Peter Robinson: Cold Is The Grave

“I’ll bear that in mind. If I decide to take it on.” Banks held her stare until she blinked and swiveled her chair back to face the screen.

“I just thought we’d get that clear before you get to look at nude pictures of my daughter,” she said without looking at him.

He watched over her shoulder as she started to work at the keyboard and mouse. Finally, a black screen with a series of thumbnail photographs appeared. Rosalind clicked on one of them and another screen, with about five more thumbnail images, began to load. At the top of the screen, the script announced that the model’s name was Louisa Gamine, and that she was an eighteen-year-old biology student. Looking at the pictures, Banks could believe it.

“Why Louisa Gamine?” he asked.

“I’ve no idea. Louisa’s her middle name. Louise, actually. Emily Louise Riddle. I suppose she thinks Louisa sounds more exotic. Maybe when she left she decided she needed a new identity?”

Banks understood that. When he was younger he had always regretted that his parents hadn’t given him a middle name. So much so that he made one up for himself: Davy, after Davy Crockett, one of his heroes at the time. That lasted a couple of months, then he finally accepted his own name: Alan.

Rosalind clicked on one of the images, and it began to fill the screen, loading from top to bottom. Banks was looking at an amateur photograph, taken in a bedroom with poor lighting, which showed a pretty young girl sitting naked and cross-legged on a pale blue duvet. The smile on her face looked a little forced, and her eyes didn’t seem quite focused.

The resemblance between Louisa and her mother was astonishing. They both had the same long-legged grace, the same pale, almost translucent, complexion, the same generous mouth. The only real difference, apart from their ages, was that Louisa’s blond hair hung over her shoulders. Otherwise, Banks felt he could easily have been looking at a photograph of Rosalind taken maybe twenty-five years ago, and that embarrassed him. He noticed a discoloration the shape of a teardrop on the inside of Louisa’s left thigh: the birthmark. She also had a small ring of some sort in her navel, and below it, what looked like a black tattoo of a spider. Banks thought of Annie Cabbot’s rose tattoo above her left breast, how long ago it was since he had last seen it, and how he would probably never see it again, especially if he managed to reconcile with Sandra.

The other photos were much the same, all taken in the same location, with the same poor lighting. Only the poses were different. Her new surname was certainly apt, Banks thought, as there was definitely something of the gamine about her, a young girl with mischievous charm. There was something else that nagged him about the surname she had chosen, too, but he couldn’t think what it was at the moment. If he put it to the back of his mind, it would probably come eventually. Those things usually did.

Banks examined the pictures more closely, aware of Rosalind’s subtle perfume as he leaned over her shoulder. He could make out a few details of the room – the corner of a pop-star poster, a row of books – but they were all too blurred to be of any use.

“Seen enough?” asked Rosalind, tilting her head toward him and hinting that perhaps he was lingering too long, enjoying himself too much.

“She looks as if she knows what she’s doing,” said Banks.

Rosalind paused, then said, “Emily’s been sexually active since she was fourteen. At least, as far as we know. She was thirteen when she started becoming… wayward, so it might have been earlier. That’s partly why we sent her away to school in the first place.”

“That’s not unusual,” said Banks, thinking with alarm of Tracy. He was sure she hadn’t been active quite that young, but it was hardly something he could ask her about. He didn’t even know whether she was active now, come to think of it, and he didn’t think he wanted to know. Tracy was nineteen, so she had a few years on Emily, but she was still Banks’s little girl. “Do you think the school helped?” he asked.

“Obviously not. She didn’t come back, did she?”

“Have you spoken with the principal, or with any of her classmates?”

“No. Jerry’s too worried about indiscretion.”

“Of course. Print that one.” Banks pointed to a photograph where Louisa sat on the edge of the bed staring expressionlessly into the camera, wearing a red T-shirt and nothing else. “Head and shoulders will do. We can trim off the bottom part.”

Rosalind looked over her shoulder at him, and he thought he could sense a little gratitude in her expression. At least she didn’t seem so openly hostile as she had been earlier. “You’ll do it?” she asked. “You’ll try to find Emily?”

“I’ll try.”

“You don’t need to make her come home. She won’t want to come. I can guarantee you that.”

“You don’t sound as if you want her to.”

Rosalind frowned, then said, “Perhaps you’re right. I did suggest to Jerry that we simply let her go her own way. She’s old enough, and certainly she’s smart enough to take care of herself. And she’s a troublemaker. I know she’s my daughter, and I don’t mean to sound uncaring, but… Well, you can see for yourself what’s happened after only six months, can’t you? That tattoo, those pictures… She never considers anyone else’s feelings. I can just imagine what chaos life would be like here if we had all her problems to deal with as well.”

“As well?”

“Nothing. It doesn’t matter.”

“Is there anything else you think I should know?”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“Anything you’re not telling me.”

“No. Why should there be?”

But there was, Banks sensed by the way Rosalind glanced away from him as she spoke. There may have been family problems that neither she nor her husband wanted to discuss. And maybe they were right not to. Perhaps he should hold his curiosity in check for once and not rip open cans of worms the way he usually did. Just find the girl, he told himself, make sure she isn’t in any danger, and leave the rest well alone. Lord knows, the last thing he wanted to do was get caught up in the Riddle family dysfunctions.

He scribbled down as much information as he could get from the Web site, which was run by an organization called GlamourPuss Ltd., based in Soho. It shouldn’t be too difficult to track them down, he thought, and they should be able to point him toward Emily, or Louisa, as she now preferred to be called. He just hoped she wasn’t on the game, as so many teenagers who appeared on porno Web sites were. She didn’t sound like the type who would turn to prostitution for gain, but it sounded as if she might try anything for kicks. He would have to cross that bridge when, and if, he got to it.

Rosalind printed the photo, took some scissors from the desk drawer and trimmed it from the navel ring down before she handed it to him. Banks followed her back into the living room, where Riddle sat staring into space. “All done?” he said.

Banks nodded. He didn’t bother sitting. “Tell me something,” he said. “Why me? You know damn well how things stand between us.”

Riddle seemed to flinch slightly, and Banks was surprised at the venom in his own voice. Then Riddle paused and looked him in the eye. “Two reasons,” he said. “First, because you’re the best detective in the county. I’m not saying I approve of your methods or your attitude, but you get results. And in an unorthodox business like this, well, let’s just say that some of your maverick qualities might actually be of real value for a change.”

Even being damned with faint praise by Jimmy Riddle was a new experience for Banks. “And second?” he asked.