Friend of the Devil

“But as I’ve been trying to explain, I wasn’t paying much attention.”

“Who left first?”

“They did. One minute they were there, noisy and full of themselves, the next minute they were gone and it was nice and quiet.”

“Full of themselves?” Banks echoed. “What do you mean by that?”

Randall shifted in his chair. “You know what I mean. Preening, showing off for one another, laughing at their own jokes, that sort of thing.”

“Don’t you like young people?”

“I don’t like ruffians.”

“And you think they were ruffians?”

“Well, I wouldn’t have wanted to get on the wrong side of them. I know how things get around here on a weekend when they all go binge drinking. It’s got so a decent person can’t go out for a drink in town on a Saturday night. Sometimes I wonder what you police are here for. I’ve seen the vomit and the rubbish outside my shop the morning after.”

“But this morning it was something different, wasn’t it?” Banks

said.

“The thing is, sir”—Wilson cut in so gently, Banks admired him for it—“that the barmaid in The Duck and Drake distinctly remembers you ogling Hayley Daniels.”

She hadn’t actually used the word “ogling,” Banks knew, but it showed inventiveness on the new kid’s part. It had so much more im-pact than “looking at” or even “eyeing up.”

“I was doing no such thing,” Randall replied. “As I told you, I was sitting there quietly with my drink, reading the paper.”

“And you didn’t even notice Hayley Daniels?”

Randall paused. “I didn’t know who she was,” he said, “but I sup-6 6 P E T E R

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pose one couldn’t help but notice her.”

“Oh?” said Wilson. “In what way, sir?”

“Well, the way she was dressed, for a start. Like a common trollop.

All that bare leg and tummy. If you ask me, girls who dress like that are asking for trouble. You might even say they deserve what they get.”

“Is that why you lied about ogling her in the first place?” Banks said. “Because you thought if you admitted it, it would seem suspicious that you also found her body? Was it you who gave her what she deserved?”

“That’s an impertinent question, and I won’t dignify it with an answer,” said Randall, red- faced. “I’ve had enough of this. I’m leaving.”

“Are you sure you didn’t follow Hayley Daniels around for the rest of the eve ning and somehow lure her into your storeroom, where you knew you’d be able to have your way with her?” said Wilson, an innocent and concerned expression on his young face. “Maybe you didn’t mean to kill her, but things just went too far? It could go in your favor if you told us now.”

Randall, half-standing, gave him an et tu Brutus look and collapsed back into the chair. “What I’ve told you is the truth,” he said. “She was in the pub with a group of friends. That was the first and last time I saw her. I didn’t pay her any special attention, but now you mention it, I’ll admit she stood out from the crowd, though not in a way I approve of.

I didn’t mention it at first because I know the way your minds work.

That’s all I have to say on the matter.” He glared at Banks. “And I am leaving now.”

“As you wish,” said Banks. He let Randall get to the door, then said, “I’d appreciate it if we could get a set of your fingerprints and a DNA sample. Just for the purposes of elimination, you understand. At your own con venience. DC Wilson will sort out the consent forms.”

Randall slammed the door behind him.

4

ANNIE WAS IN HER OFFICE AT THE SQUAT BRICK- AND-glass building on Spring Hill bright and early on Monday morning, feeling a lot better than she had on Sunday. Even the weather seemed to echo her lift in spirits. The rain had passed and the sky was bright blue dotted with f luffy white clouds. The usually gray North Sea had a bluish cast. There was a chill in the wind, but by mid-afternoon people would be taking their jackets off on the quays and piers and sitting outside at the pubs. It was almost spring, after all.

The “Wheelchair Murder” had hit the local papers and TV breakfast news, and Superintendent Brough had scheduled a press conference for later that morning. Luckily, Annie wouldn’t have to attend, but he would expect her to give him something to feed the hungry mob with.

Annie felt another quiver of guilt and self-loathing when she thought about Saturday night. Behaving like a randy teenager at her age was hardly becoming, she felt. But it had happened; now it was time to follow the old Zen lesson and let go with both hands. Life is suffering, and the cause of suffering is desire, so the Buddhists say. You can’t stop the desires, memories, the thoughts and the feelings, the teaching went, but you didn’t have to grasp them and hang on to them to torture yourself; you could simply let them go, let them f loat away like balloons or bubbles. That was what she did when she meditated, concentrated on one 6 8 P E T E R

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fixed thing—her breathing or a repeated sound—and watched the balloons with her thoughts and dreams inside them drift away into the void. She needed to get back to it regularly again. Anyway, it wasn’t as if she didn’t have