“But if they had something to do with the blood,” Winsome argued, “then they’d hardly report it, would they, sir?”
“But Gilchrist does have a military background, doesn’t he?”
“Yes, sir.”
“So he’s no doubt conversant with ways of killing?”
“I suppose so.”
“And military operations and criminal operations have several features in common, including a certain level of organization. He also knows the area well. It shouldn’t be too hard to track down his military records. You say he was injured in action?”
“Yes, sir. In Afghanistan. His legs.”
“But he’s still mobile?”
“I’d say he’s pretty nifty on his pins, sir, yes.”
Banks smiled. “ ‘Nifty on his pins.’ I like that.” He turned to DC Masterson. “Gerry, can you see about tracking down Terry Gilchrist’s military record? You know the sort of thing, any suspicions he was up to anything illegal while he was serving, black market activities, looting, whatever. And while you’re at it, have a look into John Beddoes’s finances. As Annie said, we can’t rule out insurance fraud.”
“Yes, sir,” said Gerry, scribbling fast on her pad.
“And we’ll need to know exactly who owns the abandoned airfield.”
“Consider it done, sir.”
“Excellent. Stefan, do you have anything for us? Tire tracks?”
“We’re still working the scene,” Nowak said, “but there’s not much chance of tire tracks on the concrete. From the mess they trailed in, though, I’d say there could have been two or three vehicles at the scene, but I can’t say when or what they were.”
“Fingerprints?”
“There’s no decent surface to get fingerprints from. Not the concrete floor and not the corrugated metal walls. The lock and the wire mesh gate are clean. We’re still dusting around the general area, but don’t expect too much with all the rain we’ve had. We might get a few partials or smudges, if we’re lucky. We’re also going to do a thorough luminal search. If blood was spilled there recently, there’s always a chance that the hangar was used before as a place of execution. There might be traces of previous crimes, and they might lead to DNA.”
“Good work, Stefan. Anything new on the trace evidence, Jazz?”
“You’ll have your DNA analysis sometime tomorrow, as promised,” Jazz Singh said. “And I want you to know it’s got me in trouble with Harrogate. They thought they had priority. In the meantime, all I can tell you is that the blood type of the sample is A positive. Not very exciting news, as it’s the same as about thirty-five percent of the UK population. But if you look on the bright side, it rules out sixty-five percent. I’ve sent the brain matter and bone fragments for outside analysis. We don’t have the facilities for that. I’m not sure what that’ll tell us, or how long it will take, but the odds are that it’ll be very expensive and you’ll probably have solved the case by then.” She smiled sweetly and rested her hands on the table. Annie made a note of the blood type.
Banks glanced toward PC Trevor. “Anything from the house-to-house?”
“Nothing, sir,” said a sulky PC Trevor. “Len and Dave are still out knocking on doors in Drewick.”
Banks turned to Wilson. “Doug, I noticed the hangar’s very close to the railway lines. Do you think you can check with East Coast and any other companies who use it about whether anyone saw anything there recently?”
Wilson nodded and made a note. “I’ll see if I can get a request on the news as well.”
Banks let the silence stretch for a moment, then addressed the room at large. “How do you get from the airfield to the A1?” he asked. “Is the only way the way Gerry and I came? From what I could see, all there was around there were bumpy overgrown tracks until you got to the village.”
“You’d have to get back to the Thirsk road, a mile or so beyond Drewick,” said Doug Wilson. “From there you could go north to Northallerton or south to Thirsk. Either way, it’s a few miles.”
“There is another way,” said Winsome. “If you continue south on that track that runs by the airfield gates, you go through the woods parallel to the railway lines, and when you get to a village called Hallerby, you can turn right on a B road leading to the A1. That cuts off Thirsk and saves you a bit of time. There’s also a lot less traffic and only the one village to drive through.”
“Is there anything in this Hallerby?”
“Usual stuff, sir,” said Winsome. “Few houses, couple of shops, village hall, chapel, a pub.”
“And you’d have to pass through there either way if you were taking that shortcut to or from the A1?”
Winsome nodded. “It’s where the bumpy lane starts and heads north. The B road from the A1 continues to Thirsk.”
“Maybe you could pay a visit to this Hallerby tomorrow, Winsome, and see if anyone saw lorries, or any other traffic, heading to or from the A1 via that road this weekend. Someone must have seen or heard something coming out of the woods. It might have appeared odd or rare enough to remember.”
“Sir,” said Winsome.
“Is that all?” Banks asked, glancing around the room.
“There is one more thing, sir,” Doug Wilson said.
“Doug?”
“When DI Cabbot and I went to talk to Morgan Spencer, he wasn’t home, like DI Cabbot said. His neighbor hasn’t seen him all weekend. We didn’t have a search warrant, and he’s ex-job, so he wouldn’t have us taking a butcher’s. We’ll be needing a search warrant.”
Banks looked toward AC Gervaise.
“Get back there tomorrow morning and have a good look around,” she said. “Talk to his other neighbors on the site, too. I’ll see to the warrant first thing. But make sure you ask the site manager beforehand and explain your predicament. If he doesn’t have a key, then you’ll have to break in, but only if, and only after, you have the warrant in your hand. OK?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Gervaise looked at her watch and stood up. “Why don’t you all go home now and get some rest? Tomorrow looks like a busy day. We’ve got a stolen tractor, two young men we’d like to find and talk to and the makings of a suspicious death at an abandoned airfield. For the moment these are separate cases, and I’ll see that actions are issued accordingly. But for crying out loud, keep open minds, all of you.” She pointed toward the timeline on the whiteboard. “You know how I feel about coincidences. If you come across one shred of evidence you think links the cases, then report it to me immediately, and we’ll change our strategy. Clear?”
Annie and the rest nodded, then they made their way out of the boardroom. After one or two brief conversations in the corridor, the team dispersed. At last, Annie thought, as she picked up her coat from the squad room, it was time to go home. Now she could enjoy what she had been wanting all day: that hot bath and stack of trashy magazines.
BANKS GOT home to a cold house at about eight o’clock. He turned up the thermostat, promising himself yet again that if he ever got a pay increase, the first thing he would buy was a better heating system. He dumped his bag and satchel on the floor, hung up his coat and picked up the post from the inside mat. It consisted mostly of bills, subscription renewal forms and a box set of Janet Baker CDs that had only just fit through the letter box.
There was also a postcard from his parents, who were cruising the Amazon: a picture of the Manaus opera house. Banks turned it over and read his mother’s small neat handwriting. His father didn’t like to write, Banks knew, because he was self-conscious about his spelling and grammar. His mother, with her typical economy, had crammed as many words in the small space as she possibly could. “We thought you might like this, being an opera fan and all. It’s very hot and muggy here, so bad some days your poor dad can hardly breathe. The food is good on the ship. Some of the other passengers are really rude and stuck-up but we’ve made friends with a couple from York and some nice people from near Stratford. We went for a boat ride around some islands yesterday and saw a sloth, two iguanas and a conda. Your dad caught a piranha off the side of the boat. He’s proper chuffed with himself!”