Friend of the Devil

by Peter Robinson

  “Tell me about the girl you met.”

  “Can you just hang on a minute? I’ll get my notebook. Everything I remember is in there.”

  “Great,” said Annie. She waited about thirty seconds and McLaren came on the line again.

  “Got it,” he said. “I met her at breakfast one day. She said her name was Mary, or Martha, or something like that. I never have been able to remember exactly which.”

  Annie felt a pulse of excitement. The woman who took Lucy from Mapston Hall had called herself Mary. “Not Kirsten?” she asked.

  “That doesn’t ring any bells.”

  “What sort of impression did she make on you?” Annie asked, sketching the view from her window on the writing pad, the mist like feathers over the corrugated red roof tiles, the sea a vague haze under its shroud, gray on gray, and a sun so pale and weak you could stare at it forever and not go blind.

  “I remember thinking she was an interesting girl,” McLaren said. “I can’t remember what she looked like now, but she was easy on the eyes, at any rate. I didn’t know anybody in the place. I was just being friendly, really, I wasn’t on the make. Well, not much. She was very defensive, I remember. Evasive. Like she just wanted to be left alone. Maybe I did come on a bit too strong. Us Aussies sometimes strike people that way. Direct. Anyway, I suggested she might show me around town, but she said she was busy. Something to do with some research project. So I asked her out for a drink that evening.”

  “You don’t give up easily, do you?”

  McLaren laughed. “It was like pulling teeth. Anyway, she agreed to meet me for a drink in a pub. Just a sec…yes, it’s here…The Lucky Fisherman. Seemed to know her way around.”

  “The Lucky Fisherman?” echoed Annie, her ears pricking up. That was Jack Grimley’s local, the one he had just left the evening he disappeared. “Did you tell the police this?” she asked.

  “No. It’s just something I remembered years later, and they never got back to me. I didn’t think it was important.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” said Annie, thinking there were more holes in this case than in a lump of Swiss cheese. But Ferris was right: They didn’t have the luxury of pursuing every mystery to its solution the way TV cops did. Things fell through the cracks. “Did she turn up?”

  “Yeah. It wasn’t easy having a conversation with her. It was like she was very distracted, thinking of something else. And she’d never heard of Crocodile Dundee. That’s something I remembered years later. He was big at the time.”

  “Even I’ve heard of Crocodile Dundee,” said Annie.

  “Well, there you go. Anyway, I was quickly getting the impression she’d rather be elsewhere. Except…”

  “What?”

  “Well, she wanted to know about fishing. You know, the boats, when and where they landed the catch and all that. I mean, I didn’t know, but I just thought it was another weird thing about her. To be quite honest, I was beginning to think I’d made a big mistake. Anyway, I went to the loo, and when I came back I got the distinct impression she was staring at some other bloke.”

  “Who?” Annie asked.

  “Dunno. Local. Wearing one of those fisherman’s jerseys. Good-looking enough in a rough sort of way, I suppose, but really…”

  Jack Grimley, Annie was willing to bet, though he wasn’t actually a fisherman, and she doubted that Kirsten, if that was who it was, was studying him because she thought he was a nice bit of rough.

  “Then what?”

  “We left. Walked around town. Ended up sitting on a bench talking, but again I got the impression she was somewhere else.”

  “Did anything happen?”

  “No. Oh, I made my tentative move, you know, put my arm around her, gave her a kiss. But it obviously wasn’t going anywhere, so I gave up and we went back to the B and B.”

  “To your own rooms?”

  “Of course.”

  “Did you see her again?”

  “Not that I know of, though, as I said, the police think I might have.”

  “You don’t remember anything else about that day in Staithes?”

  “No. Sorry.”

  “I understand it was touch and go for a while?”

  “I’m lucky to be here. Everyone said so. I’m even more lucky to have been able to pick up my life and carry on, become a lawyer, get a good job, the lot. Everything except marriage and kids. And that just never seemed to happen. But there was some talk at the time of possible permanent brain damage. My guess is they don’t understand the Aussie brain over there. It’s much tougher than you Pommies think.”

  Annie laughed. “I’m glad.” She liked Keith McLaren, at least what she could gather of him over the telephone. He sounded as if he would be fun to go out with. He’d also be about the right age for her. Single, too. She wondered if he was good-looking. But Sydney was a long, long way away. It was good to have the fantasy, though. “You must have wondered why it happened,” she asked. “Why you?”

  “Hardly a day goes by.”

  “Any answers?”

  McLaren paused before speaking. “Nobody ever came right out and said it at the time,” he said, “perhaps because I was either in a coma or recovering from one, but I got the distinct impression that the police didn’t discount the theory that I’d tried it on a bit too aggressively and she defended herself.”

  That didn’t surprise Annie. She was almost loath to admit it, especially after talking to McLaren and liking him, but it was one of the first things that would have occurred to her, too. Whether that was because she was a woman or a police officer, or both, she didn’t know. Maybe it was because she’d been raped, herself. “They suggested you’d assaulted her, tried to rape her?”

  “Not in so many words, but I got the message loud and clear. It was only the fact that there were two unexplained bodies around and she seemed to have done a runner that kept me out of jail.”

  “Did you ever see her naked?”

  “What a question!”

  “It could be important.”

  “Well, the answer’s no. Not that I remember. Like I said, I don’t know what happened that day in the woods, but I think my memory up to that point is as clear as it’s going to get. I mean, she just didn’t want to know. I kissed her that once, on the bench near the Cook statue, but that’s all.”

  So, Annie thought, he couldn’t have known about Kirsten’s chest injuries—if, indeed, it was Kirsten—until they were in the woods together, which he couldn’t remember, and he had somehow got her top off. But the dream indicated that he had some subconscious knowledge of her injuries. He must have tried something on with her, then, or perhaps it was mutual up to a point, then she began to struggle, to panic. Kirsten knew by that point that she couldn’t have sex, so what was going on?

  If McLaren had cottoned on to who she was, as he may well have done even if she had modified her appearance, seen through her disguise and posed a threat to her agenda of vengeance, then wasn’t there a chance that she had cold-bloodedly lured him into the woods and set out to get rid of him? That she had led him on, and when he was sufficiently distracted, attempted to kill him? What kind of creature was Annie dealing with? The moment she thought she had some kind of connection with Kirsten, the damn woman slipped beyond her understanding and sympathy again.

  “What do you think about the police’s theory?” Annie asked.

  “I don’t see it,” McLaren said. “I mean, it might sound weird to you, but I’m just not like that. I don’t think I have it in me. You might think every man does, I don’t know. I suppose you’ve seen it all in your line of work, and you’re a woman, but I don’t. I honestly don’t believe that I would ever attack or attempt to rape a woman.”

  Annie had also experienced rape, but she didn’t happen to believe that every man was a potential rapist. “Thanks for your time, Keith,” she said. “You’ve been really helpful. And if it’s any consolation, I don’t believe you’re that sort of person, either.”

 
“You’re welcome,” said Keith. “And if you’re ever in Sydney, look me up. I’ll treat you to the best seafood you’ve ever had.”

  Annie laughed. “I will,” she said. “Take care.”

  When she hung up, she held her lukewarm tea to her skin and stared out to sea. Sydney. Now that would be fun. Images of the Harbour Bridge and the opera house that she had seen on television came into her mind. The mist was burning off the sea now and rising in thin wisps to vanish in the air, the sun was brighter, harder to look at, and a green fishing trawler was making its way to shore. A few minutes later, her phone rang again.

  KEVIN TEMPLETON had lived in a one-bedroom flat in a converted school near The Green, just across the river, not far from where profiler Jenny Fuller lived when she was in town. From his third-floor window, a door led out to a small balcony which gave a magnificent west-facing view of the terraced gardens, up to the majestic ruined castle towering over the scene, high on its hill. Across The Green to the east was the East Side Estate, a blight on the face of Eastvale, but a source of continuing employment for Banks and the rest at Western Area Headquarters. It was mostly obscured by trees, but you could see the rows of identical redbrick boxes between the bare branches.

  The flat was an empty shell, Banks thought as he stood in the living room, and one that didn’t give away a great deal about its occupant. The furniture was all modern, probably from Ikea or some similar flat-box merchant, no doubt pieced together in a flurry of activity one weekend with an Allen key, a six-pack of cheap lager and a great deal of swearing.

  There was a DAB radio, but no stereo system or CDs. A widescreen TV dominated one wall, and beside it stood a bookcase crammed with DVDs. A lot of sports, Banks noticed, some blockbuster movies and a few American TV series, such as The Simpsons, 24 and CSI. There were a few books, too, mostly tattered paperbacks by Ken Follett, Jack Higgins, Chris Ryan or Andy McNab, along with some texts on criminal law and American tomes on investigative procedure. There were no framed family photographs on the mantelpiece, and the only wall decoration was a cheaply framed poster for Psycho that Banks remembered had been given away free in a newspaper just last year.

  The toilet-and-bathroom combination revealed the usual things—shampoo, toothpaste, paracetamol, hair gel, razor, shaving cream and so on. No prescription drugs. The towel that hung over the side of the bath was still damp, and beads of moisture dotted the sides and bottom of the tub and wall tiles.

  In the kitchen, Templeton’s freezer was empty apart from a tray of ice cubes, and in the fridge Banks found milk, eggs, cheese, HP Sauce, tomato ketchup, the remains of an Indian takeaway and a Tupperware container of leftover spaghetti Bolognese. There was also a wine rack full of Tesco’s and Sainsbury’s wines—pretty good ones, too, Banks noticed—and a fairly expensive espresso-making machine.

  Which left the small bedroom, with its double bed and night table with shaded lamp, and one large wardrobe full of clothes and shoes. The suits were good quality. Not exactly Armani or Paul Smith, but Banks would have been very suspicious if Templeton had owned such expensive clothing on a detective sergeant’s salary. The only photograph in the flat stood on his dressing table under the window. It showed a young girl, perhaps eighteen or nineteen, her long hair blowing in the wind, hand held up to hold it out of her eyes, smiling at the camera, squinting slightly in the sun, autumn leaves swirling around her. Banks had no idea who it was or why Templeton kept it in his bedroom. A girlfriend, perhaps? He had never talked about his private life.

  There was nothing but loose change, condoms and pen and paper in the night-table drawer. A digital alarm clock set for 6:00 A.M. stood on top.

  Banks went back into the living room and sat at Templeton’s desk. The laptop computer was password-protected and would have to go down to technical support for analysis. Banks riffled through the drawers and found a stack of ledger-sized notebooks filled with Templeton’s neat but crabbed hand. Entries were dated, like a diary, but all Templeton wrote about was the cases he worked on. Banks checked the most recent ledger and found that Templeton had written up what he had done on Friday night:

  0000h. Entered Maze via car park entrance. Light poor. Buildings high, many overhanging. Impossible to keep an eye on the whole place. Distant sounds from square as the pubs close. Nobody comes here. No footsteps.

  0023h. Hear snatch of The Streets “Fit But You Know It” from a car whizzing by, or a door opening and closing, then it’s gone. Muffled dance music from inside the Bar None. More waiting. More nothing. Still sure I’m right. Killer will strike again, and what a good way of having a laugh at us it would be if he did it the following week, in the same place!

  Summary: Hung around until two o’clock and nothing happened. When the town had been silent for half an hour and it was clear that neither killer nor victim was going to come here tonight, I decided to end the surveillance for this evening.

  So Banks’s theory about Templeton privately policing The Maze had been right. Not that it was any great consolation in the face of the young lad’s murder. Banks took one more glance around the flat, then he locked up and headed back to the station, taking the ledger with him.

  IT WAS a long drive to Eastvale and Annie wasn’t entirely sure that it was justified, but what Banks had said over the phone had intrigued and disturbed her enough. There had been no way she was going back to bed after Keith McLaren’s phone call, anyway, no matter how tired she felt. And so she meandered over the moors that Sunday morning, with hardly any traffic to slow her down. The sun had burned off the morning mist completely by then, and it was a freshly scrubbed spring day.

  When Annie walked into the Western Area Headquarters at about half past ten, she could sense the strained and melancholy atmosphere. Even if Banks hadn’t told her, she would have known immediately that a policeman had been killed. There was no other atmosphere like it. People bent over their tasks with gritted teeth, tempers were short and over it all lay a pall of shock and outrage.

  Banks was in his office with Winsome standing beside him as he shuffled through a pile of papers on his desk. He stood up to greet Annie, and she could detect none of the hostility from him that she might have expected after their last meeting. That only made her feel worse. He ought to hate her. Of the two, only Winsome seemed frosty. She left almost immediately after a brusque “hello.” Banks gestured for Annie to sit down and called for coffee.

  “Sorry I rang so early,” he said. “I hope you didn’t have a wild night on the town last night.”

  “Why would you think that?” Annie said.

  “No reason. It was Saturday night, that’s all. People do tend to go out. Or maybe you stayed in with your boyfriend?”

  “What boyfriend?”

  “The one you told me about the other night. The young lad.”

  Annie reddened. “Oh, him. Yeah, well, have you ever had a wild night out in Whitby?”

  “Many times,” said Banks, with a smile.

  “Then you know more about the hidden charms of the place than I do. Anyway, I was already up and working when you rang.” She paused. “I really am sorry to hear about Kev. I wasn’t a fan, as you know, but no matter what I thought of him as a man or as a detective, I’m sorry about what happened to him.”

  “He wasn’t a man, really,” said Banks. “The poor sod was just a boy. A lot of us seemed to forget that.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “He was headstrong, impetuous, immature.”

  Annie managed a weak grin. “Those qualities are the prerogative of youth all of a sudden, are they?”

  “Touché,” said Banks. “Anyway, that’s what I want to talk to you about, really. What happened to Kev.” Banks gave her a quick run-down of what he knew so far, most of which he had pieced together from Chelsea Pilton’s eyewitness account and scraps of information from PC Kerrigan, Stefan Nowak and Dr. Burns. “You’ll agree there are similarities with the Lucy Payne murder?”

  “My God, yes.” Annie ran her hand
through her tousled hair. “I had no idea.” She told Banks about her conversations with Sarah Bingham and Keith McLaren, and how the mysterious Kirsten Farrow’s name kept coming up. “What the hell is going on, Alan?” she asked.

  “I wish I knew,” said Banks. “But whatever it is, I don’t like it.”

  “You and me, neither. Any ideas on who this mystery woman is?”

  “I suppose it could be this Kirsten. Anything on Maggie Forrest yet?”

  “Yes. Ginger tracked her down through her publishers. She’s back in Leeds. I was thinking of paying her a visit this afternoon. But what makes you think of her? I mean, she might have had a good motive for Lucy Payne’s murder, but she had none at all for Templeton’s, as far as we know.”

  “True,” said Banks. “It could be two different killers. We’ll try to keep an open mind, but my guess, like yours, is that if it’s not Maggie, it could be Kirsten Farrow somehow, and for some reason, returned, remodeled. But how or why, or who or where she is, I have no idea. I don’t even know how we can get a lead on that. She dropped out of sight years ago. It’s a pity the Australian’s memory isn’t any better.”

  “The only thing I can think of,” said Annie, “is to go back to the source of the leak again.”

  “Leak?”

  “Yes. It was one of the first things we started thinking about when we discovered that Karen Drew was really Lucy Payne. Who knew? And how?”

  “And?”

  “We still don’t know. Our people have been questioning the staff at Mapston Hall, and the Nottingham police have been helping us out down there at the hospital and social services. I mean, it’s a tricky one. Anyone could be lying, and we’d be hard pushed to prove it.”

  “What we need,” said Banks, “is a connection between one of the people who knew that Karen was Lucy, and someone who might possibly be Kirsten Farrow or Maggie Forrest, or know one of them.”