Friend of the Devil ib-17

by Peter Robinson

  “She was upset in The Fountain, right? And she took it out on Jamie Murdoch.”

  “Yeah, a bit. I mean, he was the only one there apart from us. She called him a few names. Limp dick, dickhead, stuff like that. She was way out of line.”

  “How did he take it?”

  “How would you take it? He wasn’t happy.”

  “He told me it wasn’t a big deal.”

  “Well, he would, wouldn’t he? He wouldn’t want you to think he had a motive for hurting Hayley.”

  “Did he? Was he really that angry?”

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  “I don’t know. More like embarrassed. He rushed us out pretty quickly after that.”

  “Were they ever close at all, Hayley and Jamie?”

  “No way! Jamie was a loser. He dropped out of the college. I mean, look at him, stuck in the grotty pub night after night, half the time by himself while the landlord suns himself in Florida.”

  “Was there anyone in any of the pubs that night—especially The Fountain—who paid undue attention to Hayley, apart from the leather-shop owner?”

  “Men looked at her, yes, but nothing weird, not that I can remember. Nothing different from usual, anyway. And like I said, we were the last to leave The Fountain. Nobody followed us.”

  “Okay, Stuart. Let’s get back to The Maze now.”

  Stuart squirmed in his chair. “Must we?”

  “It’s important.” Banks gestured to the second KitKat on the table.

  “Do you want that?” Stuart shook his head. Banks picked it up and began to eat it. He had forgotten how hungry he was.

  “I don’t feel good about it,” Stuart said. “I’ve thought and thought since we last talked, and I know I must have heard it happening. I know I could have stopped it if I’d just done something. Made a lot of noise, banged a dustbin lid on the wall. I don’t know. But I bottled out. I got scared and ran away, and because of that Hayley died.”

  “You don’t know that,” said Banks. “Stop beating yourself up over it. I’m interested in what you heard.”

  “I’ve already told you.”

  “Yes, but you also said you heard some music, a snatch of a song, as if from a passing car. Rap, you said it was. And familiar. You couldn’t remember what it was when I last talked to you. Do you have any idea now?”

  “Oh, yeah, that. I think I do . . . you know, since we talked I’ve been playing it over and over in my mind, the whole thing, and I think it was The Streets, ‘Fit But You Know It.’ ”

  “I know that one,” said Banks. “Are you sure?”

  If Stuart was surprised that Banks knew the song, he didn’t show it. “Yeah,” he said. “I’ve got the CD. Just haven’t played it in a while.”

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  “And you’re certain you heard it around the same time you heard the other sounds?”

  “Yes. Why? Is it important?”

  “Maybe,” said Banks. He checked his watch. “You’ll be late for your lecture,” he said, standing up. “Thanks for your time.”

  “That’s all?”

  “That’s all.” Banks finished his latte, screwed up the KitKat wrapper, dropped it in the ashtray and left, thinking he had a pretty good idea why both Stuart Kinsey and Kevin Templeton heard the same music on different nights.

  J U S T A F T E R dark that evening, Annie found herself wandering down Saint Ann’s Staith by the estuary, past the blackboard with the tide tables on the short bridge that linked east and west. The strings of red and yellow harbor lights had just come on and made a hazy glow in the slight eve ning mist. They ref lected, swaying slightly, in the narrow channels of the ebbing tide. Fishing boats leaned at odd angles in the silt, their masts tilting toward the fading light and rattling in the light breeze. A ghostly moon was just visible out to sea above the wraiths of mist. The air smelled of salt and dead fish. It was chilly, and Annie was glad she was wearing a wool coat and a pashmina wrapped around her neck.

  She walked along beside the railings, the shops opposite closed for the evening, a glow coming from the pubs and the two cafés still serving fish and chips. Vinegar and deep- frying fat mingled with the harbor smells. A group of Goths dressed in black, faces white, hung out smoking and talking by the sheds, near the “Dracula Experience,” and even so long before the holiday season, a few tourist couples walked hand in hand and families tried to control their unruly children. The large amusement arcade was doing plenty of business, Annie noticed, almost tempted to go in and lose a few coins on the one-armed ban-dits. But she resisted.

  She was feeling excited because Les Ferris had phoned late in the afternoon and told her the hair and fibers expert, Famke Larsen, had matched Kirsten Farrow’s sample of eighteen years ago with a hair taken from Lucy Payne’s blanket last week. So it was Kirsten. Back and F R I E N D O F T H E D E V I L

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  in action again. Annie’s long shot had paid off and she could trust her copper’s instincts again. It gave her the focus she needed, and it ap-peased Superintendent Brough for a while.

  According to Famke, the similarities in color, diameter, medulla pattern and the intensity of pigment granules were enough to go on, but it wasn’t a match that would stand up in court. Annie didn’t care about that; she’d half expected it, anyway. Les Ferris had reminded her that hair was class evidence—that it was not possible to match a human hair to any single head—but for her purposes the identification was enough. Both samples were fine, Caucasian, with evenly distributed pigment and a slightly oval cross section.

  An unexpected bonus was that the hair found on Lucy Payne’s blanket hadn’t been sheared off; it came complete with its root. The only drawback, Famke had explained to Liam and Les, was that it was in what she called the “telogen stage.” In other words, it hadn’t been pulled out, it had fallen out, and that meant there were no healthy root cells and attached matter. The best they could hope for, Les summed up, was mitochondrial DNA, which is material that comes from outside the nucleus of the cells, and from the mother. Even so, it could help them come up with a DNA profile of Kirsten Farrow, Lucy Payne’s killer.

  The tide was out, so Annie went down the steps and on the beach.

  There was no one else around now, perhaps because of the late-March chill. As she walked, she wondered about Jack Grimley. Would a fall to the beach from the top of the cliffs have killed him? The beach wasn’t particularly rocky. She looked behind at the looming mass towering above her. It might have. But if he’d been lying on the sand for a while, wasn’t it likely that someone would have seen him? What if Kirsten had lured him down there, believing him to be her attacker, and killed him?

  There were some small caves in the bottom of the cliff face. Annie walked inside one. It was pitch-black and smelled of seaweed and stag-nant rock pools. It wasn’t very deep, as far as she could tell, but you could hide a body there, behind a rock, at night especially, until the tide came and took it out to sea.

  She left the beach and walked up the steps from Pier Road to the Cook statue. For a moment, she sat on the bench there and thought, This is where Keith and Kirsten sat, where he kissed her and got no 3 1 8

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  response. Was she so preoccupied with her revenge that she had gone beyond the merely human? It was also near here that a woman had been seen with Jack Grimley, and though she hadn’t been identified as Kirsten, Annie was certain that was who it was. What had they talked about? Had she lured him to the beach with promises of sex and killed him? Was that also how she had got Keith McLaren into the woods?

  Not too far away, Annie noticed lights and a pub sign. When she got up and walked closer, she saw that it was The Lucky Fisherman. Curious, she went inside. The door to her left opened on a small smoky public bar, where about five or six men stood around chatting, a couple of them smoking pipes. A football game played on a small television over the door, but nobody paid it m
uch attention. When Annie walked in, they all stared at her, fell silent for a moment, then went back to their conversations. There were only a couple of tables, one of them occupied by an old woman and her dog, so Annie went out again and through the door on the right. This was the lounge, quite a bit bigger, but barely populated. Music played softly, a couple of kids were playing one of the machines and four people were clustered around the dart-board. It was warm, so Annie took her coat off and ordered a pint, taking it over to a table in the corner. Nobody paid her any attention.

  So this was where Keith had met Kirsten that eve ning, and where she had seen Jack Grimley whom, Annie guessed, she had believed for some reason to be the man who had hurt her. She hadn’t approached him, as far as Keith remembered, so she must have come back another night and perhaps waited for him outside. It wasn’t hard to lead a man where you wanted him to go to if you were young and pretty. He wanted to go there, too.

  Annie sat sipping her beer and thinking about the past while she f lipped through the pages of the latest Hello magazine she had bought earlier and carried in her shoulder bag. After a few moments she became aware of someone standing over her. Slowly, she looked up to see a broad-shouldered man with a shaved head and a handlebar mus-tache, probably in his early fifties.

  “Can I help you?” she asked.

  “Are you that there new policewoman?”

  “I’m DI Cabbot, yes. Why?”

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  “Thought I saw your picture in the paper this morning. You’ll be after the person who killed that woman in the wheelchair, then, won’t you?”

  “That would be one of my jobs, yes.” Annie put her magazine down. “Why? Do you know anything that could help?”

  He gave her a questioning glance, and she noticed that he was asking if it was okay to join her for a moment. She nodded.

  “No,” he said. “I don’t know owt. And the way I’ve heard it, I reckon she only got what she deserved. Still, it’s a terrible way to go, in a wheelchair and all, can’t defend yourself. I’d say it’s a coward’s work.”

  “Perhaps,” said Annie, taking a swig of beer.

  “But it was summat else I wanted to ask you about. I heard a rumor the police was asking questions about an old crime, something involving an old friend of mine.”

  “Oh?” said Annie. “Who would that be?”

  “Jack Grimley.”

  “You knew Jack Grimley?”

  “Best mates. Well, am I right?”

  “I don’t know where you got your information from,” Annie said,

  “but we’ve taken an interest in the case, yes.”

  “More than anyone could say at the time.”

  “I wasn’t here then.”

  He eyed her scornfully. “Aye, I can see that for myself.”

  Annie laughed. “Mr. . . . ?”

  “Kilbride.”

  “Mr. Kilbride, much as I’d love to sit and chat with you, I have to get back to work. Is there anything you want to tell me?”

  He scratched the comma of beard under his lower lip. “Just that what happened to Jack, like, it never sat well with me.”

  “Did the police talk to you at the time?”

  “Oh, aye. They talked to all his mates. Can I get you another drink?”

  Annie had about a third of a pint left. She wasn’t having any more.

  “No, thanks,” she said. “I’ll stick with this.”

  “Suit yourself.”

  “You were saying. About Jack Grimley.”

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  “I was the one saw him with that there woman, standing by the railings near the Captain Cook statue.”

  “And you’re sure it was a woman?”

  “Oh, aye. I could tell the difference.” He smiled. “Still can. She might have been a skinny wee thing, but she was a lass, all right. Dark horse, our Jack. Not like him.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Jack was the serious type when it came to women. Couldn’t look at one he fancied without falling in love with her. We used to tease him something cruel, and he’d go red as a beet.”

  “But he’d never mentioned this girl?”

  “No. Not to me. Not to any of us. And he would have done.”

  “But she was new. He’d only just met her. They were getting to know each other.”

  “Oh, she was new, all right. She’d been in here once, a few days before, with a young lad. I recognized her. Not so much the face as the way she moved. And there she was, back again, outside with Jack.”

  “But she didn’t come in the second time?”

  “No. She must have been waiting for him outside.”

  “And you’re sure he never mentioned anything about a new girlfriend, someone he’d met, or talked to?”

  “No.”

  “Did you ever see her again?”

  “No. Nor Jack.”

  “I’m sorry about your friend,” Annie said.

  “Aye. The police said he must have fallen off the cliff, but Jack was too careful to do owt like that. He grew up here, knew the place like the back of his hand.”

  “I was just down on the beach,” Annie said. “Do you think a fall would have killed him? There’s not many rocks down there.”

  “It’s hard enough if you fall all that way,” said Kilbride, “but there’s some has got away with a broken leg or two.”

  “There was a theory that he might have jumped.”

  “That’s even more ridiculous. Jack had everything to live for. He was a simple bloke who liked the simple pleasures. Believed in a good job well done. He’d have made a fine husband and father one day if F R I E N D O F T H E D E V I L

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  he’d had the chance.” He shook his head. “No, there was no way Jack’d have done away with himself.”

  “So what do you think happened?”

  “She killed him, pure and simple.”

  “Why?”

  “You lot never tell the likes of us what you’re thinking, so how would I know? Maybe she didn’t need a reason. Maybe she was one of them there serial killers. But she killed him all right. He’d go anywhere with a pretty young woman, would Jack. Putty in her hands.

  The silly bastard was probably in love with her by the time she killed him.” He stood up. “Anyway, I don’t mean to bother you, love,” he said. “I just recognized you and I thought I’d let you know that if you are investigating what happened to Jack Grimley, for whatever reason, you can take my word for it—someone did for him.”

  Annie finished her beer. “Thanks, Mr. Kilbride,” she said. “I’ll bear that in mind.”

  “And, young lass?”

  “Yes,” said Annie, far more f lattered by that endearment than by all of Eric’s attentions.

  “You seem like the determined type. When you do find out, drop by and let us know, will you? I’m here most nights.”

  “Yes,” said Annie, shaking his hand. “Yes, I promise I’ll do that.”

  When she got back to her room, she made a note to let both Kilbride and Keith McLaren know the outcome of the investigation.

  S O P H I A WA S already waiting when Banks got to the new wine bar on Market Street, where they had arranged to meet. He apologized for being five minutes late and sat down opposite her. It was quieter and far less smoky than the pubs, a much more intimate setting, with shiny round black-topped tables, each bearing a candle f loating among f lower petals, and chrome stools, mirrors, colorful Spanish prints and contemporary-style fittings. The place had only been open about a month, and Banks hadn’t been there before; it had been Sophia’s idea.

  When she had been there before, or whom with, he had no idea. The music was cool jazz vocal, and Banks recognized Madeleine Peyroux 3 2 2

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  singing Dylan’s “You’re Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go.”

  It was a sentiment he could well share, becaus
e tomorrow Sophia was going back to London and Banks had no idea when, or if, he would see her again.

  “Long day?” she said, when he had settled down.

  “I’ve had better,” Banks said, rubbing his temples and thinking of the Templeton postmortem, and the talk he’d had with Kev’s dis-traught parents. “You?”

  “A long run in the morning and a bit of work in the afternoon.”

  “ ‘Work’ work?”

  “Yes. I’ve got a five-part series on the history of the Booker Prize coming up soon, so I have to read all the winners. Well, most of them, anyway. I mean, who remembers Percy Howard Newby or James Gor-don Farrell?” She put her fist to her mouth. “Yawn. You want to eat?”

  “Do they do burgers and chips?”

  Sophia grinned. “A man of great culinary discernment, I can tell.

  No, they don’t, but we might get some baked Brie and garlic and a baguette if I ask nicely. The own er’s an old pal of my dad’s.”

  “It’ll have to do, then,” said Banks. “Any chance of a drink around here, too?”

  “My, my, how impatient you are. You must have had a bad day.”

  Sophia caught the waitress’s attention and ordered Banks a large Rioja.

  When it came, she held her glass out for a toast: “To great ideas in the middle of the night.”

  Banks smiled and they clinked glasses.

  “I’ve brought you a present,” Sophia said, passing a familiar- shaped package across the table to Banks.

  “Oh?”

  “You can open it now.”

  Banks undid the wrapping and found a CD: Burning Dorothy by Thea Gilmore. “Thanks,” he said. “I was going to buy it myself.”

  “Well, now you don’t have to.”

  Already he could feel himself relaxing, the stresses of the day rolling off, the gruesome images and the raw human misery receding into the background. The wine bar was a good choice, he had to admit. It was full of couples talking softly and discreetly, and the music contin-F R I E N D O F T H E D E V I L

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  ued in the same vein. Sophia talked about her work and Banks forgot about his. They touched brief ly on politics, found they both hated Bush, Blair and the Iraq war, and moved on to Greece, which Banks loved and Sophia knew well. Both felt that Delphi was the most magical place in the world.