Contents
Cover
Also by Peter Robinson
Title page
Copyright
Dedication
Epigraphs
Prologue
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
Epilogue
Acknowledgements
Also by Peter Robinson
Caedmon’s Song
No Cure for Love
Before the Poison
INSPECTOR BANKS NOVELS
Gallows View
A Dedicated Man
A Necessary End
The Hanging Valley
Past Reason Hated
Wednesday’s Child
Dry Bones that Dream
Innocent Graves
Dead Right
In a Dry Season
Cold is the Grave
Aftermath
The Summer that Never Was
Playing with Fire
Strange Affair
Piece of My Heart
Friend of the Devil
All the Colours of Darkness
Bad Boy
Watching the Dark
Children of the Revolution
Abattoir Blues
SHORT STORIES
Not Safe After Dark
The Price of Love
When the Music’s Over
Peter Robinson
www.hodder.co.uk
First published in Great Britain in 2016 by
Hodder & Stoughton
An Hachette UK company
Copyright © Eastvale Enterprises Inc. 2016
The right of Peter Robinson to be identified as the Author of the
Work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright,
Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,
stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any
means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be
otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that
in which it is published and without a similar condition being
imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance
to real persons, living or dead is purely coincidental.
A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library
ISBN 978 1 444 78673 6
Hodder & Stoughton Ltd
Carmelite House
50 Victoria Embankment
London EC4Y 0DZ
www.hodder.co.uk
For Sheila
A sudden blow: the great wings beating still
Above the staggering girl, her thighs caressed
By the dark webs, her nape caught in its bill,
He holds her helpless breast upon his breast.
WB Yeats, ‘Leda and the Swan’
’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.
Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking
Glass, and What Alice Found There
Prologue
They threw the naked girl out of the van on the darkest stretch of road. First she felt the wind whip as one of them slid open the door, then she was in free fall, tumbling through space. Her hip bounced on the hard road surface and she felt something crack. Then she hit damp grass and rolled into a ditch full of stagnant water. She could hear their laughter and whooping over the loud music, but soon even the music had faded into the distance and there was nothing left but silence.
She lay in the ditch winded, her hip hurting, head spinning, and tried to take stock of her situation. She had no idea where she was. Somewhere in the countryside, obviously, miles from civilisation. She struggled to push herself up out of the foul, muddy water. As soon as she moved, she gasped at the pain, which shot first through her hip, then seemed to diffuse through every atom of her body, as if someone were pushing red-hot needles into her flesh. The stuff they’d given her back in the van was wearing off, the last couple of hours fading like a dream as she awoke into pain, but even as it faded it rushed through her when she least expected it, distorting her senses. There was a whooshing sound in her ears, like big waves crashing, and her vision was blurry.
She had also cut her shoulder on something, a broken bottle in the ditch, perhaps, and she became aware of other cuts and bruises as the pain started to focus on more specific parts of her body. She tried to clean the mud and blood off her skin as best she could with water from the ditch, but it was too dirty, and she only succeeded in spreading the filth all over her body. She felt that she resembled some primeval creature crawling out of the slime.
She limped into the darkness and stumbled in the direction from which the van had travelled. There was nothing she could do about her nakedness except hope someone decent came along, someone who would wrap her in a blanket and take her to hospital. Being naked and muddy were the least of her problems. Her brain wasn’t working properly, for a start. The road surface seemed to be undulating beneath her, and the overhanging trees were assuming threatening shapes. She shook her head to try to make it all go away but that only made things worse. She felt dizzy and had to support herself against a tree trunk for a moment. The bark was pulsing under her fingers like the dry scaly skin of a reptile. Her hip hurt so much that she was certain it was broken. And she felt terribly torn up inside. She was certain she was bleeding internally. She needed a doctor. He would give her painkillers, maybe even morphine. Then her pain would disappear and she would drift on warm soft pillows without a care in the world. But they would want to take swabs and samples. They’d call the police and then she would really be in trouble. The police wouldn’t believe her. They never believed people like her. Besides, in her experience, such kindness was unlikely. No Good Samaritan would come along and give a lift to a naked girl covered in mud. That wasn’t what the sort of people she knew did with naked girls. It wasn’t the kind of thing that happened in her life.
It was late July, but a long week of rain had just ended. The night was muggy, and a gauzy mist hung over the dark landscape. No street lamps, only the hazy light of a haloed half-moon. Somewhere in the field beyond the drystone wall a sheep bleated, and she thought she could see a lone light shining in a farmhouse upper window. Should she head for that? Would they help her? There was the ditch and a stone wall topped with barbed wire in her way, but there might be an entrance further ahead. If she found a gate, she decided, or a gap in the wall, that’s what she would do. Head over the field towards the light.
How late was it? Or how early? She had no phone or watch. She couldn’t remember how long she had been in the van. Surely dawn couldn’t be far off. The sun rose early these days. But everything was still dark, and the trees and walls were silhouettes of scarecrows and demons closing in on her. The road was narrow, and there was no pavement, so she walked on the hard surface. Stones dug into the soles of her feet with almost every step. If a car came she would have plenty of warning. She would hear it and see its headlights from far away. If a car came . . .
She hadn’t been walking for more than ten or fifteen minutes when she thought she heard the distant drone of an engine and saw lights playing
between the shadows and trees ahead, refracted in the mist down the winding road. A car! It was travelling in the opposite direction she was walking, the same direction the van had been heading, but that didn’t matter. As the car came closer, she at least had enough sense to stand back, near the edge of the ditch, so it wouldn’t hit her by accident. She threw away her dignity and waved her arms in the air. The headlights dazzled her, and the small van shot straight past. She watched it in despair, then she saw it stop with a screeching of rubber about a hundred yards ahead. She couldn’t make out what sort of van it was. The engine purred and the red brake lights glowed like a demon’s eyes in the mist. Shaking off the feeling of apprehension that came over her, she started hobbling towards the van as quickly as she could.
1
Detective Superintendent Alan Banks stood in front of the mirror in the gents and studied his reflection. Not bad, he thought, tightening his mauve-and-gold striped tie so that it didn’t look as if the top button of his shirt was undone, which it always was. He couldn’t stand that claustrophobic feeling he got when both button and tie pressed on his Adam’s apple. There was no dandruff on the collar or shoulders of his suit jacket, and his dark hair was neatly cropped, showing a hint of grey, like a scattering of ash, around the temples. He had no shaving cuts, no shred of tissue hanging off his chin, and he wore just a faint hint of classic Old Spice aftershave. He straightened his shoulders and spine, noting that there were no bulges in his jacket pockets to spoil the line of his new suit. His wallet and warrant card were all he carried, and both were slim. He fastened the middle button, so the jacket hung just right, and decided he was ready to face the world.
He glanced at his watch. The meeting was due to begin at nine sharp, and it was about three minutes to. He left the gents and took the stairs two at a time up to the conference room on the top floor of the old mock-Tudor building. Timing was an issue. Banks didn’t want to be the first to arrive, but he didn’t want to be the last, either. As it happened, he ended up somewhere in the middle. Detective Chief Superintendent Gervaise and Assistant Chief Constable McLaughlin stood outside the room chatting as they waited outside. Banks could see through the open door that some people were already seated.
‘Alan,’ said McLaughlin. ‘New duties not proving too much of a burden, I hope?’
Banks’s promotion to detective superintendent had come through a short while ago – a bloody miracle in this day and age, or so he had been told – and he had spent the last few weeks learning the ropes. ‘Not at all, sir,’ he said. ‘I had no idea how much I was getting away with before.’
Gervaise and McLaughlin laughed. ‘Welcome to the real world,’ said the latter. ‘Shall we go in?’
McLaughlin went ahead. Banks turned to Gervaise and whispered, ‘Any idea what this is about?’
She gave a quick shake of her head. ‘Very hush-hush,’ she said. ‘Rumour has it that the chief constable himself is going to be here.’
‘Not crime stats or more budget cuts, then?’
Gervaise smiled. ‘Somehow, I doubt it.’
The conference room was sparsely furnished, nothing but an oval table, tubular chairs and institutional cream walls. They took their seats around the table, and a few minutes later Chief Constable Frank Sampson – soon, it was whispered, to be Sir Frank Sampson – did indeed arrive. When he was followed shortly by the new police and crime commissioner, Margaret Bingham, Banks knew that something important must be brewing.
But the last person to arrive, a minute or so after everyone else, was the biggest surprise of all.
Dirty Dick Burgess was now some sort of deputy director or special agent at the National Crime Agency. More commonly known as the British FBI, the NCA dealt mostly with organised crime and border security, but it also worked against cyber crime and the sexual exploitation and abuse of children and young people. Burgess flipped Banks a wink before sitting down. Even he was wearing a suit and a crisp white shirt instead of his trademark scuffed leather jacket, though he could have done with a shave and a haircut, and he had foregone the tie completely. Clearly the British FBI didn’t bother dressing up for a visit to the provinces.
There were eight people seated around the table when the chief constable opened proceedings by introducing them all to one another. One of the people Banks didn’t know, by either name or sight, was the lawyer from the Crown Prosecution Service. Her name was Janine Francis, and she was not one of the CPS lawyers that he usually dealt with. The eighth person, still only vaguely familiar to Banks, was the county force’s new media liaison officer, Adrian Moss, an ex-advertising agency up-and-comer and political spin doctor with a flowered tie, fresh-scrubbed youthful appearance and a breezy, confident manner. A motley crew, indeed, Banks thought, as he tried to imagine why they might all have been brought together under one roof. It had to be something big.
‘I know some of you must be wondering what all this is about,’ said the chief constable, ‘so I’ll make it simple and get straight to the point. I assume you’re all familiar with Operation Yewtree and its investigations into sexual abuse, predominantly against children and primarily by media personalities? In the wake of the Jimmy Savile business and the successful convictions of Rolf Harris, Gary Glitter, Dave Lee Travis and Max Clifford, among others, I’m sure you can imagine that a lot of past victims have been encouraged to come into the open over the matter of historical sexual abuse.’
Historical abuse. The words brought about an immediate sinking feeling in Banks’s gut. A function of the political correctness of the times, historical abuse investigations were intended to right the wrongs of the past and to send the message that no matter how many years had gone by, if enough people cried foul, someone would be sent off. They were also a way of appeasing the victims of such crimes, of giving them a voice some of them had been seeking for years, and perhaps even ‘closure’, that much overused word, both things of which Banks approved in principle. In practice, however, it often turned out to be a different matter, a witch hunt where victims were often disappointed, and the reputations of innocent people sometimes went down in tatters. No detective in his right mind wanted to be part of a historical abuse investigation. Banks checked the faces of the others. Their expressions gave away nothing. Was he the only one who thought this way? Did it show?
‘I’d like to think we’ve all learned a thing or two from the way these incidents have been handled over the past couple of years,’ the CC went on, ‘and one of the things we should have learned by now is to keep things close to our chests. I ask you all not to speak of what’s said in here to anyone outside this office. Not even to your colleagues. Adrian.’
Moss glanced from face to face. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘No doubt you all know there’s no way we can keep this from the media for ever. They’ll get hold of it eventually, if they haven’t already. It’s my job to make sure that nothing gets said to them by anyone involved unless it goes through me first. Am I clear?’
He was obviously enjoying his temporary power over such an eminent gathering, Banks could tell from the triumphant expression on his face and the undertones of evangelistic delivery in his speech. And Banks didn’t even know what ‘this’ was yet.
‘Mistakes have been made in the past,’ Moss went on. ‘That business with the BBC cameras in position to film the raid on Cliff Richard’s home before Sir Cliff knew about the search himself, for example – and we don’t want any of that sort of behaviour dogging our footsteps. As you know, the investigation into Sir Cliff was dropped, and Paul Gambaccini had some harsh words to say about the way he was treated by the police. We’ve ended up with egg on our faces often enough, and we have to make sure that doesn’t happen this time. When the media do come knocking, as they will, we want everything calm and by the book. Nothing they can get between their teeth and run with. Naturally, celebrities are of interest to them, and celebrity misdeeds are manna for them. We not only have to prosecute this, we need to be seen to prosecute it. It won’t take them lo
ng to gets their nibs sharpened. I can tell you now, there’s a media shit storm due in the near future. My job, ladies and gentlemen, is to manage the flow of information, and to do that I will need the cooperation of all of you. Everything goes through the press office. Is that clear?’ He had a sheen of sweat on his forehead as he scanned the room. Most of those present beamed back at him. Moss was one of the chief constable’s and the police commissioner’s golden boys. Now that the brass seemed far more concerned with publicity and image, people like him were more important to them than detectives, Banks thought. Burgess was the only one to appear unimpressed, the beginnings of that characteristic cynical, seen-it-all smile appearing in the twist of his lips.
‘Thank you, Adrian,’ said the chief constable. ‘Now we all know where we stand, let’s get down to brass tacks. You are all here because from now on you’re going to be working together in one capacity or another on the same case. Assistant Chief Constable McLaughlin will enlighten you.’
Red Ron cleared his throat and shuffled his papers. ‘You’re here because we’re going to be conducting an investigation into Danny Caxton,’ he said, pausing for a moment to let the name sink in.
Danny Caxton, thought Banks. Shit. Celebrity, personality, presenter before presenters had even been invented. Household name. The Man with the Big Smile. Caxton had started his career in the late fifties with a few pop hits. He wasn’t a rock and roller, more of a crooner, a part of the Jim Reeves, Val Doonican and Matt Monroe crowd. Perhaps the girls didn’t scream at him the same way they did for Elvis or the Beatles, but plenty drooled over him as their parents had drooled over Johnnie Ray or Frank Sinatra. From what Banks could remember, Caxton obviously had good business sense and he must have realised early on that a career in pop balladry doesn’t last for ever. In the early sixties, he started to diversify. He had always had good comic timing and a knack for impersonating famous people, in addition to having the personality of an affable host. He compered variety shows, both live around the country and on television, cut the tapes at supermarket openings, judged beauty contests and quickly became the regular host of a popular talent-spotting programme called Do Your Own Thing! which lasted well into the late eighties. That was his catchphrase, too: ‘Do your own thing.’ Spoken with a tongue-in-cheek knowingness that tipped a wink towards its hippie origins. Even during the sixties and seventies he had the occasional novelty hit record, and he made a couple of dreadful swinging sixties films when he was already too old and square for such roles. He would have known Jimmy Savile, Banks realised. They were of the same generation. Caxton went from strength to strength: summer seasons, Christmas pantomimes, a successful West End musical comedy. He had married a pop singer at some point, Banks remembered, and there had been an acrimonious and public divorce not long after. His career had slowed down in the early nineties, but he still appeared occasionally as a guest on chat shows and had even hosted the odd Christmas variety special in the noughties.
When the Music's Over: The 23rd DCI Banks Mystery Page 1
