Blood At The Root

left the factory of his own free will for something better, but he didn’t. Didn’t want to face the questions, I suppose. After that, all the lies became interconnected. Who knows what Mark might have let slip to Jason’s parents?” She shook her head. “Unless Mr. and Mrs. Fox are lying, which I doubt, then it’s hardly likely Jason would suddenly decide to take one of his Leeds mates back to the Eastvale house on a whim. Too risky. And there’s another thing. Jason didn’t keep anything to drink at the Eastvale house. In fact, according to all accounts, he hardly drank at all.”

“Maybe he was intending to give Mark some of his dad’s Scotch or something?”

“It’s possible, sir,” Susan said. “But as I say, I doubt it.”

“And maybe he would have bent the rules a bit if his mate had had too much to drink and needed somewhere to sleep it off? That might also explain why Mark didn’t drive down from Market Street to Jason’s place.”

“Again, sir,” said Susan, “it’s possible.”

“But you’re not convinced. Do you think he did it?”

“I don’t know, sir. I just don’t trust his story.”

“Make that stories. All right, I’ll bear your reservations in mind. I can’t say I like them much, either.” He shook his head slowly. “Anyway, we’d better arrange to bring in George Mahmood and his pals again.”

“Even though the forensic evidence supports George’s story?”

“Even so.”

“Chief Constable Riddle will love that, sir.”

“The way I see it, Susan, we’ve got no choice. Mark Wood says he saw three Asian lads attack Jason Fox. Unless we can prove he’s lying, it doesn’t matter what we think. We have to bring them in.”

Susan nodded. “I know, sir.”

“And give the lab another call. Ask them to get their fingers out. If all they can tell us is there’s human blood on the clothes, I’d be satisfied for the time being. Because if we don’t get something positive soon, Mark Wood is going to walk out of here in less than an hour and I’m still not happy with a word he’s told us.”

II

Banks made it down to breakfast with just minutes to spare before the nine-o’clock deadline, getting a frosty look from the stout waitress in the hotel lounge for his trouble. First, he helped himself to coffee from a table by the window, then he sat down and looked around. A large NO SMOKING symbol hung over the lace-curtained window.

He doodled away at yesterday’s Yorkshire Post crossword while he sipped the rich black coffee and waited. Eventually, the waitress returned and, with a dour glance, she deposited a glass of orange juice and a plate in front of him. On the plate lay a few slices of cold ham, a chunk of Edam cheese, a hard-boiled egg, a couple of rolls and some butter. The Dutch breakfast. Banks tucked in.

He felt fortunate in having only the mildest of hangovers. The slight ache behind his eyes had been easily vanquished with the aid of two extra-strength paracetamols from his traveler’s emergency kit, and he suspected that the minor sense of disorientation he felt was still more due to being in a foreign city than to the residual effects of alcohol. Whatever the reason, he felt fine. At least physically.

Only as he sipped the last of his coffee did he realize he hadn’t thought of his domestic problems at all last night. Even now, in the morning’s light, everything felt so distant, so disembodied. He could hardly believe that Sandra had really gone. Was it a question of not being there to see the tree fall in the woods, or was it what the psychologists of grief called denial? Maybe he would ask his psychologist friend Jenny Fuller when she got back from America. Jenny. Now, if Sandra really had gone, did that make him a free agent? What were the rules? Best not think about it too much. Maybe he would ring home again before going out, just to see if she had come back.

He was the only person sitting in the spotless lounge, with its dark wood smelling of polish, its lace doilies, ticking clock and knickknacks stuffed in alcoves. As he had hoped, Burgess had either breakfasted earlier or hadn’t even got out of bed yet. Banks suspected the latter.

Thank the Lord a passer-by had stopped to help him haul Burgess out of the canal last night. Dirty Dick had stood there dripping the foul water and complaining loudly about the canal-building Dutch engineers – most of whom, according to him, had only one parent, a mother, with whom they had indulged in unspeakable sexual relations.

Banks finally managed to persuade him to calm down and walk back to the hotel before the police arrived and arrested them.

That they succeeded in doing, and their arrival attracted only a puzzled frown from the man at the desk as they traipsed through the lobby. Burgess still trailed dirty canal water as he went, his shoes squelching with every step. He held his head high, like W. C. Fields trying to pretend he was sober, and walked with as much dignity as he could muster. After that, he went straight up to his room on the second floor, and that was the last Banks had seen or heard of him.

After breakfast, Banks went all the way back up to his room and phoned home again. Still nothing. Not that he had expected Sandra to get the first train back home, but one lives in hope. He didn’t leave a message for himself.

As he trod carefully back down the steep, narrow stairs, tiptoeing over the landing near Burgess’s room, he reflected on how he had enjoyed himself last night, how, against all expectations, he had enjoyed his night of freedom. He hadn’t done anything he wouldn’t normally have done, except perhaps drink too much and get silly, but he had felt differently about it.

For the first time, he found himself wondering if Sandra wasn’t, perhaps, right. Maybe they both did need a little time to maneuver and regroup after all the changes of the past few years, especially Sandra’s new and more demanding job at the gallery, and the loss of the children.

Not children now, Banks reminded himself. Grown-ups. He thought back to that evening in the Pack Horse only a few days ago, when he had watched Tracy with her friends and realized he couldn’t cross the lounge to be with her; then he remembered a telephone call he had once made from Weymouth to his son in Portsmouth, realizing then for the first time how distant and independent Brian had become.

Well, there was nothing he could do about it. Any of it. Except to make damn sure he kept in touch with them, helped them the best he could, became a friend and not a meddlesome irritation to them. He wondered how they would take the news of their parents’ separation. For that matter, who would tell them? Would Sandra? Should he?

He walked out onto Keizersgracht. The sun glinted on the parked bicycles on the quay and on the canal, making a rainbow out of a pool of oil. Reflections of trees shimmered gently in the ripples of a passing boat.

His mysterious meeting was set for eight o’clock tonight. Well, he thought, in the meantime, on a day like this, tourist map in hand, he could walk the city to his heart’s content.

III

“You’ve got to admit, Superintendent, that your evidence is pretty thin.”

Giles Varney, Mark Wood’s solicitor, sat in Gristhorpe’s office later that Saturday morning, staring out over the market square as he talked.

Outside, a sunny morning had brought plenty of tourists to the bustling open market, but now it was clouding over and, to Susan’s well-trained nose, getting ready to pour down before the day was out. She had already seen the gusts of wind, which would later bring the rain clouds, billowing the canvas covers of the market stalls.

Varney wasn’t a pinstripe lawyer like the one they’d had to deal with last year in the Deborah Harrison murder. He was casually dressed in jeans and a sports shirt, and his very expensive light wool jacket hung on a stand in the