When the Music's Over (4 page)

“I'm sorry I have to ask these questions, Mr. Stanford, but the sooner I'm done, the sooner you can go home.”

“Home? But I haven't . . . I have to . . .”

“I'd go home if I were you, Mr. Stanford. Phone your work. They'll understand. Delayed shock and all that. We'll have someone come around and take a statement from you this afternoon. Who knows, you may have remembered something else by then.”

“He's already given his address,” said Steph.

Annie nodded. “You're free to go, Mr. Stanford. If I have any more questions, I'll be in touch. But I'd like to take the clothes you're carrying to our lab. We'll let you have them back good as new. Is that a problem?”

“My clothes? But . . . ? Oh, I see. But surely you can't think I did it?”

“Just for purposes of elimination, Mr. Stanford.”

“Of course.” Stanford walked over to his bike, still stunned, unbuckled the bag and handed it over. Then he got on the bike and rode back, rather wobbly, down the lane.

“Where are the nearest houses?” Annie asked PC Mellors.

She pointed. “Nearest farmhouse is over there, at the other side of that field.”

Annie could see the house in the distance. “Unlikely they'll have witnessed anything,” she said, “though it's not so far away. Someone might have heard a car, for example, especially as the lane is little used by traffic.” No houses lined its sides, she noticed, only trees and fields of grazing sheep beyond the ditch and the drystone walls. That said, it was certainly a scenic route if you weren't in a hurry. But it's hard to see pretty landscapes at night. On the other hand, she realized, if you
wanted to avoid the Automated Number Plate Recognition cameras, the speed cameras and all the rest of the Big Brother paraphernalia that makes any road trip practically a public event these days, then Bradham Lane was your route of choice.

Annie glanced over at the body by the roadside and took a deep breath. No sense putting it off any longer. “Come on, Gerry,” she said. “Let's go have a butcher's at what we've got.”

The girl lay curled up in the fetal position, half in the long grass that edged a ditch, hands covering her face, as if to protect it. She was naked, and her body was streaked with mud, dirty water and blood. The soles of her feet were crusted with dried blood, and small stones from the road were embedded in the skin. There were no obvious bullet holes or stab wounds, and her throat seemed unscathed. Not so the rest of her. She could have been hit by a car, Annie supposed, but it would be up to the medical professionals to determine that. It was hard to see her features because of the position of her hands, but Annie noticed between the fingers that one eye was swollen shut, her lips were split and bloody, with a tooth protruding through the lower one, and her nose was crooked. Squatting to examine the rest of the body again, Annie noticed signs of bruising around the ribs, stomach and right hip. There were also signs of a scuffle in the earth around the body and, not so far away, the only obvious skid marks on the road surface, too faint and blurred to give a decent tire impression. In the absence of a medical and CSI opinion, Annie was convinced that this girl had been beaten to death, kicked, perhaps even jumped on. And girl she was. Despite the injuries, Annie could see that the victim was hardly any older than fifteen or sixteen. She sensed Gerry's presence beside her and stood up.

“My god,” said Gerry, hand to her mouth.

Annie put a friendly hand on her shoulder. “I don't think God had much to do with it, do you? And I'd like to say you get used to it, but you don't.”
Not so used to it
, Annie thought,
that you become indifferent to it, that you don't feel that tightening in your gut and that surge of anger that someone has done this to a fellow human being, or don't feel you're going to put your all into catching the bastard who did it.

“But she's so young. She's just a girl.”

“I know.” Gently directing a pale and trembling Gerry away with an arm around her shoulder, Annie headed back toward the uniformed officers. “Come on,” she said. “It's time to call in the heavy brigade.”

“
WELL, BANKSY
, what a turnup for the book. You and me working together again. Just like old times. Congratulations, by the way. The promotion. Long overdue.”

They were basking in the sunshine at one of the tables outside at the Queen's Arms, eating lunch: monster fish and chips and mushy peas, with a pint of Timothy Taylor's for Banks and a cheap lager for Burgess. Cyril, the landlord, had taken on a new barmaid to deal with the summer rush, an attractive blond Australian called Pat, to whom Burgess had already taken a shine. Luckily, Cyril wasn't around, as he and Burgess had history.

“So what's your official title these days?” Banks asked. “What do I call you?”

“I always fancied “Special Agent.” It has a ring to it. But in actual fact I'm a nonexecutive director. Sounds like a dull second-rate businessman. Mostly I go by plain “Mr. Burgess” these days.”

“Like a surgeon.”

“Exactly. It's got class, don't you think?”

The cobbled market square was buzzing with shoppers and tourists, and clogged with parked cars. Young girls in vests and tight denim cutoffs over black tights hung out around Greggs eating pasties, then disappeared into the amusement arcade next door. A gaggle of serious ramblers, with walking sticks like ski poles, expensive boots, baggy shorts and maps in plastic bags around their necks gathered by the market cross. A few people sat on the plinth around the market cross waiting for a local bus. Not far from Banks and Burgess sat a group of bloke-ish tourists in garish shorts and even more garish shirts, their faces flushed and eyes glazed from sunburn and beer. They were talking and laughing loudly enough that nothing Banks and Burgess spoke of could be overheard.

“Have you done this sort of thing before?” Banks asked.

“Once or twice.” Burgess sat back and sipped his drink, studying Banks over the rim of his glass. “I was peripherally involved in Operation Yewtree when I was back at the Yard, so I know the way things go. Look, Banksy, you probably thought the same as I did when all this stuff started coming out. You thought it was some sort of witch hunt, wondering who'd be the next celebrity to be accused of groping a young publicist fifty years ago. Different times, you'd say, and you'd be right.” He leaned forward and tapped Banks on the chest. “You probably even thought, what's so wrong with pinching the office girl's bum, maybe suggesting a hotel room after work for a bit of hanky-panky? Right? I might even have a go with young Pat here, given half the chance. After all, I'm only human, and if you don't ask . . . But that's not what this is about. We're not talking about a bit of how's your father in a dark corner at the office Christmas party. A hand casually resting on a knee in a restaurant. A surreptitious brushing up against a nice pair of tits. We've all done that, all had a kiss and cuddle in the broom cupboard and a bit of slap and tickle under the stairwell with that secretary we fancied all year.”

“Speak for yourself,” said Banks. But he remembered. It was just such an indulgence in a dark corner under the mistletoe at an office Christmas party that had led to the only affair of his married life. He didn't much care to be reminded of it now, though at the time it had seemed exciting and dangerous; it had made him feel alive at a time when he had felt the world and his marriage were falling apart around him. Looking back, it just made him feel guilty. Maybe it was some kind of poetic justice that his ex-wife Sandra had finally left him for another man.

“But this is something else,” Burgess went on. “It's not even a matter of someone sticking his tongue down a girl's throat or squeezing a breast. Believe me, I've had enough access to statements that I can say what we're talking about here is the deliberate, arrogant and systemic abuse of innocent young girls—underage girls—by people who believe they're above the law. People so blessed and so famous that in the general run of things they probably get more free pussy than they can shake a stick at. And what do they do? They pick on vulnerable thirteen-, fourteen-, fifteen-year-olds, and they assault
them and rape them, force them to do vile stuff, and then tell them they ought to be jolly grateful for getting raped by Danny Caxton or whoever. These girls end up so terrified, so fucked up, that often the rest of their lives are blighted. They see themselves as natural victims and that's what they become. All their lives, people abuse them just the way Caxton or whoever did all those years ago, and they can't stop it. They can't even figure out why. But even that's not the point. The point is that these bastards, and I mean bastards like Danny Caxton, have been getting away with it for years and making us look like the fucking Keystone Cops. They've abused these girls and boys, just like those Pakistani grooming gangs in Rochdale and Rotherham, and nobody did a fucking thing about it. Not the parents. Not the social workers. Not us. Well, times have changed, mate, because here comes the cavalry, with a vengeance.”

“I never did think that,” said Banks.

“Think what?”

“That this business is insignificant, that what we've been asked to do doesn't matter. And I'd certainly agree that some very influential people have got away with a lot of serious crimes over the years. Nothing new about that. It's just so bloody difficult to put a good case together after so long, like I said at the meeting. That's all. Memories change; evidence gets lost. People become convinced that something happened when it didn't, or that things happened differently. It's damn near impossible to sort out who's right in most cases. All you end up with is a shifting sandstorm of accusations, lies, half-truths, minor transgressions and full-blown felonies. Nobody knows what the truth is, in the end.”

Burgess ran his hand over his unruly hair. “Too true. Too true. But we're getting better. The CPS are building stronger cases, they're more willing to prosecute, getting more convictions.”

“So we ride their wave of success?”

“Why not? Isn't it better than riding a wave of failure? Besides, since when have you not risen to a challenge? This time they think we're in with a chance. They rate this Linda Palmer as a credible complainant. According to them, she's definitely not some fucked-up alcoholic with a chip on her shoulder.”

“That's good to know,” said Banks. “Does Caxton know we're on to him?”

“Probably. He shouldn't, but I wouldn't be surprised. He's still got friends in high places. I want you to go and talk to him tomorrow. After that, we'll get a team in to search his premises before he gets a chance to destroy any evidence there might be in his papers and on his computer. You can talk to Linda Palmer today. I trust your instincts enough to know that you won't need a child protection expert to figure out whether she's telling the truth. I know you, Banksy. I think once you get the bit between your teeth, you'll take to it like a duck to water, if you'll forgive the mixed metaphor, and you'll be only too glad to bring down the wrath of God on arrogant bastards like Danny Caxton.”

“I will?”

“I think so.” Burgess finished his pint. “Another? I wouldn't mind having another word with that buxom Australian barmaid. I like the way she pulls a pint.”

“You need real cask ale to get a full show of flexed muscle, not that piss you drink. All she has to do is flick the lever.”

“She can flick my lever any time. Why do you think I'm offering to buy you another one? Out of the goodness of my heart?”

Banks rolled his eyes. “I'd better not,” he said. “Not if I've got to get this crusade off the ground and talk to Linda Palmer this afternoon. Can you tell me anything about her, other than that she's a poet and claims to be a victim of Caxton's?”

“I've never met her,” said Burgess, “but from what I understand, she's got her head screwed on right. I've talked to plenty of others who've been in her position. Memories are unreliable, you're right about that, very vague sometimes. Like chasing shadows of shadows. You just have to keep at it. Gently, mind. They're sensitive souls, these victims of historical abuse. Especially poets. Some of the girls buried it right away. Really deep. They were just kids, after all. Some went through years of analysis and therapy without really knowing why—why they couldn't hold down a job, why they couldn't handle a relationship, why they couldn't bring up their kids properly. Some of them just turned to drugs and booze to help them forget. Some even
committed suicide. But Linda Palmer isn't like that, from what I understand. She's different. She's got her shit together.”

Banks finished his drink and stood up. “OK,” he said. “Thanks for the pep talk.”

Burgess gave a mock salute. “My pleasure.”

As Banks walked away, he turned and saw Burgess disappear inside the pub with his empty glass and a spring in his step.

T
HE CSI VAN ARRIVED ABOUT AN HOUR AFTER ROGER
Stanford had cycled off into the distance. Annie and Gerry remained by their car, under the shade of the trees, as the various specialists got to work. The uniformed officers donned latex gloves and overshoes to join in the roadside search. It was going on half past eleven, and by all the signs, Annie thought, the day was going to be a scorcher. The morning mist had already burned off. She wished she were at home in the garden on a sun lounger working on her tan with a thick Ken Follett novel lying open on her stomach and a long cool drink within reach.

“What do you think?” Gerry asked.

“Hard to say yet,” answered Annie. “Give the boffins an hour or so and they might come up with some ideas. We don't even know who she is or how she got here. Nobody local's been reported missing.”

“Early days yet,” said Gerry. “She can hardly have walked here.”

“True enough. Let's go talk to Doc Burns. He's been with the body long enough. He should have something to say by now.”

They walked a few yards along the road, noting the officers and CSIs probing the ditch and long grass for any clues as to what might have happened. There was a chance that the girl's clothes and bag were nearby. A purse or mobile could help them with the identification. Others had climbed over the drystone wall and were searching for
anything that might have been thrown there. Peter Darby, the police photographer, was busy with his trusty Pentax, which he wouldn't give up despite offers of a state-of-the-art digital SLR. He took digital photographs, too, of course, with a pocket Cyber-shot, as did many of the CSIs and investigating officers these days, but the Pentax shots were the “official” ones, the pictures that got tacked to the whiteboard during briefing sessions and progress meetings.

Dr. Burns was scribbling in his notebook when Annie and Gerry arrived by the corpse. “You two,” he said.

Annie smiled. “DCI—I mean Detective
Superintendent
Banks is on another case. High profile, probably. He's too good for the likes of us anymore.”

Dr. Burns smiled back. “I doubt that very much,” he said.

Annie was joking. The few times she had met with Banks since his promotion, usually for a drink after work, he had seemed much as normal, complaining about the paperwork and boring meetings, but around the station he had been far more remote and preoccupied. Hardly surprising, she thought, given his added responsibilities. His new office also put him farther away from the squad room, so they didn't bump into each other as often during the day. Annie had put in an application for promotion to DCI, but budget cuts were back with a vengeance since Banks had scraped through. They were already reducing the senior ranks, and there were plenty of constables and sergeants out there who had passed their OSPRE exams and were still without positions. The truth was, she'd have to take a few more courses and kiss a lot more arse before she got a promotion. Gerry, too, however well she did on her sergeant's exams.

“So what have we got?” she asked Dr. Burns.

“Just what it looks like, at least until Dr. Glendenning gets her on the slab. He might well discover some poison hitherto unknown to man, or signs of a blade so thin and needle sharp it leaves no trace to the naked eye. But until then, my opinion is that the poor girl was beaten to death.”

“No chance it was a hit and run?”

“I'd say that's very unlikely, judging by the injuries and the position of the body. I wouldn't rule it out a hundred percent—hit and runs
can cause any number of injuries similar to the ones this girl has—but I doubt it.” Dr. Burns paused. “Besides,” he added, “you might ask yourselves what a naked girl was doing walking down this lane in the middle of the night.”

“Oh, we'll be doing that all right,” said Annie. “Can you tell if she was beaten by a blunt object or anything? Is there a particular weapon we should be searching for?”

“From what I can see, I'd say fists and kicking. Mostly the latter, while she was lying on the ground trying to protect her face and head, knees up to try to cover her stomach.”

Annie stared at the stained and bruised body, stiffened in the fetal position. She had curled herself up in a ball like that to protect herself from a rain of blows, but she had died anyway.

“Any idea how many attackers?”

“Could be just one,” Dr. Burns said. “But again, you'll have to wait for the postmortem for a definitive answer.”

“What about her clothes? Any idea when or why they were removed?”

“None,” said Dr. Burns. “As far as I know, nobody's found any trace of them yet, and they certainly weren't removed
after
the beating.”

“Any signs of sexual assault?”

Dr Burns gestured toward the body. “As you can see, there's evidence of bruising and bleeding around the anus and vagina.”

“Any idea what killed her?”

“Could have been the blows to the head.” Dr. Burns pointed to areas where the blond hair was dark and matted with blood on the skull, the broken cheekbone, the mess of the mouth and ear. “It could also be internal injuries,” he went on. “It looks as if someone stamped on her. A beating like this is likely to rupture the spleen and god knows what else. I think her hip is probably broken, too.”

“Any ideas on time of death?”

Burns sighed. Annie knew it was the question all crime-scene doctors and pathologists hated because it was so difficult to answer accurately, but she had to ask. “Based on body temperature readings and the fact that rigor is advanced, I'd say it happened sometime between one and three in the morning. It was a warm night.”

“Thanks,” said Annie. “Are you finished with her?”

Dr. Burns glanced at the body again. “God, yes,” he said. “But I don't think you are. Not by a long shot.” And he walked off to his car.

Annie asked Peter Darby and one of the CSIs if they had also finished with the body, and they said they had. She had a raincoat in the back of the car—always a sensible precaution in Yorkshire—and while they waited for the coroner's van, she took it out and spread it gently over the girl's body. For some reason she didn't want the girl's nakedness on display, even though everyone at the scene was a professional. Gerry still seemed especially pale and shaken by the sight.

“Excuse me for asking,” said Annie. “I realize I should know, but I can't remember. Is this your first murder victim?”

Gerry offered a weak smile. “You usually keep me in the squad room chained to the computer.”

“If you want to talk, or anything . . . As long as there's a large glass of wine in it for me.”

“Thanks, guv.” Gerry straightened her back and stuck her long pre-Raphaelite locks behind her ears. “What next?”

“We wait. Stefan's gang are good, but they take their time. I think whatever happens, high-profile case or not, Alan's going to find himself senior investigating officer on this one, so we'll report to him when we get back to the station. First priority is to figure out who she is. We'll need to start checking on missing persons as soon as possible, and see how soon we can draft in a forensic odontologist to get working on dental records. We also need an artist's impression. From what I could tell, her face is too badly disfigured for a useful photo ID. We'll check with local schools, even though they're on holiday. Social services. What's your gut feeling on this?”

“I think we need to know whether she was dumped or killed here, for a start.”

“It seems a good out-of-the-way place to dump a body,” Annie said. “Or even to kill someone. We should talk to whoever lives in that farmhouse over there.”

“Ladies!”

Annie turned around to the source of the voice. It was Stefan Nowak
about a couple of hundred yards up the road. “If you'd care to come here,” he said, “I think we might have something interesting for you.”

“
I STILL
find it hard to understand how a fourteen-year-old girl could be sexually assaulted in front of a witness and nothing was done,” said DS Winsome Jackman, as she parked the police Skoda in the tiny, charming village of Minton-on-Swain. “She did report it at the time, you say?”

“She says she did,” said Banks. “Different times. Didn't you follow the Jimmy Savile and Rolf Harris cases?”

“Not really. They aren't relevant to me. I mean, I know who they are, and it's terrible what they got away with, but they had nothing to do with my life. They weren't part of my childhood. I'm paying more attention to that Bill Cosby thing in the States.”

“They were part of my childhood,” said Banks. “Not a big part, maybe, except when Savile was a DJ on Radio Luxembourg, and I used to listen under the bedclothes, but a part, nonetheless. The
Teen and Twenty Disc Club
.”

“The what?”

“It's what his radio program was called. You could even write in to become a member, get a card with a number and a charm bracelet with a disc on it. I wish I still had mine. They're probably worth a fortune now on the creepy souvenirs market. I've still got my Radio Luxembourg books of record stars. You know, it's funny the little things you remember, but it made you feel special that Elvis was a member, too. I even remember his number: one one three two one.”

“Elvis Costello?”

Banks laughed. “Elvis Presley. Believe it or not, Winsome, I was an Elvis fan back then. Still am.”

“But isn't that when he was making those terrible films? We used to get them on television when I was little.”

“Just between you and me, I used to enjoy those terrible films. I still listen to the soundtracks now and then.
Girl Happy, Fun in Acapulco, Viva Las Vegas
. Mostly pretty bad songs, but a few gems, and say what you like about Elvis, he had a great voice.”

“We had a pastor who did terrible things to young girls the next village over,” said Winsome. “Not to me, but girls my age.”

“What happened to him?”

“The fathers ganged up and . . . well, it wasn't very nice. They used a machete. He was lucky to be alive, or maybe not, but he wasn't able to harm any more girls after that. My father was livid. There was nothing he could do to stop it, but he could hardly arrest them all, either.”

“It was a bit like that when I was a kid,” said Banks, standing for a moment to breathe in the fragrant summer air. It was late July, and the village gardens were in bloom. Banks could see why Minton had recently won a best-kept Dales village award. The inhabitants clearly took great pride in their gardens. “Maybe without the machete. But it was like everyone knew who you should stay away from. Word gets around not to go near that Mr. So-and-so at number eight, and we wouldn't. Nobody ever said why.”

“But people in the community knew who the perverts were?”

“Yes,” said Banks. “Without anyone telling them who was on a sex offenders list, if we even had such things then. And as often as not, the community dealt with it. I think they stopped short of murder and castration where I grew up, but one or two local pervs upped sticks for no apparent reason. Warned off, I should think.”

“But they'd only go somewhere else.”

“That's the problem. If what we're hearing is true, people like Danny Caxton didn't even get warned off, so they just carried on as they liked, year after year.”

“And nobody stopped them.
We
didn't stop them.”

“No, we didn't. Here it is.”

The three small cottages stood on the opposite side of the road from the main village, and Linda Palmer lived in the one with the green Mini parked outside. Banks and Winsome opened the gate, walked down the narrow hedge-lined path and flight of stone stairs, then Banks knocked on the sturdy red door. It was a warm afternoon, and even though he had slung his jacket over his shoulder, he could already feel the sweat sticking his shirt to his skin, trickling and tickling
down the groove of his spine. The heat didn't seem to bother Winsome. She was as cool as ever in her tailored navy jacket and skirt.

When the door finally opened, he found himself face to face with a tall, slender woman with short ash-blond hair cut in a jagged fringe. Her hand gripped his and then Winsome's in a firm handshake.

“Come on in, both of you,” she said. “I'm sorry I took so long to answer the door, but I was out in the garden. It's such a beautiful day, it seemed a shame to waste it. Will you join me? Or do we have to sit on uncomfortable seats in the dark to do this?”

“We'd be happy to join you,” Banks said.

She moved ahead of them gracefully, looking good in close-fitting jeans and a loose white cotton tunic. The interior of the house seemed dark after the bright sun, but before their eyes had time to adjust they went through the open French doors and found themselves outside again. This time, they were in a different world. The river wasn't very wide at this point, and it ran swift and deep at the bottom of the sloping lawn, the sun flashing like diamonds on its shifting, coiling surface, its sound constant but ever-changing. The opposite riverbank was overgrown with trees, some of them willows weeping down into the water, others leaning at precarious angles, as if they were about to topple in at any moment. Above the trees, it was possible to make out the pattern of drystone walls on the higher slopes of the opposite daleside, Tetchley Fell reaching high above Helmthorpe, close to where Banks lived, and much greener this summer after the rains.

But it was the river that drew one's attention with its magnetic power, its voice and its shifting, scintillating movement. The garden was just a swatch of lawn that needed mowing, edged with a few beds of colorful flowers: poppies, foxgloves, roses. Fuchsia and a bay tree hung over the drystone wall from next door. At the bottom was a low iron railing decorated with curlicues, and beyond that the riverbank itself. A white table and four matching chairs awaited them in the shade of an old beech tree, along with a jug full of ice cubes and orange juice. The French doors remained open and Banks could hear music playing quietly inside. He recognized the opening movement of Beethoven's Pastoral Symphony.