Close to Home (37 page)

Michelle said nothing. They walked out into the mild darkness, crossed the road and neared the riverside flats, close to where Banks had parked his car. Michelle had been right; it really was within spitting distance.

“This is right across the river from where they used to have the fair when I was a kid,” he said. “Funny, but I was just thinking about it as I was driving down.”

“Before my time,” said Michelle.

“Yes.” Banks walked her up to her door.

“Well,” she said, fumbling for her key, giving him a brief smile over her shoulder. “Good night, then.”

“I'll just wait and make sure everything's okay.”

“You mean until you're sure there are no bogeymen waiting for me?”

“Something like that.”

Michelle opened her door, put on the lights and did a quick check while Banks stood in the doorway and glanced around the living room. It seemed a bit barren, no real character, as if Michelle hadn't put her stamp on it yet.

“All clear,” she said, emerging from the bedroom.

“Good night, then,” said Banks, trying to hide his disappointment that she didn't even invite him in for a coffee. “And take care. See you tomorrow.”

“Yes.” She gave him a smile. “Tomorrow.” Then she closed the door gently behind him, and the sound of the bolt slipping home seemed far louder than it probably was.

 

It was all very well for Gristhorpe to tell Annie to get a good night's sleep, but she couldn't. She had taken more paracetamol and gone to bed early, but the pain had returned to her mouth with a vengeance. Every tooth ached, and now two of them felt loose.

The blow from Armitage had shaken her more than she had cared to admit to either Banks or Gristhorpe because it had made her feel the same way she had felt when she was raped nearly three years ago: a powerless victim. She had sworn afterward that she would never allow herself to feel that way again, but down in the cramped, dank space of Norman Wells's book cellar, she had felt it, the deep, gut-wrenching fear of the female powerless against male strength and sheer brute force.
Annie got up, went downstairs and poured herself a glass of milk with shaking hands, sitting at the kitchen table in the dark as she sipped it. She remembered the very first time Banks had been to her house. They had sat in the kitchen and eaten dinner together while the light faded. All the while Annie had been wondering what she would do if he made a move. She had impulsively invited him into her home, after all, offering to cook dinner instead of going to a restaurant or a pub, as he had suggested. Had she known right then, when she did that, what was going to happen? She didn't think so.

As the evening wore on, their mood had got more and more mellow, thanks partly to liberal quantities of Chianti. When she had gone outside into the backyard with Banks, who wanted a cigarette, and when he had put his arm around her, she had felt herself tremble like a teenager as she had blurted out all the reasons about why they
shouldn't
do what they were about to do.

Well, they had done it. And now she had ended the affair. Sometimes she regretted that and wondered why she had done it. Partly it was because of her career, of course. Working in the same station as the DCI you're screwing was bad policy. But maybe that was just an excuse. Besides, it didn't have to be that way. She could have worked in another station, somewhere where the opportunities were just as good, if not better than at Western Area Headquarters.

It was true that Banks still seemed tied to his past, to his marriage, but she could have handled that. It was also something that would have waned in time. Everyone had emotional baggage, including Annie herself. No, she thought, the reasons for what she did were within herself, not the job, not Banks's past. Intimacy had felt like a threat to her, and the closer she had got to Banks, the more she had felt suffocated and tried to pull away.

Would it be like that with every man she met? Was it to do with the rape? Possibly, she thought. Or at least partly. She wasn't sure she would
ever
completely get over that. What
happened that night had certainly damaged her deeply. She didn't think she was beyond repair, just that she had a long way to go. She still had occasional nightmares, and though she had never told Banks this, sex had sometimes been an effort for her, had even hurt at times. Sometimes the simple act of penetration, however consensual and gentle, had brought back the surge of panic and the feeling of sheer
powerlessness
she had first experienced that night. Sex certainly had its dark side, Annie knew. It could be demonic, close to violence, pushing you into dangerous and vaguely imagined desires and dark areas, beyond taboo. It was no wonder, then, she thought, that the idea of sex was so often mentioned in the same breath as violence. Or that sex and death were so intimately linked in the words and works of so many writers and artists.

Annie finished her milk and tried to laugh off her morbid thoughts. Still, they seemed to be the only kind she had at night, alone and unable to sleep. She put the kettle on for tea and went into the living room to browse through her small video collection. In the end, she settled on
Doctor Zhivago,
which had always been one of her favorite films, and when the tea was ready, she lounged on the sofa in the dark with her steaming mug, legs tucked under her, and gave herself up to the haunting theme music and the epic story of love in a time of revolution.

 

Banks walked down the stairs and tried to shake off his sense of disappointment. It was just as well, he told himself; the last thing he needed right now was to make a fool of himself over yet another woman. And Michelle had her own demons, whatever they were. Everyone did, it seemed. You couldn't get to a certain age without attracting a lot of clutter. But why did it always have to get in the way? Why couldn't you just shrug it off and get on with life? Why was misery so easy to embrace and joy so bloody elusive?

Just around the corner from the flats, he stopped to light
a cigarette. Before he got his lighter out of his pocket, he felt something thud into him from behind. He staggered forward and turned to face whoever had hit him. He got only a quick glimpse of a pug nose and piggy eyes before a blow to the face upset both his vision and his balance. Another blow knocked him to the ground. Next he felt a sharp pain in his ribs and a kick to his stomach made him retch.

Then he heard a dog barking and a man's voice shouting beyond the walls of pain, felt rather than saw his attacker hesitate, and heard him whisper, “Go back where you came from, or there'll be more of that,” before he ran off into the night.

Banks got to his knees and felt sick, head hanging on his chest. Christ, he was getting too old for this kind of thing. He tried to stand, but his legs still felt too wobbly. Then a hand grasped his elbow and he managed to get to his feet.

“Are you all right, mister?” Banks swayed and took a couple of deep breaths. That felt a little better. His head was still spinning, but his vision had cleared. A young man stood beside him, Jack Russell terrier on a leash. “Only I was just taking Pugwash here for a walk and I saw two blokes setting on you.”

“Two? Are you certain?”

“Yes. They ran off toward the city center.”

“Thank you,” said Banks. “That was very brave of you. You saved my bacon.”

“Is there anything else I can do? Call you a taxi or something?”

Banks paused to get his thoughts in some sort of order, then he looked toward the flats. “No,” he said. “No, thanks. I've a friend lives just over there. I'll be fine.”

“If you're certain.”

“Yes. And thanks again. Not many people bother to get involved these days.”

The young man shrugged. “No problem. Come on, Pug-wash.” And they wandered off, the man casting a couple of backward glances as he went.

Still a bit wobbly, Banks made his way back to Michelle's flat and pressed the intercom. A few moments later her voice crackled into the night air. “Yes? Who is it?”

“It's me, Alan,” said Banks.

“What is it?”

“I've had a little accident. I wonder if…”

But before he could finish, Michelle buzzed him in, and he made his way up to her door. She was already standing there, looking concerned, and she came forward to help him toward the sofa. Not that it was necessary, but he thought it was a nice gesture.

“What happened?” she asked.

“Someone jumped me. Thank God for dog walkers or I'd probably be in the river by now. Funny, isn't it? I thought I was going to end up in the Nene all those years ago and I almost ended up there tonight.”

“You're rambling,” Michelle said. “Sit down.”

Banks still felt a bit dizzy and nauseated when he sat down. “Just give me a few minutes,” he said. “I'll be fine.”

Michelle handed him a glass. “Drink,” she said.

He drank. Cognac. A good one, too. As the fiery liquor spread through his limbs he started to feel even better. His mind came into sharper focus, and he was able to assess the damage. Not much, really. His ribs felt tender, but he didn't feel as if anything was broken. He looked up and saw Michelle standing over him.

“How do you feel now?”

“Much better, thank you.” Banks sipped some more Cognac. “Look,” he said, “I'd better call a taxi. I don't feel very much like driving in this condition, especially not after this.” He held up the glass. Michelle tipped in more from the Courvoisier VSOP bottle, and poured herself a generous measure, too.

“Okay,” she said. “But you must let me see to your nose first.”

“Nose?” Banks realized his nose and upper lip felt numb. He put his hand up, and it came away bloody.

“I don't think it's broken,” Michelle said, leading him toward the bathroom, “but I'd better clean you up and put something on it before you go. There's a small cut on your lip, too. Whoever hit you must have been wearing a ring or something.”

The bathroom was small, almost too small for two people to stand without touching. Banks stood with the backs of his legs against the toilet bowl as Michelle used a damp facecloth to wipe away the blood, then looked in the cabinet and came up with some TCP liquid antiseptic. She put a small swab of cotton wool over the top of the bottle and tipped it up, then carefully applied it to his lip. It stung, and the acrid smell made him gasp. Michelle took the cotton wool away.

“It's all right,” he said.

She dropped one bloodstained swab into the waste bin and prepared another. Banks watched her face close to his, the look of concentration as she applied the cotton wool, tip of her tongue nipped between her teeth. She caught his eye, blushed and looked away. “What?”

“Nothing,” he said. She was so close he could feel the warmth of her body, smell the Cognac on her breath.

“Go on,” she said. “You were going to say something.”

“It's just like
Chinatown,
” Banks said.

“What do you mean?”

“The film,
Chinatown
. Haven't you seen it?”

“What happens?”

“Jack Nicholson gets his nose cut by Roman Polanski, and Faye Dunaway, well…she does what you're doing now.”

“Puts TCP on it?”

“Well, I don't think it was TCP—I don't think they have that in America—but the idea's the same. Anyway, it's a very sexy scene.”

“Sexy?” Michelle paused. Banks could see her flushed skin, feel the heat from her cheeks. The bathroom seemed to be getting smaller.

“Yes,” said Banks.

She dabbed at him again. Her hand was trembling. “I don't see how putting TCP on a cut could be sexy,” she said. “I mean, what happens?”

She was so close to him now that he could feel her breast touching ever so lightly against his arm. He could have leaned the top half of his body farther back, bent at the knees, but he stood his ground. “First, they kiss,” he said.

“But wouldn't it hurt?”

“It was just his nose that got cut. Remember?”

“Of course. How silly of me.”

“Michelle?”

“What? What is it?”

Banks took her trembling hand by the wrist and moved it away from his mouth, then he put his other hand under her chin and cupped it gently so she was looking at him, her brilliant green eyes questioning but holding his gaze, not looking away now. He could feel his heart thudding in his chest and his knees wobbling as he pulled her closer to him and felt her yield.

Y
ou were late back last night,” Banks's mother said, without turning from the kitchen sink. “Tea's fresh.”

Banks poured himself a cup of tea and added a splash of milk. He had expected this sort of reaction. His mother had probably lain awake until two in the morning listening for him the way she did when he was a teenager. He and Michelle had decided that, for many reasons, it was not a good idea for him to stay with her overnight, but even so Michelle had laughed at the idea of his having to go home to his mother.

Ida Banks turned. “Alan! What
have
you done to your face?”

“It's nothing,” said Banks.

“But it's all bruised. And your lip's cut. What have you been up to?”

Banks turned away. “I told you, it's nothing.”

“Were you fighting? Was it some criminal you were arresting? Is that why you were so late? You could have rung.” She gave him a look that spoke volumes about what she thought of his chosen career.

“Something like that,” Banks said. “I had a bit of business to take care of. Look, I'm sorry I didn't ring, but it was so late. I didn't want to wake you.”

His mother gave him the reproving look she was so good at. “Son,” she said, “you ought to know by now that I can't get to sleep until you're home safe and sound.”

“Well, you can't have slept much these past thirty years or so,” Banks said, and immediately regretted it when he saw the other look she was so good at, the suffering martyr, lower lip trembling. He went over and gave her a hug. “Sorry, Mum,” he said, “but I'm all right. Really I am.”

His mother sniffed and nodded. “Well,” she said, “I suppose you'll be hungry. Bacon and eggs?”

Banks knew from experience that feeding him would help his mother get over her bad night. He wasn't all that hungry, but he couldn't deal with the protests he knew he'd get if all he asked for was cereal. He was also in a hurry. Michelle had suggested he come down to headquarters to search through the mug shots for his attacker. He wasn't certain he could identify the man, though the piggy eyes and pug nose were distinctive enough. Still, Mother comes first; bacon and eggs it had to be. “If it's no trouble,” he said.

His mother walked over to the fridge. “It's no trouble.”

“Where's Dad?” he asked, as his mother turned on the cooker.

“Down at the allotment.”

“I didn't know he still went there.”

“It's more of a social thing. He doesn't do much digging or anything these days. Mostly he sits and passes the time of day with his mates. And he has a cigarette or two. He thinks I don't know but I can smell it on him when he comes home.”

“Well, don't be too hard on him, Mum.”

“I'm not. But it's not only
his
health, is it? What am I supposed to do if he goes and drops dead?”

“He's not going to drop dead.”

“Doctor says he's not supposed to smoke. And you should stop, too, while you're still young.”

Young?
It was a long time since Banks had been called young. Or felt young, for that matter. Except perhaps last night, with Michelle. Once she had made her decision, dropped her defenses a little, she was a different person, Banks marveled. It had clearly been a long time since she
had been with anyone, so their lovemaking was slow and tentative at first, but none the worse for that. And once she threw aside her inhibitions she proved to be a warm and generous lover. Michelle had also been gentle because of Banks's cut lip and bruised ribs. He cursed his bad luck, that he had to be injured in combat the first night he got to sleep with her. He also thought it was ironic that such physical injuries were so rare in his line of work, yet both he and Annie had been hurt within hours of each other. Some malevolent force working against them, no doubt.

Banks remembered Michelle's sleepy late-night kiss at the door as he left, her warm body pressed against him. He sipped some tea. “Is the paper around?” he asked his mother.

“Your dad took it with him.”

“I'll just nip over the road, then.” His father took the
Daily Mail,
anyway, and Banks preferred
The Independent
or
The Guardian
.

“Your bacon and eggs will be ready.”

“Don't worry. I'll be back before they're done.”

Banks's mother sighed, and he headed out. It was warm but cloudy outside, and looking like rain again. That close, sticky muggy weather he hated. As he entered the newsagent's shop, he remembered the way it used to be laid out, the counter in a different place, racks arranged differently. Different magazines and covers back then, too:
Film Show, Fabulous, Jackie, Honey, Tit-Bits, Annabelle.

Banks remembered his conversation with Michelle in the pub about Donald Bradford and his collection of porn, and wondered if he really had acted as a distributor. While Banks couldn't imagine Graham slipping a magazine of French fellatio between the pages of
The People
and putting it through number 42's letter box, he
could
imagine Bradford keeping his stock under the counter, or hidden in the back. And maybe Graham had stumbled upon it.

He could remember quite clearly the first time he had ever seen a pornographic magazine. Not just the ones with naked women in them, like
Playboy, Swank
and
Mayfair,
but true porn, magazines that showed people
doing
things.

It was in their den inside the tree, and, interestingly enough, the magazines were Graham's. At least, he brought them. Had Banks never wondered at the time where Graham got them from? He didn't know. And if Graham had mentioned it, Banks didn't remember.

It was a warm day, and there were only three of them there, but he wasn't sure whether the third was Dave, Paul or Steve. The branches and leaves came right down to the ground, hard, shiny green leaves with thorns on them, Banks remembered now, and he could feel himself slipping through the concealed entrance, where the foliage wasn't too dense, the thorns pricking his skin. Once you got inside, the space seemed bigger than it could possibly be, just the way the inside of Dr. Who's
TARDIS
was bigger than the outside. They had plenty of space to sit around and smoke, and enough light got through for them to look at dirty magazines. The smell of the place came back, too, so real he could smell it as he stood waiting to cross the road. Pine needles. Or something similar. And there was a soft beige carpet of them on the ground.

That day, Graham had the two magazines stuffed down the front of his shirt and he brought them out with a flourish. He probably said, “Feast your eyes on this, lads,” but Banks couldn't remember the actual words, and he didn't have time to settle down and try to reconstruct the memory in full. It wasn't important anyway.

What
was
important was that for the next hour or so the three teenagers looked in awe on some of the most amazing, exciting, unbelievable images they had ever seen in their lives, people doing things they had never even dreamed could or
should
be done.

By today's standards, Banks realized, it was pretty mild, but for a fourteen-year-old provincial kid in the summer of 1965 to see color photos of a woman sucking a man's penis or a man sticking his penis up a woman's arse was shocking
in the extreme. There were no animals, Banks remembered, and certainly no children. Mostly he remembered images of impossibly large-breasted women, some of them with semen spurting all over their breasts and faces, and well-endowed men usually on top of them or being ridden by them. Graham wouldn't lend the magazines out, Banks remembered, so the only time they had to look at them was then and there, inside the tree. The titles and text, or what he remembered of them, were in a foreign language. He knew it wasn't German or French because he took those languages at school.

While this didn't become a regular occurrence, Banks did remember a couple of other occasions that summer when Graham brought magazines to the tree. Different ones each time. And then, of course, Graham disappeared and Banks didn't see that kind of porn again until he became a policeman.

So was it a clue or not? As Michelle had said last night, it hardly seemed something worth murdering over, even back then, but if it was a part of something bigger—the Kray empire, for example—and if Graham had got involved in it way beyond his depth, beyond borrowing a few magazines, then there might be a link to his murder. It was worth looking into, at any rate, if Banks could figure out where to start.

Tapping the newspaper against his thigh, Banks crossed the busy road and hurried back home before his bacon and eggs turned cold. The last thing he needed was to upset his mother again this morning.

 

Despite her late night, Michelle was at her desk long before Detective Superintendent Shaw was likely to see the light of day. If he bothered coming in at all. Maybe he would take another sick day. At any rate, the last thing she wanted was him breathing over her shoulder while Banks was in an interview room looking through the mug shots. There were people around the office, so she and Banks hadn't had a chance to do much more than say a quick hello before they got down to business. She had given him a choice of the
computer version or the plain, old-fashioned photo albums, and he had chosen the albums.

She had felt a little shy when he walked in and could still hardly believe that she had gone ahead and slept with him like that, even though she knew she had wanted to. It wasn't as if she had been saving herself or anything, or that she was afraid, or had lost interest in sex, only that she had been far too preoccupied by the aftermath of Melissa's death and the end of her marriage to Ted. You don't get over something like that overnight.

Still, she was surprised at her newfound boldness and blushed even now as she thought about the way it had made her feel. She didn't know what Banks's personal situation was, except that he was going through a divorce. He hadn't talked about his wife, or his children, if he had any. Michelle found herself curious. She hadn't told him about Melissa and Ted either, and she didn't know if she would. Not for a while, anyway. It was just too painful.

The only real drawback was that he was on the Job. But where else was she likely to meet someone? People who form relationships often meet at their places of work. Besides, North Yorkshire was a fair distance from Cambridgeshire, and after they'd got the Graham Marshall case sorted, she doubted they would ever have to work together again. But would they even
see
each other? That was the question. It was a long way to travel. Or perhaps it was foolish of her even to imagine a relationship, or to want one. Maybe it had just been a one-night stand and Banks already had a lover up in Eastvale.

Putting aside her thoughts, and her memories of the previous night, Michelle got down to work. She had a couple of things to do before Graham Marshall's funeral service that afternoon, including tracking down Jet Harris's wife and ringing Dr. Cooper. But before she could pick up the telephone, Dr. Cooper rang
her
.

“Dr. Cooper. I was going to ring you this morning,” said Michelle. “Any news?”

“Sorry it took me so long to get the information you wanted, but I told you Dr. Hilary Wendell's a tough man to track down.”

“You've got something?”

“Hilary has. He won't commit himself to this absolutely, so he'd be very unwilling to testify if it ever came to a court case.”

“It probably won't,” said Michelle, “but the information might be useful to me.”

“Well, from careful measurement of the nick on the underside of the rib, he's made a few projections and he's pretty certain it's a military knife of some kind. His money's on a Fairbairn-Sykes.”

“What's that?”

“British commando knife. Introduced in 1940. Seven-inch, double-edged blade. Stiletto point.”

“A commando knife?”

“Yes. Is that of any use?”

“It might be,” said Michelle. “Thanks a lot.”

“You're welcome.”

“And please thank Dr. Wendell from me.”

“Will do.”

A
commando knife
. In 1965, the war had only been over for twenty years, and plenty of men in their early forties would have fought in it, and had access to such a knife. What worried Michelle most of all, though, was that the only person she
knew
had served as a Royal Naval Commando was Jet Harris; she remembered it from the brief biography she had read when she first came to Thorpe Wood. He had also been awarded a Distinguished Conduct Medal.

The thought of it sent shivers up her spine: Jet Harris himself, as killer, misdirecting the investigation at every turn, away from Bradford, perhaps because of Fiorino, as Banks had suggested, and away from himself. This was one theory she certainly couldn't go to Shaw with, or to anyone else in the division, either. Harris was a local hero and she'd need a hell of a lot of hard evidence if she expected anyone to en
tertain even the remotest suspicion that Jet Harris was a murderer.

After he'd been in about an hour, Banks poked his head out of the interview room door, no doubt looking to see if Shaw was around, then carried one of the books over to Michelle.

“I think that's him,” he said.

Michelle looked at the photo. The man was in his late twenties, with medium-length brown hair, badly cut, a stocky build, piggy eyes, and a pug nose. His name was Des Wayman, and according to his record he had been in and out of the courts ever since his days as a juvenile car thief, progressing from that to public disorder offenses and GBH. His most recent incarceration, a lenient nine months, was for receiving stolen goods, and he had been out just over a year and a half.