Peter Robinson - Playing With Fire

Banks turned off the Leeds ring road onto Otley Road and stopped by the imposing gates of Lawnswood Crematorium to consult his map. A little farther along the main road, he turned right and drove into the affluent community of winding streets that was Adel.

He soon found the large detached corner house, which also doubled as the doctor’s surgery. This wasn’t going to be an easy job, Banks reflected as he got out of his car. Mark’s allegations against Patrick Aspern might be groundless, and Banks was there to tell the parents that their daughter was dead and ask them to identify the body, not to interrogate the stepfather over sexual abuse. That might come later, though, Banks knew, so he would have to be alert for anything out of the ordinary in Aspern’s reactions to his questions.

Banks took a deep breath and pushed the doorbell. The woman who answered looked younger than he expected. About Annie’s age, early thirties, with short layered blond hair, pale, flawless skin and a nervous, elfin look about her. “Mrs. Aspern?” he asked.

The woman nodded, looking puzzled, and put her hand to her cheek.

“It’s about your daughter, Tina. I’m a policeman. May I come in for a moment?”

“Christine?” Mrs. Aspern fingered the loose neck of her cable-knit sweater. “She doesn’t live here anymore. What is it?”

“If I might come in, please?”

She stood aside and Banks stepped onto the highly polished hardwood floor. “First on the right,” said Mrs. Aspern.

He followed her direction and found himself in a small sitting room with a dark blue three-piece suite and cream walls. A couple of framed paintings hung there, one over the decorative, but functional, stone fireplace, and the other on the opposite wall. Both were landscapes in simple black frames.

“Is your husband home?” Banks asked.

“Patrick? He’s taking afternoon surgery.”

“Can you fetch him for me, please?”

“Fetch him?” She looked alarmed. “But… the patients.”

“I want to talk to you both together. It’s important,” Banks said.

Shaking her head, Mrs. Aspern left the room. Banks took the opportunity to stand up and examine the two paintings more closely. Both were watercolors painted in misty morning light, by the looks of them. One showed the church of St. John the Baptist, just down the street, which Banks happened to have visited once with his ex-wife Sandra during his early days in Yorkshire. He knew it was the oldest Norman church in Leeds, built around the middle of the twelfth century. Sandra had taken some striking photographs. A plain building, it was most famous for the elaborate stone carvings on the porch and chancel arch, at which the painting merely hinted.

The other painting was a woodland scene, which Banks assumed to be Adel Woods, again with that wispy, fey early-morning light about it, making the glade look like the magical forest of A Midsummer Night’s Dream . The signature “Keith Peverell” was clear enough on both. No connection to “Tom” there, not that he had expected any.

Mrs. Aspern returned some minutes later, along with her clearly perturbed husband. “Look,” he said, before any introductions had been made. “I can’t just leave my patients in the lurch like this. Can’t you come back at five o’clock?”

“I’m afraid not,” said Banks, offering his warrant card.

Aspern scrutinized it, and a small, unpleasant smile tugged at the corners of his lips. He glanced at his wife. “Why didn’t you say, darling? A detective chief inspector, no less,” he said. “Well, it must be important if they sent the organ grinder. Please, sit down.”

Banks sat. Now that Aspern was pleased he’d been sent someone he thought commensurate with his social standing, though probably a chief constable would have been preferable, the patients were quickly forgotten. Things were likely to go a bit more easily. If Banks let them.

Aspern was a good fifteen years or so older than his wife, Banks guessed. Around fifty, with thinning sandy hair, he was handsome in a sharp-angled way, though Banks was put off by the cynical look in his eyes and the lips perpetually on the verge of that nasty little superior smile. He had the slim, athletic figure of a man who plays tennis and golf and goes to the gym regularly. Being a doctor, of course, he’d know all about the benefits of exercise, though Banks knew more than one or two doctors, the Home Office pathologist Dr. Glendenning among them, who smoked and drank and didn’t give a damn about fitness.

“I’m afraid it’s bad news,” he said, as Dr. and Mrs. Aspern faced him from the sofa. Mrs. Aspern was chewing on a fingernail already, looking as if she was expecting the worst. “It’s about your daughter, Tina.”

“We always called her Christine. Please.”

“Out with it, man,” Aspern prodded. “Has there been an accident?”

“Not quite,” Banks said. “Christine’s dead. I’m sorry, there’s no easier way to say it. And we’ll need one or both of you to come and identify the body.”

They sat in silence, not looking at each other, not even touching. Finally, Aspern found his voice. “Dead? How? What happened?”

“There was a fire. You knew she was living on a canal boat just outside Eastvale?”

“Yes. Another foolish idea of hers.” At last, Aspern looked at his wife. Tears were running from her eyes as if she’d been peeling an onion, but she made no sound. Her husband got up and fetched her a box of tissues. “Here you are, dear,” he said, putting them down on her knees. She didn’t even look at them, just kept staring ahead into whatever abyss she was seeing, the tears dripping off the edges of her jaw onto her skirt, making little stains where they landed on the pale green material.

“I appreciate your coming yourself to tell us,” said Aspern. “You can see my wife’s upset. It’s been quite a shock. Is that all?”

“I’m afraid not, sir,” Banks said. “The fire was of doubtful origin. I have some questions I need to ask you as soon as possible. Now, in fact.”

“It’s all right, Patrick,” Mrs. Aspern said, coming back from a great distance. “Let the man do his job.”

A little flustered by her command of the situation, or so it seemed to Banks, Aspern settled back onto the sofa. “If you’re sure…” he said.

“I’m sure.” She looked at Banks. “Please tell us what happened.”

“Christine was living with a boy, a young man, rather, called Mark Siddons, on an abandoned narrow boat.”

“Siddons,” said Aspern, lip twisting. “We know all about him. Did he do this? Was he responsible?”

“We have no evidence that Mark Siddons had anything to do with the fire,” said Banks.

“Where was he? Did he survive?”

“He was out at the time of the fire,” Banks said. “And he’s unharmed. I gather there was no love lost between you?”

“He turned our daughter against us,” said Aspern. “Took her away from home and stopped her from seeing us. It’s as if he took control of her mind like one of those religious cults you read about.”

“That’s not what he told me,” Banks said, careful now he knew he was walking on heavily mined land. “And it’s not the impression I got of him.”

“Well, you wouldn’t expect him to admit it, would you? I can only imagine the lies he told you.”

“What lies?”

“Never you mind. I’m just warning you, that’s all. The boy’s no good. Don’t believe a word he says.”

“I’ll bear that in mind,” said Banks. “How old was Christine?”

“Seventeen,” said Aspern.

“And how old was she when she left home?”

“She was sixteen,” Mrs. Aspern answered. “She went the day after her sixteenth birthday. As if she just couldn’t wait to get away.”