Strange Affair

by Peter Robinson

Unaware of the excitement just a few miles down the road, Banks was up and around before eight o’clock that morning, coffee and newspaper on the table in front of him, mild hangover held at bay by aspirin. He hadn’t slept at all well, mostly because he had been waiting for the phone to ring. And he hadn’t been able to get that song Penny Cartwright had been singing out of his mind: “Strange Affair.” The melody haunted him and the lyrics, with their images of death and fear, troubled him.

  His window framed a view of blue sky above the rising northern daleside and the gray flagstone roofs of Helmthorpe, about half a mile away at the valley bottom, dominated by its church tower with the odd turret on one corner. It was similar to his view from the wall by his old cottage, just a slightly different angle. But it failed to move him. He could see that it was beautiful, but he couldn’t feel it. There seemed to be something missing, some connection, or perhaps there was a sort of invisible shield or thick fog between him and the rest of the world and it dimmed the power of all he had held dear to move him in any way.

  Music, landscape, words on a page—all seemed inert and impotent, distant and unimportant.

  Since the fire had consumed his home and possessions four months ago, Banks had become withdrawn and taciturn; he knew it, but there was nothing he could do about it. He was suffering from depression, but knowing that was one thing, changing it quite another.

  It had started the day he left the hospital and went to look at the ruins of his cottage. He hadn’t been prepared for the scale of the damage: roof gone, windows burned out; inside a shambles of charred debris, nothing salvageable, hardly anything even recognizable. And it didn’t help that the man who had done this had got away.

  After a few days convalescing at Gristhorpe’s Lyndgarth farmhouse, Banks had found the flat and moved in. Some mornings he didn’t want to get out of bed. Most nights he spent watching television, any old rubbish, and drinking. He wasn’t drinking too much, but he was drinking steadily, mostly wine, and smoking again.

  His withdrawal had driven the wedge even deeper between him and Annie Cabbot, who desperately seemed to need something from him. He thought he knew what it was, but he couldn’t give it to her. Not yet. It had also cooled his relationship with Michelle Hart, a detective inspector who had recently transferred to Sex Crimes and Child Protection in Bristol, much too far away to maintain a reasonable long-distance relationship. Michelle had her own problems, too, Banks realized. Whatever it was that haunted her was always there, always in the way, even when they were laughing or making love. They’d been good for each other for a while, no doubt about it, but now they were down to the “just good friends” stage that usually comes before the end.

  It seemed as if the fire and subsequent spell in the hospital had put his life on pause, and he couldn’t find the “play” button. Even work, when he got back to it, had been boring, consisting mostly of paperwork and interminable meetings that never settled anything. Only an occasional pint with Gristhorpe or Jim Hatchley, a chat about football or the previous evening’s television, had relieved the tedium. His daughter, Tracy, had visited as often as she could, but she had been studying hard for her finals.

  Brian had dropped by a few times, too, and now he was in a recording studio in Dublin with his band working on a new CD. Their first as the Blue Lamps had done okay, but the second was slated for much bigger and better things.

  More than once Banks had thought of counseling, only to reject the idea. He had even considered that Dr. Jenny Fuller, a consultant psychologist he had worked with on a number of cases, might be able to help, but she was on one of her extended teaching gigs—Australia this time—and when he thought more about it, the idea of Jenny delving into the murky depths of his subconscious didn’t hold a lot of appeal. Maybe whatever was there was best left there.

  When it came down to it, he didn’t need any interfering shrink poking around in his mind and telling him what was wrong. He knew what was wrong, knew he spent too much time sitting around the flat and brooding. He also knew that the healing process—the mental and emotional process, not merely the physical—would take time, and that it was something he had to do alone, make his way step by weary step back to the land of the living. No doubt about it, the fire had burned much deeper than his skin.

  It wasn’t so much the pain he’d endured—that hadn’t lasted long, and he couldn’t even remember most of it—but the loss of all his worldly goods that had hit him the hardest. He felt like a man adrift, unanchored, a helium balloon let float off into the sky by a careless child. What was worse was that he thought he ought to be feeling a great sense of release, of freedom from materialism, the sort of thing gurus and sages spoke about, but he just felt jittery and insecure. He hadn’t learned the virtue of simplicity from his loss, had learned only that he missed his material possessions more than he ever dreamed he would, though he hadn’t yet been able to muster up the energy and interest to start replacing those items that could be replaced: his CD collection, his books and DVDs. He felt too weary to start again. He had bought clothes, of course—comfortable, functional clothes—but that was all.

  Still, he reflected, munching on a slice of toast and marmalade as he scanned the reviews section of the newspaper, things were definitely improving a little each day. It was becoming easier to get out of bed on a morning, and he had got into the habit of occasionally taking a walk up the daleside opposite his flat on a fine day, finding the freshness and exercise invigorating. He had also enjoyed Penny Cartwright’s singing the previous night and was beginning to miss his CD collection. A month or so ago, he wouldn’t even have bothered reading the reviews in the paper.

  And now brother Roy, who hadn’t even rung or visited him in the hospital, had left a mysterious urgent message and had not called back. For the third time since he got up that morning, Banks tried Roy’s numbers. He got the answering machine again, the recorded voice telling him to leave a message, and the mobile was still switched off.

  Unable to concentrate on the newspaper any longer, Banks checked his watch and decided to ring his parents. They should be up by now. There was just a chance that Roy was there, or that they knew what was going on. He certainly seemed to keep in touch with them more than with Banks.

  His mother answered and sounded nervous to be getting a call so early in the day. In her world, Banks knew, early-morning phone calls never meant good news. “Alan? What is it? Is there something wrong?”

  “No, Mum,” Banks said, trying to put her at ease. “Everything’s fine.”

  “You’re all right, are you? Still recovering?”

  “Still recovering,” said Banks. “Look, Mum, I was wondering if our Roy was there.”

  “Roy? Why would he be here? The last time we saw Roy was our anniversary last October. You must remember. You were here, too.”

  “I remember,” said Banks. “It’s just that I’ve been trying to ring him…”

  His mother’s voice brightened. “So you two are making it up at last. That’s good to hear.”

  “Yes,” said Banks, not wishing to disabuse his mother of that scrap of comfort. “It’s just that I keep getting his answering machine.”

  “Well, he’s probably at work. You know how hardworking our Roy is. Always got something or other on the go.”

  “Yes,” Banks agreed. Usually something about two shades away from being criminal. White-collar, though, which didn’t seem to count as crime to some people. When Banks thought about it, he realized he really hadn’t a clue what Roy actually did to make his money. Only that he made a lot of it. “So you haven’t heard from him recently?”

  “I didn’t say that. As a matter of fact he rang about two weeks ago, just to see how your dad and I are doing, like.”

  The implied rebuke wasn’t lost on Banks; he hadn’t rung his parents for a month. “Did he have anything else to say?”

  “Not much. Except he’s keeping busy. He might be away, you know. Have you thought about that? He did say something about
an important business trip coming up. New York again, I think. He’s always going there. I can’t remember when he said he was going, though.”

  “Okay, Mum,” said Banks. “That’s probably where he is. Thanks very much. I’ll wait a few days and call him when he gets back home.”

  “You make sure you do, Alan. He’s a good lad, is Roy. I don’t know why you two haven’t been getting on better all these years.”

  “We get along fine, Mum. We just move in different circles, that’s all. How’s Dad?”

  “Same as ever.” Banks heard the rustle of a newspaper—the Daily Mail his father read just so he could complain about the Conservatives—and a muffled voice in the background. “He says to say hello.”

  “Right,” said Banks. “Say hello back…Well, take care of yourselves. I’ll call again soon.”

  “Mind you do,” said Banks’s mother.

  Banks rang off, tried Roy’s both numbers once again, but still no Roy. There was no way he was going to wait a few days, or even hours. From what he knew of Roy, under normal circumstances if he had buggered off somewhere and not bothered to ring back, Banks would have assumed he was sunning himself in California or the Caribbean with a shapely young woman by his side. That would be typical of him and his me-first attitude. As far as Roy was concerned, there was nothing in life you couldn’t get through with a smile and a wad of cash. But this was different. This time Banks had heard the fear in his brother’s voice.

  He deleted the message from his answering service, threw a few clothes along with his toothbrush and razor into an overnight bag, checked that the lights were out, unplugged all the electrical items and locked the flat behind him. He knew he wouldn’t get any rest until he got to the bottom of Roy’s odd silence, so he might as well drive down to London and find out what was happening himself.

  Detective Superintendent Gristhorpe called the meeting in the boardroom of Western Area Headquarters after lunch, and DI Annie Cabbot, DS Hatchley, crime scene coordinator DS Stefan Nowak, along with DCs Winsome Jackman, Kev Templeton and Gavin Rickerd sat in the high, stiff-backed chairs under the gaze of ancient wool barons with roast beef complexions and tight collars. Their notes and files were set in neat piles on the dark polished table beside Styrofoam cups of tea or coffee. Pinned to corkboards on the wall by the door were Peter Darby’s Polaroids of the scene. It was already hot and stuffy in the room and the small fan Gristhorpe had turned on didn’t do much good.

  Soon, when the investigation got seriously under way, more manpower would be allocated, but these seven would remain the core team. Gristhorpe as senior investigative officer and Annie, who would do most of the fieldwork, as his deputy and administrative officer. Rickerd would be office manager, responsible for setting up and staffing the murder room; Hatchley would act as receiver, there to weigh the value of every piece of information and pass it on for computer entry; Winsome and Templeton would be the foot soldiers, tacking down information and conducting interviews. Others would be appointed later—statement readers, action allocators, researchers, and the rest—but for now it was of prime importance to get the system into place and into action. It was no longer merely a suspicious death. Jennifer Clewes—if that was really the name of the victim—had been murdered.

  Gristhorpe cleared his throat, shuffled his papers and began by asking Annie for a summary of the facts, which she gave as succinctly as possible. Then he turned to DS Stefan Nowak.

  “Any forensics yet?”

  “It’s still early days,” said Stefan, “so I’m afraid all I can give you at the moment is what we don’t have.”

  “Go on.”

  “Well, the road surface was dry and there are no discernible tire tracks from any other vehicle. Also, we haven’t turned up any physical evidence—discarded cigarette ends, spent matches, that sort of thing. There are plenty of prints on the outside of the car, so that will take Vic Manson a while to sort out, but they could be anyone’s.”

  “What about inside the car?” Gristhorpe asked.

  “It’s in the police garage right now, sir. We should know something later today. There is one thing.”

  “Yes?”

  “It looks as if she was definitely forced off the road. The left wing hit the drystone wall.”

  “But there was no damage to the right wing, at least not that I could see,” Annie said.

  “That’s right,” Stefan agreed. “The car that forced her over didn’t make physical contact. Pity. We might have got some nice paint samples.”

  “Keep looking,” said Gristhorpe.

  “Anyway,” Stefan went on, “whoever it was must have got in front of her and veered to the left rather than come at her directly from the side.”

  “Well,” said Gristhorpe, “what do you do if a you’re a woman alone and a car comes up fast behind you on a deserted country road at night?”

  “I’d say either you take off like a bat out of hell or you slow down and let him get by and put as much distance as possible between the two of you,” said Annie.

  “Exactly. Only in this case he forced her over to the side of the road.”

  “The gear stick,” Annie said.

  “What?” Gristhorpe asked.

  “The gear stick. She was trying to get away. She was trying to reverse.”

  “That’s the way it looks,” said Stefan.

  “But she wasn’t fast enough,” said Annie.

  “No. And she stalled.”

  “Do you think,” Annie went on, “that there might have been two of them?”

  “Why?” asked Gristhorpe.

  Stefan looked at Annie and answered. It was uncanny, she thought, how often their thoughts followed the same pathways. “I think DI Cabbot means,” he said, “that if the driver had to put on the brake, unfasten his seat belt and pull out his gun before getting out, those few seconds might have made all the difference.”

  “Yes,” said Annie. “Though why we should assume a murderer would be so law-abiding as to wear a seat belt is stretching it a bit. And he may have already had his gun out and not bothered to turn off the ignition. But if someone was there to leap out, say someone in the back, with his gun ready and no seat belt to unfasten, then she wouldn’t have had time to recover from the shock and get herself into reverse. Remember, she’d probably be panicking.”

  “Hmm,” said Gristhorpe. “Interesting. And possible. Let’s keep an open mind for the time being. Anything else?”

  “Not really,” said Stefan. “The victim’s been taken to the mortuary and Dr. Glendenning said he should be able to get around to the postmortem sometime this afternoon. In the meantime, it still looks very much as if death was due to a single gunshot wound above the right ear.”

  “Any ideas about the sort of weapon used?”

  “We’ve found no trace of a cartridge, so either our killer was smart and picked up after himself, or he used a revolver. At a rough estimate, I’d say it’s probably a twenty-two caliber. Anything bigger would most likely have left an exit wound.” Stefan paused. “We might not have had a lot of practice with gunshot wounds around these parts,” he said, “but our ballistics specialist, Kim Grainger, knows her stuff. That’s about it, sir. Sorry we can’t be a bit more helpful right now.”

  “Early days, yet,” said Gristhorpe. “Keep at it, Stefan.” He turned to the rest of the group. “Has anyone verified the woman’s identity yet?” he asked.

  “Not yet,” said Annie. “I got in touch with Lambeth North. It turns out their DI at Kennington is an old friend of mine, Dave Brooke, and he sent a couple of DCs to her address. Nobody home. They’re keeping an eye on the place.”

  “And there are no reports of her car being stolen?”

  “No, sir.”

  “So it’s still more than within the realm of possibility that the registered keeper of the vehicle is the person found dead in it?”

  “Yes. Unless she lent her car to a friend or hasn’t noticed it’s gone missing yet.”

  “D
o we even know for certain that she was alone in the car?” Gristhorpe asked.

  “No.” Annie looked at Stefan. “I’m assuming that’s something they’ll be able to help us determine down at the garage.”

  Stefan nodded. “Perhaps.”

  “Anyone run her name through our system?”

  “I did, sir,” said Winsome. “Name, prints, description. Nothing. If she ever committed a criminal act, we didn’t catch her.”

  “It wouldn’t be the first time,” Gristhorpe said. “All right, first priority, find out who she is and what she was doing on that road. In the meantime, I assume we’re already making door-to-door inquiries in the general area of the incident?”

  “Yes, sir,” said Annie. “Problem is, there’s not much in the general area. As you know, it happened on a deserted stretch of road between the A1 and Eastvale in the early hours of the morning. We’ve got people going from house to house, but there’s nothing except a few holiday cottages and the occasional farmhouse within a mile each way of the car. Nothing’s turned up so far.”

  “Nobody heard the shot?”

  “Not so far.”

  “An ideal place for a murder, then,” Gristhorpe commented. He scratched his chin. Annie could see by the stubble that he hadn’t shaved that morning. Hadn’t combed his unruly hair, by the looks of it, either. Still, personal grooming sometimes took backstage when it came to the urgency of a murder investigation. At least as far as the men were concerned. Kev Templeton was far too vain, of course, to look anything but his gelled, athletic and trendy best, not to mention cool as Antarctica, but Jim Hatchley had definitely taken a leaf out of Gristhorpe’s book. Gavin looked like a train spotter, right down to the National Health specs held together over his nose by a plaster. Winsome was immaculate in pinstripe navy trousers and matching waistcoat over a white scallop-neck blouse, and Annie felt rather conservative in her plain pastel frock and linen jacket. She also felt unpleasantly sweaty and hoped it didn’t show.

  Finding herself doodling a cartoon of Kev Templeton in full seventies gear, complete with the Afro and tight gold lamé shirt, Annie dragged herself away from her sartorial musings, admonishing herself once again for having difficulty concentrating these days, and got back to the matter in hand: Jennifer Clewes. Gristhorpe was asking her a question, and Annie realized she had missed it.