Peter Robinson: Cold Is The Grave

“You might try looking at it in a slightly different light. It’s not that there’s nothing in it for you.”

“Oh?”

“Look at it this way. If you succeed, you’ll have earned my gratitude. Whatever you think of me, I’m a man of honor, a man of my word, and I promise you that whatever happens, your career in Eastvale can only benefit if you do as I ask.”

“And the other reason?”

Riddle sighed. “I’m afraid that if she found out it was me looking for her, then she’d give me the slip. She blames me for all her problems. She made that clear in the months before she left. I want you to go about this discreetly, Banks. Try to get to her before she knows anyone’s looking. I’m not asking you to kidnap her or anything like that. Just find her, talk to her, make sure she’s all right, tell her we’d be happy to see her again and talk things over.”

“And persuade her to stop posing on Internet sex sites?”

Riddle paled. “If you can.”

“Have you any idea where she went? Has she been in touch?”

“We had a postcard a couple of weeks after she’d left,” Rosalind answered. “She said she was doing fine and that we weren’t to worry about her. Or bother looking for her.”

“Where was it postmarked?”

“London.”

“That’s all?”

“Apart from a card for Benjamin on his birthday, yes.”

“Did she say anything else on the postcard?”

“Just that she had a job,” Rosalind went on. “So we wouldn’t have to worry about her living on the streets or anything like that. Not that Emily would live on the streets. She was always a very high-maintenance girl.”

“Ros!”

“Well, it’s true. And you-”

“Was there any specific reason she left?” Banks cut in. “Anything that sparked her leaving? A row or something?”

“Nothing specific,” Riddle said. “It was cumulative. She just didn’t come home from school.”

“School?”

Rosalind answered. “A couple of years ago we sent her to a very expensive and highly reputable all-girls’ boarding school outside Warwick. At the end of last term, the beginning of summer, instead of returning home, she ran off to London.”

“By herself?”

“As far as we know.”

“Did she usually come home for the holidays?”

“Yes.”

“What stopped her this time? Were you having any problems with her?”

Riddle picked up the thread again. “When she was last home, for the spring holidays, there were the usual arguments over staying out late, drinking in pubs, hanging around with the wrong crowd, that sort of thing. But nothing out of the ordinary. She’s a very bright girl. She was doing well at school, academically, but it bored her. It all seemed too easy. Especially languages. She has a way with words. Of course, we wanted her to stay on and do her A-Levels, go to university, but she didn’t want to. She wanted to get out on her own. We gave her everything, Banks. She had her own horse, piano lessons, trips to America with the school, skiing holidays in Austria, a good education. We were very proud of Emily. We gave her everything she ever wanted.”

Except perhaps what she needed most, thought Banks: You . To reach the dizzying heights of chief constable, especially by the age of forty-five, as Riddle had done, you needed to be driven, ruthless and ambitious. You also needed to be able to move around a lot, which can have a devastating effect on young children who sometimes find it hard to make friends. Add to that the hours spent on the job and on special courses, and Riddle had probably hardly set foot in the family home from one day to the next.

Banks was hardly one to take the moral high ground in raising children, he had to admit to himself. Even to reach the rank of DCI, he had been an absent father far more often than was good for Brian and Tracy. As it happened, both of them had turned out fine, on the whole, but he knew that was more a matter of good luck than good parenting on his part. Much of the task had fallen to Sandra, and she hadn’t always burdened him with the children’s problems. Perhaps Banks hadn’t sacrificed his family to ambition the way he suspected Riddle had, but he had certainly sacrificed a lot for the sake of being a good detective .

“Are there any friends from around here she might have confided in?” he asked. “Anyone who might have stayed in touch with her?”

Rosalind shook her head. “I don’t think so,” she said. “Emily is very… self-sufficient. She had plenty of friends, but none that close, I don’t think. It came of moving around a lot. When she moves on, she burns her bridges. And she hadn’t actually spent much time in this area.”

“You mentioned the ‘wrong crowd.’ Was there a boyfriend?”

“Nobody serious.”

“His name could still be a help.”

Rosalind glanced at her husband, who said, “Banks, I’ve told you I don’t want this to be official. If you start looking up Emily’s old boyfriends and asking questions around these parts, how long do you think the affair’s going to remain under wraps? I told you, she’s run off to London. That ’s where you’ll find her.”

Banks sighed. It looked as if this was going to be an investigation carried out with his hands tied. “Does she know anyone in London, then?” he asked. “Anyone she might go to for help?”

Riddle shook his head. “It’s been years since I was on the Met. She was only a little girl when we left.”

“I know this might be difficult for you,” Banks said, “but do you think I might have a look at this Web site?”

“Ros?”

Rosalind Riddle scowled at her husband and said, “Follow me.”

Banks followed her under a beam so low that he had to duck into a book-lined study. A tangerine iMac sat on a desk by the window. Wind rattled the glass beyond the heavy curtains, and every once in a while it sounded as if someone sloshed a bucket of water over the windows. Rosalind sat down and flexed her fingers, but before she hit any keys or clicked the mouse, she turned in her chair and looked up at Banks. He couldn’t read the expression on her face.

“You don’t approve of us, do you?” she said.

“ Us ?”

“Our kind. People who have… oh, wealth, success, ambition.”

“I can’t say I pay you much mind, really.”

“Ah, but you do. That’s just where you’re wrong.” Her eyes narrowed. “You’re envious. You’ve got a chip on your shoulder the size of that sideboard over there. You think you’re better than us – purer, somehow – don’t you?”

“Mrs. Riddle,” said Banks, with a sigh, “I don’t need this kind of crap. I’ve driven all the way out here on a miserable night when I’d far rather be at home listening to music and reading a good book. So if we’re going to do this, let’s just get on with it, shall we, or shall I just go home and go to bed?”

She studied him coolly. “Hit a nerve, did I?”

“Mrs. Riddle, what do you want from me?”

“He’s thinking of going into politics, you know.”

“So I’ve heard.”

“Any hint of a family scandal would ruin everything we’ve worked so hard for all these years.”

“I imagine it probably would. It’s best to get into office first, then have the scandal.”

“That’s cynical.”

“But true. Read the papers.”

“He says you have a tendency to make waves.”

“I like to get at the truth of things. Sometimes that means rocking a few boats. The more expensive the boat, the more noise it seems to make when it rocks.”

Rosalind smiled. “I wish we could all afford to be so high-minded. This job will require the utmost discretion.”