Watching the Dark (Inspector Banks Mystery)

by Robinson, Peter

  ‘See what I mean?’ said Winsome, standing behind him, arms folded. ‘Childish.’

  ‘Who?’ said Banks, with a straight face. ‘Me or her?’

  The mortuary, along with Dr Glendenning’s recently modernised post-mortem suite, was in the basement of the old Eastvale Infirmary. Banks thought it would be a good idea to take Inspector Passero along. She probably wouldn’t learn anything of relevance to her case, but if she was working with Banks, it was time she got used to the late hours. And the blood and guts. It was after five on a Friday afternoon, and a Professional Standards officer would likely be well on her way home by now, if not sitting back with her feet up in front of the telly with a large gin and tonic. Or was Joanna more the cocktail party and theatre type? Probably.

  She turned up in a new pair of flat-heeled pumps that she had clearly bought that afternoon at Stead and Simpson’s in the market square. No fancy Italian shoe shops in Eastvale. The new shoes didn’t make as much noise as Banks’s black slip-ons as the two of them walked down the high, gloomy corridor to their appointment. The walls were covered in old green tiles. DC Gerry Masterson had told Banks earlier that Robbie Quinn had been brought in to identify his father’s body that morning, so the formalities were done with for the moment. Dr Glendenning had the coroner’s permission to proceed with his post-mortem.

  Banks gave a slight shudder, the way he always did in the Victorian infirmary, and it wasn’t caused by the permanent chill that seemed to infuse the air as much as by the smell of formaldehyde and God only knew what else.

  ‘Something wrong?’ asked Joanna, her voice echoing from the tiles.

  ‘No. This place always gives me the creeps, that’s all. It’s probably haunted. There never seems to be anyone else here. And I can just imagine all the patients back in Victorian times, the primitive instruments and lack of anaesthetic. It must have been butchery. A nightmare. Corridors of blood.’

  ‘You’ve got imagination, I’ll give you that,’ Joanna said. ‘But you must have been misinformed. They had anaesthetics in Victorian times. At least they used chloroform or ether from the 1850s on, and I think it said over the door this place wasn’t built until 1869. I also think you’ll find the instruments were perfectly adequate for their purposes back then.’

  ‘University education?’ Banks said.

  ‘Something like that.’

  ‘Well, it still gives me the creeps. Here we are.’

  They donned the gowns and masks provided by one of Dr Glendenning’s young assistants and joined the doctor, who was just about to begin.

  ‘Tut tut, tardy again, Banks,’ said Dr Glendenning. ‘You know how I hate tardiness. And me working late on a Friday especially to accommodate you.’

  ‘Sorry, doc. You know I’m eternally grateful.’

  ‘Who’s your date?’

  Banks glanced towards Joanna. ‘This is Inspector Joanna Passero. Professional Standards.’

  ‘In trouble again, Banks?’

  ‘She’s here to observe.’

  ‘Of course.’ Dr Glendenning scrutinised Joanna, who blushed a little. ‘Ever been to a post-mortem before, lassie?’

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘I can’t honestly say that I have.’

  ‘Aye . . . well, at least you’re a fellow Scot, by the sound of you.’

  ‘Edinburgh.’

  ‘Good. Excellent. Just try not to be sick on the floor.’

  ‘Now you’ve got the Scottish mutual admiration society well and truly off the ground,’ said Banks, ‘do you think you could get started, doc? We’ve still got a murder to investigate.’

  Dr Glendenning scowled at Banks. ‘Sassenach.’ Then he winked at Joanna, who smiled. He adjusted his microphone, called over his first assistant and took the scalpel she handed him. Quinn’s clothes were already lying on a table by the wall. They would be searched and put into labelled paper bags – not plastic, which didn’t breathe and caused mould to grow on moist fabrics – and sent over to Evidence, signed for at every stage of the way to ensure chain of custody.

  Before beginning his incision to get at Quinn’s insides, Glendenning studied the external details of the body, had his assistant take a number of photographs, then he leaned over and slowly pulled out the crossbow bolt, which had already been tested for prints, to no avail. There was no blood, of course, as Quinn’s heart had stopped pumping some time ago, but the sucking sound it made when it finally came out made Banks feel queasy, nonetheless. He glanced at Joanna from the corner of his eye. She wasn’t showing any reaction. She must be pretty good at hiding her feelings, Banks thought, though maybe you didn’t need feelings to work for Professional Standards.

  Dr Glendenning laid the bolt down next to a ruler fixed to one of the lab tables. ‘A twenty-inch Beman ICS LightningBolt,’ he said. ‘Carbon, not aluminium, in my opinion. That’s fairly common, I should say.’

  ‘How do you know the make?’ Banks asked.

  ‘It says so right there, down the shaft. Now, a lot depends on the power of the crossbow your man was using, but you’re generally talking a hundred-and-fifty-pound draw, maybe even as much as two hundred pounds these days, so I think if I take the measurement of how deep it went into him and an average of the bow’s pressure, then we might get an approximation of the distance it was fired from.’

  ‘We think it was about fifty or sixty feet,’ said Banks.

  Dr Glendenning stared at him. ‘Is that scientifically accurate or just pure guesswork, laddie?’

  ‘Well,’ said Banks, ‘it’s about the distance between where the evidence shows the shooter was standing and where the victim fell. He might also have nudged the bolt on the ground when he fell forward and pushed it in a bit further. That’s why it always pays to attend the scene.’

  Dr Glendenning narrowed his eyes. ‘You can’t miss at that range if you know what you’re doing and have a decent weapon. Even in the dark. I’ll let you know when the calculations are done.’ He went back to the body, measured and took swabs from the wound, probed it and muttered his findings into his microphone.

  A lot of what happened at post-mortems, Banks often found, was simply a matter of restating the obvious, but once in a while something knocked you for six, which was why it was a good idea for the SIO to attend. This time, however, everything was pretty much as he had expected it to be. Dr Glendenning sorted through the stomach contents – chicken casserole, chips and peas, followed by apple pie and ice cream – and agreed with Dr Burns about time of death, placing it at between 11 p.m. Wednesday evening and 1 a.m. Thursday morning, on the basis of digestion. The internal organs were weighed and sectioned for tox screening. Apart from Quinn’s tarry lungs, on which Glendenning could hardly comment, being a smoker himself, and his liver being a bit enlarged, on which Banks certainly wouldn’t be so hypocritical as to pass judgement, everything was in tip top shape. Quinn was no athlete, but he was fit enough, and his heart had been in good working order until the crossbow bolt had pierced it. Both kidneys, and all the other various important bits and pieces Dr Glendenning had removed, had also been up to par. If he hadn’t been murdered, Dr Glendenning ventured, he would probably have lived another thirty years or more if he’d stopped smoking. Every once in a while, Banks would sneak another glance at Joanna, but she seemed quite impassive, fascinated by the whole thing, if anything, and as icily cool as ever.

  ‘So the cause of death is?’ Banks asked as Dr Glendenning’s assistant closed up.

  ‘Oh, didn’t I say? How remiss of me. Well, barring any surprises from toxicology, he died of a crossbow bolt through the heart. It pierced the aorta, to be exact, just above the pulmonic valve. Death would have been as instantaneous as it gets, the chest cavity filled with blood, breathing impossible, no blood flow. A matter of seconds. You’ll have my report in a day or two. Tox should take about a week.’

  ‘Thank you, doc,’ said Banks.

  ‘My pleasure. And charmed to meet you, ma’am,’ the doctor said, giving a little bow to Joanna, who put
her hand to her mouth to stifle a giggle, or perhaps a gagging reaction, Banks thought. She seemed anxious to get out of the post-mortem suite, at any rate.

  ‘Fancy a drink?’ Banks asked when they were back in the corridor. ‘I must admit, I always do after a PM. Or is that an arrestable offence in Professional Standards?’

  ‘Why not?’ said Joanna, glancing at her watch. ‘The sun’s well over the yardarm. You obviously don’t know me very well.’

  The Unicorn was just across the road. It wasn’t one of Banks’s favourite pubs, but it would do, and luckily it was still too early for the noisy crowd that filled the place on a Friday and Saturday night. At least the landlord served a passable pint of Black Sheep, if Banks remembered correctly.

  ‘What would you like?’ he asked Joanna at the bar.

  ‘I’ll have a brandy please. No ice.’

  Banks’s eyes widened. He’d pegged her as a white wine spritzer kind of woman, and definitely not on duty, even if she turned a blind eye to him. Then he realised they weren’t on duty. ‘Soda?’

  ‘Just as it comes, please.’ She seemed amused by his surprise, but said nothing except, ‘You bring the drinks and I’ll take that table over there by the window, shall I?’

  Banks paid for the drinks and carried them over.

  ‘I see you got some new shoes,’ he said, sitting down.

  Joanna stretched out her legs. Banks admired them, as he thought he was intended to do. ‘Had to, didn’t I? It’s such a hard job to dress for. You never know what sort of garden path you’re going to be led up from one day to the next. Or country lane.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  Joanna took a sip of brandy and leaned forward, her elbows on the table. ‘Oh, come off it, DCI Banks. Don’t play the innocent with me. You spin me around the roundabout, you make me break my heel, then you drag me off to a post-mortem thinking it’ll make me sick all over the nice tiled floor. Isn’t that true? Wasn’t that the idea?’

  ‘But you weren’t sick, were you? You didn’t even flinch.’

  ‘Don’t sound so disappointed.’ She sipped some brandy and grinned. ‘My mother’s a cardiovascular surgeon – was, she’s retired now – one of the best in the country. She often invited me to watch her operate when she thought I was old enough. I’ve seen more operations than you’ve put villains away.’

  ‘But you said . . .’

  ‘I said this was my first post-mortem. That’s true. But I’ve seen plenty of by-passes, valve replacements, and even a couple of heart transplants. Beats telly. There was a time when I seriously thought of becoming a surgeon myself, but I don’t have the hands for it.’ She held them up, but Banks had no way of telling what was wrong with them. They didn’t seem to be shaking or anything. He tried to stop his jaw dropping, then he started to laugh. He couldn’t help it.

  She let him laugh for a few moments, tolerant and slightly bemused, then, when he had finished, she said, ‘Can we please just stop it now? Bury the hatchet. Whatever. It’s been a crap day so far. Do you think you could just lighten up a bit and stop treating me as your enemy? We both want the truth behind DI Quinn’s murder, right? If he was the rotten apple, I’m sure you want to know as much as I do. So why can’t we work together? I honestly can’t afford a new pair of shoes every day, for a start. And I’m not trying to replace Annie Cabbot. I’m sorry she got shot, but it wasn’t my fault. At least she’s still alive. I had a partner I grew to trust and like very much once, before I came to Professional Standards. Can you just give me the benefit of the doubt? If Quinn was bent, I’ll need to report it. I won’t lie about that. If he’s innocent, then his memory remains unsullied, he has a hero’s funeral, twenty-one gun salute, whatever, and his reputation has nothing to fear from me. How about it?’

  ‘Your partner? What happened?’

  Joanna paused and sipped some more brandy. ‘He died,’ she said finally. ‘Was killed, actually. Shot by a bent cop trying to avoid being exposed. Ironic, really. It was someone Johnny trusted, someone he was trying to help.’

  Banks remained silent and drank his beer. There wasn’t much to say after that.

  Joanna’s mobile hiccupped. A text. She took it out of her bag and glanced at it, frowned briefly, then stuck it back in her handbag without replying.

  ‘Anything important?’ Banks asked. ‘Bad news? Your husband?’

  Joanna shook her head and finished her drink. ‘What now?’ she asked.

  Banks looked at his watch. ‘I don’t know about you,’ he said, ‘but I’m going to call in at the station and see if there are any developments, then I’m heading home.’

  She got to her feet. ‘I’ll come with you,’ she said. Then paused. ‘At least, as far as the station.’

  Banks was sitting on a wicker chair in the conservatory, feet up on the low table, sipping a Malbec and listening to June Tabor sing ‘Finisterre’. Only one shaded lamp was lit, and its dim orange-tinged light seemed to emphasise the vast darkness outside. A strong breeze had whipped up, and now it was lashing rain against the windows. April showers. Fortunately, the CSIs had finished their investigation of the St Peter’s grounds and covered over the lane where Banks and Winsome had found the tyre tracks.

  Banks thought about Joanna for a moment, how she had become more human to him when they had a drink together in The Unicorn and she told him about her mother the surgeon and her partner who got shot. Was it all just a ploy to gain his sympathy, to lull him into being careless and weak? He didn’t know. There was something likeable about her. Annie Cabbot, he remembered, had worked Professional Standards for a while a few years ago, and it hadn’t turned her into a monster.

  Banks tried to put Joanna Passero and the case out of his mind for the time being. June Tabor was singing ‘The Grey Funnel Line’, the dark warmth of her voice filling the room. He sipped his wine and abandoned himself to the music. It was easy enough to imagine that he was out at sea, here in the semi-dark surrounded by glass, the wild night outside, the wind howling and rain lashing.

  He had just reached for the bottle to refill his glass when the doorbell rang. It made him jump. He glanced at his watch. Close to ten. Who on earth could be calling at this time? Worried that it was probably not good news, Banks put his bottle down and walked through the kitchen, hall and study to the front door. When he opened it, he was surprised but relieved to see Annie Cabbot standing there without an umbrella.

  ‘I was just thinking about you,’ said Banks. ‘When did you get back?’

  ‘Yesterday. Can I come in? It’s pissing down out here.’

  Banks stood aside as she stepped past him, and closed the door on the chilly rain. Annie hung up her coat and shook her hair like a wet dog. ‘That’s better. Any chance of a cuppa?’

  ‘I’ve got wine.’

  ‘Why doesn’t that surprise me? But a simple cuppa would work wonders right now.’

  Banks walked through to the kitchen, Annie following. He turned his head. ‘Regular, green, chamomile, Earl Grey, decaf?’

  ‘Chamomile, please,’ said Annie. ‘My God, where did you come up with all those choices?’

  ‘California,’ said Banks. ‘They like their fancy tea in California. I learned to appreciate green tea there, especially. They have lots of different kinds, you know. Sencha, gyokuro, dragonwell.’

  ‘I’d forgotten you’d been there. I’ve forgotten most things around that time. Ordinary chamomile will do fine for me.’

  ‘How was St Ives?’

  ‘Wonderful. Beautiful. I got back into sketching and painting. Did a lot of walking on the cliffs.’

  ‘And Ray?’

  ‘He’s fine. Sends his regards. He’s got another floozy. She can’t be a day older than me.’

  ‘Lucky Ray.’ Banks had spent a lot of time with Annie’s father during her illness and recovery, and they had got along remarkably well. Ray had even stopped over at the cottage a few times after they had opened that second bottle of wine, or hit the Laphroaig.

 
; Banks put the kettle on. He decided to have some tea himself. He was trying to cut back on the wine intake, after all, and chamomile was particularly relaxing late at night. It might help him sleep. Annie leaned her hip against the counter. He was about to tell her she could go through to the conservatory and he’d bring the tea when it was ready, but he realised it would be tactless. He could even see it in her face under the toughness, a vulnerability, an uncertainty about whether she really should be facing the conservatory right now.

  Several months ago, while Banks had been enjoying himself in sunny California, Annie had been shot in his conservatory. When he had first found out, he had wondered whether he would be able to go back in there again himself and enjoy it the way he had done before. But he hadn’t been there when the shooting happened. The clean-up team had done a great job before he returned home, and Winsome had even had the sensitivity and good taste to refurnish the whole place for him. New carpet, new paint job, new chairs and table, new everything. And all sufficiently different in colour and style from the originals. It was like having a new room, and he had felt no ghosts, no residual sense of pain, fear or suffering. He had lost a table, chairs and a carpet but not, thank God, a dear friend.

  He was apprehensive after what had happened to Annie there, though, worried that it might bring on a panic attack or something. It was her first visit since the shooting.

  They chatted in the kitchen until the kettle boiled, then Banks put the teapot and cups on a tray. ‘Want to go through?’ he asked, gesturing towards the conservatory.

  Annie followed him tentatively, as if unsure what effect the room would have on her.

  ‘It looks different,’ she said, sitting in one of the wicker chairs.

  Banks set down the tea tray on the low table and took the chair beside her. He looked at her, trying to gauge her reaction. Annie was in her early forties now, and Banks thought she had never looked so good. During her convalescence, she had let the blonde highlights grow out and her hair had returned to its previous shoulder-length chestnut cascade. Banks decided he preferred it that way. ‘If you want, we can sit in the entertainment room,’ he said.