She sat behind her desk in the large carpeted office, swivelling occasionally in her executive chair. After her assistant had brought coffee, Norma pulled out a long cigarette and lit up. ‘One of the pleasures of being the boss,’ she said. ‘The buggers can’t make you stop smoking.’
‘You’ve heard about Kim Fosse, I take it?’ Banks asked.
‘On the local news last night. Poor Kim.’ She shook her head.
‘We’re puzzled about a few things. Maybe you can help us?’
‘I’ll try.’
‘Did you notice her taking many photographs at the convention?’
Norma Cheverel frowned. ‘I can’t say as I did, really, but there were quite a few people taking photographs there, especially at the banquet. You know how people get silly at conventions. I never could understand this mania for capturing the moment. Can you, Chief Inspector?’
Banks, whose wife, Sandra, was a photographer, could understand it only too well, though he would have quibbled with ‘capturing the moment’. A good photographer, a real photographer, Sandra had often said, did much more than that; she transformed the moment. But he let the aesthetics lie.
Norma Cheverel was right about the photo mania, though. Banks had also noticed that since the advent of cheap, idiot-proof cameras every Tom, Dick and Harry had started taking photos indoors. He had been half-blinded a number of times by a group of tourists ‘capturing the moment’ in some pub or restaurant. It was almost as bad as the mobile-phone craze, though not quite.
‘Did Kim Fosse share this mania?’ he asked.
‘She had a fancy new camera. She took it with her. That’s all I can say, really. Look, I don’t-’
‘Bear with me, Ms Cheverel.’
‘Norma, please.’
Banks, who reserved the familiarity of first-name terms to exercise power over suspects, not to interview witnesses, went on. ‘Do you know if she had affairs?’
This time Norma Cheverel let the silence stretch. Banks could hear the fan cooling the microchip in her computer. She stubbed out her long cigarette, careful to make sure it wasn’t still smouldering, sipped some coffee, swivelled a little, and said, ‘Yes. Yes, she did. Though I wouldn’t really describe them as affairs.’
‘How would you describe them?’
‘Just little flings, really. Nothing that really meant anything to her.’
‘Who with?’
‘She didn’t usually mention names.’
‘Did she have a fling in London last weekend?’
‘Yes. She told me about it on the way home. Look, Chief Inspector, Kim wasn’t a bad person. She just needed something David couldn’t give her.’
Banks took a photograph of the man in the navy blue suit from his briefcase and slid it across the desk. ‘Know him?’
‘It’s Michael Bannister. He’s with an office-furnishings company in Preston.’
‘And did Kim Fosse have a fling with him that weekend?’
Norma swivelled and bit her lip. ‘She didn’t tell me it was him.’
‘Surprised?’
She shrugged. ‘He’s married. Not that that means much these days. I’ve heard he’s very much in love with his wife, but she’s not very strong. Heart condition, or something.’ She sniffled, then sneezed and reached for a tissue.
‘What did Kim tell you about last weekend?’
Norma Cheverel smiled an odd, twisted little smile from the corner of her lips. ‘Oh, Chief Inspector, do you really want all the details? Girl talk about sex is so much dirtier than men’s, you know.’
Though he felt himself reddening a little, Banks said, ‘So I’ve been told. Did she ever express concern about her husband finding out?’
‘Oh, yes. She told me under no circumstances to tell David. As if I would. He’s very jealous and he has a temper.’
‘Was he ever violent towards her?’
‘Just once. It was the last time we went to a convention, as a matter of fact. Apparently he tried to phone her in her room after midnight – some emergency to do with the dog – and she wasn’t there. When she got home he lost his temper, called her a whore and hit her.’
‘How long had they been married?’
Norma sniffled again and blew her nose. ‘Four years.’
‘How long have you and Kim Fosse been in business together?’
‘Six years. We started when she was still Kim Church. She’d just got her MBA.’
‘How did the partnership work?’
‘Very well. I’m on the financial side and Kim dealt with sales and marketing.’
‘Are you married?’
‘I don’t see that it’s any of your business, Chief Inspector, but no, I’m not. I guess Mr Right just hasn’t turned up yet,’ she said coldly, then looked at her gold wristwatch. ‘Are there any more questions?’
Banks stood up. ‘No, that’s all for now. Thank you very much for your time.’
She stood up and walked around the desk to show him to the door. Her handshake on leaving was a little brisker and cooler than it had been when he arrived.
4
‘So Kim Fosse was discreet, but she took photographs,’ said Susan when they met up in Banks’s office later that morning. ‘Kinky?’
‘Could be. Or just careless. They’re pretty harmless, really.’ The seven photographs from the film they had found inside the camera showed the same man in the hotel room on the same date, 14/11/93.
‘Michael Bannister,’ Susan read from her notes. ‘Sales director for Office Comforts Ltd, based in Preston, Lancashire. Lives in Blackpool with his wife, Lucy. No children. His wife suffers from a congenital heart condition, needs constant pills and medicines, lots of attention. His workmates tell me he’s devoted to her.’
‘A momentary lapse, then?’ Banks suggested. He walked over to his broken Venetian blind and looked out on the rainswept market square. Only two cars were parked there today. The gold hands on the blue face of the church clock stood at eleven thirty-nine.
‘It happens, sir. Maybe more often than we think.’
‘I know. Reckon we’d better go easy approaching him?’
‘No sense endangering the wife’s health, is there?’
‘You’re right. See if you can arrange to see him at his office.’ Banks looked out of the window and shivered. ‘I don’t much fancy a trip to the seaside in this miserable weather anyway.’
5
The drive across the Pennines was a nightmare. All the way along the A59 they seemed to be stuck behind one lorry or another churning up gallons of filthy spray. Around Clitheroe, visibility was so poor that traffic slowed to a crawl. The hulking whale-shapes of the hills that flanked the road were reduced to faint grey outlines in the rain-haze. Banks played his Miles Davis Birth of the Cool tape, which Susan seemed to enjoy. At least, she didn’t complain.
The office building on Ribbleton Lane, just east of the city centre, was three-storey red-brick. The receptionist directed them to Bannister’s office on the second floor.
In the anteroom, a woman sat clicking away at a computer keyboard. Curly-haired, plump, in her forties. She came over and welcomed them. ‘Hello, I’m Carla Jacobs. I’m Mr Bannister’s secretary. He’s in with someone at the moment, but he won’t be a minute. He knows you’re coming.’
Banks and Susan looked at the framed photographs of company products and awards on the walls as they waited. All the time, Banks sensed Carla Jacobs staring at the back of his head. After a couple of minutes, he turned around just in time to see her avert her gaze.
‘Is anything wrong?’ he asked.
She blushed. ‘No. Well, not really. I mean, don’t think I’m being nosy, but is Mr Bannister in some kind of trouble?’
‘Why do you ask?’
‘It’s just that I’m a good friend of Lucy’s, that’s Mr Bannister’s wife, and I don’t know if you know, but-’