Cold Is The Grave

hopes, and the smear campaign started against him in the tabloid would be enough to drive anyone over the edge.

So suicide it may be, Banks thought, but Barry Clough still had a lot to answer for. Clough was enjoying the hospitality of the Eastvale cells that night, while the detectives and forensic experts mobilized by Burgess down south were working overtime following up all the leads they had on the Charlie Courage and Andy Pandy shootings. With any luck, by tomorrow Banks would have something more substantial to confront Clough with in the interview room.

It was nine o’clock when a car pulled up and someone knocked at the door. Puzzled, Banks went to see who it was.

Rosalind Riddle stood there in the cold night air, wearing only a long skirt and sweater. “Can I come in?” she said. “It’s been a hell of a day.”

Banks could think of no reply to that. He stood aside to let her in and shut the door behind her. She smoothed down her skirt and sat in the armchair by the fire, rubbing her hands together. “There’s a chill in the air,” she said. “We might get frost tonight.”

“What are you doing here?” Banks asked.

“I’ve been going insane just sitting around the house. charlotte came to stay with me for a while but I sent her away. She’s nice, but you know, we’re not that close. It’s so empty, and there’s nothing to do there. My mind has been running around in circles. I want to talk to you. It seemed… I don’t know… I’m sorry. Perhaps I shouldn’t have come.” She moved to stand up.

“No. Sit down. You might as well stop. You’re here now. Drink?”

Rosalind paused. “Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

“All right.” She sat down again. “Thank you. I wouldn’t mind a glass of white wine, if you have any.”

“I’m afraid I’ve only got red.”

“Okay.”

“It’s nothing fancy.”

She smiled. “Don’t worry. I might be a snob about some things, but not about wine.”

“Good.” Banks headed into the kitchen to open the Marks and Sparks Bulgarian Merlot. He poured himself a glass, too. He had a feeling he would need it. After he had handed Rosalind her drink, Banks sat opposite her. She had clearly made an effort to look her best, wearing an expensive gray skirt and Fair Isle jumper, applying a little makeup to give some color to her pallid features, but there was no disguising the bruiselike circles under her eyes, or the rims pink from crying. This was a woman hanging on the edge by her fingernails.

“How are you?” he asked. It sounded like a stupid question after what had happened to her, but he couldn’t think of anything else to say.

“I’m… I… I don’t really know. I thought I was coping, but inside…” She tapped her chest. “It all feels so tight and hot inside here. I keep thinking I’m going to explode.” Her eyes brimmed with tears. “It’s quite a thing, you know, losing both your daughter and your husband within a week of one another.” She gave a harsh laugh, then thumped the armrest of her chair. “How dare he do this? How dare he?”

“What do you mean?”

“He’s run away from it all, hasn’t he? And where does that leave me? A cold, heartless bitch because I’m still alive? Because I didn’t care about my daughter’s murder enough to kill myself over it?”

“Don’t do this, Rosalind,” said Banks, getting up and putting his hands on her shoulders. He could feel the little convulsions as grief and anger surged through her.

After a while, she reached up and gently disengaged his hands. “I’m all right,” she said, wiping the tears out of her eyes. “I’m sorry for inflicting myself on you, but it’s been on my mind all day. Going over and over it again. I can’t understand my feelings. I should feel sorrow, loss… but all I feel is anger. I hate him. I hate him for doing this! And I hate myself for feeling like that.”

Banks could do nothing but sit down helplessly and let her cry again. He remembered his own reaction to finding Riddle’s body; there had been a lot of anger in that too, before it gave way to guilt. The selfish bastard.

When Rosalind had finished, he said, “Look, I can’t pretend to know how you feel, but I feel terrible myself. If I’d gone out there sooner I might have saved him.” It sounded even more pathetic than his opening gambit, but he felt he had to get it off his chest.

Rosalind gave him a sharp look. “You? Don’t be silly. Jerry was a very determined man. If he wanted to kill himself, he’d damn well do it, one way or another. There was nothing you could have done except perhaps postpone the inevitable.”

“Even so… I keep thinking if only I hadn’t put off the visit. If only I hadn’t… I don’t know.”

“Disliked him so much?”

Banks looked away. “I suppose that’s a part of it.”

“Don’t worry. Jerry wasn’t a very likable man. Even death won’t change that. There’s no sense in your feeling guilty.”

“I’ve been thinking about what might have caused him to do it,” Banks said after a short pause. “I know you said he was depressed over Emily’s death and all the fallout that engendered, but somehow, even all that just didn’t seem enough in itself.”

“He was upset about those lies in the newspaper.”

Banks paused. He knew he shouldn’t be telling Rosalind about her husband’s problems with Barry Clough, but he felt she deserved something from him; he also thought it might put Riddle’s death in perspective for her a little more clearly. Call it guilt talking. He took a deep breath, then said, “I was out at a place called Scarlea House yesterday afternoon. Ever heard of it?”

“I’ve heard of it, yes. It’s an upmarket shooting lodge, isn’t it?”

“Yes. According to the bartender, your husband had dinner with Barry Clough there the Sunday before last.”

Rosalind paled. “Barry Clough?”

“Yes. The man Emily lived with for a while in London.”

“I remember the name. And you’re telling me that Jerry had dinner with him?”

“Yes. Are you sure you didn’t know?”

“No. Jerry never said anything to me about it. I knew he was out for dinner that night, yes, but I thought it was just one of his political things. I’d stopped asking him where he went a long time ago. How would a newspaper find out about that anyway, even if it is true?”

“They didn’t have to know about that specific meeting,” said Banks. “Remember, the article never made any direct assertions; it was all innuendo. It’s even possible that someone on the staff at Scarlea House – one of the waiters, perhaps – talked to a reporter but refused to be quoted as a source. I don’t know. These journalists have their tricks of the trade. The point is that it happened. Did you have any idea at all that your husband had talked to or met with Clough?”

“No. Absolutely none.”

Banks believed her. For one thing, Riddle wasn’t stupid enough to tell his wife he was having dinner with the man suspected of murdering their daughter. “Your husband told me that Clough was trying to blackmail him. Using Emily.”

“But Jerry would never agree to anything like that.”

“I think that was his dilemma. That was what tore him apart. Certainly Emily’s murder hurt him deeply, but this was what finally pushed him over the edge. There he was, a man of honor, who has to decide whether he wants to fall into the hands of a gangster or have his daughter and, by extension, his entire family, vilified in public.”

“Are you saying that he didn’t know whether he would have done what Clough asked or not, and he couldn’t face making the decision?”

“Possibly. But going by the tabloid article, it looks as if he had already turned Clough down, or that Clough had lost patience waiting.”

“If Clough was behind it.”