The Rothwell murder would be on television too, no doubt, amidst all the speculation on that afternoon’s Cup Final, but Banks had never been able to bring himself to turn the thing on during daylight hours.
Now, hints were appearing in the media that the killing was more than a run-of-the-mill domestic disagreement or a burglary gone wrong. According to the radio, Scotland Yard, Interpol and the FBI had been called in. That, Banks reflected, was a slight exaggeration. The Americans had been asked to help trace Tom Rothwell, though as far as Banks knew it was the Florida State Police, not the FBI. Interpol was something the reporters always threw in for good measure, these days, and Scotland Yard was an outright lie.
Banks scanned the Yorkshire Post and The Independent reports to see if either newspaper knew more than the police. Sometimes they did, and it could be damned embarrassing all round. Not this time, though. To them, Rothwell was as much the “quiet, unassuming local accountant and businessman” as he was to the rest of the world.
“More coffee?”
Banks looked up to see Sandra standing at the machine in her navy-blue bathrobe, wet hair hanging over the terry-cloth at her shoulders. He hadn’t heard her come down.
“Please.” He held his cup out.
Sandra poured, then put some bread in the toaster and picked up the Yorkshire Post. After she had read about Rothwell, she whistled. “Is this what kept you out so late last night?”
“Hmm,” murmured Banks.
The toast popped up. Sandra put the paper down and went to see to it. “I’ve met her a couple of times, you know,” she said over her shoulder, buttering toast.
Banks folded The Independent and looked at Sandra’s profile. When it was wet, her hair looked darker, of course, but one of the things Banks found attractive about her was the contrast between her blonde hair and black eyebrows. This time, when he looked at her, he felt an ache deep inside. “Who?” he asked.
“Mrs. Rothwell. Mary Rothwell.”
“How on earth did you come across her?”
“At the gallery.”
Sandra ran the local gallery in the Eastvale community center, where she organized art and photography exhibitions.
“I didn’t know she was the artistic type.”
“She’s not really. I think for her it was just the thing to do. Women’s Institute sort of stuff, you know, organize cultural outings.” Sandra sat down with her toast and wrinkled her nose.
Banks laughed, sensing a definite thaw in the cold war. “Snob.”
“What! Me?” She hit him lightly with the folded newspaper.
“Anyway,” Banks said, “the poor woman’s on tranquilizers. Both she and her daughter saw Rothwell’s body before they called us, and you can take my word for it, that’s enough to give anyone the heebie-jeebies.”
“How’s the daughter?”
“Alison? Not quite so bad, at least not on the surface.” Banks shrugged. “More resilient, maybe, or she could just be repressing it more. Tina Smithies says she’s worried they’re both losing touch.” He looked at his watch. “I’d better go.”
Sandra followed him to the door and leaned against the bannister. She nibbled her toast as she watched him put on his light gray sports jacket and pick up his briefcase. “I can’t say I know her well enough to get any kind of impression,” she said, holding her dressing-gown at the collar when Banks opened the door, “but I did sense that she’s the kind who… well, she puts on a few airs and graces. Not so much as to be a complete pseud, but you can tell there’s a touch of the Lady Muck about her. Imperious. And she likes people to know she’s not short of a bob or two. You know, she flashes her rings, jewelry, stuff like that. She also struck me as being a very cold woman, I don’t know why. All sharp edges, like a drawer full of kitchen knives.”
Banks leaned against the door jamb. “It’s a bloody strange family altogether,” he said.
Sandra shrugged. “Just thought I’d put in my two pen-n’orth. I don’t suppose you know when you’ll be back?”
“No. Sorry, got to dash.” Banks risked a quick kiss on the lips. They tasted of strawberry jam.
“Can you leave me the car, today?” Sandra called after him. “There’s a water-color exhibition I want to see in Ripon. One of our locals is exhibiting. I don’t know when I’ll be back, either.”
“Okay,” said Banks, wincing at the barb. He could always sign a car out of the pool if he needed one. It wouldn’t have a cassette deck, but then this was hardly the best of all possible worlds, was it? At least it should have a radio. He set off determined, after a miserable night, not to let things get him down.
It was a beautiful morning. Calendar weather. May, as he knew it, had finally arrived. The sky was a cloudless blue, apart from a few high milky swirls, and even this early in the morning the temperature seemed to have risen a few notches since yesterday. Banks wouldn’t be surprised if it were shirtsleeves weather before the day was out.
As he walked, he plugged in his earphones and switched on the Walkman in his briefcase. The tape started at the jazzy “Forlane” section of Ravel’s Le Tombeau de Couperin. Not bad for a walk to work on a fine spring morning.
It was only about a mile to the station along Market Street, and Banks liked the way the townscape changed almost yard by yard as he walked. At his end of town, the road was broad, and the area was much like the outer part of any town center: the main road with its garage, supermarket, school, zebra crossings and roundabouts, surrounded by residential streets of tall Victorian houses, most of them converted to student flats, all with names like Mafeking Avenue, Sebastopol Terrace, Crimea Close and Waterloo Road, and a strong smell of petrol and diesel fumes pervading the air.
But the closer Market Street got to the actual marketplace, the more it narrowed and turned into a tourist attraction with its overhanging first-floor bays, where people could almost shake hands with someone across the street; the magnifying-glass windows of twee souvenir shops; an expensive walkers’ gear shop with orange Gore-tex clothing hanging by the doorway and a stand of walking-sticks out on the pavement; a Waterstone’s Bookshop, the street’s most recent addition; the mingled aromas from Hambleton’s Tea and Coffee Emporium and Farleigh’s bakery across the street; an Oddbins wine shop; the Golden Grill café; and a newsagent’s with a rack of newspapers out front, some of them folded over at Rothwell’s grainy photograph, and a display of local guides and Ordnance Survey maps in the window. This narrow part of Market Street was always jammed with honking traffic, too – mostly visitors and delivery vans.
Halfway through the “Menuet” section, Banks arrived at the station, a three-story, Tudor-fronted building facing the market square. First he called in at the Murder Room and talked to Phil Richmond. The Florida State Police had tracked down the car rental company Tom Rothwell had used at Tampa airport. At least it was a start. Now the police had a license number to look for among the millions of cars parked at the thousands of Florida hotels, motels and beach clubs.