Peter Robinson - Final Account

“Alison might not have had anything to do with it.”

“You mean Mrs. Rothwell? Wasn’t she in shock?”

“So I’m told. I didn’t get to see her until late this morning. That gave her plenty of time to compose herself, work up an act.”

“But the SOC team went through the place as thoroughly as they usually do, hayloft and all. They couldn’t find any traces of a weapon.”

“I’m not saying she shot him.”

“What then? She hired a couple of killers to do it for her?”

“I don’t know. She could certainly afford it. I suppose I’m playing devil’s advocate, trying to look at it from all angles. I still maintain they’re an odd family. Alison was genuinely terrified, I know that. But there’s something not quite right about them all, and I’d like to know what that is. I knew when I drove away from Arkbeck Farm that something I’d seen there was bothering me, nagging away, but I didn’t know what it was until a short while ago.”

“And?” asked Gristhorpe.

“It was Tom’s postcard from California. It was addressed to Alison – he called her Ali – and at the end he wrote, ‘Love to Mum.’ There was no mention of his father.”

“Hmm,” said Gristhorpe. “It doesn’t have to mean anything.”

“Maybe not. But that’s not all. When I looked through Rothwell’s wallet a while back, I found photos of Mary and Alison, but none of Tom. Not one.”

A night’s sleep is supposed to refresh you, not make you feel as if you’re recovering from a bloody anesthetic, thought Banks miserably on Saturday morning.

Never a morning person at the best of times, he sat over his second cup of black coffee and a slice of whole wheat toast and Seville marmalade, newspaper propped up in front of him, trying to muster enough energy to get going. As a background to the radio traffic reports, he could hear Sandra having a shower upstairs. Banks hated the contraption – he always seemed to get a lukewarm dribble rather than a hot shower – but Sandra and Tracy swore by it. Banks preferred a long, hot bath with a little quiet background music and a good book.

After catching up with paperwork, he hadn’t got home until almost eleven the previous night. He wished Sandra had been angry that they’d had to miss the claret, the Chopin and the candlelight, but she hadn’t seemed to care. He didn’t know whether she was pretending or she really didn’t care. In fact, she said she’d just got back from a reception at the community center herself. It was getting to be par for the course. They had seen so little of one another lately that they were fast becoming strangers. It seemed to Banks that what had been a strength in their relationship – their natural independence – was quickly becoming a threat.

And while Sandra had slept like a log, Banks had tossed and turned all night beside her, worried about the Rothwell case, with only brief, fitful periods of sleep full of shifting images: the pornographic wadding, the headless corpse. Now it was eight-thirty the next morning, and his eyes felt like sandpaper, his brain stuffed with cotton wool.

The national dailies and radio news carried stories on the Keith Rothwell killing – sandwiched between a bloodthirsty put-down of riots on a Caribbean island, where another dictator was nearing the end of his reign of terror, and a male Member of Parliament caught in flagrante with a sixteen-year-old rent-boy on Clapham Common. It probably wouldn’t even have made the papers if it had happened somewhere a bit more up-market, like Hampstead Heath, Banks thought.

The Rothwell murder would be on television too, no doubt, amidst all the speculation on that afternoon’s Cup Final, but Banks had never been able to bring himself to turn the thing on during daylight hours.

Now, hints were appearing in the media that the killing was more than a run-of-the-mill domestic disagreement or a burglary gone wrong. According to the radio, Scotland Yard, Interpol and the FBI had been called in. That, Banks reflected, was a slight exaggeration. The Americans had been asked to help trace Tom Rothwell, though as far as Banks knew it was the Florida State Police, not the FBI. Interpol was something the reporters always threw in for good measure, these days, and Scotland Yard was an outright lie.

Banks scanned the Yorkshire Post and The Independent reports to see if either newspaper knew more than the police. Sometimes they did, and it could be damned embarrassing all round. Not this time, though. To them, Rothwell was as much the “quiet, unassuming local accountant and businessman” as he was to the rest of the world.

“More coffee?”

Banks looked up to see Sandra standing at the machine in her navy-blue bathrobe, wet hair hanging over the terry-cloth at her shoulders. He hadn’t heard her come down.

“Please.” He held his cup out.

Sandra poured, then put some bread in the toaster and picked up the Yorkshire Post . After she had read about Rothwell, she whistled. “Is this what kept you out so late last night?”

“Hmm,” murmured Banks.

The toast popped up. Sandra put the paper down and went to see to it. “I’ve met her a couple of times, you know,” she said over her shoulder, buttering toast.

Banks folded The Independent and looked at Sandra’s profile. When it was wet, her hair looked darker, of course, but one of the things Banks found attractive about her was the contrast between her blonde hair and black eyebrows. This time, when he looked at her, he felt an ache deep inside. “Who?” he asked.

“Mrs. Rothwell. Mary Rothwell.”

“How on earth did you come across her?”

“At the gallery.”

Sandra ran the local gallery in the Eastvale community center, where she organized art and photography exhibitions.

“I didn’t know she was the artistic type.”

“She’s not really. I think for her it was just the thing to do. Women’s Institute sort of stuff, you know, organize cultural outings.” Sandra sat down with her toast and wrinkled her nose.

Banks laughed, sensing a definite thaw in the cold war. “Snob.”

“What! Me?” She hit him lightly with the folded newspaper.

“Anyway,” Banks said, “the poor woman’s on tranquilizers. Both she and her daughter saw Rothwell’s body before they called us, and you can take my word for it, that’s enough to give anyone the heebie-jeebies.”

“How’s the daughter?”

“Alison? Not quite so bad, at least not on the surface.” Banks shrugged. “More resilient, maybe, or she could just be repressing it more. Tina Smithies says she’s worried they’re both losing touch.” He looked at his watch. “I’d better go.”

Sandra followed him to the door and leaned against the bannister. She nibbled her toast as she watched him put on his light gray sports jacket and pick up his briefcase. “I can’t say I know her well enough to get any kind of impression,” she said, holding her dressing-gown at the collar when Banks opened the door, “but I did sense that she’s the kind who… well, she puts on a few airs and graces. Not so much as to be a complete pseud, but you can tell there’s a touch of the Lady Muck about her. Imperious. And she likes people to know she’s not short of a bob or two. You know, she flashes her rings, jewelry, stuff like that. She also struck me as being a very cold woman, I don’t know why. All sharp edges, like a drawer full of kitchen knives.”

Banks leaned against the door jamb. “It’s a bloody strange family altogether,” he said.

Sandra shrugged. “Just thought I’d put in my two pen-n’orth. I don’t suppose you know when you’ll be back?”