Peter Robinson: Friend of the Devil

“Then we’d better have a look now before the little Hitlers take over.”

Templeton grinned. “It’s not very pretty in there.”

Banks stared at him. In the ranks of pointless comments he had heard in his time, it didn’t rate particularly high, but it had its place. Templeton shrugged, didn’t even have the awareness to be embarrassed. Banks wondered if that was a psychopath’s trait, along the lines of lack of conscience, no sense of humor and zero human empathy.

Kitted out in protective overalls and gloves, Banks pushed the green wooden door. It creaked on rusty hinges as it opened to reveal Dr. Burns kneeling over a body in the light of a naked bulb. For a split second, Banks was reminded of an image from a film he had seen, something to do with Jack the Ripper bending over one of his victims. Well, the Maze certainly had its similarities to the Ripper’s Whitechapel, but Banks hoped that was where the comparison ended.

He turned back to Templeton. “Do you know whether the door was locked before the girl was put in there?”

“Hard to say, Guv. The wood’s so old and rotten, a quick hard shove would have done for it. It could have been broken for ages.”

Banks turned back to the storage room. The first thing he noticed, other than the dust, whitewashed walls and spiderwebs, was the mingled smells of leather, vomit and blood, the latter faint, a distant sweet metallic undertone, but nevertheless discernible. The victim was lying on a pile of leather scraps and remnants. From what Banks could see in the dim light, they were of various colors — green, blue, red, brown — and mostly triangular or rectangular. Banks picked one up. It was very soft, pliable leather that might be useful for something down the line: an elbow patch, say, or a small item like a change purse.

Dr. Burns glanced over his shoulder and moved back to stand beside Banks. The room was just high enough for them both to stand upright. “Ah, Alan. I’ve disturbed things as little as possible. I know what the SOCOs are like.”

Banks knew, too. The Scenes-of-Crime Officers were very territorial about their work, and woe betide anyone who got in their way, DCI or not. “Have you had a chance to determine cause of death?” he asked.

“Looks like manual strangulation to me, unless there are any hidden causes,” Burns said, stooping and carefully lifting a strand of blond hair, gesturing toward the dark bruising under her chin and ear.

From what Banks could see, she was young, no older than his own daughter Tracy. She was wearing a green top and a white miniskirt with a broad pink plastic belt covered in silver glitter. The skirt had been hitched up even higher than it was already to expose her upper thighs. The body looked posed. She lay on her left side, legs scissored, as if she were running in her sleep. Something glistened on her pale flesh lower down, just above her knee, and Banks thought it might be semen. If so, there was a good chance of DNA. Her red knickers, skimpy as string, had snagged on her left ankle. She was wearing black patent leather high heels and a silver chain around her right ankle. Just above it was a tattoo of a tiny butterfly. Her top had been pushed up to expose the profile of her small pale breasts and puffy nipples, and her eyes were open, staring at the far wall. Two or three of the leather remnants protruded from her mouth.

“Pretty young thing,” said Dr. Burns. “Damn shame.”

“Is that all she was wearing? It’s bloody freezing.”

“Kids today. You must have seen them.”

Banks had. Whole groups of them, girls in particular, though plenty of boys wore nothing but T-shirts and jeans, running around town from pub to pub in the middle of winter wearing thin sleeveless tops and short skirts. No tights. He had always assumed it was because they wanted to show off their bodies, but perhaps it was a simple practical matter. It just made things easier when you were on the move: no clutter, nothing to remember, or forget, except your handbag. It made coming and going from places easy, and perhaps it was a mark of youth too, indifference to the cold, thumbing one’s nose at the elements.

“She wouldn’t have ended up in that position naturally, would she?” Banks asked.

“Not if she was raped and strangled,” said Burns. “She would have been on her back, with her legs open, but there’s no sign of lividity there.”

“So he moved her when he’d finished, turned her on her side, turned her face away, made her appear a bit more decent, as if she was sleeping. Perhaps he cleaned her up, too.”

“Well, if he did, he missed something, didn’t he?” said Dr. Burns, pointing to the glistening spot.

Dr. Burns moved and accidentally bumped his head against the lightbulb, which started swinging back and forth. In the corner, beside the door, Banks glimpsed something catching the light. There, on the dusty stone floor, lay a gold lamé bag with a thin shoulder strap. Carefully, with his gloved hands, Banks picked it up and opened it. Lipstick; compact with mirror; three condoms; four Benson & Hedges; purple Bic cigarette lighter and a book of matches from the Duck and Drake; facial tissues; paracetamol; nail file and clipper; a tampon; cheap turquoise gel pen; iPod shuffle in a pink skin; driving license; an unmarked vial with four white pills in it, Ecstasy, each stamped with a crown; a small purse with twenty pounds in notes and sixty-five pence in coins. Finally, a small address book with a William Morris cover, and in the front a name, Hayley Daniels, the same name that appeared with the photograph on her driving license, and an address in Swainshead, a village about thirty miles west of Eastvale.

Banks made a note of the details in his notebook and put everything back in the handbag for the SOCOs. He called Kevin Templeton into the doorway and told him to phone the local police station in Swainshead and have the constable there break the news to the girl’s parents. Arrangements would then be made for them to come to Eastvale to identify the body. No more than the necessary details to be given.

Then Banks glanced back toward the girl’s twisted body. “Anything on the sexual element?” he asked Dr. Burns. “Apart from the obvious.”

“Nothing certain yet, but it looks as if she’s been brutally raped,” said Burns. “Vaginal and anal. Dr. Wallace will be able to tell you more when she gets her on the table. One odd thing.”

“Yes.”

“Well, she’s been shaved. Down there.”

“The killer?”

“It’s possible, I suppose. But some girls do it… I mean, so I’ve heard. And there’s a tattoo, where the hair would have been. You can’t see it well at all from this position, and I don’t want to disturb the body any more than necessary until the SOCOs have had their turn. But it would seem to indicate maybe she had it done herself some time ago. You can see the tattoo on her ankle, too.”

“Yes.”

Dr. Burns was the local police surgeon and, as such, his job usually stopped with attending the scene, declaring death and releasing the body for the coroner. After that, Dr. Wallace, the new Home Office pathologist, usually performed the postmortem. Banks had found Burns useful in the past, though. Like all doctors, he didn’t like to commit himself, but he could be led into a speculation or two on cause and time of death, which usually proved accurate enough to save Banks some time. That was what he asked about next.

Burns checked his watch. “It’s half past nine now,” he said. “The cold would slow down rigor, and she seems young and healthy enough. I mean… you know.”

Banks knew. Over the years he had got used to dead people being described as “in good health.”

“I’m only guessing, of course,” Burns went on, “but I’d say after midnight, maybe as late as two in the morning, but not likely later than that.”