Friend of the Devil

by Peter Robinson

  Austin’s office was on the first floor, and when Winsome knocked, he opened the door for her himself. It was a cozy room with a high ornate ceiling and broad sash windows. In his bookcase were a lot of travel guides to various countries, some of them very old indeed, and on his wall was a poster of the Blue Mosque in Istanbul. Against one wall stood a battered old sofa with scuffed black leather upholstery. The only window looked over a flagstone courtyard, where students sat at wooden tables between the trees eating sandwiches, talking and drinking coffee in the spring sunshine. It made Winsome yearn for her own student days.

  Austin was about fifty, with his gray hair worn fashionably long and tied in a ponytail at the back. He also had a deep tan, probably one of the perks of the business, Winsome thought. He wore a loose blue cable-knit jumper and faded jeans torn at the knees. He kept himself in shape, and was attractive in a lanky, rangy sort of way, with a strong jaw, straight nose and large Adam’s apple. Winsome noticed that he wasn’t wearing a wedding ring. He pulled out a chair for her and sat behind his small, untidy desk.

  Winsome first thanked Austin for agreeing to talk to her so early in the morning.

  “That’s all right,” he said. “My first class is at ten o’clock, and I’m afraid my Wednesdays just get worse after that.” His smile was engaging, and his teeth seemed well cared for. “It’s about Hayley Daniels, isn’t it?”

  “Yes.”

  A frown creased his broad forehead. “It’s a terrible tragedy. Such a bright girl.”

  “She was?” Winsome realized she knew nothing about Hayley’s academic life.

  “Oh, yes. Not just the written work, mind you. She had the personality for the job, too. You need personality in the travel business.”

  “I’m sure,” said Winsome. “Do you know of any boyfriends or anyone on campus Hayley might have been involved with?”

  Austin scratched his head. “I honestly can’t say. She seemed a very gregarious type, always hanging out with a group rather than any particular individual. I think she enjoyed the attention.”

  “Do you know of anyone who disliked her?”

  “Not enough to kill her.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Perhaps some of the other girls envied her her figure and her good looks, her easygoing manner, even her good marks. There is a school of thought that maintains you shouldn’t have it all—brains and beauty. Perhaps some of the boys resented the fact that they couldn’t have her.”

  “Stuart Kinsey?”

  “He’s one example that comes immediately to mind. He was always hanging around her, drooling. It was pretty obvious he was carrying a torch for her. But Stuart wouldn’t harm a soul. He’d probably just go home and write sad love poems.”

  “What was your relationship with Hayley?”

  Austin looked puzzled. “Relationship? I was her tutor. I marked her essays, she attended my lectures. I helped supervise her work experience, advised her on career paths, that sort of thing.”

  “Work experience?”

  “Oh, yes. It’s not just an academic course, you know. Students get the chance to work with travel agents and for airlines, sometimes even as overseas representatives and guides. I was trying to get Hayley a temporary position as a yellow shirt with Swan Hellenic, but I’m afraid they’ve lost their ship to Carnival, so things are a bit up in the air.”

  Winsome paused and crossed her legs. She was wearing jeans today—good ones—because she wasn’t going to make the same mistake as yesterday, though the likelihood of her being paired with Templeton again was slim to nonexistent. “Hayley was a very attractive girl,” she said.

  “I suppose she was,” said Austin. “There are a lot of attractive girls around the college, or hadn’t you noticed?”

  “But maybe Hayley was your type?”

  “What on earth do you mean? Are you asking if we were having an affair?”

  “Were you?”

  “No, we were not. She was nineteen, for crying out loud.”

  Yes, Winsome thought, and Annie Cabbot’s latest conquest was twenty-two. Only three years’ difference. So what? she almost said. “Are you married?”

  Austin hesitated before saying, “I was. Twenty years. We separated four months ago. Irreconcilable differences.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that,” said Winsome.

  “These things happen. We’d been drifting apart for some time.”

  Marriage and a girl’s age were the two things that never made much difference to most men, Winsome remembered from the number of passes she had evaded when she worked at the hotel. “Weren’t you ever tempted?” she asked. “All those pretty young girls around, hanging on your every word. Surely they develop crushes on you sometimes? It’s only natural, you being a teacher and all.”

  “You learn to deal with it.”

  Winsome paused, then asked, “Would you mind telling me where you were on Saturday night?”

  “Am I a suspect?”

  “If you wouldn’t mind, sir.”

  “All right.” Austin glared at her. “I was at home.”

  “Where’s that?”

  “Raglan Road.”

  “Near the town center?”

  “Yes. Not far.”

  “You didn’t go out at all?”

  “I went to The Mitre on York Road for a couple of pints between about nine and ten.”

  “Anyone see you?”

  “The usual locals.”

  “Then what?”

  “I went back home. There was nothing that interested me on TV, so I watched a DVD.”

  “What DVD?”

  “Chinatown.”

  “An oldie.”

  “They’re often the best. Film happens to be one of my passions. When it came to a career, it was a toss-up between that and the travel business. I suppose I chose the more practical course.”

  “But you didn’t go into the market square?”

  “On a Saturday night? Do you think I’m crazy?” Austin laughed. “I value my life more than that.”

  Winsome smiled. “We do have a bit of a problem, you see, sir. We know that Hayley wasn’t expected home on Saturday, and she wasn’t planning on going to the Bar None with her friends. She had somewhere mysterious to go, and nobody seems to know where it was.”

  “Well, I’m afraid I can’t help you there.”

  “Are you sure she wasn’t coming to see you?”

  “Why would she do that? And why would I want a drunk and immature teenager in my house?”

  Winsome could think of plenty of reasons, most of which would make her blush to say out loud, but she decided it was best to leave Austin to think of them himself. Instead, she ended the interview and walked out of the office, making a mental note of her reservations. She wasn’t at all certain that she believed him about his relationship to Hayley, but without evidence there wasn’t much she could do.

  As she walked down the stairs, a skinny long-haired male student she vaguely recognized was on his way up. He paused as they passed each other and glanced at her in an odd way. At first she thought it was because of her color. She got that all the time, especially in a place like Eastvale that wasn’t exactly high in its immigrant population. Only when she had reached the street did she realize it was something else. Recognition? Fear? Guilt? He had been one of the people with Hayley in the market square just before she disappeared down Taylor’s Yard. Winsome was certain of it. One of the people DC Wilson hadn’t traced and talked to yet, as far as she knew.

  BANKS WAS running late. He dressed hurriedly after his shower, went downstairs, grabbed his travel mug of coffee and jumped into the Porsche. Once he was on the unfenced road crossing the desolate moors, he plugged in his iPod. The shuffle started with Neko Case’s “That Teenage Feeling.” He checked the dashboard clock and realized he should make it to Annie’s by nine-thirty, barring no unforeseen traffic problems when he hit the A roads.

  He still felt stunned and puzzled by her behavior of the previo
us evening. He had half expected a phone call of apology, and had stayed up late waiting, drinking more wine and listening to Miles Davis’s Bitches Brew. But she didn’t ring. When he called her number, the answering service kicked in; same with her mobile. He hoped she hadn’t got into an accident or anything. He had even thought of calling the station when she drove away, but that was too much like telling tales on a friend. Annie could handle herself in a car, even after a few drinks. If she got done for drunk driving, there’d be hell to pay in her career. He just hoped she had got home without incident, and that was the simple message he had left on her home phone.

  When he got to Harkside and knocked on her door a couple of minutes early, he got no answer. He glanced up the street, where she usually parked her purple Astra, and saw it wasn’t there. That worried him, but he assured himself that if anything had happened to her, an accident or something, it would have been on the local news that morning, and it hadn’t been. Which meant that more than likely she had wanted to avoid traveling with him and had driven off by herself.

  Feeling angry and resentful, Banks headed for the A1. Neil Young followed Neko Case—a blistering “Like a Hurricane” from Live Rust, which matched his mood. By the time he negotiated the traffic on the Inner Ringroad, parked and got to the office in “fortress” Millgarth, the Leeds city center police station off Eastgate, he was six minutes late and Annie was sitting in Hartnell’s office cool as anything, with DI Ken Blackstone and Area Commander Phil Hartnell himself, who had been in overall charge of the Chameleon investigation six years ago.

  “Sorry I’m late,” Banks said, easing into a vacant chair. Annie avoided looking at him. Her eyes seemed swollen, he noticed, as if she had been crying or was allergic to something.

  “That’s all right, Alan,” said Hartnell. “We hadn’t really started yet. Tea? Biscuits?” He gestured to the tray sitting on his desk.

  “Thanks.” Banks helped himself to tea and a couple of chocolate digestives.

  Hartnell perched at the edge of his desk. “DI Cabbot was just bringing us up to speed on her investigation.”

  Banks glanced at Annie again. She still wouldn’t meet his eyes. “Right,” he said. “Well, it’s DI Cabbot’s case. I’m here merely to help out with the Chameleon angle.”

  “As are we all, Alan. As are we all,” said Hartnell.

  He had filled out over the past six years, as if he had stopped working out regularly, let himself go to seed. His hairline was receding, too. Age gets to us all eventually, Banks realized, and sooner than we expect, remembering when he had first noticed his own hair starting to gray at the temples. It’ll be bloody liver spots next, he thought gloomily, and prostate cancer. That reminded him of the doctor’s appointment he hadn’t rescheduled. It was getting closer.

  “You were saying about the pathologist’s report?” Hartnell, still perching, said to Annie.

  “Yes, sir,” Annie said. “The postmortem didn’t really tell us anything we didn’t know already. The pathologist repeated that it’s often hard to tell handedness from slash injuries, but seemed to favor a left-to-right motion, considering pressure and depth of the wound. That gives us a right-handed killer, most likely. Again, he couldn’t commit himself to the actual weapon used but stressed that it was extremely sharp and an old-fashioned straight razor or some sort of scalpel were the most likely possibilities. Other than that, Lucy was, as we thought, a quadriplegic. In her case, that meant she couldn’t move or speak. As for time of death, that was fixed at between eight-thirty and ten-thirty A.M. As we know she left Mapston Hall at nine-thirty and was found at ten-fifteen, we can narrow that down quite a bit.”

  Hartnell went behind his desk and sat down. “So what exactly can we help you with?” he asked Annie.

  “It’s mostly a matter of names,” Annie said. “The people at Mapston Hall said Karen—sorry, Lucy—had no visitors other than the mysterious ‘Mary’ who picked her up on Sunday morning at nine-thirty A.M. and, in all likelihood, killed her. It appears that nobody saw her car, and we can’t get a decent description of her because they were busy and no one really noticed her apart from one staff member.” Annie took an envelope from her briefcase and passed photocopied sheets of paper to everyone. When it came to Banks, he snatched his copy from her childishly. Annie ignored him. “This is the artist’s impression worked out with Mel Danvers, Lucy’s carer, the only person who saw ‘Mary.’ As you can see, it’s not a lot of use.”

  It certainly wasn’t, Banks thought, studying the figure in the rain hat, glasses and a long baggy coat, face in shadow except for a vague sense of thin lips and an oval chin. “It seems as if she deliberately wanted to obscure her appearance,” he said.

  Annie said nothing.

  “True enough,” Hartnell agreed.

  “Yes, sir,” Annie said to him. “She didn’t really need all that gear. It had been raining at the time, but it was clearing up by then. Mel also said she got the vague impression the woman was about forty.”

  “Are you working on the assumption that whoever killed Lucy Payne knew her real identity?” Hartnell asked, after examining the drawing and putting it aside.

  “It seems a reasonable assumption to make at the moment, sir,” Annie said. “Otherwise, what are we left with?”

  “I see your point,” said Hartnell. “Given that Karen Drew hadn’t existed for very long, it would have been rather odd if someone wanted to kill her, unless the whole thing was random, someone who just wanted to kill a helpless victim in a wheelchair for the hell of it.”

  “Yes, sir,” said Annie.

  “Not entirely out of the question,” said Ken Blackstone, “but perhaps the most unlikely scenario.”

  “Exactly,” Annie agreed. “Especially now we know who she really was.”

  Banks watched her as she spoke. She was focused on the job, but he knew it was costing her an effort, as was not looking at him. It was as if she were straining against powerful forces trying to turn her in another direction. Her jaw was set tight, and a tiny muscle twitched now and then under her left eye. He wished he could just put his arms around her and tell her everything would be okay, but whatever the problem was, he knew it went way beyond a simple hug.

  “Which, I suppose,” Hartnell went on, “brings us to the question of how many people knew that Karen Drew was really Lucy Payne.”

  “Yes, sir.” Annie opened one of the folders she had brought with her. “Julia Ford gave us to believe that only she and a couple of other members of her law firm knew, including Constance Wells, of course, who handled Lucy’s affairs.”

  “Well, she would say that, wouldn’t she?” said Banks. “Julia Ford isn’t going to take any responsibility for what happened to Lucy Payne.”

  “Certainly there were doctors and administrators at the hospital who knew,” Annie went on, as if Banks hadn’t spoken. Ken Blackstone noticed and gave him a querying glance. Banks gave a small shake of his head in return. Later.

  “What about Mapston Hall?” Hartnell asked.

  “Julia Ford said not, and it was certainly in everyone’s best interest to keep it quiet, but it’s always possible someone there knew the truth.”

  “Could anyone simply have recognized her?” Blackstone asked.

  “That’s a difficult one, Ken,” said Annie. “The short answer is, I don’t think so. She was only twenty-eight, but she appeared to be well into her forties. Her hair was different, shorter, mostly gray, and it had lost its sheen. Her face was puffy and her figure…well, she’d become rather shapeless, lumpy. I doubt that anyone who had seen her six years ago would recognize her today. No, it’s my guess they’d have to have known who she was by some other means.”

  “And we also have to contend with the fact that anyone who did know might have told someone else,” Blackstone said.

  “Yes, unfortunately,” Annie agreed.

  “Did any of the people at hospital or at Mapston have any connection with the Chameleon case?” Hartnell asked. “With the
victims or their families?”

  “A good question, sir, and that’s what we’re checking into right now,” said Annie. “As yet, we haven’t found anything, but it’s early days.”

  Hartnell clapped his hands. “Right,” he said. “I’m afraid you’re going to have a long list from me, DI Cabbot.”

  “Better that than no ideas at all,” said Annie.

  Hartnell handed her a sheet of paper and passed copies to Banks and Blackstone. “I’ve made out a list of all the major players in the Chameleon case,” he said. “As you can see, I’ve also included the families of the victims. In some cases, the husbands and wives have separated since then. In three cases, actually. It’s not unusual that such a tragic event can tear apart an entire family. The Myers family, parents of the last victim, lived just down The Hill from the Paynes, and they moved away down south very quickly. I believe they’re in Devon now. Can’t say I blame them. Anyway, there were certainly plenty of angry relatives when Lucy Payne got off. There’s also Payne’s friend, Maggie Forrest, though I believe she returned to Canada after her breakdown. She may be back. You can check on her, at any rate.”

  “I agree,” said Banks. “I’d have a very close look at Maggie Forrest if she’s around.”

  “Why’s that, Alan?” Phil Hartnell asked.

  “Because she was the closest to Lucy Payne in many ways, and she got seriously betrayed by her.”

  “She almost got killed, if it hadn’t been for you, is what I heard,” said Hartnell.

  “Yes,” said Banks. “Anyway, the point is that her feelings are bound to be deeply confused and conflicted on the issue. And let’s not forget that she had a few problems of her own. She was seeing a psychiatrist.”

  “Okay,” said Hartnell. “Looks as if your first priority, Annie, is finding out whether this Maggie Forrest is in the country, and if she is, could she have had access to Lucy Payne’s identity and whereabouts?”

  “Yes, sir,” said Annie, clearly not pleased that Banks had come up with this.