The Price of Love and Other Stories (6 page)

“I can take you there,” said Banks.

She regarded him coolly with moist, steady blue eyes. “Yes. Thank you. I probably shouldn’t be driving. May I collect a few things? My nightdress? Toothbrush?”

Banks went into the hallway and saw Detective Constable Winsome Jackman coming through the front door. “Winsome,” he said, “Mrs. Vancalm will be spending the night at the Jedburgh Hotel. Will you accompany her to her room while she gathers a few essentials?”

Winsome raised her eyes in a “Why me?” expression.

Banks whispered, certain he was out of Mrs. Vancalm’s earshot, “And make sure there’s someone posted outside the Jedburgh Hotel all night.”

“Yes, sir,” said Winsome.

A short while later, as Banks followed Denise Vancalm out into the chilly night, where his Porsche stood waiting, he again reminded
himself why he was taking such precautions and feeling so many reservations in the face of the poor bereaved wife. By the looks of it, Victor Vancalm had disturbed a burglar, who might still have been in the building. Confronted with a dead husband, a wrecked den, and a big empty house, most people would have run for the hills screaming, but Denise Vancalm, after the immediate shock had worn off, had dialed 999 and sat down to wait for the police.

In the late morning the next day, a weak grey sun cut through the early mist and the sky turned the colour of Victor Vancalm’s corpse spread out on Dr. Glendenning’s post-mortem table. Banks stood on the steps of Eastvale General Infirmary wishing he still smoked. No matter how many post-mortems he attended, he could never get used to them, especially just after a late breakfast. It was something to do with the neatness and precision of the gleaming tools and the scientific process contrasted with the ugly slop of stomach contents and the slithery lump of liver or kidneys. As far as stomach contents were concerned, Victor Vancalm’s last meal had consisted of
currywurst
, a German delicacy available from any number of Berlin street vendors.

There had been no surprises. Vancalm had been in general good health and the cause of death, barring any googlies from toxicology, was most certainly the head wound. The only interesting piece of news was that Vancalm’s pockets had been emptied. Wallet. Keys. Pen. All gone. In Banks’s experience, burglars didn’t usually rob the persons of anyone they happened to bump into on a job. They didn’t usually bump into people, for that matter; kids on drugs aside, burglars were generally so careful and elusive that one might think them quite shy creatures. They didn’t usually bump people off, either.

Even after the post-mortem, Dr. Glendenning stuck by his estimate of time of death: between seven and ten. If Mrs. Vancalm had gone straight from work to the Old Oak and from there to the poker
evening with Natasha Goldwell, and if she had not arrived home until eleven-thirty, then she couldn’t have murdered her husband. Banks would still check her alibi with the rest of the poker crowd. It was a job for a detective constable, but he found he was curious about this group of wealthy and powerful women who got together once a month to play Texas hold’em. Did they wear shades, smoke cigars and swear? Perhaps more to the point, could they look you straight in the eye and lie like a politician?

Banks took a deep breath of fresh air and looked at his watch. It was time to meet DI Annie Cabbot for lunch at the Queen’s Arms, though whatever appetite he might have had had quite vanished down the drain of the autopsy table plughole, along with Victor Vancalm’s bodily fluids.

It was lunchtime in the Queen’s Arms and the place was bustling with clerks and secretaries from the solicitors’ and estate agents’ offices around the market square, along with the usual retirees at the bar and terminally unemployed kids on the pool tables and slot machines. The smoke was thick and the language almost as bad. Banks found that he could hardly wait until the following July, when smoking was to be banned in all the pubs in England. He had never suspected he would feel that way, and a few years ago he wouldn’t have. Now, though, the smoke was just an irritant, and the people who smoked seemed like throwbacks to another era. Banks still suffered the occasional craving, which reminded him what it had been like, but they were becoming few and far between.

Banks and Annie managed to find themselves a free table wedged between the door to the Gents and the slot machines, where Annie sipped a Britvic orange and nibbled a cheese roll while Banks nursed a half of Black Sheep bitter and worked on his chicken in a basket.

“So, how was the redoubtable Gabriella Mountjoy?” Banks
asked when the person playing the slot machine beside them cursed and gave up.

“She seemed very nice, really,” said Annie. “Not at all what I expected.”

“What did you expect?”

“Oh, you know, some upper-class twit with a braying laugh and horsey teeth.”

“But?”

“Well, her teeth are actually quite nice. Expensive, like her clothes. She seems every inch the thoroughly modern woman.”

“What does that mean?”

“Oh, really, Alan, you’re seriously out of touch.”

“With the thoroughly modern woman? Tell me about her. It’s not for want of trying.”

“First, there’s the career,” Annie said. “Gabriella’s a book designer for a big London publisher. Works from home a lot.”

“Impressive,” said Banks.

“And then there’s the house. Cottage, really, and only a semi at that. It’s small, but the view must be worth a million quid.”

“Does she live alone?”

“As far as I can gather. There’s a boyfriend. A musician. He travels a lot. It suits them both perfectly.”

“Maybe that’s my problem with the modern woman,” Banks said. “I don’t travel enough. I’m always there when she needs me. Boring.”

“Tell Sandra that.”

Banks winced. “Touché.”

“I’m sorry,” said Annie. “That wasn’t very nice of me.”

“It’s OK. Still a bit tender, that’s all. That’ll serve me right for being so flippant. Go on.”

Annie finished her roll first. “Nothing to add, really. She swears blind that Mrs. Vancalm was there all evening. Natasha Goldwell
was at the cottage too, when I called, and she confirmed it. Said they arrived together about seven-thirty after a quick drink and Mrs. Vancalm dropped her off at home – it’s on her way – sometime after eleven.”

“Well,” said Banks, “it’s not as if we expected otherwise.”

“I just had a word with Winsome,” Annie went on, “and she told me that the other two say exactly the same thing about the poker evening. Denise Vancalm’s alibi is watertight.”

“God help me, but I’ve never liked watertight alibis,” said Banks.

“That’s because you’re contrary.”

“Is it? I thought it was my suspicious nature, my detective’s instinct, my love of a challenge.”

“Pull the other one.”

“Whatever it is, it seems as if we’ll have to start looking elsewhere. You’ve checked out our list of local troublemakers?”

“Winsome has. The only possibility at all is Windows Fennester. He’d know all about wall safes.”

“He’s out?”

“Been out three weeks now. Living back on the East Side Estate with Shania Longbottom and her two kids. Thing is, according to Winsome, he’s got a pretty good alibi too: in the pub with his mates.”

“And whatever he is, he’s not a killer.”

“Not as far as we know.”

“The lads have also been out doing a house-to-house in Denise Vancalm’s neighbourhood,” Banks said.

“And?”

“Someone heard and glimpsed a car near the house after dark. Couldn’t say what make. A dark one.”

“Nothing fancy like Mrs. Vancalm’s red sports car, then?”

“No,” said Banks. “Your standard Japanese hatchback, by the sound of it. And several witnesses have told us that Mrs. Vancalm’s Cabriolet was parked outside Gabriella Mountjoy’s house until after eleven.”

“One woman did tell us that Denise Vancalm had a visitor the day before the murder.”

Banks’s ears pricked up. “A man?”

“No, a woman. During the day.”

“So she wasn’t at work. I wonder why?”

“From the description we got, it sounds very much like Natasha Goldwell.”

“Well,” said Banks, disappointed, “there’s nothing odd about that. They’re good friends. Must have been a coffee morning or something.”

“Afternoon.”

“Coffee afternoon, then. It still takes us back to square one.” Banks finished his drink. Someone else came to play the slot machine and the noise started up again. “Nothing in the way of a motive.”

“Not so far,” said Annie. “Look, I don’t want you to make too much of this, but I thought there
was
something a bit odd about Natasha Goldwell.”

“Odd?”

“Well, I mean, she was convincing enough. They went to the Old Oak, where Natasha had a gin and tonic and Denise had a Campari and soda, chatted about their husbands briefly – Natasha’s is a civil engineer – talked a bit about some online poker game they play regularly.”

“These women are really keen, then?”

“I got the impression that Natasha was. She’s the main online player. Gabriella strikes me as someone who more likes the idea of it – you know, cracking a male bastion.”

“Better than cracking other male parts.”

“But Natasha was more into the technical talk. It was way over my head. And the impression I got was that one of them is really involved in tournaments and all that stuff. She’s even been to Las Vegas to play.”

“Which one would that be?”

“Evangeline White.”

“Do they play for money?”

“Of course. It’s no fun if you don’t have a little something riding on it, Gabriella told me. I didn’t get the impression that huge fortunes changed hands, but enough to make it interesting.”

“But it was nothing to do with their husbands?”

“No. The men were very much excluded.”

“And what about Denise Vancalm herself?”

“I definitely got the impression that she was keen, a pretty good player, but perhaps in it more for the social aspects. You know, a chance to get together without the menfolk, have a few drinks and talk girl talk, and perhaps even do a bit of business. I mean, they’re all top echelon. Almost all. Natasha runs a computer software solutions company, online security and whatnot, Evangeline White owns an upmarket travel agency – Sahara Desert holidays and roughing it in Woolawoola – and Heather Murchison … well, you know her.”

Banks did. Heather Murchison was a familiar face and personality on the local television news, and her blond looks, buxom figure and husky Morningside accent caused many a red-blooded male to be much more informed about local matters than previously.

“And Denise Vancalm herself is a fundraiser and organizer of charity events,” Annie went on. “She does a lot of work for hospitals and children’s charities in particular.”

“Five successful, attractive women,” said Banks, “all in their late thirties or early forties, all, or most of them, married to or hooked up with successful, attractive men. Sounds like a recipe for disaster. Any hints of clandestine goings-on? You know, musical beds, wife swapping, that sort of thing?”

“Wife swapping?” said Annie, laughing. “You really must leave the sixties behind.”

“I’m sure people still do it. There was that film by Kubrick. Must have been the nineties at least.”

“
Eyes Wide Shut
,” said Annie. “Even Tom Cruise couldn’t save that one. Yes, it was the nineties, orgies and suchlike. But wife swapping …
swinging
… ” She shook her head and laughed again.

“OK, I get your point,” said Banks. “No need to hammer it home. I have about as much knowledge about what goes on in suburban bedrooms as I do about the thoroughly modern woman. But what I’m saying is that there might have been rivalries among these women or their husbands, liaisons – if that’s not too outdated a word – affairs. Jealousy can be a powerful motive.”

“Why look beyond the facts here?” said Annie. “Victor Vancalm came home and surprised a burglar, one who was somehow familiar with the layout of his house, the safe. Perhaps he decided to take the burglar on, and for his efforts he got bashed on the head with a poker. I mean, the side window had been broken from the outside.”

“Yes, but what about the security system?”

“Turned off.”

“So our would-be burglar would have to know how to do that too?”

“I’m not saying it was kids, or an amateur. Any burglar worth his salt can find his way around a domestic security system.”

“True enough, but when you add it all up, a little inside knowledge goes a long way. Anyway, you said there was something odd about Natasha Goldwell?”

“Yes. It was nothing, really, but there was just something a bit … offhand … about her responses. I mean, I know it was very recent, so she’d hardly have to rack her brains to remember, but it all seemed just a bit too handy, a bit too pat.”

“As if she’d learned it by rote?”

“Maybe. It’s something to bear in mind, at any rate.” Annie reached for her glass. “You know, it’s not a bad idea, this ladies’ poker circle. I wouldn’t mind being involved in something like that myself.”

“Start one, then.”

“Maybe I will. Winsome might be interested. Maybe even Super intendent Gervaise. We could get a police ladies’ poker circle together.”

“I can’t see the chief constable approving. You know what he feels about gambling and the road to corruption.”

“Still,” said Annie, “I think it’s sort of cool. Anyway, what next?”

“We’ll have another word with Natasha Goldwell, see what she was doing at Denise Vancalm’s the day before the murder. But first, I think we’ll go and have a little chat with Colin Whitman, Mr. Vancalm’s business partner.”

The offices of the Vancalm–Whitman public relations company were above a wine shop on a side street off the main hill. Banks parked up by The Stray, and he and Annie walked down past Betty’s towards the spa, the wind blowing rain against them. “If the timing’s right,” Banks said, “I’ll take you to Betty’s after the interview.”

“You’re on,” said Annie.

A receptionist greeted them in the first office. The entire floor looked as if it had been renovated recently, the bare brick look with a few contemporary paintings stuck up here and there to liven the monotony. There was also a smell of freshly cut wood. The phone kept ringing, and between calls the receptionist, who bore the name tag
Megan
, pointed along a corridor and told them Mr. Whitman would see them.