Cold Is The Grave

She came up with a wicked grin and tapped his arm. “Well, it doesn’t exactly give me a hard-on, but it does make fucking really good. Mostly, it gives you a real rush, sort of like speed.”

“I see. And you’ve had no problems giving up all this stuff?”

“I’m not an addict, if that’s what you’re getting at. I can stop anytime I want.”

“I’m not suggesting that you’re an addict, just that it can be difficult without outside help.”

“I’m not going on one of those stupid programs with all those losers, if that’s what you mean. No way.” She pouted and looked away.

Banks held his hands up. “Fine. Fine. All I’m saying is that if you find you need any help… Well, I know you can hardly go to your father. That’s all.”

Emily stared at him for a while, as if digesting and translating what he had said. “Thanks,” she said finally, not meeting his eyes, and managed a small smile. “You know why my dad hates you?”

Startled, Banks almost choked on his drink. When he had regained some of his composure, he suggested, “Personality clash?”

“Because he envies you. That’s why.”

“Envies me?”

“It’s true. I can tell. I’ve heard him going on to Mother. Do you know, he thinks you’ve been having it off with some Pakistani tart in Leeds?”

“She’s not Pakistani, she’s from Bangladesh. She’s not a tart. And we’ve never had it off.”

“Whatever. And the music. That drives him crazy.”

“But why?”

“Don’t you know?”

“I wouldn’t be asking if I did.”

“It’s because you’ve got a life. You have a woman on the side, you listen to opera or whatever, and you get the job done, you get results. You also do it the way you want. Dad’s by the book. Always has been.”

“But he’s one of the youngest chief constables we’ve ever had. Why on earth should he be jealous of my achievements?”

“You still don’t get it, do you?”

“Obviously not.”

“He’s envious. You’re everything he’d like to be, but he can’t. He’s locked himself on a course he couldn’t change even if he wanted to. He’s sacrificed everything to get where he’s got. Believe me, I should know. I’m one of the things he’s sacrificed. All he’s got is his ambition. He doesn’t have time to listen to music, be with his family, have another woman, read a book. It’s like he’s made a pact with the devil and he’s handed over all his time in exchange for earthly power and position. And there’s something else. He can handle the politics, pass exams and courses by the cartload, manage, administrate better than just about anyone else on the force, but there’s one thing he could never do worth a damn.”

“What’s that?”

“He couldn’t detect his way out of a paper bag.”

“Why should that matter?”

“Because that’s why he joined up in the first place.”

“How do you know?”

“I don’t. I’m only guessing. But I’ve seen his old books once, when we were staying at my grandparents’ house in Worthing. They’re all, like, sixties paperback editions and stuff, with his name written inside them, all very neatly. A lot of those Penguins with the green covers. Detective stories. Sherlock Holmes. Agatha Christie. Ngaio Marsh. All that boring old crap. And I looked in some of them. Do you know what he’s done? He’s made his own notes in the margins, about who he thinks did it, what the clues mean. I even read one of them while we were there. He couldn’t have been more wrong.”

Banks felt queasy. There was something obscene about this intimate look into Riddle’s childhood dreams that made him uncomfortable. “Where did you learn the pop psychology?” he said, trying to brush the whole thing off.

Emily smiled. “There is a kind of logic to it. Think about it. Look, it’s been great seeing you, but I really have to be going. I have to meet someone at three. Then I’m off clubbing tonight.” She gathered her handbag, more the size of a small rucksack, really, patted her hair and stood up. “Maybe we can do this again?”

“I’d like that,” Banks said. “But it’s on my terms next time, or not at all.”

“Your terms?”

“No booze.”

She stuck her tongue out at him. “Spoilsport. Bye.” Then she picked up her jacket, turned with a flourish and strutted out of the pub. The men all watched her go with hangdog expressions, some of them brought crudely back to reality by harsh remarks from their wives sitting next to them. One woman gave Banks a particularly malevolent look, the kind she probably reserved for child molesters.

After Emily had gone, Banks spent a few moments thinking over what she had said. Self-analysis had not been a habit of his, and it was something he had only really indulged in since the split with Sandra, since his move to the cottage, even. There he had spent many a late evening watching the sunset over the flagstone roofs of Helmthorpe as shadows gathered on the distant valley sides, and probing himself, his motives, what made him the man he was, why he had made the mistakes he had made. There he was, a man in his forties taking stock of his life and finding out it wasn’t at all what he thought it had been.

So Riddle hated him because he was a natural detective and because he appeared to have a life, including this illusory mistress. Some of Riddle’s envy, then, if that was what it was, was based on error. What could be more pathetic than envying a man the life you only imagine he has? It was just a precocious teenager’s analysis, of course, but perhaps it wasn’t too far from the mark. After all, it wasn’t as if Riddle had ever given Banks a chance, right from the start. Still, he thought, knocking back the last of his pint, that wasn’t his problem anymore. With Riddle in his corner, things were bound to change for the better. As he pulled up his collar and left the pub, he was aware of the women’s eyes burning holes in the back of his raincoat.

7

DS Jim Hatchley was the last to arrive at the scheduled meeting that Thursday afternoon, rolling in a little after quarter past five smelling of ale and tobacco and looking as if he’d been dragged through a hedge backwards. Banks, Annie Cabbot and DCs Rickerd, Jackman and Templeton were already gathered in the “boardroom,” so called because of its panels, wainscoting and oil portraits of dead mill owners. A thin patina of dust from the renovations had even reached as far as the long banquet table, usually so highly polished you could see your reflection in it.

“Sorry, sir,” muttered Hatchley, taking his seat.

Banks turned to Annie Cabbot, who had just started an account of her afternoon at the Daleview Business Park. “Go on, DS Cabbot,” he said. “Now that we’re all here.”

“Well, sir, there’s not a great deal to add. Charlie turned up for work on Sunday afternoon, as usual, logged in, and he went home at midnight. His replacement for the midnight-to-eight shift, Colin Finch, says he actually saw him at four and midnight, so we know he was still alive when he left the park.”

“Did this Finch have anything more to tell us?” Banks asked.

“Said he hardly knew Charlie. They were ships that passed in the night. His words, not mine. And he’d no sense of anything dodgy going on at Daleview. Nobody else I spoke to there admits to knowing Charlie, either – not surprising, when you consider he was usually at work when the rest had gone home – and there had been no incidents reported at the park, so he didn’t even have very much to do.”

“Could his death be unrelated to his work, then?” Banks asked.

“It’s possible,” Annie said, glancing at Hatchley. “After all, he did have form. Mixed with some pretty rough company in his time. But there was one odd thing.”

“Yes?”