“Who could forget such—”
“Never mind the bollocks, Mr. Austin,” said Banks. “You told DC
Jackman that you weren’t having an affair with Hayley Daniels. Information has come to light that indicates you were lying. What do you have to say about that?”
“What information? I resent the implication.”
“Is it true or not that you were having an affair with Hayley Daniels?”
Austin looked at Winsome, then back at Banks. Finally he com-pressed his lips, bellowed up his cheeks and let the air out slowly. “All right,” he said. “Hayley and I had been seeing one another for two months. We started about a month or so after my wife left. Which means, strictly speaking, that whatever Hayley and I had, it wasn’t an affair.”
“Semantics,” said Banks. “Teacher shagging student. What do you call it?”
“It wasn’t like that,” said Austin. “You make it sound so sordid. We were in love.”
“Excuse me while I reach for a bucket.”
“Inspector! The woman I love has just been murdered. The least you can do is show some respect.”
“How old are you, Malcolm?”
“Fifty-one.”
“And Hayley Daniels was nineteen.”
“Yes, but she was—”
“That’s an age difference of thirty-two years, according to my calculations. It makes you technically old enough to be her grandfa-ther.”
“I told you, we were in love. Do you think love recognizes such mundane barriers as age?”
“Christ, you’re starting to sound like a bloody pedophile,” said Banks. “If I had a quid for every time I’ve heard that argument.”
Austin f lushed with anger. “I resent that remark. Where do you draw the line, Inspector? Nineteen? Twenty? Twenty-one? You know you don’t have a leg to stand on as far as the law is concerned.” He F R I E N D O F T H E D E V I L
1 9 7
paused. “Besides, as I was about to tell you, Hayley was much older than her years, very mature for her age.”
“Emotionally?”
“Well, yes . . .”
“Tell me what emotionally mature young woman goes out drinking with a group of friends on a Saturday night, wearing practically nothing, and drinks so much she gets legless and totters down a dark alley for a piss?” Banks could sense Winsome staring at him, and he knew she was thinking he was acting almost as badly as Templeton. But self-righteous pricks like Austin, who abused their positions of power to indulge their desires for young girls, or boys, always made him angry, and he still felt plenty of residual anger from his interview with Randall the previous eve ning. He knew he needed to tone it down, though, or Austin would clam up completely, so he indicated subtly to Winsome that he had got her message, knew what he was doing and was easing his foot off the accelerator.
“I think what Mr. Banks means,” said Winsome, “is what sort of shape would Hayley have been in on Saturday night when she got to your house? If you remember, you did indicate last time I talked to you that you didn’t want a drunk and immature teenager in your house.
Now you’re saying that Hayley was mature for her years. Maybe you can see our problem? We’re getting a few conf licting remarks here.”
“That’s it exactly,” Banks said. “You see, Malcolm, according to all accounts, Hayley was pretty far gone. I find myself wondering what use she could have possibly been to you in that state.”
Austin glared. “You might not understand this, Mr. Banks,” he said, “but love isn’t always a matter of ‘using,’ of what you can get from someone. If Hayley had come to me on Saturday night and she’d been drinking, I wouldn’t have taken advantage of her. I didn’t need for her to be drunk to make love. I would have made her some coffee, left her to sleep it off, made her as comfortable as possible.”
Banks remembered Annie’s drunken visit of the other night. Is that what he should have done? Settled her down, made her comfortable?
“Admirable,” he said. “But were you expecting her?”
Austin paused to examine something on his desk, then he said, “She 1 9 8
P E T E R R O B I N S O N
told me she might come by. Saturday was always a casual arrangement.
It was her night.”
“Then why did you lie to DS Jackman the last time she spoke to you?”
Austin looked guiltily at Winsome. “I’m sorry,” he said. “It was just that I was afraid of exactly the kind of reaction I got from you just now. Our relationship is not easy to explain. People don’t always understand.” He glared at Banks again.
“Look,” said Banks, in his best we’re-men-of-the-world manner, “no man would deny the attractiveness of a lissome nineteen-year-old beauty like Hayley Daniels, and no one could fail to understand why you wanted to bed her. The love bit’s a touch harder to fathom, I will admit, but granted, it happens. People are strange that way. The
