Peter Robinson - Playing With Fire

“Except supply Thomas McMahon with the paper necessary for his forgeries,” said Banks.

“I didn’t know what he was doing with the damn stuff.”

“We think you did.”

Whitaker folded his arms again. “Well, that’s your problem.”

“No. It’s yours. What kind of car do you drive?”

“A Jeep. Why?”

“What kind of Jeep?”

“A Cherokee. Four-wheel drive. I live out Lyndgarth way. The roads can be bad.”

A Jeep Cherokee was close enough to a Range Rover or any other kind of four-wheel drive station wagon for Banks, especially when the cars had only been spotted through the woods by people who had little knowledge of the various shapes and forms the vehicles took. “Color?”

“Black.”

Again, close enough to dark blue. “Where were you last Thursday evening?”

“At home.”

“Where’s that?”

“Lyndgarth, as I said.”

“Alone?”

“Yes. I’m recently divorced, if you must know.”

“Not much of an alibi, is it?” Hatchley cut in.

Whitaker looked at him. “I wasn’t aware I’d be needing one.”

“That’s what they all say.”

“Now, look-”

“All right, Mr. Whitaker,” said Banks, “you can argue with my sergeant later. We’ve got more important matters to cover right now. Where were you on Saturday evening?”

“Saturday? I…”

“Yes?”

Whitaker thought for a moment, then he looked at Banks, triumphant. “I was at a dinner in Harrogate. Yorkshire booksellers. We get together every month, about ten of us. They’ll all vouch for me.”

“What time did you arrive?”

“Eight o’clock.”

Banks felt his hopes wane. If Whitaker really was with nine other people at eight o’clock Saturday, and the fire started around eight forty-five, it seemed to let him off. Especially as it took at least an hour to drive from Lyndgarth to Harrogate. But watertight alibis, in Banks’s experience, were made to be broken.

“We will check, you know.”

“Go ahead,” said Whitaker. “Do you want their names? The others?”

“You can give them to Detective Sergeant Hatchley later.”

“I don’t see that we have anything more to talk about, do you?”

“Plenty,” said Banks. “I still want to know what role Gardiner played in all this, and why he had to die, too.”

“I’ve told you I never heard of any Gardiner. I’m an antiquarian bookseller. I occasionally deal in works of art. That’s my only connection with Thomas McMahon. But I have no knowledge whatsoever of anyone called Gardiner.”

Banks paused for a moment, whispered something in Hatchley’s ear, mostly for effect, then turned back to Whitaker. “The way things look right now, Leslie,” he said, “I think it’s time to move on to the next stage.”

“Next stage? What do you mean?”

“Well, this is just a preliminary interview, you understand. Just to get the lie of the land, so to speak. I’m not satisfied with what I’ve heard. Not satisfied at all. So now we take it a step further. We go over your finances, your car, your clothes, your business dealings, your life, with a fine-tooth comb, and if we find any of the evidence we’re looking for, we haul you back in.”

Whitaker swallowed. “You can’t do that,” he said, without much conviction.

Banks stood up. “Yes, we can,” he said. “And we will. Detective Sergeant Hatchley will take down those names now.”

On Monday afternoon, results started trickling in from the lab. First of all, Andrew Hurst’s clothes were clean, as expected, and so were Danny Boy Corcoran’s and Patrick Aspern’s. None of this surprised Banks; apart from Hurst, who had washed his clothes, they had all been outsiders in the first place.

Banks would like to think that Aspern was involved somehow, but he very much doubted the good doctor had set the fires. Even so, he reminded himself that Patrick Aspern didn’t have a decent alibi for either fire, and that he could have gone to see Tina on the day of the boat fires, then returned later. Perhaps she had threatened to tell the world what he’d done to her. He could have started the fire on McMahon’s boat to draw the inquiry away from Tina. As yet, nobody had had any luck trying to locate Paul Ryder, Christine Aspern’s birth father. Banks didn’t imagine he was important to the case, as he had never even known his daughter, but at least he ought to know what had happened to her.

But there were other matters to consider. Banks would have liked to know why Andrew Hurst had washed his clothes in the middle of the night, for a start. As things stood, it just didn’t make sense. DC Kevin Templeton was checking into Hurst’s background, along with everyone else’s, so maybe he would turn up something.

Then there were the Turner, the money, and the possible criminal activities of McMahon and Gardiner. Well, perhaps a closer look at Leslie Whitaker’s business dealings would help turn up something there.

Banks sat in his office and browsed through reports and actions, a CD of Soile Isokoski singing Richard Strauss’s orchestral songs playing in the background. Just when he was about to wander out for a coffee break, his phone rang. It was the front desk. Someone to see the man in charge of the fires on the boats. Someone called Lenny Knox.

Puzzled, Banks asked the duty officer to have him escorted upstairs, and he appeared at Banks’s door, a burly, pockmarked, red-faced fellow, a couple of minutes later.

“Sit down,” Banks said.

Knox sat. The chair creaked under his weight.

“What can I do for you, Mr. Knox?” Banks asked, leaning back and linking his hands behind his head.

“I’m worried about Mark, Mark Siddons,” said Knox, traces of a Liverpool accent in his voice.

“Maybe you’d better start at the beginning.”

Knox sighed. “Mark’s a good kid. A pal of mine. He’s a good grafter, too. Doesn’t mind getting his hands dirty. We were doing a job together at the college – you know about that?”

Banks nodded. He knew about Mark’s job.

“Anyway,” Knox went on, “when you let him out of jail, the poor kid had nowhere to go, and he’d just lost his girlfriend, so I invited him home with me.”

“That was a kind gesture,” Banks said.

Knox looked at him and sighed. “It was meant to be. Backfired, though, didn’t it?”

“How?”

“You’ve got to understand, Sal’s a good girl, really, but she’s… well, she doesn’t like to feel put-upon. Likes to think she’s part of things, decisions and suchlike. And she likes things planned out, doesn’t like surprises.”

“Sounds reasonable.”

“Anyway, it was my fault. I brought Mark home with me, told him he could stay without even consulting her. She hit the roof. Mark must have heard us arguing in the kitchen, and the next thing I knew he’d legged it. I yelled after him but he didn’t pay it any mind.”

Banks reached for his notepad. “When did this happen?” he asked.

“Saturday evening.”

“What time?”

“About half past seven.”

“Which direction did he go?”

“Toward the railway tracks.”

Banks tapped his pencil on his pad. Jennings Field lay a short distance east of town, beyond the tracks. For a number of reasons, Banks hadn’t considered Mark to be a strong candidate for the boat fires, but this put a different complexion on things. Mark could easily have made it to the field by the time the fire started. But why? Was he a pyromaniac? Was there something that triggered him? Anger? Rejection? He had been angry at Tina, too, before he left for Mandy’s flat on Thursday night. But the alibi… the timing… the clothes… it just didn’t make sense. Still, the important thing now was to find him and bring him in.