with his drooping manhood exposed. It also made her angry. Maybe Geoff Daniels couldn’t have known that his daughter was going to die a terrible death while he was playing sex games with his mistress, but she was damn well going to make him feel the guilt of it. She asked the woman her name.