Cold Is The Grave

the desk and saw a couple of popular computer software programs and games there. Again, there was no form of official identification.

“Where did you get these?” she asked, noticing that Carly had reddened when she picked up one of the CD cases.

“Shop.”

“What shop?”

“Computer shop.”

“Come on, Carly. You think I’m stupid just because I’m an old fogy? Is that it? You didn’t buy this in any legitimate computer shop. It’s a knock-off, like the music CDs. Where did you buy them?”

“It’s not illegal.”

“We won’t go into the ins and outs of breach of copyright just now. I just want to know where you bought them.”

After letting the silence stretch for almost a minute, Alex answered. “Bloke in the used bookshop down by the castle sells them.”

“Castle Hill Books?”

“That’s the one.”

Annie made a note. It probably wasn’t important, and it wasn’t her case, but she couldn’t dismiss the connection she felt with the empty CD case she had found at PFK. She would pass the information on to Sergeant Hatchley.

“Are you going to arrest us?” Carly asked.

“No. I’m not going to arrest you. But I do want you to answer a few more questions. Okay?”

“Okay.”

“While you were in the club, did you notice anyone selling drugs or behaving suspiciously?”

“There weren’t many people in the place,” Carly said. “Everyone was just getting in drinks or sitting down.”

“A few people were dancing,” Alex added. “But things hadn’t really got going by then.”

“Did you notice this girl?”

Annie showed them a picture of Emily.

“I think that’s the girl who came in with some friends just after us,” Carly said. “At least it looks like her.”

“About five foot six, taller in her platforms. Flared jeans.”

“That’s the one,” Carly said. “No, I didn’t see her doing anything odd at all. They sat down. Someone went for drinks. I think she was dancing at one point. I don’t know. I wasn’t really paying attention. The music was already driving me crazy.”

“You didn’t notice her talk to anyone outside her immediate group?”

“No.”

“Did you see her go to the toilet?”

“We weren’t watching people coming and going from the toilets.”

“So you didn’t notice her go?”

“No.”

“All right. Did you recognize her? Have you ever seen her before?”

“No,” Alex answered, with a sly glance at Carly. “And I think I’d remember.”

Carly threw a cushion at him. He laughed.

“She was too young for you, Alex,” said Annie. “And by all accounts you’d have been far too young for her.” She thought again of Banks and his lunch with Emily the day she died. Was there any more to it than that? She still got the impression he was holding back, hiding something.

Things were going nowhere fast with Carly and Alex, so she decided to wrap up the interview and call it a day. “Okay,” she said, standing up and stretching her back. “If either of you remembers anything about that evening, no matter how insignificant it might seem to you, give me a ring at this number.” She handed her card to Carly, who put it on the computer desk, then left the flat, ready to head home. It had been a rough day. Maybe she could treat herself to a book and a long hot bath and put Banks and Dalton out of her mind.

13

The postman came before Banks set off for work on Wednesday morning, and in addition to the usual bills and another letter from Sandra’s lawyer, which Banks put aside for later, he also brought with him a small oblong package. Noting the return address, Banks ripped open the padded envelope and held in his hand his son’s first officially recorded compact disc, Blue Rain, along with a thank you note for the three- hundred-pound check Banks had sent him, and which had cut severely into his Laphroaig budget.

There was a photograph of the band on the cover, Brian at the center in a practiced, cool sort of slouch, torn jeans, T-shirt, a lock of hair practically covering one eye. Andy, Jamisse and Ali flanked him. It was a poor-quality photograph, Banks noticed – Sandra certainly wouldn’t approve – and looked more like a grainy black-and-white photocopy of a color original. Banks didn’t much like the band’s name, either; Jimson Weed sounded far too sixtyish and druggie, but what did he know?

The music was what counted, and Banks was pleased to see that they had recorded their cover version of Dylan’s “Love Minus Zero/No Limit,” a song he had been surprised to hear them play on the only occasion he had seen them perform live. The rest of the songs were all originals, with Brian and Jamisse sharing most of the writing credits, apart from an old Mississippi John Hurt number, “Avalon Blues.” They weren’t a blues band, but blues was an underlying influence on their music, sometimes overlaid with rock, folk and hip-hop elements: The Grateful Dead meet Snoop Doggy Dogg. Banks was also absurdly pleased to see that in the liner notes Brian had credited him with nurturing an interest in music. Hadn’t mentioned that his dad was a copper, though; that wouldn’t go down too well in the music business.

He didn’t have time to listen to the CD before heading to the office. If he expected his team to put in a full day on Emily’s murder, then he had to set an example. Thoughts of work soon led into thoughts of Annie, who had contributed toward yet another sleepless night. He couldn’t understand what she saw in Dalton, who seemed such a dull, unprepossessing type to Banks. Not particularly good-looking, either. But, as he well knew, there was neither rhyme nor reason in matters of sex and love.

He just wished he could get the images of them out of his mind. Last night he had tossed and turned, unable to stop himself from imagining them making love in all sorts of positions, Dalton pleasing her far more than he had ever done, making her cry out in ecstasy as she climaxed, riding him wildly. The morning, dark and wet as it was, brought a respite from the images, but not from the feelings that had generated them. Working with her was turning out to be far more difficult than he had imagined it would be. Maybe she was right, and he just couldn’t hack it.

As he turned toward the town center and slowed in the knot of traffic on North Market Street, which was just opening up for the day, he wondered if everyone suffered from jealousy as much as he did. It had always been that way for him; jealousy had wrecked his relationship with the first girl he had ever slept with.

Her name was Kay Summerville, and she lived on the same Peterborough estate as he did. For weeks he had lusted after her as he watched her walk by in her jeans and yellow jacket, long blond hair trailing halfway down her back. She seemed unobtainable, ethereal, like most of the women he lusted after, but he was surprised when one day, walking back from the newsagent’s over the road with her, he plucked up the courage to ask her out, and she said yes.

Everything went well until Kay left school and got an office job in town. She made new friends, started going for drinks with the crowd regularly after work on a Friday. Banks was still at school, having stayed on for his A-Levels, and a schoolboy had far less appeal than these slightly older, better dressed, more sophisticated men of the world at the office. They had more money to flash around and, even more important, some of them had cars. Kay insisted there was no hanky-panky going on, but Banks became tortured with jealousy, racked by imagined infidelities, and in the end, Kay walked away. She couldn’t stand his constant harping on whom she was seeing and what she was doing, she said, and the way he got stroppy if she ever so much as looked at another