Peter Robinson - Friend of the Devil

First thing on the agenda was another look at all the CCTV footage they had on both cases. Hayley Daniels first. As soon as the team was gathered — Banks, Winsome, Hatchley, Wilson, with the gaping absence of Templeton and the off-the-wall comments everyone had come to expect from him — they started watching the footage.

There it was again, the familiar scene of the market square at closing time, young men and women being sick, squabbling, singing with their arms around one another. Then the group from the Fountain standing together briefly while Hayley explained that she was going down Taylor’s Yard for a piss and then…? Well, she hadn’t told them where after that. To Malcolm Austin’s, perhaps?

But why would she want to go there? She was nineteen, pissed as a newt, out with her mates for a night on the town. Why would she want to go and visit a sober, older lover, who was probably lounging around in his carpet slippers sipping sherry and watching films that were made long before she was born? Well, love is blind, they say, but sometimes Banks thought it must be drunk as well. It didn’t matter, anyway. Wherever Hayley had intended to go, she didn’t get there. Someone intercepted her, and unless it was someone who had been lying in wait for any young girl to come by, as Templeton had believed, then it had to be someone who knew she would be there, a decision she had made only in the last minute or so, as they watched.

Banks glanced again at the people around her. He recognized Stuart Kinsey, Zack Lane and a couple of others. Their names were all on file. Their alibis had been checked and rechecked, their statements taken. They could all be reinterviewed. Someone had to know something. Maybe someone was covering for a friend he thought had done it?

The car went by, the couple on their way back from celebrating their wedding anniversary. And there was that annoying, flickering strip of light, like on restored copies of old black-and-white films. Banks made a note to ask technical services if they could get rid of it, though doing so probably wouldn’t reveal anything new. Then Hayley staggered off down Taylor’s Yard, and the rest headed for the Bar None.

Banks knew that Stuart Kinsey had sneaked out of the back exit almost immediately to spy on Hayley, but what about the others? They said they stayed at the Bar None until about two o’clock, and various staff, customers and doormen said they had seen them during that period. But it didn’t take long to sneak out, and if you were clever enough, you could wedge the back door open and hope no one noticed before the time you got back. But why would Hayley linger in the Maze once she had done what she went there to do? She had no reason to do so, unless she was meeting someone there, and why would she do that when she had Malcolm Austin waiting for her? Unless there was someone else.

It didn’t make sense. The killer had to be someone who knew that Hayley was going into the Maze, which meant that whoever it was had to act fast. How long does it take a woman to go down an alley and relieve herself in the dark? She was drunk, which would definitely slow her progress. And she’d been sick, too. On the other hand, she had little in the way of clothing to inhibit her. He could always ask a female constable to go in and do it, and time her. That would go down about as well as asking every woman connected with the Lucy Payne murder to take her top off. Sometimes the easiest and most obvious route was the only way you couldn’t go.

Banks estimated about five minutes, in and out, and felt that was fairly generous. That gave the killer about three or four minutes to follow Hayley and grab her before she finished. Stuart Kinsey had gone in there about three or four minutes after her, which made it unlikely that anyone else in the Bar None could have gone out the same way at the same time. They would have bumped into each other. And Stuart Kinsey had at least heard part of the assault against Hayley, and he said he had seen no one else in the Maze.

The tapes went on and on, Jamie Murdoch leaving with his bicycle at two-thirty, a few stragglers from the Bar None getting into a shoving match, then nothing. DC Doug Wilson switched off the player, put on the lights, and they all stretched. Over three hours had gone by, and nothing. It was time to send the team out on the streets to start talking to people again, and Banks had an appointment he wished he didn’t have to keep.

Banks leaned on a wall outside Eastvale General Infirmary, feeling queasy, and took a few slow, deep breaths. Dr. Wallace had performed her postmortem on Kevin Templeton with her usual brisk speed and efficiency, but it had been difficult to watch. There had been no banter, no black humor — hardly a word spoken, in fact — and she had seemed to work with the utmost concentration and detachment.

And nothing new had come of her efforts.

Cause of death was the cut throat, time was fixed by the eyewitness Chelsea Pilton, and other than that he was dead, Templeton had been in good health. The postmortem also hadn’t told Dr. Wallace anything more about the weapon, though she leaned toward the theory that a straight-blade razor had been used, pulled most likely from left to right across Templeton’s throat, cutting the carotid, the jugular and the windpipe. It had been quick, as Dr. Burns had noted at the scene, but long enough for Templeton to have known what was happening to him as he struggled for breath and felt himself weaken through loss of blood and oxygen. The consolation was that he would have been in no great pain, but when it came down to it, Banks thought, only Templeton himself could have known that for certain.

Banks stood on the steps of the infirmary, leaning beside the door, with a chill March wind blowing around him, and when he had regained his composure he decided to drive over to Eastvale College to talk to Stuart Kinsey again. On his way, he plucked up the courage to ring Sophia and ask her if she fancied a drink later. She did.

He tracked Kinsey down in the coffee lounge, and they found a dim quiet corner. Banks bought two lattes and a couple of KitKats at the counter and sat down.

“What is it now?” Stuart asked. “I thought you believed me?”

“I do believe you,” said Banks. “At least I believe that you didn’t murder Hayley Daniels.”

“What, then?”

“Just a few more questions, that’s all.”

“I’ve got a lecture at three.”

“That’s okay. I’ll be done long before then if we can make a start.”

“All right,” said Stuart, reaching for a cigarette. “What do you want to know?”

“It’s about the night you followed Hayley into the Maze.”

“I didn’t follow her.”

“But you went to spy on her. You knew she was there.” The smoke drifted toward Banks, and for the first time in ages it didn’t bother him. In fact, it made him crave a smoke himself. Must have been the stress of seeing Templeton opened up on the table. He fought the urge and it waned.

“I wasn’t spying!” Stuart said, glancing around to make sure no one could hear them. “I’m not a pervert. I told you, I wanted to see where she went.”

“Did you think she was meeting someone?”

“Not there, no. Whatever I thought of Hayley, I didn’t think she was the type for a quick drunken fumble in a dark alley. No, she went there for a piss, that’s all. I thought she was going to meet someone later, somewhere else.”

Banks took the silver paper from his KitKat. “Did Hayley give any indications, either that night or at any other time, that there was something or someone bothering her?”

“No. Not that I can think of. Why?”

“She wasn’t worried about anything?”

“You’ve asked me this before. Or the other officer did.”