Dead.
And perhaps because of him, because he had respected his vow of discretion and done nothing, despite all his misgivings.
Annie came over from the table where she had been talking to Emily’s friends. Banks told her what Dr. Burns had said about strychnine. Annie whistled. “Learn anything over there?” he asked.
“Not a lot. They say she seemed a bit high when she arrived at the Cross Keys, and they’re certain she took something here the first time she went to the toilet.”
“Same as Darren says. Can’t have been the same batch, though, can it?”
“I suppose not. Do you believe them?”
“For the most part. Maybe we’ll lean on them a bit harder tomorrow. What it looks like is that the first time she snorted made her feel ill shortly afterwards, so she went back for more and the convulsions hit.”
“So what now?”
“We can start by searching everyone on the premises. They’re all suspects at the moment, including the bar staff. Can you get that organized?”
“Of course. I very much doubt we’d have any problems arguing reasonable suspicion, do you?”
“I doubt it.” PACE rules stated that you had to have “reasonable suspicion” before searching people, and if you searched them somewhere other than at the police station without first arresting them, you had to have reasonable grounds for assuming they might be a danger to themselves or others. With the chief constable’s daughter lying dead of possible strychnine poisoning only a few yards away, Banks didn’t think they’d have much trouble arguing their case. “Take it easy, though. If anyone kicks up a fuss, take him over to the station and have the custody officer deal with him. I want this done by the book. You’d better let Detective Superintendent Gristhorpe know, too.”
“Will do.”
“I also want all the known coke dealers in the area brought in for questioning. And we’ll need to activate the incident room over at the station.” He looked at his watch. “We might not be able to get everything in order until morning – especially as far as the civilian staff are concerned – but in the meantime we’ll need an office manager.”
“DC Rickerd?”
Banks looked at Rickerd, who was taking a statement at the other side of the club. “Good idea,” he said. “Let him show his mettle.”
While Rickerd demonstrated only minimal detective skills, he had an almost obsessive interest in details and the minutiae of organization: exactly what a good office manager needed, as it was his job to supervise the recording and tracking of all information retrieved both from a crime scene and during an investigation.
If truth be told, you needed more than a skill for organization, but Rickerd would do. Maybe he would find his true métier. Banks knew that having a train-spotter in the department would come in useful one day. Rickerd was just the kind to carry around that little book full of printed train numbers and draw a neat line with pen and ruler through each one he actually saw. He was too young for the steam trains, though. When Banks was a kid, there were still a few of them in service, many with exotic names like The Flying Scotsman, sleek, streamlined beauties. Many of Banks’s friends had been train-spotters, but standing on a windy station platform all day and noting down numbers to cross off later in a little book had never appealed to him. These days, with all the diesels looking like clones of one another, there didn’t seem to be much point in train-spotting anymore.
Banks called Rickerd over and explained what he wanted him to do. Rickerd went off looking pleased with himself to be given such responsibility. Then Banks lit a cigarette and leaned against a pillar. “I’d better go tell her parents,” he sighed.
“One of the uniforms can do that.” Annie put her hand on his arm in a curiously intimate gesture. “To be quite honest, Alan, you look all in. Maybe you should let me take you home.”
Wouldn’t that be nice? Banks thought. Home. Annie. Maybe even bed. The adagio from Concierto de Aranjuez drifting up from downstairs. The clock put back so that none of this had ever happened. “No,” he said. “I’ve got to tell them myself. I owe them that much.”
Annie frowned. “I don’t understand. What do you owe them?”
Banks smiled. “I’ll tell you all about it later.” Then he walked up the stairs to the deserted market square.
Banks felt sick and heavy with dread as he approached Riddle’s house close to one-thirty that morning. The Old Mill stood in almost complete darkness behind the privet hedge, but a glimmer of light showed through the curtains of one of the ground-floor rooms, and Banks wondered if it had been left on as a means of discouraging burglars. He knew it hadn’t when he saw the curtain twitch at the sound of his car on the gravel drive. He should have known Jimmy Riddle would be up working well after midnight. Hard work and long hours were what had got him where he was in the first place.
When he turned the engine off, he could hear the old millrace running down the garden. It reminded him of Gratly Falls outside his own modest cottage. He hardly had time to knock before a hall light came on and the door opened. Riddle stood there in an Oxford shirt and gray chinos; it was the first time Banks had seen him in casual dress.
“Banks? I thought that was your car. What on earth…?”
But his voice trailed off as recognition that something was seriously wrong crept into his features. Whether he’d been a good one or not, Riddle had been a copper for long enough to know that the call in the middle of the night was hardly a social one; he knew enough to read the expression on Banks’s face.
“Maybe we could sit down, have a drink,” Banks said, as Riddle stood aside to let him in.
“Tell me first,” said Riddle, leaning back on the door after he closed it.
Banks couldn’t look him in the eye. “I’m sorry, sir,” he said. The honorific sounded odd even as he spoke the word; he had never called Riddle “sir” before, except in a sarcastic tone.
“It’s Emily, isn’t it?”
Banks nodded.
“My God.”
“Sir.” Banks took Riddle’s elbow and guided him into the living room. Riddle collapsed into an armchair and Banks found the cocktail cabinet. He poured them both a stiff whiskey; he was beyond worrying about drink driving at that point. Riddle held the glass but didn’t drink from it right away.
“She’s dead, isn’t she?” he said.
“I’m afraid so.”
“What happened? How?”
“We’re not sure yet, sir.”
“Was there an accident? A car crash?”
“No. It was nothing like that.”
“Out with it, man. This is my daughter we’re talking about.”
“I know that, sir. That’s why I’m trying to tread softly.”
“Too late for that, Banks. What was it? Drugs?”
“Partly.”
“What do you mean, ‘partly’? Either it was or it wasn’t. Tell me what happened to her!”
Banks paused. It was a terrible thing to tell a dead girl’s father how painfully she had died, but he reminded himself that Riddle was also chief constable, a professional, and he would find out soon enough, anyway. Best he find out now. “We’re keeping this strictly confidential for the time being, but Dr. Burns thinks it might have been cocaine spiked with strychnine.”