Cold Is The Grave

The cold water was up to Annie’s navel by now and she decided to plunge right in. Sometimes it was the best way. “What was her father’s name?”

“Well, it wasn’t Riddle, like it says in the paper. As I said to your colleague yesterday, that’s why I thought it was funny. So I pulled the credit card slip. He’s stayed with us here before, I remember. Once with a very attractive young lady. His name is Banks. Alan Banks.”

The shock numbed Annie’s blood, even though she had been half expecting it. She thanked Mr. Poulson, then hung up in a daze. Banks. In a hotel room with Emily Riddle half the night. The same hotel he’d taken Annie to. And he hadn’t told her. This put a new complexion on things indeed.

Banks slipped the tape he had made of Brian’s band’s CD in the cassette player and reflected on his interview with Clough as he drove out to the Old Mill. Clough was still cooling his heels in the holding cells, but they wouldn’t really be able to hold him much after the following morning. Gallagher was right about that. Any infringement of PACE because Clough was a suspect in the murder of the chief constable’s daughter would go down very badly indeed and only increase his chances of getting off scot-free. That was how things were now. In the old days, they used to be different, of course, and Banks still wasn’t certain which was best. He just hoped to hell that some of the information he was desperate for arrived before the deadline.

The question he always came back to, though, was that if Clough had killed Emily, what was his motive? Clough was an astute gangster, surely smart enough not to let an affair with a sixteen-year- old girl ruin the rest of what was clearly a charmed and profitable life. Still, Banks thought, remembering the famous gangsters of movieland – James Cagney, Edward G. Robinson – there were plenty of mob bosses who were also psychopaths and killed for reasons other than pure business. If Banks were Clough, though, when he found out that Emily had gone and then discovered she was a chief constable’s daughter, he would have cut his losses and left well enough alone. But perhaps that was why Banks wasn’t Clough.

Had Emily really been doing something foolish, like trying to blackmail Clough? Banks didn’t think so. She was a mixed-up kid, but he didn’t think she was a blackmailer. He had also got the feeling from talking to her that she was genuinely scared of Clough, and that the more permanent distance there was between them, the better. Besides, her family didn’t lack for money, and as Riddle had pointed out at the start, they had spoiled her rotten. Even so, the idea of an undisclosed income of her very own might appeal. But would it overcome her fear?

Also, why would Clough wait so long to kill her if he was after revenge for her leaving? It was over a month since Banks had brought Emily back from London. Perhaps it had taken him that long to find out who and where she was. Or perhaps it had taken her that long to start blackmailing him. There had been no telephone calls to Clough on Riddle’s phone records, but that didn’t necessarily mean Emily hadn’t called him from a public box. Something about the sparse phone records nagged at his mind, but he couldn’t quite grasp it. Never mind. As his mother always said, if it was that important, it would come to the surface soon enough.

He showed his warrant card to the officers at the end of the lane, and they waved him through. A hundred yards farther on, he pulled up on the gravel drive outside the Old Mill and turned off the engine. The rain had stopped but it had swelled the millrace, which sounded even louder and faster than on his last visit.

This time, Riddle wasn’t watching for his arrival. He wondered if Rosalind had told him Banks was coming. He hoped not. He knocked at the door and waited. Nothing. Surely Riddle couldn’t have gone back to work already? He knocked again, harder, in case the noise from the stream was covering the sound. Still nothing.

Banks stepped back a few paces from the front door and looked at the front of the house. No windows open. It was a dull afternoon, and someone at home might have put a light or two on, but none showed. Perhaps Riddle had gone out, maybe for a long drive to think things over. Banks felt relief. He had come to fulfill his promise to Rosalind, but it wasn’t his fault if Riddle wasn’t home. What more could he do?

But surely, if Riddle had gone out, the duty officers would have told Banks?

It was then that he became aware of another faint noise beyond the sound of the rushing millrace. At first, it didn’t mean much, then, when he realized what it was, it sent a chill through him.

It was coming from the converted barn, and it was the sound of a car engine idling.

Banks dashed toward the barn, doubting his own ears at first, but there was no mistaking the smooth purr of the German engineering. The garage door was closed but not locked. Banks bent and grasped the handle, pulling as he moved back, and the door slid up smoothly and silently on its overhead runners. The stink of exhaust fumes hit him immediately, and he staggered back, digging his hands in his raincoat pocket for a handkerchief. He couldn’t find one, but he went in anyway with his forearm over his nose and mouth.

It was dark and smoky inside the garage, and Banks couldn’t make out very much at first. His eyes adjusted as he moved inside, noticing that rolled-up cloths or towels had been placed against the gap between the floor and bottom of the garage door on the inside. He did the best he could to keep the fumes at bay, covering his mouth and nose with one hand, breathing only as little as necessary. At least now air from outside was displacing the carbon monoxide.

When Banks got to the car, he could see Riddle slumped across the two front seats. There was no way of knowing yet whether he was dead, so Banks first tried to open a door. They were all locked. He looked around and found a crowbar on one of the shelves. Standing back and swinging it hard, he broke open one of the back windows to avoid disturbing the front, reached inside and disengaged the lock mechanism. Then he opened the front door at the driver’s side, reached across Riddle and turned off the engine. The fumes were dissipating slowly now the garage doors stood wide open, but Banks was beginning to feel nauseated and dizzy.

He felt for a pulse and found none. Riddle’s whole face was as red as his bald head got when he was angry. Cherry-red. The hosing he had rigged from the exhaust to the back window was still in place. He had opened the window a crack to admit it and stuffed the opening with oil-stained rags.

Riddle was wearing his uniform, everything polished, shiny in order, apart from the thin streak of yellowish vomit down his front. Above the dashboard was a sheet of paper with handwriting on it. Leaving it where it was, Banks leaned over and squinted. It was short and to the point:

The game’s over. Please take care of Benjamin and try to ensure that he doesn’t think too ill of his father. I’m sorry.

JERRY.

Banks read it again, angry tears pricking at his stinging eyes. You bastard, he thought, you selfish bastard. As if his family hadn’t suffered enough already.

Groggy and sick, Banks stumbled outside and made it to the millrace before he emptied out his lunch. He bent over and took handfuls of cold clear water and splashed it over his face, drinking down as much of it as he could manage. He knew that there were two officers only a hundred yards away, but he wasn’t sure his legs would carry him that far, so he went back to his car, picked up his mobile and called the station, then he bent forward, put his hands on his knees and took deep breaths as he waited for the circus to begin.

16

Banks spent the evening at home trying to make sense of the day’s events. He still felt weak and nauseated, but apart from that, there seemed no serious damage. The ambulance crew had insisted on giving him oxygen and taking him to Eastvale General for a checkup, but the doctor pronounced him fit to go home, with a warning to lay off the ciggies for a while.

From what he had been able to piece together so far, it appeared almost certain that Riddle had committed suicide. They wouldn’t know for sure until Dr. Glendenning performed the postmortem, probably tomorrow, but there were no signs of external violence on Riddle’s body, the note appeared to be in his handwriting, and the rags and towels used to keep the petrol fumes in the garage had been placed on the inside of the doors, after they had been closed. There were no windows or other means of exit.

Banks would never have pegged Riddle as the suicidal type, but he would be the first to admit that he had no idea if such a type existed. Certainly the murder of his daughter, the destruction of all his political and professional