They went into the bedroom and found the same mess. The bed was unmade, and discarded socks, underpants and shirts lay on the floor beside it.
There was also a small desk against one wall, on which stood a jar of pens and pencils, a roll of Sellotape and a stapler, in addition to several sheets of paper, some of them scrawled all over with numbers. “Is this the kind of thing you’re looking for?” Pamela asked.
Carefully, Banks opened the drawer and found a wallet. Without disturbing anything, he could see, through the transparent plastic holder inside, credit cards in the name of Robert Calvert. He put it back.
A couple of suits hung in the wardrobe, along with shirts, ties, casual jackets and trousers. Banks felt in the pockets and found nothing but pennies, sales slips, a couple of felt-tip pens, matches, betting slips and some fluff.
As wood doesn’t usually yield fingerprints, he didn’t have to be too careful opening cupboards and drawers. Calvert’s dresser contained the usual jumble of jeans, jumpers, socks and underwear. A packet of condoms lay forlornly next to a passport and a selection of Dutch, French, Greek and Swiss small change in the drawer of the bedside table. The passport was in the name of Robert Calvert. There were no entry or exit stamps, but then there wouldn’t be if he did most of his travelling in Europe, as the coins seemed to indicate. On the bedside table was a shaded reading lamp and a copy of The Economist.
The kitchen was certainly compact, and by the sparsity of the fridge’s contents, it looked as if Calvert did most of his eating out. A small wine-rack stood on the counter. Banks checked the contents: a white Burgundy, Veuve Clicquot Champagne, a Rioja.
Calvert’s bathroom was clean and tidy. His medicine cabinet revealed only the barest of essentials: paracetamol tablets, Aspro, Milk of Magnesia, Alka Seltzer, Fisherman’s Friend, Elastoplast, cotton swabs, hydrogen peroxide, Old Spice deodorant and shaving cream, a packet of orange disposable razors, toothbrush and a half-used tube of Colgate. Calvert had squeezed it in the middle, Banks noticed, not from bottom to top. Could this be the same man who returned his used matches to the box?
“Come on,” Banks said. “We’d better use a call-box. I don’t want to risk smudging any prints there may be on the telephone.”
“What’s going on?” Pamela asked as they walked down the street.
“I’m sorry,” Susan said to her. “We really don’t know. We’re not just putting you off. We’re as confused as you are. If we can find some of Robert’s fingerprints in the flat, then we can check them against our files and find out once and for all if it’s the same man.”
“But it just can’t be,” Pamela said. “I’m sure of it.”
A pub on the main road advertised a beer garden at the back, and as they were all thirsty, Banks suggested he might as well make the call from there.
He phoned the station and Phil Richmond said he would arrange to get Vic Manson to the flat as soon as possible.
That done, he ordered the drinks and discovered from the barman that Arsenal had won the FA Cup. Good for them, Banks thought. When he had lived in London, he had been an Arsenal supporter, though he always had a soft spot for Peterborough United, his home-town team, struggling as they were near the bottom of the First Division.
The beer garden was quiet. They sat at a heavy wooden bench beside a bowling green and sipped their drinks. Two old men in white were playing on the green, and occasionally the clack of the bowls disturbed the silence. Banks and Susan shared salted roast peanuts and cheese-and-onion crisps, as neither had eaten since breakfast. The sun felt warm on the back of Banks’s neck.
“You can go home whenever you want,” Banks told Pamela as she took off the tan suede jacket she had put on to go out. “We have to stay here, but we’ll pay for a taxi. I’m sorry we had to ruin your day for you.”
Pamela squinted in the sun, reached into her bag and pulled out a pair of large pink-rimmed sunglasses. “It’s all right,” she said, picking up her gin and tonic. “I know it wasn’t Robert they were talking about in the paper. Who was this man, this Keith Rothwell?”
“He was an accountant who got murdered,” Banks told her. “We can’t really say much more than that. Did you ever hear the name before?”
Pamela shook her head. “The papers said he was married.”
“Yes.”
“Robert didn’t act like a married man.”
“What do you mean?”
“Guilt. Secrecy. Fleeting visits. Furtive phone calls. The usual stuff. There was none of that with Robert. We went about quite openly. He wasn’t tied down. He was a dreamer. Besides, you just know.” She took her glasses off and squinted at Banks. “I’ll bet you’re married, aren’t you?”
“Yes,” said Banks, and saw, he hoped, a hint of disappointment in her eyes.
“Told you.” She put her sunglasses on again.
Banks noticed Susan grinning behind her glass of lemonade. He gave her a dirty look. A clack of bowls came from the green and one of the old men did a little dance of victory.
“So, you see,” Pamela went on. “It can’t be the same man. If I’m sure of one thing, it’s that Robert Calvert definitely wasn’t a married man with a family.”
Banks picked up his pint and raised it in a toast. “I hope you’re right,” he said, looking at her brave smile and remembering the scene in Rothwell’s garage only two nights ago. “I sincerely hope you’re right.”
Chapter 5
1
There was always something sad about an empty farmyard, Banks thought as he got out of the car in front of Arkbeck Farm again. There should be chickens squawking all over the place, the occasional wandering cow, maybe a barking sheepdog or two.
He thought of the nest egg he had held at his Uncle Len’s farm in Gloucestershire on childhood family visits. They used it to encourage hens to lay, he remembered, and when his Aunt Chloe had handed it to him in the coop, it had still felt warm. Banks also remembered the smells of hay and cow dung, the shiny metal milk churns sitting by the roadside waiting to be picked up.
As he rang the doorbell, he doubted that the Rothwells felt the same way about empty farmyards. The place seemed to suit Alison’s introspective nature; her father had no doubt appreciated the seclusion and the protection from prying eyes and questions it offered; and Mary Rothwell… well, Banks could hardly imagine her mucking out the byre or feeding the pigs. He couldn’t imagine her handing a child a warm porcelain egg, either.