when I did, certainly, but the more I look at some of the things that struck me as odd before we latched onto Pierce, the more I start to wonder. The courts set innocent people free as well as guilty ones, sometimes, and if anyone knows the truth, he’s a lucky man.”
“What brought you back here?”
“I’m not really sure, except that this is where it all started.”
“Yes,” said Rebecca. “I remember.” She gave a small shudder and fingered the neck of her dress. “And I’d like to apologize.”
“For what?”
“For the last time we met. In the Queen’s Arms. I seem to remember I was very rude to you. I seem to be making a habit of it.”
“Don’t worry,” Banks said. “You get used to it in my job.”
“But you shouldn’t have to. I mean, I shouldn’t have behaved the way I did.” She put her mug down on the table. “I’m not that kind of person. Rude…I… Look, I don’t know why I’m telling you this, except that your coming here again brings it all back.”
“Brings what back? Finding the body?”
“That, yes, certainly. But it was a terrible time for me all round. The charges against Daniel, all the turmoil they caused.” She took a deep breath. “You see, Chief Inspector, you didn’t know the half of it. Of course you didn’t, it wasn’t relevant, not to your inquiries, but I lost a baby about three months before that business with Jelacic, and the doctor said it would be dangerous for me to try for another. Daniel and I hadn’t talked about it as much as we should, and we had started drifting apart. We had just made some tentative inquiries about adoption when Jelacic brought the charges. Of course, everything fell through. It was worse than it was before. I’m afraid I withdrew. I blamed Daniel. There was even a time when I thought he was guilty. Since I lost the baby, we hadn’t been…well, you know…and I thought he’d lost interest in me. It was easier to explain that by assuming he was really interested in men. What can I say? I started to drink too much. Then there was Patrick.” She laughed nervously. “I don’t know why I’m telling you all this. Except that you witnessed the final scene.”
Banks smiled. “You’d be surprised the things people tell us, Mrs. Charters. Anyway, I hope life has improved since then.”
She beamed. “Yes. Yes, it has. Daniel and I are stronger than we’ve ever been. There are still…well, a few problems…but at least we’re working together now.”
“How’s the Jelacic problem progressing?”
“It drags on. We’ve not heard anything for over a month now, but I believe he’s got some human-rights lawyer working on it.”
“And the drink?”
“Six months without.”
“Patrick Metcalfe?”
“Not since that time you were here, when he caused all that fuss.”
“Has he pestered you at all since then?”
She smiled. “No. I think he realized pretty quickly how carried away with himself he was getting. And I think your interest in him helped keep him at bay, too. I should thank you for that. You don’t still suspect him, do you?”
“He’s not off the hook yet,” Banks said. “Anyway, that’s not why I came. Actually, I was hoping for another look at the area where the body was found.”
“Surely you don’t have to ask my permission to do that?”
“No, but it’s partly a matter of courtesy. And you know the area better than I do. Will you come with me?”
“Certainly.”
To retrace Deborah’s steps, they walked first along the riverside path from the vicarage towards the Kendal Road bridge, where worn stone steps led up to the pavement. It was another beautiful day, and over the road in St. Mary’s Park, lovers lay entwined, students sat reading in the shade of the trees, and children played with balls and Frisbees.
“This was where she would enter,” said Rebecca, holding the wooden gate open for Banks. It was a lych-gate, with a small wooden roof, where the coffin would await the arrival of the clergyman in days gone by. “Seventeenth century,” Rebecca said. “Isn’t it superb?”
Banks agreed that it was.
“This is the main path we’re on now,” Rebecca explained.
It was about a yard and a half wide and had a pitted tarmac surface. Ahead, it curved around slightly in front of the church, separated from the doors only by a swath of grass, across which led a narrow flagstone path.
“It leads to North Market Street,” Rebecca said, “near the zebra crossing where Deborah would cross to go home. And this path,” she said, taking Banks by the elbow and diverting him to the right, where the entrance to the path was almost obscured by shrubbery, “is the path that leads to the Inchcliffe Mausoleum.”
It was the gravel path Banks remembered from last November. After a couple of yards, the shrubbery gave way to yews and lichen-stained graves. Warm sunlight filtered through the greenery and flying insects buzzed around the dandelions and forget-me-nots.
Some of the graves were above-ground tombs with heavy lids and flowery religious epitaphs. By far the most impressive and baroque was the Inchcliffe Mausoleum, to the right.
“Now,” said Banks, “we were assuming that Deborah reached the junction between the main path and this one when someone either grabbed her and dragged her up here or persuaded her to go with him of her own free will.”
“But why couldn’t she have come this way herself?” Rebecca asked.
“Why should she? It’s out of her way.”
“She had done before. I noticed her do it once or twice.”
Banks raised his eyebrows. “You never mentioned this before.”
Rebecca shrugged. “You never asked. And it didn’t seem relevant.”
“But didn’t it strike you as odd?”
“No. I’m sorry. It wasn’t something I was paying a lot of attention to. I suppose I assumed that she liked graveyards, as I do. And this is where the most interesting old tombs are, and the Inchcliffe Mausoleum, of course.” She blushed. “Maybe she went to talk to the angel, like I did.”
“When did she start using the path?”
“I’ve no idea. I don’t remember noticing her go that way before last September, when school started up, but that doesn’t mean she never did.”
“Did you ever see anyone else with her? Or anyone going along the path before or after her?”
“No. You did ask me about that before, and I would have told you if I’d seen her meeting anyone. I would have noticed something like that. Do you think it’s important that she took this path?”
Banks paused. “From the start,” he explained, “I’d been working on the theory that if Owen Pierce or someone else hadn’t followed Deborah into the graveyard, dragged her off the main path and killed her, then she might have been meeting the person who did. Now you’re telling me you’ve seen her take this path before. I’m wondering if this is where she arranged the meeting. By the mausoleum. Her friend Megan Preece said Deborah had a morbid streak, that she liked spooky things. A rendezvous in the depths of a foggy graveyard beside an old mausoleum might have appealed to her.”
“To meet someone she knew?”
“Yes. A lover, perhaps. Or someone else. We know that Deborah had a secret. It did cross my mind that she might have arranged to meet the person involved to discuss it, what to do about it.”
“But what could she have possibly known that was so important?”
“If we knew that, then we’d probably know who the killer is.”
“And do you still believe that she was meeting someone?”
“I think it’s a strong possibility. She didn’t tell Megan, but perhaps she wanted to be really secretive. Ive Jelacic told me he never saw her meeting anyone, but he’s a pathological liar. On the other hand, you just told me yourself that you never saw anyone else around.”
“It doesn’t mean that there couldn’t have been someone,” Rebecca said. “The woods are quite deep here. And it was a foggy night. I just wish I could be of more help.”
