When the Music's Over: The 23rd DCI Banks Mystery

by Peter Robinson

  It was clearly the photo of Danny Caxton that had upset Linda Palmer the most, but the picture of the man who had raped her after Caxton nearly fifty years ago intrigued Banks even more. Tony Monaghan. Perhaps he was now investigating a murder in addition to a rape.

  9

  The Bay Horse was a sprawling modern chain pub on the estate, sitting beside a cluster of local shops – greengrocer, butcher, newsagent and hairdresser. When Annie and Gerry walked in that Tuesday afternoon, the place was almost deserted except for a lone figure in jeans and a black T-shirt sitting hunched over his pint in the far corner. Some music Banks would probably recognise was playing softly in the background – maybe Dire Straits, Annie thought – but other than that the pub was quiet.

  When they got a little closer, he looked up at them, and Annie could see that his eyes were red-rimmed, as if he’d been crying. He had a skinhead haircut and was stockier than Annie had expected, with elaborate tattoos on the muscles of his arms. She could see some similarity in features to the images of Mimosa she had seen, the cat-like slant of the eyes, the full, slightly pouting lips. On Mimosa it would all have been sexy as hell in life, whatever her age, but it made Albert’s features seem a little too feminine. If he had more hair, Annie thought, he might even be quite handsome.

  Lenny had told them he had just given the news to Albert about Mimosa and left him in the pub, that he had wanted to sit alone for a while and digest what he’d heard. Annie leaned over and said, ‘Albert? Lenny told us you were here. We’re the police. We need to ask you a few questions. Is it OK if we sit down?’

  Albert looked from one to the other. ‘Might as well,’ he said.

  Annie nodded towards the almost empty glass. ‘Another?’

  ‘Thanks.’

  Gerry went to the bar and came back with a pint of lager for Albert and two diet bitter lemons for herself and Annie.

  ‘We’ll try and make it brief and painless,’ Annie said. ‘We’re really sorry about your sister. I understand you’ve only just heard about what happened?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Where were you?’

  ‘Manchester, clubbing with some mates. I went there on Thursday and came back this morning.’

  ‘Drive?’

  ‘Nah. Train.’

  ‘When did you last see Mimosa?’

  ‘The weekend before. Sunday, I think. Maybe Monday.’

  ‘And you weren’t worried about her? I mean, she’d already been missing two days before you left for Manchester.’

  ‘That wasn’t unusual. Not for our Mimsy. Besides, I’m not always at home myself.’

  ‘What did you do last Tuesday night?’ Annie asked.

  ‘I stopped over at Paul’s. We’d had a bit to drink, like, watched some DVDs and crashed out.’

  ‘What time was this?’

  ‘Dunno. We met up in the pub earlier. Not this one. The Hope and Anchor, near his place. We left there about tennish, I suppose.’

  ‘And went to Paul’s?’

  ‘Yeah. That’s Paul Warner. He’s my best mate.’

  ‘You stay there often?’

  ‘Paul says I can crash whenever I want. He’s got one of those let-down couches. It’s pretty comfortable. And a power shower. Cool.’

  ‘What about work, Albert? Don’t you have to go to work in a morning?’

  ‘I’m unemployed. Paul lets me work with him sometimes. Odd jobs, like, you know, fetching and lifting.’

  ‘What does this Paul do?’

  ‘He’s got his own business. Painting and decorating. Odd jobs on the side. He’s good at fixing things. Tellies and com-puters and sinks and stuff.’

  Annie heard the barman greet a regular. Albert sipped his lager and stared into the cold pale liquid.

  ‘What was your relationship with your sister like?’ she asked.

  ‘Relationship?’

  ‘Yes. How did you get along?’

  ‘Do you have a big brother?’ Albert asked.

  ‘Me? No,’ said Annie.

  ‘I do,’ said Gerry. ‘He’s five years older than me. He used to tease me like hell, but once when I was about ten he rescued me from a gang on my way home from school. They were shoving me around and getting rough with me.’

  Albert glanced at her and nodded. ‘You understand, then,’ he said. ‘The problem with Mimsy was that she never knew when to keep her gob shut.’

  ‘Bit of a mouth on her, had she?’ said Annie.

  ‘You can say that again. Not always, mind. She could be sweet and gentle as anything. Quiet, even. But when the mood took her. She was no fool, wasn’t Mimsy, and she didn’t suffer fools gladly.’

  ‘That can make for a hard life,’ Annie said.

  Albert looked at Gerry again. ‘So you’ll know what it was like,’ he said. ‘Having a big brother and all. I love our Mimsy, and I’d have done anything for her, but she was a kid and she wasn’t part of my life in that way, so I probably treated her like crap some of the time. I mean, we didn’t have much in common, we didn’t hang out or anything.’

  ‘You didn’t share any parts of your life?’ Gerry asked.

  ‘I used to let her come and help sometimes, when I was working with Paul.’ He turned away. ‘Maybe we’d even let her have a lager and lime when we’d done, like, if it was thirsty work. There’s no harm in it, is there?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Annie. ‘We hear Mimosa liked a drink.’

  ‘She did and all.’

  ‘But you don’t know where she went in her spare time,’ Annie went on, ‘what she got up to?’

  ‘No. Some people would probably think she was too young to be let loose like that, but you see it a lot these days. Kids as young as twelve, thirteen, fourteen, getting up to whatever they want with no questions asked.’

  ‘Did Mimsy stop out all night?’

  ‘Sometimes, sure.’

  ‘Do you know where?’

  ‘I never asked and she never said.’

  ‘Is there anything you can tell us that might help us find her killer, Albert?’

  Albert looked Annie in the eye, then leaned forward and spoke with a ferocity that made her flinch. ‘Do you think those Pakis did it?’

  ‘Which ones would that be?’ Annie asked.

  ‘That lot down on the Strip.’

  ‘What do you know about them?’

  ‘Nothing. ’Cept they’re old, and she shouldn’t have been hanging out with them. You can’t trust them, can you? They’re not like us. They do things different.’

  ‘What did you see?’

  ‘Our Mimsy getting in a taxi outside that minicab place next door to that takeaway. She was with a fat Paki, an older bloke in a suit. All tarted up, she was, too.’

  ‘Did you recognise the man?’

  ‘No. He wasn’t anyone I’d seen in the takeaway or the other shops. I mean, I’ve got nothing against them, really, but what was our Mimsy doing getting in a minicab with one of them?’

  ‘Did you ask her?’

  ‘Last time I saw her. When we were walking down the street.’

  ‘What did she say?’

  ‘Told me it was none of my fucking business what she did, and they were a lot more fun to hang out with than the sad bastards at school.’

  ‘Did you tell your parents, your mother?’

  ‘I didn’t tell anyone, did I? Why should I get her in trouble. I’m no snitch. But I told her she should stay away from them, that they were up to no good.’

  ‘What did she say to that?’

  ‘She just laughed and said what did I know.’ He paused. ‘I’m not a racist, really, but it’s not right, is it? Blokes like that hanging about with young girls like Mimsy. It surprised me, really, when I saw her, like, because I thought she . . . well, I thought we agreed on certain things.’

  ‘On Pakistanis?’

  ‘Yeah. Immigration. Them coming and taking over. That sort of thing.’

  ‘Have you seen any Pakistanis with other young girls?’
r />   ‘No. I mean, not really. You know, you’ll see one or two of them down the Strip, in the takeaway or waiting for a minicab, but I never took much notice. I mean, anything you need around the Strip you have to get from them. They’ve got it all sewn up. Except the chippie, and that’s run by the Chinks. But they don’t live around here.’

  Not a racist but . . . Annie thought. The number of times she’d heard that. ‘I understand you got probation for throwing a brick through a halal butcher’s window,’ she said.

  ‘I was pissed, wasn’t I?’

  ‘But why that particular window?’

  ‘Dunno. It was just there.’

  ‘When did this incident with Mimosa and the taxi occur?’

  ‘Week before last. Wednesday or Thursday.’

  About a week before she disappeared, Annie calculated. ‘And next time you saw Mimsy was on the Sunday or Monday after that?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘How did she seem? Was she upset, worried or anything? Was there anything different about her?’

  ‘No. Same as usual.’

  ‘Any marks on her? Anything like that?’

  ‘No. She just got pissed off when I mentioned I’d seen her with the Paki, that’s all. And, yeah, she was wearing some new trainers, fancy Nikes. I asked her where she’d got the money for them, and she told me she’d saved up.’

  ‘Did you believe her?’

  ‘No reason not to.’

  ‘Did she have a part-time job? A summer job?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Did Lenny or Sinead give her any pocket money?’

  ‘Shouldn’t think so.’

  ‘Where do you think she got the money for new trainers?’

  Albert shrugged. ‘Dunno. She’d saved it out of the bits and pieces she earned helping out me and Paul? But it must have taken her a long time. He doesn’t pay either of us much. Bit of a skinflint, is Paul. Maybe some bloke gave it to her. You haven’t told me. Did they do it? Do you think it was the Pakis?’

  ‘We don’t know who it was yet, Albert, so don’t take it into your head to do anything stupid.’

  ‘Are you calling me stupid?’

  ‘No, I’m not. I’m just telling you not to do anything foolish. Leave it to us to find out what happened.’

  ‘Right. As if you lot would ever do anything if it was Pakis. You’d be too scared of being called racists.’

  ‘Albert, no matter what you think, we’re out to catch a murderer here, and we’ll use whatever it takes to do that, whoever the murderer turns out to be. You have my word on that.’

  Albert stared at her, then picked up his pint. The new customer started playing one of the machines near the door. Sirens and bells filled the air. ‘There’s something else,’ Albert went on. ‘Not specifically to do with Mimsy, but a Paki mate of mine – he’s OK, by the way, none of that religious mumbo-jumbo, and he’s a loyal Boro fan – he says he heard that some of the older blokes had been messing with white girls. You know, like that Rotherham thing.’

  ‘Did he say anything more?’

  ‘No. Just that.’

  ‘When was this?’

  ‘A few weeks before I saw Mimsy getting in the taxi.’

  ‘Did you make any connection between what he told you and what you saw?’

  ‘Connection?’

  ‘Never mind. What’s his name?’

  ‘Ali.’

  ‘Do you know where he lives?’

  ‘Somewhere south of the Strip. But we have a drink in the Wytherton Arms now and then. You could probably find him in there most nights. Like I said, none of that religious non-drinking mumbo jumbo for Ali.’

  ‘If you happen to bump into him before we have time to find him, would you give him this and ask him to call me?’ Annie said, handing Albert her card.

  ‘I don’t want him to think I’ve been talking to the polis.’

  ‘Albert. It’s for Mimosa.’

  Albert took the card reluctantly. ‘I’ll think about it.’

  ‘How did it end, this last talk with Mimosa? Did you stay friends?’

  ‘I suppose so. It’s her life. I just told her if she needed anything, like, all she had to do was ask. She gave me one of her friendly pecks on the cheek, said something about her knight in shining armour, and that was that.’

  ‘That was you? Her knight in shining armour.’

  Albert managed a thin smile. ‘Yeah. That’s what she called me sometimes.’ He looked at Gerry. ‘I saved her from bullies too, once or twice, when she was about ten. It sort of stuck.’

  ‘Mimsy was bullied?’ Annie asked.

  ‘For a while, yeah, at school.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Who knows. She was just different, that’s all. And, like I said, she was mouthy.’

  ‘But it stopped?’

  ‘Far as I know.’

  Annie paused, as much to let Gerry catch up with her notes as anything else. Albert drank some more lager and Annie sipped the tart bitter lemon. A pint would have been so much better. ‘Do you remember that incident with the psychological counsellor?’ she asked.

  ‘Do I ever. Mum really laid into Mimsy that time. Him, too. I think she knew she’d fucked up a lot in her own life, and she saw Mimsy making the same mistakes, same bad choices. It just set her off.’

  ‘Was Mimsy doing drugs then?’

  ‘Some, maybe. Pills and dope and stuff.’

  ‘Ketamine?’

  ‘K? That’s crazy stuff, isn’t it? I don’t know. I wouldn’t think so. Mimsy liked a good time, she didn’t want to go apeshit barking bonkers.’

  ‘Have you seen or heard of this counsellor since?’

  ‘No. They fired him. I heard he’d buggered off to Spain or somewhere. Too good for him. Ought to send him to the fucking North Pole stark bollock naked. Good riddance.’

  ‘Is there anything else you can tell us, Albert?’ Annie asked. ‘Anything at all. Was there anyone you know who’d want to do Mimosa harm?’

  ‘Not that I know of. Except maybe the Pakis, if she pissed them off.’

  ‘OK.’ Annie glanced towards Gerry, who put her notebook away. ‘If you think of anything, and I mean anything, that may help us catch your sister’s killer, no matter how unimportant it seems, give us a call. Right?’

  ‘Right,’ said Albert.

  ‘And try to get in touch with Ali. Want a lift home?’

  ‘Nah. Thanks. I think I’ll just stay and have another. Let it all sink in.’ He rubbed his eyes. ‘I just feel like numb, like.’

  They met in Banks’s office shortly after his return from Leeds: Banks, AC Gervaise and Adrian Moss. Banks could have done without the latter, but he seemed to be all over the place like a dirty shirt these days. The station was still under siege, cameras clicking and questions shouted every time anyone came in or went out. The clamour seemed as much to do with Mimosa Moffat as it did Danny Caxton. Now that Mimosa had been identified, a phalanx of media had headed up to the Wytherton Heights estate to get the story from the horse’s mouth, so to speak. No doubt viewers of the evening news and readers of tomorrow’s newspapers would be treated to Lenny Thornton’s or Albert Moffat’s opinion on the local Muslim community and Sinead’s feelings about her murdered daughter. Only Johnny Kerrigan would remain silent.

  Winsome, Banks knew, had been hard at work since he had phoned her from Leeds with the identification of Linda Palmer’s mystery man. She had been on the phone and the Internet to amass as much information as she could about Tony Monaghan’s life and death and had gathered it together in a small file, which Banks had just finished reading. At the moment, Winsome was in the squad room trying to squeeze out more information and was due to join them shortly.

  For his part, Banks had stayed on in Leeds for a while after Linda had found the photographs. He had offered to arrange transport back to Minton-on-Swain for her, but she said she’d like to do a bit of shopping and visit some friends, then she’d take the train back in the evening. Banks first visi
ted Ken Blackstone at Elland Road, where they had trawled through various archives and records, mostly in vain, coming up with an interesting titbit about the long-dead Chief Constable Crammond, but not much else.

  The problem, as Blackstone pointed out, was that it seemed the records had been systematically expunged at some point over the last fifty years. There were no surviving witness transcripts, though supposedly every homosexual with a passing acquaintance with the Hyde Park public convenience would have been questioned, along with a number of undercover police officers and officers placed on surveillance at various periods in the roof of the structure, where they had been able to spy on whatever was going on below. Another quick visit to the Wakefield archive had produced only the stark entry in the occurrence book: ‘No further action.’ What it all added up to, Banks still didn’t know, and he was hoping a bit of a brainstorming session back in Eastvale would go some way towards correcting that situation.

  The basic facts, culled from newspapers, were that the man Linda Palmer identified as her second rapist had lived in Hampstead. Only twenty-six years old when he was murdered, Tony Monaghan worked for a London advertising agency, Philby, Leyland and Associates, based in the West End, and he was up in Leeds on company business during the time the incident occurred. At the time of the murder, Monaghan had been wearing a bespoke suit from a Savile Row tailor and a lilac shirt. That had, no doubt, sealed his dismissal as a ‘queer’.

  Monaghan’s body had been found in the public conveniences at Hyde Park in the student area of Leeds. He had been stabbed to death, and his wallet was missing. The prevailing theory was that he had been on the prowl, looking for rough trade, and had found it. The public conveniences were a notorious spot for homosexual encounters, and though homosexual acts between two consenting adults in the privacy of their own homes had been legalised in the Sexual Offences Act that summer, the legality did not apply to public toilets or public acts of lewdness.

  According to the date in the occurrence book, the investigation had been dropped after less than two weeks, and Monaghan’s body would have been released for burial. Nothing more of interest appeared, and the photo that had caught Linda Palmer’s attention was the only visual record still existing.