On working days, detectives returned to the Upper Swainsdale District Rifle and Pistol Club and interviewed more members who had known Martin Edgeworth. They also talked to just about everyone in the village of Swainshead. But they learned very little. He came from a normal middle-class background in Spalding, Lincolnshire. His parents, both deceased, were decent, law-abiding members of the community who did the best they could for their only child. Edgeworth was well behaved at school, the local comprehensive, and always came in the top five at the end-of-term exams. He showed some skill at cricket, a bit less at rugby. He came second in his graduating class at dental college. After a few years on his own, he started a successful partnership with Jonathan Martell, then retired three years ago. He gave generously to charities such as Save the Children and the British Heart Foundation, and his hobbies included military history, shooting, rambling, golf and photography.
All efforts to forge a connection between Edgeworth and any of the dead or wounded members of the wedding party came to nothing. The counter-terrorist officers and spooks packed up shop and went back home to London. They said they wouldn’t be back unless something new came up to connect the St Mary’s shooting with terrorism, though they doubted it would.
Edgeworth’s son and daughter came to Eastvale to identify the body and kick up a fuss. Their father couldn’t possibly have done such a terrible thing, they argued. The police must have got something wrong. They refused to talk to the media. Connie, the ex-wife, never showed up at all. Banks and Annie visited her in Carlisle and came away feeling they had wasted their time. She could shed no light on why Edgeworth might have done what he did, though she was quick to point out his deficiencies as a husband: ‘selfish, pompous and lousy in bed’. Most of all, she was terrified of being publicly connected with Edgeworth in any way. She had quickly forged a new life for herself with Norman Lavalle, a New Age chiropractor, who had a lucrative practice among a wealthy clientele of the north-west. She didn’t want anyone to know about her previous existence as the wife of a dentist turned mass murderer. Unfortunately, less than a week after their visit, Banks spotted a well-illustrated feature on her in one of the less discriminating Sunday newspapers.
To the media, Edgeworth remained a fascinating mystery: an enigma, the mass murderer who defied all definition. To some of the more sensational reporters, he became the killer who made a mockery of criminal profiling, which hardly thrilled Jenny Fuller. Adrian Moss turned out to be right. As the bloodshed receded in people’s minds, the media did their best to keep the story alive by asking questions about police actions on the day of the murders and by examining Edgeworth’s life in detail for anything that might help to explain the grotesque act he had committed. They were no more successful than Gerry had been, though some of them were far more willing to play fast and loose with the truth when the occasion demanded it.
While Banks was as perplexed as the next person about Edgeworth’s motives, certain aspects of the case nagged away at him — a small but insistent voice almost, but not quite, drowned out the louder cries. He didn’t know what it was, but there was something fishy about the whole business.
On Christmas Eve, Banks attended the midnight service at St Agnes, in Helmthorpe. He wasn’t especially religious — and nor was Ray, who went with him — but he enjoyed the sense of community in the crowded church, the fine organ playing, the choir and all the old familiar songs from his childhood — ‘Once in Royal David’s City’, ‘O Little Town of Bethlehem’, ‘Silent Night’ — rekindling his childhood memories of the tiny fake Christmas tree with its tinsel and lights, Uncle Ted having too much port and lemonade to drink, and Aunt Ellen’s raucous laughter as they played charades.
Penny Cartwright and Linda Palmer were at the service, too, and afterwards Banks and Ray were invited back to Penny’s for mulled wine, Christmas cake and a bit of a wassail. Some of Penny’s folk-community friends turned up and sang traditional Yorkshire Christmas songs, one of them a favourite of Banks’s from a Kate Rusby album, called ‘Serving Girl’s Holiday’. They continued singing and drinking well into the night, and Banks and Ray wandered home though the churchyard, both slightly tipsy, singing the schoolboy version of ‘Good King Wenceslas’. When they got back, they rather foolishly poured another drink and put A Christmas Carol on the DVD player. Banks was asleep before the Spirit of Christmas Present appeared.
As a consequence, on Christmas morning Banks and Ray were both hung-over, but Ray still managed to cook an excellent Christmas dinner, turkey and all the trimmings, and Annie drove out to Gratly to join them. They pulled crackers, wore silly hats and read out bad jokes, and again they drank and ate too much. Annie spent the night in the spare room. On Boxing Day, Banks made time to visit his parents in Durham, feeling guilty as usual because he didn’t go to see them often enough.
Whenever the commercial onslaught of the season sagged, and whenever Banks’s thoughts about the St Mary’s Massacre ebbed, Emily was waiting right there in the wings. Most of his memories of her were warm with summer sunshine and sweet air, lazy afternoons on the grass in Regent’s Park or Hyde Park with her head on his lap and all well with the world, but they had also been together through two winters. He remembered in particular one magical bone-chilling night when they were both home for the holidays and escaped from their respective family Christmases to go for a walk over the rec. Despite the amber glow of the street lamps surrounding the field, the black velvet sky was scattered with bright stars and the frozen puddles crackled under their feet. They kissed for a while in the old bandstand, warming each other, smoked a cigarette or two, then went back to re-join their families. Whenever Banks heard the sound of ice cracking underfoot, and whenever he heard Simon and Garfunkel’s ‘For Emily, Whenever I May Find Her’, he thought of that cold amber night all those years ago, and the memory warmed his heart rather than chilled it.
Things didn’t start moving again at the station until a few days later. Naturally, there had been a number of incidents over the holiday period — domestics, a pub fight or two — but none of them had required the expertise of Homicide and Major Crimes.
Then, just a few days into the new year, Banks received a phone call from Dr Glendenning that brought the St Mary’s case back to the forefront of his thoughts again.
The Unicorn, across the road from Eastvale General Infirmary, was a run-down street-corner Victorian pub clad in dull green tiles, with wobbly chairs and cigarette-scarred wooden tables inside. Most of its clientele consisted of hospital workers, including nurses and doctors, especially after a late shift at A & E. It was hardly the sort of place to impress a date, but the landlord kept a decent pint, and there was no loud music or video games to make conversation difficult.
On a Thursday lunchtime early in January, when Banks went there in response to the phone call from Dr Glendenning, the only other customers were a couple of orderlies and a table of pupils from the comprehensive school playing truant. They probably weren’t old enough to be drinking, but it was hard to tell these days. He didn’t care if they were underage; he had managed to get served in pubs and get in to X-certificate films when he was sixteen. Good luck to them.
Dr Glendenning was already waiting in the corner with a tumbler of whisky in front of him. Banks went to the bar and bought a pint of Timothy Taylor’s Landlord Bitter and joined him.