Banks agreed that it was.
“This is the main path we’re on now,” Rebecca explained.
It was about a yard and a half wide and had a pitted tarmac surface. Ahead, it curved around slightly in front of the church, separated from the doors only by a swath of grass, across which led a narrow flagstone path.
“It leads to North Market Street,” Rebecca said, “near the zebra crossing where Deborah would cross to go home. And this path,” she said, taking Banks by the elbow and diverting him to the right, where the entrance to the path was almost obscured by shrubbery, “is the path that leads to the Inchcliffe Mausoleum.”
It was the gravel path Banks remembered from last November. After a couple of yards, the shrubbery gave way to yews and lichen-stained graves. Warm sunlight filtered through the greenery and flying insects buzzed around the dandelions and forget-me-nots.
Some of the graves were above-ground tombs with heavy lids and flowery religious epitaphs. By far the most impressive and baroque was the Inchcliffe Mausoleum, to the right.
“Now,” said Banks, “we were assuming that Deborah reached the junction between the main path and this one when someone either grabbed her and dragged her up here or persuaded her to go with him of her own free will.”
“But why couldn’t she have come this way herself?” Rebecca asked.
“Why should she? It’s out of her way.”
“She had done before. I noticed her do it once or twice.”
Banks raised his eyebrows. “You never mentioned this before.”
Rebecca shrugged. “You never asked. And it didn’t seem relevant.”
“But didn’t it strike you as odd?”
“No. I’m sorry. It wasn’t something I was paying a lot of attention to. I suppose I assumed that she liked graveyards, as I do. And this is where the most interesting old tombs are, and the Inchcliffe Mausoleum, of course.” She blushed. “Maybe she went to talk to the angel, like I did.”
“When did she start using the path?”
“I’ve no idea. I don’t remember noticing her go that way before last September, when school started up, but that doesn’t mean she never did.”
“Did you ever see anyone else with her? Or anyone going along the path before or after her?”
“No. You did ask me about that before, and I would have told you if I’d seen her meeting anyone. I would have noticed something like that. Do you think it’s important that she took this path?”
Banks paused. “From the start,” he explained, “I’d been working on the theory that if Owen Pierce or someone else hadn’t followed Deborah into the graveyard, dragged her off the main path and killed her, then she might have been meeting the person who did. Now you’re telling me you’ve seen her take this path before. I’m wondering if this is where she arranged the meeting. By the mausoleum. Her friend Megan Preece said Deborah had a morbid streak, that she liked spooky things. A rendezvous in the depths of a foggy graveyard beside an old mausoleum might have appealed to her.”
“To meet someone she knew?”
“Yes. A lover, perhaps. Or someone else. We know that Deborah had a secret. It did cross my mind that she might have arranged to meet the person involved to discuss it, what to do about it.”
“But what could she have possibly known that was so important?”
“If we knew that, then we’d probably know who the killer is.”
“And do you still believe that she was meeting someone?”
“I think it’s a strong possibility. She didn’t tell Megan, but perhaps she wanted to be really secretive. Ive Jelačić told me he never saw her meeting anyone, but he’s a pathological liar. On the other hand, you just told me yourself that you never saw anyone else around.”
“It doesn’t mean that there couldn’t have been someone,” Rebecca said. “The woods are quite deep here. And it was a foggy night. I just wish I could be of more help.”
Banks stood and looked around. Rebecca was right. You could just about see the church through the trees to the south, but to the north, between the Inchcliffe Mausoleum and Kendal Road, it was a different matter. There, the yews were thicker, the undergrowth denser. It would be an ideal place for a secret meeting. And if he had learned anything from returning to the scene, it was that Deborah might have taken the gravel path of her accord, and that she had done so before.
He looked up at the Inchcliffe Mausoleum. It could have been the angle he was viewing it from, or perhaps a trick of the light, but he could have sworn the marble angel with the chipped wings was smiling.
Chapter 15
I
“Let’s assume Pierce didn’t do it, just for the moment,” said Banks. “That’ll make things easier.”
It was the first Friday in June, and the rays of late morning sunlight flooded the market square. Banks sat in Gristhorpe’s office trying to get a fresh perspective on the Deborah Harrison murder.
Gristhorpe, a bulky man with a pock-marked face and bushy eyebrows, sat sideways at his large teak desk, one leg stretched out and propped up on a footstool. He insisted that the broken leg had healed perfectly, but he still got the odd twinge now and then. Given that it was same leg he had also been shot in not so long ago, that wasn’t surprising, Banks thought.
Banks took a sip of coffee. “On the generous side, I’d say we’ve got maybe five or six suspects. If Deborah didn’t have a lover we don’t know about-and I don’t think she did-then the key to it all might lie in the secret she had. And if Deborah knew something about someone, she might easily have misjudged the importance of what she knew, underestimated the desperation of that person. Adults can have some pretty nasty secrets. The Pierce trial redirected all our time and energy towards proving that the killer didn’t know her, that she was a random victim, or became a victim because she had the misfortune of resembling Pierce’s ex-girlfriend Michelle Chappel.”
“What’s happening with that now?”
“I talked to Stafford Oakes about an hour ago,” Banks said, “and he’s ninety-nine per cent certain the Crown will appeal the verdict on the basis of the similar fact evidence being declared inadmissible. If they get a judge who allows it in, another trial could be disastrous for Pierce, whether he did it or not.”
Gristhorpe scratched his chin. “As you know, Alan,” he said, “I’ve been able to keep an open mind on this because I wasn’t part of the original investigation. I’d just like to say in the first place that I think you did good detective work. You shouldn’t flagellate yourself over the result. It may still turn out that Pierce didn’t do it. But I agree we should put that aside for a moment. From what I’ve read so far, Barry Stott seemed particularly sold on Pierce. Any idea why?”
“It was his lead,” Banks said. “Or so he thought. Actually, if it hadn’t been for Jim Hatchley stopping for a pint in the Nag’s Head, he might never have turned it up. But Barry’s ambitious. And tenacious. And let’s not forget, Jimmy Riddle was dead set on Pierce, too.”
“He’s a friend of the family,” Gristhorpe said. “I should imagine he just wanted an early conclusion, no matter who went down for it.”
Banks nodded.
“Now,” Gristhorpe went on, “the two things we have to ask ourselves are what possible secret Deborah Harrison could have learned that was important enough to kill for, and who, given the opportunity, could have killed her because of it.”
Banks told him about his visit to Rebecca Charters and what he had learned about Deborah’s occasional detours from the main path.
“You think she had arranged to meet her killer?” Gristhorpe asked.
“Rebecca never actually saw her meet anyone, but it’s one possibility.”
“Blackmail?”
“Perhaps. Though I’m not sure from what I know of Deborah that she was the type to do that. I suppose it is possible. After all, her satchel was open when we found her, and that has always bothered me. Perhaps she had some sort of hard evidence and the killer took it. On the other hand, maybe she just wanted to let whoever it was know that she knew the secret, or how she had found out. Perhaps she just wanted to flaunt her knowledge a little. Her friends say she could be a bit of a show-off. Anyway, let’s say she didn’t know the power or the value of what she was playing with.”