Geoff was in the middle of a story about an old woman who regularly called an ambulance just to get a lift to her hospital appointments, and how, just to scare her, one of the paramedics had remarked upon noticing a problem with her leg and said it would have to come off, when Harriet called them through to dinner.
It took her a few minutes to get everyone seated according to the plan, and Banks found himself between Daphne and Ray, opposite Max and Stella. It could have been worse, he ref lected, accepting a refill of wine from David as Harriet dished out plates of goat’s cheese and caramelized onion tart. The only ones already drunk were Gemma and Trevor, though Daphne seemed well on her way, judging by the way she kept squeezing Banks’s arm whenever she spoke to him. The tart was delicious, and there was enough free-f lowing conversation for Banks to sit quietly and enjoy it without being drawn in.
He had just finished his tart, and Daphne was holding his arm telling him a funny story about a runaway mobile library, when the doorbell rang. Everyone carried on with their conversations while Harriet got up and rushed over to answer it. Daphne was demanding all Banks’s attention, breathing Sancerre and stale tobacco his way, while exuding wafts of whatever strong perfume she was wearing.
The next thing he knew, Harriet was pulling up another chair at the end of the table. Thirteen for dinner, Banks thought, remembering the Poirot story. It was supposed to be unlucky. Conversations paused, men gawped and women stiffened. Banks still couldn’t escape Daphne’s grip on his left arm. He felt as if he’d been cornered by the Ancient Mariner. Over to his right, he heard an unfamiliar female voice say, “I’m sorry I’m so late.”
Finally, Daphne let go of him, and without being rude he was able to glance over and see Harriet fussing about how being late was no problem, setting an extra place for the new guest, who looked over at him and smiled. Then he remembered: Sophia had arrived at last.
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C H E L S E A WA S running late. She put her mascara on too thickly but didn’t really have time to apply it all over again. It would have to do.
She tugged at her bra under the skimpy top and squirmed until it felt comfortable, then dashed downstairs and put her heels on.
“Bloody hell,” said her father, turning away from the television for a rare moment as Chelsea teetered on one leg in the hallway. “Do you have any idea what you look like, girl?”
“Shut up, Duane,” her mother said. “Leave the poor lass alone. Didn’t you ever go out and have a good time when you were a young lad?”
“Maybe, but I didn’t dress like a fucking—”
Chelsea didn’t wait to hear what he said. She’d heard it all before anyway. It would be tart, trollop, whore, tom, or some such variation on the theme. She snatched up her handbag, where she kept her cigarettes, a touch of makeup and some extra money in case she needed to buy a round of drinks or pay for a taxi home, blew a kiss to her mother, who called after her to be careful and to remember what happened to that poor girl, and dashed out, hearing raised voices as the door closed behind her. They would be at it for a while, she knew, then her mother would give up and go to bingo, as usual. When Chelsea got home late, her mother would be in bed and her father would be in front of the TV
snoring through some naff old thriller or horror movie on Freeview, a full ashtray and a few empty beer cans on the ringed and stained table beside him. They were just that bloody predictable.
How she wished she lived in Leeds or Manchester or Newcastle, then she’d be able to stay out later, all night if she wanted, but Eastvale had pretty much closed down by half twelve or one o’clock on a Saturday night, except for the Bar None, where they had a naff DJ and lousy music, and the Taj Mahal, which was full of sad drunken squaddies drinking lager by the gallon and shoveling down vindaloo before they got shipped off to Iraq. Tomorrow she was going to see The Long Blondes at The Sage, in Gateshead, with Shane, in his car, their first real date without anyone else around. That would be excellent.
Then on Monday it was back to work in the shop. Such was her life.
They were all meeting in the market square. Chelsea couldn’t see a F R I E N D O F T H E D E V I L
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bus anywhere, they were so few and far between after six o’clock on the East Side Estate, so she’d have a fifteen-minute walk to get there, across the river, then up the hill past the gardens and the castle. It was already dark and her high heels made it tough going. They would be starting out in The Red Lion, she knew, and if she missed them there, they would most likely drop by The Trumpeters for a couple of games of pool before moving on to The Horse and Hounds, where there was usually a band playing covers of famous old songs like “Satisfaction”
and “Hey Jude.” They weren’t bad sometimes. Better than the decrepit trad jazz they had on Sunday lunchtimes, at any rate.
Chelsea picked up her pace after she had climbed the hill and walked around Castle Road, down into the market square, already jumping with young people well on their way. She said hello to a few people she knew as she crossed the square. The cobbles were really difficult to manage in the shoes she was wearing, and she almost tipped over on a couple of occasions before she got to the pub, opened the door, and saw them all there. Shane grinned at her through the smoke and she smiled back. It was going to be all right, then. Saturday night had started, and it was going to be all right.
T O S AY that Sophia’s arrival changed the tenor of dinner-table conversation would be an understatement. The men almost visibly puffed themselves up and set about impressing her. Geoff started comment-ing on the wine, finding hints of chocolate, vanilla and tobacco that he had clearly memorized from a book, and Graham Kirk began a lecture on the future of computing, ostensibly to Max, but with the occasional sideways, approval-seeking glance at Sophia, who wasn’t listening. Sophia appeared, to Banks, quite oblivious to it all. She couldn’t help it that men fell all over her, her self- possessed demeanor seemed to say. And if she found the phenomenon amusing, she didn’t give that away, either.
Banks found himself enjoying the show tremendously. He felt invisible, lighter than air, a f ly on the wall, noting facial expressions, body language of all kinds, as if no one were aware of his presence.
Disappearing was a skill he had possessed since childhood, and it often 2 4 8 P E T E R
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came in useful in his job. It used to drive Sandra crazy, he remembered. She thought it was rude, not joining in. But then Sandra was very social and was very much always there all the time.
Since Sophia’s arrival, even Daphne had stopped hanging on to his arm and talking to him, and had taken instead to sulking and sipping her wine rather faster than she had before. Someone at the far end spilled a glass of red all over the white tablecloth and everyone oohed and fussed over that for a while with cloths and sponges while Harriet tried to calm them down and told them to ignore it, it would all come out in the wash.
In the confusion, Banks stole a glance at Sophia. That she was beautiful had been obvious enough even before he had clapped eyes on her. The mere effect of her entry into the room had been enough to tell him that. But the more he looked, the more he understood. Her dark hair was tied loosely behind, at the nape of her long neck, her olive skin smooth and f lawless. She wore a jade top, scooped just low enough to show the promise of cleavage without showing anything, and an antique locket on a thin silver chain around her neck, which she touched with her thumb and forefinger every now and then. Her lips were full, and her eyes were the darkest and most beguiling that Banks had ever seen. A man could drown himself in those eyes. She caught him staring at her and smiled again. He felt himself blush. He was no longer invisible.
Conversation moved around, as it inevitably did, to the crime statistics, to binge drinking, gangs, robbery, the unsafe streets, general murder and mayhem, and the apparent inability of the plods to solve even the simplest and most obvious
of crimes, or keep the taxpaying citizens safe from muggers and burglars and rapists. Though none of this was specifically directed at Banks, there were nonetheless certain pointed challenges and expectations, and when he didn’t rise to the bait, Quentin, Daphne’s husband and one of the supercilious prats, started to zoom in on specifics, like the Hayley Daniels case.
“Look at that poor girl who got herself murdered right here in town just last week,” he said, lips a little too wet and red from the wine, a shine in his eyes and a sheen of sweat on his upper lip and brow.
Daphne sat stiff ly next to Banks, arms crossed, looking as if she’d just F R I E N D O F T H E D E V I L
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sucked on a lemon. “According to all the papers,” Quentin went on, “it was someone close to her, an ex-boyfriend or something. It always is, isn’t it? But has there been an arrest? No. I mean, what’s stopping them?
Are they dim or something? You’d think they’d know by now.”
Someone started laying the blame on the lenient judges, the Crown Prosecution Service and the slick defense barristers, and still Banks didn’t say anything. One or two people laughed nervously and Max said, “Oh, they probably just misplaced the evidence. They’re always doing that, aren’t they? Or faking it.” He glanced at Banks.
Then Sophia’s voice cut through the rest. “For crying out loud, you should hear yourselves talk. Are you all such sheep that you believe everything you read in the papers or see on the news? If you ask me, you’ve all been watching too many police programs. Too much Frost and Morse and Rebus. How do you think it happens? Do you really believe the policeman wakes up in the middle of the night with a brilliant idea, and he says to himself, ‘Aha, eureka, I’ve got it! I have the solution!?’ Grow up. It’s a hard slog.”
That silenced them. After a short pause, Banks glanced over at Sophia and said, “Well, I do occasionally wake up in the middle of the night with a brilliant idea, but most of the time it turns out to be indi-gestion.”
There was another pause, and then everyone laughed. Sophia held Banks’s gaze and seemed to be searching him with those dark eyes of hers. Then she smiled again, and this time there was something different about it, something more intimate about their contact.
The conversation split into smaller groups and moved on. Banks found himself talking to Sophia about how much she enjoyed walking around London at night, and he told her about some of his favorite Dales walks, then Harriet joined in with a few funny stories about when she used to drive a mobile library. Dessert came, an apple-and-rhubarb crumble with custard, then it was back to the living room for coffee and after-dinner drinks, which Banks declined.
The evening was winding down. The drunks had subsided into silence, punctuated only by the occasional snore from Trevor and twitch from Gemma. Those left talked quietly as the steam rose from their coffee cups, everyone feeling full and sleepy from all the food and 2 5 0
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wine. Even the lamplight in the living room seemed dimmer and warmer. Bach had been replaced by Paul Simon’s Graceland, quiet and in the background. Banks felt warm and comfortable enough to fall asleep in his chair, but that wouldn’t do. People started to get up and head for the hall. It was time to go, time for the long drive back to Gratly, perhaps with something loud on the iPod to keep him awake.
“ T I M E , L A D I E S and gentlemen, please,” the landlord of The Horse and Hounds called out close to half past eleven. “Come on, let’s be having you. Haven’t you got no homes to go to?”
Chelsea still had half a Bacardi Breeze in front of her. Her fifth, or was it her sixth, of the eve ning? She couldn’t remember. Most of the others had varying degrees of alcohol left, too, mostly lager for the blokes and white wine for the girls. The band had stopped half an hour ago, but the place was still full and noisy. They hadn’t been too bad tonight, she thought, but if she had to hear one more cover version of
“Satisfaction” she would scream. She had never liked the song, anyway, never even liked the Rolling Stones. They were wrinklies when she was born.
Chelsea lit a cigarette. She knew they could probably hang on another ten minutes or so if they behaved. If she got home after midnight, things were bound to be quiet by then. She could put her headphones on and listen to the new Killers CD in bed. It had been a good night, and she was feeling a bit woozy and tired. Shane had kissed her on the couple of occasions they had passed each other in the corridor on the way to the loo, and they were still on for The Sage tomorrow. She would have to spend some time thinking about what to wear, going through her wardrobe.
For the moment, though, everyone seemed to be finishing up their drinks and moving on. Outside, the market square was busy, and there were already a couple of female slanging matches and a fight, Chelsea noticed. A police van stood on the other side, but no one paid much attention. The police would only get involved if a fully f ledged gang fight broke out.
In front of the police station, one girl was hitting a skinny young F R I E N D O F T H E D E V I L
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man with her handbag, and everyone was laughing except the young man. Another girl, apparently on her own, seemed to be staggering across the cobbles with a broken heel, crying, her mascara running. Occasionally, a whoop went up from some group or other over toward York Road, on their way to the Taj Mahal. Down the alley beside the pub, two boys were sharing a joint. Chelsea could smell it as she passed.
She turned away. She didn’t want them fixing their stoned and screwed-up attention on her. She linked arms with Katrina and Paula and they swayed from side to side, singing an old Robbie Williams song as they headed across the square toward Castle Road. Chelsea hated Robbie Williams almost as much as the Rolling Stones, but you couldn’t get away from him. He was sort of a national institution, like Manchester United, and she loathed them, too. The weather was still mild, and the waxing moon shone down from the clear night sky. The boys walked in front, smoking and shoving one another playfully.
“We could go to The Three Kings,” said Shane. “They’ll probably be open for another half hour or more. Have another drink?”
“The Three Kings is really crap,” said Katrina. “Full of old geezers.
Makes my fucking skin crawl when I walk in there, the way they look at you.”
“Not at this time of night,” said Shane, walking backward as he spoke to them. “All the old geezers will be home and tucked up in bed by now. What about The Fountain? They’re usually open till midnight.”
“No,” said Chelsea. “That was where the girl was. Hayley Daniels.
The one who got killed.” Chelsea didn’t know Hayley, but she had seen her now and then in one pub or another on a Saturday night. She used to play in The Maze when she was a child, and the thought of someone being killed there was really creepy to her.
“Spoilsport,” said Shane, turning and accepting a cigarette from Mickey.
“What’s up?” Mickey said to Chelsea in that mocking, challenging tone she hated. “Scared of being too close to The Maze, are you?
Scared of the dark? Of the ghosties? Hannibal the Cannibal?”
“Oh, shut up,” said Chelsea. “I’m not scared. It’s all taped off, anyway. Look at it.”
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“That’s only the Taylor’s Yard entrance,” Mickey shot back. “You can get in easily from Castle Road, or the car park at the back. I bet you daren’t. I bet you’re well scared.”
“What do you mean?” said Chelsea, feeling the ground under her wobble. She
wasn’t sure whether it was because she was drunk or afraid.
“You heard me,” said Mickey, with a wink at his mates. “I bet you daren’t go in there, in The Maze. By yourself.”
“Of course, I dare,” said Chelsea.
“Go on, then.”
“What?”
They had all stopped now, and Mickey turned to face the girls. “I dare you. I dare you t
o go in there for just five minutes. Alone.”
“What do you bet?” Chelsea asked, hoping she sounded braver than she felt.
“If you do it, I’ll take you back to my f lat and give you a good tonguing.”
“Hang on a minute, Mickey . . .” Shane said. “That’s out of order.”
“Sorry, mate,” said Mickey, laughing. “But they just can’t say no.”
He eyed Chelsea again. “What do you say, love?”
“You can keep your tongue for the slappers you usually go down on,” Chelsea said, “but I’ll take ten quid off you for five minutes alone in The Maze.”
“You don’t have to do it, Chel,” Shane pleaded. “He’s well pissed.
He’s being an arsehole, as usual, that’s all. Just ignore him.”
“So what’s new?” Chelsea stood her ground, hands on her hips.
“What about it, then, big boy?” she said. “Or can’t you afford to lose a tenner?”
“You don’t know what you’re missing out on,” said Mickey, sticking out his tongue and running it over his rubbery lips. “But all right.
Seeing as it’s you. And if you come running out screaming before your five minutes are up, you owe me a tenner. All right?”
“You’re on.”
They shook hands and the group headed toward Castle Road, past The Fountain, which Chelsea noticed was already closed. Maybe F R I E N D O F T H E D E V I L
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what had happened last week had affected their business, she thought.
Chelsea was beginning to wish she hadn’t been so impulsive as to accept Mickey’s dare. But what had she to fear, really? Everyone was saying that Hayley Daniels’s ex-boyfriend, or someone else she knew, had killed her, and he’d hardly be likely to do it to Chelsea as well, would he? Besides, she knew her way around The Maze, knew shortcuts and ways out most people had no idea existed. And a tenner. That would be a bit extra to spend at The Sage tomorrow. Why not? She’d do it, she decided. She’d take stupid Mickey’s dare and win the tenner.
W H Y I T always seemed to take forever for people to say good- bye at the end of a dinner party was beyond Banks. Urgent new conversations began, it seemed, at the eleventh hour, and people finally got around to saying what they had been wanting to say all eve ning. Eventually, maybe twenty minutes or so after they had made their first moves toward the front door, they all drifted away in the directions they had come from. Trevor and Gemma needed help, which their neighbors kindly gave them. Daphne seemed to be able to walk without Quentin’s assistance, and insisted on doing so with a wobble in her step.
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