Lauren looked down into her lap. Her fingers were twined together, grasping so tightly, all the knuckles were white. She shook her head. “I don’t believe Vernon would do anything like that.”
“But you must have suspected, after you heard about the kidnap demand?”
“It confused me. I didn’t know what was going on. Maybe I had my suspicions, I don’t know. I was too upset to think about it.”
“The thing is,” Annie went on, “that our scene-of-crime officers found minute traces of blood on the wall where Luke was shoved over into Hallam Tarn. Minute, but enough to provide a DNA profile. I think that profile would match you or your brother. I’m also certain that when our men come in here and go over your place, they’ll find traces of Luke’s blood. Now, that might not be conclusive in itself, as we know Luke was punched in the nose before he came here, but it’s all starting to add up, Lauren.”
Lauren looked at Annie, her eyes red-rimmed and almost unbearably sad. “I didn’t kill him,” she said, in a small, distant voice. “I would never have harmed Luke. I loved him.”
“What happened, Lauren?”
Lauren reached for her cigarettes and lit one. Then she eyed Annie sadly and began her story.
“Do you think I might have a word alone with your husband?” Banks asked Mrs. Marshall at her house that evening.
“Bill? I don’t know what he can tell you,” she said. “You know he can’t talk.”
“There might be one or two little things.” Banks looked at the invalid who, judging by the hard expression in his eyes, certainly knew he was being talked about. “Can he write?”
“Yes,” said Mrs. Marshall. “But he can’t hold a pencil properly. He can only grasp it in his fist and scribble a few letters.”
“That’ll do,” said Banks. “Can you get me a pad and pencil, if it’s no trouble?”
Mrs. Marshall brought Banks a lined pad and a pencil from the sideboard drawer.
“Come on,” said Michelle, taking her arm and leading her toward the kitchen. “Let’s go make some tea. I’ve got a few things to tell you.” Banks and Michelle had agreed on a sanitized version of events to tell Mrs. Marshall. If the media dug too deeply and the story hit the news, then she might find out more than she wanted about her son’s life and death, but that was for the future. Now, maybe it was enough for Michelle to tell her that Donald Bradford killed Graham because he found out something about Bradford’s illegal activities.
When they had gone into the kitchen and closed the door, Banks put the pad and pencil on Bill Marshall’s knee and settled in front of him, gazing into the expressionless eyes. “I think you know why I want to talk to you,” he said.
Bill Marshall made no sign that he understood.
“You used to spar with Reggie and Ronnie Kray in your younger days,” he said. “Then, when you came up here, you fell in with Carlo Fiorino and did a few strong-arm jobs for him. Am I right? Can you nod or write something down?”
Bill Marshall did nothing.
“Okay, so that’s how you want to play it,” Banks said. “Fine. I’m not saying you had anything to do with Graham’s death. You didn’t. You’d never have done anything like that. But you knew who did it, didn’t you?”
Bill Marshall just stared at Banks.
“See, the trouble with people like you, Bill, is they insist on working outside the law. You’ve no use for coppers, have you? Never have had, I shouldn’t think. Just like my own dad. Want to know what I think happened? Well, I’ll tell you anyway. I think Donald Bradford just wasn’t cut out to be a killer of young boys. I don’t think he had much choice in the matter, though. Fiorino pushed him into it. After all, Graham was his responsibility, and Graham was in a position to do a lot of serious damage. There was just too much at stake. Not just the empire as it existed then, but the future. The city was expanding, becoming a new town. Soon it would double in population. What an opportunity for a man like Fiorino. He supplied what people always seemed to want, for a good price. Are you with me so far?”
Marshall just glared at Banks. A little drool slid down his stubbly chin.
“Fiorino had no use for the law, either, unless it was in his pay, so he used other people to do his dirty work. Shortly after the killing, Bradford sold up and moved out. Fiorino didn’t like that. Didn’t like people escaping his control, being out of his line of sight. Especially if they knew as much as Bradford did and were fast becoming unstable and unreliable. Bradford was guilt-ridden by what he had done. Also, I think he took some of Fiorino’s goods with him, though that’s just a minor matter. What really counted was that Bradford was out of sight and untrustworthy. And he knew too much.”
Marshall still showed no reaction. Banks could hear muffled voices from the kitchen. “So what does he do when he has a problem with Bradford? Well, he could pay for a hit, I suppose, and that’s one option. But he knows you. That’s an easier one. He knows that whatever you do, you’ll do it yourself, you won’t go running to the police. So he tells you that Bradford killed your son, though not on his orders. He convinces you that Bradford was a pervert. He also gives you Bradford’s address. Easy. All he had to do next was leave the rest up to you. Am I right so far, Bill?”
Banks could tell by the anger and hatred in Bill Marshall’s eyes that he was right. “You went up to Carlisle, didn’t you? Probably told everyone you were looking for work. Then you broke into Donald Bradford’s flat and waited for him to come home. You knew Bradford was a tough customer, so you attacked him from behind with a cosh. I don’t blame you, Bill. The man murdered your son. I’d want to do the same to anyone who harmed either of my children. But you let your wife suffer all those years. You knew Graham was dead and you knew who killed him. Maybe you didn’t know where the body was, but I’ll bet you could have found out. Instead, you went up there and murdered Bradford and said nothing to your wife or your daughter. All these years they’ve lived not knowing what happened to Graham. That’s unforgivable, Bill.” Banks nodded toward the pad. “What do you have to say about that? Come on, tell me something.”
Marshall held his gaze for a while, then grasped the pencil, moved his hand with difficulty and scrawled on the pad. When he had done, he handed it to Banks. There were three words in capital letters: FUCK OFF COPPER.
“He came to me, like you said,” Lauren Anderson began. “He was in a terrible state. He was upset because… well, you know why. I tried to calm him down and we went to… We just lay down on the bed together and I held him. I’d already realized I had to end it. I just hadn’t been able to find the courage. But I knew that it couldn’t go on. Someone would find out eventually, and that would be it. My career, reputation… everything. A fifteen-year-old boy and a twenty-nine-year-old woman. Taboo. I thought I’d got him calm enough, so I started talking about it, you know, how we should probably cool things for a while.”
“Did he tell you he’d been smoking cannabis earlier?”
“Cannabis? No. He never told me that. But that must be why he seemed so disoriented and excitable. I’d never seen him like that before. He scared me.”
“How did he react when you told him you wanted to finish the affair?” Annie asked, remembering that it hadn’t been too long ago when she had told Banks the same thing.
“He didn’t want to accept it. He said he couldn’t bear to lose me.” Lauren started crying. “He said he’d kill himself.”