August 17
John came to the house today. Mummy was out and he wanted us to go and do it upstairs but I was too frightened we’d get caught. Anyway, we barbecued some hot dogs on the back patio and I took a bottle of Father’s special wine from the cellar and we drank that. Of course, Mother came home! She was very nice about it, really, but I could tell she didn’t like John. Uncle Michael was there, too, and I could tell he really hated John on sight. John says nobody ever gives him a chance.
August 20
They all went to Leeds today-Mummy and Daddy and Uncle Michael-to some naff cocktail party or other, so I told John he could come over to the house again. This time I knew they’d be gone a long time so we did it in my bed! How sinful! How wickedly, deliciously sinful! I don’t know if I had an orgasm or not, but I certainly tingled a bit, and I didn’t feel at all sore. John wants me to do it without a condom, but I told him not to be stupid. I wouldn’t even think of it. I don’t want to get pregnant with his baby or get some sexual disease. That hurt him, that I thought he would have some disease to pass on to me. He can be so childish at times. Childish and boring.
But it wasn’t until a later entry that Banks found out for himself what Ken Blackstone meant when he said the diary might be “dynamite.”
August 21
I can hardly believe it, Uncle Michael is in love with me! He says he has loved me since I was twelve, and has even spied on me getting undressed at Montclair. He says I look like Botticelli’s Venus! Which is stretching it a bit, if you ask me. I remember seeing it in the Uffizi when Mummy and I went to Florence last year, and I don’t look a bit like her. My hair’s not as long, for a start, and it’s a different color. I never thought Uncle Michael knew literature and art at all. Some of what he wrote sounds very poetic. And it’s all about me!! I don’t know what I shall do. For the moment, it will be my little secret. He’s not really my uncle of course, just my dad’s friend, so I suppose it is all right for him to be in love with me, it’s not incest. It feels funny, though, because I’ve known him forever. Oops, I forgot to say how I know. Last night John and me stole Uncle Michael’s car because he was so beastly to him last week at the barbecue (now I know why: Uncle Michael must have been jealous!!). Well, Uncle Michael had left his computer in the back seat. We took it to John’s house (and thank the lord his horrible smelly mother was out-she really gives me the creeps)-and I couldn’t get into all his technical stuff but it only took me about fifteen minutes to get the password to his word-processing directories: it’s MONTCLAIR, of course. After that, it was easy. Uncle Michael puts everything on his computer, even his shopping-lists! When I’d finished, I reformatted his hard drive. That’ll show him!
Banks put the diary aside and walked to the window. Mid-morning on a hot and humid June day, cobbled market square already full of cars and coaches. He wondered if this summer was going to be as hot as the last one. He hoped not. Naturally, there was no air-conditioning in Eastvale Divisional HQ, or in the whole of Eastvale, as far as he knew. You just had to make do with open windows and fans-not a lot of use when there’s no breeze and the air is hot.
The diary wasn’t evidence, of course. Deborah Harrison had read some of Michael Clayton’s private files and discovered that he was sexually infatuated with her; it didn’t mean that he had killed her. But as Banks sat down again and read on, it became increasingly clear that Clayton, in all likelihood, had killed Deborah.
The telephone rang. Banks picked it up and Sergeant Rowe told him there was a Detective Sergeant Leaside calling from Swiss Cottage.
Banks frowned; he didn’t recognize the name. “Better put him on.”
Leaside came on. “It’s about a woman called Michelle Chappel,” he said. “I understand from the PNC that she was part of a case you’ve been involved in recently up there?”
Banks gripped the receiver tightly. “Yes. Why? What’s happened?”
“She’s been assaulted, sir. Quite badly. Lacerations and bruises, attempted strangulation.”
“Rape?”
“No, sir. I was wondering…We got a description of the suspect from a neighbor…” He read the description.
“Yes,” Banks said when he’d finished. “Dammit, yes. That sounds like Owen Pierce. All right, thanks Sergeant. We’ll keep an eye open for him.”
II
Ive Jelačić was surly after his night in the cells. Banks had him brought up to an interview room and left him alone there for almost an hour before he and Superintendent Gristhorpe went in to ask their questions. They didn’t turn the tape recorder on.
“Well, Ive,” said Banks, “you’re in a lot of trouble now, you know that?”
“What trouble? I do nothing.”
“Where did you get that diary?”
“What diary? I never see that before. You policeman put it on me.”
Banks sighed and rubbed his forehead. He could see it was going to be one of those days. “Ive,” he said patiently, “both Mile Pavelič and Vjeko Batorac have seen you with the diary. You asked them to read it for you. You even hit Vjeko when he tried to hang onto it.”
“I remember nothing of this. I do nothing wrong. Vjeko and I, we quarrel. Is not big deal.”
“Come on, lad,” said Gristhorpe, “help us out here.”
“I know nothing.”
Gristhorpe gestured for Banks to follow him out of the room. He did so, and they stood silently in the corridor for a few minutes before going back inside. It seemed to work; Jelačić was certainly more nervous than he had been before.
“Where you go?” he asked. “What you do?”
“Listen to me, Ive,” said Banks. “I’m only going to say this once, and I’ll say it slowly so that you understand every word. If it hadn’t been for you, an innocent man might not have spent over six months in jail, suffered the indignity of a trial and incurred the wrath of the populace. In other words, you put Owen Pierce through hell, and even though he’s free now, a lot of people still think he really killed the girls.”
Jelačić shrugged. “Maybe he did. Maybe court was wrong.”
“But more important even than Owen Pierce’s suffering is Ellen Gilchrist’s life. If it hadn’t been for you, Ive Jelačić, that girl might not have had to die.”
“I tell you before. In my country, many people die. Nobody ca-”
Banks slammed his fist on the flimsy table. “Shut up! I don’t want to hear any more of your whining self-justification and self-pity, you snivelling little turd. Do you understand me?”
Jelačić’s eyes were wide open now. He nodded and glanced over at Gristhorpe for reassurance he wasn’t going to be left alone with this madman. Gristhorpe remained expressionless.
“Because of you, an innocent girl was brutally murdered. Now, I might not be able to charge you with murder, as I would like to do, but I’ll certainly get something on you that’ll put you away for a long, long time. Understand me?”
“I want lawyer.”
“Shut up. You’ll get a lawyer when we’re good and ready to let you. For the moment, listen. Now, I don’t think we’ll have much trouble getting Daniel and Rebecca Charters to testify that you tried to extort money from them in order to alter the story you told against Daniel Charters. That’s extortion, for a start. And we’ll also get you for tampering with evidence, wasting police time and charges too numerous to mention. And do you know what will happen, Ive? We’ll get you sent back to Croatia is what.”