“We’re not picking on you.” Banks turned to DC Wilson. Might as well give the new kid a chance. “Detective Constable Wilson, why don’t you tell Mr. Randall here what you found out from the barmaid at The Duck and Drake?”
Wilson shuff led his papers nervously, played with his glasses and licked his lips. Banks thought he looked rather like a nervous schoolboy about to translate a Latin unseen for the class. The blazer he wore only enhanced the image. “Were you in The Duck and Drake around seven o’clock yesterday eve ning?” Wilson asked.
“I had a couple of drinks there after I closed the shop, yes,” said Randall. “As far I was aware, that’s not against the law.”
“Not at all, sir,” said Wilson. “It’s just that the victim, Hayley Daniels, was also seen in the pub around the same time.”
“I wouldn’t have recognized her. How could I? I didn’t know her.”
“But you’d remember her now, sir, wouldn’t you?” Wilson went on. “Since you saw her in the storage shed. You’d remember how she looked, what she was wearing, wouldn’t you?”
Randall scratched his forehead. “I can’t say I do, as a matter of fact.
There are always a lot of young people in The Duck and Drake at that time on a Saturday. I was reading the paper. And in the shed it was all such a blur.”
“Is it your local, then, The Duck and Drake?”
“No. I don’t have a local, really. I just go where it strikes my fancy if I want a drink after shutting up. It’s not very often I do. Usually I just go home. The drinks are cheaper.”
“Where were you between the hours of midnight and two a.m. last night?” Wilson asked.
“At home.”
6 4 P E T E R
R O B I N S O N
“Can anybody corroborate that?”
“I live alone.”
“What time did you go to bed?”
“About a quarter to one, shortly after I’d put the cat out.”
“Anybody see you?”
“I don’t know. The street was quiet. I didn’t see anybody.”
“What were you doing before that?”
“After I left the pub, about eight, I picked up some fish and chips on my way home and watched television.”
“Where did you get the fish and chips?”
“Chippie on the corner. Now, look, this is—”
“Let’s go back to The Duck and Drake, shall we?” Wilson persisted.
Randall crossed his arms and sat in a rigid position, lips set in a hard line.
“Now you’ve had a chance to think back, sir,” Wilson went on,
“do you remember seeing Hayley Daniels in the pub?”
“I suppose I might have.”
“Did you or didn’t you?”
“If she was there, I suppose I must have seen her. I just don’t remember her in particu lar. I wasn’t really interested.”
“Oh, come off it,” said Banks. “A beautiful girl like her. A lonely old pervert like you. You were giving her the eye. Why don’t you admit it? You want us to think you’d never seen her before because you set your sights on her right from the start. I’m right, aren’t I?”
Randall glared at him and turned back to DC Wilson, his ally.
Sometimes, Banks thought, good cop, bad cop was that easy. They hadn’t even decided to play it this way; it just worked out as the interview went on. For all the courses he’d done and all the books he’d read on interview techniques over the years, Banks found that a spontaneous approach often worked best. Go in with a general, vague outline and play it by ear. The most revealing questions were often the ones that just came to you as you sat there, not the ones you had worked out in advance. And when there were two of you doing the interviewing, a whole new dynamic sprang up. Sometimes it worked; sometimes it didn’t. Then you ended up with egg on your face. But young Wilson didn’t seem to need telling what his role was, and that was good.
F R I E N D O F T H E D E V I L
6 5
“She was with a group of people about her own age, and they were laughing and talking and drinking at the bar. Is that right?” Wilson went on.
“Yes.”
“Did you see anybody touch her? If she had a special boyfriend, he might touch her on the shoulder, let his hand linger, hold hands, sneak a quick kiss, that sort of thing.”
“I didn’t see anything like that.” Randall glared over at Banks.
