Friend of the Devil

by Peter Robinson

  “Not just yet, Jamie,” said Banks. “A few more questions first. Let’s start at the top. Maybe we can keep this short. Did you rape and kill Hayley Daniels?”

  “No! How could I? You’d have seen me. There’s no way out of the pub without being on CCTV.”

  Banks glanced over at Ms. Melchior, who appeared uncomfortable. She said nothing. Banks leaned forward and linked his hands on the table. “Let me tell you what I think happened, Jamie, and you can tell me if I’m wrong. Okay?”

  Jamie nodded, still not looking up.

  “You’d had a bad day. Been having a bad life lately, if truth be told. That miserable pub, always by yourself, the landlord sunning himself in Florida. Even Jill kept calling in sick. And she wasn’t just a help behind the bar, she was easy on the eye, too, wasn’t she? But she didn’t want anything to do with you, did she? None of them did. I think maybe you entertained the fantasy of getting Jill alone in The Maze. You knew she used it as a shortcut. Maybe that’s what you had planned for Saturday night. Finally plucked up the courage. But Jill called in sick, didn’t she, and that spoiled your little plan. Until Hayley Daniels arrived. You’d seen her around for years, even asked her out when you were at college, before you failed half your first-year courses and dropped out. Isn’t that right, Jamie?”

  Murdoch said nothing. Ms. Melchior scribbled away on her legal pad and Winsome stared at a spot high on the wall.

  “That Saturday night, after she called you names and insulted your manhood, you hurried them out and you heard them talking out front. Hayley had a loud, strident voice, especially when she was drunk or upset, which she was. You heard her telling her friends what a useless bastard you were, a ‘limp dick,’ all over again, in the public market square, for anyone to hear, and you left the door open a crack so you could hear them. How am I doing so far, Jamie?”

  Murdoch continued to pick away at his fingernails.

  “You heard Hayley say she was going down into The Maze to relieve herself, though I doubt that’s exactly how she put it. She had a foul mouth, didn’t she, Jamie?”

  Murdoch looked up for a moment at Banks. “She was very coarse and crude,” he said.

  “And you don’t like that in a woman, do you?”

  He shook his head.

  “Right, so we have the friends dispersed and Hayley heading off by herself into The Maze. Well, it didn’t take you long to figure out how you could get out there and give her what for, did it?”

  “I’ve told you,” Murdoch said in a bored voice without looking up. “I couldn’t have got round there without being seen.”

  “Jamie,” Banks said, “do you know anything about a storeroom attached to The Fountain, beyond the wainscoting upstairs?”

  The pause before Murdoch said “No” told Banks all he needed to know.

  “We’ve found it, Jamie,” said Banks. “No need to keep that lie afloat anymore. We’ve found the room, the way out, the clothes you kept there, your ‘assault kit,’ the condoms, the hairbrush, the lot. We’ve found it all. Planning quite a career, weren’t you?”

  Murdoch turned very pale and stopped worrying the nail he was working on, but he said nothing.

  “You’d been dreaming of something like that for a long time, hadn’t you?” Banks went on. “Fantasizing. You’d even prepared that kit to wipe traces of evidence from the body, pick up all your pubic hairs. Very clever, Jamie. But you had no idea Hayley would be your first, did you? You thought it would be Jill. Maybe also you just wandered around there after closing time hoping someone, anyone, would come along, but this was too good an opportunity to miss, wasn’t it? What a beginning to an illustrious career. That foulmouthed, sexy, tantalizing bitch Hayley Daniels.”

  “Mr. Banks, could you tone it down a bit,” said Ms. Melchior, but her heart wasn’t in it.

  “Sorry,” said Banks. “Would you prefer me to use euphemisms? Make it all sound a lot nicer?” He turned back to Jamie. “You went out by the usual way, and you saw Hayley doing her business there in the alley like a common tart. I suppose it excited you, didn’t it, the way looking through that peephole into the ladies’ excited you. You probably couldn’t even wait until she’d finished. You knew about the leather-goods storeroom and the weak lock, and that was where she was squatting, wasn’t it, right by the door? We found traces of her urine there. She’d been sick, too. You took her before she could even get her knickers up and dragged her in the shed, onto the soft pile of leather remnants. Very romantic. But one little thing went wrong, didn’t it? In all your excitement, you’d forgotten to switch your mobile off, and it plays a very distinctive ring tone quite loud, a real song, The Streets’ ‘Fit But You Know It,’ that you bought online. Very appropriate, don’t you think? Someone heard that, Jamie. He didn’t recognize it at first, but someone else heard it, too, a week later when you were leaving The Fountain. Who was it, Jamie? Your boss calling from Florida, the way he usually does at the end of the night? He couldn’t reach you on the phone in The Fountain, so he rang your mobile. Is that it? It would have been just after seven in the evening there and he was probably just settling down to his after-sunset, predinner margarita with some bimbo in a bikini, and he wants to know how his business is doing. What do you tell him, Jamie? Not very well? I imagine you probably lie about it the way you do about everything else. But that’s another problem. You should have changed your ring tone after you killed Hayley.

  “How did it happen? I suppose you put your hand over Hayley’s mouth, then stuffed some leather remnants in, threatened you’d kill her if she struggled or told anyone, then you raped her. My God, you raped her. Vaginally and anally. Did that make you feel good? Powerful? And what about when you’d finished? I think you felt guilty then, didn’t you, when you realized what you’d gone and done. Fantasy is one thing, but reality…I should imagine it can come as quite a shock. There was no turning back now. She knew you. She knew what you’d done. One day, one way or another, it would get out. If she was left alive to tell the story. So you strangled her. Maybe you didn’t enjoy that. I don’t know. She looked too violated lying there with her legs open and her top pulled up. It showed you far too clearly what you’d done, like looking in a mirror, so you turned her gently on her side, put her legs together, as if she were sleeping, running in her sleep. That looked better, didn’t it? Not quite so ugly. How am I doing, Jamie?”

  Murdoch said nothing.

  “It doesn’t matter, anyway,” Banks said, standing up and terminating the interview. “We’ve got all the evidence we need, and when forensics are through with it we’ll be putting you away and throwing away the key.”

  Jamie didn’t move. When Banks looked more closely he could see tears dropping on the scarred and scratched surface of the table. “Jamie?”

  “She was so beautiful,” Jamie said. “And so foul. She said she’d do anything. When I…when we…she said she’d do anything if I let her go.”

  “But you didn’t?”

  Murdoch looked at Banks, his eyes red with tears. “I wanted to, I really did, but I couldn’t. How could I? You must understand I couldn’t let her go. Not after. She wouldn’t keep her word. A girl like that. A tramp like her. I knew she wouldn’t keep her word. I knew I had to kill her.”

  Banks looked over at Ms. Melchior. “Did you get that?” he asked, and left the room.

  WHEN ANNIE arrived at The Queen’s Arms, Templeton’s wake was in full swing, and she found out as soon as she got there that it was also being combined with a celebration of the capture of the Hayley Daniels killer, which made for a very odd sort of party indeed. Banks, Hatchley, Gervaise and the rest sat around a long table drinking pints and telling Templeton stories, the way you did at a wake, most of them funny, some of them bittersweet. Annie wasn’t going to be a hypocrite and join in, but nor was she going to sour the mood by telling some of her own Templeton stories. The poor bastard was dead, he didn’t deserve that, let him have a proper send-off.

  For some reason, Annie
felt in a particularly good mood that night. It wasn’t the occasion, of course, but something to do with being back in Eastvale, back in The Queen’s Arms with the old crew. Eastern Area was okay, but she felt this was where she belonged. Winsome seemed to be enjoying herself, lounging against the bar talking to Dr. Wallace. Annie went over and joined them. Winsome seemed to stiffen a bit when she arrived, but she soon relaxed and offered Annie a drink.

  “Pint of Black Sheep Bitter, please,” Annie said.

  “You know,” Winsome offered, “you’re welcome to stay at mine if…you know…”

  It was part apology and part a reminder that she shouldn’t drink and drive. “Thanks, Winsome,” Annie said, clinking glasses. “We’ll see how the evening goes. I’m not sure if I feel like getting pissed. How are you, Dr. Wallace? I’m DI Annie Cabbot. We met a couple of times before I was seconded to Eastern.”

  Dr. Wallace shook hands with Annie. “I remember,” she said. “I’m fine. And it’s Liz, please.”

  “Okay, Liz.”

  “I gather they’re keeping you busy out there?”

  “They are.” Annie’s drink came, and she took a long swallow. “Ah, that’s better,” she said.

  Hatchley had just finished a Templeton joke, and the whole table roared with laughter. Even Detective Superintendent Gervaise joined in. She was definitely looking a bit flushed and tipsy, Annie noticed.

  “So how’s the case going?” Dr. Wallace asked.

  “Lucy Payne? Oh, you know, it’s plodding along. Look.” Annie touched her arm. It was only slight and momentary, but she felt Liz flinch. “We really must get together and talk about it sometime, compare notes.” She gestured around the pub. “Not here. Not now, of course. Not on an occasion like this. But there are some similarities with Kevin Templeton’s murder.”

  “I’m aware of that,” said Dr. Wallace. “I’ve spoken with Dr. Clarke, your pathologist. The blades used, for a start, seem similar.”

  “A razor, I believe you suggested?”

  “Yes. At least that’s most likely.”

  “Or a scalpel?”

  “It could have been, I suppose. With that kind of wound it’s often impossible to be exact. Very sharp, at any rate. Scalpels are just a little harder for the man in the street to get hold of.”

  “Or woman?”

  “Of course. As you said, this is neither the place nor the time. Why don’t you drop by the mortuary? You can usually find me there.” She smiled. “If you’ll excuse me, I need to have a word with Superintendent Gervaise before she falls down.”

  “Better hurry, then,” said Annie, raising her glass. “Bottoms up.”

  Dr. Wallace smiled, walked away and took the empty chair beside Gervaise.

  “Party pooper,” said Winsome.

  Annie looked at her. “Glad to see you’re having such a good time, Winsome. Let me buy you a drink. How about something blue or pink with an umbrella in it?”

  “Ooh, I don’t know,” said Winsome, clutching her half pint of Guinness to her breast.

  “Oh, go on. Let your hair down.” Annie winked. “You never know what might happen.” Annie leaned over the bar and asked Cyril for one of his specials. Cyril said it was coming right up.

  “Look, about the other night—” Winsome began.

  “It doesn’t—”

  “But it does. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to come across as such a prude. What you do is your own business, and I’ve got no right to judge you. I don’t even have any right to judge Kev the way I did.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, I’m no angel. I kept a bloke tied to a bed naked when I should have been telling him his daughter was dead.”

  “Winsome, are you pissed?” Annie said. “What on earth are you talking about?”

  Winsome explained about Geoff Daniels and Martina Redfern in the Faversham Hotel. Annie burst into laughter. “I really wouldn’t worry too much about that,” she said. “It sounds as if the bastard deserved it, no matter what. ‘Black bitch,’ indeed.”

  Winsome smiled. “You really think so?”

  “I do. You just got me a bit confused when you started. I mean, I was trying to imagine you tying a naked man to a bed in a hotel room.”

  “I didn’t tie him there!”

  “I know that now. It was just a funny image, that’s all. Forget it.” Annie took another long belt of beer. Winsome’s drink arrived. It was pink and blue. They were singing “Why Was He Born So Beautiful?” over at the table now. She could hear Banks’s tuneless tenor mingled with the rest. “Cat’s choir, hey?” she said.

  Winsome laughed. “I mean it, you know,” she said, touching Annie’s arm. “About the other night. I’m sorry. I was insensitive.”

  “Look,” said Annie, “between you and me, I fucked up. You were right to say what you did. It was a mistake. A big mistake. But it’s over now. History. Sorted.”

  “Apology accepted, then?”

  “Apology accepted. And I understand congratulations are in order for you? Nobody knew you could manage such a great rugby tackle. You’ll be playing for England next.”

  Winsome laughed. “Can’t be much worse than the team they’ve got already.”

  “Come on.” Annie put her arm over Winsome’s shoulders and together they picked up their drinks and walked over to the table, just in time to join in: “He’s no bloody use to anyone, he’s no bloody use at all.”

  18

  BANKS ENJOYED THE DRIVE TO LEEDS. THE WEATHER WAS fine, the traffic not too horrendous, and the iPod shuffle treated him to a truly random medley of David Crosby, John Cale, Pentangle and Grinderman, among others. A mild beer hangover from Kev Templeton’s wake hammered away insistently in the back of his head, muffled by extra-strength aspirin and plenty of water. At least he had had the sense to avoid spirits and sleep on Hatchley’s sofa, though the children had awoken him at some ungodly hour of the morning. Annie had gone home early and said she would be coming back to Eastvale sometime to talk to Elizabeth Wallace. Banks and Annie planned to meet for a late lunch and compare notes.

  Julia Ford had agreed to see Banks at eleven o’clock, sounding a little mystified by his request on the telephone, but perfectly pleasant and polite. In Leeds, he was fortunate in finding a parking spot not far off Park Square and arrived at the office in good time for his appointment. A young receptionist, messing with the flowers in the vestibule when he arrived, greeted him, then phoned through and led him to Julia’s office.

  Julia Ford stood up behind her large, tidy desk, leaned forward, shook hands and smiled. She was wearing a very subtle and no doubt expensive perfume. “DCI Banks,” she said. “What a pleasure to see you again. You seem well.”

  “You, too, Julia. May I call you Julia?”

  “Of course. And it’s Alan, isn’t it?”

  “Yes. You don’t look a day older than the last time I saw you.” And it was true. Her chocolate-brown hair was longer, curled at her shoulders, and there was the occasional strand of gray. Her eyes were as watchful and suspicious as ever, indicating a mind that never stopped working.

  She sat down and patted her skirt. “Flattery will get you nowhere. What can I do for you?” Julia was quite slight in stature and seemed dwarfed by the desk.

  “It’s a rather delicate matter,” Banks said.

  “Oh, I think I’m used to those, don’t you? As long as you don’t expect me to give away any secrets.”

  “Wouldn’t think of it,” said Banks. “Actually, there are a couple of things. First of all, do you know a woman called Maggie, or Margaret, Forrest?”

  “The name rings a bell. I believe we do some legal work for her, yes. Not, I hasten to add, criminal. That’s my area. The other members of the firm cover a wide range of legal services. I believe Ms. Forrest is a client of Constance’s.”

  “Have you spoken with her recently?”

  “Not personally, no.”

  “Perhaps I could talk to Constance?”

  “I don
’t think that would help,” said Julia. “My associates and partners are all just as discreet as I am.”

  “Somebody hasn’t been,” Banks said.

  Her eyes narrowed. “What are you implying?”

  “Your office knew from the start that Karen Drew was Lucy Payne. You arranged for the name change, the false reason for her quadriplegia, the transfer to Mapston Hall. Whatever else Lucy Payne was, she was your client. You took care of all her affairs.”

  “Of course. That was what we were engaged to do. I don’t see what your point is.”

  “Someone found out and killed Lucy.”

  “But surely other people knew? You’re not trying to blame the firm for what happened, are you?”

  “We’ve talked to everyone else.” Banks paused. “It comes back to you, Julia. You can help us out here.”

  “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “We think that Lucy Payne was killed either by Maggie Forrest or by the same woman who killed two men in the same area eighteen years ago. Her name is Kirsten Farrow, though it’s very unlikely she goes under that name now. A hair on Lucy’s blanket has been matched with hairs taken from Kirsten eighteen years ago. The hair from the blanket has also yielded DNA, which is currently being processed. It would really help us a lot if we could find out who knew that Karen was Lucy, and where that information might have gone. Did you or someone else in your firm tell Maggie Forrest?”

  “Well, I certainly didn’t. I’m sorry, but I can’t help you. Our lips were sealed.”

  “Come on, Julia. This is important. People are dead.”

  “They usually are when you turn up.”

  “A policeman is dead.”

  Julia touched her hair. “Yes. I was sorry to hear about that. I wish I could help.”

  “Have you ever heard of Kirsten Farrow, the woman I just mentioned?”

  “Never.”

  “She’d be about forty now. About your age.”

  “I already told you flattery would get you nowhere.”

  “Do you know Dr. Elizabeth Wallace?”