Sleeping in the Ground: An Inspector Banks Novel (Inspector Banks Novels)

by Peter Robinson

  “Whoever did it had to be pretty cool and collected,” said Terry. “I’ve known snipers. They’re a strange breed.”

  “You think this shooter was a sniper?” said Annie.

  Terry glanced toward her. “Well, he certainly acted like one yesterday, even if it was his first time. He stayed in a concealed position and pulled off his shots then made a speedy exit.”

  “True enough,” said Banks. “Special Branch and MI5 will be looking into any possible military or terrorist connections. But whatever the reasons for what happened, we still need to know as much as we can find out about the victims. You two can help us with that. If someone hated one or more of them enough, someone unstable, with access to a weapon, then . . . who knows.”

  “No,” said Terry. “No. I can’t believe it. Not Laura and Charles and Francesca and the others. I’ve known Ben since I was in Afghanistan, and I’ve known Laura, Katie and her friends for as long as Ben did. Laura and Ben had just bought a house not far from Eastvale. She was staying with her parents until after the wedding. They’re all just decent, ordinary folk. Nobody could possibly have a reason for wanting any of them dead.”

  Winsome rested her hand on his arm. Terry looked at her and swallowed. “I’m OK,” he said. “I just can’t . . . I mean, these people were our friends. And now they’re dead. Why?”

  Banks paused to let Terry collect himself, then went on. “What about any previous boyfriends Laura had? She was a beautiful woman, a model. So was Diana Lofthouse. They would have attracted all sorts of men. Anyone madly jealous, a stalker, anyone who felt Ben stole Laura away. Anyone strange in Diana’s life? Any incidents from her modeling days?”

  “Not that I know of,” said Terry. “Though I didn’t know her then.”

  “Any strong political connections?”

  “Laura? No way. And Ben’s family was just typical North Yorkshire conservative.”

  “What about a connection with Francesca, the maid of honor? Or one of the bridesmaids? Diana? Katie? Any trouble, any boyfriend problems lately?”

  “Nothing comes to mind,” said Terry. “Besides, I should think that if someone did want to kill Laura or any of the others specifically, then it would have been a lot easier to do it some other way.”

  “You’d think so, wouldn’t you? Except that the wedding was the one place they were all together, and the person we’re dealing doesn’t think in the same way as we do. It may make sense to him, seem logical, but not to you and me. And I’m not saying he did have a specific target. I’m just asking if you know of anything, Terry, that’s all. Then there’s the terrorist angle. Both you and Benjamin Kemp were in Afghanistan—”

  “So were some of the others. Wayne was there, too. Wayne Powell, the best man. And he was uninjured.”

  “Fair enough. But there is a military connection. You mentioned snipers earlier.”

  “Just because of the method.”

  “Yes, but the killer had a military-style weapon—even if it’s one that’s been adapted to make it legal over here—and he knows how to use it.”

  “So you’re suggesting there might be some connection with the war? With Afghanistan? Or that we were somehow symbols of oppression, to be made an example of by ISIS?”

  “I’m not sure what I’m saying. Only that there are plenty of military people with some sort of expertise in shooting. But could there be a connection? Maybe even someone you knew. I’m just asking you if you can think of anyone from those days. Any incident. Anyone go off the rails, have a grudge against Benjamin Kemp? Anything from your military time, from Benjamin’s military time, that could be in any way connected with yesterday? We know that war can do terrible things to a man’s mind. Maybe someone you served with just lost it for some reason. PTSD, for example. What happened was not necessarily a rational response to anything.”

  Terry ran his hand over his head. “Yes, but people who suffer from PTSD don’t usually go around committing mass murder. I’m sorry, I can’t think of anything or anyone offhand, but I’ll give it some thought, see if anything comes up.”

  “I understand Benjamin is something of a war hero?”

  Terry laughed. “Sorry. He always laughed about it. Said it was more of a media invention than anything else. It was, really.”

  “Even so, he did get a fair amount of publicity at the time, didn’t he? I wonder if it was enough to make him a target.”

  Terry got up, put his mug down and went upstairs. Banks glanced out of the window and saw that it was getting dark. When Terry came down he was carrying a large scrapbook. He went over to Banks and Annie and opened it to a newspaper clipping. It showed a front-page picture of Benjamin Kemp standing outside a burning ruin holding an Afghani boy of about five in his arms. The boy was staring into the camera and tears were running down his dirt-streaked face. Kemp seemed merely determined, his jaw set firm.

  “That was what it was all about,” Terry said. “Ben rescued a young lad from a bombed-out school, under fire, and there was a war photographer on the spot, ready to capture the event. There were about twelve of us involved in that operation. We’d all been in and done our bit. A few minutes earlier, one of our mates had come out with two boys, one under each arm, but the photographer wasn’t ready. You know what’s so funny about the whole thing? Well, not funny ha-ha, but ironic, I suppose you’d say.”

  “What?”

  “It turned out it was the Americans who bombed the school in the first place. By mistake. They killed fifty-six children and we managed to pull out seven alive. The Taliban fighters were in another building less than a hundred yards away, shooting at us. We cleared them out later. They’d booby-trapped the building they were in, and there’s where I got . . .” He tapped his leg.

  “You got a medal, too, didn’t you?”

  “We all did. But there was no photographer present to capture the moment.”

  “Was there anyone involved in that day’s operations you think may have taken against Benjamin Kemp? For any reason. Envy. Feeling slighted. Sidelined. Anything that could become warped and exaggerated into an event like yesterday’s?”

  “Envious enough to shoot up his wedding? No way. We were all just doing our duty. And we were mates. We depended on one another for our lives. I’m not saying events like that happened all the time—it was a pretty intense day, as I remember—but it was wartime, and you did your duty. Everybody thought it was a bit of a laugh that Ben got his picture in the paper, all Rambo.”

  “Maybe somebody didn’t,” said Banks.

  Banks was still not used to his new office. It felt like a suit two sizes too big for him. He had tried to fill the bookcases, but even with a few ornaments, bulky poetry anthologies, forensic texts and orange-covered Penguin paperbacks from the Oxfam shop, there were still too many gaps and not enough family photographs to fill them.

  The view was the same as from his old office, only one floor higher up. That Sunday evening, the rain was sweeping down the windowpanes in torrents and bouncing on the cobbles in the market square. The lamps were on in the pubs and shop windows, and Christmas lights and decorations hung all around the square, giving the scene a distinctly Dickensian aspect. Banks could see a few distorted figures shuffling about under umbrellas, and the crowd of reporters, who had set up camp outside the police station. They must be bored, as nothing new had happened during the day.

  The office was well enough appointed. Banks’s desk was large and solid, he had a small flat-screen TV attached to the wall, on which he could watch relevant breaking news stories and police press conferences on cases with which he was involved, and there was a low round table for small, informal meetings. He also had a Nespresso-like machine, a promotion present from his Homicide and Major Crimes Squad team, and Annie had made it clear when she presented it to him that she and the others expected to be allowed to nip in for a cup of coffee whenever they needed one. Banks had brought in his own Bose mini SoundDock, with a Bluetooth facility for his Nano. The little iPod di
dn’t have much memory, but he rotated its contents fairly often from the large music library on his computer at home.

  He was reading over the statements taken so far and listening to the Brahms Clarinet Quintet, whose melancholy edge seemed nicely attuned to the weather outside.

  Just as Banks was about to tidy up his desk and go home to enjoy one final night of peace and quiet in Newhope Cottage, the sound of his telephone startled him. It was going on for ten o’clock. He picked up the receiver. It was Chief Superintendent Gervaise.

  “Still at it?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” said Banks, “As a matter of fact, I was just about to head out.”

  “How do you fancy at pint over the road? On me?”

  Banks almost dropped the receiver. He had never been for a drink with Catherine Gervaise before; she had always kept a professional distance. He wondered what it was about. “Of course, ma’am,” he said.

  “On one condition.”

  “Yes?”

  “That you don’t call me ma’am.”

  The Queen’s Arms was almost deserted at that time on a wet Sunday night. Cyril himself was working behind the bar, and true to her word, AC Gervaise folded up her umbrella, went up and bought two pints of Timothy Taylor’s Landlord Bitter, one for herself and one for Banks.

  “I understand this is one of your favorite tipples,” she said, setting the glasses on the table. She had changed out of her uniform and wore a simple cream blouse and navy skirt with a matching jacket.

  “To what do I owe this honor?” Banks asked.

  Gervaise said nothing, just shuffled in her seat and made herself comfortable. Banks drank some beer. Cyril had one of his interminable sixties’ playlists going, and Gene Pitney was singing “That Girl Belongs to Yesterday” in the background.

  “It’s something I wanted to tell you in person,” she said. “It’s been a trying two days, and I’m afraid I’m not going to make things any better.”

  “Oh?”

  “I just got a call from James Cook Hospital in Middlesbrough. Katie Shea died on the operating table at five past nine tonight.”

  Banks felt the beer turn to lead in his stomach. His teeth clenched and his chest tightened. He felt like standing up and kicking the table over, throwing a chair through the window. Instead, he took several deep breaths, only vaguely aware of Gervaise’s hand on his forearm.

  “I suppose I knew it was bound to happen,” he said eventually. “Gerry will be devastated.”

  “I heard about DC Masterson in the churchyard,” said Gervaise. “She’ll be fine, Alan. She’s young and resilient. It’s you I’m worried about.”

  Banks gave her a flicker of a smile. “Me being old and weak?”

  “You having had rather too much misery for one weekend. I wasn’t there, but I understand Katie Shea was in very poor shape.”

  “She was holding her guts in with her hands and a bit of material Terry had found for her,” Banks said. “Begging for help, but the bloody gunslingers didn’t get there for three-quarters of an hour, and it was almost as long again before they let any medics in.”

  “You know that’s the protocol, Alan. It was nobody’s fault. Certainly not the AFOs. Nobody but the killer’s.”

  “Even so . . .”

  “You’d like to throttle someone. I understand.”

  Banks drank some more beer. For the second night in a row he felt like getting rat-arsed, but he couldn’t. He had a feeling that no matter how much he drank, it would have no effect on him, anyway; it wouldn’t take the anger and sadness away, would hardly even dull it. A sudden image of Katie Shea propped against the gravestone flashed through his mind. The expression on her face, the fear, pain and despair there, as if she knew what was going to happen, knew she was down to her last few sacred minutes on earth. Perhaps he was being fanciful, but that was what he had felt. A young woman who not long earlier had her whole life ahead of her was now facing certain death, and she knew it. He didn’t know whether Katie had any religious faith. That might have given her some comfort toward the end. Banks hoped so, for her sake, though he had no such faith himself. He remembered, too, the look on Gerry’s face. She had seen death before, but nothing quite like Katie. It had shaken her to the core. Yes, she was young and resilient, but she wouldn’t forget that day in St. Mary’s churchyard; she would carry it with her always; it would change her.

  “Don’t make it personal,” Gervaise went on. “Your old sweetheart’s death is personal, but this is what your job is about. It wasn’t only Katie Shea. Laura Tindall died from a gunshot wound to the heart. Her maid of honor had her head almost blown off. Need I go on?”

  Banks shook his head and finished his drink. Gervaise had about three-quarters of a pint left.

  “Want another?” she said. “Or a whiskey perhaps?”

  “Are you trying to get me drunk, ma—” Banks managed to stop himself before he got the title out.

  “Furthest thing from my mind, but you’ve got an empty glass in front of you, and you’re not going anywhere yet. Don’t worry about driving. Leave your car and I’ll drop you off home.” She pushed her beer aside. “I don’t even want this. I’m a white-wine-spritzer girl, myself. So what’s it to be?”

  “Macallan, please,” said Banks. “If that’s OK.” He couldn’t face another beer.

  With that, Gervaise went to the bar and got him another drink. “Cyril said it’s on the house,” she said when she got back. “Double. Says you look as if you need it.”

  Banks glanced over at Cyril, who gave him a nod and a wink. “Taking bribes from the publican,” he said. “What will it come to next?” The song changed. Skeeter Davis, “The End of the World.”

  “You don’t have to worry about me,” he went on. “But thanks for telling me in person, not over the phone, and thanks for the drinks. That makes four dead now, right?”

  “Yes. And Benjamin Kemp is hanging on by a thread. They don’t think he’ll make it through the night.”

  “What about Diana Lofthouse?”

  “The spinal cord was severed. There were other injuries, internal organs, but that’s by far the worst. It’s unlikely she’ll walk again. As yet, they’re not sure if she’ll be a quad or a para.”

  “What a bloody mess. And we’ve no leads at all so far yet.”

  “It’s early days,” said Gervaise. “There is one more thing, though, and it might be something of a development. When the surgeons were working on Katie Shea, they discovered that she was pregnant. The fetus was unharmed by the gunshot, but, of course, it didn’t survive. She wasn’t married—not that that means anything these days—but there has to be a father somewhere.”

  “And we’ll find him,” said Banks. “How far along was she?”

  “I don’t know all the details yet. Dr. Glendenning will be doing the postmortem tomorrow morning, so we’ll no doubt find out more then.”

  5

  “There it is for you,” said Dr. Glendenning. “The tally. Nicely laid out in layman’s terms as close as I could get to the order they were hit in, according to your notes.”

  Banks read the list clipped to Dr. Glendenning’s postmortem reports. Ten bullets, nine hits:

  Laura Elizabeth Tindall, age 32, bride. Residence: London. Deceased.

  Benjamin Lewis Kemp, age 33, groom, Residence: Northallerton. Critical.

  Francesca Muriel, age 29, maid of honor. Residence: London. Deceased.

  Luke Merrifield, age 42, photographer. Residence: Eastvale. Damage to right eye.

  David Ronald Hurst, age 30, guest. Residence: Harrogate. Minor flesh wound.

  Winsome Jackman, age 33, guest. Residence: Eastvale. Minor flesh wound.

  Diana Lofthouse, age 30, bridesmaid. Residence: Ripon. Spinal cord injury.

  Kathleen Louise Shea, age 30, bridesmaid: Residence: Leeds. Deceased.

  Charles Morgan Kemp, age 59, father of groom. Residence: Northallerton. Deceased.

  “So Benjamin Kemp is still alive?” Banks said.r />
  “For now. His liver’s done for. If I were a gambling man, I wouldn’t give much for his chances.”

  Dr. Glendenning seemed tired, Banks thought. It was hardly any wonder; he was getting on in years, and he had been bending over dead bodies almost nonstop since Sunday afternoon. He had help, of course. His chief anatomical pathology technologist, Karen Galway, and two trainee pathologists were working with him, all of them still busy at the stainless-steel tables in the autopsy suite next door. Even so, the long hours showed in his watery eyes behind the black-framed glasses and in his drawn, pale flesh. His white coat had been smeared with blood and worse when Banks had arrived, and he had removed it and dropped in a bin before sitting behind his desk. He wore a white shirt and maroon tie under his herringbone jacket.

  “Finished?” Banks asked.

  Glendenning raised a bushy eyebrow. “With the dead? Aye. For now.” He took a packet of Benson & Hedges out of his waistcoat pocket and lit one. Smoking was strictly prohibited in the building, but no one dared tell him that. He was more careful these days, though, Banks had noticed, and he didn’t actually smoke while he was working on a body. Watching Glendenning light up brought on one of Banks’s own rare cravings, which surprised him with its urgency and power. He fought it back.

  “It’s not strictly my business,” Glendenning went on, “but you’ve got a lot of psychologically wounded people out there. What are you going to do with them?”

  “Most of them have friends and relatives already with them There’s also counseling sessions going on.”

  “Poor sods. You come to a wedding and it ends up a funeral.”

  “I know,” said Banks. “There’s something not quite right about that.”

  Glendenning scrutinized him. “I may not be the picture of health myself, but you certainly seem the worse for wear. Been sleeping properly?”

  “Not much.”

  “Eating?”