“Prints?”
“Nothing new. No matches on IDENT1, and we checked them against Erin Doyle’s and her mother’s. No matches there, either.”
“We need to check them against Jaff McCready’s, too,” said Banks.
“It’s in motion. Leeds police are getting a warrant to enter his flat in his absence. They’ll get prints from some of his personal effects.”
“Ask them if they can find a photograph of him, too. The media…?”
“They’re still frothing at the mouth over the Taser incident and Annie’s shooting. Christ, Alan, it’s hard to believe, I know, but it only happened last night. Everything’s moving so fast. Anyway, that should distract them for a while, but not for long. They’re already watching us like hawks. We’re keeping a lid on this manhunt as best we can. Certainly on the fact that a senior police officer’s daughter is involved.”
“I appreciate that. But Tracy’s not involved; she’s been abducted.”
“Alan, there’s no concrete evidence of that yet, just the broken mobile.”
“You can’t tell me that Tracy would willingly have anything to do with the shooting of Annie Cabbot, or any shooting, for that matter.”
“That’s not what I’m saying, and you know it. I’m with you on this. Stop being so bloody-minded. We have to play it carefully. As I said, we’re still keeping a lid on it. But they have a way…”
“I know their ways. It means we need to move even faster than they do. We also need to talk to Ian Jenkinson and-”
“Hang on, hang on, Alan. You’re going too quickly for me already.”
“Didn’t Winsome explain?”
“Explain what? She hasn’t had a chance to explain anything yet.”
Banks told her about the Marlon Kincaid murder, Ian Jenkinson and the connection with Ciaran and Darren, who were now looking for Jaff and Tracy, and who were connected with The Farmer, George Fanthorpe.
Gervaise whistled. “Curiouser and curiouser. Okay,” she said. “In the light of what you’ve just told me, you’re right. We do need to talk to Ian Jenkinson and to Detective Superintendent Quisling. I’ll send Doug Wilson and Geraldine Masterson.”
“What was Erin doing with the gun?” Banks asked. “I take it you do believe it belonged to McCready from the start, and that she didn’t come across it through some other means?”
“We don’t have any concrete evidence of that, and we haven’t charged her with anything yet. She’s on police bail. But that’s what we think. Annie thought so, and Winsome agrees. We’re still digging into McCready’s background. But we’re not sure why it was in Erin’s possession.”
“Well,” said Banks, “I’d guess that he either gave it to her for safekeeping, or she took it.”
“Why would he need her to keep it safe for him?”
“Maybe he was expecting trouble from the police?” Banks suggested. “We can ask Ken Blackstone in Leeds. Maybe he got nervous about having it around the flat in case he got caught doing something else he was planning, and they searched the place.”
“And if she took it?”
“Angry with him. Trying to make him mad, get his attention.”
“There is some evidence that they were involved in a dispute at a Leeds club the day before Erin arrived home with the gun.” Gervaise cleared her throat, then said, “I’m sorry, but there’s also evidence your daughter was involved in that dispute, too.”
“Tracy?” said Banks. “I hadn’t heard about that. How?”
“Jealousy.”
“Tracy and Erin were fighting over McCready?”
“Sounds that way.”
Banks put his head in his hands. Suddenly he felt more weary than he had ever imagined he could. “I thought she had more sense.”
“I’m sorry,” said Gervaise. “Not your problem.”
“Well, it is, actually.”
“What do you think happened?”
“From what I’ve been able to piece together, I think Erin and McCready ended up back at his flat after the fracas at the club. Maybe they made up, but somehow or other they got to fighting again, maybe the next morning.”
“And Tracy, at this point?”
“Home in her own bed. We think McCready was in Amsterdam and London over the weekend. It’s likely he left on Friday morning, and if Erin was alone in his flat for a while, she could easily have taken the gun out of spite and decided to go home for a few days to chill out, as they say.”
“That would explain why McCready didn’t go looking for her that weekend.”
“Yes. He didn’t know she had it,” Gervaise agreed. “He wasn’t home. And it probably wasn’t something he checked on every day, anyway.”
“Why did Tracy go to McCready’s flat in the first place?”
“We think she dashed over to warn McCready that the police might soon become interested in him.”
“Why would she do that?”
“Your guess is as good as mine. Better perhaps. Why do you think?”
“The question assumes that Tracy knew he was dodgy, if she felt she needed to warn him.”
“Maybe she did.”
“How?”
“We’re pretty sure that McCready supplied a good deal of E to the club scene in Leeds. Maybe other things, too.”
“Are you suggesting that Tracy takes drugs?”
“Who knows? Maybe she does. Who knows what kids get up to, Alan? But my point is only that maybe she knew somehow that McCready was involved in drugs, and she liked him enough to want to warn him. Young people have different priorities.”
“Then she took off with him?”
“It appears that way. I suppose it seemed like a bit of an adventure. Nobody had been killed, or shot, at that point, remember-a least the news of Patrick Doyle’s death hadn’t been announced before the time they would have left McCready’s flat, and his death was a Taser-related accident, anyway.”
“I suppose if he’d chucked Erin and taken up with Tracy, that might explain some of it,” Banks mused. “Would Tracy have known about the gun? How much had been on the news by then?”
“We hadn’t given the media any information by then, but the TV cameras on the evening local news showed the AFO walking out with a gun-shaped object wrapped in a tea cloth. It wouldn’t have taken a lot of imagination to figure out what had happened, if they were watching.”
“So McCready would immediately check on his gun and find it was gone.”
“Yes. But he might not have told Tracy what the problem was. We just don’t know.”
“I can tell you one thing for certain,” Banks said. “Tracy might have gone with McCready willingly at the start, but she’s not with him of her own free will now, not after what happened to Annie. Tracy may make mistakes, maybe she even takes drugs and has rotten taste in men, but she’s a decent girl at heart. I ought to know.”
“I’m not here to argue with you, Alan. As a matter of fact, I agree that she’s in serious trouble, and probably in danger, too. I don’t say that to alarm you, and I wouldn’t mention it if I thought you didn’t know it already. We need to find them and bring this to a peaceful conclusion as soon as possible.”
“How’s the search going?”
“We need more men. There’s a lot of countryside out there.”
“Where?” said Banks.
“Well, you’d know better than I would, but we doubt they took the road to Eastvale from your cottage because they’d have been seen. The patrol cars sent in response to the call kept their eyes open. That leaves the moorland to the south and the wild areas to the north and west. We’ve had the helicopter out, but they spotted nothing. We’ll be doing more aerial sweeps as the day goes on. We’ve got men on foot, patrol cars, the lot. But as I said, there’s a lot of ground to cover, and they could have gone in almost any direction. Is there anything more you can tell me about Erin Doyle? Had you seen much of her lately?”