Winsome smiled. ‘No, thanks. It’s getting a bit late. I ought to be off. We’re not only in it for the perks, you know.’
He started to protest that wasn’t what he meant when he noticed the cheeky grin on her face. ‘Got me there,’ he said.
He grasped the arms of the chair to heave himself up and follow her out, but she said, ‘No, that’s all right. Stay there. I can find my own way. Don’t worry about it.’ Then she smiled again and the next thing he knew the door had closed behind her.
He sagged back into the chair feeling like an abject failure. He banged the chair arm with his fist, then thumped his gammy leg, too, just for good measure.
Banks got home to a cold house at about eight o’clock. He turned up the thermostat, promising himself yet again that if he ever got a pay increase, the first thing he would buy would be a better heating system. He dumped his bag and satchel on the floor, hung up his coat and picked up the post from the inside mat. It consisted mostly of bills, subscription renewal forms and a box set of Janet Baker CDs that had only just fit through the letter box.
There was also a postcard from his parents, who were cruising the Amazon: a picture of the Manaus opera house. Banks turned it over and read his mother’s small neat handwriting. His father didn’t like to write, Banks knew, because he was self-conscious about his spelling and grammar. His mother, with her typical economy, had crammed as many words in the small space as she possibly could. ‘We thought you might like this, being an opera fan and all. It’s very hot and muggy here, so bad some days your poor dad can hardly breathe. The food is good on the ship. Some of the other passengers are really rude and stuck-up but we’ve made friends with a couple from York and some nice people from near Stratford. We went for a boat ride around some islands yesterday and saw a sloth, two iguanas and a conda. Your dad caught a piranha off the side of the boat. He’s proper chuffed with himself!’
Banks puzzled for a moment over ‘and a conda’ then guessed his mother meant an anaconda. She was in her eighties, after all. He could just imagine them in their sunhats and long-sleeved shirts, sweating in the heat, busy spending their inheritance. Good for them, he thought. They had never got much out of life, and they had had to suffer the death of their favourite son Roy not so very long ago. Spend it while you’re alive to enjoy it, Banks thought, admiring them for their adventurousness. When he’d been young and excited by all the strange faraway places in the atlas, he could never have imagined his father – a beer and fish and chips sort of bloke if ever there was one – or his mother – homemaker, queen of the overcooked roast beef and soggy sprouts – venturing far beyond Skeggy or Clacton. But there they were, cruising the Amazon, something he himself had never managed to do. Banks had inherited his brother’s Porsche, and for a long time he had tried to convince himself to sell it. Now it felt lived in, he found that he sort of liked it. And it was a link with his dead brother, a link he hadn’t felt when Roy was alive.
He put the postcard down beside his computer and walked through the hall to the kitchen, where he poured himself a couple of fingers of Macallan twelve-year-old. He was still working his way back to Laphroaig. He took a sip and sat at the breakfast nook to open the Janet Baker package, then went into the entertainment room and put on the disc that started with Les Nuits d’Été. He found the second disc of Oriana’s Tosca in the CD player and put it back in its jewel case. There was a small pile of her CDs beside the amp, mostly opera and early music – Hildegard von Bingen, Byrd, Tallis, Monteverdi – and those damn U2 CDs she had insisted on bringing. Banks couldn’t stand U2. All their songs sounded the same to him, and Bono and the bloke with the woolly hat and silly name got on his nerves. He turned up the volume on Janet Baker a notch, went to collect his whisky from the kitchen and went through to the conservatory, where he settled in his well-worn wicker armchair.
Oriana’s wide-brimmed straw hat lay on the other chair, and on the low, glass-topped table stood two stem glasses, the red wine crystallised at the bottom. One of them had lipstick stains on the rim, a faint pink semicircle that made Banks think of Oriana’s lips and her kisses. They had been running late on Thursday, he remembered, and had left in such a hurry that she had forgotten her hat and he had forgotten to clear away the glasses. There were fragments of her life all over the house, Banks realised, though they didn’t live together. Oriana was still at the Chalmers’ place. It suited her – her second family, the two daughters like younger sisters, people she’d known all her life, and her job as PA to Lady Veronica. And Banks liked his solitude. No reason to change things, he thought. If it ain’t broke . . .
He felt a sudden urge to phone her. She was leaving for Australia in a couple of days on a book tour, accompanying Lady Veronica Chalmers, who wrote romances under the pseudonym Charlotte Summers. Then he remembered they had agreed not to phone. They both hated protracted goodbyes, and he knew that if he rang her, it would hurt after the call was over. Best stay with the music, whisky and memories of the weekend.
It was only the second time he had met Oriana’s Italian family, and he could tell that they were still suspicious of him, Oriana’s older man, but they also knew that she was special, that she wasn’t one for the callous young boys of the neighbourhood, who were only interested in one thing, or even in the more serious youths, who wanted to marry her and tie her to home and kitchen and keep her barefoot and pregnant. The family knew that Oriana was a free spirit, so they respected her choice and tolerated Banks. Besides, he thought the Italians were far less concerned about age differences than the more stuffy English, though he didn’t know where he got that idea from. One of her uncles even called him commissario, usually with a humorous glint in his eye.
Finding the privacy to make love had been difficult, as the relatives insisted on separate rooms for their unmarried guests, but Banks and Oriana had managed to circumvent the problem once or twice in the early hours. Banks was sure an aged aunt on her way back to her room from the toilet had spotted him once. She had glowered at him the rest of the weekend but said nothing, perhaps because she couldn’t speak a word of English. Whether she had spoken to Oriana or one of her uncles, Banks had no idea. Oriana never brought up the matter, and he thought it best to let things lie.
The Macallan was going down nicely and the sensuous music of ‘La Spectre de la Rose’ flowed over him. It was dark outside, still a couple of weeks before putting the clocks forward, and all he could see was the black shape of Tetchley Fell, its ragged top a dark borderline with the lighter sky. Deliberately edging away from thoughts of Oriana, Banks let his mind drift back to the meeting he had just left.
A number of things puzzled him, not least whether there were any links between the tractor and the two missing boys. It was now Monday evening, and Michael Lane had not been seen since Sunday morning, thirty-six hours ago, or thereabouts. They didn’t know yet when Morgan Spencer had last been spotted, and would have to carry out more enquiries at the caravan park to find out, but if Spencer had texted Lane about a job on Sunday morning, and they had met up, then it looked as if they might both have disappeared around the same time. Thirty-six hours was not a long time for lads their age to be gone. But then there was the human blood in the hangar and the signs of recent activity there.
Les Nuits d’Été finished and Banks didn’t feel like listening to the two arias from Les Troyens that followed. He topped up his Macallan and went back in the entertainment room to pick something else, finally deciding on Gwylim Simcock and Yuri Goloubev: Reverie at Schloss Elmau, jazz piano and stand-up bass.
Another thing about the meeting struck him as odd, he thought as he sat down again. Winsome had seemed very defensive towards Terry Gilchrist, though as a soldier with combat experience he couldn’t be easily dismissed as a suspect, even though he had found the blood and called in the police. Plenty of murderers reported their own crimes in the hope that doing so would discount them from suspicion.
And Annie had seemed defensive concerning Alex Pre
ston and Michael Lane, though she had admitted that Lane might have been involved in the theft of the Beddoes’ tractor. What was it all about? Was his team going soft on him? Or was he just getting more cynical and hardbitten as time went on? He didn’t like to think so, and he returned to thoughts of Oriana as he worked on the Macallan. Halfway through ‘A Joy Forever’ it started to rain outside, gently at first, then hammering on the roof and blowing against the windowpanes.
Alex had just put Ian to bed and turned on the TV to watch a repeat of New Tricks when she heard a knock at the door. Curious, she went over and opened it on the chain. She was greeted by an identity card quickly thrust towards her, then returned to the inside pocket of its owner, a heavyset man in a navy blue raincoat.
‘DC Meadows,’ he announced himself.
‘You’re not the one who came before,’ Alex said, feeling a little nervous. ‘Where’s DI Cabbot?’
‘Her shift’s over. We can’t all work twenty-four seven, you know. Besides, she’s a DI and I’m a lowly DC. Can I come in, love? It’s a bit parky out here.’
Alex closed the door, took off the chain and opened it for him. ‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘It’s just . . .’
‘I understand.’
DC Meadows stepped into the living room. Alex took his raincoat and hung it on the hook behind the door. She noticed that he was sweating. ‘That lift still not working?’
He shook his head. ‘I’m not used to so much exercise.’ He dabbed at his brow with a white handkerchief.
Alex had noticed that DC Meadows was a bit overweight. He was also either bald naturally or he had shaved his head, and his bare skull gleamed as red and greasy as his face from the effort of climbing the stairs.
‘Sit down,’ Alex said. ‘Catch your breath. Cup of tea? Or a glass of wine?’ She turned down the volume on the television, assuming this visit wouldn’t last long and she could get back to her programme. TV helped her forget her problems for a while, and she felt exhausted with worry about Michael since DI Cabbot’s visit. She also felt apprehensive about Meadows calling by so late. Had something happened to Michael? Had he done something wrong?
‘Just some water, thanks,’ Meadows said, patting his chest. ‘I’ll be fine in a minute.’
Alex brought him some water, poured herself a small glass of white wine and perched on the edge of her chair. ‘What is it?’ she asked. ‘Have you found out something?’
‘In a manner of speaking.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘We were wondering if Mr Lane has been in touch with you at all.’
‘Mr Lane? Do you mean Frank Lane?’
‘Michael Lane.’
‘Michael. I see. No, he hasn’t. I was hoping you’d be able to tell me something about him.’
‘Well, we don’t know anything yet, you see, love. That’s the problem.’
‘Problem?’
‘Yes.’ He scratched his scalp. ‘It’s rather delicate. We’d like to talk to him – urgently, as it happens – and we thought that if he went anywhere, it would be to you, or if he got in touch with anyone, it would be you.’
‘I’ve been here all day, except when I went to pick Ian up from school, and I haven’t seen or heard a thing from him. I wish I had. I’m still worried sick.’
‘I can understand that,’ Meadows said. ‘But you have to see it from our point of view. I mean, people aren’t always, they don’t always come clean with the police.’
‘Are you suggesting I’m lying?’
‘We wouldn’t blame you for protecting him, love. We understand. We get that a lot. Only natural, after all. People care about one another.’
‘Protecting him? From what? I reported him missing. I don’t understand this. I asked you lot to find him.’
‘Now hang on a minute, miss—’
‘Don’t you “miss” me. And you can knock it off with the “love”, too. Have you found him or haven’t you?’
‘Well obviously we haven’t, or I wouldn’t be here asking you where he was, would I?’
‘It’s not obvious to me. For all I know, you could be holding him in a cell and not telling me.’
‘Why would we do that?’
‘I’ve no idea. I just wouldn’t put it past you, that’s all. It’s the sort of thing the police do.’
‘You don’t have a very high opinion of us, do you?’
‘What does it matter what opinion I have of you? I want you to find my Michael. What do you want? Why are you here?’
‘Don’t get your knickers in a twist, love—’
Alex jumped to her feet. She spilled some wine on her T-shirt. ‘What did you say? What did you say? Get out of here. Go on. Get out. If you’ve nothing to tell me about what’s happened to Michael, get the hell out. And before you go, show me that identification card again. I want your details. I’m going to make a complaint against you.’
Meadows stood up and pushed her back down with surprising speed, then he sat down again himself, leaned back in the armchair and smiled. It was a chilling smile, Alex felt, revealing crooked, stained teeth, the incisors just a little larger than normal, like a vampire’s. It was a cynical, arrogant and cruel smile, and it sent a shiver up her spine. The mask was off. ‘You’re not a policeman at all, are you?’ she said.
‘And I was hoping we could deal with this in a civilised manner,’ Meadows went on. ‘It seems not.’ He cracked his knuckles. ‘No matter. What I want to know from you is where Michael Lane is hiding.’
‘Hiding? Why should he be hiding?’
‘Never you mind. Just tell me what I want to know, and I’ll be on my way.’
‘I’ve told you, I don’t know where he is.’ Alex’s mind was racing, trying to think of some way of getting rid of him, or of incapacitating him while she called for help.
He clasped his hands on his lap. Their backs were covered in thick reddish hair. ‘It seems we’re at an impasse, then.’
Alex remembered that her mobile was in her handbag on the bed. If she could just get to it, make a 999 call . . . ‘Look,’ she said. ‘I need to go to the toilet. I won’t be a minute.’
He scanned the room, then said. ‘All right. I’ll wait.’
Everyone knew these flats had only one way in and out.
Alex slipped into her bedroom. If she could only dial 999 before he guessed what she was up to, she would be safe. They could probably trace the call if she just left the line open. Her hands were shaking as she took the mobile out of her handbag in the dark room and headed towards the toilet. Then she felt his presence looming over her. She hadn’t heard him, but there he was, standing in the hall, leaning against the wall, arms folded. ‘The toilet’s over there, I think,’ he said, pointing.
As she moved towards the door, he said, ‘What’s that in your hand?’
‘What do you mean?’ Alex tried to shove the phone in the pocket of her jeans, hoping he wouldn’t notice in the semi-darkness. But her jeans were too tight; she missed the pocket, and the phone fell to the carpet.
‘Oh, dear,’ he said, not moving. ‘Keep going. I think I’d better stay with you, though. You’re a tricky one, you are.’
Alex went into the toilet, and when he blocked the doorway behind her, following her inside, she realised the full extent of what he meant.
‘You can stand outside,’ she said.
‘I don’t think so. You’ve already shown you can’t be trusted.’ He shut the door and leaned back on it. ‘Go on, then, get your jeans down. Tinkle, tinkle. Chop chop.’
Alex reached deep for the last shreds of defiance. ‘No,’ she said, hoping she sounded firm. ‘Not with you standing there, you sick bastard.’
An odd smile crossed his face, not like the other one, but just as chilling in its way, then he opened the door for her. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘Piss yourself, then, if that’s what you want.’
Alex edged out, careful not to brush against him. She thought they were going back into the living room but her blood froze wh
en he opened Ian’s bedroom door. She rushed towards him. ‘What are you—’
He pushed her aside and blocked the open doorway, turning to look in on the sleeping child. Alex tried to get past him, to stand between him and Ian, but it was no good.
‘What a sweet scene,’ said Meadows. ‘It’s all right. Calm down, love. No one’s going to get hurt.’
‘You dare lay—’
‘Enough melodramatics. You know every bit as well as I do that if I wanted to lay a finger on him there’s nothing you could do to stop me.’
‘I’ll scratch your fucking eyes out.’ Alex launched herself towards him, arms outstretched, but he dodged aside and pushed her back. She hit the wall with such force that it stunned her, and she slid to the floor. Even then, as she was falling, she saw the dropped mobile phone and tried to reach for it, but Meadows was too quick. Before she could get a grip on it, he trod on it with all his weight and crushed it, then he shifted his foot to the index finger that she had almost managed to hook around it and trod hard on that, too. She screamed in pain. He put a finger to his lips. ‘Ssshhh,’ he said. ‘The boy’s sleeping. We don’t want to wake him right now, do we? No telling what might happen.’
Ian stirred in bed but he didn’t wake up. Alex bit back her pain and remained silent. She didn’t know what would happen if Ian woke up now and saw Meadows in his doorway, but it wasn’t something she dared contemplate.
Meadows squatted, his knees cracking loudly, and put his face close to hers. His breath smelled of Polo mints. ‘Look, Miss Preston. We don’t want any trouble. We just want Michael Lane. Your lad looks like a decent kid. It’d be a tragedy if anything happened to him, wouldn’t it? An accident walking by the river or falling out of a tree. Or on the roads. Not safe, these days, the roads. Kids get up to all sorts of dangerous mischief, don’t they. Know what I’m talking about?’
Alex nodded, cradling her throbbing finger.
‘So let’s keep it simple. Tell us where Michael Lane is, and everyone lives happily ever after.’
Abattoir Blues: The 22nd DCI Banks Mystery (Inspector Banks 22) Page 9
