‘I did say it was limited experience. And don’t ask.’
‘But Quinn got set up.’
‘Indeed. What is it? What are you thinking?’
Banks hadn’t realised that his expression had so clearly indicated a sudden thought. ‘Two things,’ he said. ‘A conference in France — Lyon — with Ken Blackstone, among others, and the Rachel Hewitt case.’
‘The girl who disappeared from the hen weekend in Tallinn?’
‘That’s the one.’
‘I’ve been to Tallinn once,’ said Annie. ‘Lovely city.’
‘I didn’t know that.’
‘You don’t know everything about me.’
‘Obviously not. When was this?’
‘A few years ago. After Rachel Hewitt disappeared.’
‘Hen party?’
‘Do I look like a hen?’
‘What, then?’
‘Dirty weekend.’
‘The married man?’
‘Mind your own business.’
‘Anyway, there might be other trips Quinn made abroad, in addition to Lyon and Tallinn. We’ll ask around. Thanks for the tip. That’s a good line of enquiry, and I’ll see it gets priority, and that your name is mentioned in dispatches.’
Annie put her mug down and stretched. ‘All I wanted to hear. And now I’d better go.’
‘You sure? No more tea? One for the road?’
‘I’m tired. I really think I’d better get going. I’ve got a massage appointment at St Peter’s tomorrow afternoon.’ Annie stood up, took a long look around the conservatory, then headed for the front door. Banks helped her on with her coat. It was still raining outside, but not so fast now, and the wind had dropped. ‘See you on Monday,’ she said. ‘Maybe I can help run down Bill Quinn’s trips abroad?’ Then she gave him a quick peck on the cheek. ‘Remember, watch out for the blonde,’ she said and dashed outside. He watched until her car disappeared down the drive, waved, and went back inside. She’d given him a lot to think about, he had to admit. In the initial flurry of questions, information and possibilities, he had neglected to zoom in on the important psychological details the way Annie had.
It was just after eleven o’clock on Friday night, and he didn’t feel like going out. Helmthorpe would be closing down for the night, anyway, unless they had a lock-in at the Duck and Drake. But Banks didn’t feel like company. Instead, he made a detour through the entertainment room and pressed PLAY again with Ashore still in the CD player. ‘Finisterre’ piped through the good quality speakers in the conservatory, where the rain was now no more than a pattering of mice’s feet. The tea had been nice, but he poured himself another glass of Malbec and settled down to listen to the music and think about what Annie had said. He did his best thinking when he was listening to music and drinking wine.
Chapter 4
‘Are you sure this is the right place?’ asked Banks.
‘According to the phone company, yes.’
‘But it’s...’
‘I know,’ said Winsome. ‘Apparently, it’s won prizes, though.’
Banks gave her a quizzical glance. ‘Prizes?’
‘Yes. It’s quite famous. A tourist attraction.’
Banks opened the door and glanced inside. ‘Bloody hell, I can see what you mean.’
‘That’s why it’s famous,’ said Winsome, smiling.
The old red telephone box abutted the end wall of a terrace of cottages in the village of Ingleby, not far from Lyndgarth. The paintwork and the window panes were as clean as could be, not a scratch or a greasy fingerprint in sight. Inside, there was a carpet on the little square of floor, a vase of fresh-cut pink and purple flowers on the shelf by the directory, a box for donations, and an empty waste paper bin. Banks shook the donations box. It rattled with coins. The whole place smelled clean and lemony, and all the surfaces shone every bit as much as the outside, as if recently polished. There was even a functioning telephone, as shiny black as could be, and no doubt sanitised, too. In almost every other telephone box Banks had seen over the past few years, the cash box, if there was one, had been broken into and the phone ripped, or cut, from its connecting wire. The donations box wouldn’t have lasted five minutes, either.
What was more, Bill Quinn had received two telephone calls on his mobile from this very box over the past ten days, the last one on Tuesday evening, the day before he had been killed. There were other calls, of course, including several to and from his son or daughter, and one from an untraceable mobile number on the morning of the day he died, but this one seemed really odd. The team was already checking to find out what other calls had been made from the telephone box in the past ten days, especially around the same time as the calls to Bill Quinn.
Ingleby was a beautiful village, slate roofs gleaming in the morning sunshine, still a little damp from last night’s rain, limestone cottages scrubbed and rinsed clean by the wind and rain, the gardens neat and already colourful, though it was still only late April, ready to burst forth in spectacular fashion as soon as summer arrived. Smoke curled up from one or two of the chimneys, as there was still a slight nip in the air. Behind the village, the daleside rose steeply through green and sere slopes to the rocky outcrops that marked the beginnings of the moorland. A narrow track wound up the hill, then split and ran along the daleside in both directions, about halfway up. Cloud-shadows drifted slowly across the backdrop on the light breeze.
Banks felt as if he were in a place where nothing had changed for centuries, though the telephone box was clear evidence that they had. No signs of vandalism, neat gardens, obviously tended with pride. No wonder Ingleby had won the prettiest village award more than once. There were people in the cities who didn’t know, or even believe, that such places existed. Everybody believed in the urban landscape, with its no-go areas, dodgy council estates, riots, looting, terrorist hot beds, street gangs, people who would mug you as soon as look at you, and people who would kick the shit out of you if you so much as glanced at them. But this was something else. This was Arcadia.
Banks remembered the stories in a book he had read recently about wartime evacuees sent from the cities to the country panicking when they saw a cow or an apple tree because they had never experienced such things in their natural environment before. They thought that cows were no bigger than dogs or cats, and that apples grew in wooden boxes. Of course, there were other people, mainly in America, who believed that all of England was like this. The fact was that, while such pastoral idylls did exist in many pockets of the country, even in places as picturesque as Ingleby appearances could be deceptive; even in the prettiest villages there were things under the surface that didn’t bear close examination. As Sherlock Holmes had once observed about the countryside in general; there were stones you didn’t want to turn over, cupboards you didn’t want to open.
Banks took a deep breath of fresh air. ‘We’d better get the CSIs to come and check out the telephone box,’ he said. ‘I doubt we’ll find anything, the way it’s been cleaned and polished, but it’s worth a try.’
‘I suppose we’d better start asking a few questions, too,’ Winsome said. ‘Shouldn’t take long, a place this size. Should we ask her to help?’ She nodded in the direction of Inspector Passero, who had insisted on accompanying them from Eastvale and was now standing back, checking her mobile for texts.
‘I don’t think so,’ said Banks. ‘Let’s just keep her at a distance for now. She can tag along, but I don’t want her taking any leads.’ At least Joanna was wearing more appropriate clothing today, Banks had noticed, though even to someone as unversed as he was in matters of style and design, its quality and fashion cred were unmistakable. With her skintight designer jeans disappearing into tan leather boots a little below her knees, and the green roll-neck jumper under the light brown suede jacket, all she needed was a riding-cap and crop and she would be ready to set off on the morning gallops out Middleham way.