‘Arnold Briggs was the fake name of the person who rented the car,’ said Masterson. ‘It’s not that easy to kill. I think it would be a bit unbelievable, not to mention too much of a coincidence, if there were two different killers, sir.’
‘Good point. Now, what could Bill Quinn possibly have in common with the Garskill Farm victim, a migrant worker?’
‘Unless he wasn’t a migrant worker, sir,’ said Masterson. ‘You said yourself he didn’t have the hands of a manual labourer. What if he was an informant, or even an undercover police officer?’
‘Possible,’ said Banks. ‘But I’m certain Ken Blackstone or Nick Gwillam would have brought it up, if he was Quinn’s informant. But it’s an interesting thought. Perhaps our man was at the farm under false pretences. Either that or he got all the soft jobs.’
‘Maybe West Yorkshire didn’t know, sir? Not if he was an undercover officer from Poland or Estonia or somewhere.’
‘Maybe you’re right, at that,’ Banks agreed. ‘One of the numbers called from the telephone box in Ingleby was an Estonian mobile. Again, though, it’s bloody untraceable. Annie’s tried ringing it, but there’s no answer.’
‘Just the sort of phone an undercover officer might have, or his controller,’ said DC Masterson. ‘A throw-away?’
As Banks thought over what Masterson had just told him, there came another knock at his door. When Annie and Joanna Passero walked in, the office started to feel crowded.
‘What is it?’ Banks asked.
‘I just got a call from a woman who says she knows the Garskill Farm victim,’ said Annie. ‘She recognised his photo in the paper this morning.’
‘Why didn’t she call before?’ Banks said. ‘It’s been all over the papers and TV for the past two days.’
‘Says she’s been away on some sort of retreat.’
‘Religious?’
‘Dunno.’
‘You think she’s genuine?’
Annie rolled her eyes. ‘We’ve had a few cranks. I think I can tell the difference. Yes, I think she’s genuine.’
‘Sorry.’
‘Anyway,’ Annie went on, ‘she’s in Manchester, but she says she’s willing to drive over now and identify the body, tell us all she knows. She was upset, naturally, and I offered to arrange a car for her, but she said she could manage it by herself.’
‘What’s her name?’
‘Merike. Merike Noormets. And according to her, the victim’s name was Mihkel Lepikson. She said he was her boyfriend.’
‘Dutch? German? Scandinavian?’
Annie grinned. ‘Wrong, sir. Estonian. Both of them.’
‘My, my,’ said Banks, rubbing his hands together. ‘This is starting to get interesting, isn’t it?’
Before Merike Noormets arrived, Banks and Annie agreed that they would interview her together, preferably in a more congenial environment outside the police station, after she had identified Mihkel Lepikson’s body down at the mortuary. But they hadn’t reckoned with Joanna Passero, who claimed that she couldn’t be excluded from this interview because it impacted directly on the Quinn case. She actually said ‘impacted’. Banks cringed, but there was nothing he could do except let her come along under sufferance. She would only go crying to Superintendent Gervaise if he didn’t. Having three people present, four including Merike Noormets herself, would be a bit of an overload, but Banks trusted that Annie knew when to keep quiet and take notes, and he stressed to Joanna that she was present only to observe. He would do most of the talking. She didn’t like it, clearly didn’t like any of it, but she grudgingly agreed. Annie seemed rather more sympathetic to Joanna’s predicament than Banks, but then she had worked for Professional Standards herself.
Merike Noormets was an attractive woman in her early thirties, with hennaed hair and a couple of minor piercings, wearing jeans, and a light yellow cotton jacket over an embroidered Indian-style top of some kind. She also carried a stitched leather shoulder bag. She looked a bit hippy-ish to Banks. She had clearly been crying when Annie and Joanna brought her up from the basement of Eastvale General Infirmary.
Banks had waited for them outside in his car, feeling that he had no need to see the man’s body again. The rain that had threatened yesterday afternoon had started during the night and was still falling. With it, a cold front had moved in, and the temperature had dropped considerably.
The identification was positive, Annie told him, and now they could get in touch with the parents back home in Tallinn and arrange for them to come over. As soon as the three women had piled into the Porsche, Banks headed out of town. It was a Tuesday lunchtime in late April, so a lot of country pubs and restaurants would probably be closed, but he knew he could depend on the Blue Lion in East Witton.
It was very much a silent journey from the Eastvale mortuary. Banks concentrated on his driving and listened to the lovely strains of ‘The Lark Ascending’ and ‘Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis’. He thought the music might help sooth Merike Noormets and relax her enough to make her open up.
All the parking spots in front of the pub were taken, so Banks parked opposite the long village green, and they walked back over the road to the rambling old building. Merike smoked a cigarette on the way and got through about a third of it before they went inside and found a table in the bar. The menu was chalked on a blackboard over the enormous fireplace. Rain dotted the windows. A few logs burned in the hearth and threw out more than enough heat to compensate for the weather outside. The starters were written on another blackboard over the bar, and to read all that was on offer would have taken all day. Merike said she would like a glass of white wine, and Banks was unable to resist a pint of Black Sheep, but the other two stuck to diet bitter lemon. Annie because of her medication, Banks supposed, and Joanna Passero just to show him up. He bet she was making a note, too: ‘DCI Banks drinking on duty, during interview of important witness.’ Well, screw her. Banks knew how to interview an important witness, and it wasn’t in a dingy interview room smelling of stale sweat and fear with a styrofoam cup of canteen coffee in front of you. Especially a witness who had just come from identifying her boyfriend’s body.
Merike pushed her hair out of her eyes, pale green flecked with amber, Banks noticed. For some reason he thought of the Jimi Hendrix song ‘Gypsy Eyes’, though she was hardly a Gypsy, and they were hardly gypsy eyes. There had to be some connection somewhere in his mind, but, as so often these days, he couldn’t grasp it. Maybe there was a hint of wildness about her that chimed with the music, he thought; perhaps she had a gypsy soul, whatever that was.
When the landlord came around to take their orders, Merike said she wasn’t hungry. The other three ordered. Banks went for his favourite, smoked haddock with a poached egg, leeks, mushrooms and Gruyère cheese.