The Price of Love and Other Stories (26 page)

I was feeling hot and I thought a swim might be nice, so I went to my room to change into my bathing costume. On my way, I passed Mother’s room and heard raised voices. I paused by the door, unsure what to do. I had been brought up not to spy on people or listen in
on their conversations – Father was very particular about his privacy – but sometimes I just couldn’t help it.

“It was your idea,” Father was saying. “You put her up to it. How could you?”

Mother said nothing.

“It’ll have a bad effect all around. There’ll be trouble,” Father went on. “He still has his uses. And he’s got a lot of followers.”

“Rubbish,” said Mother. “He’s a madman, and everyone knows it. An embarrassment. He’s losing it, baby. You’ll be doing us all a favour. Next thing you know, he’ll be talking to the feds.”

“That’s crazy. Johnny would never do that.”

“You haven’t been paying attention, sweetie. You’re blinded by loyalty. I had to do
something
to bring it to your attention. God knows, you wouldn’t listen to
me
. I tell you, if you don’t do something soon, we’re all down the creek without a paddle.”

At that moment, I heard one of them walking towards the door, so I made off quickly and hurried to my room. It was odd, finding Mother and Father together like that, I thought, because they don’t talk much anymore. I haven’t seen them laugh and hold hands for ages. Still, I don’t suppose they have much time together: Father has his empire to keep him busy, and Mother has me and all my contests and lessons and pageants.

Nobody seemed to mind me swimming with the grown-ups, and I even had a cool splashing fight with Uncle Mario, who’s so fat it’s a wonder all the water doesn’t go out of the pool when he jumps in. After that, I ate more food – cakes and ice cream and Jell-O – until I was too full to eat another bite. I was feeling tired by then, and even some of the grown-up guests were starting to say their goodbyes and drift away.

When most of them had gone, Bennett came along the driveway in the Rolls and parked in front of the garage. One of Father’s colleagues got out, a man I didn’t like, and leaned back in to pick
something off the seat. It was a large metal plate with a domed cover, the kind they use to keep food warm, but bigger. He saw me just about to go back inside, walked over, and said, “I think this is for you, little lady.”

I hate it when people call me “little lady.” After all, I
am
eleven. Then he offered me the plate. It was heavier than I expected.

“Or maybe you should take it to your mother,” he said with a nasty grin.

I turned away and heard him laugh as I walked into the house. I was going to take his advice, but I didn’t want him to know that. Outside Mother’s room, I put the plate on a small polished table under the hall mirror and knocked. Mother answered. She was quite alone.

“Someone brought me this plate,” I said. “But I think it’s for you.”

She looked at the covered plate, then at me. I couldn’t tell what she was thinking from her expression, but she seemed a bit glazed and didn’t really look very well. I thought perhaps she might have had one of her “attacks” and taken her pills. Anyway, she seemed eager enough to take the plate. Without so much as a thank you, she picked it up, turned, and kicked the door shut with her heel.

By then, I was beginning to realize that it wasn’t just a game, that when I asked Father for Uncle John’s head, that was
exactly
what he had given me. I had to know. Trembling, I sank to my knees and looked through the keyhole.

What I saw then I will remember for the rest of my days.

Mother set the plate down on her dressing table beside the potions and creams and combs and brushes, then she lifted off the cover. She stepped back and gasped, putting her hand to her mouth, and let the cover drop to the floor, where it clanged on the hard wooden surface. Then, slowly, she moved towards the plate from which Uncle John stared at her with unseeing eyes. She stared back for the longest time, then she picked up his head in both hands and kissed him on the lips. Something dark and shiny dangled from his
neck and dripped like black teardrops down the front of Mother’s white blouse.

I jumped up, feeling sick and dizzy, and I ran up to my room, pulled the covers over my head and didn’t come out until my singing lesson on Sunday morning.

B
anks held the letter between his thumb and forefinger and tapped its edge against the palm of his hand. He knew who had sent it and what it was about, but not exactly what it would reveal, what it might change. A phone call would have been quicker and easier, perhaps, but there was something more solid and satisfying about the formal sheets of paper Banks knew were neatly folded inside the white envelope. And the post only took a day. After this long, there was no hurry, no hurry at all.

As he gazed through his office window out over Eastvale’s cobbled market square – the ancient cross, the squat church, the castle on its hill in the background, children dashing to school, socks around their ankles, delivery vans making their rounds, shops opening – he realized that he had been there for over twenty years and that when he had first arrived his life had been in every bit as much of a mess as it was now.

That was a sobering thought for a man in his mid fifties. In those twenty plus years, he had lost his wife to another man, his children had grown up and moved away, lovers had come and gone, and he had lost much of his faith in his fellow man. He had suffered betrayal more than once, by those closest to him and by strangers in secret,
shady offices in Westminster. He had failed many and perhaps given some slight solace to others. But all in all, he felt that the tally sheet was woefully weighted down on the side of his failures and shortcomings, and it was hard to believe in the Job anymore.

Now here he stood contemplating a temporary flight, as if he might perhaps leave himself behind and start again. He knew that couldn’t happen. It hadn’t happened the last time he had tried it, but some things had changed after his move up north, and many of them for the better. It was years since he had thought about those final days in London, and when he did, they had the quality of a dream, or a nightmare. His conversation with an old colleague the previous week had brought it all back with a vengeance.

Banks leaned his forehead against the cool glass. His hair had been a bit longer then, touching his collar, without the streaks of grey, and he had believed he could make a difference. He had been full of romantic idealism and knightly vigour, ready to tilt at windmills and take on the world without even noticing at first that he was breaking apart under the weight of it. If he closed his eyes, he could see it all as it had been: Soho nights, the late summer of 1985 …

In the soft light of the red-shaded bulb that hung over the centre of the room, the girl’s body looked serene. She could easily have been sleeping, Banks thought, as he moved forward to get a better view of her. She lay on her back on the pink candlewick bedspread, covered from neck to toe by a white sheet, hands clasped together above the swell of her breasts in an attitude of prayer or supplication, her long dark hair spread out on the pillow. Her pale features were delicate and finely-etched, and Banks imagined she had been quite a beauty in life. He wondered what she had looked like when she smiled or frowned. Her hazel eyes were devoid of life now, her face free of makeup, and at first glance there wasn’t a mark on her. But when Banks peered closer, he could see the petechial hemorrhages, the tiny
telltale dots of blood in her conjunctiva, a sign of death by asphyxia. There was no bruising on her neck, so he guessed suffocation rather than strangulation, but Dr. O’Grady, the Home Office pathologist who knelt beside her at his silent ministrations, would be able to tell him more after his
in situ
examination.

The room was small and stuffy, but the Persian-style carpet and striped wallpaper gave it a homely touch. It seemed well-maintained, despite its location on the fringes of Soho. No sleazy backstreet hovel for this girl. The window hadn’t been open when Banks arrived, and he knew better than to tamper with the scene in any way, so he left it closed. There wasn’t much space for furniture – a small dressing table with mirror, a washstand in the corner next to the cubicle WC, and a bedside table, on which stood a chipped enamel bowl where a facecloth floated in discoloured water. In the drawer were condoms, tissues and an assortment of sex aids. Did she live here? Banks didn’t think so. There were no clothes and no cooking facilities.

The victim could have been anywhere between fifteen and twenty-five, Banks thought, and her youth certainly added to the aura of innocence that surrounded her in death. Whether she had appeared that way in life, he didn’t know, but he doubted it.

Someone had clearly gone to great pains to make her
look
innocent. Her legs were stretched out straight together, and even under the sheet she was fully dressed. Her clothes – a short skirt, patent leather high heels, dark tights and a green scallop-neck top – were provocative, but not too tarty. Much more tasteful than that. So what was it all about?

Her handbag contained the usual: cigarettes, a yellow disposable lighter, keys on a fluffy rabbit’s foot ring, makeup, tampons, a cheap ballpoint pen and a purse with a few pounds and some loose change. There was no address book or diary and no credit cards or identification of any kind. The only item Banks found of any interest was a creased photograph of a proud, handsome young man in what looked like his best suit, bouncing a little girl on his knee. There was
a resemblance, and Banks guessed it was the victim and her father. According to the girlfriend who had found her, Jackie Simmons, the victim’s name was Pamela Morrison.

Banks went back to stand in the doorway. He had quickly learned that the fewer people who entered a room before the SOCOs got to work, the better. He was on detachment from Soho Division to the West Central Murder Squad. Everything was squads and specialists these days, and if you didn’t find your niche somewhere pretty fast, you soon became a general dogsbody. Nobody wanted that, especially Banks. He seemed to have a knack for ferreting out murderers, and luckily for him the powers that be in the Metropolitan Police Force agreed. So here he was. His immediate boss, Detective Superintendent Bernard Hatchard, was officially in charge of the investigation, of course, but he was so burdened by paperwork and public relations duties that he rarely left the station and was more than happy to leave the legwork to his DI and his oppo DS Ozzy Albright – as long as he got regular updates so he didn’t sound like a wanker in front of the media.

Banks liked the way things were, but lately he had started to feel the pressure. It wasn’t that there were more murders to deal with, simply that each one seemed to get to him more and take more out of him. But there was no going back. That way lay a desk piled with papers or, worse, traffic duty. He would just have to push on through whatever it was that was dragging him down, keeping him awake at night, making him neglect his family, drink and smoke too much … the litany went on.

Harry Beckett, the police photographer was next to arrive, and he went about his business with the usual professional detachment, as if he were photographing a wedding. Dr. O’Grady, who had been called from a formal dinner at the Soho Club, not far away, finally finished his examination, stood up and gave a weary sigh. His knees cracked as he moved.

“I’m getting too old for this, Banks,” he said. And he
was
looking
old, Banks thought. Neat but thinning grey hair, the veins around his nose red and purple, perhaps due to his known fondness for fine claret.

“Any idea when she might have been killed?” Banks asked.

“Somehow, I knew you’d ask me that first,” the doctor said. “None of this is written in stone, mind you, especially given the temperature in the room, but judging by the rigor I’d say she’s been dead since last night, say between ten and one in the morning.”

“Know how she was killed?”

“I’ll have to get her on the table to make sure, of course,” said O’Grady, “but barring any hidden stab wounds or bullet holes, not to mention poison, it appears very much like suffocation. You can see that the pillow next to her had been scrunched up and creased, as if someone had been holding it, pressing it down. No doubt your SOCOs will be collecting the trace evidence, but there seems to me to be a drop of blood on it. There will certainly be saliva if it was used on her.”

“Her blood, or her killer’s?”

“There’s no way of knowing yet. Her nose might have bled, or she could have bitten her lip. Perhaps she scratched him as she struggled? I’ll know more later. You might also have noticed,” he went on, “that one side of the pillow was smeared with a number of coloured substances.”

“I noticed,” said Banks. “Any theories?”

“Again, it’s impossible to say accurately at this point – you’ll have to carry out forensic tests – but at a guess I’d say it’s makeup. Mascara, red lipstick, blue eyeliner or eye shadow.”

“But she isn’t wearing any makeup,” Banks said.

“Ah, I know,” said O’Grady. “Interesting, isn’t it? I think I need a bit of fresh air. Seen enough?”

Banks nodded. He had seen enough; every inch of the scene was imprinted on his memory. It was like that with all of them, and they came back to haunt him every night, even the ones he had solved.

Before Banks and O’Grady could leave the room, DS Ozzy Albright appeared at the top of the stairs outside. “The SOCOs are here, sir.”

“OK, send them up,” said Banks. “Where’s the girl? I asked you to stay with her.”

“I left her with WPC Brown, sir. They’re in that Italian café just around the corner, on Old Compton Street. She’s in a bit of a state, sir. We thought she needed a cup of tea or something.”

“OK.”

“Er … there’s someone else.”

“Oh?”

A dark, bulky figure mounted the stairs slowly and appeared behind Albright, gasping and wheezing from the climb, a sheen of sweat on his brow. Detective Chief Inspector Roland Verity. With his round face and ruddy complexion, and the shock of ginger hair, he had always reminded Banks of a farmer, but there was a coldness and a calculating glint in his eyes that were bred of the back alley and the boardroom, not the meadows and pastures.