“I wouldn’t know about that.”
“Oh, come on,” said Banks. “Don’t tell me you didn’t notice. Even I noticed, and she was dead when I saw her.”
Ms. Melchior gave Banks a warning glance. She obviously knew that he had a tendency to go off on weird, almost surreal, tangents to throw his suspects off their predetermined stories.
“She was fit enough,” said Murdoch.
“Fit and she knew it?”
“They usually do.”
“What do you mean by that, Jamie?”
“What I say. Girls like her. They know they’re fit.”
“Is that why you like the song, have it as your ring tone?”
“It’s just a bit of fun.”
“Flaunt it, do they, these fit lasses?”
“You should see the clothes they wear — or don’t.” He gave an unpleasant, harsh laugh.
“Like Jill?”
“Jill?”
“Yes, the girl who works for you. Jill Sutherland. She’s a pretty lass, isn’t she? She used to take shortcuts to the car park through the Maze, didn’t she? Is that where you got the idea?”
“What idea?”
“That it was a suitable place for an ambush.”
“That’s ridiculous.”
“But it’s enough to drive any red-blooded bloke crazy, isn’t it?” Banks said. “The way they dress and the things they say.”
“Don’t answer that, Jamie,” said Ms. Melchior. “He’s leading you.” She gave Banks a stern glance. “And you, stop it. Stick to the relevant questions.”
“Yes, Ms.,” said Banks.
Ms. Melchior glared at him.
“How long had you known Hayley?” Winsome asked.
“I didn’t know her,” said Jamie. “Just saw her when she came in the pub with her friends.”
“But according to the records, you were both in the first year of college together, before you dropped out,” said Winsome. She adjusted her reading glasses and tapped the file on the table in front of her.
“Maybe I saw her around. It’s a big college.”
“Ever ask her out?”
“I might have done. So what?”
“Just that you have a history, that’s all.” Winsome took off her glasses and leaned back in her chair.
“You fancied her right from the start, didn’t you?” Banks said.
“What’s wrong with that?”
“But she wouldn’t have anything to do with you. She was fussy about who she went out with. Preferred older men, professors, someone with a bit of experience, money, brains.”
Jamie slammed his fist on the table.
“Calm down, Jamie,” Ms. Melchior said. “Is this going anywhere?” she asked Banks.
“Oh, yes,” he said. “Isn’t it, Jamie? You know where it’s going, don’t you? Saturday the seventeenth of March. Saint Patrick’s Day. What was special about that day?”
“Nothing. I don’t know.”
“Some yobbos wrecked your toilets, didn’t they?”
“Yeah.”
“What happened? Did they find your peephole from the storeroom to the ladies’?”
Murdoch froze. “What?”
It had been a long shot on Banks’s part — no one had mentioned such a thing — but it was turning out to be a good guess. It was exactly the sort of thing he thought someone like Murdoch would do. “We’ll leave that for the moment,” Banks went on. “Hayley was looking particularly good that night, wasn’t she? The short skirt, low top. Looked a bit like a tart, didn’t she?”
“DCI Banks,” Ms. Melchior interrupted. “Fewer of those sorts of comments, if you don’t mind.”
“Sorry,” said Banks. “But you fancied her, didn’t you, Jamie?”
“She was very attractive.”
“And you’d wanted her for a long time.”
“I liked her, yes.”
“And she knew it?”
“I suppose she did.”
“And then this business with the toilets came up.”
“She should never have said the things she did.”
“She humiliated you in front of everybody, didn’t she?”
“She shouldn’t have called me those names.”
“What names, Jamie?”
“Terrible names. About my manhood and things.” He gave a shifty glance toward Ms. Melchior, who seemed enthralled.
“She called you impotent, didn’t she? ‘Limp dick.’ That really got your goat, didn’t it?”
“How could she say something like that? She knew I… knew I liked her. How could she be so cruel?”
“She was drunk, Jamie. And she needed a piss.”
“Mr. Banks!”
Banks held his hand up. “Sorry.”
“I couldn’t help that, could I?” said Jamie. “It wasn’t me wrecked the fucking bogs!”
Banks heard a tap at the door. Winsome answered, came back and whispered in his ear.
“This interview is suspended at six-thirteen P.M.,” Banks said. “DCI Banks and DC Jackman are leaving the room, PC Mellors is entering to keep an eye on the suspect.” Banks glanced at Ms. Melchior. “You coming?”
She seemed torn between her client and whatever new revelation had just come up. “You’ll be all right, Jamie?”
“He’ll be all right, ma’am,” the PC said.
Jamie nodded, eyes averted.
“Very well, then.” Ms. Melchior gathered up her papers and briefcase and strutted out after Banks and Winsome, across the market square to the Fountain. A brisk wind had sprung up, and she had to hold her lilac skirt down with one hand as she walked. There was already a crowd gathered outside the pub, and the two uniformed constables were doing a sterling job of defending the crime scene.
Once they had signed the sheet, Banks and the others were allowed inside the Fountain, where a thorough search had been in progress ever since they had taken Jamie Murdoch over to the station, all legal and aboveboard. The SOCOs were dressed in protective clothing and wore breathing filters against the dust, and an assistant handed out the same gear to Banks, Winsome and Ms. Melchior, who seemed a bit embarrassed in her hard hat, overalls and face mask.
The pub was a shambles. There were dust and crumbled plaster everywhere. The landlord would go crazy when he found out, Banks thought, though with any luck that would be the least of his problems. They followed Stefan Nowak upstairs to one of the storerooms above the bar that abutted on Taylor’s Yard and the Maze. Someone had moved a piece of the old wainscoting away to reveal a hole big enough for a man to get through. Banks could hear voices and see the beam of a torch waving around on the other side.
“There’s no light switch,” said Stefan, handing out torches, “and no window.” He bent and made his way through the hole. Banks followed. Ms. Melchior seemed reluctant, but Winsome held back to let her go first and brought up the rear. With all the beams of light, the room they found themselves in was more than bright enough. It smelled moldy and airless, which it no doubt was, and stacked against one wall were cases of lager and cartons of cigarettes.
“Is this it?” said Banks, disappointed. “Is there no access to the Maze?”
“Hold your horses,” said Stefan, moving to the other side of the room, where he swung a hinged panel toward him. “Follow me.”
They followed. The next room was just as cramped and musty as the first, but a steep wooden staircase led down to the ground floor, where a door with well-oiled hinges and a recently installed Yale lock opened into the anonymous alley at the back of Taylor’s Yard, where no CCTV camera lens ever penetrated.
“Bingo,” said Banks.
“It’s like the bloody Phantom of the Opera,” said Stefan. “Secret passages and God knows what.”
“They were only secret from us,” Banks pointed out. “Houses and storage areas cheek by jowl like this are often connected by crawl spaces or what have you. Murdoch simply found a way of removing the covering and replacing it so he could come and go as he wanted. Originally, it just made a great hiding place for storing the smuggled goods, but when Hayley Daniels pushed him past the end of his tether, it made the perfect way for him to get back at her. He knew where she was going, and he knew he could get there in seconds without being seen. How long would it take him to get from the front door to the Maze by this route?”