“No, I didn’t,” said Donna. “I never went through Hayley’s handbag.”
Daniels glanced over at Templeton in disgust.
“Does it surprise you?” Templeton asked.
“No,” said Donna. “She knew if she was going to do anything she had to be careful. They all do these days.”
“If she kept the boyfriend a secret,” Winsome said, “we’re wondering what the reason is. Perhaps he was an older man? Perhaps he was married?”
“I still can’t tell you anything,” said Donna.
Templeton turned to Daniels. “You’ve had some experience in that department, haven’t you?” he said. “Shagging Martina Redfern while Hayley was getting herself killed? Like them young, do you? Maybe it’s you we should be looking at a lot more closely.”
If he expected to get a further rise out of Daniels, Winsome thought, he’d lost that one. Daniels sat there, spent and miserable. “I’ve made my mistakes,” he said. “Plenty of them. And I only hope Donna can find it in her heart to forgive me. But my mistakes aren’t going to help you catch my daughter’s killer. Now, if you can’t do anything except sit there and try to stir things up, why don’t you just get up off your arse and start doing your job?”
F R I E N D O F T H E D E V I L
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“We are trying to do our jobs, sir,” Winsome said, surprising herself that she was coming to Templeton’s defense. But to defend the interview, she had to defend Templeton. She vowed she would never let anyone put her in this position again, no matter what they said. “Did she ever talk about any of her lecturers at college, for example?” she asked.
“Sometimes,” said Donna.
“Was there anyone in particu lar?”
“Austin,” said Daniels suddenly. “Malcolm Austin. Remember, Donna, that bloke that led the class trip to Paris last April?”
“Yes,” said Donna. “She mentioned him a few times. But that was her favorite class. I don’t think there was . . . I mean . . .”
“Have you met him?” Winsome asked.
“No,” said Donna. “We haven’t met any of them. When she was at school we met her teachers, like, but when they’re at college, I mean, you don’t, do you?”
“So you don’t know how old he is, whether he’s married or anything?”
“Sorry,” said Donna. “Can’t help you there. You asked if she ever mentioned anyone and that was the only one.”
“Romantic city, Paris,” said Templeton, buffing his fingernails on his thigh the way a cricketer rubs the ball.
Winsome got to her feet. “Well, thanks,” she said. “It’s a start.
We’ll have a word with Mr. Austin.”
Templeton remained seated, and his lack of movement was making Winsome nervous. She knew that he outranked her, so he should be the one to give the signal to leave, but she was so intent on damage control and getting out of there that she hadn’t really thought about that. Finally, he stood up slowly, gave Daniels a long, lingering look and said, “We’ll be talking to you again soon, mate.” Then he took out his card and pointedly handed it to Donna, who was contemplating her husband as a matador contemplates a bull. “If you think of anything else, love,” Templeton said, “don’t hesitate to ring me, day or night.”
When they got outside to the car, he grabbed Winsome’s arm and leaned so close to her that she could smell the spearmint chewing gum on his breath and said, “Don’t you
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P E T E R R O B I N S O N
“There won’t be any again,” Winsome said, surprised at her own vehemence. Then she jerked her arm free and surprised herself even more by saying, “And take your fucking hands off me. Sir.”
B A N K S WA S glad to get home at a reasonable hour on Tuesday, though he was still preoccupied with what Annie had told him about Lucy Payne’s murder. He had watched Brough’s Eastern Area press conference in the station that afternoon, and now Lucy Payne and the murders at 35 The Hill, or the “House of Payne” as one newspaper had dubbed it at the time, were all over the news again.
Banks put Maria Muldaur’s
Maria was singing Dylan’s “Buckets of Rain,” but the weather had improved considerably. The sun was going down and streaks of ver-milion, magenta and crimson shot through the western sky, casting light on the fast-f lowing Gratly Beck, so that at moments it seemed like a dark swirling oil slick. Next weekend they would be putting the clocks ahead, and it would be light until late in the eve ning.
In the end, he made himself a ham-and-cheese sandwich and poured a glass of Peter Lehmann Shiraz. The main sound system was in the extension, along with the plasma TV, but he had set up speakers in the kitchen and in the front room, where he would sometimes sit and read or work on the computer. The couch was comfortable, the shaded lamps cozy, and the peat fire useful on cool winter eve nings. He didn’t need it tonight, but he decided to eat his dinner in there, anyway, and read the notes he had brought home with him from the office. He had got both Ken Blackstone and Phil Hartnell to agree to a meeting in Leeds the following morning. Annie was staying over at her cottage in Harkside that night, and he was due to pick her up there at nine-thirty in the morning. But before that, he needed to do his homework.
In a way, though, he already knew his subject. He didn’t have to read the files to know their names: Kimberley Myers, age fifteen, failed to return home from a school dance one Friday night; Kelly Diane Mat-thews, age
