Banks thanked Harriet and David, promised not to be such a stranger in future, and wandered down the path in the mild night air, looking up at the clear sky. The lightest of breezes blew, hardly even ruff ling the new leaves. It felt cool on his skin after the warmth of the dining room.
Somehow or other, he found himself leaving at the same time as Sophia, and they both ended up at the bottom of the path under the glow of a street lamp. Sophia was waiting for Harriet, who had dashed upstairs to fetch an old family photo album she had promised to lend her.
It was the first time they had been alone, and Banks didn’t quite know what to say. He was also seeing her for the first time away from the table, and he noticed that she was wearing skin-hugging jeans, which suited her long legs, and that she was taller than he had first imagined.
Finally, they both spoke at once. It was one of those embarrassing moments you can laugh at, and it broke the ice.
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“I was going to say,” Sophia went on, “that I met you once before, years ago.”
“I don’t remember that.”
She made a mock pout. “I’m hurt.” Then she smiled. “It was twenty years ago. I was at uni, visiting Harriet. I think you’d just moved in and she introduced me to you.”
“Twenty years,” said Banks. “A lot’s changed since then.”
“For you and me both. Look, I was thinking. Even a big hotshot detective like you must get a few hours off once in a while. I just wondered if you’d fancy going on one of those long walks you were telling me about? Maybe tomorrow afternoon?”
“I’d love to,” said Banks.
“Great. I’ll give you my mobile number. Got some paper? And I don’t mean your policeman’s little black book. I don’t want to end up in there with all the usual suspects and perverts.”
“Don’t worry.” Banks pulled a Somerfield’s receipt from his trouser pocket and a pen from his jacket. “Go on.”
She told him the number. He hurried to scribble it down on the back, for some reason feeling as if they were doing something furtive, something they didn’t want Harriet to see.
“I’ll give you a ring tomorrow when I see how things are going,”
he said, “but I don’t think it’ll be a problem.”
“Excellent.”
They both stood in the pool of light from the street lamp. For a moment, Banks had the strangest feeling that the world outside of it no longer existed. “Right, then,” he said. “I’d better be off. Can I give you a lift anywhere?”
“No. Really. It’s not far. I like to walk.”
“Are you sure?”
“Absolutely. Here’s Harriet.” She turned away. “I’ll see you tomorrow,” she whispered over her shoulder.
“Yes,” said Banks. Then he walked out of the strange light back into the real world of shadows, where he immediately heard shouting and a bottle smash in the distance. Saturday night in Eastvale. He got in the Porsche, turned on the iPod and cranked up the volume on The Jesus & Mary Chain’s “Just Like Honey” as he sped off toward Gratly.
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D E S P I T E H E R show of bravado, Chelsea was feeling decidedly nervous as she walked down the arcade off Castle Road, past the closed shops—Past Times, Whittard’s, Castle Books—and entered the dark Maze. Five minutes could be a long time, and a lot could happen.
Her footsteps echoed from the high walls, and the occasional dim overhanging bulb over a warehouse door cast her long shadow on the cobbles. She almost tripped over a cat, which screeched loudly and ran off, causing her heartbeat to speed up and get louder. Maybe she shouldn’t have taken Mickey’s bet. Ten quid didn’t buy you much these days. But it wasn’t the money—she knew that—it was her pride.
An ex-boyfriend had killed Hayley Daniels, Chelsea repeated to herself. Remember that. Then she wondered if any of her ex-boyfriends might want to kill her. She had been cruel enough in her short time, she realized. She had two-timed Derek Orton, for a start, and he hadn’t been too happy when he found out. And she hadn’t replied to any of Paul Jarvis’s letters or e-mails for months after he went off to Strathclyde University until he’d finally given up on her. Maybe he had started stalking her? He had said many times that he loved her.
Then she had slept with Ian McRae’s best friend just to hurt him, and made sure he knew about it. That had been about the worst. But Ian was still in jail for mugging that old woman, surely?
Chelsea turned a corner and ventured farther into The Maze. She knew where she was going. It would take her about five minutes to get through from the Castle Road arcade to the car park exit. But the deeper in she got, the more anxious she became, the more she jumped at each little noise and shadow and cursed Mickey for goading her into it in the first place.
As she was crossing a small, ill-lit square, she thought she heard a swishing noise behind her, like the sound someone’s clothes make when they walk. She turned, and when she saw a man all in black, his face in shadows, she froze. In her mind she was making the calcula-tions. If she ran now, she could probably get to the exit before he could catch her. But those damn high heels she was wearing would be a hindrance. She would have to lose them.
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As she started to kick her shoes off, he came toward her, and she saw him open his mouth as if to say something, but before she knew what was happening, another figure appeared behind him, this one also wearing dark clothing, impossible to make out clearly. The figure moved quickly, drawing a hand across the man’s throat from behind.
They were only about three feet away now, and a warm and faintly sweet, metallic spray hit Chelsea on her face and chest. The man seemed confused and put his fingers to his neck. The other figure disappeared back into shadows.
Chelsea staggered back a few paces. She was left alone with the man now, but he seemed fixed to the spot. He took his hand away from his throat and looked at it, then he opened his mouth as if he was trying to say something to her, but no sound came out. Then he dropped to his knees. Chelsea heard them crack as they hit the f lagstones. As she stood there, hand to her mouth, the man toppled forward and fell on his face. She heard another crack as his nose hit the ground. Only then did she start screaming and running for the exit.
J O S H R I T T E R was singing “Girl in the War” as Banks drove the dark winding road on the daleside just above the river. He was finally beginning to like the Porsche, he realized. It was starting to fit him better. It was a bit shabbier now, more lived-in, less ostentatious, and it handled beautifully on winding hilly roads like this. Maybe he would hang on to it after all. The valley side rose steeply to his left, fields giving way to outcrops of limestone and moors of gorse and heather, just looming shapes in the night, and the river gleamed in the moonlight as it meandered over the wide lush valley bottom through The Leas. He passed the drumlin with the four trees permanently bent by the wind and knew he would soon be on the home stretch.
As he drove and half-listened to the music, he thought of Sophia and what a breath of fresh air she had breathed into Harriet’s dinner party. He wondered if she was married. An attractive woman like her probably had a serious boyfriend, at the very least, perhaps even lived with him. He knew there was no point, not even for a moment, in allowing himself to think that her invitation to go for a walk together F R I E N D O F T H E D E V I L
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meant anything more than it seemed, and he remembered his earlier advice to himself not to fall in love with her. Not much chance of that. He hoped he would at least have time to see her again on Sunday, though. As she had said, even a hotshot detective needed a few hours off now and then. And he was the boss, or close enough.
The so-called random shuff le seemed to go into folk mode, as it did from time to time. Eliza Carthy’s “Worcester City” followed Kate Rusby’s “No Names.” Then came Isobel Campbell’s “O Love Is Teas-ing.” Somet
imes Banks didn’t believe it was random at all, but had a devious mind of its own. Once it had followed The Small Faces’ “Here Come the Nice” with The Nice’s “America.” Nobody could convince Banks that was random.
A mile or so past the drumlin, Banks’s mobile rang. He fumbled with it and managed to get it to his ear without losing the rhythm of his driving. He was in a very dodgy area for coverage, and what came over the line was crackly and faint, fading in and out. He got the impression that it was Winsome talking, and he thought he heard the words “murder”
and “The Maze” before reception broke down completely. With a growing sense of anxiety, he switched off the mobile, and at the next farm gate he turned around and headed back toward Eastvale.
13
IT WAS WITH A TERRIBLE SENSE OF DÉJÀ VU THAT BANKS
pulled into the market square around one o’clock in the morning and saw the crowds held back by police barriers. Many of the onlookers were drunk, had just staggered from the pubs at closing time and seen all the activity by the entrance to The Maze. One or two of them had become aggressive, and the uniforms were having a hard time keeping them back. When Banks saw the sergeant from the station, he asked him to call for reinforcements. They might not need any—drunks often lost interest as quickly as they found it—but it was better to be safe than sorry. Still feeling a sense of deep anxiety, Banks told the officers to block off the entire Maze this time, all exits.
“But, sir,” one of the constables argued. “There are four terraced cottages near the back. People live there.”
“We’ll worry about them later,” said Banks. “Someone has to interview them as soon as possible anyway. For the moment, I want the entire area sealed. No one goes in or out without me knowing about it. Got that?”
“Yes, sir.” The constable scuttled off.
Banks rapped on the door of The Fountain.
“He’s gone home, sir,” said Winsome, emerging from Taylor’s Yard and slipping under the police tape. “The place is all shut up.”
Banks grunted. “I wish the rest of them would do the same.” He F R I E N D O F T H E D E V I L
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noticed the occasional camera f lash—press, most likely—and one or two people were holding their mobiles in the air and taking photographs, or even video-recording the scene, the way they did at rock concerts. In some ways it was a sick trend, but it sometimes got results; occasionally, someone captured something none of the CCTV cameras or police photographers did, a suspect in the crowd, for example, and it could help bring about an early solution.
“What the hell’s going on, anyway?” Banks asked. “I couldn’t hear a word you said over the phone. Who’s the victim. Is she dead?”
“No, sir,” said Winsome. “This one survived. If she was meant to be the victim. But someone’s dead. I haven’t had a look at the body yet. It’s dark and I didn’t want to disturb anything before you got here.
We’re waiting on SOCO, but Dr. Burns has just arrived.”
“Okay. I’m sure he’ll be more than adequate.”
Banks followed Winsome under the tape and into The Maze, deeper than the previous week, past the end of Taylor’s Yard, around corners and across small cobbled squares, down ginnels so narrow they almost had to walk sideways. And all the while he could see beams of light sweeping the darkness, hear the crackle of police radios in the distance. It was a labyrinth in there, and Banks wished they’d brought a ball of twine. He remembered he had said the same thing about Annie’s cottage in Harkside the first time he had dinner with her there—the first time they had made love—that it was hidden at the center of a labyrinth and he could never find his way out alone. It had been a good way of suggesting he stay the night, at any rate.
There was little light in The Maze, so it was sometimes hard to see exactly where they were going, but Banks trusted to Winsome. She seemed to know her way without the twine.
“Where’s Kev Templeton?” he asked from behind her.
“Don’t know, sir. Couldn’t raise him. Maybe he’s at some club or other.”
They came to a ginnel that led into a square, and Banks could see lights at the end, hear conversation and radios. When they approached, he noticed that someone had already put up arc lights, so the place was lit up like Christmas. Everyone seemed pale and pink 2 6 0 P E T E R
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around the gills. Banks recognized Jim Hatchley and Doug Wilson lingering by one wall, and a couple of the uniformed officers were making notes. Peter Darby was taking photographs and videotaping the entire scene, though Banks supposed it could hardly be videotape if it was digital, the way they were these days. Everyone glanced Banks’s way as he entered the square, then turned nervously away and a hush fell over them. His heart was in his throat. There was something going on, something he needed to be prepared for.
Dr. Burns bent over the body, which lay facedown on the ground, an enormous pool of dark blood spread from the head area toward the wall. Dr. Burns, almost as pale and shaken as the rest, stood up to greet Banks and Winsome. “I don’t want to touch or move the body until the SOCOs get here,” he said. Even Banks could see from where he was standing that it wasn’t the body of a woman.
“Can we have a look now?” he asked.
“Of course,” said Dr. Burns. “Just be careful.”
Banks and Winsome knelt. The stone f lags were hard and cold.
Banks took a torch one of the uniformed officers offered him, and shone it on the face as best he could. When he saw the young, bloodless profile, he fell back on his tailbone and slumped against the wall as if he had been pushed.
Winsome squatted at his side. “Bloody hell, sir,” she said. “It’s Kev.
It’s Kev Templeton. What the hell was he doing here?”
All Banks could think was that he had never heard Winsome swear before.
O N E O F the uniformed officers had been dispatched to fetch a pot of fresh hot coffee, even if he had to wake up one of the coffee-shop owners in the market square, and the rest of the weary troop filed into the boardroom of Western Area Headquarters, no more than about a quarter of a mile from where the body of their colleague lay, undergoing the ministrations of Stefan Nowak and his SOCOs.
When DS Nowak and his team had arrived in The Maze, they had made it clear they wanted the scene to themselves, and that the little F R I E N D O F T H E D E V I L
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square was far too crowded. It was a relief for most of the officers attending there to leave, and a signal to get the investigation in motion.
Everyone was stunned by Templeton’s murder, and no one seemed able to take it in, but all that confusion had to be translated into action as quickly as possible.
Dr. Burns and Peter Darby stuck with the SOCOs, and the rest, about ten of them in all, including Banks, Hatchley and Winsome, returned to the station. Detective Superintendent Gervaise had arrived straight from bed, hurriedly dressed in black denims and a fur-collared jacket, and she was busy setting up the whiteboard while the others arranged themselves around the long polished table, pads and pens in front of them. They wouldn’t need a mobile van near the scene because the station itself was so close, but they would need to set up a special incident room, with extra phone lines, computers and civilian staff. For the moment, they would work out of the Hayley Daniels incident room, given space limitations and the shared location of the crimes.
They would also have to assign the usual roles—office manager, receiver, statement readers, action allocators and so on. Banks was already designated SIO and Gervaise would “interface with the media,”
as she put it. But she also made it clear that she wanted to be hands- on and to be kept informed every step of the way. This was one of their own, and it went without saying that there would be no concessions, no quarter. But first they needed to know what had happened to Templeton, and why.
When the coffee arrived, everyone took a styrofoam cup. They passed milk and sugar around
, along with a packet of stale custard creams someone had found in a desk drawer. Banks joined Gervaise at the head of the table, and the first thing they asked for was a summary from the officer on the scene, a PC Kerrigan, who had just happened to be on duty in the public order detail that night. “What happened?”
Banks asked. “Take it slowly, lad, step by step.”
The young PC looked as if he’d been sick, which he probably had.
At least he had had the presence of mind to do it away from the immediate scene. He took a deep breath, then began. “I was standing 2 6 2 P E T E R
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outside my van trying to decide whether to . . .” He glanced at Gervaise.
“It’s all right, man,” she said. “At the moment I don’t care whether you were having a smoke or a blow job. Get on with it.”
The constable blushed, and everyone else was taken aback, even Banks. He hadn’t heard Superintendent Gervaise talk like that before, any more than he had heard Winsome swear, but he ought to know by now that she was full of surprises. This was turning out to be a night of firsts.
“Y-yes, ma’am,” Kerrigan said. “Well, you see, there was a minor fracas going on over by The Trumpeters, and we were wondering whether we should just let it run its natural course, you know, like, or jump in there and risk exacerbating matters. The long and the short of it is that we decided to let it run its course. Just at that moment—and I checked my watch, ma’am, it was three minutes to twelve—a young woman came running out of The Maze covered in blood and screaming her head off.”
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