‘Even so... If he suffered from malnutrition, and perhaps bore the effects of a bullet or shrapnel wound, and he came from the Middle East, I think that narrows down our search quite a lot. At least it gives us some idea as to what he was doing here.’
‘Escaping a war? Looking for a better life? Don’t forget, Superintendent, a fair bit of the Middle East is a war zone at any given time.’
Banks stood up. ‘Thanks very much, doctor,’ he said. ‘You’ve been a great help.’
Dr Galway smiled. ‘It’s kind of you to say so. But probably not true. I’ll be in touch if I get any further in proving my theories.’
‘Please do,’ said Banks, and left.
‘Coffee?’ said Banks when he bumped into Annie in the corridor back at the station.
Annie held up the folder she was carrying. ‘Just let me dump this on my desk. I’m on my way back from the lab. See you downstairs in a couple of minutes?’
Banks idled away the time chatting with the desk officer, who had been fending off reporters for most of the morning. When Annie came down, her jacket slung over her shoulder, they headed out for the Costa on Market Street. One or two members of the press shouted questions, but Banks and Annie ignored them. It was another fine spring morning, and a couple of tourist coaches were disgorging their elderly passengers in the cobbled market square. The Costa wasn’t too crowded, and they found a table easily enough. Fortunately, none of the reporters followed them in. Banks inhaled the fresh-ground coffee smell as he stood in the short queue and ordered two lattes.
‘How’s it going?’ he asked after he sat down.
‘Fine,’ said Annie.
‘How’s Ray doing?’
‘Good, as far as I know. He’s over in America at the moment wheeling and dealing.’
‘And Zelda?’
‘I’m sure she’s just fine,’ Annie said, a slight chill in her voice. ‘I haven’t seen her for a while.’
‘Did she ever tell you anything more about her search for Phil Keane?’
‘No,’ said Annie. ‘I just assumed it had fizzled out. Why?’
‘I don’t know. I just got the impression she was holding something back, that’s all. She was pretty quiet the last time we were over there for dinner.’
‘Can’t say as I noticed.’ Annie sipped some latte and wiped away the moustache with her napkin. ‘Anyway, tell me what you’ve got from the post-mortem.’
Banks told her, especially about the evidence of previous malnutrition and the scar that Dr Galway thought might have been caused by a bullet or a piece of shrapnel.
Annie whistled through her teeth. ‘So the thinking now is that he might have been a migrant?’
‘It looks that way. Dr Galway says he was no older than fourteen, maybe even as young as twelve, and we’ve had no reports of anyone matching his description gone missing, and no hint of worried parents, despite all our appeals. That would seem to indicate that he came over alone and hasn’t been processed in any way.’
‘Illegal?’
‘That would be my guess.’
‘But what was he doing up here? I mean, if he came by boat he’d have landed on the south coast, wouldn’t he? Kent, Hampshire, somewhere like that. It’s a bloody long way up here, and I doubt he had a wallet full of money with him.’
‘There’s not a lot of people who arrive here by boat, and they’ve usually come from France. He may have travelled by an overland route, or via Ireland, say. Besides, it’s hardly as far from Kent to Yorkshire as it is from Iraq, or wherever he came from, to Kent. Anyway, Dr Galway said he’d probably been stabbed about an hour to an hour and a half before his body was dumped in the bin, so he could have been driven here from as far away as Newcastle or Leeds. Maybe even Manchester, at a pinch.’
‘Hardly,’ said Annie. ‘You’d never get across the bloody M62 that fast, even on a Sunday night.’
Banks smiled. ‘Maybe you’re right. Anyway, the point is, we know he’s not local, and he could have come from anywhere within the radius of about an hour’s drive.’
‘That includes Blaydon’s house.’
‘Outside Harrogate?’
‘Yes. It’s all well and good thinking of them coming up here to find and kill the lad, but what if that wasn’t the reason? What if something happened at Blaydon’s house that led to his death, and they came up to dump the body?’
‘Nice theory, but it doesn’t really work with the timing, Annie. As far as we know, they arrived at Le Coq d’Or around seven-thirty and left about eleven. If they had kept the body in the car boot all that time, the hypostasis would have been advanced to the point of being observable to the naked eye. And fixed. It wasn’t.’
‘Blaydon’s driver could have driven off and dumped the body as soon as they arrived at the restaurant.’
‘At half past seven? It was still broad daylight then. And what about Mrs Grunwell and the others on the street who heard something around eleven?’
‘Maybe they’re mistaken? Maybe it was something else they heard? Remember, nobody saw anything. Besides, if Blaydon left the restaurant around eleven, he hardly had time to kill the boy and dump him on the East Side Estate before his car was spotted on its way out of town. Especially if the lad had been on his back for an hour or more before his body was dumped.’
‘We’ll check the times with the restaurant. We also really need a push on discovering who the boy was and where he came from.’
Annie spread her hands. ‘We’re doing all we can. Gerry’s been in touch with all the refugee and immigrant agencies in the area, official and unofficial, asylum-seeker hostels and the rest. We have his picture out in the media and we’ve put out a request for all officers working in high-concentration Middle Eastern areas to put out the word, canvass the mosques and so on. It’s a lot of ground to cover. Takes time. I don’t see what more we can do. For Christ’s sake, somebody must be missing him.’
‘Maybe not, if he travelled alone,’ said Banks. ‘Sometimes families send someone on ahead. Maybe he was hoping to contact a relative in the area? An uncle, grandparent, someone like that, who’s already settled here.’
‘But no one’s come forward yet.’
‘That’s the problem. Maybe they don’t watch the news or read the papers. Maybe they don’t speak English too well. Maybe they’re afraid of the authorities. I can’t say I’d blame them. Anyway, keep at it. What’s the latest on this other case?’
A mother with two children — one in a pram — took the table next to theirs and smiled apologetically, as if she already knew that her arrival would be interrupting a serious conversation. But the children seemed quiet and well-behaved, the baby sleeping and the toddler working on a colouring book. Their mother spent most of her time staring at the screen of her mobile as she sipped her cappuccino. Banks and Annie lowered their voices, though both of them knew it was unlikely that anyone could overhear. The coffee grinders and espresso machine, along with the constant comings and goings, saw to that.
‘Bloke called Howard Stokes,’ said Annie. ‘I got Gerry on it this morning. Turns out he was a long-term heroin user. Usual pattern of recovery and recidivism. On and off the wagon. Back and forth between heroin and prescription methadone, depending on how much money he had. A few drug-free stretches. A couple of brief jail sentences for drug-related offences when he was younger, but nothing for years. Rehab clinics and so on, but nothing seriously illegal. No known dealing. No complaints against him. No recent arrests. Personal use only. And as far as we know, he didn’t resort to muggings or petty theft to feed his habit. Way it seems is he started in the late sixties and never stopped. Strikes me he never heard the bell announcing the end of flower power. From what we could tell at the scene, he didn’t pay much attention to his health or personal hygiene.’