Watching the Dark

by Peter Robinson

  Rätsepp frowned. ‘Big story, you say? What big story?’

  ‘We don’t know,’ said Banks. ‘I’m just saying it’s too much of a coincidence. We also have forensic evidence to indicate that the same man and car were present at both scenes. Most likely the killer. We don’t know who he is yet, but we’re getting close.’ Banks realised that he was probably telling Rätsepp too much, but he felt that if he didn’t give at least something up, he would get nothing in return. If Rätsepp thought he was getting the best side of the bargain, if he believed that he had succeeded in tricking Banks into giving up too much, it might make his own tongue a bit looser. It was just a matter of exactly what Banks did give away and how valuable it was.

  Rätsepp nodded. His chins wobbled. ‘I still do not understand how I can help you. Our case records are in Estonian, of course, but you are most welcome to see them. Everything is in correct order. We can get translator, though it will take long time. We have nothing to hide. But I assure there is nothing about Hr Quinn.’

  ‘I’m sure you’re right, Toomas. And I don’t want to read your case files. All I really want is a general picture of what happened while he was here. And the girls, of course. I know some of the details of the night in question, the drinking, clubbing, no doubt boys following them around. But where did they go, for example? You say you don’t have a map, but you must have some idea.’

  ‘This was six years ago,’ said Rätsepp. ‘So many bars, clubs and restaurants open and close since then that it is impossible to say. And the staff are all new. People have moved on. Even at the time it is very difficult to get an idea of their movements. Yes, we do have list of bars and nightclubs I am happy to give you, but we do not know the times and order of visiting. There are many Irish pubs with names like Molly Malone’s and O’Malley’s, for example. And many others in Old Town. Nimeta Baar – that is Pub With No Name now. Club Havana. Venus Club. Stereo Lounge. Club Hollywood. The girls go to many of these.’

  ‘But not beyond the Old Town?’

  ‘We do not think so.’

  ‘Where did they lose Rachel?’ Banks asked.

  ‘In Irish pub on Vana-Posti, near south edge of Old Town. St Patrick’s. Nobody see Rachel after there.’

  ‘Except her killer.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Rätsepp with a sigh. ‘The other girls go to bar on Raekoja Plats, main square, with some German boys they meet at Club Hollywood. They notice Rachel is not with them perhaps twenty minutes, half an hour, after they get there. Then it is too late, of course. They cannot find her. They cannot remember where they were before. It is only later that we can put some pieces together.’

  ‘And then you went to these places and asked about Rachel?’

  ‘Of course. But we find out nothing.’

  Annie had already told Banks as much, but he wanted to find out if Rätsepp knew any more. ‘Rachel didn’t know where her friends were going, did she? They had no destination in mind, just picked somewhere at random. She could have just wandered around trying to find them for hours in the Old Town, couldn’t she?’

  ‘It is possible,’ admitted Rätsepp. ‘But I do not think so. Nobody report seeing her, except a waiter in St Patrick’s, who say he think she go wrong way, other way from her friends. But he not so certain. As you see for yourself, it is not a very large area. It is very busy that night. We can find nobody who see her. That is because it is two days later before girls can tell us where they go. Tourists go home. German boys gone. Everybody gone.’ He shook his head in frustration.

  ‘Did no one report seeing her at all after she left St Patrick’s?’

  ‘Nobody. And we do not hear about her disappearance until the following morning. It take us two days to get information from her friends about where they go and what they do. They were so drunk they cannot remember. By then everyone who is there on that night is gone. Nobody knows anything. She is gone. Pouff.’

  ‘And that’s the last of Rachel,’ said Banks. ‘No body. No nothing.’ He felt a wave of sadness ripple through him as he imagined what fear and pain Rachel must have gone through, whatever had happened to her. His daughter Tracy had gone through a terrible ordeal not too long ago, and thoughts about what might have happened to her still gave him nightmares. He could hardly begin to imagine the horrors Rachel’s parents must have visualised over and over in their minds, the loop tapes of porn and snuff films. He took a hefty slug of beer.

  He remembered the time he had been lost in a foreign city, and how frightening that had been. He was fourteen years old, on a school exchange with a French family in Lille. They had all gone to see Gone With the Wind in the town centre. Banks thought it was boring enough in English, so it would be even worse in French. He found a horror film showing around the corner, one of the old Dr Mabuse films, and said he would go there and meet them afterwards. Naturally, his film was much shorter than Gone With the Wind. Finding himself with plenty of time to kill, he bought some Gauloises at the nearest tabac and then went and sat in a bar, ordered a beer and waited. When it was time to meet up, he took a wrong turn and couldn’t find the cinema. He wandered and wandered, deeper into the backstreets, rows of brick houses, little corner churches, washing hanging across the street, the locals giving him strange looks. He knew enough French to ask directions but not enough to understand the answers. The feeling of utter helplessness came over him, verging on panic. In the end, Banks had got to a main street he recognised and boarded a tram back to where he was staying. But Rachel . . . where did she end up?

  Rätsepp held his hands open in a gesture of openness. ‘What more can I say?’

  ‘What do you think happened to Rachel, Toomas?’ asked Joanna, cappuccino in her hand. ‘Just out of interest.’

  Banks was glad that Joanna had asked the question, feeling he was pushing a bit too hard himself. It was perfect coming from her. Rätsepp seemed to have forgotten her earlier insensitivity, because he favoured her with a condescending smile and patted her knee. ‘My dear,’ he said, ‘you must know as well as I do that it cannot be good news. The most obvious theory is that someone take her, some stranger or someone the girls had meet earlier in some in nightclub or bar. Perhaps it is someone who has stalked them, or someone she has arranged to meet. We have no evidence of this, of course, and it poses many questions and many problems, but it is the best explanation.’

  ‘She must have been taken by car,’ Banks said. ‘Cars can get into certain streets of the Old Town, can’t they? I’ve seen them.’

  ‘Of course,’ Rätsepp agreed. ‘Certain streets, certain areas, mostly near the edges. There are many cars around Niguliste, for example, which is not far from the pub where she was last seen. Yes, you are right. It is likely that this person persuade her to get in car. Perhaps she know him from earlier and trust him. We do not know.’

  Banks remembered the big bookshop, the grass slope and the church, the restaurant where he had eaten dinner with Joanna last night. They were just around the corner from there right now. Somehow, the area was taking on a greater significance in his imagination of what might have happened to Rachel. It was true that a lot of cars and taxis seemed to drop people off there and turn around. It was also quite likely that nobody would notice a girl getting into a car or a taxi. Even if someone was pushing her, it might easily appear he was helping her. ‘Did you talk to the taxi companies?’

  ‘Of course. We talk to all drivers who work that night. Nothing.’

  ‘Could one of them be lying?’

  ‘It is always possible. But we do our best.’

  ‘I’m sure you did, Toomas. I’m not being critical, believe me.’

  ‘Is all right. I believe she meet someone from earlier. Maybe from Club Hollywood, where they dance and drink before. Is near St Patrick’s. Perhaps he invite her to party or say he drive her back to hotel. She go with him. Then . . .’

  ‘Possibly,’ said Banks. He remembered Annie telling him that Rachel could be impulsive, and he knew only too well the bad misjudg
ements that can be made when drunk. ‘So, however it happened, you think it happened quickly. Someone got her out of there, abducted her, took her away from the Old Town and then . . .?’

  ‘Otherwise we would surely find body.’

  Banks gestured around to the three- and four-storey buildings. ‘Some of these places must be like rabbit warrens inside,’ he said. ‘There must be old cellars, crypts, attics, places where nobody goes, places nobody’s been for centuries. You can’t have searched every nook and cranny of an area like this. Could she have been taken inside one of them?’

  ‘Is possible,’ said Rätsepp. ‘And there may be such places as you say. We cannot search every room in the Old Town with no information, but we make thorough search.’

  ‘Somebody must have seen something,’ Joanna said.

  ‘No, my dear. Do you think your people in Nottingham on Saturday night see something? A girl get in a car? Is that so unusual there people notice? No. I do not think so. It is not so strange. Do you not agree, Alan?’

  ‘The general public can be remarkably unobservant,’ Banks agreed. ‘Even when they’re sober.’ But especially, he thought, a milling, drunken crowd, as had probably been out on the streets of the Old Town at the time of Rachel’s disappearance. Rätsepp was right. You could probably commit a murder on the street on a night like that, and everyone would just assume it was part of the fun. Maybe that was what had happened. ‘Any other theories?’

  ‘We try to consider everything. Perhaps her friends somehow kill her accidentally? Perhaps she fall down some steps, or somehow poison herself through alcohol? They panic, get rid of body and lie. Or they have a fight and she is accidentally killed.’

  Banks had a sudden flash of the office girls outside at Whitelocks talking of their exploits in Cyprus, laughing about a friend being taken to hospital for alcohol poisoning, joking about another girl who was so drunk she pissed herself in public. Was it only a week ago? Less, even. ‘And got rid of the body where?’ he asked. ‘You checked all the hospitals and searched all the waste ground and possible hiding places, didn’t you?’

  ‘Yes. That is problem with all theories, of course,’ Rätsepp said. ‘No evidence. No body. And girls do not have car. We even talk to car rent companies. Nothing.’

  ‘Any other theories?’

  ‘Well,’ said Rätsepp, scratching his head, ‘it is not a popular line of inquiry, but we think perhaps Rachel get involved in crime. In drugs, for example. Young girls do such things, for some boy they like, perhaps. They become mules, couriers.’

  ‘Did you find any evidence of that?’

  ‘None. But, of course, nobody wishes to think ill of Rachel, and it is not something people talk about. We have cases of foreign girls killed by drug-trafficking gangs they have become involved with, for stealing or for threatening to talk.’

  ‘So you still think there might be something in this?’

  ‘Is possible, yes.’

  ‘I was just thinking that drug-traffickers might also be the kind of criminals who would consider a hit on Quinn, if he was getting too close to the truth.’

  ‘It is professional job, Hr Quinn?’

  ‘We think so,’ said Banks. ‘Both killings.’

  ‘Then you can perhaps believe that some big drug-trafficker did not want to be named. That is another area you must investigate. I understand drugs are big problem in England.’

  ‘But why after so long?’

  ‘That I do not know. There could be many reasons. It take Hr Quinn so long to find him, perhaps? This could be “big story” for journalist.’

  ‘In all these possibilities you’re talking about,’ said Joanna, ‘Rachel Hewitt is dead. What if she’s alive? Is there anything that could explain what happened to her if she’s still alive and well?’

  ‘That is, of course, what her parents wish to believe,’ said Rätsepp solemnly, ‘and I do not want to rob them of all hope. But what is the explanation? She hit her head and lose her memory and wander off somewhere? Poland? Russia? She is working in flower shop in Minsk and married with two beautiful little children? Or she do not like her parents and run away from home? This the parents do not wish to accept. They must continue to believe their daughter loves them.’

  ‘What if she was abducted and forced into prostitution, trafficked?’ said Banks.

  ‘Again, is possible,’ Rätsepp admitted. ‘But we are not Albania or Romania. Estonia is not destination for such victims, and is not usually a source. Is a station on the way. Traffic passes through here to England and Finland and Sweden, from the east, from the south. Drugs. People. Girls. Illegal immigrants. So it is possible. But her parents and many others search over the years, send out pictures, and find no trace of her.’

  Banks thought of Haig and Lombard trolling the Internet sites for the girl in the photographs with Quinn. He had decided not to bring her up with Rätsepp, after all; he didn’t trust the man enough. He would save her for Erik, Mihkel Lepikson’s friend and contact at the Eesti Telegraaf. He could think of no more questions.

  Rätsepp seemed to sense they had got to the end of their discussion and glanced at his watch. ‘I must be leaving now,’ he said. ‘I have appointment.’ He took out his wallet and left a card on the table. ‘If you need to get in touch. Anything.’ He started to pull out some bills, but Banks held his hand up. ‘No, Toomas,’ he said. ‘Remember, tourists pay.’

  Rätsepp laughed. ‘Ah, yes. Thank you very much. I hope to repay the favour in England one day.’ He stood up, bent gallantly to kiss Joanna Passero’s hand, gave Banks a quick salute, grabbed his jacket and disappeared into the crowds around the corner on Viru.

  Pauline Boyars lived in a flat above a fish and chip shop on the Wetherby Road. She was at home when Annie and Winsome pressed her doorbell at half past two on Thursday afternoon, and she buzzed them up. The fish and chip shop was closed, so there was no smell of deep-frying, Annie thought gratefully. It was probably a good thing. Fish and chips was one of her weaknesses, and had played havoc with her fading dream of vegetarianism. At least most places didn’t use lard for deep-frying any longer.

  Whether Pauline overindulged in the services downstairs, Annie had no idea, but she was certainly on the large size, and her complexion was pasty and spotty, as if she ate too much fatty food. Her hair was lank and uncared for, and her nails bitten to the quicks. More signs, Annie thought, that Pauline Boyars had very much let herself go. She was only twenty-five or -six, but she looked over thirty.

  The flat was untidy, with clothes lying on the floor, piles of gossip magazines and unwashed dishes, but it didn’t have that all-pervasive smell of fish and chips Annie had expected. Several windows were open, and she could hear kids playing football in the small park at the back. Didn’t anyone go to school any more?

  Pauline cleared some newspapers from a couple of chairs, and they sat down. She didn’t apologise for the mess, the way many people would have done, but lit a cigarette and sat on the sofa, leaning forward, elbows resting on her knees. ‘What’s it about?’ she asked.

  ‘It’s about Detective Inspector Bill Quinn,’ Winsome said.

  ‘Sounds familiar. Refresh my memory.’

  ‘The detective from Leeds who worked on Rachel’s case?’

  ‘Oh, yes. I remember him. Worse than useless, like the rest of them.’

  ‘He’s been murdered,’ said Winsome.

  ‘It didn’t do anybody any bloody good, though, did it?’ Pauline went on, as if she hadn’t heard. Her right foot was tapping the whole time they were talking. ‘It didn’t bring Rachel back, did it? If you’re going to be asking me about all that stuff, I need a drink. I won’t offer you any because you’re on duty, and because I don’t have much left.’ She got up and poured a hefty shot of vodka into a tea mug.

  ‘Pauline, we’re hoping you can help us here,’ said Winsome, in her most soothing voice. ‘Getting drunk won’t help.’

  ‘Are you crazy?’ She held out the mug. ‘You think this wou
ld get me drunk? If only. What do you want to know?’

  ‘You might have read in the papers that Bill Quinn was killed a few days ago, and his death was suspicious. We’ve been assigned to investigate.’

  ‘Well, bully for you. It was probably some vicious tattooed drug-dealing Hells Angel he put away years ago.’

  ‘That’s one possibility,’ said Winsome. ‘But another is that his death was somehow connected with what happened to Rachel.’

  ‘Nobody knows what happened to Rachel. That’s the bloody point. She might as well have been abducted by aliens.’

  Annie saw that Winsome was struggling with Pauline’s hostility, so she gave a quick signal and cut in. ‘You were there that night, Pauline? What do you think happened?’

  Pauline stopped tapping her foot and gazed at Annie. Then she stubbed out her cigarette and gulped some vodka. The foot started tapping again. ‘What good would it do to go over it all again? Don’t you think I’ve been over it a million times with the bloody Estonian police, and with your mate Quinn?’

  ‘I’m sure you must have,’ said Annie. ‘But that was a long time ago, wasn’t it? Maybe over the years you’ve remembered things you didn’t say then?’

  ‘Remembered? Some hope. Forgotten, more like. I didn’t remember much in the first place. That was the problem.’

  ‘It’s not surprising,’ Annie said. ‘You were out celebrating. Having a good time. You couldn’t have had any idea what was going to happen.’

  Pauline stared at Annie again and sipped more vodka, then stared into the depths of her mug.

  ‘I’m not judging you, Pauline,’ she went on. ‘I’ve been in this job long enough to know that the best will in the world can’t stop a criminal getting his way. And I’ve been pissed often enough to have done more than a few things I’m ashamed of.’

  ‘So why do you do it? The job, I mean.’

  ‘Now there’s a question. I wish I knew the answer.’

  Pauline managed a brief smile, which changed the whole structure of her face and showed a flash of the beauty that might still lurk under the ravaged surface. She lit another cigarette.