Peter Robinson - Cold Is The Grave

“She’s a bit young for me,” Banks said.

Ruth gave a harsh laugh. “At your age I should think it’s often a matter of the younger the better. Why do you think they have prostitutes as young as thirteen, fourteen? ’Cos the girls like it?”

Banks felt the sting of her remark, but he couldn’t think of an appropriate response. “We’re getting off track here.”

“Not if you want me to give you Louisa’s address, we’re not. I’ve got to satisfy myself you’re not a pervert, not some creep, haven’t I? And don’t come the age bit. She could coax a ninety-year-old bishop out of his cassock, could Louisa.”

“All I can do is repeat what I’ve already told you. There was nothing like that. I’ve got a daughter her age, myself.”

“You do?”

“Yes.”

“What’s her name?”

Surprised, Banks answered, “Tracy.”

Ruth evaluated him some more. “You don’t look old enough.”

“Want to see my birth certificate?”

“No, that’s not necessary. Besides, I don’t suppose you actually carry it around with you, do you?”

“It was a… never mind,” said Banks, feeling he had had just about as much of Ruth Walker and her sharp edges as he could take. No wonder Emily had run off with Craig Newton at the first opportunity.

Ruth got up and walked to the window. “Would you believe that sad pillock over there?” she said a few moments later, almost muttering to herself. “He works security, on the night shift. Hasn’t a clue the bloke from number fifty-three is shagging the arse off his wife every night. Dirty bastard. Maybe I should tell him?”

Before Banks could make any comment, Ruth turned sharply, arms folded, a smug smile on her face. “All right,” she said. “I’ll tell you where they live. But you’re wasting your time. She’s had it with the lot of you. She won’t listen to a word you’ve got to say.”

“It’s worth a try. At least I’ll find out whether she’s all right, what she’s up to.”

Ruth gave him a pitying look. “Maybe you will,” she said. “And maybe you won’t.”

Shortly after six o’clock that evening, Banks got off the tube at Warwick Avenue and walked toward the address Ruth had given him. Had it been a lovely summer evening, he might have walked down the steps to the canal and admired the brightly colored houseboats, but it had turned dark by late afternoon, as usual, and it was a chilly evening, with the smell of rain in the wind.

The address turned out to be a villa-style building, square and detached within a high enclosing wall. In the wall stood an iron gate. A locked gate.

Banks could have kicked himself for not expecting something like this. If Louisa’s boyfriend was the type to go around with minders, he was also the type to live in a bloody fortress. Getting to see Emily Riddle wouldn’t be quite so easy as knocking on the door or ringing the bell.

At the front, two of the downstairs windows and one upstairs were lit behind dark curtains, and a light shone over the front door. Banks tried to think of the best approach. He could simply call through on the intercom and announce himself, see if that gained him admission. Alternatively, he could climb the gate and go knock on the door. Then what? Rescue the damsel in distress? Climb to the upstairs window on her hair? Flee with her over his shoulder? As far as he knew, though, Emily Riddle wasn’t in distress, nor was she held captive in a tower. In fact, she might well be having the time of her life.

He stood in front of the gate and stared through the bars, cheeks so close he could feel the cold from the iron. There was nothing else for it, really; he would have to use the intercom and just hope he could gain admittance. He obviously couldn’t pass himself off as Emily’s father this time, but if he said he came with an important message from her family, that ought to get him inside. It might just work.

Before he could press the buzzer, he felt a strong hand grasp the back of his neck and push his face toward the bars, so the cold iron chafed against his cheeks. “What the fuck are you doing here?” the voice asked him.

Banks’s first impulse was to kick back hard at the man’s shins with his heel, or tread down sharply on his instep, then slip free, swivel around and lash out. But he had to hold himself in check, remember why he was here, who he was supposed to be. If he beat up his assailant, where would that get him? Nowhere, most likely. On the other hand, maybe this was his best way in.

“I’m looking for Louisa,” he said.

The grip loosened. Banks turned and found himself facing a man in a tight-fitting suit who looked as if he might have been one of Mike Tyson’s sparring partners. Probably just as well he hadn’t tried to fight back, he thought.

“Louisa? What do you want with Louisa?” the man said.

“I want to talk to her, that’s all,” he said. “Her father sent me.”

“Fuck a duck,” said the minder.

“I was going to ring the bell,” Banks went on. “I was just looking to see if there were any lights on, if there was anyone home.”

“You were?”

“Yes.”

“I think you’d better come with me, mate,” the minder said, which was exactly what Banks had hoped for. “We’ll see what Mr. Clough has to say about that.”

The minder slipped a credit-card style key into the mechanism at the side of the intercom, punched in a seven-digit number which Banks was amazed he had the brains to remember, and the gate slid open on oiled hinges. The minder was holding Banks by the arm now, but only hard enough to break a few small bones, as he led him down the short path to the front door, which he opened with a simple Yale key. Sometimes security, like beauty, is only skin-deep.

They stood in a bright corridor, which ran all the way through to a gleaming modern kitchen at the back of the house. Several doors led off the corridor, all closed, and immediately to their right, a thickly carpeted staircase led to the upper levels. It was a hell of a lot fancier than Ruth’s flat, Banks thought, and grander than anything Craig Newton could afford, too. Always landed on her feet . The Riddles said they had given Emily all the advantages that money could afford – the horse, piano lessons, holidays, expensive schooling – and they had certainly raised a high-maintenance daughter by the looks of this place.

Muffled music came from one of the rooms. A pop song Banks didn’t recognize. As soon as the front door shut behind them, the minder called out, “Boss?”

One of the doors opened and a tall man walked out. He wasn’t fat, or even overly muscular like the minder, but he certainly looked as if he lifted a few weights at the gym once or twice a week. As Craig Newton had pointed out, his face was all angles, as if it had been carved from stone, and he was handsome, if you liked that sort of thing, rather like a younger Nick Nolte.

He was wearing a cream Armani suit over a red T-shirt, had a deep suntan and a gray ponytail about six inches long hanging over his back collar. Around his neck he wore a thick gold chain, which matched the one on his wrist and the chunky signet ring over the hairy knuckle on his right hand. Banks pegged him at early to mid-forties, which wasn’t much younger than Jimmy Riddle. Or Banks himself, for that matter.

The hard glint in his eyes and the cocky confidence with which he moved showed that he was someone to watch out for. Banks had seen that look before in the eyes of hardened criminals, people to whom the world and its contents are there for the taking, and for whom any impediments are simply to be brushed aside as easily as dandruff off the collar.

“What’s this?” he asked, eyes on Banks.

“Found him lurking by the gate, boss. Just standing there. Says he wants to see Louisa.”