“To whom am I speaking?”
“Detective Constable Susan Gay.”
“Is the superintendent there?”
“I’m afraid not.”
“And Chief Inspector Banks?”
“Out of the office. Can I help you? What’s this about?”
“I suppose you’ll have to do. My name is Mary Rothwell. I’ve just had a call from my son, Tom.”
“You have? Where is he?”
“He’s still in Florida. A hotel in Lido Key, wherever that is. Apparently the British newspapers are a couple of days late over there, and he’s just read about his father’s murder. It’s only eight in the morning there. He can’t get a flight back until this evening. Anyway, he said he should get into Manchester at about seven o’clock tomorrow morning. I’m going to meet him at the airport and bring him home.”
“That’s good news, Mrs Rothwell,” Susan said. “You do know we’d like to talk to him?”
“Yes. Though I can’t imagine why. You’ll pass the message on to the Chief Inspector, will you?”
“Yes.”
“Good. And by the way, I’ve made funeral arrangements for Wednesday. That is still all right, isn’t it?”
“Of course.”
“Very well.”
“Is there anything else, Mrs Rothwell?”
“No.”
“Goodbye, then. We’ll be in touch.”
Susan hung up and stared into space for a moment, thinking what an odd woman Mary Rothwell was. Imperious, highly strung and businesslike. Probably a real Tartar to live with. But was she a murderess?
Though it would take the Fraud Squad a long time to work out exactly how much Rothwell was worth—and to separate the legal from the illegal money—it was bound to be a fortune. Money worth killing for. The problem was, though Susan could imagine Mary Rothwell being cold-blooded enough to have her husband killed, she could not imagine her having it done in such a bloody, dramatic way.
The image of the kneeling, headless corpse came back to her and she tasted the vegetable soup rise in her throat. No, she thought, if the wife were responsible, Rothwell would have been disposed of in a neat, sanitary way—poison, perhaps—and he certainly wouldn’t have made such a mess on the garage floor. What was the phrase? You don’t shit on your own doorstep. It was too close to home for Mary; it would probably taint Arkbeck Farm for her forever.
Still, there was a lot of money involved. Susan had seen Rothwell’s solicitor that morning, and, according to him, Rothwell had owned, or part-owned, about fifteen businesses, from a shipping company registered in the Bahamas to a dry cleaner’s in Wigan, not to mention various properties dotted around England, Spain, Portugal and France. Of course, the solicitor assured her, they were all legitimate. She suspected, however, that some had served as fronts for Rothwell’s illegal activities.
As Susan was wondering if Robert Calvert’s money would now simply get lumped in with Keith Rothwell’s, she became aware of a large shadow cast over her desk by a figure in the doorway.
She looked up, startled, right into the smiling face of Detective Sergeant Jim Hatchley. So soon? she thought, with a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach. Now she knew there really was no God.
“Hello, love,” said Hatchley, lighting a cigarette. “I see you’ve taken my pin-ups down. We’ll have to do something about that now I’m back to stay.”
III
At one-thirty, the hot, smoky pub was still packed with local clerks and shopkeepers on their lunch break. When Banks had phoned Pamela Jeffreys before leaving for Leeds that morning, she had suggested they meet in the pub across from the hall in West Leeds, where she was rehearsing with a string quartet. There was no beer garden, she said, but the curry of the day was usually excellent. Though he had to admit to feeling excitement at the thought of seeing Pamela again, this wasn’t a meeting Banks was looking forward to.
She hadn’t arrived yet, so Banks got himself a pint of shandy at the bar—just the thing for a hot day—and managed to grab a small table in the corner by the dartboard, fortunately not in use. There, he mulled over Daniel Clegg’s disappearance and the mysterious goons Betty Moorhead had seen.
There was no end of trouble a lawyer could get himself into, Banks speculated. Especially if he were a bit crooked to start with. So maybe there was no connection between Clegg’s disappearance and Rothwell’s murder. But there were too many coincidences—the letter, the timing, the shady accounts—and Banks didn’t like coincidences. Which meant that there were two sets of goons on the loose: the ones who killed Rothwell, and the ones who scared Clegg’s secretary. But did they work for the same person?
He was saved from bashing his head against a brick wall any longer by the arrival of Pamela Jeffreys, looking gorgeous in black leggings and a long white T-shirt with the Opera North logo on front. She had her hair tied back and wore black-rimmed glasses. As she sat down, she smiled at him. “The professional musician’s look,” she said. “Keeps my hair out of my eyes so I can read the music.”
“Would you like a drink?” Banks asked.
“Just a grapefruit juice with an ice-cube, please, if they’ve got any. I have to play through ‘Death and the Maiden’ again this afternoon.”
While he was at the bar, Banks also ordered two curries of the day.
“What’s been happening?” Pamela asked when he got back.
“Plenty,” said Banks, hoping to avoid the issue of Calvert’s identity for as long as possible. “But I’ve no idea how it all adds up. First off, have you ever heard of a man called Daniel Clegg?”
She shook her head. “No, I can’t say as I have.”
“He’s a solicitor.”
“He’s not mine. Actually, I don’t have one.”
“Are you sure Robert never mentioned him?”
“No, and I think I’d remember. But I already told you, he never talked about his work, and I never asked. What do I know or care about business?” She looked at him over the top of her glass as she sipped her grapefruit juice, thin black eyebrows raised.
“Did you ever introduce Robert to any of your friends?”
“No. He never seemed really interested in going to parties or having dinner with people or anything, so I never pushed it. They probably wouldn’t have got on very well anyway. Most of my friends are young and artsy. Robert’s more mature. Why?”
“Did you ever meet anyone he knew when you were out together, say in a restaurant or at the casino?”
“No, not that I can recall.”
“So you didn’t have much of a social life together?”
“No, we didn’t. Just a bit of gambling, the occasional day at the races, then it was mostly concerts or a video and a pizza. That was a bit of a problem, really. Robert was a lot of fun, but he didn’t like crowds. I’m a bit more of a social butterfly, myself.”
“I don’t mean to embarrass you,” Banks said slowly, “but did Robert show any interest in pornography? Did he like to take photographs, make videos? Anything like that?”
She looked at him open-mouthed, then burst out laughing. “Sorry, sorry,” she said, patting her chest. “You know, most girls might be insulted if you suggested they moonlighted in video nasties, but it’s so absurd I can’t help but laugh.”
“So the answer’s no?”
“Don’t look so embarrassed. Of course it’s no, you silly man. The very thought of it …” She laughed again and Banks felt himself blush.
Their curries came and they tucked in. They were, as Pamela had said, delicious: delicately spiced rather than hot, with plenty of chunks of tender beef. They exchanged small talk over the food, edging away from the embarrassing topic Banks had brought up earlier. When they had finished, Pamela went for more drinks and Banks lit a cigarette. Was she going to ask now, he wondered, or was he going to have to bring it up? Maybe she was avoiding the moment, too.
Finally, she asked. “Did you find out anything? You know, about Robert and this Rothwell fellow
.” Very casual, but Banks could sense the apprehension in her voice.
He scraped the end of his cigarette on the rim of the red metal ashtray and avoided her eyes. A group at the next table burst into laughter at a joke one of them had told.
“Well?”
He looked up. “It looks very much as if Robert Calvert and Keith Rothwell were the same person,” he said. “We found fingerprints that matched. I’m sorry.”
For a while she said nothing. Banks could see her beautiful almond eyes fill slowly with tears. “Shit,” she said, shaking her head and reaching in her bag for a tissue. “Sorry, this is stupid of me. I don’t know why I’m crying. We were just friends really. Can we … I mean …” She gestured around.
“Of course.” Banks took her arm and they left the pub. Fifty yards along the main road was a park. Pamela looked at her watch and said, “I’ve still got a while yet, if you don’t mind walking a bit.”
“Not at all.”
They walked past a playground where children screamed with delight as the swings went higher and higher and the roundabout spun faster and faster. A small wading-pool had been filled with water because of the warm weather and more children played there, splashing one another, squealing and shouting, all under their mother’s or father’s watchful eyes. Nobody let their kids play out alone these days, as they used to do when he was a child, Banks noticed. Being in his job, knowing what he knew, he didn’t blame them.
Pamela seemed lost in her silent grief, head bowed, walking slowly. “It’s crazy,” she said at last. “I hardly knew Robert and things had cooled off between us anyway, and here I am behaving like this.”
Banks could think of nothing to say. He was aware of the warmth of her arm in his and of her scent: jasmine, he thought. What the hell did he think he was doing, walking arm in arm in the park with a beautiful suspect? What if someone saw him? But what could he do? The contact seemed to form an important link between Pamela and something real, something she could hold onto while the rest of her world shifted under her feet like fine sand. And he couldn’t deny that the touch of her skin meant something to him, too.
“I was wrong about him, wasn’t I?” she went on. “Dead wrong. He was married, you say? Kids?”
“A son and a daughter.”
“I should know. I read it in the paper but it didn’t sink in because I was so sure it couldn’t have been him. Robert seemed so … such a free spirit.”
“Maybe he was.”
She glanced sideways at him. “What do you mean?”
They stopped at an ice-cream van and Banks bought two cornets. “It was a different life he lived with you,” he said. “I can’t begin to understand a man like that. It’s not that he had a split personality or anything, just that he was capable of existing in very different ways.”
“What ways?” Pamela stuck out her pink tongue and licked the ice-cream.
“The people in Swainsdale knew him as a quiet, unassuming sort of bloke. Bit of a dry stick really.”
“Robert?” she gasped. “A dry stick?”
“Not Robert. Keith Rothwell. The hard-working, clean-living accountant. The man who put his spent matches back in the box in the opposite direction to the unused ones.”
“But Robert was so alive. He was fun to be with. We laughed a lot. We dreamed. We danced.”
Banks smiled sadly. “There you are, then. Keith Rothwell probably had two left feet.”
“Are you saying it wasn’t the same man?”
“I don’t know what I’m saying. Just that your memories of Robert Calvert won’t change, shouldn’t change. He’s who he was to you, what he meant to you. Don’t let this poison it for you. On the other hand, I need to know who killed Keith Rothwell, and it looks as if there might be a connection.”
She put her arm in his again and they walked on. There was hardly any breeze at all, but they passed a boy trying to fly a red-and-green kite. He couldn’t seem to get it more than about twenty feet off the ground before it came flopping down again.
“What do you mean, a connection?” Pamela asked, shifting her gaze from the kite back to Banks.
“Maybe something in his life as Robert Calvert spilled over into his life as Keith Rothwell. Are you sure you didn’t know he was married, you didn’t suspect it?”
She shook her head. “No. I’ve been a right bloody fool, haven’t I? Muggins again.”
“But you were sure he’d found a new girlfriend?”
“Ninety-nine per cent certain, yes.”
“How did you feel about that?”
“What?”
“His new girlfriend. How did you feel about her? On the one hand you tell me you shouldn’t be so upset, you hardly knew Robert Calvert, and your relationship had cooled off anyway. On the other hand, it seems to me from what you say and the way you behave that you were extremely fond of him. Maybe in love with him. What’s the truth? How did you really feel when someone else came along and stole him from you? Surely you must have felt hurt, angry, jealous?”
Pamela pulled back her arm and stepped aside from him, an expression of pain and anger shadowing her face. She dropped her ice-cream. It splattered on the tarmac path. “What’s that got to do with anything? What are you saying? What are you getting at? First you imply that I’m some kind of porn actress, and now you’re implying that I killed Robert out of jealousy?”
“No,” said Banks quickly. “No, nothing like that.”
But she was already backing away from him, hands held up, palms out, as if to ward him off.
“Yes, you are. How could you even …? I thought you …”
Banks stepped towards her. “That’s not what I mean, Pamela. I’m just—”
But she turned and started to run away.
“Wait!” Banks called after her. “Please, stop.”
One or two people gave him suspicious looks. As he set off walking quickly after her, a child’s coloured ball rolled in front of him, and he had to pull up sharply to avoid knocking into its diminutive owner, whose large father, fast approaching from the nearest bench, didn’t seem at all happy about things.
Pamela reached the park exit and dashed across the road, dodging her way through the traffic, back towards the hall. Banks stood there looking after her, the sweat beading on his brow. The remains of his ice-cream had started to melt and drip over the flesh between his thumb and first finger.
“Shit,” he cursed under his breath. Then louder, “Shit!”
The little boy looked up, puzzled, and his father loomed closer.
SEVEN
I
The Merrion Centre was one of the first indoor shopping malls in Britain. Built on the northern edge of Leeds city centre in 1964, it now seems something of an antique, a monument to the heady sixties’ days of slum clearance, tower blocks and council estates.
Covered on top, but open to the wind at the sides, it also suffers competition from a number of more recent, fully enclosed, central shopping centres, such as the St John’s Centre, directly across Merrion Street, and the plush dark green and brass luxury of the Schofields Centre, right on The Headrow.
Still, the Merrion Centre does have a large Morrison’s supermarket, Le Phonographique discothèque—the longest surviving disco in Leeds—a number of small specialty shops, a couple of pubs, a flea market and the Classical Record Shop, which is how Banks had come to know the place quite well. And on a warm, windless May afternoon it can be pleasant enough.
Banks found Clegg’s Wines and Spirits easily enough. He had phoned Melissa Clegg an hour or so earlier, still smarting over his acrimonious parting with Pamela Jeffreys in the park, and she had told him she could spare a little time to talk. It was odd, he thought, that she hadn’t seemed overly curious about his call. He had said that it concerned her husband, yet she had asked for no details.
He opened the door and found himself in a small shop cluttered with bottles and cases. There were a couple of bins of specials on the floor by the door—mostly Bulga
rian, Romanian and South African varietals, and some yellow “marked down” cards on a few of the racks that lined the walls to his right and left, including a Rioja, a Côtes du Rhône and a claret.
Banks looked at the racks and thought he might take something home for dinner, assuming that he and Sandra ever got the chance to sit down to dinner together again, and assuming that she wanted to. Perhaps they could have that wine, candlelight and Chopin evening he had had to cancel when the Rothwell enquiry got in the way.
Behind the counter ranged the bottles of single malt Scotch: Knockando, Blair Athol, Talisker, Glendronach. Evocative names, but he mustn’t look too closely. He had a weakness for single malt that Sandra said hit them too hard in the pocket. Besides, he still had a drop of Laphroaig left at home.
The spotty young man behind the counter smiled. “Can I help you, sir?” He wore a candy-striped shirt with the sleeves rolled up and his tie loose at the neck, the way Banks always wore his own when he could get away with it. His black hair had so much gel or mousse on that it looked like an oil slick.
“Boss around?” Banks asked, showing his card.
“In the back.” He lifted up the counter flap and Banks went through. Stepping over and around cases of wine, he walked along a narrow corridor, then saw on his left a tiny office with the door open. A woman sat at the desk talking on the phone. It sounded to Banks as if she were complaining over non-delivery of several cases of Hungarian Pinot Noir.
When she saw him, she waved him in and pointed to a chair piled high with papers. Banks moved them to the edge of the desk and she grinned at him over the mouthpiece. There were no windows, and it was stuffy in the back room, despite the whirring fan. The office smelled of freshly cut wood. Banks took his jacket off and hung it over the back of the chair. He could feel the steady draught of the fan on the left side of his face.
Finally, she put the phone down and rolled her eyes. “Some suppliers …”
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