Peter Robinson - Blood At The Root

Was it the Amsterdam thing? Is that what had him so worried? Was there some danger involved, or something illegal? Banks didn’t often act outside the law, not like some coppers Susan had known, but he did sometimes – they all did – if he felt there was no other way. Was he up to something?

Well, she concluded, she didn’t know, and there was probably no way of finding out until he got back and revealed all, if he did. Until then, the best thing to do was get on with her work and stop behaving like a mother hen.

She hadn’t had a lot of luck tracking Mark Wood down so far. It would take her forever to check out all the listings in the telephone directory. Even then, he might not live in the Leeds area or have a telephone. Sergeant Hatchley was in Leeds today with one of his old cronies from Millgarth visiting the properties Motcombe owned. Maybe they would turn up something, but she doubted it.

She was just about to pick up the phone and start dialing down her list when it rang.

“Is that DC Gay?” the voice said. “Susan?”

“Yes.” She didn’t know who it was.

“It’s Vic here, Vic Manson, from Fingerprints.”

“Ah, of course. Sorry, I didn’t recognize your voice for a moment. How’s it going?”

“I was trying to call Alan, but apparently he’s not in his office. All I could get at home was his answering machine. Do you know where he is?”

“I’m afraid he won’t be in at all today.”

“Not ill, I trust?”

“Can I help, Vic?”

“Yes. Yes, of course. Do you know much about fingerprints?”

“Not a lot. Have you got some news?”

“Well, yes, in a way. Though it’s not very good, I’m afraid. Not as good as I’d hoped for.”

“I’m listening.”

“Right. Well, when I talked to Alan earlier in the week I was testing the glass from the broken bottle found near Jason Fox’s body.”

“I remember,” Susan said. “He said something about spraying it with SuperGlue in an aquarium.”

Manson laughed. “Yes. Cyanoacrylate fuming, as a matter of fact.”

“I’ll take your word for it.”

“Yes… well, I’m sorry, but it didn’t work. We found nothing on the glass. Probably because of the rain.”

“And that’s it?”

“Not entirely. Do you know anything at all about ninhydrin?”

“Isn’t it a chemical for getting prints from paper?”

“Sort of, yes. What ninhydrin does is it makes visible the amino acids you deposit with sweaty fingers, especially on paper.”

“I see. But I thought we were concerned with glass here, Vic, not paper?”

“Ah, yes,” said Manson. “We were. That is until it got us nowhere. But I found a couple of fragments of glass that were also covered by part of the label and, luckily, two of them were under the body, label side up, but not touching the victim’s clothing, quite protected from the rain. Amino acids are water-soluble, you see. Anyway, I don’t want to get too technical about it, but it took a long time, and I destroyed one fragment completely, but after I brought a smudge or two out with ninhydrin treatment, I was able to get much better ridge detail under laser light.”

“You got a fingerprint?”

“Now, hold on. Wait a minute,” said Manson. “I told you from the start it’s not a major breakthrough. What I got was a partial fingerprint. Very partial. Even with computer enhancement I couldn’t do a hell of a lot more with it. And remember, any number of people could have handled that bottle. The cellarman, the landlord, the bartender. Anyone.”

“So you’re saying it’s worthless?”

“Not completely. Oh, it certainly wouldn’t stand up in a court of law. Not enough points of comparison. I mean, it could almost be mine, at a pinch. Well, I exaggerate, but you see what I mean.”

“Yes,” said Susan, disappointed. She began to feel impatient. “Has this got us anywhere at all?”

“Well,” Manson went on, “I ran it through the new computerized matching system and I got a list of possibles. I confined the search to Yorkshire and, of course, it only applies to people whose prints we have on file.”

“And the print could belong to any person on the list?”

“Technically, yes. At least, as far as court evidence is concerned. I’m sorry. I can send it over, anyway, if you’d like?”

“Just a minute,” said Susan, feeling her pulse quicken a little. “Do you have it in front of you? The list?”

“Yes.”

“Let’s try a hunch. Could you check for a name?”

“Of course.”

“Try Wood . Mark Wood.”

It was worth a try. Susan could hear her heart beating fast in the silence that followed. Finally, after what seemed like a millennium, Manson said, “Yes. Yes, there is a Mark Wood. I don’t have all the details here, of course, but West Yorkshire have probably got a file on him.”

“West Yorkshire?”

“Yes. That’s where he lives. Castleford area. If he’s still at the same address, that is.”

“You’ve got the address?”

“Yes.” He read it out to her.

“And let me guess,” Susan said. “He was convicted for football hooliganism or some sort of racial incident?”

“Er… no, actually,” said Manson.

“What then?”

“Drugs.”

“Drugs?” Susan repeated. “Interesting. Thanks a lot, Vic.”

“No problem. And tell Alan I called, will you?”

Susan smiled. “Will do.”

Although Vic Manson said the evidence wouldn’t stand up in court, that didn’t matter to Susan at the moment. The link between the partial print on the beer bottle and Jason Fox’s Web-page design partner was just too strong to be coincidence.

At first, Susan had thought the other lad must have either run away or left Jason before the attack. Now, though, the picture looked very different indeed. Maybe they couldn’t convict Mark Wood on the basis of the fingerprint, but they could try for a confession or some sort of physical evidence. For a start, the people in the Jubilee should be able to identify him.

But first, Susan thought, reaching for her jacket and her mobile, they would have to find him. Already she was feeling tremors of excitement, the thrill of the chase, and she was damned if she was going to be stuck by herself in Eastvale while Sergeant Hatchley had all the fun and glory.

With his hair still damp, Banks stepped out into the late-afternoon warmth. Sandra hadn’t been home when he called, hadn’t changed her mind. It was what he had expected, really, though he felt a tremendous sense of disappointment when all he got was his own voice on the answering machine.

After an hour or so spent listening to some Mozart wind quintets on the Walkman, though, followed by a long hot shower, he started to feel more optimistic than he had on the plane. Sandra would come back eventually. Give her a few days at her parents’ to get over the tiff, and then things would soon return to normal. Well, almost. They’d have a lot of talking to do, a lot of sorting out, but they’d manage it. They always had.

As he walked onto Keizersgracht, he still had that disconnected feeling he had experienced on arriving, as if all this – canal, bicycles, houseboats – were somehow not quite real, not connected with his life at all. Could he be living some sort of parallel existence, he wondered, another life going on at the same time as he was back in Eastvale talking over the future with Sandra?

Or was he time-traveling? After feeling as if he’d been away for a year, would he suddenly find himself back in Eastvale only seconds after he had left? Or, worse, would he land back right in the middle of that terrible conversation last night, moments before the magic envelope arrived?