“That won’t be necessary,” said Banks. “This isn’t about Christine’s drug supplies. We know she got her last score from a dealer in Eastvale.”
“It’s just a damn shame you can’t put these people away before they do the damage,” said Aspern.
“That would assume we know who the criminals are going to be before they commit their crimes,” said Banks, thinking of the film Minority Report, which he had seen with Michelle a few weeks ago.
“If you ask me, it’s pretty bloody obvious in most cases,” said Aspern. “Even if this Siddons didn’t start the fire, you can be damn sure he did something. He’s got criminal written all over him, that one.”
More than once Banks, like his colleagues, had acted on the premise that if the person they had in custody hadn’t committed the particular crime he was charged with, it didn’t matter, because the police knew he had committed other crimes, and had no evidence to charge him with them. In police logic, the crime they were convicted for, the one they didn’t commit, made up for all the crimes they had committed and got away with. It was easier in the old days, of course, before the Police and Criminal Evidence Act gave the criminals more rights than the police, and the Crown Prosecution Service wouldn’t touch anything with less than a hundred-percent possibility of conviction, but it still happened, if you could get away with it. “We’d have to overhaul the legal system,” he said, “if we wanted to put people who haven’t done anything away without a trial. But let’s get back to the matter in hand. Did you know of anyone who’d want to hurt Christine, Mrs. Aspern?”
“We didn’t know her… the friends she made after she left,” she answered. “But I can’t imagine anyone would want to harm her, no.”
“Dr. Aspern?”
“Me, neither.”
“There was an artist on the adjacent boat. All we know is that his name was Tom. Do you know anything about him?”
“Never heard of him,” said Patrick Aspern.
“What about Andrew Hurst? He lives nearby.”
“I never saw anyone.”
“When did you last visit the boat?” Banks asked him.
“Last week. Thursday, I believe.”
“Why?”
“What do you mean, why?” Aspern said. “She’s my stepdaughter. I was concerned. I wanted to persuade her to come home.”
“Did you ever see the neighbor on one of your visits?”
“Look, you’re making it sound as if I was a regular visitor. I only went up there a couple of times to try to persuade Christine to come home, and that… thug she was with threatened me.”
“With what?”
“Violence, of course. I mean, I’m not a coward or a weakling or anything, but I wouldn’t put it past someone like him to have a knife, or even a gun.”
“You didn’t go there yesterday?”
“Of course not.”
“What kind of car do you drive?”
“A Jaguar XJ8.”
“Did you ever visit the boat, Mrs. Aspern?” Banks asked.
Before Frances Aspern could answer, her husband jumped in. “I went by myself,” he said. “Frances has a nervous disposition. Confrontations upset her. Besides, she couldn’t bear to see how Christine was living.”
“Is this true, Mrs. Aspern?” Banks asked.
Frances Aspern nodded.
“Look,” said Dr. Aspern, “you can see we’re upset over the news. Can’t you just go away and leave us in peace for a while, to grieve?”
“I’m afraid you’ll have to save that for later,” said Banks. “When I’ve finished here, I’d like one or both of you to follow me up to Eastvale and identify the body.”
Mrs. Aspern touched her chalklike cheek. “You said it was a fire.”
“Yes,” said Banks. “I’m sorry. There is some disfiguration. Not much, but some.”
“I’ll go, darling,” said Aspern, resting his hand on her knee. “I can cancel surgery. I’m sure everyone will understand.”
She shook him off. “No. I’ll go.”
“But you’re upset, dear. I’m a doctor. I can deal with these things. I’ve been trained.”
She shot him a scornful glance. “Deal with? Is that all this means to you? I said I’ll go, Mr. Banks. Can you take me and have someone bring me back? I’m afraid I’m far too upset to drive myself.”
“At least let me drive you,” her husband pleaded.
“I don’t want you there,” she said. “Christine was my daughter.”
There. It was said. And it lay heavily between them like an undigested meal. “As you wish,” said Patrick Aspern.
“Are you certain it couldn’t have been an accident?” Mrs. Aspern asked, turning to Banks. “I still can’t believe that anyone would want to harm Christine.”
“Anything can happen when drugs enter the equation,” said Banks. “And that’s another angle we’ll be looking at. There’s also a strong possibility that Christine wasn’t the intended victim.”
“What do you mean?” asked Aspern.
“I can’t say much more at this point,” said Banks. “We still have a lot of forensic tests to do and a lot of questions to ask. At the moment, we’re simply trying to get as much information as possible about the people who lived on the boats. When we know more, we’ll know where to focus our investigation, which line of inquiry to follow.”
“I can’t believe this is happening,” said Aspern.
His wife stood up. “I’m ready to go,” she said to Banks, then added, looking at her husband, “you can get back to your patients now, Patrick.”
He started to say something, but she turned her back and walked out of the room.
Mark’s cell was small and basic, but comfortable enough. It smelled a bit – a hint of urine, vomit and stale alcohol – but they were old smells. At least it was clean, and he wasn’t shut in with a gang of sexually frustrated bikers with fourteen-inch penises. There were a couple of drunks down the corridor, even at that time in the afternoon. One of them kept singing “Your Cheatin’ Heart” over and over again until one of the officers made him shut up. After that, Mark could hear them snore or call out in their sleep from time to time, but other than those few irritations, things remained fairly quiet. All in all, it wasn’t so bad. The only thing was, he couldn’t go out when he wanted. It was like home, until he plucked up the courage to take on his mother and Crazy Nick and made his final break.
Mark tried, but sleep just wouldn’t come. Most of his thoughts centered on Tina and the news the policeman had given him of her death. Of course, he had known it, known as soon as he got to the woods and saw the firemen and the smoldering barges that she had to be dead. But he had tried to deny it to himself; now he had to face it and accept it: he would never see Tina again.
And it was his fault.
Tina. So gentle, so frail and so birdlike, it broke his heart that he had been unfaithful to her and hurt her and would never get the chance to put things right, to tell her he was sorry and that he loved her, only her, not Mandy or anyone else. Tina trusted him, needed him and depended on him. He got her through the bad times, and when there were good times – which there were – they laughed together, and some-times went on walks in the country and drank screw-top wine and ate cheese-slice sandwiches beside a crystal stream.
Sometimes they seemed to live an almost normal life, the kind of life Mark wanted for them. In his dreams, he got a steady job in Eastvale, maybe working on church restoration, got Tina straight, then they rented a little flat. When the first baby came, they had saved enough for a small semi, maybe by the sea. At least that was how he saw their life developing. He knew he’d be taking care of Tina forever, because she would always need that, even if she got straight, she was so badly scarred inside; but he could do it, he wanted to do it, and once she kicked the habit she couldn’t help but get stronger. She was intelligent, too, much brighter than he; maybe she could get into the college like Mandy and get a job as a secretary or something. He bet she could work with computers if she put her mind to it.