A Necessary End

by Peter Robinson

  “And what I’m saying,” Burgess argued, “is that his state of mind could account for all your objections. He must have been disturbed. Contemplation of suicide has an odd effect on a man’s character. You can’t expect everything to be the same as usual when a bloke’s on the verge of slitting his bloody ankles. And remember, you said he’d tried that before.”

  “That is a problem,” Banks agreed. “Whoever did it must have known about the previous attempt and copied it to make it look more like a genuine suicide.”

  “That’s assuming somebody else did it. I’m not sure I agree.” Banks shrugged. “We’ll see what forensic say about the note. But I’m not happy with it at all.”

  “What about the bureau?”

  “What about it?”

  “He’d obviously just finished it, hadn’t he? The coat of varnish was still fresh. And he’d moved it to the corner of the workshop. Doesn’t that imply anything?”

  “That he was tidying things up behind him, you mean? Tying up loose ends?”

  “Exactly. Just like a man on the point of suicide. He finished his last piece of work, put it carefully aside so he wouldn’t get blood all over it, then he slit his fucking ankles. When he got weak and passed out, he hit his head on the vice, accounting for the head wound.”

  Banks stared into the bottom of his glass. “It could have happened that way,” he said slowly. “But I don’t think so.”

  “Which brings us back to the big question again,” Burgess said. “If we’re to follow your line of reasoning, if you are right, then who killed him?”

  “It could have been any of them, couldn’t it? Zoe said as much.”

  “Yes, but she might have said that to get herself and her mates off the hook. I’m thinking of one of them in particular.”

  “Who?”

  “Boyd.”

  Banks sighed. “I was afraid you’d say that.”

  “I’ll bet you bloody were.” Burgess leaned forward so suddenly that the glasses rattled on the table. Banks could smell the Guinness and cigar smoke on his breath. “If we play it your way, there’s no getting around the facts. Boyd was missing all afternoon, unaccounted for. We only have his word that he was walking on the moors. I shouldn’t think anybody saw him. It would have been easy for him to get in by the side gate and visit Seth while everyone in the house was wrapped up in their own little games. Nothing odd about that. He helped Seth a lot, and the shed would be full of his fingerprints anyway. They talk, and he kills Seth—pushes his head forward to knock him out on the vice, then slits his ankles.” Burgess leaned back again, satisfied, and folded his arms.

  “All right,” Banks said. “I agree. It fits. But why? Why would Boyd kill Seth Cotton?”

  Burgess shrugged. “Because he knew something to link Boyd to Gill’s murder. It makes sense, Banks, you know it does. Why you’re defending that obnoxious little prick is beyond me.”

  “Why was Cotton so miserable when Boyd was in jail,” Banks asked, “and so happy when he came out?”

  Burgess lit another Tom Thumb. “Loyalty, perhaps? He knew something and was worried he might be called on to give evidence. He wasn’t sure he could carry on with his lies and evasions under pressure. Boyd gets out, so Cotton feels immediate elation. They talk. Cotton tells Boyd what he knows and how glad he is he won’t have to testify under oath, so Boyd gets worried and kills him. Remember, Boyd knew he wasn’t quite off the hook, whatever Cotton might have made of his release. And you know how terrified the kid is of enclosed spaces. He’d do anything to avoid a life sentence.”

  “And the note?”

  “Let’s say you’re right about that. Boyd typed it to clear himself, put the blame on someone who isn’t able to defend himself. It’s a cowardly kind of act typical of someone like him. That explains the pressure on the keys and the literacy level. Boyd wasn’t very well educated. He was spending most of his time on the streets by the time he was thirteen. And he couldn’t explain anything about Cotton’s motives because he killed Gill himself. So,” Burgess went on, “even if we see it your way, I still come out right. Personally, I don’t give a damn whether it was Boyd or Cotton. Either way, we’ve cracked it. Which way do you want to go? Toss a coin.”

  “I’m still not convinced.”

  “That’s because you don’t want to be.”

  “What do you mean by that?”

  “You know damn well what I mean. You’ve argued yourself into a corner. It was your idea to let Boyd out and see what happened. Well, now you’ve seen what’s happened. No sooner is he out than there’s another death. That makes you responsible.”

  Banks took a deep breath. There was too much truth for comfort in what Burgess was saying. He shook his head. “Somebody killed Seth,” he said, “but I don’t think it was Boyd. For all the kid’s problems, I believe he genuinely cared. The people at Maggie’s Farm are the only ones who have ever done anything for him, gone out on a limb.”

  “Come off it! That sentimental bullshit doesn’t work on me. The kid’s a survivor, an opportunist. He’s nothing more than a street punk.”

  “And Cotton?”

  Burgess sat back and reached for his glass. The chair creaked.

  “Good actor, accomplice, innocent bystander, conscience-stricken idealist? I don’t bloody know. But it doesn’t matter now, does it? He’s dead. It’s all over.”

  But Banks felt that it did matter. Somehow, after what had happened that afternoon, it seemed to matter more now than it ever had before.

  “Is it?” he said. Then he stubbed out his cigarette and drained his glass. “Come on, let’s go.”

  FIFTEEN

  I

  Eastvale General Infirmary stood on King Street, about half a mile west of the police station, not far from the comprehensive school. Because the day was warming up nicely, Banks decided to walk. As he left the station, he turned on his Walkman and listened to Muddy Waters sing “Louisiana Blues” as he made his way through the warren of narrow streets with their cracked stone walls, gift shops and over-priced pubs.

  The hospital itself was an austere Victorian brick building. About its high draughty corridors hung an air of fatalistic gloom. Not quite the hospital I’d choose if I were ill, Banks thought, fiddling with the Walkman’s off-switch in his overcoat pocket.

  The mortuary was in the basement, which, like the police station’s cell area, was the most modern part of the building. The autopsy room had white-tiled walls and a central metal table with guttering around its edges to channel off the blood. A long lab bench, complete with Bunsen burners and microscopes, stretched along one wall, with shelving above it for jars of organs, tissue samples and prepared chemical solutions.

  Fortunately, the table was empty when Banks entered. A lab assistant was in the process of scrubbing it down, while Glendenning stood at the bench, a cigarette dangling from his mouth. Everyone smoked in the mortuary; they did it to keep the stench of death at bay.

  The lab assistant dropped a surgical instrument into a metal kidney bowl. Banks winced at the sound.

  “Let’s go into the office,” Glendenning said. “I can see you’re a bit pink around the gills.”

  Glendenning’s office was small and cluttered, hardly befitting a man of his stature and status, Banks thought. But this wasn’t America; health care was hardly big business, despite private insurance plans. Glendenning took his white lab coat off, smoothed his shirt and sat down. Banks shifted some old medical journals from the only remaining chair and placed himself opposite the doctor.

  “Coffee?”

  Banks nodded. “Yes, please.”

  Glendenning picked up his phone and pressed a button. “Molly, dear, do you think you could scrape up two cups of coffee?” He covered the mouthpiece and asked Banks how he liked his. “One black no sugar, and the usual for me. Yes, three sugars, that’s right. What diet? And don’t bring that vile muck they drink at reception. What? Yes. I know you’d run out yesterday, but that’s no excuse. I haven’t
paid my coffee money for three weeks? What is this, woman, the bloody Inquisition?” He hung up roughly, ran a hand through his white hair and sighed. “Good help is hard to find these days. Now, Mr Banks, let’s see what we have here.” He riffled through the stack of papers on his desk.

  He probably knew it all off by heart, Banks thought, but needed the security of his files and sheets of paper in front of him just as Richmond always liked to read from his notebook what he knew perfectly well in the first place.

  “Seth Cotton, aye, poor chappie.” Glendenning took a pair of half-moon reading glasses from his top pocket and held the report at arm’s length as he peered down his nose at it. Having done with that, he put it aside, took off his glasses and sat back in his chair with his large but delicate hands folded on his lap. The coffee arrived, and Molly, giving her boss a disapproving glance on the way, departed.

  “Last meal about three hours before death,” Glendenning said. “And a good one, too, if I may say so. Roast beef, Yorkshire pudding. What better meal could a condemned man wish for?”

  “Haggis?”

  Glendenning wagged his finger. “Dinna extract the urine, Mr Banks.” Banks sipped some coffee. It was piping hot and tasted good.

  Clearly it wasn’t the “vile muck” from reception.

  “No evidence of poisoning, or indeed of any other wounds bar the external. Mr Cotton was in perfectly good health until the blood drained out of his body.”

  “Was that the cause of death?”

  “Aye. Loss of about five pints of blood usually does cause death.”

  “What about the blow to the head? Was it delivered before or after the cuts to the ankles?”

  Glendenning scratched his head. “That I can’t tell you. The vital reaction was quite consistent with a wound caused before death. As you saw for yourself, there was plenty of blood. And the leucocyte count was high—that’s white blood cells to you, the body’s little repairmen. Had the blow to the head occurred some time after death, then of course there would have been clear evidence to that effect, but the two wounds happened so closely together that it’s impossible to say which came first. Cotton was certainly alive when he hit his head—or when someone hit it for him. But how long he survived after the blow, I can’t tell. Of course, the head wound may have caused loss of consciousness, and it’s very difficult to slash your ankles when you’re unconscious, as I’m sure you’re aware.”

  “Could he have hit his head while bending down to make the cuts?”

  Glendenning pursed his lips. “I wouldn’t say so, no. You saw the blood on the bench. None of it had trickled onto the floor. I’d say by the angle of the wound and the sharp edges of the vice that his head was resting exactly where it landed after the blow.”

  “Could someone have come up behind him and pushed his head down onto the vice?”

  “Now you’re asking me to speculate, Mr Banks. All I can tell you is that I found no signs of scratching or bruising at the back of the neck or the head.”

  “Does that mean no?”

  “Not necessarily. If you come up behind someone and give his head a quick push before he has time to react, then I doubt it would show.”

  “So that means it must have been someone he knew. He’d have noticed anyone else creeping up on him. Whoever did it must have been in the workshop already, someone he didn’t mind having around while he carried on working.”

  “Theories, theories,” Glendenning said. “I don’t know why you’re not satisfied with suicide. There’s absolutely no evidence to the contrary.”

  “No medical evidence, perhaps.”

  “I’m sorry,” said Glendenning. “I’d like to be able to help you more, but those are the facts. While the blow to the head may well have caused complications had Mr Cotton lived, it was in no way responsible for his death.”

  “Complications? What complications?”

  Glendenning frowned and reached for another cigarette from the box on his desk. It looked antique, and Banks noticed some words engraved in ornate italics on the top: “To Dr C.W.S. Glendenning, on Successful Completion of . . .” He couldn’t read the rest. He assumed it was some kind of graduation present.

  “All kinds,” Glendenning answered. “We don’t know a great deal about the human brain, Mr Banks. A lot more than we used to, of course, but still not enough. Certain head wounds can result in effects far beyond the power of the blow and the extent of the apparent damage. Bone chips can lodge in the tissue, and even bruising can cause problems.”

  “What problems?”

  “Almost anything. Memory loss—temporary or permanent—hearing and vision problems, vertigo, personality change, temporary lapses of consciousness. Need I go on?”

  Banks shook his head.

  “But in the case of Mr Cotton, of course, that’s something we’ll never know.”

  “No.” Banks got to his feet. “Anyway, thank you very much, doctor.”

  Glendenning inclined his head regally.

  On the way back to the station, Banks hardly heard Muddy Waters. According to Glendenning, Cotton could have been murdered, and that was enough for Banks. Of course, the doctor wouldn’t commit himself—he never did—but even an admission of the possibility was a long way for him to go. If Burgess was right, there was a good chance Boyd had done it, and that left Banks with Seth’s blood on his hands.

  As if that weren’t enough, something else nagged at him: one of those frustrating little feelings you can’t quite define, like having a name at the tip of your tongue, or an itch you can’t scratch. He didn’t want to be premature, but it felt like the familiar glimmer of an idea. Disparate facts were coming together, and with a lot of hard thinking, a bit of help from the subconscious and a touch of luck, they might actually lead to the answer. He was still a long way from that as yet, and when Muddy Waters started singing “Still a Fool,” Banks believed him.

  It was after eleven o’clock, according to the church clock, and Burgess would be out questioning Osmond and the students. In his office, Banks called the forensic lab and asked for Vic Manson. He had to wait a few minutes, but finally Vic came on the line.

  “The prints?” Banks asked.

  “Yes. Four sets. At least four identifiable sets. One belongs to the deceased, of course, another to that Boyd character—the same as the ones we found on the knife—and two more.”

  “They’ll probably be Mara’s and one of the others’.” Banks said. “Look, thanks a lot, Vic. I’ll try and arrange to get the others fingerprinted for comparison. Is Geoff Tingley around?”

  “Yep. Just a sec, I’ll get him for you.”

  Banks could hear distant voices at the end of the line, then someone picked up the receiver and-spoke. “Tingley here. Is it about those letters?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, I’m almost positive they weren’t typed by the same person.

  You can make a few allowances for changes in pressure, but these were so wildly different I’d say that’s almost conclusive. I could do with a few more samples of at least one of the writers, though. It’ll give me more variables and a broader scope for comparison.”

  “I’ll see what I can do,” Banks said. There were probably other examples of Seth’s typing in the filing cabinet. “Would it do any good if we got a suspect to type us a sample?” he asked.

  “Hmmm. It might do. Problem is if he knew what we were after it wouldn’t be too difficult to fake it. I’d say this chap’s a plodder, though. You can tell it’s been pecked out by the overall high pressure, each letter very deliberately sought and pounced on, so to speak. Hunt-and-peck, as I believe they call the technique. The other chap was a better typist, still two fingers, I’d say, but fairly quick and accurate. Probably had a lot more practice. And there’s another thing, too. Did you notice the writing styles of the letters were—”

  “Yes,” Banks said. “We spotted that. Good of you to point it out, though.”

  Tingley sounded disappointed. “Oh, it’s nothi
ng.”

  “Thanks very much. I’ll be in touch about the samples and testing.

  Could you put Vic on again? I’ve just remembered something.”

  “Will do.”

  “Are you still there?” Manson asked a few seconds later.

  “Yes. Look, Vic, there’s a couple more points. The typewriter for a start.”

  “Nothing clear on that, just a lot of blurs.”

  “Was it wiped?”

  “Could have been.”

  “There was a cloth on that table, wasn’t there? One of those yellow dusters.”

  “Yes, there was,” said Manson. “Do you want me to check for fibres?”

  “If you would. And the paper?”

  “Same, nothing readable.”

  “What about that pen, or whatever it was we found on the floor.

  Have you had time to get around to that yet?”

  “Yes. It’s just an ordinary ball-point, a Bic. No prints of course, just a sweaty blur.”

  “Hmmm.”

  The pen had been found in the puddle of blood, just below Seth’s dangling right arm. If he was right-handed, as Banks thought he was, he could have used the pen to write a note before he died. It could have just fallen there earlier, of course, but Seth had been very tidy, especially in his final moments. Perhaps he had written his own note, and whoever killed him took it and replaced it with the second version. Why? Because Seth hadn’t murdered Gill and had said so clearly in his note? That meant he had committed suicide for some other reason entirely. Had he even named the killer, or was it an identity he had died trying to protect?

  Too many questions, again. Maybe Burgess and Glendenning were right and he was a fool not to accept the easy solutions. After all, he had a choice: either Seth Cotton was guilty as the note indicated and had really killed himself, or Paul Boyd, fearing discovery, had killed him and faked the note. Banks leaned closer towards the second of these, but for some reason he still couldn’t convince himself that Boyd had done it—and not only because he took the responsibility for letting the kid out of jail. Boyd certainly had a record, and he had taken off when the knife was discovered. He could be a lot tougher and more clever than anyone realized. If he was faking his claustrophobia, for example, so that even Burgess was more inclined to believe him because of his fear of incarceration, then anything was possible. But so far they had nothing but circumstantial evidence, and Banks still felt that the picture was incomplete. He lit a cigarette and walked over to look down on the market square. It brought no inspiration today.