Lenny Knox was a subcontractor, a big, burly Liverpudlian with a face like red sandpaper, who usually worked every day God sent until the job was done. Sure enough, he was having a smoke by what were to be the showers and locker rooms when Mark came over. Vinnie Daly, one of his other workmates, put down his spanner when he saw Mark.
“Where you been, mate?” Lenny asked. “We was worried sick when we heard about the fire, weren’t we, Vinnie? They wouldn’t say on the news who got hurt, like. You all right?”
“I’m all right,” said Mark. “Police took me in, didn’t they? Kept me overnight.”
“The bastards.”
“It wasn’t so bad.”
“What about your young lass?”
Mark looked down at the unfinished floor. “She’s dead, Lenny.”
“Oh, no,” said Lenny, touching Mark on the shoulder. “Poor wee devil. I’m sorry, son, really I am. She were a nice lass.”
Mark looked at him, holding back the tears. “I wasn’t there, Lenny. I wasn’t there for her.”
“It’s not your fault, what happened. Look, if you need somewhere to kip, you know, for a couple of days, like, I’m sure my Sal won’t mind.”
“You sure, Lenny? ’Cos I’ve got nowhere else to go right now.”
“Yeah, it’s okay. Look, you don’t want to be here today. Take yourself off, if you like, and come round to ours later.”
“No. I want to work. What else would I do? Where would I go? Besides, it’ll take my mind off things for a while at least. And I need the money.” The last was certainly true, but whether work would take his mind off his problems, Mark didn’t know. How could anything stop him from thinking about Tina?
Lenny looked down at him. “Of course,” he said. “Of course. Right. Look, why don’t you pick up those showerheads over there and come with me.”
Late Saturday morning, after warning Mark Siddons and setting a slowly recovering DS Hatchley the task of digging into the boy’s background, Banks headed for Adel again. Maria Phillips, true to her word, had left him the catalog and the names of three local artists whose openings Thomas McMahon had attended in Eastvale over the past five years. Unfortunately, there was no photograph of McMahon in the catalog. Apparently, people were not particularly interested in what artists looked like unless they painted self-portraits.
Banks wanted another crack at Dr. Patrick Aspern, without his wife present this time, if possible, and with the gloves off. Aspern wasn’t off his suspect list yet, not by a long chalk.
As Banks drove, he listened to Bob Dylan singing about being in Mississippi for a day too long and thought he knew the feeling. Not so much being in Yorkshire too long – he was still happy there – but staying with something or someone until long after you should have left, let go, when it all falls to pieces and the real damage gets done.
He pulled up outside the Tudor-style house, and this time Patrick Aspern himself answered the door, casually dressed in gray trousers, white shirt and a mauve V-neck sweater. He looked as if he was dressed for a round of golf, and he probably was. Banks suspected there would be no surgery on weekends.
“My wife’s lying down,” said Dr. Aspern, clearly surprised to see Banks back so soon. “This has all been a great shock to her, you know, especially seeing Christine, the state the body was in. If only she’d listened to me, at least she might have been spared that.”
“A shock to you, too, I should imagine?” said Banks. “I mean, Christine’s death.”
“Yes, of course. But we men realize we have to get on with our jobs, don’t we? Can’t afford to dwell on our emotions the way women do. Anyway, I can’t imagine how I can help you, but do come in.”
Banks followed him into the same room he had been in the previous day. The clock ticking on the mantelpiece was the only sound.
“Have you found anything out yet?” Aspern asked.
“Not much, I’m afraid,” said Banks. “We do know that the man on the other boat was an artist called Thomas McMahon, and that he was most likely the intended victim. Have you ever met him or heard of him?”
“McMahon? Can’t say as I have.”
“I’d like to talk to you about Mark Siddons a bit more,” Banks said.
Aspern’s expression darkened. “If anyone’s responsible for what happened to Christine, it’s him,” he said. “I’ve been thinking about it. If he’d been with her, as he should have been, she’d be alive today. He knew she was ill, for crying out loud, knew she needed taking care of.”
“I thought you didn’t like the idea of their being together?”
“That’s not the point. If he was supposed to be with her, he should have been there. He knew she wasn’t capable of looking after herself properly. Where was he, anyway?”
Banks was damned if he was going to tell Patrick Aspern that Mark had been in bed with Mandy Patterson at the time of the fire. “His alibi’s been checked,” was all he said. “I take it your surgery is attached to the house?”
Aspern looked surprised by the abrupt change of subject. “Yes. Actually, it was two houses knocked into one. I know it’s rather old-fashioned, but people around here like it. It’s so much more civilized than some anonymous clinic. That’s one of the reasons we bought the houses in the first place.”
“Pretty expensive proposition.”
“Not that it’s any of your business, but Fran’s father helped us out.”
“I see. Very nice of him. Anyway, what I’m getting at is that Christine could have had access to drugs here, couldn’t she? They were in the house, after all.”
Aspern crossed his legs and tugged at the crease of his trousers. “As I told you last time, I keep everything in my surgery under lock and key. The surgery itself is also securely locked when I’m not there.”
“Yes, but presumably the keys are somewhere around?”
“On my key chain. In my pocket.”
“So they’re always with you?”
“Well, almost always. I mean… not when I’m asleep or in the bath…”
“So Christine could have got access, for example, while you were asleep, or out somewhere?”
“I’d have my keys with me if I was out.”
“But there is a possibility, isn’t there? She could even have had copies made.”
“I suppose there’s the possibility. But it didn’t happen.”
“Did you ever notice any drugs missing from your surgery? Specifically morphine?”
“No. And, believe me, I would have noticed.”
“Didn’t you ever notice anything unusual about Christine’s behavior while she was living at home?”
“No, not particularly. She seemed tired, listless, spent a lot of time alone, in bed. You know teenagers. They seem to need sixteen hours’ sleep a day. To be honest, I didn’t even see that much of her.”
“But you’re a doctor. You’re trained to spot signs other people might miss.”
Aspern gave a grim smile. “We’re not infallible, you know, despite what some people think.”
“So you had no idea that Christine was taking drugs?”
“None at all. Like I said, she was a teenager. Teenagers are surly and uncommunicative, whether they’re on drugs or not.”
“What about her eyes? Didn’t you notice dilated pupils?”