Peter Robinson: Innocent Graves

Rebecca didn’t know what to say. Her breath caught in her throat. It was the first time since she had known him that Daniel had shown even the slightest sign of violence.

His face was red, and his frown knitted his thick dark eyebrows together at the bridge of his nose. “You have your doubts don’t you?” he insisted. “Go on. Admit it. I’m waiting.”

Rebecca bent down, picked up the glass and poured herself another shot with shaking hands. This time Daniel did nothing.

“Answer me,” he said. “Tell me the truth.”

Rebecca let the silence stretch, then she took a long sip of brandy and said, in a parody of a prostitute’s tone, “Well, you know what they say, don’t you, ducky? There’s no smoke without fire.”

Banks left his car parked on North Market Street, outside St. Mary’s, and set off on foot to Hawthorn Close. The fog appeared less menacing on the main road than it had in the unlit graveyard, though the high amber street-lights and the flashing Belisha beacons at the zebra crossing looked like the Martian machines out of War of the Worlds.

Why had Rebecca Charters lied for her husband? She had lied, of that Banks was certain, even without the evidence of the tidy desk. Was she giving him an alibi? Perhaps tomorrow he would call on them again. She was certainly an odd one. Going to see the angel, indeed!

Banks looked at his watch. Luckily, it was just after nine o’clock, and he still had time to nip into the off-license at the corner of Hawthorn Road and buy twenty Silk Cut.

After he had walked about two hundred yards down Hawthorn Road, he took Hawthorn Close to the right, a winding street of big, stone houses that traditionally housed Eastvale’s gentry.

He found number 28, stubbed out his cigarette and walked up the gravel drive, noting the “O” registration Jaguar parked outside the front door. On impulse, he put his hand on the bonnet. Still a little warm.

Barry Stott answered the door, looking grim. Banks thanked him for doing the dirty work and told him he could return to the station and get things organized; then he walked down the hall alone into a spacious white room, complete with a white grand piano. The only contrasting elements were the Turkish carpets and what looked like a genuine Chagall on the wall over the Adam fireplace, where a thick log burned and crackled. A white bookcase held Folio Society editions of the classics, and French windows with white trim led out to the dark garden.

There were three people in the room, all sitting down, and all, by the looks of it, in a state of shock. The woman wore a gray skirt and a blue silk blouse, both of a quality you’d be hard-pushed to find in Eastvale. Her shaggy blonde hair was the expensive kind of shaggy, and it framed an oval face with a pale, flawless complexion, pale blue eyes and beautifully proportioned nose and mouth. All in all, an elegant and attractive woman.

She got up and floated towards him as if in a trance. “Has there been a mistake?” she asked. “Please tell me there’s been a mistake.” She had a hint of a French accent.

Before Banks could say anything, one of the men took her by the elbow and said, “Come on, Sylvie. Sit down.” Then he turned to Banks. “I’m Geoffrey Harrison,” he said. “Deborah’s father. I suppose it’s too much to hope there has been a mistake?”

Banks shook his head.

Geoffrey was about six foot two, with the long arms and broad shoulders of a fast bowler. In fact he looked a bit like a famous test cricketer, but Banks couldn’t put a name to him. He was wearing gray trousers with sharp creases and a knitted green V-neck sweater over a white shirt. No tie. He had curly fair hair, with some gray visible around the ears, and a strong, cleft chin, a bit like Kirk Douglas. Everything about his movements and features spoke of power, of someone used to getting his own way. Banks put his age at about forty-five, probably a good ten years older than his wife.

All of a sudden, the realization hit Banks like a bucket of cold water. Christ, he should have known. Should have been able to add it all up. This damn cold must be addling his brain. The man in front of him was Sir Geoffrey Harrison. Sir. He had been knighted for services to industry-something to do with leading-edge computers, electronics, microchips and the like-about three years ago. And Deborah Harrison was his daughter.

“Do you have a recent photograph of your daughter, sir?” he asked.

“Over there on the mantelpiece. It was taken last summer.”

Banks walked over and looked at the photograph of the young girl posing on the deck of a yacht. It was probably her first year in a bikini, Banks guessed, and while she hardly had the figure to fill it out, it still looked good on her. But then anything would probably have looked good on such youth, such energy, such potential.

Deborah was smiling and holding the mast with one hand; with the other she held back a long strand of blonde hair from her face, as if the wind were blowing it out of place. Even though the girl in the picture glowed with health and life, it was the same one who now lay in Eastvale mortuary.

“I’m afraid it’s not a mistake,” he said, glancing at the photograph beside it. It showed two smiling young men in cricket whites, one of them unmistakably Sir Geoffrey, standing together in a quadrangle. The other man, who had his arm casually draped over Sir Geoffrey’s shoulder, could easily have been the other person in the room about twenty-five years ago. Even now, he was still slim and good-looking, though the sandy hair above his high forehead was receding fast and thinning on top. He was wearing what looked like very expensive casual clothes-black cords and a rust-colored cotton shirt-and a pair of gold-rimmed spectacles hung around his neck on a chain. “Michael Clayton,” he said, getting up and shaking Bank’s hand.

“Michael’s my business partner,” said Sir Geoffrey. “And my oldest friend. He’s also Deborah’s godfather.”

“I live just around the corner,” said Clayton. “As soon as Geoff heard the news…well, they phoned me and I came over. Have there been any developments?”

“It’s too early to say,” said Banks. Then he turned to Sir Geoffrey and Lady Harrison. “Did you know if Deborah was planning on going anywhere after school?”

Sir Geoffrey took a second to refocus, then said, “Only the chess club.”

“Chess club?”

“Yes. At school. They meet every Monday.”

“What time is she usually home?”

Sir Geoffrey looked at his wife. “It’s usually over by six,” Lady Harrison said. “She gets home about quarter past. Sometimes twenty past, if she dawdles with her friends.”

Banks frowned. “It must have been after eight o’clock when Detective Inspector Stott came to break the bad news,” he said. “But you hadn’t reported Deborah missing. Weren’t you worried? Where did you think she was?”

Lady Harrison started to cry. Sir Geoffrey gripped her hand. “We’d only just got in ourselves,” he explained. “I was at a business reception at the Royal Hotel, in York, and the damn fog delayed me. Sylvie was at her health club. Deborah has a key. She is sixteen, after all.”

“What time did you get back?”

“About eight o’clock. Within minutes of each other. We thought Deborah might have been home and gone out again, but that wasn’t like her, not without letting us know, and certainly not on a night like this. There was no note, no sign she’d been here. Deborah’s not…well, she usually leaves her school blazer over the back of a chair, if you see what I mean.”

“I do.” Banks’s daughter Tracy was just as untidy.

“Anyway, we were worried she might have been kidnapped or something. We were just about to phone the police when Inspector Stott arrived.”