And now she had to go to the Himalaya and talk to Asim Nazur and his parents. They would certainly be thrilled to see her. Still, wicked though it sounded, maybe she still had room for a small samosa, after all. Just the one. For a simple pub fight gone wrong, she thought, this case was turning into a hell of a confusing affair.
V
The little pane of glass in the front door smashed easily enough when Banks applied his elbow. He stuck his hand through carefully and turned the lock. He had a warrant to search the place and, as Jason’s pockets had been emptied of everything, including his house keys, this seemed the easiest way to get in.
Inside, the house was so quiet that all he could hear was the hissing of blood in his ears. There wasn’t even a clock ticking. He imagined it wasn’t always like that, not with the twins next door.
He started in the living-room, to his right. Three-piece suite, upholstered in tan corduroy, wallpaper with thin green and brown stripes, mirror over the mantelpiece, fake-coal electric fire. Television and video. Selection of tapes, mostly science fiction and horror by the look of them. A few paperbacks: Ayn Rand, Tom
Clancy, Michael Crichton. And that was it. There was a sideboard against one wall and in one of the drawers Banks found a couple of bills addressed to Jason Fox. Nothing else.
The kitchen was spotless, dishes all in cupboards, mugs hanging from hooks over the counter. Very little in the fridge: a tub of
I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter;
Cheddar cheese turning blue at the edges, sliced white bread, boiled ham, limp celery, lettuce, tomatoes. More the kind of stuff for sandwiches than hot meals. Maybe Jason did most of his eating out.
There were three bedrooms, one no bigger than a cupboard really. That one was completely empty, the other two showed some signs of occupation. Just as at the house in Eastvale, Jason’s bed was tightly made, and a similar selection of clothes hung in the wardrobe. The dresser drawers were full of socks, underwear and T-shirts, along with an unopened box of condoms and a bottle of aspirin. The third bedroom looked like a guest room, with a single bed, empty drawers and not much else.
Except the computer.
But Banks didn’t trust himself not to screw something up if he started messing around with that, so he made a note to get someone else in to give it the once-over.
Back in the hall, Banks could only marvel at the sheer
emptiness
of the place. There was no personality. You’d expect, if Jason were a member of a white-power organization, at least a few Skrewdriver CDs and maybe one or two copies of
The Order
strewn around the place. But it was as if someone had been there and stripped away all signs of character, if there had been any. And maybe someone had.
Two men, Liza Williams had said, and they had left with some cardboard boxes. Unfortunately, it had been raining in Leeds that Sunday morning, and they had both been wearing flat hats. Black or navy blue. One of them wore a black leather jacket and jeans, the other a donkey jacket. The one in the leather jacket was taller than the other.
No, Liza admitted, they weren’t particularly well dressed, but then she watched a lot of police programmes on telly, so she didn’t expect real policemen to be any better dressed than their fictional counterparts. No, she couldn’t say how old they were, hadn’t seen
their faces, but she got the impression by the way they moved that they were probably fairly young and fit.
And that was about all she could say, she was sorry. She had, after all, only glimpsed them, and as she noticed they used a key to get in, she didn’t worry about them being burglars or rapists. She first thought they were friends of Jason’s—he sometimes had friends to stay—and then, after she heard of his death, she just assumed they’d been policemen come to return his belongings to his family or something. No, her husband hadn’t seen them; he had already settled down with the Sunday papers, and once he did that …
The only thing she
had
noticed was a blue car parked outside, which she thought belonged to the men. But she didn’t know what make it was, let alone the number. She did say it was clean, though.
Banks sighed as he closed the door behind him. He would have to get someone from West Yorkshire to fix the pane of glass he’d broken, and perhaps to question some of the other people in the street. Whatever they’d noticed, he hoped it would be more than Liza Williams.
VI
By mid-afternoon, Susan was wet, tired and no further ahead than she had been in the morning. The Nazurs and the Mahmoods had been sullen and uncommunicative, as expected, and she had flinched at the clear accusations of racism in their eyes. No, Jason Fox had never been in the Mahmoods’ shop, as far as they knew, and the Nazurs had never seen him in their restaurant. And they knew nothing about any Albion League.
Sergeant Hatchley was still out pounding the streets, so at least she got the opportunity to warm herself up with a cup of coffee and take a little quiet time for herself.
She had just put her cold wet feet on the radiator to warm them when one of the staff from the murder room came in bearing a fax. “Just arrived,” he said.
Susan thanked him and looked at the single sheet. All it said was:
THE ALBION LEAGUE
along with a telephone number. A London number.
Curious, Susan picked up the phone and dialled. She remembered that Banks had faxed a request for information about the Albion League to Scotland Yard, so she wasn’t surprised when someone there answered. After a bit of shuttling around and a lot of waiting, she finally got to someone who knew what she was talking about when she mentioned the Albion League. His name, he said, was Crawley.
“Is your boss there, love?” he asked.
Susan bristled, gripping the receiver tightly, but she said nothing.
“Well?” Crawley repeated.
“I’m afraid Detective Superintendent Gristhorpe is out of the office at the moment,” Susan finally managed, between gritted teeth.
“And you’re DC Gay?”
“Yes.” At least he didn’t make any cracks about her name.
“I suppose you’ll have to do then.”
Not her day. “Thanks a lot,” she said.
“Don’t take offence, love.”
“I’ll try not to, sweetie pie. Now how about the Albion League?”
She heard Crawley laugh at the end of the line, then he cleared his throat. “Yeah, well, it’s a neo-Nazi organization, white power. That’s why we’re interested, see, in why you want to know.”
“I’d have thought it was a simple enough enquiry,” Susan said.
“True enough, love, but nothing to do with those bastards is simple. They’re flagged.”
“Flagged?”
“Any time their name comes up, certain people have to be informed.”
“That sounds very mysterious.”
“Does it?”
“Yes. Anyway, don’t worry. I’m sure DCI Banks will send you a full report—he’s heading the field investigation—but would you mind, just for the moment, humouring a poor DC? Could you give
me some general idea of what this particular neo-Nazi organization is all about, what they want?”
She heard another brief chuckle down the line, then Crawley said, “Want? That’s easy. Same as all the rest of them, really. The usual things. Racial purity. Repatriation of immigrants and all ethnics. Keep Britain white. Oh, and they want the trains to run on time, too.”
“Some hope of that.”
“Tell me about it. Seriously, though, love, it’s not so much what these people
want
—that’s usually predictable enough—but what they’re willing to do to get it—what means they’ll use, how they’re organized, what connections they have with other groups, whether they’re armed, what international links they have, if any. That sort of thing. See what I mean?”
“Yes,” said Susan. “And the Albion League, how do they fit into all that?”
There was a pause. Then Crawley said, “I’m sorry, but I’m really not authorized to tell you any more than that. Have your boss give me a bell when he comes in, will you, love?”
And the line went dead.
VII
By the time Banks had finished co-ordinating with West Yorkshire Police, it was late afternoon. He decided to drop by Tracy’s residence and see what she was up to. She had only been at the University of Leeds for a little over two weeks, but already he missed her. Maybe he could take her for a spot of dinner or something. That way he would also avoid the rush-hour traffic on the way home.
And spending time with Tracy might also make him forget about his problems with Sandra for a short while.
When he got to the student residence building beside Woodhouse Moor, he was pleased to find that not just anyone could walk in. You had to know whom you wanted to see. Banks found a porter on duty, showed his identification and said he’d like to visit his daughter.
Impressed with Banks’s credentials, the garrulous porter—who said he had been a policeman himself some years ago, before a leg injury forced him to retire—let him in.
As Banks walked up the two flights of stairs, he wondered if he should have announced himself first. What if Tracy were with a boy or something? Having sex? But he dismissed the idea. He couldn’t imagine his daughter doing that. Either she’d be out at a lecture, or she’d be studying in her room.
When he got to her door, he knocked. He could hear music from down the hall, but not a sound from Tracy’s room itself. He knocked again, more loudly this time. Nothing. He felt disappointed. She must be at a lecture.
Just as he was about to walk away, the adjacent door opened and a young tousle-haired girl stuck her head out. “Oh, sorry,” she said in a husky voice. “I thought you were knocking on
my
door. Sometimes you can’t tell, if you’ve got some music on or something.” Then her eyes twinkled. “Hey, you
weren’t
knocking at my door, were you?”
“No,” said Banks.
She made a mock pout. “Pity. You looking for Tracy, then?”
“I’m her father.”
“The detective. She’s talked a lot about you.” The girl twisted a tendril of red hair around her index finger. “I must say, though, she never told me you were quite so dishy. I’m Fiona, by the way. Pleased to meet you.”
She held out her hand and Banks shook it. He felt himself blush. “Any idea where Tracy might be?”
Fiona looked at her watch. “Probably in The Pack Horse with the others, by now,” she said, with a sigh. “I’d be there myself, ’cept I’m on antibiotics for my throat, and I’m not supposed to drink. And it’s no fun if you can’t have a
real
drink.” She wrinkled her nose and smiled. “It’s just up the road. You can’t miss it.”
Banks thanked her and, leaving the car parked where it was, set off on foot. He found The Pack Horse on Woodhouse Lane, close to the junction with Clarendon Road, not more than a couple of hundred yards away. He felt too formally dressed for the place, even though he had taken off his tie and was wearing casual trousers and a zippered suede jacket.
The pub had the polished wood, brass and glass look of a real Victorian ale house; it also seemed to be divided into a maze of rooms, most of them occupied by noisy groups of students. It wasn’t until the third room that Banks found his daughter. She was sitting at a cluttered table with about six or seven other students, a pretty even mix of male and female. The jukebox was playing a Beatles oldie: “Ticket to Ride.”
He could see Tracy in profile, chatting away over the music to a boy beside her. God, she looked so much like Sandra—the blonde hair tucked behind her small ears, black eyebrows, tilt of her nose and chin, the animated features as she talked. It made his heart ache.
Banks didn’t like the look of the boy beside her. He had one of those expressions that always seem to be sneering at the world: something to do with the twist of the lip and the cast of the eyes. Either Tracy didn’t notice, or it didn’t bother her. Or, worse, she found it attractive.
As she spoke, she waved her hands about, stopping now and then to listen to his response and sip from a pint glass of pale amber liquid and nod in agreement from time to time. Her drink could have been lager, but Banks thought it was most likely cider. Tracy had always enjoyed non-alcoholic cider when they’d stopped for pub lunches during family holidays in Dorset or the Cotswolds.
But this glass of cider was probably alcoholic. And why not? he told himself. She was old enough. At least she wasn’t smoking.
Then, as he stood there in the doorway, a strange emotion overwhelmed him. As he watched his daughter talk, laugh and drink, oblivious to her father’s proximity, a lump came to his throat, and he realized he had lost her. He couldn’t go over to the table and join the crowd—simply couldn’t do it. He didn’t belong; his presence would only embarrass her. A line had been reached and crossed. Tracy was beyond him now, and things would never be the same. And he wondered if that was the only line that had been crossed lately.
Banks turned away and walked outside. The wind made his eyes water as he went in search of somewhere else to enjoy a quiet smoke and a drink before setting off back home.
VIII
That Tuesday night, the Albion League was holding one of its regular bashes in a small rented warehouse near Shipley. Dim and cavernous, it was the same kind of place people went to for raves, but without the Ecstasy. Here, Craig guessed, the only drugs were the lager that flowed from the kegs like water from a hosepipe, nicotine and, maybe, the odd tab of amphetamine.
But one way or another everyone was pumped up. Guitars, drums and bass crashed at breakneck pace, simple three-chord sequences, interrupted occasionally by a howl of unplanned feedback from the amps. The Albion League themselves were playing tonight, a makeshift white-power band consisting of whoever felt like picking up the instruments at the time. At the moment the lead singer was growling,
White is white.
Black is black.
We don’t want ’em.
Send ’em back.
Subtle. Craig wished he could wear earplugs.
From his table, Craig watched Motcombe work the room. He was good, no doubt about it. Slick. There must be at least a couple of hundred people in the place, Craig guessed, and Nev was walking around the tables patting a back here, leaning over for a smile and a word of encouragement there.