Friend of the Devil ib-17

by Peter Robinson

  Winsome ordered her latte and sat on a stool by the window, where a long orange molded-plastic shelf ran at just the right height to rest her cup on. She was older than most of the patrons, but found it interesting that she didn’t draw many curious glances. She was wearing black denims and a short zip-up jacket, which weren’t completely out of place there, though perhaps a little upmarket for the student scene.

  Most likely, she thought, nobody paid her much attention because there were two Chinese students in deep discussion at one table, a couple of Muslim girls wearing hijabs at another, and a young black woman with dreadlocks talking to a similarly coiffed white boy in a Bob Marley T-shirt. The rest were white, but this was the biggest racial mix Winsome had ever seen in Eastvale. She wondered where they all disappeared to on a Saturday afternoon, when she did her shopping, or on a Saturday eve ning, when the market square turned into a youth disaster zone. She guessed that there were enough pubs, bars and cafés around campus to keep them entertained without their having to risk life and limb from a bunch of drunken squaddies or farm laborers. So why did Hayley and her friends head for the city center? Living dangerously? Most likely, Winsome guessed, it was the 1 4 0

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  students who actually came from Eastvale who haunted the market-square scene, the locals, or the ones from outlying villages.

  Winsome kept an eye on the door of Austin’s building as she sipped the latte. While she waited, she couldn’t help but return in her mind to Annie Cabbot’s shocking confession of the previous eve ning. A twenty-two-year-old, for Lord’s sake? What was she thinking of ? That was no more than a mere boy; DCI Banks’s son, for example, must be about that age, or not much more. And she had regarded Annie as someone she could respect, look up to. She had also secretly thought that Annie and Banks would end up together. She had thought they made a good couple and would have been happy to serve as a bridesmaid at their wedding. How wrong she was. Poor Banks. If only he knew, he would surely be as disgusted as she was.

  Winsome was surprised at her own prudish reaction, but she had had a strict religious and moral upbringing, and no amount of exposure to the loose ways of the modern world could completely undo that.

  After Annie had stormed out, Winsome had gone home herself. She had been worried about Annie’s driving, but when she got outside, the Astra was gone from the square. Too late. She also felt that she had let her friend down, hadn’t said the right things, made the right noises, given her the sympathy and understanding she needed, but she had felt so shocked and at sea, so burdened by, rather than grateful for, the intimacy of the confession, that she hadn’t been able to. She hadn’t felt much sympathy. So much for sisterly solidarity. There had been something else, though, some trouble with this boy that Annie hadn’t got the chance to tell her about, and that worried her, too.

  Students ambled up and down the street carrying backpacks or shoulder bags, wearing T-shirts and jeans; nobody seemed in a hurry.

  That was the life, Winsome thought. They didn’t have to deal with people like Templeton or face the dead bodies of young women first thing on a Sunday morning. And she bet they indulged in night after night of sweaty guiltless sex. She felt as if she could sit there forever sipping coffee looking out on the sunshine, and a sense of childhood peace came over her, the kind she had felt back at home during the long, hot, still days when all she could hear was birds and the lazy clicking of banana leaves from the plantation.

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  But it didn’t last. Before she had finished, the young man walked out of the door, glanced around as he went down the steps, and turned up the street. Winsome picked up her briefcase and shoulder bag and set off in pursuit, leaving the rest of her latte. She had decided it would be best simply to approach him and have done with it. She was a police officer and he was a witness, at the very least.

  “Excuse me,” she called, as he was about to turn a corner.

  He stopped, a puzzled expression on his face, and pointed his thumb to his chest. “Moi?”

  “Yes, you. I want a word with you.”

  “What about?”

  Winsome showed him her warrant card. “Hayley Daniels,” she said.

  “I know who you are, but I don’t know—”

  “Don’t give me that. You were in the market square with her on Saturday night. We’ve got you on CCTV.”

  The boy turned pale. “I suppose I . . . well . . . let’s go in here.” He turned into a café. Winsome didn’t want another coffee. Instead, she settled for a bottle of fizzy water while the boy, who said his name was Zack Lane, spooned sugar into his herbal tea. “Okay,” he said. “I knew Hayley. So what?”

  “Why didn’t you come forward? You must have known we’d catch up with you eventually.”

  “And get involved in a murder investigation. Would you have come forward?”

  “Of course I would,” said Winsome. “What’s the problem if you haven’t done anything wrong?”

  “Huh. Easy for you to say.” He paused and examined her closely.

  “On the other hand, maybe it’s not that easy. You ought to know better than most.”

  Winsome felt herself bristle. “What do you mean by that?”

  “Oh, come on. I can’t even imagine why you’d want to be a cop.

  Someone like you. I’ll bet your mates aren’t too thrilled, are they?

  Always getting pulled over on sus because they’re black. All you have to do is walk down the street and they—”

  “Shut up. Stop right there,” said Winsome, holding her palm up, and something in her tone stopped him in his tracks. “I’m not here to 1 4 2 P E T E R

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  discuss racism or my career choices with you. I’m here to ask you questions about Hayley Daniels. Got that? You said you knew who I was when you saw me. How?”

  Zack smiled. “There aren’t any other black coppers in Eastvale,” he said. “None except you, as far as I know, and you’ve had your photo in the paper. I can’t say as I’m surprised, either. It didn’t do you justice.

  Should have been page three.”

  “Knock it off,” said Winsome. Shortly after she had been sent to Eastvale, the local paper had done a feature on her. She managed a smile. “You must have been very young back then.”

  “I’m older than I look. Grew up just down the road. I’m a local lad.

  My dad’s an alderman, so he likes us all to keep in touch with the beating pulse of the metropolis.” He laughed.

  “You just went to see Malcolm Austin.”

  “So? He’s my tutor.”

  “Any good, is he?”

  “Why, thinking of enrolling as a mature student?”

  “Stop being cheeky and answer my questions.”

  “Lighten up.”

  “Lighten up?” echoed Winsome in disbelief. Isn’t that what Annie had said to her last night? She thought of making some sarcastic remark about it being difficult for someone of her color, but instead she prodded him in the chest and said, “Lighten up? I was one of the first on the scene to see Hayley’s body on Sunday morning, so don’t tell me to lighten up. I saw her lying there dead. She’d been raped and strangled.

  So don’t tell me to lighten up. And you’re supposed to be a friend of hers.”

  Zack’s face had gone pale now, and he was starting to appear contrite. “All right. I’m sorry,” he said, sweeping back his hair. “I’m shaken up about Hayley, too, you know. I liked her, the silly cow.”

  “Why silly cow?”

  “She was outrageous. She got us chucked out of The Trumpeters and nearly did the same at The Fountain.”

  “I thought you were well behaved at The Fountain?”

  “Been asking around, have you?”

  “Doing our job.”

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  “Just the facts, ma’am. Sure. Well, we were. Except Hayley wanted a p— She
needed to go to the toilet badly, and some yobs had wrecked it. Happens all the time. Gave Jamie behind the bar a right mouthful, though it was hardly his fault.”

  “Jamie Murdoch?”

  “Aye. You know him?”

  “We’ve talked to him.”

  “I went to school with Jamie. He moved down from Tyneside with his parents when he was about twelve. He’s all right. A bit quiet, lacking in ambition, maybe.”

  “In what way?”

  “Jamie tried the college once, but he didn’t take to it. He’s actually quite bright, but not everyone can handle the academic life. He can do better than the pub, but I’m not sure he’s got the balls to try.”

  “He was running it alone on Saturday night,” said Winsome.

  “Yeah, I know. He does that a lot. Can’t seem to keep the staff. I think he’s got Jill Sutherland working there at the moment, but I’ll bet that won’t last.”

  “Why not?”

  “Too many airs and graces to last long in a dive like The Fountain, our Jill.”

  “What about the own er?”

  “Terry Clarke? That wanker? He’s never there. Got a time-share in Orlando or Fort Lauderdale or somewhere like that. It can’t be easy for Jamie. He’s not a natural authoritarian. He lets everyone just walk all over him. Anyway, Hayley got a bit mouthy when she saw the state of the bogs, called him a few names, told him to get in there and fix it or she’d do it on the f loor. That was our Hayley. But we calmed her down before any real harm was done. We got to finish our drinks, at any rate.”

  Winsome made a note that someone should have another chat with Jamie Murdoch and also locate Jill Sutherland. “Is it true that Hayley went down Taylor’s Yard to use the toilet?” she asked.

  “Yes,” said Zack. He cocked his head and studied Winsome.

  “Though that’s an odd way of putting it. I mean, there isn’t an actual toilet there. Like I said, Hayley could be pretty outrageous. As soon as 1 4 4 P E T E R R O B I N S O N

  we got outside The Fountain, she announced to all and sundry that she was off for a piss. Sorry. She needed to go to the toilet, and she was going in The Maze.” He paused. “Maybe she should have done it on the f loor, then she wouldn’t have gone in there.”

  “Didn’t any of you try to talk her out of it?”

  “Yes, but you can’t talk Hayley out of anything when she gets her mind set on it.”

  That was what Stuart Kinsey had said, Winsome remembered.

  “One of you could at least have gone with her . . .” Winsome realized what she had said too late and let the sentence trail off.

  “I’m not saying she wouldn’t have got plenty of volunteers,” said Zack with a smirk. “Stuart, for one. Maybe even me, if I was drunk enough. But I can’t say I’m into golden showers, and Hayley wasn’t my type. Oh, we all joked about going down there and jumping out at her, giving her a fright, catching her with her knickers down, but it didn’t happen. We ended up in the Bar None. And Hayley . . .”

  “She wasn’t planning on joining you later?”

  “No, she was gong to stay at a friend’s.”

  “Who? A girlfriend?”

  Zack laughed. “Come off it. Whatever our Hayley was, she definitely wasn’t a girl’s girl. I’m not saying she didn’t have a couple of mates—Susie and Colleen come to mind—but mostly she liked to hang around with the guys.”

  “Can you give me the names of everyone who was there on Saturday?”

  “Let’s see, there was me, Hayley, Susie Govindar, Colleen Vance, then there were Stuart Kinsey, Giles Faulkner and Keith Taft. That was about it. Will, that’s Will Paisley, he was with us earlier but he went off to see some mates in Leeds early on. To be quite honest, I think he’s got a boyfriend there, though he seems to be lingering overlong in the closet. Mind you, I can’t say I blame him in a place like this.”

  “So most of the time, after this Will had gone off to Leeds, for whatever reason, there were seven of you, right?”

  “Give or take one or two we met on the way.”

  “You said that Hayley preferred the company of men. Why was that?”

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  “Why do you think? Because then she was the center of attention.

  Because they’d do anything she wanted. Because she pretty much had all of them wrapped around her little finger.”

  “She sounds like a drunken lout to me.”

  Zack studied Winsome closely. “But you didn’t know her,” he said.

  “Actually, there was a lot more to her than that. Sure, she liked to cut loose on a Saturday night, go wild, get kalied and let her hair down.

  But she was a good student, she did her work on time, and she had a good future. She was bright, too. Sometimes you have to dig deeper than the f lashy clothes and the superficial bravado.”

  “And you did?”

  “I went out with her a couple of times last year. But like I said, she wasn’t really my type. And in case you were thinking of asking, no, I didn’t sleep with her. Hayley wasn’t a slag. Kept herself fastened up as tight as a Scotsman’s wallet, in spite of the sexy clothes and all. It was strictly top only for me.”

  “So she was a tease?”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “You implied it.”

  “No, not really. She could be. She liked playing games, f lirting, winding you up. But she could be serious, too. I mean, you could have a good serious talk with Hayley. Politics. Music. History. Whatever.

  She had opinions and the knowledge to back them up. All I’m saying is that just because she dressed the way she did, it didn’t mean she was giving it away to everyone. You should know that.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Okay, don’t get your kni—— Don’t take offense. I meant in your job you must hear that excuse about someone asking for it because of the way she dresses, and you know it shouldn’t matter. A woman should be able to walk the streets of Eastvale stark naked if she wants, and no one has the right to touch her.”

  Winsome laughed. “I’m sure they’d have a good look, though.”

  “Well,” said Zack, “that’s one thing you lot haven’t made illegal.

  Yet.” He tapped the side of his head. “Along with what people think.”

  “We’re trying to find out who Hayley had been seeing recently,”

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  Winsome went on. “If it wasn’t you and it wasn’t Stuart Kinsey, do you have any idea who it might have been?”

  Zack paused. “Well, she didn’t say anything, but . . .” He glanced out of the window back down the street whence they’d come. “I don’t think you’d have to look much further than our Mr. Austin back there.”

  “Is that where she was going on Saturday night?”

  “I think so.”

  “Austin denied that he had anything to do with her.”

  Zack laughed. “He would, wouldn’t he? He’d stand to lose his job.

  They don’t take kindly to that sort of thing around here.”

  “Do you know this for a fact?”

  “About Mal and Hayley? Sure. I’ve seen them together, seen him with his hand creeping up her thigh, nibbling her neck.”

  “When was this?”

  “About a month ago.”

  Winsome felt her pulse speed up. Zack Lane had been worth the wait, after all. “Where did you see them?”

  “Pub outside Helmthorpe. The Green Man. They must have thought they were far enough out of the manor, but I was over there for a darts competition.”

  “Did they see you?”

  “I don’t think so. I cleared out pretty quickly when I saw them.”

  “Why?”

  “It would have been awkward. Remember, Austin’s my tutor, too.”

  “Yes,” said Winsome. “Of course.” She stood up. “Thanks, Mr. Lane.

  Thanks a lot.” Now she had the corroboration she needed, Wi
nsome had the feeling that things were starting to progress, and Malcolm Austin was going to have a lot of difficult questions to answer the next time he got a visit from the police.

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  SO WHAT IS IT, ALAN? WHAT’S GOING ON? YOU COULD

  have cut the tension in there with a knife.”

  “Do you think Phil Hartnell noticed?”

  “He didn’t get where he is today by not noticing things like that.

  He probably thought you’d had a lovers’ tiff.”

  “And you?”

  “It seemed the logical assumption. But . . .”

  “But what, Ken?”

  “Well, you’re not lovers, are you? At least I thought you two were no longer an item.”

  “We’re not,” said Banks. “At least I didn’t think we were.”

  “What does that mean?”

  They were sitting outside on a bench at The Packhorse, in a yard just off Briggate. The walls were higher, but it made Banks think of The Maze and Hayley Daniels. Banks tucked into his jumbo haddock and chips, a pint of Black Sheep beside him. There was already a group of students at one table discussing a Radiohead concert, and the lunchtime office crowd was starting to trickle in, men with their ties loosened and jackets slung over their shoulders, and the women in long print skirts and short-sleeved tops, open-toed shoes or sandals.

  The weather really had warmed up since Sunday, and it was looking good for the weekend.

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  “I wish I knew,” said Banks. He didn’t feel it was his place to tell Ken exactly what had happened the previous eve ning, so he gave the bare-bones version, leaving out any mention of the awkward pass Annie had made, or the way he had felt when her thighs and breasts brushed against him. Desire and danger. And he had chosen to protect himself from the danger rather than give in to the desire. But he couldn’t explain that to Ken, either. There had been jealousy, too, when she talked about toyboys. He had read somewhere that jealousy cannot exist without desire.

  “So what was all that about, then?” Blackstone asked.

  Banks laughed. “Annie doesn’t exactly confide in me these days.