1. Help Mum more around the house.
2. Practice piano every day.
3. Be nicer to my little sisters.
Banks stripped off his protective clothing, leaned against his car out in the street and lit a cigarette. It was going to be a hot, sunny day, he could tell, only the occasional high cloud scudding across the blue sky on a light breeze, and he would be spending most of it indoors, either at the scene or at Millgarth. He ignored the people on the other side of the road, who stopped to stare, and shut his ears to the honking horns from the snarl of cars up The Hill, which had now been blocked off completely by the local traffic police. The press had arrived; Banks could see them straining at the barriers.
Banks had known it would come to this eventually, or to something very much like this, from the first moment he had agreed to head the North Yorkshire half of the two-county task force into the series of disappearances: Five young women in all, three from West Yorkshire and two from North Yorkshire. The West Yorkshire Assistant Chief Constable (Crime) was in overall charge, but he was at county headquarters in Wakefield, so Banks and Blackstone rarely saw him. They reported directly to the head of CID, Area Commander Philip Hartnell, at Millgarth in Leeds, who was the official senior investigating officer, but who left them to get on with the job. The main incident room was also at Millgarth.
Under Banks and Blackstone came several detective inspectors; a whole host of detective constables and sergeants, culled from both West and North County forces; skilled civilian employees; Crime Scene Coordinator DS Stefan Nowak; and, acting as consultant psychologist, Dr. Jenny Fuller, who had studied offender profiling in America with the National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crime at the FBI academy in Quantico, Virginia, and didn’t look a bit like Jodie Foster. Jenny had also studied with Paul Britton in Leicester and was recognized as one of the rising stars in the relatively new field of psychology combined with police work.
Banks had worked with Jenny Fuller on his very first case in Eastvale, and they had become close friends. Almost more, but something always seemed to get in their way.
It was probably for the best, Banks told himself, though he often couldn’t convince himself of that when he looked at her. Jenny had such lips as you rarely saw on anyone but a pouting French sex symbol, her figure tapered and bulged in all the right places and her clothes, usually expensive clothes, silky mostly in green and russet, just seemed to flow over her. It was that “liquefaction of her clothes” that the poet Herrick wrote about, the dirty old devil. Banks had come across Herrick in a poetry anthology he was working his way through, having felt a disturbing ignorance in such matters for years.
Lines like Herrick’s stuck with him, as did the one about “sweet disorder in the dress,” which made him think of DS Annie Cabbot, for some reason. Annie wasn’t so obviously beautiful in the way Jenny was, not as voluptuous, not the kind to draw wolf whistles on the street, but she had a deep, quiet sort of beauty that appealed very much to Banks. Unfortunately, because of his new and onerous responsibilities, he hadn’t seen much of Annie lately and had found himself, because of the case, spending more and more time with Jenny, realizing that the old feelings, that odd and immediate spark between them, had never gone away. Nothing had
Annie was also consumed with her work. She had found a detective inspector’s position open in Western Division’s Complaints and Discipline Department, and had taken it because it was the first opportunity that came up. It wasn’t ideal, and it certainly didn’t win her any popularity contests, but it was a necessary step in the ladder she had set out to climb, and Banks had encouraged her to go for it.
DC Karen Hodgkins edged her little gray Nissan through the opening the police made in the barrier for her and broke off Banks’s chain of thought. She got out and walked over. Karen had proved an energetic and ambitious worker throughout the whole investigation, and Banks fancied she would go far if she developed a flair for police politics. She reminded him a bit of Susan Gay, his old DC, now a DS in Cirencester, but she had fewer sharp edges and seemed more sure of herself.
“What’s the situation?” Banks asked her.
“Not much change, sir. Lucy Payne’s under sedation. The doctor says we won’t be able to talk to her until tomorrow.”
“Have Lucy and her husband been fingerprinted?”
“Yes, sir.”
“What about her clothes?” Banks had suggested that they take the clothes Lucy Payne had been wearing for forensic examination. After all, she wouldn’t be needing them in hospital.
“They should be at the lab by now, sir.”
“Good. What was she wearing?”
“Nightie and a dressing gown.”
“What about Terence Payne? How’s he doing?”
“Hanging on. But they say that even if he does recover he might be… you know… a vegetable… there might be serious brain damage. They’ve found skull fragments stuck in his brain. It seems… well…”
“Go on.”
“The doctor’s saying that it seems the PC who subdued him used a bit more than reasonable force. He was very angry.”
“Was he, indeed?”
“She’s at home, sir. A friend’s with her. Female PC from Killingbeck.”
“Okay, Karen, I want you to act as hospital liaison for the time being. Any change in the status of the patients – either of them – and I want to know immediately. That’s your responsibility, okay?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And we’re going to need a family liaison officer.” He gestured toward the house. “Kimberley’s parents need to be told, before they hear it on the news. We also need to arrange for them to identify the body.”
“I’ll do it, sir.”
“Good of you to offer, Karen, but you’ve got your hands full already. And it’s a thankless task.”
Karen Hodgkins headed back to her car. If truth be told, Banks didn’t think Karen had the right bedside manner for a family liaison officer. He could picture the scene – the parents’ disbelief, their outpouring of grief, Karen’s embarrassment and brusqueness. No. He would send roly-poly Jonesy. DC Jones might be a slob, but he had sympathy and concern leaking out of every pore. He should have been a vicar. One of the problems with drawing a team from such a wide radius, Banks thought, was that you could never get to know the individual officers well enough. Which didn’t help when it came to handing out assignments. You needed the right person for the right job in police work, and one wrong decision could screw up an investigation.
Banks just wasn’t used to running such a huge team, and the problems of coordination had given him more than one headache. In fact, the whole matter of responsibility was weighing very heavily on his mind. He didn’t feel competent to deal with it all, to keep so many balls up in the air at once. He had already made more than one minor mistake and mishandled a few situations with personnel. So much so that he was beginning to think his people skills were especially low. It was easier working with a small team – Annie, Winsome Jackman, Sergeant Hatchley – where he could keep track of every little detail in his mind. This was more like the kind of work he had done on the Met down in London, only there he had been a mere constable or sergeant, given the orders rather than giving them. Even as an inspector down there, toward the end, he had never had to deal with
Banks had just lit his second cigarette when another car came through the barrier and Dr. Jenny Fuller jumped out, struggling with a briefcase and an overstuffed leather shoulder bag, hurrying as usual, as if she were late for an important meeting. Her tousled red mane cascaded over her shoulders and her eyes were the green of grass after a summer shower. The freckles, crow’s-feet and slightly crooked nose that she always complained ruined her looks only made her appear more attractive and more human.
“Morning, Jenny,” Banks greeted her. “Stefan’s waiting inside. You ready?”
“What’s that? Yorkshire foreplay?”
“No. That’s ‘Are you awake?’ ”
