She reached Wilmer Road at the far end of the estate. Even now, years later and in mid-morning, there wasn’t much traffic, and most of it was for the DIY center, which hadn’t existed back in 1965. Michelle was almost certain that Graham knew his attacker and that he got in the car willingly, taking his canvas bag of papers with him. If someone had tried to force him into a car, he would have dropped the papers and struggled, and the abductor was unlikely to stick around and pick them up.
But how could Graham be persuaded to go somewhere without finishing his paper round? A family emergency, perhaps? Michelle didn’t think so. His family only lived a few yards away, back on the estate; he could have walked there in less than a minute. There was no doubt that fourteen-year-old kids could act irresponsibly, so maybe he did just that and skived off somewhere for some reason.
As Michelle stood in the street watching the people come and go from the DIY center, she thought again about the missing notebooks and actions, and was struck by a notion so obvious she could have kicked herself for not seeing it earlier.
That the missing notebooks were Detective Superintendent Shaw’s disturbed her for a different reason now she realized what she should have seen the moment she discovered they were missing. Shaw was a mere DC, a junior, on the case, so what on earth could he have had to hide? He had no power; he wasn’t in charge, and he certainly hadn’t assigned the actions. He had simply been along taking notes of Detective Inspector Reg Proctor’s interviews; that was all.
Michelle had focused on Shaw mostly because she disliked him and resented the way he had been treating her, but when it came right down to it, the person in charge of the case, the one who might possibly have had the most to hide in the event of a future investigation was not Shaw but that legend of the local constabulary: Detective Superintendent John Harris.
Thinking about Jet Harris, and what he might possibly have had to hide, Michelle walked back to where she had left her car parked in front of the shops. Perhaps she was a little distracted by her thoughts, and perhaps she didn’t pay as much attention as she usually did to crossing the road, but on the other hand, perhaps the beige van with the tinted windows really did start up as she approached, and perhaps the driver really did put his foot on the accelerator when she stepped into the road.
Either way, she saw it coming – fast – and just had time to jump out of the way. The side of the van brushed against her hip as she stumbled and fell face forward onto the warm Tarmac, putting out her arms to break her fall. Another car honked and swerved around her and a woman across the street came over to help her to her feet. By the time Michelle realized what was happening, the van was out of sight. One thing she did remember, though: the number plate was so covered in mud it was impossible to read.
“Honestly,” the woman said, helping Michelle to the other side. “Some drivers. I don’t know what the place is coming to, I really don’t. Are you all right, love?”
“Yes,” said Michelle, dusting herself off. “Yes, I’m fine, thanks very much. Just a bit shaken up.” And she was still trembling when she got in her own car. She gripped the steering wheel tightly to steady herself, took several deep breaths and waited until her heart rate slowed to normal before she set off back to the station.
“Can you manage by yourself for a day or so?” Banks asked Annie over a lunchtime pint in the Queen’s Arms. Like most of the pubs in the area since the outbreak of foot-and-mouth, it was half-empty, and even the jukebox and video machines were mercifully silent. One of the local farmers, who had already had too much to drink, stood at the bar fulminating against the government’s mishandling of the outbreak to the bar owner, Cyril, who gave a polite grunt of agreement every now and then. Everybody was suffering, not only the farmers, but the pub owners, bed and breakfast owners, local tradesmen, the butcher, baker and candlestick maker, Uncle Tom Cobbleigh and all. And, unlike the farmers, they didn’t get any compensation from the government. Only a week or so ago, the owner of a walking-gear shop in Helmthorpe had committed suicide because his business had gone down the tubes.
Annie put her glass down. “Course I can,” she said. “What’s up?”
“It’s Graham Marshall’s funeral tomorrow. There’ll likely be some old friends around. I’d like to go down this evening.”
“No problem. Have you asked the boss?”
“Detective Superintendent Gristhorpe has given me permission to be absent from school for two days. I just wanted to clear it with you before taking off.”
“I’ve got plenty to keep me occupied. Talking about school, you told me you weren’t satisfied with your Alastair Ford interview yesterday?”
Banks lit a cigarette. “No,” he said. “No, I’m not. Not at all.”
“So is he a suspect?”
“I don’t know. Maybe his coming hot on the heels of Norman Wells was just a bit too much for me. His house is very isolated, which makes it a good place to keep someone prisoner, or kill someone and dump the body in the middle of the night without any neighbors noticing. But then you could probably get away with murder in the town center, too, given most people’s powers of observation and unwillingness to get involved.”
“Except for the CCTV.”
“And a damn lot of good that’s done us. Anyway, Ford is a solitary. He jealously protects his privacy, probably feels superior to people who are content to make small talk and share their opinions. He may be homosexual – there was something distinctly odd about the way he responded to my question about boyfriends – but even that doesn’t make him a suspect. We don’t know the motive for Luke’s murder, and according to Dr. Glendenning there was no evidence of sexual assault, although a few days in the water might have taken care of any traces of that. You know, Annie, the more I think about it, the more the kidnapping seems as if it was just a smoke screen, but oddly enough, it might turn out to be the most important thing.”
Annie frowned. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, why? If somebody just wanted Luke dead, whatever the reason, then why come up with this elaborate and iffy kidnapping scheme and increase the risk of getting caught?”
“Money?”
“Well, yes, but you told me yourself whoever it was set his sights remarkably low. It wasn’t a professional job.”
“That did bother me. It’s what made me think he knew about the Armitages’ finances. I mean, they could certainly manage ten grand to get Luke back, but hardly more, at least not at such short notice.”
“But Luke was already dead.”
“Yes. Perhaps he tried to escape.”
“Perhaps. Or maybe we need to look a lot closer to home.”
“The parents?”
“It’s possible, isn’t it?” Banks said. “Maybe we’ve been looking at this all wrong. Maybe Martin Armitage killed Luke and set up the elaborate hoax of a kidnapping just to put us off the scent.”
“Martin?”
“Why not? He was gone for two hours the evening Luke disappeared, according to his statement, just driving around, or so he says. Maybe he found Luke and they had an argument and Luke ended up dead. An accident, even. Excessive roughness. That wouldn’t be unusual for Martin Armitage. According to Lauren Anderson and everything you’ve told me, Luke had a difficult relationship with his stepfather. Armitage is the antithesis of Neil Byrd in many ways. Byrd was sensitive, creative, artistic, and he also had many of the problems that seem to come with that territory – drugs, drink, an addictive personality, need for oblivion, experimentation, self-absorption, mood swings, depression. It can’t have been easy being Neil Byrd, as his songs tell us so many times, but he was aiming at some kind of exalted spiritual state, some sort of transcendence, and he believed he caught glimpses of it from time to time. They gave him enough faith to keep going, for a while, at least. I often thought some of the songs were also a cry for help, and Luke’s songs echo that in a weird way.”