After considerable debate, and mostly because they were impressed by the rise in Ripon’s arrest rate, the council had relented and four cameras were installed on an experimental basis. They fed directly into a small communications room set up on the ground floor of Eastvale Divisional Headquarters, where the tapes were routinely scanned for the faces of familiar troublemakers and any signs of criminal activity. Banks thought it all smacked a bit too much of Big Brother, but was willing to admit that in a case like this the tapes might be of some value.
“They’ll at least tell us if anyone left after Emily and her friends arrived at the club,” he went on. “Darren Hirst was too upset and confused to be certain last night.”
“Good idea,” McLaughlin said. “Any point staging a reconstruction?”
Banks took a deep breath. Now was the time. “I don’t think so, sir. I had a brief lunch with Emily yesterday. She wanted to thank me for persuading her to return home, and she also expressed some concern about this Clough character.”
“Go on,” said McLaughlin, without expression.
Banks felt Annie’s eyes boring into the side of his head again. Even Gristhorpe was frowning. “She left the Black Bull to meet someone, or so she said, at three o’clock. We don’t know where she was between then and when she met her friends in the Cross Keys around seven. Darren said he thought she was a little high when she arrived at the Cross Keys, so I would guess that she’d been taking drugs with someone, perhaps the person who gave her the poisoned cocaine. After that, they were together as a group all evening. I think we’d have more to gain from a concentrated media campaign. Posters, television, newspapers.”
“I’m concerned about this lunch you had with the victim,” said McLaughlin.
“There was nothing to it, sir. We were in public view the entire time, and I remained there after Emily left. I think she was genuinely worried about Clough. She didn’t feel she could talk to her father, but she wanted me to know.”
“Why you?”
“Because I’d met him when I was searching for her. She knew I’d understand what she was talking about.”
“Nasty piece of work, then?”
“Very, sir.”
“Did she give you any idea of where she was going or who she was meeting?”
“No, sir. I wish she had.” Banks wished he had even asked her.
“What did she talk about?”
“As I said, she was grateful to me for persuading her to go home. She talked about her future. She wanted to take her A-Levels and go to university in America.”
“And she expressed concern about Clough?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Did she say he’d been in touch with her, threatened her or anything like that?”
“She said he hadn’t contacted her, but she seemed worried. She said he didn’t like to lose his prize possessions. And she thought she saw one of his employees in the Swainsdale Centre.”
“Do you think she knew something was going to happen to her, that she was in fear for her life?”
“I wouldn’t push it that far, sir.”
“Even so,” said McLaughlin, “she was a member of the public expressing concern over a dangerous situation she had got herself into and asking for police help. Wasn’t she?”
“Yes, sir,” said Banks, relieved that McLaughlin had seen fit to throw him a life belt. Banks didn’t see any point in telling him that Emily had been drinking underage in his presence, or that they had spent half a night alone together in a London hotel room.
“Good. I’ll leave you to fill out the appropriate paperwork to that effect, then, so we can put it on file in case of any problems. I should imagine you were busy at the time and simply postponed the paperwork?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Perfectly understandable. And you don’t need me to tell you that quick, positive results on this would be beneficial all around.”
“No, sir.”
With that, ACC Ron McLaughlin left the boardroom.
“You may leave, too, DS Cabbot,” said Gristhorpe. “Alan, I’d like a word.”
Annie left, flashing Banks a tight, pissed-off look. Banks and Gristhorpe looked at one another. “Terrible business,” said Gristhorpe. “No matter what you thought of Jimmy Riddle.”
“It is, sir.”
“This lunch, Alan? It only happened the once, just the way you say it did?”
“Yes, sir.”
Gristhorpe grunted. He was looking old, Banks thought – his unruly hair, if anything, grayer lately, dark bags under his eyes, his normally ruddy, pockmarked complexion paler than usual. He also seemed to have lost weight; his tweed jacket looked baggy on him. Still, Banks reminded himself, Gristhorpe had been up pretty much all night, and he wasn’t getting any younger.
“She was a good lass,” Banks said. Then he shook his head. “No. What am I saying? That’s not true. She was what you’d call a wild child. She was exasperating, a pain in the arse, and she no doubt ran Jimmy Riddle ragged.”
“But you liked her?”
“Couldn’t help but. She was confused, a bit crazy maybe, rebellious.”
“A bit like you when you were a lad?” said Gristhorpe with a smile.
“Perish the thought. No. She was exactly the sort of girl I hoped Tracy wouldn’t turn into, and thank the Lord she didn’t. Maybe it was easy to admire the spirit in her because I wasn’t her father, and she wasn’t really my problem. But she was more confused than bad, and I think she’d have turned out all right, given the chance. She was just too advanced for her years. I want the bastard who did this to her, sir. Maybe more than I’ve ever wanted any bastard before in my career.”
“Be careful, Alan.” Gristhorpe leaned forward and rested his arms on the table. “You know as well as I do that you wouldn’t be anywhere near this case if it weren’t for Jimmy Riddle. But if you screw up just once because it’s too personal for you, I’ll be down on you like the proverbial ton of bricks. Which is probably nothing to what ACC McLaughlin will do. Got it?”
“Got it,” said Banks. “Don’t worry. I’ll play it by the book.”
Gristhorpe leaned back and smiled at him. “Nay, Alan,” he said. “You wouldn’t want to do that. What’d be the point of having you on the case, then? All I’m saying is don’t let anger and a desire for revenge cloud you judgment. Look clearly at the evidence, the facts, before you make any moves. Don’t go off half-cocked the way you’ve done in the past.”
“I’ll try not to,” said Banks.
“You do that.”
Someone knocked at the door and Gristhorpe called out for him to come in. It was one of the uniformed officers from downstairs. “A DI Wayne Dalton, Northumbria CID, to see DCI Banks, sir.”
Banks raised his eyebrows and looked at Gristhorpe. “Okay,” he said, glancing at his watch. “Give him a cup of coffee and sit him in my office. I can spare him a few minutes.”
Banks wasn’t the only one who had spent a restless night; Annie Cabbot had also lain awake during the hour or two she had spent in bed shortly before dawn, her nerve ends jumping at every little sound. She had tried to tell herself not to be so weak. After all, she had prevented Dalton and his crony from raping her two years ago, so why should she be worried about him now? Her martial arts training might be a bit rusty, but she could defend herself well enough if it came to that.
The problem was that reason has no foothold at four or five in the morning; at those hours, reason sleeps and the mind breeds monsters: monsters of fear, of paranoia. And so she had tossed and turned, her mind’s eye flashing on images of Dalton’s sweat-glossed face and hate-filled eyes, and of Emily Riddle dead, her skinny frame wedged in a toilet cubicle at the Bar None nightclub, her eyes wide open in terror and facial muscles contorted into a grimace.
Now, however, as she came out of the meeting and headed for her office in what little light of day there was, she realized that she wasn’t physically afraid of Dalton. She had always known he was the type who could only act violently as part of a gang. His appearance had shaken her, that was all, stirred up memories of that night she would rather forget. The only problem was that she didn’t know quite what to do, if anything, about him.