Peter Robinson: Watching the Dark

Mary paused. ‘Well, yes, sort of. I mean...’

‘Yes?’

‘The rule is that the front door’s locked at midnight, and the burglar alarm is activated.’

‘But?’

Mary gave Banks a lopsided grin. ‘You know what it’s like. It’s a pretty laissez-faire sort of place. If someone wants to go out for a smoke, or stops out late at the pub, you don’t want to be turning the burglar alarm on and off, do you?’

‘Right,’ said Banks, who used to smoke back in the days when it was possible to light up almost anywhere. He could hardly imagine the hassle these days, standing out in the cold in winter. Another reason to be grateful he had stopped. ‘So what you’re saying is that there isn’t much in the way of security?’

‘I suppose that’s true.’

‘And no CCTV?’

‘Afraid not. St Peter’s is a charity-run establishment, and the board decided that CCTV was too expensive to be worth it. Also, people don’t like being spied on. Especially police officers.’

Banks smiled and thanked her for her time. Mary blushed. As he walked away, Banks figured he’d made a conquest there. His charm seemed to work especially well on the over-sixties these days.

Banks turned right at the top of the second flight of stairs, following the sign on the wall to rooms 20 to 30B. The door to Bill Quinn’s room was open, and Winsome was still systematically searching through the drawers and cupboards.

Banks stood in the doorway. ‘Anything for us?’

‘Nothing yet,’ said Winsome. She dangled a ring of house keys. ‘Just these. They were on the desk. A few clothes in the wardrobe. Toiletries. No mobile. No wallet. No room key.’

The room was a mirror image of Lorraine Jenson’s. Banks noticed a fishing rod and tackle in one corner and a stack of Angling Times, Trout & Salmon, Gardeners’ World and Garden News magazines on the coffee table. An outdoorsman, then, Bill Quinn. Banks hadn’t known that. Still, he hadn’t known much about the man at all, a situation that would have to be rectified as quickly as possible. The solution to the crime, he had come to believe over the years, more often than not lies in the victim’s character. ‘I think we’d better send a couple of officers over to search his house. Where does he live?’

‘It’s already taken care of, guv,’ said Winsome. ‘He lives alone in a semi in Rawdon, Leeds, up near the airport.’

‘Alone? For some reason, I thought he was married with kids.’

‘He was. His wife’s dead, and the kids have flown the coop. They’re both at university, one in Hull, the other at Keele. The local police are trying to track them down. His parents, too. They live in Featherstone.’

‘I didn’t know that,’ Banks said. ‘About his wife, I mean.’

‘I found out from his boss, sir. It was very recent. Only a month. Massive stroke.’

‘Is that what he was in here for? Depression? Grief counselling?’

‘No. Neck problems. Physio and massage therapy.’

‘OK, carry on,’ said Banks. He stood in the doorway watching Winsome work her way through Bill Quinn’s room.

When she had finished, neither of them was any the wiser.

‘There doesn’t seem to be anything of a personal nature here,’ said Winsome. ‘No diary, journal, notebook. Nothing.’

‘And no note signed by the killer saying, “Meet me by the lake at eleven o’clock tonight”?’

Winsome sighed. ‘I wish.’

‘Did it seem disturbed at all when you first came in? I suppose if someone could get into the woods to kill him and take his key, they could also get in his room.’

‘No signs of it,’ said Winsome. ‘Anyway, it might be a bit riskier, actually entering the building.’

‘Not according to what I’ve just heard from Mary,’ said Banks. ‘There’s about as much security here as a kid’s piggy bank. Do we know if he had a mobile?’

‘I’d be surprised if he didn’t,’ said Winsome. ‘I mean, these days...’

‘Well, he doesn’t appear to have one now,’ said Banks. ‘And that’s very peculiar, wouldn’t you say?’

‘Yes, I would. I always take mine with me when I go out.’

‘Better make sure we ask his fellow patients, or guests, or whatever they are, and the staff. Someone should remember if he had one. Same with a laptop or a notepad.’ Banks slipped on the protective gloves he always carried with him to crime scenes and picked up a heavy book Winsome had found in a drawer. Practical Homicide Investigation . Bill Quinn’s name was written in the flyleaf. ‘And this is his only reading material, apart from the fishing and gardening magazines?’ Banks flipped through the book. ‘It hardly looks like the sort of reading you’d want to do if you were here recuperating for a couple of weeks, does it? Some of these pictures are enough to turn your stomach.’

‘Well, he was a detective, sir,’ Winsome said. ‘Maybe he was doing a bit of studying?’

‘I suppose we can check if he was doing any courses.’

Banks flipped through the rest of the book, but nothing fell out. He examined it more closely to see if anything was cellotaped inside, or rolled up and shoved down the spine, but there was nothing. Nor were the pages cut to hold a package of some sort, the way he had cut out The Way to Keep Fit to hide his cigarettes when he was fourteen. It hadn’t worked, of course. His mother had noticed what an unusual title it was, mixed in with James Bond, The Saint, The Toff, The Baron and Sherlock Holmes. There was no denying from which side of the family Banks had inherited his detective abilities. He had fared about as well with his copies of Mayfair, Swank and Oui , too, hidden under a false bottom in the wardrobe. God only knew what had tipped her off to that one.

But Bill Quinn’s secret wasn’t hidden in a hollowed out book, or under the false bottom of a wardrobe; it was between the hard book cover and a loosened endpaper, which had only been very superficially smoothed and pasted back down.

Banks peeled back the edge of the flap and managed to prise out a small, thin buff envelope with the tips of his gloved fingers. He sat down by the coffee table, took the envelope, which was closed but not sealed, and shook out its contents on to the table’s surface. Photographs. He turned them all the right way up and set them out in a row. Three colour 4 x 6 prints, run off an inkjet printer on cheap paper. There were no times or dates printed on them, and nothing written on the backs. But they were of good enough quality to show what was happening.

The first one showed Bill Quinn sitting in a bar enjoying an intimate drink with a very beautiful, and very young, woman. She hardly looked old enough to get served, Banks thought. Quinn was leaning in close towards her, and their fingertips were touching on the table. Both had champagne flutes in front of them. The figures in the background were blurred, as were the details of the room, and it was impossible to make out any faces or decor to identify where it had been taken.

In the second photograph, the couple seemed to have moved on to a restaurant. They were sitting in a booth, and the decor seemed darker and more plush, brass, wood and red velour. On the table in front of them, on a white linen tablecloth, were two plates of pasta and two half-full glasses of white wine beside a bottle placed upside down in a metal ice bucket. Their faces were close, as if in intimate conversation, and Quinn’s hand rested on top of the woman’s thigh.

The third photograph was taken slightly from above and showed Quinn on his back with the young girl, naked now, straddling him, her small breasts jutting forward, nipples hard, dark hair hanging over her shoulders. Quinn’s hands rested on her thighs. The girl had an expression of ecstasy on her face, but it was impossible to tell whether it was genuine. Probably not, Banks thought, because the odds were that Bill Quinn had passed out, or had been drugged, by this time. He couldn’t be certain, of course, but there was something about the pose, the way Quinn’s head rested slackly on the pillow, his body slumped, and his hands lying passively on her thighs. Maybe he should have been squeezing her breasts, rearing up and sucking them, kissing them, doing something , at any rate. The surroundings were in darkness except for an oblong of pale light that must have been a window, and one or two pieces of furniture in the shadows. A hotel room, Banks guessed.