She had held her tongue so far, trying to figure Burgess out. He didn’t seem as mild-mannered as Banks, and she was afraid of attracting his attention. Even as she spoke, her stomach muscles tensed.
Burgess looked at her again and shook his head. His eyes were as sharp as chipped slate. “Very touching, love. Very touching. Didn’t your mother and father teach you not to tell lies? He was spotted in the crowd. We know he was there.”
“You must have been mistaken.”
Burgess glanced at Paul, then looked at Mara again. “Mistaken! How could anyone mistake this piece of garbage for someone else? You need your mouth washing out with soap and water, you do, love.”
“And don’t call me love.”
Burgess threw up his arms in mock despair. “What’s wrong with you lot? I thought everyone called each other love up north. Anyway, I can’t for the life of me see why you’re defending him. He’s got a limited vocabulary, and with a body like that, I doubt if he’s much good in bed.”
“Bastard,” Mara said between clenched teeth. There was going to be no reasoning with this one, that was certain. Best just stick it out.
“That’s right, love,” Burgess said. “Get it off your chest. You’ll feel all the better for it.” He eyed her chest, as if to prove his point, and turned to Paul again. “What did you do with the knife?”
“What knife?”
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“The one you used to stab PC Gill. The flick-knife. Just your kind of weapon, I’d say.”
“I didn’t stab anyone.”
“Oh, come on! What did you do with it?”
“I didn’t have no fucking knife.”
Burgess wagged a finger at him. “I warned you, watch your tongue. Are you getting all this, Sergeant Hatchley? The kid’s denying everything.”
“Yes, sir.” Hatchley was sitting on the beanbag cushions, looking, Mara thought, rather like a beached whale.
“All we need is the knife,” Burgess said. “Once we trace it back to you, you’ll be in the nick before your feet can touch the ground. With your record, you won’t have a chance. We’ve already placed you at the scene.”
“There were about a hundred other people there, too,” Paul said.
“Count them, did you? I thought you said you weren’t there.”
“I wasn’t.”
“Then how did you know?”
“Read it in the papers.”
“Read? You? I doubt you’d get past the comics.”
“Very funny,” Paul said. “But you can’t prove nothing.”
“You might just be right about that,” Burgess said. “But remember, if I can’t prove nothing, it means I can prove something. And when I do … when I do…”
He left the threat hanging and turned to the room at large. They were all gathered in the house except Rick, who had taken the children to town for new clothes. “The rest of you are just as guilty,” he went on. “When we build a case against dick-head here, you’ll all get done for withholding information and for being accessories. So if any of you know anything, you’d best tell us now. Think about it.”
“We don’t know anything,” Seth said quietly.
“Well, there we are then.” Burgess sighed and ran his free hand through his hair. “Stalemate.”
“And don’t think we won’t complain about the way you’ve treated us and how you hit Paul,” Mara said.
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“Do it, love. See if I care. Want me to tell you what’ll happen? If you’re lucky, it’ll get passed down the line back to my boss at the Yard. And do you know what? He’s an even bigger bastard than I am. No, your best bet’s to come clean, tell the truth.”
“I told you,” Paul said. “I don’t know anything about it.”
“All right.” Burgess dropped his cigar stub into a teacup balanced on the arm of a chair. The hot ash sizzled as it hit the dregs. “But don’t say I didn’t warn you. Come on, Sergeant. We’ll leave these people to think about it a bit more.
Maybe one of them’ll come to his senses and get in touch with us.”
Hatchley struggled to his feet and joined Burgess by the door. “We’ll be back, don’t worry,” Burgess said. As they walked out of the small porch, he reached up, slapped the wind chimes and snarled, “Bloody tuneless racket.”
Ill
Banks waited, glass of sherry in hand, until the crowd around the buffet had dwindled before he collected his own paper plateful of cold cuts and salad.
“Ee, it’s a bit of all right, this, i’n’t it,” a grey-haired woman in a powder-blue crepe dress was saying to her friend.
“Aye,” the other said. “Better’n old Ida Latham’s do. Nobbut them little sarnies wi’ t’crusts cut off. No bigger’n a postage stamp they weren’t. Cucumber, too.
It allus gives me gas, cucumber does.”
“Chief Inspector Banks?”
The man who suddenly materialized beside Banks was about six-two with a shiny bald head, fuzzy white hair above the ears, and a grey RAF moustache. He wore a black armband over his dark grey suit, and a black tie. Even the rims of his glasses were black. Banks nodded.
“Thought it must be you,” the man went on. “You don’t look like a relation, and I’ve never seen you around here before. Superintendent Gristhorpe sent word you were coming.” He stretched out his hand. “Detective Chief Inspector 90
Blake, Scarborough CID.” Banks managed to balance his sherry glass on his plate and shake hands.
“Pleased to meet you,” he said. “Shame it has to be at something like this.”
They walked over to a quieter and less crowded part of the hall. Banks put down his plate on a table-after all, he couldn’t eat while talking-and took out a cigarette.
“How’s the investigation going?” Blake asked.
“Nothing yet. Too many suspects. Anything could have happened in a situation like that.” He looked around the hall. “Lot of people here. PC Gill must have been a popular bloke.”
“Hmmm. Didn’t know him well, myself. It’s a big station.”
“Keen, though,” Banks said. “Volunteering for overtime on a Friday night. Most of our lads would’ve rather been at the pub.”
“It’s more likely he needed the money. You know how half the bloody country lives on overtime. Has to, the wages we get paid.”
“True. Fond of money, was he?”
Chief Inspector Blake frowned. “Are you digging?”
“We don’t know anything about Gill,” Banks admitted. “He wasn’t one of ours.
Every little bit helps. I’m sure you know that.”
“Yes. But this is hardly a normal case, is it?”
“Still…”
“As I said, I didn’t really know him. I hear you’ve got a whiz-kid from the Yard in charge.”
Banks stubbed out his cigarette and picked up his plate. He knew he wasn’t going to get anything out of Blake, so he ate his lunch while exchanging small talk.
From the corner of his eye, he noticed Richmond talking to one of the uniformed pallbearers, probably one of the locals who had been bussed in with Gill to the demo. They had all given statements, of course, but none had seen Gill get stabbed. He hoped that Richmond was doing better than he was.
Chief Inspector Blake drifted away after about five minutes, and Banks took the opportunity to refill his sherry
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glass. At the bar, he found himself standing next to another pallbearer.
Banks introduced himself. “Sad occasion,” he said.
“Aye,” PC Childers replied. He was young, perhaps in his early twenties. Banks felt irritated by his habit of looking in another direction while speaking.
“Popular bloke, PC Gill, by the look of it,” Banks said.
“Oh, aye. A right card, old Eddie was.”
“That right? Keen on his work?”
“You could say that. Certain parts of it, anyway.”
“I’ll bet the overtime came in handy.”
“It’s always good to hav
e a bit extra,” Childers said slowly. Banks could tell he was holding back; whether out of friendship, a sense of occasion, or out of simple duty, he couldn’t be sure. But something was wrong. Childers was getting edgier, staring at the far wall. Finally, he excused himself abruptly and went to talk to his sergeant.
Banks was beginning to feel his mission had been wasted. He was also aware that very soon he would become an unwelcome guest if Childers and Blake mentioned his probings to others. Christ, he thought, they were a bloody sensitive lot here.
It made him wonder if they’d got something to hide.
Back at the table for a helping of trifle, Banks manoeuvred himself next to a third pallbearer, a moon-faced lad with bright blue eyes and fine, thinning hair the colour of wheat. Taking a deep breath, he smiled and introduced himself.
“I know who you are, sir,” the PC said. “Ernie Childers told me. I’m PC Grant, Tony Grant. Ernie warned me. Said you were asking questions about Eddie Gill.”
“Just routine,” Banks said. “Like we do in all murder investigations.”
Grant glanced over his shoulder. “Look, sir,” he said, “I can’t talk to you here.”
“Where, then?” Banks felt his heart speed up.
“Do you know the Angel’s Trumpet?”
Banks shook his head. “Don’t know the place well. Only been here once before.”
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‘it’ll take too long to explain,” Grant said. They finished helping themselves to dessert and turned around just in time to spot one of Grant’s colleagues walking towards them.
“Marine Drive, then, just round from the fun-fair,” Banks said quickly out of the corner of his mouth. It was the only place he could think of offhand. “About an hour.”
“Fine,” Grant said as a uniformed sergeant joined them.
“Good of you to come, Chief Inspector,” the sergeant said, holding out his hand.
“We appreciate it.”
Grant had merged back into the crowd, and as Banks exchanged trivialities with the sergeant, his mind was on the meeting ahead, and the nervous, covert way in which it had been arranged.
IV
“He made me feel dirty,” Mara said to Seth. “The way he looked at me.”
“Don’t let it get to you. That’s just his technique. He’s trying to goad you into saying something you’ll regret.”
“But what about Paul? You saw the way he was picking on him. What can we do?”
Paul had taken off as soon as Burgess and Hatchley left. He had said he was feeling claustrophobic and needed a walk on the moors to calm down after the onslaught. He hadn’t objected to Zoe’s company, so Seth and Mara were left alone.
“What is there to do?” Seth said.
“But you saw the way that bastard went at him. I wouldn’t put it past him to frame Paul if it came down to it. He has got a record.”
“They’d still need evidence.”
“He could plant it.”
“He couldn’t just plant any old knife. It’d have to be the one that fitted the wound. They have scientists working for them. You can’t put things across on that lot so easily, you know.”
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“I suppose not.” Mara bit her lip and decided to take the plunge. “Seth? Have you noticed that the knife’s missing? That old flick-knife from the mantelpiece.”
Seth looked at her in silence for a while. His brown eyes were sad, and the bags under them indicated lack of sleep. “Yes,” he said, “I have. But I didn’t say anything. I didn’t want to cause any alarm. It’ll probably turn up.”
“But what if… what if that was the knife?”
“Oh come on, Mara, surely you can’t believe that. There are plenty of flick-knives in the country. Why should it be that one? Somebody’s probably borrowed it. It’ll turn up.”
“Yes. But what if? I mean, Paul could have taken it, couldn’t he?”
Seth drummed his fingers on the chair arm. “You know how many people were around on Friday afternoon,” he said. “Any one of them could have taken it. When did you last notice it, for example?”
“I don’t remember.”
“See? And it still doesn’t mean it was the knife that was used. Someone might just have borrowed it and forgot to say anything.”
“I suppose so.” But Mara wasn’t convinced. It seemed too much of a coincidence that a flick-knife had been used to kill the policeman and the flick-knife from the mantelpiece was missing. She thought Seth was grasping for straws in trying to explain it away as he was, but she wanted to believe him.
“There you are, then,” he said. “Why assume it’s Paul just because he has a violent past? He’s changed. You’re thinking like the police.”
Mara wanted to, but she couldn’t bring herself to tell Seth about the blood.
Somehow, along with everything else, that information seemed so final, so damning.
She had decided to get in touch with that friend of Dennis Osmond’s, Jenny. Mara liked her, though she wasn’t too sure about Osmond himself. And Jenny was a professional psychologist. Mara could put her a theoretical case, using Paul’s background, and ask if such a person was likely to be dangerous. She could say it was a part of some research she
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was doing for a story or something. Jenny would believe her.
“Maybe he should go away,” Seth said after a while.
“Paul? But why?”
“It might be best for him. For all of us. Till it’s over. You can see how all this is getting to him.”
“It’s getting to all of us,” Mara said. “You, too.”
“Yes, but-“
“Where would he go? You know he hasn’t got anybody else to turn to.” Despite her fears, Mara couldn’t help but want to protect Paul. She didn’t understand her feelings, but as much as she suspected him, she couldn’t just give up and send him away.
Seth stared at the floor.
“It could look bad, too,” Mara argued. “The police would think he was running away because he was guilty.”
“Let him stay, then. Just make up your mind.”
“Don’t you care about him?”
“Of course I care about him. That’s why I suggested he get away. Come on, Mara, which way do you want it? If I suggest he goes, I’m being cruel, and if he stays he might have to put up with a hell of a lot more from that fascist bastard we had around this afternoon. What do you want? Do you think he can take it? Look how he reacted to today’s little chat. That was a picnic compared to what’ll happen if they decide to take him in for questioning. And we can’t protect him.
Well? How much do you think he can take?”
“I don’t know.” Things had suddenly got even more complicated for Mara, “I want what’s best for Paul.”
“Let’s ask him, then. We can’t make his decisions for him.”
“No! We’ve got to stand by him. If we approach him, he might think we believe he’s guilty and want him out of the way.”
“But we’d have to approach him to ask if he’d like to go away for a while, until things settle down.”
“So we do nothing. If he wants to stay, he stays, and we stand by him, whatever.
If he goes, then it’s his decision. We don’t force him out. He’s not stupid, Seth, I’m sure he knows he’s in for a lot of police harassment. The last thing he needs is to feel that we’re against him, too.”
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“Okay.” Seth nodded and stood up. “We’ll leave it at that. I’ve got to go and do some work on that old sideboard now. I’m already late. You all right?”
Mara looked up at him and smiled. “I’ll manage.”
“Good.” He bent and kissed her, then went out back to his workshop.
But Mara wasn’t all right. Left to herself, she began to imagine all kinds of terrible things. The world of Maggie’s Farm had seemed at first to offer the stability, love and freedom she had always been searching for, but now it had broken adrift. The feeling was like that she reme
mbered having during a mild earthquake in California, when she’d travelled around the States, with Matthew, eons ago. Suddenly, the floor of the room, the house’s foundations, the solid earth on which they were built, had seemed no more stable than water. A ripple had passed fleetingly under her, and what she had always thought durable turned out to be flimsy, untrustworthy and transient. The quake had only lasted for ten seconds and hadn’t registered above five on the Richter scale, but the impression had remained with her ever since. Now it was coming back stronger than ever.
On the mantelpiece, among the clutter of sea shells, pebbles, fossils and feathers, she could see the faint outline of dust around where the knife had been. As she wiped the surface clean, she thanked her lucky stars that the police had been looking for material things, not absences.
Banks drove along Foreshore Road and Sandside by the Old Harbour. The amusement arcades and gift shops were all closed. In season, crowds of holiday-makers always gathered around the racks of cheeky postcards, teenagers queued for the Ghost Train, and children dragged their parents to the booths that sold candy-floss and Scarborough rock. But now the prom was deserted. Even on the seaward side, there were no stalls selling cockles, winkles and boiled shrimp. A thick, high cloud-cover had set in, and the sea sloshed at the barnacle-crusted harbour walls like molten metal. Fishing
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boats rocked at their moorings, and stacks of lobster-pots teetered on the quayside. Towering over the scene, high on its promontory, the ruined castle looked like something out of a black-and-white horror film.
Banks dropped Richmond off at a pub near the West Pier and carried on along Marine Drive, parking just beyond the closed fun-fair. He buttoned up his raincoat tight and walked along the road that curved around the headland between the high cliff and the sea. Signs on the hillside warned of falling rocks. Waves hit the sea-wall and threw up spray onto the road.
Tony Grant was already there, leaning on the railing and staring out to the point where sea and sky merged in a uniform grey. He wore a navy duffle coat with the hood down, and his baby-fine hair fluttered in the wind. A solitary oil tanker was moving slowly across the horizon.
“I like it best like this,” he said as Banks joined him. “If you don’t mind getting a bit wet.”
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