Peter Robinson: Strange Affair

“Even so,” said Gristhorpe. “I think we’d like to hear about it.”

“It was near the end of April, the twenty-third. The young woman’s name was Claire Potter, aged twenty-three, lived in North London. She set off at about eight o’clock on a Friday evening to spend the weekend with friends in Castleton. She never got there. Her car was found in a ditch by the side of a quiet road north of Chesterfield by a passing motorist the following morning and her body was found nearby – raped and stabbed. The way it looks is that her car was forced into a ditch by her assailant. The pathologist also found traces of chloroform and characteristic burning around her mouth.”

“Where was she last seen?”

“Trowell services.”

“Nothing on the service station’s closed-circuit TV?” asked Gristhorpe.

“Apparently not, sir. I had a brief chat with DI Gifford at Derbyshire CID, and the impression I got was that they’ve reached a dead end. No witnesses from the cafeteria or garage. Nothing.”

“The MO is different, too,” Annie pointed out.

“Yes,” said Gristhorpe. “Jennifer Clewes was shot, not stabbed, and she wasn’t sexually interfered with, at least not as far as we know. But you think there could be some connection, DC Jackman?”

“Well, sir,” mused Winsome, “there are some similarities: stopping at the services, being forced off the road, a young woman. There could be any number of reasons why he didn’t assault her this time, and he could certainly have acquired a gun since his last murder. Maybe he didn’t enjoy stabbing. Maybe it was just a bit too up close and personal for him.”

“Okay,” said Gristhorpe. “Good work. We’ll keep an open mind. Last thing we want is to let a serial killer slip through our hands because we don’t see the connection. I take it you’ll be activating HOLMES?”

“Yes, sir,” said Winsome. The Home Office Large Major Enquiry System was an essential tool in any major investigation. Every scrap of information was entered into the computer and connections were made in ways even a trained officer might easily miss.

“Good.” Gristhorpe stood up. “Okay. Any-”

There was a knock at the door and Gristhorpe called out, “Come in.”

Dr. Wendy Gauge, Dr. Glendenning’s new and enigmatic assistant, stood there, looking as composed as ever, that mysterious, self-contained smile lingering around her lips the way it always did, even when she was bent over a corpse on the table. Rumor had it that Dr. Gauge was being groomed as Glendenning’s successor when the old man retired, and Annie had to admit that she was good.

“Yes?” said Gristhorpe.

Wendy Gauge moved forward. “I’ve just come from the mortuary,” she said. “We were removing the victim’s clothing and I found this in her back pocket.” She handed over a slip of lined paper, clearly torn from a notebook of some sort, which she had thoughtfully placed in a transparent plastic folder. “Her killer must have taken everything else from the car,” Dr. Gauge went on, “but… well… her jeans were very tight and she was… you know… sitting on it.”

Annie could have sworn Dr. Gauge blushed.

Gristhorpe examined the slip of paper first, then frowned and slid it down the table for the others to see.

Annie could hardly believe her eyes, but there, scrawled in blue ink and followed by directions from the motorway and a crude map of Helmthorpe, were a name and address:

Alan Banks

Newhope Cottage

Beckside Lane

Gratly, near Helmthorpe

North Yorkshire

By the time his colleagues back in Eastvale were speculating as to what his name and address were doing in a murder victim’s back pocket, Banks was in London, making his way through the early-Saturday afternoon traffic, past the posh restaurants and Maserati showrooms, toward his brother Roy’s South Kensington house, just east of the Gloucester Road. It was years since he had driven in London, and the roads seemed more crowded than ever.

He had never seen where Roy lived before, he realized as he drove under the narrow brick arch and parked in the broad cobbled mews. He got out and looked at the whitewashed brick exterior of the house with its integral garage next to the front door and a mullioned bay window above. It didn’t look big, but that didn’t matter these days. A house like this, in this location, would probably fetch eight hundred k or more on today’s market, Banks reckoned, maybe even a million, and a hundred k of that you’d be paying for the privilege of having the word “mews” in your address.

All the houses stood cheek by jowl, but each was different in some detail – height, facade, style of windows, garage doors, wrought-iron balconies – and the overall effect was of quiet, almost rural, charm, a nook hidden away from the hurly-burly that was literally just around the corner. There were houses on all three sides of the cul-de-sac, and the red brick archway, only wide enough for one car, led to the main road, helping to isolate the mews from the world outside. Beyond the houses at the far end, a tower block and a row of distant cranes, angled like alien birds of prey, marred the view of a clear sky.

There were hardly any other cars parked in the mews, as most of the houses had private garages. The few cars that were on display were BMWs, Jaguars and Mercedes, and Banks’s shabby little Renault looked like a poor relation. Not for the first time the thought crossed his mind that he needed a new car. It was a hot morning for June, hotter here than up north, and he took off his jacket and slung it over his shoulder.

First he checked the number against his address book. It was the right house. Next he pressed the doorbell and waited. Nobody came. Perhaps, Banks thought, the bell didn’t work, or couldn’t be heard upstairs, but he remembered hearing it buzz on Roy’s phone message. He knocked on the door. Still no answer. He knocked again.

Occasionally, a car would pass by the archway, on Old Brompton Road, but otherwise the area was quiet. After knocking one last time, Banks tried the door. To his surprise, it opened. Banks could hardly believe it. From what he remembered, Roy had always been security-conscious, fiercely protective of his possessions, had probably been born that way. One of the first things he had done, as soon as he was old enough, was save up his pocket money to buy a padlock for his toy box, and woebe-tide anyone caught touching his bike or his scooter.

Banks examined the lock and saw that it was the dead-bolt kind, which you had to use a key both to open and to close. Behind the door were a copy of that morning’s Times and a few letters, bills or junk. There was the keypad of a burglar-alarm system just inside the hall, but it hadn’t been activated.

To the left was a small sitting room, rather like a doctor’s waiting room, with a beige three-piece suite and a low glass-topped coffee table, on which lay a neat pile of magazines. Banks flipped through them. Mostly business and hi-tech. Between the sitting room and the kitchen, at the back of the house, ran a narrow passage, with a door on the right, near the front, leading to the garage. Banks peeked in and saw that Roy’s Porsche 911 was parked there. The car was locked, the bonnet cold.

Back in the house, Banks took the door that led to a narrow flight of stairs. He stood at the bottom and called Roy’s name. No reply. The house was silent except for the myriad daily sounds we usually tune out: distant traffic, the hum of a refrigerator, the ticking of a clock, a tap dripping somewhere, old wood creaking. Banks shuddered. Someone had just walked over his grave, his mother would say. He couldn’t put his finger on what it was, but he felt a distinct tingling up his spine. Fear. There was no one in the house; he was reasonably sure of that. But perhaps someone was watching the place? Banks had learned to trust his instincts over the years, even if he hadn’t always acted on them, and he sensed that he would have to move carefully.