Borders is beckoning just up Briggate.”
Annie got Banks’s phone call from Blackstone’s office in Leeds late that afternoon and welcomed the break from the dull routine of statement reading. Kelly Soames was still holding her own and would most likely be discharged the following day. They still hadn’t found her father.
Before Annie left the squad room, Winsome came up trumps with Nick Barber’s mobile service, but the results were disappointing. He had made no calls since arriving at the cottage because he had no coverage there. He could, of course, have used his mobile in Eastvale, but according to the records he hadn’t. If he had been up to anything at all, he had kept it very much to himself. That wouldn’t be surprising, Annie thought. She had known a few journalists in her time, and had found that they were a secretive lot, on the whole; they had to be, as theirs was very much a first-come, first-served kind of business.
Templeton had just got back from Fordham, and Annie noticed him watching closely as she leaned over Winsome’s shoulder to read the notes. She whispered in Winsome’s ear, then let her hand rest casually on her shoulder. She could see the prurient curiosity in Templeton’s gaze now. Enough rope, she thought. And if he knew that she had stayed at Winsome’s the other night, who could guess what wild tales he might take to Superintendent Gervaise? After her talk with Banks, Annie’s anger had diminished, though she still blamed Templeton for what had happened. She knew there was no point confronting him; he just wouldn’t get it. Banks was right. Let him crucify himself; he was already well on his way.
Annie picked up a folder from her desk, plucked her suede jacket from the hanger by the door, said she’d be back in a while, and walked down the stairs with a smile on her face.
A cool wind gusted across the market square and the sky was quickly filling with dirty clouds, like ink spilled on a sheet of paper. Luckily, Annie didn’t have far to go, she thought, as she pulled the collar of her jacket around her throat and crossed the busy square. People leaned into the wind as they walked, hair flying, plastic bags from Somerfield’s and Boots fluttering as if they were filled with birds. The Darlington bus stood at its stop by the market cross, but nobody seemed to be getting on or off.
Eastvale Computes had been open a couple of years now, and the owner, Barry Gilchrist, was the sort of chap who loved a technical challenge. As a consequence, people came in to chat about their computer problems, and Barry usually ended up solving them for free. Whether he ever sold any computers or not Annie had no idea, but she doubted it, with Aldi, and even Woolworth’s, offering much lower prices.
Barry was one of those ageless young lads in glasses who looked like Harry Potter. Annie had been in the shop fairly often, and she was on friendly enough terms with him; she had even bought CD-ROMs and printer cartridges from him in an effort to give some support to local business. She got the impression that he rather fancied her because he got all tongue-tied when he spoke to her and found it hard to look her in the eye. It wasn’t offensive, though, like Templeton, and she was surprised to find that she felt more maternal toward him than anything else. She didn’t think she was old enough for that sort of thing, but supposed, when she thought about it, that she might, at a pinch, be old enough to be his mother if he was as young as he looked. It was a sobering thought.
“Oh, hello,” he said, blushing as he looked up from a monitor behind the counter. “What can I do for you today?”
“It’s official business,” Annie said, smiling. Judging by the expression that crossed his face and the way he surreptitiously hit a few keystrokes, Annie wondered if he’d been looking at Internet porn. She didn’t have him down as that type, but you never could tell, especially with computer geeks. “You might be able to help us,” she added.
“Oh, I see.” He straightened his glasses. “Well, of course… er… whatever I can do. Computer problems at the station?”
“Nothing like that. It’s Internet access I’m interested in.”
“But, I thought…”
“Not for me. A customer you might have had maybe a couple of weeks ago.”
“Ah. Well, I don’t get very many, especially at this time of year. Tourists like it, of course, to check their e-mail, but most of the locals either have their own computers, or they’re just not interested.” Not to be interested, the way Barry Gilchrist said it, sounded infinitely sad.
Annie took a photograph from the folder she had brought and handed it to him. “This man,” she said. “We know he was in Eastvale on Wednesday two weeks ago. We were just wondering if he came in here and asked to use your Internet access.”
“Yes,” said Barry Gilchrist, turning a little pale. “I remember him. The journalist. That’s the man who was murdered, isn’t it? I saw it on the news.”
“What day of the week did he come in?”
“Not Wednesday. I think it was Friday morning.”
The day he died, Annie thought. “Did he tell you he was a journalist or did you hear it?”
“He told me. Said he needed a few minutes to do a spot of research, that there was no access where he was staying.”
“How long was he on?”
“Only about fifteen minutes. I didn’t even bother charging him.”
“Now comes the tricky part,” said Annie. “I don’t suppose there’d still be any traces of where he went online?”
Gilchrist shook his head. “I’m sorry, no. I mean, I said I don’t get a lot of customers this time of year, but I do get some, so I have to keep the histories and temporary Internet files clean.”
“They say you can never quite get rid of everything on a computer. Do you think our technical unit could get anything if we took them in?”
Gilchrist swallowed. “Took the computers away?”
“Yes. I hardly have to remind you this is a murder investigation, do I?”
“No. And I’m very sorry. He seemed like a nice enough bloke. Said he had wireless access on his laptop but there were no signals around these parts. I could sympathize with that. It took long enough to get broadband.”
“So would they?”
“Sorry, what?”
“If they took the computers apart, would they find anything?”
“Oh, but they don’t need to do that,” he said.
“Why’s that?” Annie asked.
“Because I know the site he visited. One of them, at any rate. The first one.”
“Do tell.”
“I wasn’t spying or anything. I mean, there’s no privacy about it, anyway, as you can see. The computers are in a public area. Anyone could walk in and see what site someone was visiting.”
“True,” said Annie. “So you’re saying he was making no efforts to hide his tracks. He didn’t erase the history himself, for example?”
“He couldn’t do that. That power’s limited to the administrator, and that’s me. Providing access is one thing, but I don’t want people messing with the programs.”
“Fair enough. So what was he doing?”
“He was at the Mad Hatters web site. I could tell because it plays a little bit of that hit song of theirs when it starts up. What’s it called? ‘Love Got in the Way’?”
Annie knew the song. It had been a huge hit about eight years ago. “Are you sure?” she asked.
“Yes. I had to go around the front to check the printer cartridge stock, and I could see it over his shoulder – photos of the band, biographies, discographies, that sort of thing.”
Annie knew Banks would be as disappointed as she was with this. What could be more natural for a music journalist writing about the Mad Hatters than to visit their web site? “Was that all?”
“I think so. I mean, I heard the music when he first started, and he finished a short while after I’d checked the stock. He could have followed any number of links in between, but if he did, he went back to the main site again.” Gilchrist pushed his glasses back up the bridge of his nose with his forefinger. “Does that help?”
Annie smiled at him. “Every little bit helps,” she said.
“There’s one more thing.”
