noticed the occasional camera f lash—press, most likely—and one or two people were holding their mobiles in the air and taking photographs, or even video-recording the scene, the way they did at rock concerts. In some ways it was a sick trend, but it sometimes got results; occasionally, someone captured something none of the CCTV cameras or police photographers did, a suspect in the crowd, for example, and it could help bring about an early solution.
“What the hell’s going on, anyway?” Banks asked. “I couldn’t hear a word you said over the phone. Who’s the victim. Is she dead?”
“No, sir,” said Winsome. “This one survived. If she was meant to be the victim. But someone’s dead. I haven’t had a look at the body yet. It’s dark and I didn’t want to disturb anything before you got here.
We’re waiting on SOCO, but Dr. Burns has just arrived.”
“Okay. I’m sure he’ll be more than adequate.”
Banks followed Winsome under the tape and into The Maze, deeper than the previous week, past the end of Taylor’s Yard, around corners and across small cobbled squares, down ginnels so narrow they almost had to walk sideways. And all the while he could see beams of light sweeping the darkness, hear the crackle of police radios in the distance. It was a labyrinth in there, and Banks wished they’d brought a ball of twine. He remembered he had said the same thing about Annie’s cottage in Harkside the first time he had dinner with her there—the first time they had made love—that it was hidden at the center of a labyrinth and he could never find his way out alone. It had been a good way of suggesting he stay the night, at any rate.
There was little light in The Maze, so it was sometimes hard to see exactly where they were going, but Banks trusted to Winsome. She seemed to know her way without the twine.
“Where’s Kev Templeton?” he asked from behind her.
“Don’t know, sir. Couldn’t raise him. Maybe he’s at some club or other.”
They came to a ginnel that led into a square, and Banks could see lights at the end, hear conversation and radios. When they approached, he noticed that someone had already put up arc lights, so the place was lit up like Christmas. Everyone seemed pale and pink 2 6 0 P E T E R
R O B I N S O N
around the gills. Banks recognized Jim Hatchley and Doug Wilson lingering by one wall, and a couple of the uniformed officers were making notes. Peter Darby was taking photographs and videotaping the entire scene, though Banks supposed it could hardly be videotape if it was digital, the way they were these days. Everyone glanced Banks’s way as he entered the square, then turned nervously away and a hush fell over them. His heart was in his throat. There was something going on, something he needed to be prepared for.
Dr. Burns bent over the body, which lay facedown on the ground, an enormous pool of dark blood spread from the head area toward the wall. Dr. Burns, almost as pale and shaken as the rest, stood up to greet Banks and Winsome. “I don’t want to touch or move the body until the SOCOs get here,” he said. Even Banks could see from where he was standing that it wasn’t the body of a woman.
“Can we have a look now?” he asked.
“Of course,” said Dr. Burns. “Just be careful.”
Banks and Winsome knelt. The stone f lags were hard and cold.
Banks took a torch one of the uniformed officers offered him, and shone it on the face as best he could. When he saw the young, bloodless profile, he fell back on his tailbone and slumped against the wall as if he had been pushed.
Winsome squatted at his side. “Bloody hell, sir,” she said. “It’s Kev.
It’s Kev Templeton. What the hell was he doing here?”
All Banks could think was that he had never heard Winsome swear before.
O N E O F the uniformed officers had been dispatched to fetch a pot of fresh hot coffee, even if he had to wake up one of the coffee-shop owners in the market square, and the rest of the weary troop filed into the boardroom of Western Area Headquarters, no more than about a quarter of a mile from where the body of their colleague lay, undergoing the ministrations of Stefan Nowak and his SOCOs.
When DS Nowak and his team had arrived in The Maze, they had made it clear they wanted the scene to themselves, and that the little F R I E N D O F T H E D E V I L
2 6 1
square was far too crowded. It was a relief for most of the officers attending there to leave, and a signal to get the investigation in motion.
Everyone was stunned by Templeton’s murder, and no one seemed able to take it in, but all that confusion had to be translated into action as quickly as possible.
Dr. Burns and Peter Darby stuck with the SOCOs, and the rest, about ten of them in all, including Banks, Hatchley and Winsome, returned to the station. Detective Superintendent Gervaise had arrived straight from bed, hurriedly dressed in black denims and a fur-collared jacket, and she was busy setting up the whiteboard while the others arranged themselves around the long polished table, pads and pens in front of them. They wouldn’t need a mobile van near the scene because the station itself was so close, but they would need to set up a special incident room, with extra phone lines, computers and civilian staff. For the moment, they would work out of the Hayley Daniels incident room, given space limitations and the shared location of the crimes.
They would also have to assign the usual roles—office manager, receiver, statement readers, action allocators and so on. Banks was already designated SIO and Gervaise would “interface with the media,”
as she put it. But she also made it clear that she wanted to be hands- on and to be kept informed every step of the way. This was one of their own, and it went without saying that there would be no concessions, no quarter. But first they needed to know what had happened to Templeton, and why.
When the coffee arrived, everyone took a styrofoam cup. They passed milk and sugar around, along with a packet of stale custard creams someone had found in a desk drawer. Banks joined Gervaise at the head of the table, and the first thing they asked for was a summary from the officer on the scene, a PC Kerrigan, who had just happened to be on duty in the public order detail that night. “What happened?”
