‘You’d have to take Ian’s prints for elimination purposes then.’
‘He’ll love it,’ Banks said. ‘I know I would have done when I was a kid. In fact, I remember getting my very own fingerprint kit for Christmas one year. I took everyone’s. Even the postman’s.’
Annie rolled her eyes. ‘Why doesn’t that surprise me?’
‘Don’t mock. They came in useful when we nicked him for receiving stolen property later.’
‘You never—’
Banks pointed at her. ‘Got you there.’
They got out of the car, and a blast of cold wind laced with sea spray hit them again. It was the kind of chilly damp that penetrated deep into Banks’s body and gave his bones an inkling of the aches and pains they would be feeling even on a normal day in a few years’ time. When they had made sure the car was locked, Mills suggested they adjourn to a tea shop over the road and warm up. He even offered to buy.
When they were settled with their cups of tea, Banks rubbed a clear patch in the misted window and gazed out at the bleak grey North Sea heaving in the distance. His mind became lost out there on the almost imperceptible horizon where sea met sky, until he realised that Annie was asking him a question.
‘So where do you think he is, then?’
‘He parked here just after three on Tuesday and he rang Alex from a public telephone in York on Tuesday evening. You can catch a train to almost anywhere from York, even connect to the Eurostar. He could be on the bloody Riviera by now.’
‘Remember,’ Annie said, ‘he’s got no money. And we’d know if he used any of his credit or debit cards. Besides, he doesn’t have his passport with him.’
‘Somewhere still in England, then. Or maybe he took a train north to Scotland?’
‘But what about the money, the abandoned car, the empty petrol tank?’
‘Maybe they were designed to throw us off the scent. We’re assuming that he had no money, but we don’t know it for a fact, do we? We’re just basing our assumption on Alex Preston’s word. We’re making a lot of guesses about his motives, too, but maybe it’s just blind fear that’s driving him, and there’s nothing to be read into it. Is he just a scared kid or a seasoned criminal on the run? He could have money on him that Alex doesn’t know about.’
‘A private stash?’
‘Why not? Especially if he was involved in criminal activities.’
‘Happens all the time,’ said Mills. ‘People don’t always tell their partners about financial matters, especially cash. Look at those blokes who spend a fortune on prostitutes. Do you think they use their credit cards?’
‘These days, probably yes,’ said Banks. ‘It no doubt appears on the statements as dry-cleaning or something.’
Mills laughed.
‘But seriously,’ Annie went on. ‘OK, let’s say he does have money with him.’
‘I can think of three, maybe four ways he might have got it,’ said Banks. ‘First off, he was prepared to go from the start and took his own private funds Alex didn’t know about. Second, he could have got it at his meeting with Spencer. We don’t know what happened there except that someone’s tracking him down because of it. Maybe it was a meeting to split proceeds, or a pay-off? Couldn’t he be on the run because he made off with someone’s money?’
‘But Alex said he was running because he saw something he shouldn’t have seen at the hangar.’
‘But again we only have her word for what he said, and even if she’s telling the truth, we don’t know that he is. And don’t forget, if Lane was involved with people who knew about overseas smuggling routes, he might not need a passport to get out of the country. If they needed to get him out, they’d get him out. And he’d hardly tell her about a pile of money he’d nicked, or received for criminal activities, would he?’
‘What’s the third and fourth?’ asked Mills.
‘He could have nicked it or someone could have given him it.’
‘Does he have any friends here in Scarborough?’
‘Not as far as we know.’
‘There is one more possibility I reckon we should follow up while we’re in the area,’ said Annie.
‘Lane’s mother and grandparents?’
‘Right. They live in Whitby, which is just a few miles up the road. We need to head up there and have a word.’
Banks turned to Mills. ‘Thanks, Inspector. Sorry to put you to such trouble on a miserable day like this. Someone from forensics will be over for the car before long.’
‘You don’t think we should leave it here and keep it under surveillance in case he comes back for it?’ Mills asked.
Banks thought for a moment, then said, ‘Have a patrol car keep an eye out until our men come. But I don’t expect he’ll be back now. He’s left it here for two days already. And like I said, it’s a red flag. Even he must know that. He’s not coming back for it. We’ll learn more from forensics than we would by leaving it here.’
‘You’re the boss. We’ll guard it with our lives till they come.’
Banks smiled. ‘I wouldn’t go that far.’ Then he looked at Annie. ‘Come on, then, let’s have a ride up to Whitby. With any luck it’ll be teatime when we’ve finished and we can grab some fish and chips and salvage something out of this day.’
Chapter 11
It was a damp grey afternoon when Winsome set out from Eastvale west into the dale to make a few inquiries at the farms on Caleb Ross’s route.
She stopped in a lay-by just outside Helmthorpe and consulted her Ordnance Survey map. Through her potholing and walking experience, she already knew the area. She had also become adept at reading maps, and could visualise the landscape as it was laid out on paper, in contours, broken lines and arcane symbols. As she had suspected, the next call, near the hamlet of Mortsett, was halfway up the daleside to her left, then the farms grew fewer and farther between as she moved on past Helmthorpe and Swainshead into the High Pennines.
Thus far, she had heard nothing but praise for Caleb Ross and the job he did, and the fallen stock on the farmers’ copies was just as it was described on Neil Vaughn’s master document. On the surface, this was the sort of job Banks could have sent a DC or even a couple of PCs in a patrol car to do, but on the other hand, he had told Winsome he needed the instinct of a seasoned detective, someone who could read the nuances, give voice to the unspoken. Winsome was trying to dig, or see, under the surface, look for the unconscious signs and signals others might miss. There hadn’t been any so far, and she didn’t expect it to be any different this time as she pulled into yet another farmyard. Her boots were already caked with mud and worse, and she feared she would never be able to wash the farmyard smell out of her hair and her clothes, or scrub it from her skin. The farmer, Reg Padgett according to Winsome’s list, was working in the yard in his donkey jacket, flat cap and wellies, and he came striding over to Winsome as she pulled up.
‘I know who you are,’ he said, beaming as she got out of the car and held out her warrant card.
Winsome smiled shyly. ‘So my fame precedes me?’
‘I’ll say it does. Rugby tackles and drop kicks. We could do with you on the England side.’
‘I don’t think I’m quite up to that. And it wasn’t strictly a drop kick.’ Winsome was referring to the rolling push with which she had sent a three-hundred-pound drug-dealer flying over a third-floor balcony on the East Side Estate a year or two ago. ‘The papers got it all wrong.’
‘Never mind, lass,’ said Padgett. ‘Whatever it was, it got the job done.’
Indeed it had. Winsome’s action had put the person in question in hospital for nearly a month with numerous fractures and abrasions, and earned her a reprimand for excessive force, which she thought was excessive in itself.