“And what was he doing in The Maze at that time on a Sunday morning?”
“He’s the own er of the leather goods shop on the corner,” Banks explained. “It’s his storage room. He said he went around there to search for some samples, found the lock broken and saw her just lying there. Swore he didn’t touch anything. Said he backed out and ran straight across the square to the station.”
“Do we believe him?”
“He says he opened the storage room door at eight- fifteen, but one of the people in the market square told DS Templeton she saw Randall go into The Maze at ten past eight by the church clock, which is pretty accurate. She remembers because she was late for church and glanced up to see the time. The desk sergeant logged the report from Randall at eight twenty-one.”
F R I E N D O F T H E D E V I L
1 9
“That’s eleven minutes.” Gervaise pursed her lips. “Sounds rather thin,” she said. “Where is he now?”
“DS Templeton sent him home with a constable. Apparently Mr.
Randall was very upset.”
“Hmm. Interview him yourself. Go in hard next time.”
“Yes, ma’am,” said Banks, making a doodle in his notebook. Ever one for stating the obvious, was Gervaise. Still, it was best to let her think she was in control. Their order arrived. The coffee was as good as he remembered, and the tea cakes had plenty of butter on them.
“What was she doing in The Maze by herself ?” Gervaise asked.
“That’s one thing we have to find out,” said Banks. “But, for a start, we don’t know that she was by herself. She could have gone in there with someone.”
“To take drugs, perhaps?”
“Perhaps. We found some pills in her handbag. Ecstasy. Or maybe she just got separated from her friends and someone lured her there with the promise of drugs? Still, you hardly need to hide away in The Maze to pop E. You can do it in any pub in town. She could have been taking a shortcut to the car park or the river.”
“Did she have a car?”
“We don’t know yet. She did have a driving license.”
“Follow it up.”
“We will. She was probably drunk,” Banks said. “At least tipsy.
There was a whiff of vomit in the storeroom, so she may have been sick, if it wasn’t our killer’s. Forensics should solve that one, anyway.
She most likely wouldn’t have been thinking about safety, and I doubt there’s any great mystery as to how or why she came to be in The Maze alone. There are any number of possibilities. She could have had an argument with her boyfriend, for example, and run off.”
“And someone was lying there in wait for her?”
“Or the chance of someone like her. Which indicates it might be a killer who knows the habits of the locals on a Saturday night in Eastvale after closing time.”
“Better round up the usual suspects, then. Local sex offenders, known clients of sex workers.”
“It’s being done.”
2 0 P E T E R
R O B I N S O N
“Any idea where she’d been?”
“Judging by the way she was dressed,” Banks said, “it seems as if she’d been doing the rounds of the market square pubs. Typical Saturday-night getup. We’ll be canvassing all the pubs as soon as they open.”
He glanced at his watch. “Which won’t be long now.”
Gervaise squinted at him. “Not personally, I hope?”
“Too much of a job for me, I’m afraid. Thought I’d put Detective Sergeant Hatchley in charge of it. He’s been housebound lately. Do him good to get out and about.”
“Keep him on a tight leash, then,” said Gervaise. “I don’t want him offending every bloody minority group we’ve got in town.”
“He’s mellowed a lot.”
Gervaise gave him a disbelieving look. “Anything else?” She dotted her mouth with a paper serviette after a couple of dainty nibbles of tea cake.
“I’ll get a couple of officers to work on reviewing all the CCTV
footage we can find of the market square last night. A lot of the pubs have CCTV now, and I know the Bar None does, too. There should be plenty, and you know what the quality’s like, so it’ll take time, but we might find something there. We’ll also conduct a thorough search of The Maze, adjacent buildings, the lot, and we’ll do a house-to-house of the immediate area. Trouble is, there are ways in and out that don’t show up on any CCTV cameras. The exit into the car park above the river gardens, for example.”
“Surely there must be cameras in the car park?”
“Yes, but not covering it from that angle. They’re pointing the other way,
