Peter Robinson - Playing With Fire

“Did Mark say anything to you about the fires?”

“Like what?”

“Anything at all.”

“No. Only that he was cut up about Tina.”

“He didn’t voice any suspicions, any ideas about what happened?”

“Not to me, no. Look,” said Knox, going on to echo Banks’s own fears, “I’m not the sort to go blabbing to the police, which is why I didn’t come straight here, but I’m worried about Mark. I thought he might have got in touch, but he hasn’t, and there’s no one else to report him missing. Like I said, at bottom of it all he’s a good kid. Not like some you see around these days. And he’s had it tough. He doesn’t have any money, and he’s got nowhere to go. You can bet he’ll be sleeping rough. I know it’s not exactly brass-monkey weather right now, but it’s still bloody cold to be sleeping out in the open. And things can change pretty quickly up here.”

“Too true,” said Banks. And if Mark himself wasn’t responsible for the boat fires, there was a good chance that whoever was wanted him out of the way. So he was out in the cold, possibly being hunted. Definitely not an ideal state of affairs. “Is there anything else?”

“No,” said Lenny. “But perhaps you can find him, tell him I’m sorry. Poor Sal was beside herself when she knew he’d heard her. Tell him he can come back to ours anytime he likes, she says now. I told you she was a good lass. It was just the shock, that’s all, and her not being asked.”

“What was Mark wearing?”

“A ratty old suede coat, fleece-lined, and jeans rolled up at the bottoms. Looked like hand-me-downs.”

Banks smiled at the description of the clothes he’d given Mark: his own cast-offs. “We’ll put out a bulletin for him.”

“Don’t frighten him, will you?” said Lenny. “I don’t know what he’d do if he felt cornered. He’s in a right state.”

“We’ll do our best, Mr. Knox,” said Banks. “The important thing is to find him. I don’t suppose you have a photograph?”

“Me? No. Didn’t you take one when you had him in?”

“We don’t do that as a matter of routine, Mr. Knox. We need a reason, and permission. In Mark’s case, it simply wasn’t necessary.”

Knox stood up. “Right, then,” he said. “You’ll let me know?”

“Give me your telephone number. I’ll see to it personally.”

Knox gave him the number. “Thanks,” he said.

When Knox had left, Banks walked over to his window. The CD had come to the Four Last Songs now, Banks’s favorites. He remembered an occasion some years ago, before everything went wrong, when he had arrived home very late after attending the scene of a teenage girl’s murder in an Eastvale cemetery. He had sat up smoking, drinking Laphroaig and listening to the Four Last Songs, Gundula Janowitz’s version that time, and his daughter, Tracy, had woken up and come down to see what was wrong. They had talked briefly – Banks deliberately not telling her about the murder – then they had shared mugs of cocoa as they cuddled up on the sofa and listened to the Strauss songs. It was a moment forever etched in his memory, all the more so because it could never be repeated. Tracy was gone now, grown up, living her own life. Sandra was gone, too. And Brian.

The day was still gray but fairly warm outside. Lucky for Mark. There were plenty of people crossing the market square, shopping along Market Street and York Road. The church facade was covered in scaffolding, like an exoskeleton, and the weather was good enough for the restorers to get up there and work away at the ancient stonework and lead roofing. He thought of Mark, who had said he wanted to do church restoration work. Banks knew Neville Lauder, the stonemason in charge of the project, from the Queen’s Arms. Maybe he could put in a word. He had to maintain his objectivity, though. Much as he thought Lenny was right in his assessment of Mark, and much as Banks liked the kid, felt sorry for him, there was still a chance that Mark Siddons was a killer.

“Got a minute, sir?”

Banks looked up. DS Hatchley. “Come in, Jim,” he said. “How you doing?”

“Not too badly, thanks.” Jim Hatchley sat down and ran his hand over his untidy straw-colored hair. He still looked tired, Banks thought, with bags under his eyes and puffy, blotchy skin. Still, not only was he just recovering from a nasty bout of flu, but his youngest was teething. Having babies would do that to you. Would Sandra lose sleep? he wondered. She had looked good when he last saw her, but that could change when little Sinéad started teething.

“What is it?” Banks asked. “Anything on Whitaker’s alibi?”

“Checks out so far,” Hatchley said. “But it’s early days yet. Anyway, that other job you asked me to do. Mark David Siddons.”

“Yes?”

Hatchley shook his head. “Poor bastard,” he said.

“What can you tell me?”

“His mother’s Sharon Siddons, a right slag if ever there was one. I thought the name rang a bell. They lived on the East Side Estate, where else? She died a year ago. Lung cancer.”

“Father?”

“Dunno,” said Hatchley. “Sharon was an alcoholic as well as a slag. Started young. She worked as a prossie for a while, till she got pregnant at seventeen. After that there was a long line of men in her life. Most of them losers, and none of them lasting very long. Last one was a charmer by the name of Nicholas Papadopoulos. Perhaps you’ve heard of him?”

“Crazy Nick?”

“One and the same.”

Banks had indeed heard of Crazy Nick. You couldn’t be a copper in Eastvale for five minutes without hearing of him. Disturbing the peace, breaking and entering, assault, GBH, drunk and disorderly. You name it, and if it took no brains, Crazy Nick had done it. Stopping just short of murder. The last time he’d been arrested it had taken four strapping PCs to hold him down and bring him in. He never stopped swearing and struggling the whole time, and once he was in the cell he drove the custody section insane with his nonstop stream of curses and banging.

“Isn’t he a guest of Her Majesty at the moment?”

“Indeed he is,” said Hatchley. “Strangeways. And he won’t be out for quite a while. Whacked a night watchman with a hammer during a warehouse break-in and fractured his skull.”

“How long was he with the Siddons woman?”

“Until she started to show the cancer symptoms,” said Hatchley. “Then he was off like a shot. Died alone, and in agony, poor cow.”

“Was he around when Mark ran off?”

“Yes. Probably the reason. Believe it or not, Mark gave him a bloody good hiding. Enough to put him in hospital for a couple of days, at any rate. Broken nose. Couple of ribs. Twenty stitches in his scalp. Concussion. Took him by surprise. Went crazy on him, according to the neighbors. Even his mother couldn’t drag him off.”

“Good for him,” Banks said. “And Nick didn’t take his revenge? That’s not like him.”

“Couldn’t find the kid, then he got caught for that warehouse job.”

“But Mark’s got no form, himself?”

“No. We’ve had him in on sus for a couple of house-breakings, and he once got caught shoplifting in HMV. Charges dropped. That’s all.”

“Anything important we haven’t got him for?”

“No. At least I can’t find any rumors.”

And if anyone could, Banks knew, it was probably Hatchley, with his long list of snitches and a pair of eyes in practically every pub in Eastvale. “So he’s basically a clean kid?” he said.

“Looks that way,” Hatchley agreed. “He attended Eastvale Comprehensive, but was truant as often as not. Didn’t get into much trouble there, apart from a bit of a shoving match with one teacher, but he didn’t exactly shine academically, either. Good at games, though. Want me to keep on digging?”