Strange Affair

by Peter Robinson

  “Sorry, sir?”

  Gristhorpe frowned at her. “I said do we have any idea where the victim was driving from?”

  “No, sir,” said Annie.

  “Then perhaps we should set about canvassing all-night garages, shops open late, that sort of thing?”

  “If the victim really is Jennifer Clewes,” Annie said, hoping to make up for her lapse in concentration, “then the odds are that she came from London. As the road she was found on leads to and from the A1, which connects with the M1, that makes it even more likely.”

  “Motorway service stations, then?” Kevin Templeton suggested.

  “Good idea, DC Templeton,” said Gristhorpe. “I’ll leave that to you, shall I?”

  “Wouldn’t it be better to get the local forces on it, sir?”

  “That’ll take too much time and coordination. We need results fast. Better if you do it yourself. Tonight.”

  “Just what I always fancied,” Templeton grumbled. “Driving up and down the M1 sampling the local cuisine.”

  Gristhorpe smiled. “Well, it was your idea. And I hear they do a very decent bacon panini at Woodall. Anything else?”

  “DC Jackman mentioned that there had been a similar crime some months ago,” Annie said.

  Gristhorpe looked at Winsome Jackman, eyebrows raised. “Oh?”

  “Yes, sir,” said Winsome. “I checked the details. It’s not quite as similar as it appears on first glance.”

  “Even so,” said Gristhorpe. “I think we’d like to hear about it.”

  “It was near the end of April, the twenty-third. The young woman’s name was Claire Potter, aged twenty-three, lived in North London. She set off at about eight o’clock on a Friday evening to spend the weekend with friends in Castleton. She never got there. Her car was found in a ditch by the side of a quiet road north of Chesterfield by a passing motorist the following morning and her body was found nearby—raped and stabbed. The way it looks is that her car was forced into a ditch by her assailant. The pathologist also found traces of chloroform and characteristic burning around her mouth.”

  “Where was she last seen?”

  “Trowell services.”

  “Nothing on the service station’s closed-circuit TV?” asked Gristhorpe.

  “Apparently not, sir. I had a brief chat with DI Gifford at Derbyshire CID, and the impression I got was that they’ve reached a dead end. No witnesses from the cafeteria or garage. Nothing.”

  “The MO is different, too,” Annie pointed out.

  “Yes,” said Gristhorpe. “Jennifer Clewes was shot, not stabbed, and she wasn’t sexually interfered with, at least not as far as we know. But you think there could be some connection, DC Jackman?”

  “Well, sir,” mused Winsome, “there are some similarities: stopping at the services, being forced off the road, a young woman. There could be any number of reasons why he didn’t assault her this time, and he could certainly have acquired a gun since his last murder. Maybe he didn’t enjoy stabbing. Maybe it was just a bit too up close and personal for him.”

  “Okay,” said Gristhorpe. “Good work. We’ll keep an open mind. Last thing we want is to let a serial killer slip through our hands because we don’t see the connection. I take it you’ll be activating HOLMES?”

  “Yes, sir,” said Winsome. The Home Office Large Major Enquiry System was an essential tool in any major investigation. Every scrap of information was entered into the computer and connections were made in ways even a trained officer might easily miss.

  “Good.” Gristhorpe stood up. “Okay. Any—”

  There was a knock at the door and Gristhorpe called out, “Come in.”

  Dr. Wendy Gauge, Dr. Glendenning’s new and enigmatic assistant, stood there, looking as composed as ever, that mysterious, self-contained smile lingering around her lips the way it always did, even when she was bent over a corpse on the table. Rumor had it that Dr. Gauge was being groomed as Glendenning’s successor when the old man retired, and Annie had to admit that she was good.

  “Yes?” said Gristhorpe.

  Wendy Gauge moved forward. “I’ve just come from the mortuary,” she said. “We were removing the victim’s clothing and I found this in her back pocket.” She handed over a slip of lined paper, clearly torn from a notebook of some sort, which she had thoughtfully placed in a transparent plastic folder. “Her killer must have taken everything else from the car,” Dr. Gauge went on, “but…well…her jeans were very tight and she was…you know…sitting on it.”

  Annie could have sworn Dr. Gauge blushed.

  Gristhorpe examined the slip of paper first, then frowned and slid it down the table for the others to see.

  Annie could hardly believe her eyes, but there, scrawled in blue ink and followed by directions from the motorway and a crude map of Helmthorpe, were a name and address:

  Alan Banks

  Newhope Cottage

  Beckside Lane

  Gratly, near Helmthorpe

  North Yorkshire

  By the time his colleagues back in Eastvale were speculating as to what his name and address were doing in a murder victim’s back pocket, Banks was in London, making his way through the early-Saturday afternoon traffic, past the posh restaurants and Maserati showrooms, toward his brother Roy’s South Kensington house, just east of the Gloucester Road. It was years since he had driven in London, and the roads seemed more crowded than ever.

  He had never seen where Roy lived before, he realized as he drove under the narrow brick arch and parked in the broad cobbled mews. He got out and looked at the whitewashed brick exterior of the house with its integral garage next to the front door and a mullioned bay window above. It didn’t look big, but that didn’t matter these days. A house like this, in this location, would probably fetch eight hundred k or more on today’s market, Banks reckoned, maybe even a million, and a hundred k of that you’d be paying for the privilege of having the word “mews” in your address.

  All the houses stood cheek by jowl, but each was different in some detail—height, facade, style of windows, garage doors, wrought-iron balconies—and the overall effect was of quiet, almost rural, charm, a nook hidden away from the hurly-burly that was literally just around the corner. There were houses on all three sides of the cul-de-sac, and the red brick archway, only wide enough for one car, led to the main road, helping to isolate the mews from the world outside. Beyond the houses at the far end, a tower block and a row of distant cranes, angled like alien birds of prey, marred the view of a clear sky.

  There were hardly any other cars parked in the mews, as most of the houses had private garages. The few cars that were on display were BMWs, Jaguars and Mercedes, and Banks’s shabby little Renault looked like a poor relation. Not for the first time the thought crossed his mind that he needed a new car. It was a hot morning for June, hotter here than up north, and he took off his jacket and slung it over his shoulder.

  First he checked the number against his address book. It was the right house. Next he pressed the doorbell and waited. Nobody came. Perhaps, Banks thought, the bell didn’t work, or couldn’t be heard upstairs, but he remembered hearing it buzz on Roy’s phone message. He knocked on the door. Still no answer. He knocked again.

  Occasionally, a car would pass by the archway, on Old Brompton Road, but otherwise the area was quiet. After knocking one last time, Banks tried the door. To his surprise, it opened. Banks could hardly believe it. From what he remembered, Roy had always been security-conscious, fiercely protective of his possessions, had probably been born that way. One of the first things he had done, as soon as he was old enough, was save up his pocket money to buy a padlock for his toy box, and woebe-tide anyone caught touching his bike or his scooter.

  Banks examined the lock and saw that it was the dead-bolt kind, which you had to use a key both to open and to close. Behind the door were a copy of that morning’s Times and a few letters, bills or junk. There was the keypad of a burglar-alarm system just inside the hall, but it
hadn’t been activated.

  To the left was a small sitting room, rather like a doctor’s waiting room, with a beige three-piece suite and a low glass-topped coffee table, on which lay a neat pile of magazines. Banks flipped through them. Mostly business and hi-tech. Between the sitting room and the kitchen, at the back of the house, ran a narrow passage, with a door on the right, near the front, leading to the garage. Banks peeked in and saw that Roy’s Porsche 911 was parked there. The car was locked, the bonnet cold.

  Back in the house, Banks took the door that led to a narrow flight of stairs. He stood at the bottom and called Roy’s name. No reply. The house was silent except for the myriad daily sounds we usually tune out: distant traffic, the hum of a refrigerator, the ticking of a clock, a tap dripping somewhere, old wood creaking. Banks shuddered. Someone had just walked over his grave, his mother would say. He couldn’t put his finger on what it was, but he felt a distinct tingling up his spine. Fear. There was no one in the house; he was reasonably sure of that. But perhaps someone was watching the place? Banks had learned to trust his instincts over the years, even if he hadn’t always acted on them, and he sensed that he would have to move carefully.

  He walked into the kitchen, which looked as if it had never been used for anything but making tea and toast. The whole downstairs—sitting room, passage and kitchen—was painted in shades of blue and gray. The paint smelled fresh. A couple of framed photographs in high-contrast black-and-white hung in the passage. One was a female nude curled on a bed, the other a hill of brick-terraced houses leading down to a factory, its chimneys smoking, cobbles and slate roofs gleaming after rain. Banks was surprised. He hadn’t known that Roy was interested in photography, or in art of any kind. But then there was so much he didn’t know about his estranged brother.

  In the kitchen stood a small rustic wooden table with two matching chairs, surrounded by the usual array of countertops, toaster, storage cupboards, fridge, oven and microwave. The table was clear, apart from an opened bottle of Amarone with the cork stuck back in, and, half hidden behind the bottle, a mobile phone. Banks picked up the phone. It was off, so he turned it on. It was an expensive model, the kind that sends and receives digital images, and there was plenty of battery power left. He tried the voice mail and text functions, but the only messages were the ones he had left. Was Roy the kind of person who would forget to take his mobile with him when he went out under normal circumstances, especially as he had given Banks the number? Banks doubted it the same way he doubted that Roy would deliberately leave his front door unlocked or forget to turn on his burglar alarm unless he was really rattled by something.

  A wine rack stood on one of the counters, and even Banks could tell that the wines there were very high-end clarets, chiantis and burgundies. Above the rack hung a ring of keys on a hook. One of them looked like a car key. Banks put them in his pocket. He checked the fridge. It was empty except for some margarine, a carton of milk and a piece of moldy cheddar. That confirmed it. Roy was no gourmet cook. He could afford to eat out, and there were plenty of good restaurants on Old Brompton Road. The back door was locked, and the window looked out on a small backyard and an alley beyond.

  Before going upstairs, Banks went back to the garage to see if the car key on the ring fit the Porsche. As he had suspected, it did. Banks opened the driver’s door and got in.

  He had never sat in such a car before, and the luxurious leather upholstery embraced him like a lover. He felt like putting the key in the ignition and driving off somewhere, anywhere. But that wasn’t why he was here. The car’s interior smelled clean and fresh, with that expensive hint of leather. From what Banks could see, there were no empty crisp packets or pop cans on the backseat or cellophane wrappers on the floor. Nor was there one of those fancy GPS gadgets that would tell Banks what Roy’s last destination had been. In the side pocket was a small AA road atlas open to the page with “Reading” in the bottom right and “Stratford-upon-Avon” at the top left. There was nothing else except the car’s manual and a few CDs, mostly classical. Banks got out and checked the boot. It was empty.

  Next, Banks ventured upstairs, a much larger living space than downstairs because it extended over the garage. At the top of the stairs, he found himself on a small landing with five doors leading off. The first led to the toilet, the second to a modern bathroom, complete with Power Shower and whirlpool bath. There were the usual shaving and dental-care implements, aspirin and antacid, and rather more varieties of shampoo, conditioner and body lotions than Banks imagined Roy would need. He also wouldn’t need the pink plastic disposable razor that sat next to the gel for sensitive skin, not unless he shaved his legs.

  At the back was a bedroom, simple and bright, with flower-patterned wallpaper: double bed, duvet, dressing table, drawers and a small wardrobe full of clothes and shoes, everything immaculate. Roy’s clothing ran the gamut from expensive casual to expensive business, Banks noticed, looking at the labels—Armani, Hugo Boss, Paul Smith—and there were also a few items of women’s clothing, including a summer dress, a black evening gown, Levi’s, an assortment of short-sleeve tops and several pairs of shoes and sandals.

  The drawers revealed a few items of jewelry, condoms, tampons and a mix of men’s and women’s underwear. Banks didn’t know whether Roy was into cross-dressing, but he assumed the female items belonged to his girlfriend of the moment. And as there was nowhere near enough women’s paraphernalia to indicate that a woman actually lived there, she probably just kept a few clothes, along with the items in the bathroom, for when she stayed over.

  Banks remembered the young girl who had been with Roy the last time they met. She had looked about twenty, shy, with short, shaggy black hair streaked with blond, a pale, pretty face and beautiful eyes the color and gleam of chestnuts in October. She also had a silver stud just below her lower lip. She had been wearing jeans and a short woolly jumper, exposing a couple of inches of bare, flat midriff and a navel with a ring in it. They were engaged, Banks remembered. Her name was Colleen or Connie, something like that. She might know where Roy had gone. Banks could probably trace her from Roy’s mobile’s phone book. Of course, there was no guarantee that she was still Roy’s fiancée, or that the clothes and toiletry items were hers.

  Next to the bedroom, and quite a bit larger, was what appeared to be Roy’s office, furnished with filing cabinets, a computer monitor, fax machine, printer and photocopier. Again, everything was shipshape, no untidy piles of paper or yellow Post-it notes stuck on every surface, as in Banks’s office. The desk surface was clear apart from an unused writing tablet and an empty glass of red wine, the dregs hardening to crystal. On a bookcase just above the desk were the standard reference books—atlas, dictionary, Dunn and Bradstreet, Who’s Who.

  Roy certainly kept his life in order, and Banks remembered that he had been a tidy child, too. After playing, he had always put his toys carefully away in their box and locked it. His room, even when he was a teenager, was a model of cleanliness and tidiness. He could have been in the army. Banks’s room, on the other hand, had been the same sort of mess he’d seen in most teens’ bedrooms on missing persons cases. He’d known where everything was—his books were in alphabetical order, for example—but he had never fussed much about making his bed or tidying the pile of discarded clothes left on the floor. Another reason his mother had always favored Roy.

  Banks wondered if Roy’s computer would tell him anything. The flat-panel monitor stood on the desk, but Banks was damned if he could find the computer itself. It wasn’t on or under the desk, or on the shelf behind. There were a keyboard and a mouse, but keyboard, mouse and monitor were no use without the computer. Even a novice like Banks knew that.

  Given Roy’s interest in electronic gadgets Banks would have expected a laptop, too, but he could find no signs of one. Nor a handheld. He remembered Roy showing off a flashy new Palm—one of those gadgets that do everything but fry your eggs in the morning—at the party last year.

  Needle
ss to say, there was nothing so remotely useful as a Filofax. Roy would keep all that information on his computer and his Palm, and it seemed that they were both gone. Still, Banks had the mobile, and that ought to prove a fruitful source of contact numbers.

  There was a Nikon Coolpix 43000 digital camera in one of the pigeonholes behind the computer desk. Banks knew a little about digital cameras, though his cheap Canon was well below Roy’s range. He managed to switch it on and figured out how to look at the images on the LCD screen, but there was no memory card in it, no images to see. He searched around the adjoining pigeonholes for some sort of image-storage device but found nothing. That was another puzzle, he realized. All the things you expect to find around a computer—zip drive, tape backups or CDs—were all conspicuous in their absence. There was nothing left but the monitor, mouse and keyboard and an empty digital camera.

  One other gadget remained: a 40G iPod, another little electronic toy Banks had thought of buying. He dipped in at random, hearing snatches of arias here and a bit of an overture there. Banks had always thought his brother a bit of a philistine, didn’t know he was an opera buff, that they might have something in common. From what he could remember, when Banks had been into Dylan, The Who and the Stones, Roy had been a Herman’s Hermits fan.

  One of the songs Banks stumbled across was “Dido’s Lament” from Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas, and he found himself listening for just a little longer than he needed, feeling a lump in his throat and that burning sensation at the back of his eyes he always got when he heard “When I am laid in earth.” The upsurge of emotion surprised him. Another good sign. He had felt little or nothing since the fire and thought that was because he had nothing left to feel with. It was encouraging to have at least a hint that there was life in the old boy yet. He browsed through the iPod’s contents and found a lot of good stuff: Bach, Beethoven, Verdi, Puccini, Rossini. There was a complete Ring cycle, but nobody’s perfect, thought Banks. Least of all Roy. Still, the extent of his good taste was a surprise.