Payne. Clearly not.
3 6 2 P E T E R
R O B I N S O N
“I’m sorry, but I can’t help you,” Dr. Wallace said.
“Can’t or won’t?”
Dr. Wallace paused in her sewing and glanced over the body at Annie. “Well, it amounts to the same thing, really, doesn’t it?”
“No, it doesn’t. Either you don’t know anything, or you’re being willfully obstructive, which I find very odd behavior in a Home Office pathologist. You’re supposed to be on our side, you know.”
Dr. Wallace stared at Annie. “What are you saying?”
“I’m asking you if you gave anyone this information, for any reason.” Annie softened her tone. “Look, Liz,” she said. “You might have had good intentions. Perhaps you knew one of the victims’ families, or someone who had been damaged by the Paynes? I can understand that. But we need to know. Did you tell
“No.”
“Did
Dr. Wallace sighed, put her needle and thread down and leaned on the edge of the table. “Yes,” she said. “I knew.”
In the silence that followed, Annie felt a growing tightness in her chest. “But that means . . .”
“I know what it means,” said Dr. Wallace. “I’m not stupid.”
She had exchanged her needle for a scalpel and was moving away from the body on the table.
“ G O O D TO see you again, Alan,” said DI Ken Blackstone, meeting Banks at the front desk of Millgarth and escorting him through security. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”
“It looks as if we’ve got Hayley Daniels’s killer.” Banks explained about Jamie Murdoch’s confession and the hidden way out of The Fountain.
“Just one more to go, then,” said Blackstone. “I was sorry to hear about Kev Templeton.”
“We all were,” said Banks.
“Anyway, what can I do for you?”
“Did you get the Chameleon files out for Annie Cabbot?”
F R I E N D O F T H E D E V I L
3 6 3
“How are you two doing, by the way?”
“Better, I think. At least we’re working together again. I’m still not sure what’s going on with her, though.”
“You’re not . . . ?”
“No. That’s been over for a long time.”
“Anyone else?”
“Maybe. Ken, about those files?”
Blackstone laughed. “Yes, of course. Getting quite nosy in my old age, aren’t I? Sorry. The files are in my office. Most of them, anyway.
There isn’t room for everything. Not if I want to sit in there, too.
Why?”
“Mind if I have a look?”
“Not at all. It was your case. Partly, at any rate. Anything I can do?”
“A cup of coffee would go down a treat, Ken. Black, no sugar. And maybe a KitKat. I like the dark-chocolate ones.”
“Your diet’s terrible. Anyone ever told you? I’ll send down. Want me out of the way?”
“Not at all.”
They went into Blackstone’s office, and Banks saw immediately that he hadn’t been exaggerating. They could hardly move for boxes.
“Know where everything is?” Banks asked.
“Not exactly.” Blackstone picked up his phone and called for two coffees and a dark-chocolate KitKat. After anything in particu lar?”
“I got to thinking about the Kirsten Farrow case,” said Banks. “Anyway, I seemed to remember that the wounds were rather similar in both cases, and I wondered if that was what had set her off again after eighteen years. That and finding out where Lucy Payne was hiding out. It might have acted as a trigger.”
“But what about the other woman you mentioned? Maggie Forrest?”
“She’s not out of the picture yet. There could even be some connection between her and Kirsten Farrow. There are a number of odd links in this case, strange tangents, and I won’t rest until I get them sorted.”
