even my boss thinks I need a holiday. Just thought I’d let you know I might be taking a trip over to England soon. I don’t know when. Might be next week, might be next month. But I think it’d be nice if we could get together for dinner or something, don’t you?”
“You’re sick,” Maggie said, and heard Bill chuckling as she hung up.
15
Banks had always thought that Sunday morning was a good time to put a little pressure on an unsuspecting villain. Sunday afternoon was good, too, after the papers, the pub and the roast beef and Yorkshire pud have put him in a good mood and he was stretched out in the armchair, newspaper over his head, enjoying a little snooze. But on Sunday morning, if they weren’t particularly religious, people were either relaxed and all set to enjoy a day off, or they were hung over. Either way made for a good chat.
Ian Scott was definitely hungover.
His oily black hair stood in spikes on top and lay flat at the sides, plastered to his skull where he had lain on the pillow. One side of his pasty face was etched with crease marks. His eyes were bloodshot and he wore only a grubby vest and underpants.
“Can I come in, Ian?” said Banks, pushing gently past him before he got an answer. “Won’t take long.”
The flat reeked of last night’s marijuana smoke and stale beer. Roaches still lay scattered in the ashtrays. Banks went over and opened the window as wide as it would go. “Shame on you, Ian,” he said. “A lovely spring morning like this, you ought to be out walking down by the river or having a crack at Fremlington Edge.”
“Bollocks,” said Ian, scratching those very items as he spoke.
Sarah Francis stumbled in from the bedroom, holding her tousled hair back from her face and squinting through sleep-gummed eyes. She was wearing a white T-shirt with Donald Duck on the front, and nothing else. The T-shirt only came down to her hips.
“Shit,” she said, covering herself with her hands as best she could and dashing back into the bedroom.
“Enjoy the free show?” said Ian.
“Not particularly.” Banks tossed a heap of clothes from the chair nearest the window and sat down. Ian turned on the stereo, too loud, and Banks got up and turned it off. Ian sat down and sulked and Sarah came back in wearing a pair of jeans. “You could have bloody warned me,” she grumbled to Ian.
“Shut up, you silly cunt,” he said.
Now Sarah sat down and sulked, too.
“Okay,” said Banks. “Are we all comfortable? Can I begin?”
“I don’t know what you want with us again,” said Ian. “We told you everything that happened.”
“Well, it won’t do any harm to go over it again, will it?”
Ian groaned. “I don’t feel well. I feel sick.”
“You should treat your body with more respect,” said Banks. “It’s a temple.”
“What do you want to know? Get it over with.”
“First off, I’m puzzled by something.”
“Well, you’re the Sherlock; I’m sure you can work it out.”
“I’m puzzled by why you haven’t asked me about Leanne.”
“What do you mean?”
“I’d hardly be back here interrupting your Sunday morning, would I, if Leanne had turned up dead and buried in a serial killer’s garden?”
“What are you saying? Speak English.”
Sarah had curled herself somehow into a fetal position in the other armchair and was watching the exchange intently.
“What I’m saying, Ian, is that you didn’t ask about Leanne. That concerns me. Don’t you care about her?”
“She was a mate, that’s all. But it’s nothing to do with us. We don’t know what happened to her. Besides, I’d’ve got around to it eventually. My brain’s not working properly yet.”
“Does it ever? Anyway, I’m beginning to think you do.”
“Do what?”
“Know something about what happened to Leanne.”
“That’s rubbish.”
“Is it, really? Let’s back up a bit. First off, we’re pretty certain now that Leanne Wray wasn’t one of the Chameleon’s victims, as we had first thought.”
“Your mistake, isn’t it?” said Ian. “Don’t come looking to us to bail you out.”
“Now, if that’s not the case, then it stands to reason that something else happened to her.”
“You don’t need to be a Sherlock to figure that one out.”
“Which, discounting the possibility of
“Oh, yeah? And what are those?”
Banks counted off on his fingers. “One, that she ran away from home. Two, that she did go home on time and her parents did something to her. And three, the main reason I’m here, that she didn’t, in fact, go home after you left the Old Ship. That the three of you stayed together and
Ian Scott showed no expression but scorn as he listened, and Sarah started sucking on her thumb. “We told you what happened,” Ian said. “We told you what we did.”
“Yes,” said Banks. “But The Riverboat was so busy, the people we talked to were very vague about seeing you. They certainly weren’t sure about the time and weren’t even sure it was that Friday night.”
“But you’ve got the CCTV. For fuck’s sake, what’s Big Brother watching for if you can’t believe what you see?”
“Oh, we believe what we see all right,” said Banks. “But all we see is you, Sarah here and Mick Blair entering the Bar None shortly after half-past twelve.”
“Well, there’s no point going earlier. Things don’t start to warm up till after midnight.”
“Yes, Ian, but that leaves over two hours unaccounted for. A lot can happen in two hours.”
“How was I to know I’d have to account for my every minute?”
“Two hours.”
“I told you. We walked around town a bit, dropped in at The Riverboat, then went to the Bar None. I don’t know what fucking time it was.”
“Sarah?”
Sarah took her thumb from her mouth. “What he says.”
“Is that how it usually goes?” Banks asked. “What Ian says. Haven’t you got a mind of your own?”
“What he says. We went to The Riverboat, then to the Bar None. Leanne left us just before half-past ten outside the Old Ship. We don’t know what happened to her after that.”
“And Mick Blair went with you?”
“Yeah.”
“How did Leanne seem that night, Sarah?”
“Uh?”
“What sort of mood was she in?”
“All right, I suppose.”
“She wasn’t upset about anything?”
“No. We were having a good time.”
“Leanne didn’t confide anything in you?”
“Like what?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Some problem with her stepmother, perhaps?”
“She was always having problems with that stuck-up bitch. I was sick of hearing about them.”
“Did she ever talk about running off?”
