Friend of the Devil

say.”

“As I remember it,” Banks said, “you were surprised to find that you’d spent eleven minutes in the storage room with Hayley Daniels’s body before reporting it to the police station. Is that correct?”

“It was you who said I spent eleven minutes there. I didn’t think it was that long. You say someone saw me, but I thought I entered the building at eight- fifteen, not eight-ten, as your witness said.”

“It was eight-ten,” said Banks. “Don’t forget, Joseph, the CCTV

cameras run in the daytime as well, and they are accurately timed.

Eleven minutes is a long time to spend with a corpse. Unless there were matters to attend to, of course.”

“Mr. Banks!” said Crawford. “What are you suggesting?”

“Nothing, yet,” said Banks, keeping his eyes on Randall. “You also admitted that you were in The Duck and Drake earlier on Saturday eve ning, when Hayley and her friends were there, and that you were ogling her while she stood at the bar.”

Randall looked at Crawford. “That was his word, not mine. I admitted to no such thing, Sebastian. You see? This is what they do.

They twist what you say, put words into your mouth.”

“But you did see her there,” Banks went on. “And you did try to gloss over that fact in our first interview, didn’t you?”

“I told you I didn’t remember seeing her.”

“Well, she certainly hadn’t changed her clothes,” said Banks. “And the only thing different about her appearance the following morning was that she was dead. But if you expect me to believe you saw an attractive young girl in a very revealing outfit at seven o’clock one evening and then again just after eight o’clock the next morning and didn’t know it was the same girl, I suppose I have to believe you.”

“It was the shock,” said Randall. “For Christ’s sake, man, she was dead. It might be par for the course as far as you’re concerned, but I’m not used to seeing dead bodies on my property.”

“Let’s move on to what you did on Saturday night,” said Banks.

“You told me that you were at home between the hours of twelve and F R I E N D O F T H E D E V I L

1 7 5

two, that you put the cat out and went to bed about a quarter to one.

Do you stand by that?”

“Of course I do. It’s what happened.”

“It’s not very far from where you live to Taylor’s Yard, is it?” Banks said. “Though it might make more sense to drive to the car park at the back of The Maze and slip in through one of the passages not covered by CCTV.”

“What on earth are you talking about?”

“Yes, Mr. Banks, what are you talking about?” Crawford chipped in. “My client has told you what he did on Saturday night.”

“I’m presenting an alternative version,” said Banks.

“But how could I have known the girl would go into The Maze at whatever time she did?” said Randall.

It was a good question, Banks had to admit, and he didn’t have a ready answer. The whole element of spontaneity, of Hayley’s deciding at the last minute to head into The Maze to relieve herself, bothered him. It was a stumbling block. But, he had to keep telling himself, it didn’t preclude the possibility that there was somebody already in there just waiting for an opportunity, as Templeton believed. “You know the layout back there,” he said. “What was to stop you from hiding out and waiting for a victim? It was simply a matter of time, after all, before some poor young drunken lass wandered in and got lost in there. Perhaps you’d been in The Fountain on previous occasions and knew that the barmaid there used it as a shortcut to the car park. Maybe you didn’t know she was off work that night. No matter. Everything turned out well in the end, didn’t it? I’ll bet you couldn’t believe your luck when you saw it was the girl you’d had your eye on in The Duck and Drake earlier that eve ning.”

“Now, come off it, Mr. Banks,” said Crawford with a nervous laugh. “Surely this is stretching our credulity a bit far, isn’t it? Do you really expect us to believe this . . . er . . . coincidence?”

“Until Mr. Randall tells us how it really happened,” said Banks,

“I’m afraid it’s the best we can do.”

“I’ve told you how it happened,” said Randall. “After The Duck and Drake I went home and spent the rest of the eve ning watching television. At about a quarter to one, I put the cat out and went to bed.

End of story.”

1 7 6 P E T E R

R O B I N S O N

“I’d like to believe you,” said Banks, “but I’m afraid what you’re saying goes against the evidence.”

“What evidence?” asked Crawford. “Are you saying you can produce evidence to corroborate what you’re accusing my client of ?”

Banks turned to Stefan Nowak. “We have evidence that goes a long way toward proving it,” he said. “Stefan?”

Nowak opened a folder in front of him. “According to our inde pendent analysts, the DNA from the sample you freely gave us matches the DNA taken from traces of semen found on Hayley Daniels’s body and on two leather remnants close to that body.”