Watching the Dark (Inspector Banks Mystery)

by Robinson, Peter

  ‘Afraid not,’ said Gervaise. ‘I’m strictly a longbow person. And I think you’ll find that most serious archers disdain crossbows. They’re hunters’ weapons, mostly, not for sporting competitions.’

  ‘Well, they’re pretty easy to get hold of,’ Banks said. ‘No questions asked, as long as you’re over eighteen. They’re quiet, and just as deadly as a bullet from the right distance. We need to canvass the shops and Internet sites where people buy these things.’

  Gervaise scribbled something on her pad. ‘What else does the choice of weapon tell you?’ she asked.

  ‘Well, I don’t know much about the mechanics of crossbows, but I assume they could be used just as easily by a man or a woman. They’re efficient, anonymous and cold. And quiet. I don’t know about the range, but it was a moonlit night, and the killer was obviously able to get close enough and stay hidden in the trees. The bolt had buried itself deep in the chest, pierced the heart, according to Tom Burns. He thinks it was shot from about fifty or sixty feet away. If the killer was hiding behind a tree and wearing dark clothing, the odds are that Quinn wouldn’t have known he was there. Or she. Dr Glendenning will be able to tell us more.’

  ‘It sounds to me suspiciously like a hit.’

  ‘That’s one possibility,’ said Banks. ‘Which is why we need to find out if anyone had a reason for making a hit on Bill Quinn. We all make enemies on this job, but it’s rare that any of them follow through with their threats, especially in such a cold-blooded way.’

  ‘Maybe there was another reason?’ Gervaise suggested. ‘Maybe DI Quinn had got himself into deep trouble. Maybe he’d been sleeping with the enemy. It happens. The grey area. Money. Corruption. Gambling debts. Drugs. Or a woman. The girl in the photograph, for example? She must be somebody’s daughter, if not someone’s wife or girlfriend. A jealous husband or lover, perhaps? Maybe Quinn thought he was in love with her, and that’s why he kept the photos? As you say, a trophy, or memento. All he had left of her. A mid-life crisis? Perhaps he was hoping to rekindle the romance after his wife had died and he was suddenly free. Maybe we’re dealing with a love triangle?’ She put her pad down and rubbed her eyes. ‘Too many questions, too many possibilities. How’s DI Cabbot doing, by the way?’

  ‘Fine,’ said Banks. ‘She’s in Cornwall staying with her father.’

  ‘She’s due back Monday, right. Clean bill of health?’

  ‘Far as I know,’ Banks said. Annie Cabbot had been recuperating from a serious operation to remove bullet fragments from an area close to her spine. The wait for surgery had been a long one – she had first had to regain strength from a previous injury to her right lung before the operation on her back could be carried out – but it had been a success in that the fragments had been removed and Annie still had the use of all her limbs. Her recovery had been very slow, however, and involved far more excruciating pain than the surgeons had expected, followed by a great deal of physical therapy, some of it at St Peter’s. The spinal cord was intact, but there had been some disc, muscle and vertebrae problems they hadn’t foreseen. Annie had coped well with the pain and uncertainty, Banks thought, getting stronger every day, but he knew that the shooting had also left her with internal demons she would have to deal with eventually. She would be unlikely to go to a psychologist or psychiatrist because of the stigma involved. Rightly or wrongly, seeking professional help for mental problems was viewed as a weakness in the force. Many coppers still maintained that it was bad for the career, and perhaps it was.

  ‘I was thinking of putting her on desk duties for a while, until she gets her sea legs back again. What do you think?’

  ‘For what it’s worth, I think Annie should be given a chance to dive right in. It will do her confidence no end of good to start working on a real case again. Even the doctor says her main hurdles now are psychological. She’s been through a lot. First she gets shot, then she thinks she’s never going to walk again, then she suffers from chronic post-op pain.’

  ‘I’m simply pointing out that there are a lot of reasons why DI Cabbot, when she comes back next Monday, should keep a low profile on light duties for a little while and catch her breath before attempting to dash off and solve murders.’

  ‘She can be useful. We need her. Annie’s bright, she’s—’

  ‘I know all about DI Cabbot’s qualities as a detective, thank you very much.’ Gervaise ran a hand across her brow. ‘Let me think on it,’ she said. ‘I know you need more officers on the case. I’ll have a word with ACC McLaughlin when I talk to him about the personnel issue. I’ll see what he says about DI Cabbot’s future here. It’s the best I can do.’

  Banks held her steady gaze. ‘OK,’ he said finally. ‘Thanks.’

  ‘Anything else you’d like, while you’re at it?’

  ‘Well, a twenty per cent pay raise would be nice. And a bigger office.’

  ‘Out!’ Gervaise picked up a heavy paperweight and threatened to toss it at Banks. ‘Out, before I throw you out.’

  Smiling to himself, Banks left the office.

  Banks munched on his Greggs sausage roll as he guided the Porsche towards the A1, the fourth movement of Mahler’s ‘Resurrection’ symphony playing loudly on the powerful stereo system. It helped that this was a vocal movement. He had always liked Mahler’s lieder, and he had only recently been getting to like the symphonies a lot, having spurned them as boring and bombastic in the past. Was this something that happened when you got older? Failing eyesight, mysterious aches and pains, enjoying Mahler? Would Wagner be next?

  The last time Banks had been to Leeds, he remembered, it was to help his daughter Tracy move a few months ago. She had shared a house in Headingley with two other girls, but it hadn’t worked out. Tracy had suffered a number of traumatic events around the time Annie had been shot, and after a brief period of depression and withdrawal, she had decided to change her life.

  That first meant moving from Leeds to Newcastle, which was a little further from Eastvale, but not so much as to make a big difference. It also meant leaving a dead-end job and getting back on to a career track again. She had got a part-time administrative position at the university and enrolled in the master’s programme in History, with a view to moving into teaching once she felt a bit more secure in her qualifications.

  It was also time to live alone, too, she had told Banks, so she had rented a tiny bedsit close to the converted riverside area, and both Banks and his ex-wife Sandra were helping her with the rent until she got on her feet. Her brother Brian, whose band The Blue Lamps seemed to be going from strength to strength, had also been most generous. In an odd way, Banks thought, they were starting to act like a family again, though he knew that the gap between him and Sandra was unbridgeable. He had visited Tracy once already in Newcastle and had taken her across the river to The Sage to see The Unthanks in concert, then for a drink after. They had had a good time, and he was looking forward to doing it again.

  The A1 was a nightmare. Mile after mile of roadworks, down to one lane each way from Leeming to Wetherby, and a 50mph limit, which everyone obeyed because the cameras averaged out your speed over the whole distance. As a result, it took well over an hour and a half before Banks approached the eastern outskirts of Leeds. The Porsche didn’t like it at all; it had never been happy at 50mph. He had been thinking of selling the car ever since he had inherited it from his brother, but for one reason or another he had never got around to it. Now it was getting a bit shabby and starting to feel comfortable, like a favourite old jacket, jeans or a pair of gloves, and the sound system was a corker, so he reckoned he would probably keep it until it bit the dust.

  Millgarth was an ugly, redbrick fortress-style building at the bottom of Eastgate in Leeds city centre. DI Ken Blackstone wanted to hang around his tiny, cluttered office no more than Banks did, so they headed out into the spring sunshine, walked up the Headrow as far as Primark, then turned left down Briggate, a pedestrian precinct crowded with shoppers. There used to be a Borders near the
intersection, Banks remembered fondly, but it was gone now, and he lamented its passing. There was a Pizza Hut in its place.

  Blackstone was a snappy dresser, and today he wore a light wool suit, button-down Oxford shirt and a rather flamboyant tie. With the tufts of hair over his ears, and his wire-rimmed glasses, Blackstone had always reminded Banks more of an academic than a copper. In fact, the older he got, the more he came to resemble some of the photos Banks had seen of the poet Philip Larkin.

  Banks and Blackstone decided against the posh Harvey Nichols cafe in the Victoria Quarter and plumped for Whitelocks, an eighteenth-century pub in an alley off Briggate, near Marks & Spencer. The alley was narrow and high, with the pub stretching down one side, much longer than it was deep, and a row of benches down the other side, against the wall, with a few tables and stools where space permitted. Not much light got in at any time of the day, but it was always a popular spot with the city centre workers and the student crowd. It was lunchtime, so they were lucky to get space on the bench next to a group of office girls discussing a wedding one of them had just attended in Cyprus.

  ‘You hang on to the seats, Alan,’ said Blackstone. ‘I’ll get us a couple of pints in and something to eat.’

  ‘Make mine a shandy,’ said Banks. ‘I’ve got to drive. And steak and kidney pie and chips.’

  He reached for his wallet, but Blackstone brushed the gesture aside and headed into the pub. He had to stoop to get through the old, low door. People were much shorter in the eighteenth century. Banks remembered that the food was served canteen-style behind an area of the counter beside the bar, so when Blackstone came back he carried the drinks first, then went back for the plates of steaming pie and chips.

  ‘And Josie got so drunk we had to take her to hospital,’ one of the office girls said. ‘She nearly died of alcohol poisoning.’ The others laughed.

  ‘It’s terrible news,’ said Blackstone, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose. ‘First Sonia, then Bill. I can hardly bloody believe it. Not only one of us, but Bill.’

  ‘Sonia was his wife, right?’

  ‘Twenty-five years. I was at their silver wedding anniversary do last December.’

  ‘How old was Bill, exactly?’

  ‘Just turned forty-nine.’

  ‘How did he take her death?’

  ‘How do you think? He was devoted to her. He was devastated, naturally. This neck business that got him into St Peter’s was a bit of an excuse, if you ask me. Not that he hadn’t been having problems on and off for years. But I’d have said he was on the verge of a breakdown. Depressed, too. Couldn’t sleep.’

  ‘Winsome said it was a massive stroke.’

  ‘Sonia was always a bit frail. Heart problems. I think that was why Bill was especially protective of her. Some people said he was too much under her thumb, but it wasn’t really like that. He adored her. It was sudden, a stroke, yes.’

  They both paused for a moment. Banks didn’t know about Ken, but he often felt a brief stab of worry about his own mortality these days. He contemplated his steak and kidney pie. He’d already eaten a sausage roll for breakfast. Not one vegetable all day, unless you counted the chips. Hardly the healthy diet he’d been promising himself since his last visit to the doctor. Still, he had stopped smoking years ago, had cut down on his drinking a bit recently, and he hardly ever put on any weight. Surely that had to be a good thing?

  ‘Poor sod,’ said Banks.

  Blackstone raised his glass. ‘I’ll drink to that. And to life.’

  They clinked glasses. One of the office girls smiled at Banks. ‘Birthday?’

  ‘Something like that,’ he said. The girls moved on to boasting about drunken exploits in Sharm-el-Sheikh, paying no further attention to Banks and Blackstone, who spoke quietly anyway. A gust of warm wind blew along the alley and carried just a hint of the summer to come.

  ‘There are a couple of things I’d like to know,’ said Banks, glancing around. ‘First off, it looked very much like a professional hit.’ Banks described what they had deduced so far about the crime scene.

  Blackstone thought for a moment. ‘Well, if access was as easy as you say, anyone could have done it, though it would have had to have been someone who knew Bill was there, I suppose, someone who knew his habits and the lie of the land, or somehow managed to lure him down to the edge of the woods. And what professional hit man uses a crossbow? Have you considered an inside job, or helper, at any rate?’

  ‘Naturally,’ said Banks. ‘We’re open to just about anything at the moment, and we’ll be checking everyone out. But there are a few problems with that theory. How would someone on the inside get rid of the murder weapon, for example? As far as I’m concerned, the most likely scenario is that it was someone Quinn put away, a criminal with a grudge and a taste for revenge.’

  One of the office girls lowered her voice, but not quite enough. ‘And the last night we were there Cathy pissed herself right in the main street. It was simply dripping down her legs. Like something out of Bridesmaids. Talk about embarrassed! Laugh? I nearly died. Jenny said we should find a Boots and buy her some adult nappies.’

  ‘Why do it at St Peter’s?’ Blackstone asked. ‘Have you thought about that? If someone wanted Bill out of the way, there must have been better opportunities, surely?’

  ‘Not necessarily, especially if timing was an issue. My guess is that it was easier. He was a sitting duck at St Peter’s. It might have been a bit harder to isolate him in the city. More chance of witnesses there, too. And I wouldn’t be surprised if there was an element of bravado. It probably appealed to the killer’s warped sense of humour to kill a cop in a place full of cops, even though they were disabled, or geriatric, for the most part.’ Banks paused. ‘But that begs a few questions.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Like how did the killer find out Bill Quinn was at St Peter’s in the first place?’

  ‘It wasn’t a secret. I mean, anyone could have known, not only people on the inside with him, but others, friends, family, even his coll—’ Blackstone stopped, and his eyes hardened. ‘Wait a minute, Alan. Are you saying what I think you’re saying?’

  ‘We have to consider it, Ken. The possibility of a mole in Quinn’s team, someone in the department. There have been rumours, you know.’

  ‘You think it’s Bill? So what’s going to happen now? The works? Suspend operations, seize all the files? Send in Professional Standards or the Independent Police Complaints Commission?’

  ‘I hope it won’t come to that,’ said Banks. ‘We’re not sure about anything yet. All I’m saying is that it’s an angle we have to consider along with all the others until we can rule it out. Someone knew where to find him.’

  ‘Any trace evidence? Forensics?’

  ‘None yet. His pockets had been emptied, and his mobile is missing. We’re tracking down the provider, then at least we’ll have a list of calls to and from. The CSIs are working on the usual – footprints, fabrics, DNA, fingerprints. The area near the tree where they think the killer stood looks promising.’

  ‘So what do you want from me?’

  ‘Area Commander Gervaise will be asking for full details of Bill Quinn’s cases from the brass, and for a list of villains he’s put away, along with their release dates, but I thought I’d just pick your brains in the meantime, get a head start.’

  Blackstone rubbed his cheeks. ‘Another drink first?’

  ‘Not for me, thanks, Ken.’

  Blackstone studied the remains of his pint. ‘No. I suppose I can make do with what I’ve got left, too. Where to begin?’

  ‘Wherever you want.’

  ‘Well, Bill’s been around for a while. You’ll have quite a job on your hands going through the minutiae of his career.’

  ‘Let’s start at the top, then. Any counter-terrorism investigations?’

  ‘We try to leave that sort of thing to Special Branch. Of course, West Yorkshire can’t avoid getting in on the peripheries at times, especia
lly in Bradford or Dewsbury and some parts of Leeds, but nothing comes immediately to mind. Surely you don’t believe this was some kind of a fatwa, do you?’

  ‘Just casting flies on the water.’

  ‘Aye. One thing I can tell you, though. It was Bill helped put away Harry Lake nearly twenty years ago. He was a young DS then, and it didn’t do his career any harm, I can tell you.’

  Banks whistled between his teeth. Harry Lake was famous enough to have had books written about him. He had abducted, tortured and killed four women in the Bradford area in the early nineties, cut them up and boiled the parts. Like the even more infamous Dennis Nilsen, he was only caught when the body pieces he’d flushed down the toilet blocked the drains, and a human hand surfaced in one of his neighbour’s toilet bowls.

  ‘He can’t be out yet, surely?’ said Banks.

  ‘I don’t think he’ll ever get out. He’s in Broadmoor. But it’s worth checking. He always swore revenge, and maybe he persuaded some sick follower to do his dirty work for him? You know what it’s like. People like him get marriage proposals, offers of continuing his work for him. According to the prison governor, he gets plenty of those.’

  Banks made a note. ‘There must be more?’

  ‘I suppose his other most famous case was his biggest failure. Well, not his really.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘The Rachel Hewitt business.’

  ‘Rachel Hewitt? Isn’t she that girl whose parents keep cropping up in the news, the girl who disappeared in Latvia, or wherever?’

  ‘Estonia, actually. Tallinn. Six years ago. Yes. And they were in the news again not too long ago. That phone-hacking inquiry. You might have heard. They’ve been complaining about being hounded by the media, phones tapped, private papers and diaries stolen and published. The sister went off the rails, apparently, and the press had a feeding frenzy.’