“Good. I’ll leave you to fill out the appropriate paperwork to that effect, then, so we can put it on file in case of any problems. I should imagine you were busy at the time and simply postponed the paperwork?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Perfectly understandable. And you don’t need me to tell you that quick, positive results on this would be beneficial all around.”
“No, sir.”
With that, ACC Ron McLaughlin left the boardroom.
“You may leave, too, DS Cabbot,” said Gristhorpe. “Alan, I’d like a word.”
Annie left, flashing Banks a tight, pissed-off look. Banks and Gristhorpe looked at one another. “Terrible business,” said Gristhorpe. “No matter what you thought of Jimmy Riddle.”
“It is, sir.”
“This lunch, Alan? It only happened the once, just the way you say it did?”
“Yes, sir.”
Gristhorpe grunted. He was looking old, Banks thought – his unruly hair, if anything, grayer lately, dark bags under his eyes, his normally ruddy, pockmarked complexion paler than usual. He also seemed to have lost weight; his tweed jacket looked baggy on him. Still, Banks reminded himself, Gristhorpe had been up pretty much all night, and he wasn’t getting any younger.
“She was a good lass,” Banks said. Then he shook his head. “No. What am I saying? That’s not true. She was what you’d call a wild child. She was exasperating, a pain in the arse, and she no doubt ran Jimmy Riddle ragged.”
“But you liked her?”
“Couldn’t help but. She was confused, a bit crazy maybe, rebellious.”
“A bit like you when you were a lad?” said Gristhorpe with a smile.
“Perish the thought. No. She was exactly the sort of girl I hoped Tracy wouldn’t turn into, and thank the Lord she didn’t. Maybe it was easy to admire the spirit in her because I wasn’t her father, and she wasn’t really my problem. But she was more confused than bad, and I think she’d have turned out all right, given the chance. She was just too advanced for her years. I want the bastard who did this to her, sir. Maybe more than I’ve ever wanted any bastard before in my career.”
“Be careful, Alan.” Gristhorpe leaned forward and rested his arms on the table. “You know as well as I do that you wouldn’t be anywhere near this case if it weren’t for Jimmy Riddle. But if you screw up just once because it’s too personal for you, I’ll be down on you like the proverbial ton of bricks. Which is probably nothing to what ACC McLaughlin will do. Got it?”
“Got it,” said Banks. “Don’t worry. I’ll play it by the book.”
Gristhorpe leaned back and smiled at him. “Nay, Alan,” he said. “You wouldn’t want to do that. What’d be the point of having you on the case, then? All I’m saying is don’t let anger and a desire for revenge cloud you judgment. Look clearly at the evidence, the facts, before you make any moves. Don’t go off half-cocked the way you’ve done in the past.”
“I’ll try not to,” said Banks.
“You do that.”
Someone knocked at the door and Gristhorpe called out for him to come in. It was one of the uniformed officers from downstairs. “A DI Wayne Dalton, Northumbria CID, to see DCI Banks, sir.”
Banks raised his eyebrows and looked at Gristhorpe. “Okay,” he said, glancing at his watch. “Give him a cup of coffee and sit him in my office. I can spare him a few minutes.”
Banks wasn’t the only one who had spent a restless night; Annie Cabbot had also lain awake during the hour or two she had spent in bed shortly before dawn, her nerve ends jumping at every little sound. She had tried to tell herself not to be so weak. After all, she had prevented Dalton and his crony from raping her two years ago, so why should she be worried about him now? Her martial arts training might be a bit rusty, but she could defend herself well enough if it came to that.
The problem was that reason has no foothold at four or five in the morning; at those hours, reason sleeps and the mind breeds monsters: monsters of fear, of paranoia. And so she had tossed and turned, her mind’s eye flashing on images of Dalton’s sweat-glossed face and hate-filled eyes, and of Emily Riddle dead, her skinny frame wedged in a toilet cubicle at the Bar None nightclub, her eyes wide open in terror and facial muscles contorted into a grimace.
Now, however, as she came out of the meeting and headed for her office in what little light of day there was, she realized that she wasn’t physically afraid of Dalton. She had always known he was the type who could only act violently as part of a gang. His appearance had shaken her, that was all, stirred up memories of that night she would rather forget. The only problem was that she didn’t know quite what to do, if anything, about him.
She thought of telling Banks but dismissed the idea quickly. If truth be told, she was pissed off at him. Why hadn’t he told her about his relationship with the victim last night? There had been plenty of time. It would have made her feel more like a DIO and less like a bloody idiot this morning when the ACC brought the matter up.
In a way, she regretted now that she had even told Banks about the rape in the first place, but such intimacy as they had had breeds foolish confessions; she had certainly never told anyone else, not even her father. And now that she was actually working with Banks, even though she still fancied him, she was going to try to keep things on a professional footing. Her career was moving in the right direction again, and she didn’t want to mess things up. ACC McLaughlin had given her a great chance for kudos in making her DIO. The last thing she wanted to do was go crying to the boss. No, Dalton was
Banks found DI Dalton standing in his office facing the wall, Styrofoam cup of coffee in his hand, looking at the Dalesman calendar. December showed a snow- and ice-covered Goredale Scar, near Malham. Dalton turned as Banks entered. He was about six feet tall and skinny as a rake, with pale, watery blue eyes and a long, thin face with a rather hangdog expression under his head of sparse ginger hair. Banks put his age at around forty. He was wearing a lightweight brown suit, white shirt and tie. A little blood from a shaving cut had dried near the cleft of his chin.
He stuck his hand out. “DI Wayne Dalton. I seem to have come in the middle of a flap.”
“Haven’t you heard?”
“Heard what?”
“The chief constable’s daughter was killed last night.”
Dalton rolled his eyes and whistled. “I’d hate to be the bastard who did that, when you catch him.”
“We will. Sit down. What brings you this far south?”
“It’s probably a waste of time,” said Dalton, sitting opposite Banks, “but it looks like one of our cases stretches down to your turf.”
“Wouldn’t be the first time. We’ve quickly become a very small island indeed.”
“You can say that again. Anyway, late Sunday night – actually, early Monday morning – about twelve-thirty, to be as precise as we can be at this point – a white van was hijacked on the B6348 between the A1 and the village of Chatton. The contents were stolen and the driver’s still in a coma.”
“What’s his name?”
“Jonathan Fearn.”
Banks tapped his pencil on his desk. “Never heard of him.”
“No reason you should have. He lived here, though.” Dalton consulted his notebook. “Twenty-six Darlington Road.”
“I know it,” said Banks, making a note. “We’ll look into him. Any form?”
“No. What’s interesting, though, is that it turns out this white van was leased by a company called PKF Computer Systems, and-”
“Hang on a minute. Did you say PKF?”
“That’s right. Starting to make sense?”
“Not much, but go on.”
“Anyway, we ran a check on PKF and, to cut a long story, it doesn’t exist.”
