“Anything there?”
“We ran them through IDENT1, of course, but I’m afraid they’re not on file.”
“So no name and address?” said Gervaise. “No easy arrest?”
Naomi smiled. “Is there ever? No. I’m afraid you’ll have to sweat this one through. When you do come up with a suspect, of course…well, the prints are there for comparison. Even then, I’m afraid, all it means is that the person handled the magazine and the cartridges, not that he or she committed the murder.”
Gervaise looked at Annie. “I suppose we’d better start with Erin Doyle,” she said. “Can you get in touch with Vic Manson and deal with it, Annie?”
“Of course.”
Gervaise checked the time. “It’s getting a bit late now, but if you and Winsome could head down to Leeds first thing tomorrow and see what you can find out from the case files and the investigating officers, we might start getting somewhere.”
IT WAS almost seven o’clock by the time Annie got out of the station and into her car. The little purple Astra had finally given up the ghost earlier that summer, but she was quite pleased with the Megane she had bought as a replacement. Especially with the price.
Since the meeting, she had tracked down a sulky and passive Erin Doyle at her bed-and-breakfast by the castle and brought her back to the station, accompanied by the Family Liaison officer Patricia Yu, where her fingerprints had been taken. After all the paperwork and running back and forth, Annie felt like nothing more than a large glass of wine and a nice long bath when she got home. So numb was her mind that she had driven almost a mile in the wrong direction-toward her own cottage in Harkside-before remembering that she was supposed to go to Banks’s cottage to water his plants and pick up the pile of post from the floor.
For a moment Annie wavered, weighing the wine and the bath against a lengthy detour. Surely she could postpone the visit until tomorrow? The plants would survive, and the post was mostly bills and special offers on magazine subscriptions and cases of wine. But she felt guilty enough of her neglect already. He would be back soon, and if it seemed that she hadn’t discharged her duties she would feel even worse, no matter how forgiving he might be. She drove as far as the next roundabout and turned back the way she had come.
As she passed the police station she thought of Chambers, who had been strutting around all afternoon with Dumb and Dumber in tow, giving everyone the evil eye. Annie was down for her official interview the following morning, and she wasn’t looking forward to that at all. She knew how it would go. Chambers would get Dumb or Dumber, or both of them, to conduct the interview, because they were supposedly unbiased, while he would sit there ogling her as she squirmed, loving every minute of it, thinking he was setting the world to rights. She would have to remember to wear trousers or a long skirt and a loose top that came all the way up to her chin, maybe even her polo-neck jumper-the loose one, not the tight one.
She turned onto the main Helmthorpe road and left the town behind. She would drive home over the moors, she decided. She loved the purity of the bleak landscape in the soft evening light, the unfenced roads where sheep wandered, the broad sky and magnificent vistas. The heather would be in bloom, too, which was always a bonus, and sometimes you could just make out the pale moon in the milky-blue evening sky. When she got home, she would have the wine and bath.
Cheered by the prospect of an evening drive over the moors, and by her decision not to take the line of least resistance and go straight home, Annie turned left in Helmthorpe, by the school, and drove up the hill to Gratly. A hundred yards or so past the little stone bridge over the beck she turned right into Banks’s drive, a narrow dirt track with a few patches of gravel here and there. It led under a canopy of lime trees and came to a halt in front of the cottage. Beyond were the woods, and to Annie’s right, behind the low drystone wall, Gratly Beck ran over its terraced waterfalls, then on through the village and down into the center of Helmthorpe, on the valley bottom. It was a beautiful spot, and she had often envied Banks it.
Annie parked outside the small cottage. When she turned off the engine and got out of the car, she could hear birds singing in the woods and down the valley, over the beck. She could also hear music. It was some sort of modern rock-distorted guitar, thrashing drums and pounding bass. What was odd was that it seemed to be coming from the cottage. Just next to the garage she spotted a car she didn’t recognize. A Ford Focus, maybe a little the worse for wear and certainly in need of a good wash. There was a dent in the rear wing and rust around the wheel arches. She knew that Banks had been talking about trying to sell the Porsche all summer, but as far as she knew he hadn’t been able to get the right price. The Ford certainly hadn’t been there the last time she had called to water the plants.
Banks had complained to her that when you’re trying to sell a Porsche, people either assume that you’re loaded already, or that you really need the money. Consequently they think they can get away with a quick deal at a low price. He wasn’t loaded, but neither did he need the money. He just wanted to sell the car. Annie suspected it might be because it still reminded him too much of his brother, whom it had belonged to, even though Roy Banks had been dead for some time now. Banks had never really got used to it. But even if he had sold it, he wouldn’t have bought a banged-up Ford Focus. He’d have probably gone for a Volvo, or even an Audi, she thought. He wasn’t exactly a Top Gear kind of bloke-he had driven an old Cortina until it practically fell apart, for crying out loud-but he wouldn’t be seen dead driving a car like this. She had a quick peek into the garage and, indeed, the Porsche was still there.
Which raised a question: Whom did the Focus belong to? Annie made a note of the number, then she dug in her bag for Banks’s front door key and put it in the lock. When it was open, she stood on the threshold and shouted, “Hello! Hello! Is anybody there?” There was no pile of letters on the floor, so she knew that someone must have been in since she was last there.
Nothing happened at first, then the music got quieter and the door to the entertainment room to her left opened. Out walked Tracy, carefully shutting the door behind her.
“Tracy,” said Annie. “I didn’t know you had a Ford Focus.”
“I don’t,” said Tracy. “I just borrowed it from a friend.”
“I see.”
Tracy did look different, but not that much, Annie thought. It was the haircut, mostly, a little punkish. She wore little or no makeup, perhaps a trace of pink lipstick, and was dressed in a simple outfit of blue jeans and a light blue sleeveless V-neck top, leaving an inch or two of bare midriff. The piercings weren’t extreme, just a ring at the edge of one eyebrow and a stud under her lower lip, like thousands of other young women. She did look older than Annie remembered, though, and there was a certain sophistication about her she hadn’t noticed before. Tracy also seemed nervous.
“Is something wrong?” Annie asked.
“No. What could possibly be wrong? What do you want? Nothing’s happened to Dad, has it?”
“No,” said Annie, shutting the door behind her. “Nothing like that. I said I’d water his plants and pick up the post while he was away, that’s all. How about a cup of tea or coffee or something?”
“Cup of tea?”
Annie gestured toward the kitchen. “Yes. You know, the little bag you put in a pot and add water to. In there.”
“Oh, right. Sure.”
Annie followed Tracy to the kitchen, noticing how she wasn’t entirely steady on her feet. Her voice had seemed a little slurred, too, her eyes unfocused, and her concentration didn’t seem what it normally was. Annie suspected drugs, or perhaps it was just booze. “Anyway,” she said, “it’s a stroke of good fortune finding you here. I was getting a bit worried about you.”