Peter Robinson - Not Safe After Dark

‘Not for your husband, no.’

‘Thank you. You don’t know what this means to me.’ He could hear the relief in her voice. ‘Because of my heart condition, you see, Michael is a bit over-protective. I don’t deny I’m weak, but sometimes I think he just takes too much upon himself.’ She paused and gave a small laugh. ‘I don’t know why I’m telling you all this. It must be because I’m so relieved. He’s a normal man. He has needs like any other man. I know he goes with other women and I never mention it because I know it would upset him and embarrass him. He thinks he keeps it from me to protect me from distress, and it’s just easier to let him think that.’

‘I can appreciate that,’ Banks said, only half listening. Why hadn’t he realized before? Now he knew what Michael Bannister had lied about, and why. ‘Look, Mrs Bannister,’ he cut in, ‘you might be able to help us. Do you think you could talk to your husband, let him know you know?’

‘I don’t know. I don’t want to upset him.’

Banks felt a wave of annoyance. The Bannisters were so damn busy protecting one another’s feelings that there was no room for the truth. He could almost hear her chewing her lip over the line. He tried to keep the irritation out of his voice. ‘It could be very important,’ he said. ‘And I’m sure it won’t do any harm. If that’s what he’s feeling guilty about, you can help him get over it, can’t you?’

‘I suppose so.’ Hesitant, but warming to the idea.

‘I’m sure you’d be helping him, helping your relationship.’ Banks cringed to hear himself talk. First a nursemaid, now a bloody marriage guidance counsellor.

‘Perhaps.’

‘Then you’ll do it? You’ll talk to him?’

‘Yes.’ Determined now. ‘Yes, I will, Mr Banks.’

‘And will you do me one more favour?’

‘If I can.’

‘Will you give him these telephone numbers and tell him that if he thinks of anything else he can call me without fear of any charges being made against him?’ He gave her his work and home phone numbers.

‘Ye-es.’ She clearly didn’t know what he meant, but that didn’t matter.

‘It’s very important that you tell him there’ll be no action taken against him and that he should talk to me personally. Is that clear?’

‘Yes. I don’t know what all this is about, but I’ll do as you say. And thank you.’

‘Thank you.’ Banks headed for a pub lunch in the Queen’s Arms. It was too early to celebrate anything yet, but he kept his fingers crossed as he walked in the thin November sunshine across Market Street.

Norma Cheverel’s luxury flat was every bit as elegant and expensively furnished as Banks had expected. Some of the paintings on her walls were originals, and her furniture was all hand-crafted, by the look of it. She even had an oak table from Robert Thompson’s workshop in Kilburn. Banks recognized the trademark: a mouse carved on one of the legs.

When Banks and Susan turned up at seven-thirty that evening, Norma had just finished stacking her dinner dishes in the machine. She had changed from her work outfit and wore black leggings, showing off her shapely legs, and a green woollen sweater that barely covered her hips. She sat down and crossed her legs, cigarette poised over the ashtray beside her.

‘Well,’ she said. ‘Do I need my solicitor yet?’

‘I think you do,’ said Banks. ‘But I’d like you to answer a few questions first.’

‘I’m not saying a word without my solicitor present.’

‘Very well,’ said Banks. ‘That’s your right. Let me do the talking, then.’

She sniffed and flicked a half-inch of ash into the ashtray beside her. Her crossed leg was swinging up and down as if some demented doctor were tapping the reflex.

‘I might as well tell you first of all that we’ve got Michael Bannister’s testimony,’ Banks began.

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

‘I think you do. It was you who took those photographs at the banquet and in the hotel room afterwards. It was you who spent the night with Michael Bannister, not Kim Fosse.’

‘That’s ridiculous.’

‘No, it’s not. You told him later that if anyone asked he’d better say it was Kim Fosse he slept with or you’d tell his wife what he’d done. You knew Lucy had a weak heart, and that he thought such a shock might kill her.’

Norma had turned a shade paler. Banks scratched the small scar beside his right eye. Often, when it itched, it was telling him he was on the right track. ‘As it turns out,’ he went on, ‘Lucy Bannister was well aware that her husband occasionally slept with other women. It was just something they didn’t talk about. He thought he was protecting her feelings; she thought she was protecting his. I suggested they talk about it.’

‘Bastard,’ Norma Cheverel hissed. Banks didn’t know whether she meant him or Michael Bannister.

‘You seduced Michael Bannister and you planted incriminating photographs on Kim Fosse’s living-room table after you’d killed her in the hope that we would think her husband had done it in a jealous rage, a rage that you also helped set us up to believe. We’ve checked the processing services, too. I’m sure you chose Fotomat because it’s busy, quick and impersonal, but the man behind the counter remembers you picking up a film on Wednesday, not Kim Fosse. Beauty has its drawbacks, Norma.’

Norma got up, tossed back her hair and went to pour herself a drink. She didn’t offer Banks or Susan anything. ‘You’ve got a nerve,’ she said. ‘And a hell of an imagination. You should work for television.’

‘You knew that David Fosse walked the dog every evening, come rain or shine, between six forty-five and seven-thirty. It was easy for you to drive over to the house, park your car a little distance away, get the unsuspecting Kim to let you in, and then, still wearing gloves, hit her with the trophy and plant the photos. After that, all you had to do was convince us of her infidelity and her husband’s violent jealousy. There was even a scrap of truth in it. Except you didn’t bargain for Lucy Bannister, did you?’

‘This is ridiculous,’ Norma said. ‘What about the film that was in the camera? You can’t prove any of this.’

‘I don’t believe I mentioned that there was a film in the camera,’ said Banks. ‘I’m sure it seemed like a brilliant idea at the time, but that film couldn’t possibly have been taken by Kim’s camera, either, or Michael Bannister wouldn’t have had red eyes.’

‘This is just circumstantial.’

‘Possibly. But it all adds up. Believe me, Norma, we’ve got a case and we’ve got a good chance of making it stick. The first film wasn’t enough, was it? We might have suspected it was planted. But with a second film in the camera, one showing the same scene, the same person, then there was less chance we’d look closely at the photographic evidence. How did it happen? I imagine Kim had perhaps had a bit too much to drink that night and you put her to bed. When you did, you also took her room key. At some point during the night, when you’d finished with Michael Bannister, you rewound your second film manually in the dark until there was only a small strip sticking out of the cassette, then you went to Kim Fosse’s room and you put it in her camera, taking out whatever film she had taken herself and dumping it.’

‘Oh, I see. I’m that clever, am I? I suppose you found my fingerprints on this film?’

‘The prints were smudged, as you no doubt knew they would be, and you wiped the photographs and camera. When you’d loaded the film, you advanced it in the dark with the flash turned off and the lens cap on. That way the double exposure wouldn’t affect the already exposed film at all because no light was getting to it. When you’d wound it on so that the next exposure was set at number eight, you returned it to Kim Fosse’s room.’