Peter Robinson - Bad Boy

“No. Just her ripped denim jacket and her tatty shoulder bag. She didn’t even take a toothbrush. Mind you, the shoulder bag’s probably big enough to get the kitchen sink in if you wanted to. I don’t know what all she keeps in it.”

“And you’re sure you’ve no idea where she went?”

“What’s happening with Erin? Where is she?”

“Erin’s fine. She’s being cared for. You heard about her father?”

Rose nodded. “On the news tonight. It’s terrible. You shouldn’t use those things on people, you know. They’re for animals. Even that’s cruelty.”

“I’m worried about Francesca,” said Annie. “Are you sure you have no idea where she went, where she might be?”

“I think she might have gone to see Jaff.”

“Jaff?”

“Yes. Erin’s boyfriend. To be honest, I think there was something going on there, if you know what I mean. I don’t like to tell tales out of school, but I think maybe Francesca fancied him, too. You can tell about these things. There’s been a bit of friction between them lately.”

“Erin and Francesca? This past week?”

“Yes. Before Erin went home.”

“So you think Erin might have been jealous of Francesca and this Jaff getting too close?”

“I think so. I can’t be sure, but I think so. He’s very handsome. I know I’d be jealous all the time if he was my boyfriend. Some hope of that.”

Annie leaned forward and clasped her hands on her knees. “This is very important, Rose. At what point did Tracy, or Francesca, start to panic and decide to go out?”

“It was after she’d rung Erin’s house in Eastvale.”

“Who did she talk to?”

“I don’t know. She didn’t talk to anyone, really. I just heard her ask if she was speaking to Mr. Doyle, then she hung up in a hurry and dashed off.”

If Tracy had made the call to Erin’s house at around seven o’clock yesterday evening, Annie thought, then a police officer would have almost certainly answered the phone, as the Doyle house was already under lockdown. Patrick Doyle was dead, Juliet was at Harriet Weaver’s, and Erin herself was on police bail in a B-and-B near the castle. The officer who answered would have asked who was calling, and why. Something about that phone call had scared Tracy off. But why? What was she hiding? “Had you already talked to her about Jaff?” Annie asked, thinking that this was probably the “Geoff” to whom Juliet Doyle had referred.

“Yes. She asked if I had mentioned him, or her, to the police.”

“And had you?”

“Why wouldn’t I? I’ve got nothing to hide.”

But maybe Jaff and Tracy had, Annie thought. “Is Jaff Erin’s boyfriend’s real name?” she asked.

“It’s short for Jaffar. I don’t know his last name.”

“Is he Asian?”

“Half Indian, or something.”

“Do you know where he lives?”

“Granary Wharf. But I don’t know the address. It’s an old converted warehouse with a restaurant on the ground floor. The three of us were walking past once, just when I’d decided to take the room. We’d been out celebrating with a drink somewhere nearby. Anyway, Erin pointed it out, like she was really proud, you know. Showing off that her boyfriend had money.”

“And does he?”

“Seems to have.”

Granary Wharf was certainly a posh address. Even Annie had heard of it. Now was the time she should ring the station, she realized, and report her findings to Superintendent Gervaise. But if she did that, it would be out of her hands, beyond her control. If Banks’s daughter was in trouble, Annie wanted to see what she could do to nip it in the bud, if it wasn’t already too late, and she couldn’t do that with Gervaise holding her back. “Do you mind if I have a quick look at Francesca’s room while I’m here?” she asked.

“No skin off my nose. It’s the second door on the left at the top of the landing.”

Annie climbed the stairs and opened the door. It was a spacious enough room, painted mauve and furnished like the usual student bedsit, with a desk and chair, bookcases, chest of drawers full of underwear and T-shirts, and a closet built into the wall, where Tracy hung her dresses, skirts, tops and jeans…

There were a compact CD player and a small stack of CDs-Florence and the Machine, Adele, Emmy the Great, Kaiser Chiefs, Arctic Monkeys, the Killers. Beside them stood a few books, mostly history, which had been Tracy’s subject at university, and a few modern novels: The Kite Runner, The Time Traveller’s Wife, The Thirteenth Tale. There was no sign of a computer or a mobile. If Tracy had a phone, as Annie was certain she must have, then she had taken it with her.

Annie opened the drawer on the bedside table and found some personal items: tampons, condoms, an old prescription for a yeast infection and some cheap jewelry. When she went back downstairs Rose was on the living room couch, and the TV was on again. EastEnders. “Do you happen to know Francesca’s mobile number?” Annie asked.

“Sure.” Rose picked up her own mobile from the low coffee table and read out a number. Annie called. No response. She thanked Rose, then said good night and set off home for Harkside.

BANKS SAT IN VESUVIO’S TAVERN, AT THE TABLE BESIDE the door, with his back to the window sipping his pint of Anchor Steam and examining the copy of The Maltese Falcon that he had just bought at City Lights next door. It was one of his favorite films, but he had never read the book. Hammett had written about San Francisco in the thirties, and apparently there were still places associated with him. Maybe Banks would offer to take Teresa to John’s Bar & Grill, where Sam Spade had enjoyed his chops. Banks had read about it in the guidebook and knew the restaurant was still in business, and not too far from their hotel.

For now, though, he was visiting an old beatnik haunt on Columbus, and the man at the bar in the beret, talking to the frizzy-haired barmaid, looked as if he might have been there since Jack Kerouac’s time. The bar had a high ceiling and an upper balcony, empty at that time of day. A screen behind the bar flashed random surreal images, and the walls were covered with old framed newspaper articles about San Francisco’s history. Banks had walked all the way from Fisherman’s Wharf, through North Beach, with its Italian cafés and wedding-cake houses, and the cold beer was going down nicely.

Los Angeles and his two-day drive up the Pacific Coast Highway were just memories now that he was in San Francisco, near the end of his trip. His thoughts drifted from the book he was reading to that night in the desert, as they often had, to that strange fleeting kiss of happiness. At first it had surprised him that he was a stranger to it, that it was something he barely remembered feeling before, except perhaps once or twice as a child. He had always possessed too restless a nature, and restlessness precludes lasting happiness. He had never stopped to smell the flowers or listen to the ocean. And if he wasn’t restless, he usually felt a kind of vague, mellow sadness punctuated by the occasional eruption of anger or irritation. There had been moments of bliss, of course, but they were infrequent and ephemeral, and he often wondered if such moments could ever be sustainable. Was that the nature of happiness? That it came and went like a breath of desert air? That it was something we might only define by its absence? Or was it just his nature? He would probably never know. And what did it really matter, anyway?

Everything changes. Nothing changes. His revelation was that there was no revelation. To change his life in any significant way he would have to make a leap of faith and accept such new tenets, new versions of the truth, cultivate new patterns of behavior, bow to some authority, even. He would have to believe, and he didn’t think he could do that. He didn’t even think he wanted to.