Peter Robinson: Blood At The Root

Banks leaned by his office window, his favorite spot, blew on the surface of his coffee and watched the steam rise as he looked out over the quiet market square. He was thinking about Sandra, about their marriage and the way it all seemed to be going wrong. Not so much wrong, just nowhere. She still hadn’t spoken to him since the opera. Not that she’d had much chance, really, with him being out so late at the crime scene. And this morning she had barely been conscious by the time he left. But still, there was a discernible chill in the house.

Last night’s rain had washed the excesses of Saturday night from the cobbles, just as the station cleaning staff disinfected and mopped out the cells after the overnight drunk-and-disorderlies had been discharged. The square and the buildings around it glowed pale gray-gold in the early light.

Banks had his window open a couple of inches, and the sound of the church congregation singing “We plough the fields, and scatter” drifted in. It took him back to the harvest festivals of his childhood, when his mum would give him a couple of apples and oranges to put in the church basket along with everyone else’s. He often wondered what happened to all the fruit after the festival was over.

The “Dalesman” calendar on his wall showed Healaugh Church, near York, through a farm gate. It wasn’t a particularly autumnal shot, Banks was thinking, as he heard the tap on his door.

It was Susan Gay, first to arrive after Detective Superintendent Gristhorpe, who was already busy coordinating with Regional HQ and arranging for local media coverage.

As usual, Susan looked fresh as a daisy, Banks thought. Just the right amount of makeup, blond curls still glistening from the shower. While no one would describe Susan Gay as an oil painting, with her small button nose and her serious, guarded expression, her clear, blue-gray eyes were intriguing, and she had a beautiful, smooth complexion.

Not for Susan, Banks thought, the wild, boozy Saturday nights favored by Jim Hatchley, who followed hot on her heels looking like death warmed over: eyes bleary and bloodshot, lips dry and cracked, a shred of toilet paper stuck over a shaving cut, thinning straw hair unwashed and uncombed for a couple of days.

After the two of them had sat down, both nursing cups of coffee, Banks explained how the boy had been killed, then he walked over to the map of Eastvale on the wall by his filing cabinet and pointed to the ginnel where the body had been discovered.

“This is where PC Ford found him,” he began. “There are no through roads leading west nearby, so people tend to cut through the residential streets, then take the Carlaw Place ginnel over the recreation ground to King Street and the Leaview Estate. Thing is, it works both ways, so he could have been heading in either direction. We don’t know.”

“Sir,” said Susan, “you told me on the telephone that he’d probably been killed shortly after closing time. If he’d been out drinking, isn’t it more likely that he was heading from Market Street? I mean, that’s quite a popular spot for young people on a Saturday night. There’s a fair number of pubs, and some of them have live bands or karaoke.”

Karaoke. Banks felt himself shudder at the thought. The only other words that had a similar effect on him were “country and western music.” An oxymoron if ever there was one.

“Good point,” he said. “So let’s concentrate our survey on the Market Street pubs and the Leaview Estate to start with. If we draw a blank there, we can extend the area.”

“How much do we know, sir?” Sergeant Hatchley asked.

“Precious little. I’ve already had a look at the overnight logs, and there are no reports of any major shindigs. We’ve talked to the occupants of the terrace houses on both sides of the ginnel, as well as the people across the street. The only one with anything to say was watching television, so he didn’t hear anything too clearly, but he was sure he did hear a fight or something outside during the Liverpool-Newcastle game on ‘Match of the Day.’”

“What exactly did he hear, sir?” Susan asked.

“Just some scuffling and grunting, then the sound of people running away. He thought more than one, but he couldn’t say how many. Or which direction. He thought it was just the usual drunken yobs, and he certainly had no intention of going outside and finding out for himself.”

“You can hardly blame him, these days, can you?” said Sergeant Hatchley, picking gingerly at the tissue over his shaving cut. It started to bleed again. “Some of these yobs’d kill you as soon as look at you. Besides, it were a bloody good match.”

“Anyway,” Banks went on, “you’d better check with Traffic, too. We don’t know for certain whether the attackers ran home or drove off. Maybe they got a parking ticket or got stopped for speeding.”

“We should be so lucky,” muttered Hatchley.

Banks pulled two sheets of paper from a folder on his desk and passed one each to Susan and Hatchley. It showed an artist’s impression of a young man, probably in his early twenties, with thin lips and a long, narrow nose. His hair was cut short and combed neatly back. Despite his youth, it seemed to be receding at the temples and looked very thin on top. There was nothing particularly distinctive about him, but Banks thought he could perceive a hint of arrogance in the expression. Of course, that was probably just artistic license.

“The night-shift attendant at the mortuary came up with this,” he said. “A few months back, he got bored with having no one to talk to on the job, so he started sketching corpses as a way of passing the time. ‘Still lifes,’ he calls them. Obviously a man of hidden talents. Anyway, he told us this was mostly speculation, especially the nose, which had been badly broken. The cheekbones had been fractured, too, so he was guessing about how high and how prominent they might have been. But the hair’s right, he says, and the general shape of the head. It’ll have to do for now. The only things we know for certain are that the victim was a little over six feet tall, weighed eleven stone, was in fine physical shape – an athlete, perhaps – and he had blue eyes and blond hair. No birthmarks, scars, tattoos or other distinguishing features.” He tapped the folder. “We’ll try to get this on the local TV news today and in the papers tomorrow morning. For now, you can start with the house-to-house, then, after opening time, you can canvass the pubs. Uniform branch has detailed four officers to help. Our first priority is to find out who the poor bugger was, and the second is to discover who he was last seen with before he was killed. Okay?”

They both nodded and stood up to leave.

“And take your mobiles or personal radios and stay in touch with one another. I want the right hand to know what the left hand’s doing. All right?”

“Yes, sir,” said Susan.

“As for me,” said Banks with a grim smile, “Dr. Glendenning has kindly offered to come in and do the postmortem this morning, so I think one of us should pay him the courtesy of being present. Don’t you?”

A lot of detectives complained about house-to-house inquiries, much preferring to spend their time in scummy pubs with low-life informers, getting the real feel of the Job, or so they thought. But Susan Gay had always enjoyed a good house-to-house. At the very least it was good exercise in patience.

Of course, you got the occasional nutter, the boor, and the lecherous creep with his Hound of the Baskervilles straining at the end of its chain. Once, even, a naked child had toddled out to see what was happening and peed all over Susan’s new shoes. The mother had thought it hilarious.