“What did she do with her money?”
“Bought clothes, mostly. You should have seen her when she came back after her first year. Had all the latest styles. Whatever they were wearing at the moment. It all changes far too quickly for me to keep up with it. Anyway, she looked like any other rebellious young lass her age. Had her hair dyed all the colors of the rainbow, rings through her ears and eyebrows. Looked awfully painful. She’d found her brave new world, all right.”
“How did her parents react?”
“I don’t know. They never said anything in public. I can’t imagine they were pleased, though. I got the feeling they were ashamed of her.”
“Did you hear any rows? Through the walls.”
“They never got angry. Against their religion. I think they pleaded with her and tried to get her to switch to a course at Manchester and come back home, but she’d changed too much by then. It was too late. She’d had her taste of freedom and she wasn’t about to give it up. I can’t say I blame her.”
“So the matter went unresolved?”
“I suppose so. She spent that summer working at the local supermarket, general floor washer and shelf stacker, that sort of thing. She was a bright lass and a hard worker, and to do her justice, even when she looked like a tearaway she didn’t cause any trouble. She was always polite.”
“So she just looked strange?”
“That’s about all. I think she’d reacted against the religion, too. At least she didn’t go to chapel with them anymore. But kids do that, don’t they?”
“They do,” Annie agreed. “I was talking to one of the firemen, Mr. Whitmore, earlier.”
“I know George Whitmore. He was a friend of my Bernard’s. They used to enjoy a game of darts down at the King Billy on a Friday night.”
“He said they didn’t see any need to investigate the fire.”
“That’s right. I can’t see why they would. That’s why I was wondering what on earth you were doing here. Nobody would want to hurt the Walkers.”
“Mr. Whitmore said it was probably started by a cigarette left smoldering down the side of the sofa.”
“Well, that was a bit odd,” said Mrs. Tattersall slowly. “Being religious and all, the way they were, you see, the Walkers didn’t smoke or drink.”
“But I’ll bet Ruth did,” said Annie.
Clough looked a little the worse for wear after his night in the cell, though the kind of suit he wore hardly showed a wrinkle. He had chosen not to shave, and the stubble, along with the tan, the gold and the elegant dress, made him look slightly unreal, like some sort of aging pop star. His lawyer, Simon Gallagher, however, who had no doubt spent the night in Burgundy House, Eastvale’s poshest and priciest hotel, had taken the opportunity to clean himself up a bit, and now he looked every inch the high-priced solicitor. He still had the twitchy, perky manner of a habitual cokehead, though, and Banks wondered if he’d snorted up a couple of lines before the interview. He didn’t say a lot, but he just couldn’t sit still.
With Annie in Salford and Winsome back inputting data into HOLMES, Banks got Kevin Templeton to attend the interview with him. After the usual preliminaries, Banks began.
“Hope you had a comfortable night, Barry.”
“You don’t give a rat’s arse what kind of night I had, so why don’t you cut the crap and get to the point.” Clough looked at his watch. “According to this, my twenty-four hours are up in about one hour and forty-five minutes. That right, Simon?”
Simon Gallagher nodded. Or twitched.
“We aim to please,” said Banks. “Anyway, I don’t know if you’ve heard, but since we last talked, Chief Constable Riddle committed suicide.”
“Well, at least that’s one thing you can’t bang me up for, then, isn’t it?”
“Is that all you’ve got to say about it?”
“What do you expect? I didn’t know the man.”
Even people who did know Riddle, Banks thought, might show as little concern as Clough. Banks himself hadn’t liked the man, and he didn’t intend to be hypocritical about it now, but the tragedy and despair of the act pierced his dislike to some extent. Nobody should be reduced to that. “Were you putting pressure on him, Barry?”
“What do you mean?”
“I think you know what I mean. Putting pressure on him to become your man, to do you the odd favor or two, make sure we looked the other way when you set up your little scams in North Yorkshire.”
“Why would I want to do that?”
“You tell me.”
“I wouldn’t.”
“But that’s what your meeting was about, wasn’t it? That’s why he walked out before you really got started, isn’t it? What were you using, Barry? Was it Emily? Do you have photographs? Did you threaten him that you could take her back anytime you wanted?”
Clough sighed and rolled his eyes at Gallagher.
“I think you’ve already exhausted this line of questioning,” Gallagher said. “As you are well aware, my client could have had nothing to do with Mr. Riddle’s unfortunate death, even if it hadn’t been suicide. He has the best of all alibis: he was in your cells.”
“Your client might have been one of the chief factors that drove the chief constable over the edge.”
“You can’t prove that,” said Gallagher. “And even if you could, it hardly constitutes an indictable offense. Stick to the facts, Chief Inspector. Move on.”
Banks was loath to give up and move on, but Gallagher was probably right. It would take a hell of a lot more than he had to persuade the CPS to even look at the possibility of prosecuting someone for complicity in the suicide of another. If Banks remembered his criminal law correctly, complicity could mean aiding, abetting, counseling or procuring another’s suicide, and there was no evidence that Clough, even though he might have been trying to blackmail Riddle, had done any of those things. He was simply the straw that broke the camel’s back.
Banks moved on. “Remember we were talking yesterday about Charlie Courage and Andrew Handley?”
“Vaguely.”
“That both were killed by shotgun blasts, and both were found in rural areas some distance from their homes.”
“I believe I asked what that had to do with me at the time, and now I’m asking again.”
“Just this,” said Banks, pausing and opening the file folder he had brought in with him. “While you’ve been enjoying our hospitality downstairs, we’ve been very busy indeed, and our forensics men have been able to match the tire tracks at the two scenes.”
“I’m impressed,” said Clough, raising an eyebrow. “The wonders of modern science.”
“There’s even better to come. On further investigation, they were able to match the tracks found at the scene of the two murders to a cream Citroën owned by a Mr. Jamie Gilbert. One of your employees, yes?”
“Jamie? You already know that.”
“And it also turns out that one of Charlie Courage’s neighbors recognized the photograph of Jamie Gilbert our officer showed her. Jamie was seen getting into a car with Charlie Courage around the time he disappeared. Anything to say?”
“They must be mistaken.”
“Who?”
“Your scientists. This witness.”
Banks shook his head. “Afraid not. Not only do the tires match, but we were also able to find hair samples and minute traces of blood we believe belong to either Charlie Courage or Andrew Handley in the car. Jamie was careless. He didn’t clean it out thoroughly enough. The samples are being checked for DNA now.”