Peter Robinson - Cold Is The Grave

“Be careful, Alan.” Gristhorpe leaned forward and rested his arms on the table. “You know as well as I do that you wouldn’t be anywhere near this case if it weren’t for Jimmy Riddle. But if you screw up just once because it’s too personal for you, I’ll be down on you like the proverbial ton of bricks. Which is probably nothing to what ACC McLaughlin will do. Got it?”

“Got it,” said Banks. “Don’t worry. I’ll play it by the book.”

Gristhorpe leaned back and smiled at him. “Nay, Alan,” he said. “You wouldn’t want to do that. What’d be the point of having you on the case, then? All I’m saying is don’t let anger and a desire for revenge cloud you judgment. Look clearly at the evidence, the facts, before you make any moves. Don’t go off half-cocked the way you’ve done in the past.”

“I’ll try not to,” said Banks.

“You do that.”

Someone knocked at the door and Gristhorpe called out for him to come in. It was one of the uniformed officers from downstairs. “A DI Wayne Dalton, Northumbria CID, to see DCI Banks, sir.”

Banks raised his eyebrows and looked at Gristhorpe. “Okay,” he said, glancing at his watch. “Give him a cup of coffee and sit him in my office. I can spare him a few minutes.”

Banks wasn’t the only one who had spent a restless night; Annie Cabbot had also lain awake during the hour or two she had spent in bed shortly before dawn, her nerve ends jumping at every little sound. She had tried to tell herself not to be so weak. After all, she had prevented Dalton and his crony from raping her two years ago, so why should she be worried about him now? Her martial arts training might be a bit rusty, but she could defend herself well enough if it came to that.

The problem was that reason has no foothold at four or five in the morning; at those hours, reason sleeps and the mind breeds monsters: monsters of fear, of paranoia. And so she had tossed and turned, her mind’s eye flashing on images of Dalton’s sweat-glossed face and hate-filled eyes, and of Emily Riddle dead, her skinny frame wedged in a toilet cubicle at the Bar None nightclub, her eyes wide open in terror and facial muscles contorted into a grimace.

Now, however, as she came out of the meeting and headed for her office in what little light of day there was, she realized that she wasn’t physically afraid of Dalton. She had always known he was the type who could only act violently as part of a gang. His appearance had shaken her, that was all, stirred up memories of that night she would rather forget. The only problem was that she didn’t know quite what to do, if anything, about him.

She thought of telling Banks but dismissed the idea quickly. If truth be told, she was pissed off at him. Why hadn’t he told her about his relationship with the victim last night? There had been plenty of time. It would have made her feel more like a DIO and less like a bloody idiot this morning when the ACC brought the matter up.

In a way, she regretted now that she had even told Banks about the rape in the first place, but such intimacy as they had had breeds foolish confessions; she had certainly never told anyone else, not even her father. And now that she was actually working with Banks, even though she still fancied him, she was going to try to keep things on a professional footing. Her career was moving in the right direction again, and she didn’t want to mess things up. ACC McLaughlin had given her a great chance for kudos in making her DIO. The last thing she wanted to do was go crying to the boss. No, Dalton was her problem, and she would deal with him one way or another.

Banks found DI Dalton standing in his office facing the wall, Styrofoam cup of coffee in his hand, looking at the Dalesman calendar. December showed a snow- and ice-covered Goredale Scar, near Malham. Dalton turned as Banks entered. He was about six feet tall and skinny as a rake, with pale, watery blue eyes and a long, thin face with a rather hangdog expression under his head of sparse ginger hair. Banks put his age at around forty. He was wearing a lightweight brown suit, white shirt and tie. A little blood from a shaving cut had dried near the cleft of his chin.

He stuck his hand out. “DI Wayne Dalton. I seem to have come in the middle of a flap.”

“Haven’t you heard?”

“Heard what?”

“The chief constable’s daughter was killed last night.”

Dalton rolled his eyes and whistled. “I’d hate to be the bastard who did that, when you catch him.”

“We will. Sit down. What brings you this far south?”

“It’s probably a waste of time,” said Dalton, sitting opposite Banks, “but it looks like one of our cases stretches down to your turf.”

“Wouldn’t be the first time. We’ve quickly become a very small island indeed.”

“You can say that again. Anyway, late Sunday night – actually, early Monday morning – about twelve-thirty, to be as precise as we can be at this point – a white van was hijacked on the B6348 between the A1 and the village of Chatton. The contents were stolen and the driver’s still in a coma.”

“What’s his name?”

“Jonathan Fearn.”

Banks tapped his pencil on his desk. “Never heard of him.”

“No reason you should have. He lived here, though.” Dalton consulted his notebook. “Twenty-six Darlington Road.”

“I know it,” said Banks, making a note. “We’ll look into him. Any form?”

“No. What’s interesting, though, is that it turns out this white van was leased by a company called PKF Computer Systems, and-”

“Hang on a minute. Did you say PKF?”

“That’s right. Starting to make sense?”

“Not much, but go on.”

“Anyway, we ran a check on PKF and, to cut a long story, it doesn’t exist.”

“What do you mean?”

“Exactly what I say. PKF Computer Systems is not registered as an operating business.”

“That means someone made up the name…”

“…printed some letterhead paper, got a phone line installed, opened a bank account… exactly. A dummy company.”

“Any idea who?”

“That’s where I was hoping you might be able to help. We traced PKF to the Daleview Business Park, just outside Eastvale, and we confirmed that the van must have been on its way to a new trading estate near Wooler. At least PKF had rented premises there starting that Monday morning.”

“Let me get this straight,” said Banks. “PKF, which doesn’t exist, moves lock, stock and barrel from the Daleview Business Park, where they haven’t been operating more than two or three months, on Sunday night and heads up the A1 toward another business park near Tyneside, where they’ve also rented premises. A few miles short of their destination, the van’s hijacked and its contents removed. Right?”

“So far.”

“On Tuesday,” Banks continued, “the night watchman of the Daleview Business Park was found dead in some woods near Market Harborough, Leicestershire. Shotgun wound.”

“Execution?”

“Looks that way. We think he was killed Monday afternoon.”

“Connection?”

“I’d say so, wouldn’t you? Especially when it turns out our night watchman had been putting away another two hundred quid a week over and above his wages.”

“And PKF is a phony.”

“Exactly.”

“Any idea what that van might have been carrying?” Dalton asked.

“The only thing my DS found when she checked out the PKF unit at Daleview was an empty jewel case for a compact disc.”

“Compact discs? First time I’ve ever heard of a CD hijack.”

“We don’t know that that’s the reason. All I’m saying is that we found a jewel case at PKF, which fits with their working in the computer business. Maybe it was computer equipment the thieves were after?”