Peter Robinson: Piece Of My Heart

The darkness deepened the closer Banks and Annie got to Lyndgarth. It looked as if the wind had taken down an electricity cable somewhere and caused a power cut. The silhouettes of branches jerked in the beam of the car’s headlights, while all around was darkness, not even the light of a distant farmhouse to guide them. In Lyndgarth, houses, pubs, church and village green were all in the dark. Annie drove slowly as the road curved out of town, over the narrow stone bridge and around the bend another half a mile or so to Fordham. Even in the surrounding darkness it was easy to see where all the fuss was as they came over the second bridge shortly after half past eight.

The main road veered sharp left at the pub, opposite the church, toward Eastvale, but straight ahead, on a rough track that continued up the hill past the youth hostel and over the wild moorland, a police patrol car blocked the way, along with Winsome’s unmarked Vectra. Annie pulled up behind the cars, and wind whipped at her clothes as she got out of the car. The trouble was in the last cottage on the left. Opposite Moorview Cottage, a narrow lane ran west between the side of the church and a row of cottages until it was swallowed up in the dark countryside.

“Not much of a place, is it?” said Banks.

“Depends on what you want,” said Annie. “It’s quiet enough, I suppose.”

“And there is a pub.” Looking back across the main road, Banks fancied he could see the glow of candlelight through the windows and hear the muffled tones of conversation from inside. A little thing like a power cut clearly wasn’t going to deprive the locals of their hand-pumped ale.

The light of a torch dazzled them, and Banks heard Winsome’s voice. “Sir? DI Cabbot? This way. I took the liberty of asking the SOCOs to bring some lighting with them, but for the moment this is all we’ve got.”

They followed the trail the torch lit up through a high wooden gate and a conservatory. The local PC was waiting inside the door, talking to newly promoted Detective Sergeant Kevin Templeton, and the light from his torch improved visibility quite a bit. Even so, they were limited to what they could see within the beams; the rest of the place was shrouded in darkness.

Treading carefully across the stone flags, Banks and Annie followed the lights to the edge of the living room. They weren’t wearing protective clothing, so they had to keep their distance until the experts had finished. There, sprawled on the floor near the fireplace, lay the body of a man. He was lying on his face, so Banks couldn’t tell how old he was, but his clothing – jeans and a dark green sweatshirt – suggested he was youngish. And Winsome was right; there was no doubt about this one. He could see even from a few feet away that the back of his head was a bloody mess and a long trail of dark coagulating blood gleamed in the torchlight, ending in a puddle that was soaking into the rug. Winsome moved her torch beam around and Banks could see a poker lying on the floor not far from the victim, and a pair of glasses with one lens broken.

“Do you notice any signs of a struggle?” Banks asked.

“No,” said Annie.

The beam picked out a packet of Dunhills and a cheap disposable lighter on the table beside the armchair, toward which the victim’s head was pointing. “Say he was going for his cigarettes,” Banks said.

“And someone took him by surprise?”

“Yes. But someone he had no reason to think would kill him.” Banks pointed to the rack by the fireplace. “The poker would most likely have been there on the hearth with the other implements.”

“Blood-spatter analysis should give us a better idea of how it happened,” Annie said.

Banks nodded and turned to Winsome. “First thing we do is seal off this room completely,” he said. “It’s out of bounds to anyone who doesn’t need to be in it.”

“Right, sir,” said Winsome.

“And organize a house-to-house as soon as possible. Ask for reinforcements, if necessary.”

“Sir.”

“Do we know who he is?”

“We don’t know anything yet,” Winsome said. “PC Travers here lives down the road and tells me he doesn’t know him. Apparently it’s a holiday cottage.”

“Then presumably there’s an owner somewhere.”

“She’s in here, sir.” It was the PC who spoke, and he pointed his torch into the dining room, where a woman sat in the dark on a hard-back chair staring into space. “I didn’t know what else to do with her, sir,” he went on. “I mean, I couldn’t let her go until she’d spoken with you, and she needed to sit down. She was feeling a bit faint.”

“You did the right thing,” said Banks.

“Anyway, it’s Mrs. Tanner. She’s the owner.”

“No, I’m not,” said Mrs. Tanner. “I just look after it for them. They live in London.”

“Okay,” said Banks, sitting down opposite her. “We’ll get those details later.”

PC Travers shone his torch along the table between them, so that neither was dazzled and each could at least see the other. From what Banks could tell, she was a stout woman in her early fifties with short graying hair and a double chin.

“Are you all right, Mrs. Tanner?” he asked.

She put a hand to her breast. “I’m better now, thank you. It was just a shock. In the dark and all… It’s not that I’ve never seen a dead body before. Just family, like, you know, but this…” She took a sip from the steaming mug in front of her. It looked as if Travers had had the good sense to make some tea, which meant there must be a gas cooker.

“Are you up to answering a few questions?” Banks asked her.

“I don’t know that I can tell you anything.”

“Leave that to me to decide. How did you come to find the body?”

“He was just lying there, like he is now. I didn’t touch anything.”

“Good. But what I meant was: Why did you come here?”

“It was the power cut. I live just down the road, see, the other side of the pub, and I wanted to show him where the emergency candles were. There’s a big torch, too.”

“What time was this?”

“Just before eight o’clock.”

“Did you see or hear anything unusual?”

“No.”

“See anyone?”

“Not a soul.”

“No cars?”

“No.”

“Was the door open?”

“No. It was shut.”

“So what did you do?”

“First, I knocked.”

“And then?”

“Well, there was no answer, see, and it was all dark inside.”

“Didn’t you think he might be out?”

“His car’s still here. Who’d go out walking on a night like this?”

“What about the pub?”

“I looked in, but he wasn’t there, and nobody had seen him, so I came back here. I’ve got the keys. I thought maybe he’d had an accident or something, fallen down the stairs in the dark, and all because I’d forgotten to show him where the candles and the torch were.”

“Where are they?” Banks asked.

“In a box on the shelf under the stairs.” She shook her head slowly. “Sorry. As soon as I saw him just… lying there… it went out of my head completely, why I’d come.”

“That’s all right.”

Banks sent PC Travers to find the candles. He came back a few moments later. “There were matches in the kitchen by the cooker, sir,” he said, and proceeded to set candles in saucers and place them on the dining table.

“That’s better,” said Banks. He turned back to Mrs. Tanner. “Do you know who your guest was? His name?”

“Nick.”

“That’s all?”

“When he came by when he arrived last Saturday and introduced himself, he just said his name was Nick.”

“He didn’t give you a check with his full name on it?”

“He paid cash.”