“Why were you in such a hurry?”
“The birthday is on Tuesday. It was a rush job. I thought if I got off to a quick start . . .” He paused and adjusted his glasses again. “Look, Mr. Banks, I can see why this might seem odd to you, but it isn’t. I don’t go to church. I’m not married. I have no hobbies. Outside of my work, I don’t have a great deal to do with my time except watch television and read the papers. This project was on my mind, the shop isn’t far away, so I thought I’d get started rather than idle around with the
That wouldn’t take long, Banks thought, but he could see Randall’s point. “Very well,” he said. “Can you give me the woman’s name and address? The one whose birthday it is on Tuesday?”
Randall frowned but gave Banks the information.
“Is there a back or side entrance to your shop?”
“No, just the front.”
3 6 P E T E R
R O B I N S O N
“Is there a way from the shop to the storage room from the inside?”
“No. You have to go down Taylor’s Yard. I rent it very cheaply, and that’s one of the minor incon veniences.”
“Okay. Now tell me exactly how it happened,” Banks went on.
“How did you approach the building? What did you see?”
Randall paused and glanced at the rain- splattered window. “I approached the place as I usually would,” he said. “I remember being annoyed about the weather. There was a sudden shower. My umbrella had broken near the top of King Street, blown inside out, and I was getting wet.”
“Did you notice anything odd in the market square, anyone behaving oddly?”
“No. Everything was normal. You surely don’t think . . . ?”
Banks had a pretty good idea from Dr. Burns that Hayley Daniels had been killed late the previous night, but that didn’t rule out the killer returning to the scene, or leaving it, having revisited. “Anyone heading out of The Maze?”
“No. Only a couple of latecomers going to church in the square.
And a small queue waiting for the Darlington bus.”
“That’s all?”
“Yes.”
“All right. Go on.”
“Well, as I said, I was put out by the weather, but there was nothing I could do about that. Anyway, the rain had stopped when I got to the storage building—”
“What did you notice first?”
“Nothing.”
“You weren’t aware that it had been broken into?”
“No. The door looked closed as usual. It opens inward. There’s only a Yale lock and a handle to pull it shut.”
“And it was shut?”
“As far as I could see, yes, but I wasn’t really paying much attention.
This was something I’d done hundreds of times before. I was just on automatic pilot, I suppose. There must have been a small gap, if the lock had been broken, but I didn’t notice it.”
“I understand,” said Banks. “Carry on.”
F R I E N D O F T H E D E V I L
3 7
“When I went to unlock the door, it just started to swing open.
Obviously it couldn’t have been pulled all the way shut, because the lock was broken, as if someone had forced it from the outside.”
“In your opinion, would that have taken much pressure?”
“No. The wood was old, the screws loose. I never really worried about it as I . . . well, all I kept there were scraps and remnants, really.
They weren’t valuable. Who’d want to steal them? As I think I’ve told you, they’re usually the bits left over from various projects, but they’re often useful for patchwork and as samples, so I just throw them in there whenever the basket gets full. I’ve got a workshop in the back of the shop where I do most of the cutting and sewing and repairs.”
“Do you have any employees?”
Randall barked. “Ha! You must be joking. Most of the time I hardly have enough work to pay the rent, let alone hire an employee.”
“Enough work to get you there very early on a Sunday morning, though.”
“I told you. That was a special commission. A rush job. Look, I’m getting tired of this. I had a hell of a shock to my system a few hours ago, and now here you are practically accusing me of attacking and killing that poor girl. By all rights I should be under sedation. My nerves are bad.”
