Peter Robinson - Cold Is The Grave

In Banks’s half-asleep, alcohol-sodden consciousness, the only thought that came clear out of all that was that Tracy was there and she was in trouble. Perhaps she had been talking to Sandra and was upset about the impending divorce. “Send her up,” he said, then he got out of bed, turned on the table lamp and pulled on his clothes. His head ached and his mouth was dry. Figuring it would take Tracy a minute or so to get up to his third-floor room, he nipped into the bathroom and swallowed a few Paracetamols from his traveling medicine kit, along with a couple of glasses of water. When he had done that, he filled and plugged in the little kettle and put a teabag in the pot.

By the time the soft knock came at his door, Banks was beginning to realize there was something wrong with the picture he had envisaged. Tracy knew where he would be, of course; he had given her the name of the hotel before she left for Paris with Damon. But it was still only Saturday night, or Sunday morning, so shouldn’t they both still be in Paris?

When he opened the door, Emily Riddle stood there. “Can I come in?” she said.

Banks stepped aside and locked the door behind her. Emily was wearing a black evening gown, loose-fitting, cut low over her small breasts and slit up one side to her thigh. Her bare arms were covered with goose pimples. Her blond hair was messily piled on her head, the remains of the sophisticated style disarrayed by the wind and rain. She looked like a naughty debutante. A twenty-five-year-old naughty debutante at that. But more remarkable than all that were the tear down the right shoulder of her dress and the question mark of dried blood at the corner of her mouth. There was also a weal on her cheek that looked as if it might turn into a bruise. Her eyes looked heavy, half-closed.

“I’m so tired,” she said, then she tossed her handbag on the bed and flopped into the armchair.

The kettle came to a boil and Banks made some tea. Emily took the hot cup from him and held it to herself as if she needed the heat. Her eyes opened a little more.

Suddenly, it seemed like a very small room. Banks perched on the edge of the bed. “What is it?” he asked. “What happened, Emily? Who did this to you?”

Emily started crying.

Banks found her a tissue from the bathroom, and she wiped her eyes with it. They were bloodshot and pink around the rims. “I must look a sight,” she said. “Have you got a cigarette, please?”

Banks gave her one and took one himself. After she had taken a few drags and sipped some tea, she seemed to compose herself a bit more.

“What happened?” Banks asked again. “Did Clough do this?”

“I want to go home. Will you take me home? Please?”

“In the morning. Tell me what happened to you.”

Her eyes started to close and she leaned back in the chair with her legs stretched out and ankles crossed. Banks worried that she would slide right onto the floor, but she managed to stay put. She looked at Banks through narrowed eyes and blew some smoke out of her nose. It made her cough, which spoiled the sophisticated effect she had probably been aiming for.

“Tell me what happened,” he asked her again.

“I don’t want to talk about it. I ran… in the rain… found a taxi and came here.”

“But you threw the address away.”

“I can remember things like that. I only have to look once. Like my mother.” She finished her cigarette and seemed to doze off for a moment.

“Did Clough do this to you? Was it him?”

She pretended to sleep.

“Emily?”

“Uh-huh?” she said, without opening her eyes.

“Was it Clough?”

“I don’t want to go back there. I can’t go back there. Will you take me home?”

“Tomorrow. I’ll take you home tomorrow.”

“Can I stay here tonight?”

“Yes.” Banks stood up. “I can get a room for you. I don’t think they’re full.”

“No.” Her eyes opened wide and she jerked forward so quickly she spilled tea over the front of her dress. If it burned her, she didn’t seem to feel it. “No,” she said again. “I don’t want to be by myself. I’m scared. Let me stay here with you. Please?”

Christ Almighty, thought Banks. If anyone found out about this, his career wouldn’t be worth twopence. But what else could he do? She was upset and she was scared. Something bad had happened to her. He couldn’t simply abandon her.

“Okay,” he said. “Take the bed, and I’ll sleep in the chair. Come on.”

He leaned forward to help her up. She seemed listless. When she finally got out of the chair, she stumbled forward against his chest and put her arms around his neck. “Have you got anything to smoke?” she said. “I’m coming down. I need something to soften the edges. I think somebody put something in my drink.” He could feel her warm body touching his under the thin material of the dress, and he remembered the images he had seen of her naked. He felt ashamed of his erection and hoped she didn’t notice, but as he disentangled her arms and moved away, she gave him a cockeyed, mischievous smile and said, “I told you before you were a liar.”

She did something with the straps of her dress, and it slipped off her shoulders over her waist to the floor. She was wearing white bikini panties and nothing more. Her nipples stood out dark and hard on her small white breasts. The black spider tattoo between her navel ring and the elastic of her panties seemed to be moving, as if it were spinning a web.

“For crying out loud,” said Banks, picking up the bedspread and swathing it around her. She giggled and fell on the bed. “Of course you don’t have anything to smoke,” she said. “You’re a copper. Detective Chief Inspector Bonks. No, he doesn’t. Yes, he does. No, he doesn’t.” She giggled again, then turned on her side and put her thumb in her mouth, drawing up her legs in the fetal position. “Hold me,” she said, taking her thumb out for a moment. “Please come and hold me.”

Banks shook his head and whispered, “No.” There was no way he was getting in that bed with her, no matter how much she said she was in need of comfort. If he thought about it, he should probably throw her out and tear up the sheets, but he couldn’t do that. Instead, he managed to pull some more blankets over her, and she offered no resistance. For a while, she seemed to be muttering and murmuring as best she could with her thumb back in her mouth, then he heard her start snoring softly.

Banks knew there would be no more sleep for him tonight. In the morning, he would go to Oxford Street when the shops opened and buy her some clothes, then they would take the first train back to Eastvale. He would drive her to her father’s house and there he would leave her, leave them all to sort it out. His job would be over.

But as he sat in the chair and smoked another cigarette, listening to the wind and rain rattling the window, and to Emily’s ragged snoring, he couldn’t help but mull the situation over. It was all wrong. He was a copper; a serious offense had been committed; the law had been broken; he should be doing something, not sitting in the armchair smoking as his chief constable’s sixteen-year-old daughter slept in his bed practically starkers with her thumb in her mouth, to all intents and purposes nothing but a child in a woman’s body.

Three fifty-two. A long wait until dawn. He glanced through the curtains and saw a flash of white moon through the gray wisps of cloud. Emily stirred, turned over, farted once and started snoring again. Banks reached for his Walkman on the table beside him and put in the Dawn Upshaw tape. Songs about sleep.

Come, Sleep, and with

Thy sweet deceiving

Lock me in delight awhile .