Brough grunted. Not impressed by the idea of hypnotherapy, Annie guessed. “The MO is completely different,” he went on. “The attacker used a rock on Keith McLaren and some sort of sharp blade on Lucy Payne.”
“MOs can change. And perhaps if she only kills killers, or people she mistakes for them, she hasn’t come across any in the last eighteen years? Perhaps she’s been abroad?”
“It’s all speculation.”
“If you don’t speculate, sir, you don’t get anywhere.”
“But I need something I can tell the press. Something real. Something substantial.”
“Since when have the press cared about reality or substance?”
“DI Cabbot!”
“Sorry, sir. Why don’t you tell them we’ve got a new lead we’re following, but you can’t say any more about it right now. They’ll understand.”
“What new lead?”
“Kirsten Farrow. We’re going to interview everyone we know was connected with Karen/Lucy until we get a connection to the killer.”
“Whom you believe to be Kirsten Farrow?”
“Yes,” said Annie. “But you don’t have to tell them that. Even if I’m wrong, we’re heading in the right direction. I’m not wearing blinkers, sir. Someone knew that Karen was Lucy, and that someone is either the killer herself, or the person who told the killer. And I’m trying to get some evidence to prove that Kirsten killed Lucy Payne. With any luck I should have it before the end of the day.”
“Okay,” said Brough. “That’s the kind of thing I want to hear. And I do take your point. It makes sense when you get rid of all that 1989 gobbledygook. Just be careful whose feet you’re treading on. Remember, these are professional people, you know, doctors and the like.”
“Oh, don’t worry, sir, I won’t eat any of them,” Annie said. “Now can I go?”
He jerked his head. “Go on. Get to work. And hurry up. And this evidence? Don’t forget, I expect to see some positive results before the end of the day.”
“Yes, sir,” Annie said as she left the office, fingers crossed.
Despite being dog-tired, Banks hadn’t slept at all well when he got home from the station well after midnight on Monday. They were no closer to finding Templeton’s killer, or Hayley Daniels’s, for that matter, and part of the program for the day was to start a complete review of both cases so far.
Everything about the Hayley Daniels murder pointed toward a scared rapist, someone the victim knew, who had strangled Hayley to avoid being named and caught, someone who was also possibly ashamed of what he’d done and had arranged the body in a pose more suggestive of sleep than rape and murder. Under further questioning, Joseph Randall had finally admitted that he had touched Hayley and masturbated at the scene, but he insisted that he hadn’t changed the position of the body, and Banks believed him. At that point, he had no reason to lie.
The Templeton murder, efficient and practical as it had been, seemed very much as if it had been a mistake on the part of a killer, who in the darkness of the Maze had thought she had been protecting Chelsea Pilton and ridding the world of a budding serial killer.
When Banks asked himself who might think that and why, he came back to Kirsten Farrow. And nobody knew what had become of her. The only thing that gave rise to any doubts at all in Banks’s mind about Kirsten’s being responsible was that the first murders, the 1989 ones, involved someone who had directly harmed Kirsten, mutilated her, and she had not been a victim of Lucy and Terence Payne. That meant that, if it was Kirsten, she had extended her parameters.
Or, Banks thought, with a quiver of excitement, perhaps she did have some connection with the Paynes. What it could be he had no idea, but it was a direction worth pursuing, and something he needed to tell Annie about, if she hadn’t thought of it herself. Annie had been right yesterday when she said it was good to be working together again. It was. Personal problems aside, he hadn’t realized how much he had missed her since she had gone to Eastern Area.
First thing on the agenda was another look at all the CCTV footage they had on both cases. Hayley Daniels first. As soon as the team was gathered — Banks, Winsome, Hatchley, Wilson, with the gaping absence of Templeton and the off-the-wall comments everyone had come to expect from him — they started watching the footage.
There it was again, the familiar scene of the market square at closing time, young men and women being sick, squabbling, singing with their arms around one another. Then the group from the Fountain standing together briefly while Hayley explained that she was going down Taylor’s Yard for a piss and then…? Well, she hadn’t told them where after that. To Malcolm Austin’s, perhaps?
But why would she want to go there? She was nineteen, pissed as a newt, out with her mates for a night on the town. Why would she want to go and visit a sober, older lover, who was probably lounging around in his carpet slippers sipping sherry and watching films that were made long before she was born? Well, love is blind, they say, but sometimes Banks thought it must be drunk as well. It didn’t matter, anyway. Wherever Hayley had intended to go, she didn’t get there. Someone intercepted her, and unless it was someone who had been lying in wait for any young girl to come by, as Templeton had believed, then it had to be someone who knew she would be there, a decision she had made only in the last minute or so, as they watched.
Banks glanced again at the people around her. He recognized Stuart Kinsey, Zack Lane and a couple of others. Their names were all on file. Their alibis had been checked and rechecked, their statements taken. They could all be reinterviewed. Someone had to know something. Maybe someone was covering for a friend he thought had done it?
The car went by, the couple on their way back from celebrating their wedding anniversary. And there was that annoying, flickering strip of light, like on restored copies of old black-and-white films. Banks made a note to ask technical services if they could get rid of it, though doing so probably wouldn’t reveal anything new. Then Hayley staggered off down Taylor’s Yard, and the rest headed for the Bar None.
Banks knew that Stuart Kinsey had sneaked out of the back exit almost immediately to spy on Hayley, but what about the others? They said they stayed at the Bar None until about two o’clock, and various staff, customers and doormen said they had seen them during that period. But it didn’t take long to sneak out, and if you were clever enough, you could wedge the back door open and hope no one noticed before the time you got back. But why would Hayley linger in the Maze once she had done what she went there to do? She had no reason to do so, unless she was meeting someone there, and why would she do that when she had Malcolm Austin waiting for her? Unless there was someone else.
It didn’t make sense. The killer had to be someone who knew that Hayley was going into the Maze, which meant that whoever it was had to act fast. How long does it take a woman to go down an alley and relieve herself in the dark? She was drunk, which would definitely slow her progress. And she’d been sick, too. On the other hand, she had little in the way of clothing to inhibit her. He could always ask a female constable to go in and do it, and time her. That would go down about as well as asking every woman connected with the Lucy Payne murder to take her top off. Sometimes the easiest and most obvious route was the only way you couldn’t go.
Banks estimated about five minutes, in and out, and felt that was fairly generous. That gave the killer about three or four minutes to follow Hayley and grab her before she finished. Stuart Kinsey had gone in there about three or four minutes after her, which made it unlikely that anyone else in the Bar None could have gone out the same way at the same time. They would have bumped into each other. And Stuart Kinsey had at least heard part of the assault against Hayley, and he said he had seen no one else in the Maze.