probably what she wanted anyway, ate a hurried roast pork lunch at the Queen’s Arms alone and returned to the station. Because it was a Sunday, things were slow, especially as far as forensics went, but a major investigation was under way, and Banks’s Major Crimes core team was hard at work.
At this point, while each fire was being investigated separately for cause and motive, every possible effort was being made to find the link between them that everyone suspected was there. When Banks dropped by the incident room, Winsome was back entering the green sheets into the HOLMES computer system; DC Gavin Rickerd was making sure everything was in its place, neatly logged and filed; DC Kevin Templeton was chewing the end of a pencil as he tried to gather information on any similar fires; and DS Hatchley was pondering over the bits and pieces he had dug up on Mark David Siddons. The phones rang from time to time, computer keyboards clacked and fax machines hummed. Everything was ticking over nicely, but just ticking over. Of course, everyone was on overtime except Banks. A DCI didn’t get paid overtime.
Banks hadn’t been back in his own office more than a couple of minutes when Stefan Nowak tapped at the door. “A moment?”
Banks looked up. “Good news, I hope?”
“I don’t know,” said Stefan, standing at the open door. “But there’s something you might like to see, if you’ve got a minute or two to spare.”
Curious, Banks followed Stefan down the corridor into the “new” part of the building, which they called the annex. It was just as old, in fact, but it used to be a hotel before Eastvale expanded from divisional HQ into Western Area Headquarters and knocked through the walls. Now it housed fingerprints, photography, scenes-of- crime and computers, among other departments.
Stefan stopped at a lab bench. “I thought you might be interested in this,” he said, pointing to a blackened cube about the size of a computer monitor. “We retrieved it from the caravan. Looks as if it was hidden in one of the cupboards.”
“What is it?” Banks asked.
“Well, it looks to me like a fire-resistant safe,” said Stefan.
“A fire-resistant safe? What on earth is a bloke living on his wits in a dilapidated caravan doing with a fire- resistant safe?”
“You tell me,” said Stefan. “I only found it and identified it.”
“Can you open it?”
“It might take a bit of brute force.”
“Any reason to treat it gently?”
“No. We’ve already checked for prints. Nothing.”
“So let’s do it.”
Stefan had already got his hands on a small crowbar – from the police garage, he told Banks – and he proceeded to wedge it in the lock area and exert pressure. Nothing happened. He looked up at Banks. “Any safecrackers down in the cells?”
“I wish,” said Banks. “Keep at it. Fire-resistant or not, the fire must have weakened the lock a bit, at least.”
Stefan kept at it. Still nothing happened. “I think we might have to dynamite it,” he said.
Banks laughed. “Let me have a go.”
Stefan handed him the crowbar and Banks shifted it to the side opposite the lock, where the deep-seated hinges were. It was hard to see exactly what he was doing because of the fire damage, but he thought he had succeeded in inserting the sharp flat end of the crowbar between the body of the safe and the hinged door. Gently at first, he worked the crowbar up and down and managed to get it in another few millimeters. Finally, the first hinge cracked and it was only a matter of time before he broke the second one, too.
“Fireproof, but not Banks-proof,” he said, pulling open the door. He reached into the dark interior. “Looks like something’s there.”
“What is it?” Stefan asked.
Banks pulled out the safe’s contents, wrapped in black plastic bin liner, and placed them on the lab bench. Both men looked down in astonishment. On the table in front of them lay some rolled-up tubes of paper and three bundles of twenty-pound notes, fastened with rubber bands, probably five hundred quid or more in each of them. Banks unfolded the tubes and saw a number of sketches of a castle, and a finished watercolor painting, about eleven by sixteen, of a view along a valley from the castle terrace.
“That’s Hornby Castle,” said Stefan.
“How do you know?”
He glanced sideways at Banks. “I’ve been there. I do a lot of walking. It’s near Kirkby Lonsdale. And this” – he pointed to the watercolor – “is the view from the castle. That’s Ingleborough, one of the Three Peaks. I’ve walked them.”
The Three Peaks walk was a popular one, but it had always seemed just that little bit too eccentric for Banks. Not to mention exhausting. You had to walk more than twenty miles in twelve hours, climbing three bloody great hills – Pen-y-Ghent, Whernside and Ingleborough – as often as not in the pouring rain.
Banks looked at the sketches and the watercolor again. They looked old. There was no signature, but it was obvious enough, even to Banks’s untrained eye, that he was looking at the work of J.M.W. Turner, or a close facsimile.
“Bloody hell,” he said, “I’d better ring Annie.”
“I don’t think your boss likes me very much,” Phil Keane said to Annie that evening. They were at her place and were just finishing a light evening meal of pasta primavera, neither being terribly hungry after their big lunch.
Annie poured them each another glass of Sainsbury’s Montepulciano D’Abruzzo. “What makes you say that?” she asked.
“Oh, I don’t know. Just a feeling. Do you think he might be jealous?”
Annie felt herself blush. She hadn’t told Phil about her and Banks. “Why would he be?”
“Maybe he’s got designs on you himself?”
“Don’t be silly.” Annie drank some wine rather too quickly and it went down the wrong way. Along with her cold, that set her coughing. Phil brought her a glass of water and watched her concernedly as she took a few seconds to get it under control.
“Okay?” he said.
“Fine. Look, Alan and I, we… well…”
Phil looked at her, interested.
“Do I have to spell it out?”
“Of course not,” Phil said. “And I’m sorry for bringing it up. You could have told me sooner, though. It’s not as if I expected you to have lived the life of a nun, you know.”
“You didn’t?”
“Well,
“You haven’t?”
“No.”
“Anyway, it was a while ago.”
“It just surprises me, that’s all.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know,” Phil said. “I suppose because he doesn’t seem your type.”
“What
“I don’t know. He just… what’s he like?”
“What do you mean?”
“What did you like about him?”
“Alan? Well, he’s fun to be with. Most of the time, at any rate. He loves music, likes single malt whiskey, has tolerable taste in films, apart from an unfortunate fondness for action adventure stuff – you know, James Bond, Arnold Schwarzenegger and dreadful macho stuff like that. Which is odd because he’s not really a macho kind of bloke. I mean he’s sensitive, kind, compassionate, and he’s got a good sense of humor.”
“Did you live together?”
