Peter Robinson - Playing With Fire

“Jealous?”

“Not in the real sense of the word, no. It just feels awkward, that’s all.”

“He thinks you don’t like him.”

“Can’t say I have an opinion one way or another. I’ve only met him a couple of times.”

“Oh, come on, Alan.”

“Really. He seems fine. But when it comes down to it, how much do you know about him?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean about his background, his past, his family. Has he ever been married, for example?”

“Not that he’s mentioned to me. And I don’t think he has. That’s one of the refreshing things about him.”

The remark stung Banks, as he thought it was intended to. His failed marriage and the baggage thereof had been a constant bone of contention in his relationship with Annie. The wise thing to do would be to move on, not to retaliate with what he had learned from Dirty Dick Burgess. He teetered on the brink for a moment, then asked, “Anything new this morning?”

“Not a lot,” said Annie. “Winsome’s been looking into William Masefield’s background and come up with one piece of interesting information: He attended Leeds University, and he was there at the same time as McMahon and Gardiner were enrolled at the Poly. From 1978 to 1981. There’s no evidence that they knew one another, however, and Elaine Hough says she’d never heard of him.”

“Pity,” said Banks. “Still, it does give us a tenuous link. Wasn’t Giles Moore at the university?”

“That’s another thing. I checked with the university this morning, and they say there’s no record of him ever being there.”

“Interesting,” said Banks. “Maybe he didn’t get accepted, felt he needed to impress people.”

“Even so,” said Annie. “It’s a pretty odd thing to do, isn’t it?”

“He sounds like an odd person altogether,” Banks agreed. “Which gives us all the more reason to be interested in him. He’s got to be somewhere. He can’t just have vanished into thin air.”

“We’re looking,” said Annie. “The only problem is that we’re running out of places to look. As far as we can tell so far, there aren’t any Moores living in mansions near King’s Lynn. We haven’t actually asked Maggie Thatcher or the Duke of Devonshire whether they knew a Giles Moore yet, but it may come to that.”

Banks laughed. “So he’s a liar, then?”

“So it would seem.”

“What we need to do,” Banks said, “is have the Hough woman look at a photograph of Whitaker. I know it was a long time ago, but she may still recognize something about him.” And a photo of Phil Keane, too, if he could get his hands on one, Banks added to himself. “I seem to remember there was a framed photo on the desk in the bookshop. As he’s missing, and people have been dying, I suppose it’s reasonable for us to enter the premises, wouldn’t you say? I mean, he could be lying dead in the back room soaked in petrol, with a six-hour candle slowly burning down beside him, for all we know.”

“Good idea,” said Annie. “I’ll get on to it. What’s going to happen with the Aspern woman?”

“Frances?” Banks shook his head. “I don’t know. From what Mark Siddons told us, she might have a damn good case for pleading provocation.”

“What about diminished responsibility?”

“I’d leave that one to the experts. She needs psychiatric help, no doubt about it. She’s not clinically insane – at least not in my layman’s opinion – but she’s confused and disturbed. I think she just couldn’t accept that her husband was sexually abusing his own daughter the same way he’d sexually abused her. It was easier in her mind to embrace the lie they’d lived right from the start – from when he first got her pregnant – that this fictitious American, Paul Ryder, was the father, and that Patrick was Tina’s stepfather. Maybe sometimes she actually believed it. It’s a thin line.”

“It certainly is,” Annie agreed. “I suppose this knocks both her and her husband off the list of suspects?”

“Yes,” said Banks.

“And how seriously are we taking Andrew Hurst and Mark Siddons?”

“Not very. Hurst’s weird. I mean, if it turns out that the art forgery angle’s a blind alley and the fires were set by some nutter who just likes to set fires, then I’d look closely at him again. But he’s got no connection with McMahon, Gardiner and the rest. Neither does Mark Siddons, except that he happened to be a neighbor of McMahon’s. Mark has his problems, but I don’t think arson is one of them. Besides, he has a good alibi. You said so yourself.”

“I could talk to Mandy Patterson again. Go in a bit harder.”

“No,” said Banks. “What could she possibly gain by giving Mark Siddons an alibi for murder? If Mark had wanted rid of Tina, there were far easier and more reliable ways of doing it than fixing himself up with a dodgy alibi and setting fire to Thomas McMahon’s boat.”

“Which brings us back to Leslie Whitaker,” said Annie.

“What’s his educational background?”

“He attended Strathclyde University from 1980 to 1983. Unfortunately, there’s no evidence that links him to either Gardiner or Masefield, but we’re still looking. And the way he’s taken off certainly makes him seem more suspicious. That and some of his recent financial idiosyncrasies. According to the auditor, his business books are a bit of a mess, to say the least.”

“I suppose if he was involved in some sort of scam with McMahon, he had to hide the profits somehow. Tell me your thoughts, Annie.”

“McMahon was known to be a good imitator, and he gained access to period materials through Whitaker’s bookshop, and no doubt from other sources. Maybe Whitaker, Moore, or whoever set it up, enlisted his old buddies to help him in a forgery scam and they fell out?”

“Okay,” said Banks. “That makes sense up to a point. But what parts did Gardiner and Masefield play?”

“Masefield provided the identity for the killer to remain anonymous in his dealings with McMahon,” said Annie. “Whenever they met, he hired a Jeep Cherokee in Masefield’s name, no doubt so we wouldn’t be able to trace him. Remember, when Masefield died, or was killed, our man had his post redirected to a post office box, used his bank accounts, paid his bills. Assumed his identity.”

“What about Gardiner?”

“I don’t know yet. But he must have played some part in it all. Don’t forget the Turners and the money we found in his safe. They can’t be just coincidence.”

“No. I haven’t forgotten them. But none of this gets us any closer to who that person actually is, ” said Banks. “Even if it is Giles bloody Moore, he’s not going by that name now, and that name probably won’t lead us to him. He’s slippery. We’re dealing with a chameleon, Annie. A damn clever one, too. Did you find out anything else about Moore? Anything at all that might help us?”

“No,” said Annie. “Not yet. It’s a lot of legwork. And legwork takes time, and more legs than we’ve got right now.”

“I can talk to Red Ron about manpower.”

“Thanks,” said Annie. “I could do with a couple more good researchers, at least. But for the moment, my money’s still on Leslie Whitaker. Just because we haven’t been able to find a past connection between him and Gardiner doesn’t mean one doesn’t exist, or even that we need one. I mean, maybe McMahon himself is the link. Maybe Whitaker put the idea to McMahon and McMahon recruited Gardiner.”

“Maybe,” said Banks. “We’ll have to ask him when we find him.” He finished his tea and let the silence stretch a moment before asking, “How are you and Phil getting along, by the way?”

“Fine,” Annie said. “Why do you ask?”