Annie made a quick back-calculation. “Between nine a.m. and one p.m. yesterday, then?”
“Approximately.”
“Cause of death?”
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Dr. Burns glanced back to the body. “You can see that for yourself.
Blows to the head with a blunt object. I can’t say yet which blow actually killed him. It could have been the one across his throat. It certainly broke his larynx and crushed his windpipe. Dr. Glendenning should be able to tell you more at the postmortem. It may even be the one to the back of his head, in which case he could have been walking away from his killer, taken by surprise. He could then have turned over when he fell, trying to struggle to his feet, so the other blows landed on the front of his skull and throat.”
“When he was already down?”
“Yes.”
“Jesus. Go on.”
“There are defensive wounds on the backs of his hands, and some of the knuckles have been shattered, as if he held them over his face to protect himself.”
“Is the arrangement of the body natural?”
“Seems that way to me,” said Burns. “You’re thinking of the cross shape, did someone arrange it that way?”
“Yes.”
“I doubt it. I think when he gave up the ghost he just let his arms fall naturally the way they did. A posed body would appear far more symmetrical. This doesn’t. See how crooked the right arm is? It’s broken, by the way.”
“Weapon?”
Burns jerked his head back toward the room. “The SOCOs have it.
A cricket bat.” He gave a harsh laugh. “And from what I could tell, a cricket bat signed by the entire England team that won back the Ashes in 2005. Read what you will into that.”
Annie didn’t want to read anything into it yet. Perhaps the cricket bat had just been lying around, the handiest weapon available? Or perhaps the killer had brought it with him? An angry Australian fan?
Premeditated. That would be determined later. “What about the other wounds . . . you know . . . ,” Annie said. “Between his legs?”
“On a cursory examination I’d say they were also done with the cricket bat, and that the blood you see there was transferred from the head wounds.”
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“So that happened after he was dead?”
“Well, he may have still been clinging on to some vestiges of life, but it was done after the head wounds, I’d say, yes. Probably a lot of internal damage. Again, the postmortem will tell you much more.”
“Sex crime?”
“That’s for you to decide. I’d certainly say that the evidence points that way. Otherwise, why attack the genitals after the head?”
“A hate crime, perhaps? Antigay?”
“Again, it’s possible,” said Burns. “Or it could simply be a jealous lover. Such things aren’t unknown, and the element of overkill points in that direction, too. Whatever it is, you’re certainly dealing with some high-octane emotions here. I’ve never seen such rage.”
You can say that again, thought Annie. “Was there any sexual in-terference?”
“As far as I can tell, there was no anal or oral penetration, and there are no obvious signs of semen on or around the body. As you can see, though, it’s rather a mess in there, very hard to be certain of such things, so again I’d suggest you wait for the full SOCO report and Dr.
Glendenning’s postmortem before forming any conclusions.”
“Thank you, Doctor,” said Annie. “I will.”
And with that, Dr. Burns marched off down the stairs.
Annie was just about to follow him when Stefan Nowak came over, a small leather-bound book in his gloved hand. “Thought you might find this useful,” he said. “It was on the desk.”
Annie took the book from him and looked inside. It was an address book. There didn’t seem to be many entries, but there were two that interested her in particular: Mark Hardcastle on Branwell Court, and one written simply as “Mother,” with a phone number and address in Longborough, Gloucestershire. “Thanks, Stefan,” said Annie. “I’ll inform the locals and make sure someone goes out there to break the news.” Annie also remembered Maria Wolsey saying something about Silbert’s mother being wealthy, which was something to follow up on, in addition to his bank accounts. Money was always a good motive for murder.
Annie bagged the book and watched the SOCOs at work for a few minutes, then she went in the same direction Dr. Burns and Doug 3 6 P E T E R
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Wilson had gone. She needed some fresh air, and they wouldn’t be finished up here for a while. In the back garden, she found Wilson sipping water and talking to Detective Superintendent Gervaise, who had just arrived. To Annie’s surprise, Chief Constable Reginald Murray was also there.
“Ma’am, sir,” said Annie.
“DI Cabbot,” said Gervaise. “The chief constable is here because he was a friend of the victim’s.”
“I wouldn’t exactly say ‘friend,’ ” said Murray, fingering his collar.
“But I knew Laurence from the golf club. We played a few holes now and then, met at some club functions. A murder on the Heights. This is a terrible business, DI Cabbot, terrible. It needs to be settled as soon as possible. I assume DCI Banks has been informed?”
“He’s on his way, sir,” said Annie.
“Good,” said Murray. “Good. I know ACC McLaughlin thinks highly of him. The quicker we get to the bottom of this, the better.”
He glanced at Gervaise. “You will tell Banks . . . I mean . . . ?”
“I’ll keep him on a short leash, sir,” said Gervaise.
Annie smiled to herself. Everyone knew that Banks wasn’t at his best around the rich and privileged. “Would you like to examine the crime scene, sir, seeing as you’re here?” she asked.
Murray turned pale. “I don’t think so, DI Cabbot. I have every confidence in the officers under my command.”
“Of course, sir, as you wish.”
Murray wandered off, not known for his iron stomach, hands behind his back, to all intents and purposes as if he were examining the rosebushes.
Gervaise gave Annie a stern look. “That was hardly necessary,” she said. “Anyway, how goes it so far? Any immediate thoughts?”
Annie handed Doug Wilson Silbert’s address book and asked him to go back to the station and get in touch with the Gloucestershire police. He seemed relieved to be leaving the Heights. Then Annie turned to Gervaise. “Not much yet, ma’am.” She summarized what Dr. Burns had told her. “The timing certainly fits a murder-suicide theory,” she added.
“You think Mark Hardcastle did this?”
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“Possibly, yes,” said Annie. “As far as we know, he drove back to Eastvale from London on Thursday. He had a f lat near the center of town, but it looked as if he only lived there part-time. Maria Wolsey at the theater said he and Laurence Silbert were practically living together. Anyway, he could either have gone back to Branwell Court and come up here Friday morning, or he could have come straight here and stopped over Thursday night.
“All we know is that Silbert was killed between nine a.m. and one p.m. on Friday, and Hardcastle hanged himself between one p.m. and three p.m. that same afternoon. Also, the amount of blood on Hardcastle’s body was inconsistent with the few scratches he might have got while climbing the tree to hang himself. Grainger, the man who sold him the rope, also said he had blood on him when he called in at the shop, and that he was oddly subdued and smelled of alcohol.”
“So it may be cut and dried, after all,” said Gervaise, almost to herself. She stood up. “Well, let’s hope we didn’t drag DCI Banks back from his weekend off for nothing.”
“Yes, ma’am,” said Annie through gritted teeth. “Let’s hope not.”
G E T T I N G O U T of London was bad enough, but
the M1 was an even worse nightmare. There were roadworks near Newport Pagnell, where the motorway was reduced to one lane for two miles, though there wasn’t a workman in sight. Later, two lanes were closed because of an accident just north of Leicester. The Porsche ticked along nicely, when it wasn’t at a complete standstill, and Banks was glad he’d decided to keep it. It was shabby enough now for him to feel comfortable in it. The sound system was great, too, and Nick Lowe’s “Long Limbed Girl” sounded just fine.
Banks was still annoyed at Detective Superintendent Gervaise for giving the order to call him back. He knew it wasn’t Annie’s fault, no matter how much she seemed to have relished the task. It was true, of course; they were understaffed. They didn’t even have a replacement for Kevin Templeton yet, and he’d been gone since March. It was also true that, if nothing else, the two deaths would generate a lot of paperwork and media interest, a lot of questions to be asked and an-3 8 P E T E R
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swered. Young “Harry Potter” showed promise, but he was still too wet behind the ears to be trusted with something like this, and if the crime involved Eastvale’s gay community, such as it was, Detective Sergeant Hatchley could prove more of a liability than an asset. Nick Lowe finished and Banks switched to Bowie’s Pin Ups.
Though Banks had met Sophia during a difficult murder case, he realized this was the first time he had been called away from her on urgent business since they had been together. It was something that had happened with monotonous regularity throughout his career and marriage, and something that his ex-wife Sandra had complained of more than once, until she had decided to follow her own path and leave him. Even the kids had complained when they were growing up that they never saw their dad.
But things had been quiet recently. No murders since he had met Sophia. Not even a spate of serious burglaries or sexual assaults, just the usual day-to-day monotony, like stolen traffic cones. For once, Eastvale had been behaving. Until now. And it would be this weekend.
He had been making excellent time for a while, and just past the Sheffield cooling towers, his mobile buzzed. He turned down
“Sorrow” and answered. It was Sophia calling from Western House.
“What is it?” she asked. “What’s wrong? I just came out of the studio. Sorry I’m late. I got a message from Tana to call you. Where are you?”
“Just north of Sheffield,” said Banks.
“What?”
“Nothing’s wrong. I’m fine. I’ve just been called in to work, that’s all.”
“That’s all! But I don’t understand. It’s your weekend off, isn’t it?”
“They’re not sacrosanct, unfortunately. Not in this job.”
“But the dinner party?”
“I know. And I’m sorry. I promise I’ll make—”
“Oh, this is too much. It’s too late to cancel at this point. And Gunther and Carla are only over from Milan for the weekend.”
“Why should you cancel? Go ahead. Enjoy yourselves. I’m sure I’ll get another chance to meet them. Offer my apologies.”
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“A fat lot of good they’ll do. Oh, shit, Alan! I was really looking forward to this.”
“Me, too,” said Banks. “I’m sorry.”
There was a short pause, then Sophia’s voice came back on again.
“What is it, anyway? What’s so important?”
“Nobody’s sure yet,” said Banks, “but there are two people dead.”
“Serious, then?”
“Could be.”
“Damn and blast your job!”
“I know how you feel. There’s nothing I can do about it, though.
These things happen sometimes. I’m sure I warned you.”
“Couldn’t you have said no?”
“I tried.”
“Not very hard, obviously. Who called you?”
“Annie.”
There was another pause. “Surely there are other people who can deal with it? What about her? I mean, as brilliant as you are, you’re not Yorkshire’s only competent detective, are you? Isn’t she any good?”
“Of course she is, but it doesn’t work like that. We’re supposed to be a team. And we’re short-staffed. Annie’s doing the best she can.”
“You don’t need to defend her to me.”
“I’m just explaining the situation.”
“How long will you be gone?”
“No idea. You can still come up next weekend as planned, though, right?”
“And risk spending it by myself? I don’t know about that.”
“You know plenty of people up here. There’s Harriet, for a start.
Won’t your parents be up, too? Aren’t we supposed to be having Sunday lunch with them? Besides, we’ve got a date for the theater.”
“A weekend with my parents and Aunt Harriet isn’t quite what I had in mind. Nor is a visit to the theater by myself.”
“I’m sure I’ll be around. Sophia, this isn’t my fault. Do you think I wouldn’t rather be with you right now than on my way to work?”
She paused again, then replied rather sulkily, “I suppose so.”
“You’ll go ahead with the dinner?”
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“I don’t have a lot of choice, do I? But I’ll miss you. It won’t be the same.”
“I’ll miss you, too. Call me later?”
“If I’ve got time. I’d better get moving. I’ve got a lot to do, especially now I have to do it all by myself.”
“Soph—”
But she had already ended the call. Banks cursed. No matter what she had said, she did blame him. A terrible sense of familiarity swept over him, all the rows with his ex-wife Sandra before she gave up on him. He knew he had warned Sophia that things like this might happen, that his job might disrupt other plans, but how seriously do people take warnings like that when everything is going blissfully well? Perhaps it was for the best that Sophia had found out about the demands of his job sooner rather than later.
He turned Bowie up again. He was singing “Where Have All the Good Times Gone?” Banks hoped it wasn’t prophetic.
3
THERE WERE TEA AND CUSTARD CREAMS IN THE BOARDroom of Western Area Headquarters just after five o’clock that Saturday afternoon, and the biscuits only served to remind Banks that he had missed lunch, a meal he should by all rights have enjoyed with Sophia at the Yorkshire Grey in London. Well, he supposed, tea and biscuits were better than nothing.
Four of them sat around the end of the long oval table nearest the whiteboard, pens and pads in front of them: Banks, Annie, Stefan Nowak and Superintendent Gervaise. The others had already brought Banks up to speed on the major events that had occurred in Hindswell Woods and on Castleview Heights. Annie and her team had been busy all day while Banks had been on the road, and the whiteboard was scrawled with names, circles and connecting lines.
“It seems to me,” said Banks, “that the first thing we need to do now is get the forensic results on the blood.”
“What would that prove?” asked Annie.
“If the blood on Mark Hardcastle’s body is Laurence Silbert’s, and no one else’s, then it would go a long way toward proving the murder-suicide theory.”
“A long way, but not the whole way,” Annie argued. “If Hardcastle found Silbert dead, his natural instinct would be to touch him, hold him, try to revive him, something like that. Maybe that’s how he got 4 2 P E T E R
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Silbert’s blood on him. But someone else could still have killed Silbert first. Then we’d have a murder and a suicide, but we’d also have a murderer still loose.”
“A good point, DI Cabbot,” said Gervaise. “DCI Banks?”
“I still think forensics should be able to tell us a great deal more about what happened. Stefan?”
“True,” said Nowak. “And we’re working on it. We’ll try to get th
e blood work done as soon as possible, but you know what the labs are like on weekends.”
“What about fingerprints?” Banks asked.
“The only fingerprints Vic Manson’s lifted from the cricket bat so far are Mark Hardcastle’s. And the bat belonged in the room, by the way. There was a special stand for it by the sideboard, brass plaque and all. We also have unidentified prints from the sitting room and other parts of the house, of course, but they could take forever to eliminate.
We’ll be running them all through NAFIS.” Nowak paused. “I hesitate to express an unsupported opinion here,” he went on, “but this crime scene doesn’t look like a murder committed by an interrupted burglar. In fact, it doesn’t appear that the house was burgled at all.
There’s a great deal of valuable stuff there, original paintings and antiques in particular, even some rather expensive bottles of wine, Châ-
teau d’Yquem and the like, but none of it seems to have been removed.
Of course, without a list of everything, we can’t be completely sure, but . . . Anyway, the attack on that body was emotional and deeply personal, and the only room that seems to have been damaged or disturbed in any way was the drawing room, and that’s entirely consistent with a frenzied attack occurring there, which is what we have.”
“Any signs of forced entry?” Banks asked Annie.
“No,” she said. “Only by us. Doug and I had to break a window in the back door to get in.”
“What about the neighbors? Anybody see or hear anything?”
“Uniform branch talked to most of the people on the Heights this afternoon,” Annie said, “and so far nobody admits to seeing or hearing anything. But that’s hardly surprising,” she went on. “The houses are detached, many are walled, and the people are insular, cautious.
It’s hardly the kind of community where people live in one another’s A L L T H E C O L O R S O F D A R K N E S S
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pockets. Money buys you all the solitude you want.”
“Yes, but they like to be vigilant, don’t they?” Banks said. “Neighborhood watch and all that.”
“Not in this case,” said Annie. “Though we can be pretty certain that someone would have noticed if anyone had wandered over from the East Side Estate.”
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