Cold Is The Grave

that night.”

“Regretted that you didn’t get to finish what you started?”

“That’s not what I mean. We were insane, Annie. I don’t know what happened. The drink. The herd mentality.” He shook his head.

“I know. I was there.” Calm as she was inside, Annie felt tears prickling her eyes and she hated the idea of crying in front of Dalton. “You know, I’ve dreamed of this moment, of meeting one of you alone like this, of crushing you. Now we’re here, though, it really doesn’t matter.”

“It does matter, Annie. It matters to me.”

“What do you mean? And don’t you dare call me Annie.”

“Sorry. The guilt. That’s what I’m talking about. What I have to live with, day in, day out.”

Annie couldn’t stop herself from laughing. “Oh, Wayne,” she said, “that’s a good one. That’s really good one. Are you asking me for forgiveness?”

“I don’t know what I’m asking for. Just for some… some sort of end, some resolution.”

“I see. You want closure, is that it? Popular term, these days, especially with victims. Everyone wants the bad guys put away. Gives them a sense of closure. Are you a victim here, Wayne, is that it?” Annie felt herself getting angry as she spoke, the indifference resolving itself into something else, into something harder. Two ramblers approached slowly from the woods beyond the river meadows.

“That’s not what I meant,” said Dalton.

“Then tell me exactly what you did mean, Wayne, because from where I’m standing you’re the bad guy.”

“Look, I know what we did was wrong, and I know that being drunk, being part of a group is no excuse. But I’m not that kind of person. It’s the first, the only time I’ve ever done anything like that.”

“So you’re telling me that because you’re not a serial rapist you’re really an okay guy when it comes right down to it? Is that it? You just made one silly little mistake one night when you and your pals had had a bit too much to drink and there was this young bird just asking for it.” She could tell her voice was rising as she spoke but she couldn’t help herself. She was losing it. She struggled for control again.

“Christ, that’s not what I’m saying. You’re twisting my words.”

“Oh, pardon me,” said Annie, shaking her head. “I don’t know what’s worse, a contrite rapist or an unrepentant one.”

“Don’t get it all out of proportion. I didn’t rape you.”

“No. You didn’t get your chance, did you? But you held me, you helped rip off my panties, and you stood there and enjoyed it while your friend raped me. I saw your face, Wayne. Remember? I know how you felt. You were just waiting for your turn, weren’t you, like a little kid waiting for his go on the swings. And you would have done it, if you’d got the chance. In my mind that doesn’t make you any different from the others. You’re just as bad as the others.”

Dalton sighed and looked at the ground. Annie glared at him as the ramblers passed by. They said hello, but neither Annie nor Dalton answered.

“So what do you want from me?” he asked.

“What do I want? I’d like to see you off the job, for a start. In jail would be even better. But I don’t suppose that’s going to happen, is it? Would I settle for an apology instead? I don’t think so.”

“What more can I do?”

“You can admit what happened. You can go back down there, go see the chief super again and tell him you lied, tell him the three of you got carried away and you raped me. That I did nothing to lead you on or encourage you or make you think I was going to let the three of you fuck me senseless. That’s what you can do.”

Dalton shook his head. All the color had drained from his face. “I can’t do that. You know I can’t.”

Annie looked at him. She felt her eyes burning again. “Then the only thing you can do is fuck off, fuck off right out of my life and don’t ever come near me again.”

Then she turned and crossed the swaying bridge back to Reeth, the tears like fire as they coursed down her cheeks, not turning to see Dalton staring pathetically after her.

12

Banks came out of the meeting early Monday afternoon with only a little more information than he went in with. A weekend of showing Emily’s photograph around town and making house-to-house inquiries had turned up several people who thought they had seen her in various Eastvale shopping areas on Thursday afternoon, always alone, but only one witness who thought she had seen her with anyone else. Unfortunately, the witness was about as useful as most; all she had seen was Emily getting into a car outside the Red Lion Hotel at the big York Road roundabout. She thought the time was about three o’clock. None of the bar staff at the Red Lion had seen Emily, and Banks was certain they would remember if they had.

When it came to the make of car, they all looked the same to the witness. All she could say was that it was light in color. She also hadn’t noticed anything in the least bit odd about what she saw; the girl had seemed to know the driver and smiled as she got in, as if, perhaps, she had been waiting for the lift. No, she hadn’t really got a glimpse of the driver at all, except that maybe he or she was fair-haired.

So, if their witness was to be believed, Emily had got into a light-colored car with someone she probably knew and trusted around the time of the meeting she had mentioned at lunch. She had left the Black Bull shortly before half past two. DC Templeton had checked the bus timetable and discovered that she must have taken the quarter- to-three to get there on time.

If – and it was a big if – their witness was right, then the sighting raised several interesting points. Banks walked over to his office window and lit an illicit cigarette. The day was overcast but balmy for the time of year. A crew of borough workers were putting up the Christmas tree in the market square, watched by a group of children and their teacher. The high-pitched whine of some sort of electric drill came from the extension down the corridor. It reminded Banks of the dentist’s, and he gave a little shudder.

In the first place, Banks thought, why was Emily meeting someone on the edge of town rather than in another pub or in the Swainsdale Centre? Especially if this someone had a car and could easily drive into the town center. Answer: Because she was meeting someone who intended to kill her and who had insisted on the arrangement because he or she didn’t want to be seen with Emily. Any secrecy could easily be explained by the fact that drugs were being sold.

Objection: If this person wanted to kill Emily, why not drive her into the country and do it at leisure, then bury her body where it would never be found?

That raised the whole issue of the way she was killed. Poison, or so the cliche goes, is a woman’s weapon. In this case, if Emily’s killer hadn’t been in the Bar None at the time of her death, then the murder had also occurred at some distance from the killer. That suggested someone who wanted to get rid of her but didn’t have any particular emotional stake in seeing her die. On the other hand, the use of strychnine as a method implied someone who wanted Emily to suffer an agonizing and dramatic death. There are far easier and less painful ways of getting rid of a pest. The murder had elements of both calculation in its premeditation and extreme sadism in its method, a profile which might easily fit Barry Clough, the gangster who didn’t like to lose his prized possessions. But would Clough drive all the way from London simply to give Emily some poisoned cocaine because she had insulted his macho vanity? He had said he was in Spain at the time, and Banks was having that checked. It wouldn’t be easy, given how lax border crossings were these days, but they could tackle the airlines first, and then find out if any of his neighbors in Spain had seen him.

Also, while strychnine wasn’t as difficult to get hold of as some poisons, it wasn’t exactly on sale in the local chemist’s shop. Banks had looked it up. Strychnine, derived originally from the seeds of the nux vomica tree, which grows mainly in India, was used mostly as a rodenticide. It had some medical uses – vets used it as a mild stimulant, for example, and it was sometimes used in research, to cause convulsions in experiments for antiseizure drugs, and in the treatment of alcoholism. None of Banks’s suspects was a doctor or a nurse, and strychnine wasn’t issued on prescriptions, so the medical side could be ruled out. Craig Newton was a photographer, and they sometimes had access to unusual chemicals, though not, as far as Banks could remember,