I light a Gauloise. Cough a little. What does it matter if I get lung cancer now? I’m already as good as dead. After a few puffs, the cigarette even starts to taste good, brings back, as tastes and smells do so well, even more memories of the cafes and nights of 1968. I begin to wonder whatever happened to that silk scarf I left in the drawer at my pension. I wish I could smell her jasmine scent again.
Outside, the girl’s lover arrives. He is young and handsome and he waves his arms as he apologizes for being late. She is sulky at first, but she brightens and kisses him. He runs his hand down her smooth, olive cheek and I can smell tear gas again.
THE GOOD PARTNER
1
The louring sky was black as a tax inspector’s heart when Detective Chief Inspector Alan Banks pulled up outside 17 Oakley Crescent at eight o’clock one mid-November evening. An icy wind whipped up the leaves and set them skittering around his feet as he walked up the path to the glass-panelled door.
Detective Constable Susan Gay was waiting for him inside, and Peter Darby, the police photographer, was busy with his new video recorder. Between the glass coffee table and the brick fireplace lay the woman’s body, blood matting the hair around her left temple. Banks put on his latex gloves, then bent and picked up the object beside her. The bronze plaque read, ‘Eastvale Golf Club, 1991 Tournament. Winner: David Fosse.’ There was blood on the base of the trophy. The man Banks assumed to be David Fosse sat on the sofa staring into space.
A pile of photographs lay on the table. Banks picked them up and flipped through them. Each was dated 13/11/93 across the bottom. The first few showed group scenes – red-eyed people eating, drinking and dancing at a banquet of some kind – but the last ones told a different story. Two showed a handsome young man in a navy blue suit, white shirt and garish tie, smiling lecherously at the photographer from behind a glass of whisky. Then the scene shifted to a hotel room, where the man had loosened his tie. None of the other diners were to be seen. In the last picture, he had also taken off his jacket. The date had changed to 14/11/93.
Banks turned to the man on the sofa. ‘Are you David Fosse?’ he asked.
There was a pause while the man seemed to return from a great distance. ‘Yes,’ he said finally.
‘Can you identify the victim?’
‘It’s my wife, Kim.’
‘What happened?’
‘I… I was out taking the dog for a walk. When I got back I found…’ He gestured towards the floor.
‘When did you go out?’
‘Quarter to seven, as usual. I got back about half past and found her like this.’
‘Was your wife in when you left?’
‘Yes.’
‘Was she expecting any visitors?’
He shook his head.
Banks held out the photos. ‘Have you seen these?’
Fosse turned away and grunted.
‘Who took them? What do they mean?’
Fosse stared at the Axminster.
‘Mr Fosse?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘This date, 13 November. Last Saturday. Is that significant?’
‘My wife was at a business convention in London last weekend. I assume they’re the pictures she took.’
‘What kind of convention?’
‘She’s involved in servicing home offices and small businesses. Servicing,’ he sneered. ‘Now there’s an apt term.’
Banks singled out the man in the gaudy tie. ‘Do you know who this is?’
‘No.’ Fosse’s face darkened and both his hands curled into fists. ‘No, but if I ever get hold of him-’
‘Mr Fosse, did you argue with your wife about the man in these photographs?’
Fosse’s mouth dropped. ‘They weren’t here when I left.’
‘How do you explain their presence now?’
‘I don’t know. She must have got them out while I was taking Jasper for a walk.’
Banks looked around the room and saw a camera on the sideboard, a Canon. It looked like an expensive auto-focus model. He picked it up carefully and put it in a plastic bag. ‘Is this yours?’ he asked Fosse.
Fosse looked at the camera. ‘It’s my wife’s. I bought it for her birthday. Why? What are you doing with it?’
‘It may be evidence,’ said Banks, pointing at the exposure indicator. ‘Seven pictures have been taken on a new film. I have to ask you again, Mr Fosse, did you argue with your wife about the man in these photos?’
‘And I’ll tell you again. How could I? They weren’t there when I went out, and she was dead when I got back.’
The dog barked from the kitchen. The front door opened and Dr Glendenning walked in, a tall, imposing figure with white hair and a nicotine-stained moustache.
Glendenning glanced sourly at Banks and Susan and complained about being dragged out on such a night. Banks apologized. Though Glendenning was a Home Office pathologist, and a lowly police surgeon could pronounce death, Banks knew that Glendenning would never have forgiven them had they not called him.
As the Scene-of-Crime team arrived, Banks turned to David Fosse and said, ‘I think we’d better carry on with this down at headquarters.’
Fosse shrugged and stood up to get his coat. As they left, Banks heard Glendenning mutter, ‘A golf trophy. A bloody golf trophy! Sacrilege.’
2
‘Do you think he did it, sir?’ Susan Gay asked Banks.
Banks swirled the inch of Theakston’s XB at the bottom of his glass and watched the patterns it made. ‘I don’t know. He certainly had means, motive and opportunity. But something about it makes me uneasy.’
It was almost closing time, and Banks and Susan sat in the warm glow of the Queen’s Arms having a late dinner of microwaved steak and kidney pud, courtesy of Cyril, the landlord, who was used to their unsociable hours. Outside, rain lashed against the red and amber window panes.
Banks pushed his plate away and lit a cigarette. He was tired. The Fosse call had come in just as he was about to go home after a long day of paperwork and boring meetings.
They had learned little more during a two-hour interrogation at the station. Kim Fosse had left for London on Friday and returned on Monday with her business partner, Norma Cheverel. The convention had been held at the Ludbridge Hotel in Kensington.
David Fosse maintained his innocence, but sexual jealousy made a strong motive, and now he was languishing in the cells under Eastvale Divisional Headquarters. Languish was perhaps too strong a word, as the cells were as comfortable as many bed and breakfasts, and the food and service much better. The only problem was that you couldn’t open the door and go for a walk in the Yorkshire Dales when you felt like it.
They learned from the house-to-house that Fosse did walk the dog – several people had seen him – and not even Dr Glendenning could pinpoint time of death to within the forty-five minutes he was out of the house.
Fosse could have murdered his wife before he left or when he got home. He could also have nipped back around the rear, where a path ran by the river, got into the house unseen the back way, then resumed his walk.
‘Time, ladies and gentlemen please,’ called Cyril, ringing his bell behind the bar. ‘And that includes coppers.’
Banks smiled and finished his beer. ‘There’s not a lot more we can do tonight, anyway,’ he said. ‘I think I’ll go home and get some sleep.’
‘I’ll do the same.’ Susan reached for her overcoat.
‘First thing in the morning,’ said Banks, ‘we’ll have a word with Norma Cheverel, see if she can throw any light on what happened in London last weekend.’
3
Norma Cheverel was an attractive woman in her early thirties with a tousled mane of red hair, a high freckled forehead and the greenest eyes Banks had ever seen. Contact lenses, he decided uncharitably, perhaps to diminish the sense of sexual energy he felt emanate from her.