“For better or for worse, you’re part of this.”
Banks wished to hell he weren’t, but Riddle was right. “I’ll be there,” he said.
“Good.”
“And your wife? How’s Mrs. Riddle doing?”
“She’s bearing up. Ros is strong. She’ll survive. Anyway, you’re not here to make small talk about my family, Banks. What is it? Have there been any developments?”
Banks paused. “Yes,” he said finally. “As a matter of fact, there have.”
“Out with it, then.”
“You’re not going to like it.”
“More bad news?” Banks noticed a quick flash of fear in Riddle’s eyes, something he had never seen there before. Riddle averted his gaze. “Anyway, it doesn’t matter whether I like it or not,” he said. “Things have gone too far for that. Two months ago, I wouldn’t have even imagined having you in my house, let alone inviting you to my daughter’s funeral. It doesn’t mean I’ve changed my mind about you, Banks, just that circumstances have changed.”
“I’ve been useful to you.”
“And haven’t I fulfilled my part of the bargain?”
“What were you doing having dinner with Barry Clough at Scarlea House on Sunday, December the sixth?”
Riddle paused before answering. “I was hoping you wouldn’t find out about that,” he said. “Too much to hope for, I suppose.”
“You should have known.”
“Yes, well… Anyway, I didn’t have dinner with him. I left before things went that far.”
“Don’t split hairs. You met with him. Why?”
“Because he asked me to.”
“When?”
“Two days earlier.”
“Friday?”
“Yes. He telephoned me at the station and said he was coming up to Yorkshire for the end of the grouse season the next day, that he’d like to meet me to talk about Emily. That’s all he would tell me on the telephone.”
“He called her Emily?”
“Yes.”
“Not Louisa?”
“No.”
“So he’d found out who she was?”
“Oh, he’d found out all right. Starting with her conversation with you in his living room.”
“Bugged?”
“Of course. That’s what he told me, anyway.”
“What did he want with you?”
“What do you think?”
“Blackmail?”
“In a nutshell. I’ve come across his kind before, Banks. They collect people they think they might be able to use at some point.”
“Tell me about your conversation.”
Riddle scowled. “You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?”
“What do you mean?”
“Putting me on the receiving end. Isn’t this what you’ve always dreamed about?”
“You overestimate your importance to me,” said Banks, “and to be perfectly honest, the answer’s no, I’m not enjoying it. I haven’t enjoyed any of this. Not breaking the news to you about Emily’s death, not questioning you and your wife about her movements, and certainly not this. I’ve had the feeling that one or both of you has been lying or concealing things right from the start, and now I have some concrete evidence of it. I still wish I could simply wash my hands of the lot of you, but I can’t. I’ve got my job to do, and believe it or not, I feel that I owe your daughter something.”
“Why? What did she ever do for you?”
“Nothing. That’s not it at all.”
“What is, then?”
“You wouldn’t understand. Let’s just get back to that Sunday dinner at Scarlea, shall we? What did Clough want to talk to you about?”
“What do you think? He’d discovered that I’m chief constable and that I was contemplating entering into politics. The idea of having such an influential person in his pocket appealed to him.”
“What did he say?”
“He said that he knew Emily in London – as Louisa Gamine, of course – that they had lived together for two or three months and that he had compromising photographs and all sorts of interesting stories he could give to the newspapers about her, things that would spoil my chances of election, should I ever get that far, and things that would even call into doubt my fitness to stay on as chief constable, should I not. He made a few obscene comments about her, and he also indicated that he could probably persuade her to go back with him anytime he wanted. He seemed to believe that all he would have to do was whistle.”
“What did you say to him?”
“I told him to sod off. What do you think?”
“What did he say to that?”
“He said he could perfectly understand my reaction and that he’d give me a couple of weeks to think it over, then get in touch again.”
“Is that when you got up and walked away?”
“Yes.”
“Did you ever hear anything else from him after that?”
“No. It’s only been a week and a half.”
“No threats or anything?”
“Nothing. And I don’t expect to.”
“Why not?”
“Well, he’s hardly going to draw attention to himself by making good on his blackmail threat to me now, is he? Not after the murder.”
“You don’t think the murder was a sort of warning for you, a signal?”
“Don’t be absurd. Things were in a delicate balance. Clough had everything to lose by harming Emily and everything to gain by keeping her alive. He’s not a stupid man, Banks. What do you imagine he’d guess my reaction to be if I thought for a moment that he’d murdered my daughter? It just doesn’t make sense.”
“I wouldn’t be too sure about that.” Banks really wanted a cigarette but he knew he couldn’t have one, not in Riddle’s house. “You must have known we’d find out sooner or later,” he said. “Why on earth didn’t you tell me?”
“It was a calculated risk. Why should I tell you? It was my personal business. My problem. It’s up to me to deal with it.”
“This wasn’t a personal problem. It stopped being that the minute someone
“What evidence?”
“That he was in the area around the time of her death, for a start. He could have easily given her the drugs.”
“I’ve tried not to interfere with the investigation in any way. I would like to have steered you away from Clough as a suspect, but I obviously couldn’t do that without raising suspicion.” Riddle leaned forward and rested his hands on his knees. “Think about it for a minute, Banks, before you go off half-cocked on this. What possible reason could Clough have for wanting to kill Emily when she represented his hold over me?”
“She didn’t need to be alive for him to make good on his threat.”
