Peter Robinson - Friend of the Devil

“So she was a tease?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“You implied it.”

“No, not really. She could be. She liked playing games, flirting, winding you up. But she could be serious, too. I mean, you could have a good serious talk with Hayley. Politics. Music. History. Whatever. She had opinions and the knowledge to back them up. All I’m saying is that just because she dressed the way she did, it didn’t mean she was giving it away to everyone. You should know that.”

“What do you mean?”

“Okay, don’t get your kni — Don’t take offense. I meant in your job you must hear that excuse about someone asking for it because of the way she dresses, and you know it shouldn’t matter. A woman should be able to walk the streets of Eastvale stark naked if she wants, and no one has the right to touch her.”

Winsome laughed. “I’m sure they’d have a good look, though.”

“Well,” said Zack, “that’s one thing you lot haven’t made illegal. Yet.” He tapped the side of his head. “Along with what people think.”

“We’re trying to find out who Hayley had been seeing recently,” Winsome went on. “If it wasn’t you and it wasn’t Stuart Kinsey, do you have any idea who it might have been?”

Zack paused. “Well, she didn’t say anything, but…” He glanced out of the window back down the street whence they’d come. “I don’t think you’d have to look much further than our Mr. Austin back there.”

“Is that where she was going on Saturday night?”

“I think so.”

“Austin denied that he had anything to do with her.”

Zack laughed. “He would, wouldn’t he? He’d stand to lose his job. They don’t take kindly to that sort of thing around here.”

“Do you know this for a fact?”

“About Mal and Hayley? Sure. I’ve seen them together, seen him with his hand creeping up her thigh, nibbling her neck.”

“When was this?”

“About a month ago.”

Winsome felt her pulse speed up. Zack Lane had been worth the wait, after all. “Where did you see them?”

“Pub outside Helmthorpe. The Green Man. They must have thought they were far enough out of the manor, but I was over there for a darts competition.”

“Did they see you?”

“I don’t think so. I cleared out pretty quickly when I saw them.”

“Why?”

“It would have been awkward. Remember, Austin’s my tutor, too.”

“Yes,” said Winsome. “Of course.” She stood up. “Thanks, Mr. Lane. Thanks a lot.” Now she had the corroboration she needed, Winsome had the feeling that things were starting to progress, and Malcolm Austin was going to have a lot of difficult questions to answer the next time he got a visit from the police.

So what is it, Alan? What’s going on? You could have cut the tension in there with a knife.”

“Do you think Phil Hartnell noticed?”

“He didn’t get where he is today by not noticing things like that. He probably thought you’d had a lovers’ tiff.”

“And you?”

“It seemed the logical assumption. But…”

“But what, Ken?”

“Well, you’re not lovers, are you? At least I thought you two were no longer an item.”

“We’re not,” said Banks. “At least I didn’t think we were.”

“What does that mean?”

They were sitting outside on a bench at the Packhorse, in a yard just off Briggate. The walls were higher, but it made Banks think of the Maze and Hayley Daniels. Banks tucked into his jumbo haddock and chips, a pint of Black Sheep beside him. There was already a group of students at one table discussing a Radiohead concert, and the lunchtime office crowd was starting to trickle in, men with their ties loosened and jackets slung over their shoulders, and the women in long print skirts and short-sleeved tops, open-toed shoes or sandals. The weather really had warmed up since Sunday, and it was looking good for the weekend.

“I wish I knew,” said Banks. He didn’t feel it was his place to tell Ken exactly what had happened the previous evening, so he gave the bare-bones version, leaving out any mention of the awkward pass Annie had made, or the way he had felt when her thighs and breasts brushed against him. Desire and danger. And he had chosen to protect himself from the danger rather than give in to the desire. But he couldn’t explain that to Ken, either. There had been jealousy, too, when she talked about toyboys. He had read somewhere that jealousy cannot exist without desire.

“So what was all that about, then?” Blackstone asked.

Banks laughed. “Annie doesn’t exactly confide in me these days. Besides, she’s been over at Eastern Area for a couple of weeks. We’ve not been in touch. Something strange is going on in her life; that’s all I can say for certain.”

“She didn’t look good this morning.”

“I know.”

“You say she was drunk when she came to see you?”

“That was definitely the impression I got.”

“Maybe she’s got a problem with the bottle? It happens often enough in our line of work.”

Banks stared into his half-empty pint. Or was it half full? Did he have a problem with the bottle? There were those who would say he did. He knew he drank too much, but he didn’t drink enough to give him a hangover every morning or interfere with his job, so he tended not to worry about it too much. What harm was he doing sitting around by himself having a few glasses of wine listening to Thelonious Monk or the Grateful Dead? So, once in a while he got the blues and let himself wallow in a few late Billie Holiday torch songs, or Dylan’s Modern Times, and perhaps poured an extra glass or two. So what? As Annie had said, what did he have in his miserable little life that was so wonderful he could afford to reject someone like her?

“I don’t think it’s that,” Banks said. “Annie’s always enjoyed a pint, and she can hold her booze. No, I think that’s the symptom, not the cause.”

“Man trouble?”

“Why do we always assume it’s something along those lines?” Banks said. “Maybe it’s job trouble?” But even as he spoke, he wasn’t convinced. There were things that Annie had said last night, things he had only half understood, but if he read between the lines they pointed toward man trouble. He’d been involved in her love life before, and he didn’t know if he wanted to be involved again. “Maybe it’s dredging up that whole Lucy Payne and Janet Taylor business,” he said, hoping at least to divert, if not completely change, the subject.

Blackstone sipped some beer. “She had a rough time of it,” he said. “Definitely got the short end of the shitty stick on that one.”

“We all had a rough time of it,” said Banks. “But I know what you mean. Any ideas?”

“On who might have done it?”

“Yes.”

“Like AC Hartnell said, it’s a long list. One thing that brings me up short, though, is the… well, I suppose you could say the precision of it.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, first let’s assume that one way or another it wasn’t too hard for the killer to find out where Lucy Payne went when she left hospital. I know Julia Ford says her firm went to great lengths to disguise her identity and her whereabouts, but these things can all be circumvented if someone wanted to find out badly enough. A little inside help, a lot of public records, a few quid changing hands, whatever. So let’s put that aside and assume finding her was no real challenge. What I’m thinking about is the method. If it had been an angry and disturbed member of a victim’s family, say, then why not just take Lucy for a walk down the coast and push her over the cliff?”

“I see what you mean,” said Banks. “To do it the way it was done, the killer had to go prepared. The razor, or whatever she used, for example.”