Peter Robinson - Friend of the Devil

“Yes, of course. I know that. But if Eastcote was the serial killer, and a woman sent him over that cliff…”

“And Kirsten Farrow was the surviving victim…”

“The mysterious woman seen with Grimley and McLaren. Exactly.”

“But how could she be?” Annie said. “You told me yourself that she couldn’t have known who her attacker was, and she was in Leeds with her friend at the time of the crimes.”

Ferris shrugged. “That’s what she told us. And her friend corroborated it. But alibis can be fabricated. What if she had found out?”

“Have you talked to anyone else about this?”

Ferris gave her a hurt look. “What do you think I am?”

Annie rubbed her forehead. “Sorry,” she said. “The media’s already in a feeding frenzy since they found out it was Lucy Payne on the edge of that cliff.”

Ferris chuckled. “I’ll bet they are. Anyroad, they’ll get nothing from me.”

Annie took out her notebook. “Okay, I’ll make a few preliminary inquiries,” she said. “You’d better start by giving me some names and last-known addresses. The Australian, Kirsten’s friend. We’re really pushed for manpower as it is, but maybe it’d be worth a bit of digging.” Then she stopped, struck by an idea that might be as crazy as it sounded.

“What is it?” Ferris said.

“You know those locks of hair you told me about?”

“Yes.”

“Did you keep them?”

“They’d be with the rest of the case material somewhere, yes,” said Ferris.

“Do you think you could dig them out?”

Ferris’s face lit up as if he had been given a new purpose in life. “Is the Pope Catholic?” he said, beaming. “I don’t see why not. I am a researcher, after all.”

The beer was flowing in the Queen’s Arms, where the landlord had put two long tables together, and even Detective Superintendent Catherine Gervaise was joining in the celebrations with a smile on her face. Only Banks stood apart, leaning against the windowsill pensively sipping his pint, occasionally glancing out through the diamond-shaped panes at the passersby on Market Street as the shadows lengthened, feeling that something wasn’t quite right, that they were perhaps being premature. But a DNA match was solid, an arrest was an arrest, and it demanded celebration. The Arctic Monkeys were on the jukebox and all was well with the world.

“What is it, sir?” asked Winsome, suddenly standing by his side, a purple drink topped with a maraschino cherry in her hand. Banks didn’t even want to know what it was. She was a little wobbly, but her voice and her eyes were clear.

“Nothing,” said Banks. “Having fun?”

“I suppose so.”

“Something wrong?”

“No,” said Winsome. “You just seemed far away. I wondered…”

“What?”

“Nothing, sir.”

“Come on, out with it.”

“It’s none of my business.”

“What isn’t?”

Someone bumped into Winsome, but she managed to hold on to her drink without spilling any. The man apologized and moved on. Hatchley was telling a joke over the music and everyone at the table was waiting for the punch line. Banks had heard it before. “Busy in here tonight, isn’t it?” Winsome said.

“You can’t just start to say something, then cut it off in midstream,” said Banks. “What’s on your mind?”

“DI Cabbot, sir.”

“Annie?”

“I told you, it’s none of my business. I don’t want to speak out of turn, but I know you two are friends.”

“I used to think so, too,” said Banks. Through the window, a couple of schoolgirls in disheveled uniforms passed by on their way home from a late band practice, one carrying a violin case, the other a flute.

Hatchley reached his punch line and the table started laughing. “Sir?”

“Nothing. What about DI Cabbot?”

“I had dinner with her last night. I think something’s bothering her.”

“Bothering her? In what way?”

“I don’t know, sir.” Winsome lowered her voice. “I think it’s a boyfriend. Stalking? Threatening?”

It didn’t take much to work out that Annie had probably driven over to see Banks just after her dinner with Winsome. She had mentioned toyboys, but why hadn’t she told him she was in trouble? She clearly hadn’t got the chance. “I’ll have a word,” he said, wondering just how on earth he would manage to do that given their last encounter and the present climate of their relationship.

“You won’t tell her I said anything?”

“Don’t worry,” said Banks. He saw the desk sergeant enter the pub, glance around and walk straight toward him. He groaned. “Shit, Ernie, what do you want?” he said.

“Always nice to find a warm welcome, sir,” said Ernie.

“I’m sure it happens a lot when you’re always the bearer of good news.”

“You’re not going to like it.”

“I never do, but that’s not stopped you yet.”

“Bloke just came in, neighbor of Joseph Randall, the one you charged.”

“And?”

“Says Randall can’t possibly have done it, sir. Wants to talk to the man in charge.”

“ Man in charge?” Banks glanced over at Detective Superintendent Gervaise, who seemed to be enjoying a private chat with DC Wilson, and wondered if feminism might actually work for him, just this once, then he decided just as quickly that it wouldn’t. Why rain on their parade? If there was anything in it, they’d find out soon enough. “All right,” he said, getting to his feet. “Lead on.”

Annie mulled over her conversation with Les Ferris as she drove on the A171, along the edge of the North York Moors, quiet at that time of evening, just after dark. She put some foot-tapping pop music on the radio to keep her going, but the chatter between songs irritated her so much that she turned it off. On the face of it, what Ferris had come up with sounded absurd: one murder, one serious assault and one unsolved disappearance of eighteen years ago, a mysterious woman seen in proximity to two of the three scenes. As he had said, there was only ever officially one crime: Keith McLaren’s assault.

What could any of this possibly have to do with what happened on Sunday? Curiously enough, Annie thought there were quite a few connections. First was location. There had been no other murders around the cliffs in the past eighteen years, so why again now? Second came the strong possibility of a female killer. Women murderers are much rarer than men. Third, two of the victims were serial killers, or perceived by many to be serial killers: Greg Eastcote and Lucy Payne. Four, the murderer of eighteen years ago had not been caught. And that led to the fifth and final point of similarity: If the killer had been around eighteen years ago, that put her at almost forty now, and that was about the only thing they knew about the elusive Mary. Mel Danvers thought she had been about that age. It was still very tenuous, but the more Annie thought about it, the more she became convinced that it at least merited some investigation.

What about Keith McLaren, the Australian? Perhaps he had recovered more of his memory now. It was all moot until Les Ferris came up with the hair samples, anyway, and then a lot depended on whether they could match Kirsten’s to any of the hairs found on Lucy Payne’s blanket. If not, it was a washout, but if they did, they were in business.

It was a beautiful clear evening, Annie thought, as she passed the road to Robin Hood’s Bay. She could see the afterglow of the sunset, dark strata of red and purple silhouetting the western hills. To the east, over the North Sea, spread that magical shade of luminescent dark blue you saw only at the time of night opposite a sunset. A silver moon hung low to the north.