‘Excellent,’ said Banks. It was the forensic link he had been hoping for. It wouldn’t offer an easy solution to the case, and perhaps it wouldn’t stand up in court, but it would help them focus, give them a sense of direction and a fruitful line of inquiry. ‘I don’t suppose you can tell the make, year and colour? Licence plate, too, perhaps?’
Nowak laughed. ‘Not the year. Not yet. It’s not a rugged terrain vehicle, though, I can tell you that much. We’ve got the wheelbase measurement and identified the brand of the tyres, ContiSportContact 2. So now we have to see how many car manufacturers use them, but we should be able to come up with a bit more information soon. Going by the size and wheelbase dimensions, I’d say we’re looking at something along the lines of a Ford Focus. All this is still preliminary, of course. Guesswork. We’re working from photographs, and we won’t be able to state with any more certainty until we get the Dentstone KD impressions done.’
Banks scribbled on his notepad. ‘But you think that what you’ve told me is accurate so far?’
‘Ninety per cent.’
‘That’s good enough for me right now.’
‘Oh, I forgot to mention. It’s dark green.’
‘What is?’
‘The car. It’s dark green.’
‘You’re having me on.’
‘Not at all. It brushed against a fencepost and got a little scratch. We’re having the paint analysed as well as the tyre tracks. We can probably get you the make, model and year from the paint reference databases, wheelbase and tyre type, when we’ve got it all itemised, but I’m afraid even that won’t be able to tell us the licence number. Still, taken in combination, it should all help us be a lot more accurate.’
‘I’m impressed,’ said Banks.
‘You should be.’
The coffee arrived. They both took it black, so Banks poured from the metal pot into a couple of mugs and passed one to Nowak. ‘There’s more,’ said Nowak, after he had taken his first sip. ‘I’ve just been having a look through the comparison microscope at fibres from both crime scenes. We found quite a few strands of synthetic fibre, most likely from a cheap, mass-produced overcoat of some kind, stuck to the tree from which we think the killer fired his crossbow. Smedley’s team found similar fibres at Garskill Farm, in the building where the body was found. Doorpost, chair.’
‘So the same person was in both places?’
‘So it would seem. Or the same overcoat. We still have a fair way to go to be certain — spectrographic analysis, dye comparisons and so on — but from what I can see at first glance, the fibres match. I wouldn’t read too much into that as a scientist without all the other things I’ve mentioned. After all, it’s pretty common. These overcoats are mass-produced, as I said, and anyone could buy one from Marks and Spencers or wherever. When we’ve got a better sense of the make-up of the fibre and the dyes used, we’ll start searching the databases and talking to manufacturers and retailers. But all that will take time, and it’s still very unlikely to give us a name. I thought you might want a few preliminary signposts as soon as possible. There are footprints, too. Rather too many to be especially valuable, but their expert thinks some of them match the ones you took from the woods at St Peter’s. Same size and distinctive cut on the sole. He was there, in both places.’
‘You’re a wonder, Stefan.’
‘None of this will stand up in court. I hope you don’t—’
‘Nothing’s going to court. Not for a while. But it sheds a little more light on the cases if we can think of them as definitely connected in this way. Thanks. I’ll need to do a bit of thinking about what all this means.’
‘Smedley’s team also found traces of another vehicle on the driveway at Garskill Farm. Seems it has a slight oil leak, so we’ve got a sample. We’ve also got tyre tracks. This is a larger vehicle altogether, bigger wheelbase and tyres. A good size transit van.’
‘People mover? Big enough for twenty?’
‘Maybe. It’d be a bit of a crush, but when you’ve seen where they were living, I doubt they’d have minded much.’
‘I don’t think they would have had much choice. Will Smedley’s team be able to tell us much more about this other vehicle?’
‘Sure. They’ll do the measurements, the impressions and analysis. I just thought you might like to know that there was someone else there.’
‘Now all we have to do is find him.’
‘Give us time,’ said Nowak, getting to his feet. ‘Give us time. By the way, I’ve been meaning to ask you. Who is that good-looking blonde with the delightful figure I’ve seen about the place the past couple of days? Is she new? Visiting? Permanent? Why don’t I know about her?’
Banks smiled. ‘She’s Professional Standards, Stefan. I’d stay well clear of her if I were you.’
‘There’s nothing wrong with my standards,’ Nowak said. ‘Professional or otherwise. Professional Standards, eh? Interesting. She’s a foxy one.’
‘She’s married.’
‘But is she happy, Alan? Is she happy?’ He glanced at the coffee mug in his hand. ‘Anyway, I must get back to work. Can I take this?’
‘Of course,’ said Banks. ‘Be my guest.’
He shook his head slowly at Nowak’s departing back.
Though Winsome, Banks and the rest of the team gave Annie a heroine’s welcome when she arrived in the boardroom for the morning meeting, she nonetheless felt disassociated from the investigation, from the processes of police work as a whole. As she listened to Banks and Winsome, who did most of the talking, and watched them stick photographs and write names on the glass board, it all seemed very remote and distant from what her life had become, and she found herself drifting away, missing bits and pieces, unsure of the connections. Sometimes the voices sounded muffled, and she couldn’t make out what they were saying; other times she would notice that two or three minutes had passed by and she hadn’t heard a thing. She didn’t even know what she’d been thinking. It was only to be expected, she told herself. She had been away a long time.
Area Commander Gervaise dropped in at the end of the meeting to welcome her, and to remind her to take things easy for the first few weeks, not go running around the county. If Annie felt tired, Gervaise told her, she only had to say so, and she would be allowed to go home. The most important thing was that she make a full recovery. Bollocks, thought Annie, making a rude sign at Gervaise’s departing rear. The main thing was that she got back on the tracks again before it was too late, and she lost all her skills, not only her powers of listening and concentration. She didn’t want to be treated like an invalid, like one of those wounded soldiers back from the war who nobody wants to know, or even acknowledge.
She had spent a pleasant weekend reacquainting herself with her tiny cottage in Harkside after over a month at the sprawling artists’ colony near St Ives. The cottage in the heart of the maze, or so Banks had described it when he had first visited her there, years ago. She remembered those days well, the late mornings in bed, the warmth and humour, the lovemaking. Whatever their relationship, however it had ended, at the beginning it had felt like falling in love, full of promise, with that joyous sense of abandon, of falling without a net: feelings that she very much doubted she would let herself experience again, should she be fortunate enough to have the chance. None of those things was a part of her life now, and she had an idea that they weren’t a part of Banks’s life, either. Maybe she was romanticising their time together. Perhaps it hadn’t been that way at all. Memory plays strange tricks on us, she thought. We often remember things the way we would have liked them to be. Besides, it’s foolish to try to rekindle what has gone. She had ended her last day of sick leave with a long hot bath and a stack of gossip magazines.