Friend of the Devil

“Yes. And even if we assume that someone set out to kill Lucy, that it was premeditated, it still makes more sense just to dump her over the side. It wasn’t as if she could be forced to confess anything, or even show any fear or feel pain. She couldn’t even talk.”

“Are you suggesting that it wasn’t someone involved in the Chameleon case?”

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“I don’t know what I’m suggesting,” said Blackstone. “But it’s a possibility worth considering. Could anyone who was that angry at Lucy Payne for what she’d done to a family member be that cold-blooded? Where was the anger?”

“If the killer had simply pushed Lucy off the edge of the cliff,”

Banks said, “there’s always a chance that the body might never have been found.”

“But they’d have recovered the wheelchair, surely, and that would have told them what happened.”

“Perhaps.”

“Maybe I’m wrong,” said Blackstone. “I’m just thinking out loud.

She might not have even died if she went over the cliff.”

“No, Ken, I think you’re heading in the right direction. This was a cold-blooded job, simple as that. A job that had to be done efficiently.

Almost like a hit. The killer had to know that the victim had died at her hands, perhaps even watch her die. She couldn’t face the uncer-tainty. After all, if Lucy Payne was a quadriplegic already, there wasn’t much more harm anyone could do to her other than extinguish her life completely, what little of it there was left.”

“And all that was left was inside,” said Blackstone.

“What?”

“I don’t know. I’m just rambling. You’re right, though. It was an efficient method. It got the job done, and it left the evidence in plain sight, for all to see. There has to be something in that.”

“So whoever did it was making a statement?” said Banks.

“Yes. Draining her life’s blood. And what was that statement? I think when we get the answer to that, we’ll be a long way toward at least ruling out a lot of people.”

“We?”

“I mean Annie’s team.”

“But it does feel like a continuation, doesn’t it?” Banks said. “Like unfinished business.”

“Yes,” Blackstone agreed. “I was thinking of suggesting bringing in Jenny Fuller again, as a profiler. She worked the original case.”

“I don’t know where she is at the moment. I think she’s left Eastvale F R I E N D O F T H E D E V I L

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for good. She could be in America or Australia as far as I know. I haven’t seen her in ages.”

“You sound as if you regret that. History?”

“Plenty,” said Banks, “but not the kind you’re thinking of. All my mistakes with Jenny are in what we didn’t do, not in anything we did.

Missed opportunities rather than anything hastily done and regretted.”

“Hmm.”

“We’ve known each other a long time, that’s all,” said Banks. “Ever since I’ve been up north, as a matter of fact. I met her on my very first case. Maybe things could have been different, but they’re not, and it’s too late now. It never happened.”

They finished their drinks and headed out to Briggate. The fine weather had brought people out in the city center, and the pedestrian precinct was packed, the shops doing brisk business: Marks & Spencer, Harvey Nichols, Debenhams, Curry’s Digital. All the fourteen-year-old mothers were out showing off their solarium suntans, pushing the pram with one hand and holding a cigarette with the other. Or so it seemed. After saying good- bye to Blackstone at the Headrow and promising to get together soon for a curry and a few pints, Banks went into Muji and bought a handful of those little cardboard- bound notebooks he liked so much, then he wandered into Borders to see if they had White Heat on sale. He had enjoyed the first volume of Dominick Sandbrook’s history of the fifties in Britain, Never Had It So Good, and looked forward to reading the second— his period, the sixties—after he’d finished Postwar. After that, he would check out the new CDs in HMV.

A N N I E D I D N ’ T feel particularly proud of her performance at Millgarth as she drove into Whitby just over an hour and a half later. It was a beautiful day, and the sea lay spread out below her, all greens and blues, so much brighter and more vibrant than she had seen them before. The red pantile roofs of the houses straggled up the hillside, and the harbor walls stretched out into the water like pincers. The whole 1 5 2 P E T E R

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scene, f lanked on either side by high cliffs, appeared more like an abstract landscape than a real place.

From the heights, she could easily see the town’s two distinctive halves, split by the estuary: East Cliff, with its ruined abbey and Saint Mary’s Church, like an upturned boat; and West Cliff, with its rows of Victorian guesthouses and hotels, the statue of Captain Cook and the massive jawbone of a whale. Though Annie took in the sight, and her painter’s eye translated it to an abstract canvas, her mind was preoccupied with Banks, Eric and, most of all, her own erratic behavior. She’s Lost Control. Didn’t someone