When they were getting back into the car, Winsome said, ‘I don’t think they had anything to do with it, do you, guv?’
Banks shook his head. ‘No,’ he said. ‘You saw their reaction when I told them about the girl’s body. He’s an arsehole of the first order, and no doubt has a few enemies, but he’s not a killer. Let’s get back to the station and see if we get any results from the photo on the evening news.’
It was seven o’clock, shortly after Banks’s visit to the Vernons. Kirsten Brody had been and gone without telling him anything more than she had told him before. Peter Darby’s crime scene photo had made it in time for Look North and the local ITV news. There was nothing much for Banks to do now but wait and indulge in pointless speculation. He was standing at his office window in the dark looking down on the Christmas lights that glowed and twinkled in the market square. Rebecca Clarke’s viola sonata played in the background.
Kirsten Brody could have put the body in the car herself before reporting it, Banks thought. She was up there alone at the scene for long enough. But why do that, then call the police to report it? No. It didn’t make sense, and it wouldn’t until they found out more about the victim’s life. And death. The girl’s body had been transported to the mortuary in the basement of Eastvale General Infirmary, Dr Burns having pronounced death at the scene, possibly due to asphyxiation on her own vomit, he had said, which pointed to some sort of drug overdose, either accidental or deliberate. They would have to wait until the post-mortem to be certain.
Dr Burns wasn’t sure about time or place of death, putting it at two or perhaps three days earlier, which meant Saturday or Sunday, quite a window of opportunity. Banks hoped Dr Glendenning might be able to narrow it down a bit more when he got her on the table. The weather had been poor until Monday, so very few people would have used Belderfell Pass. The locals certainly knew how treacherous the winding, unfenced road could be even in the best of conditions.
But for Kristen Brody’s ‘feeling’, the body might well have remained where it was until Trevor Vernon stopped waiting for the police to do it and arranged for the garage to come to take his car away. If someone had placed the girl in the car, or dropped her off there to die, he or she must have known that her body would be discovered before too long. There were far better places nearby to hide a body than in a damaged car with a POLICE AWARE sign in its window, especially if you didn’t want anyone to find it for a long time. As yet, nobody had reported a young woman missing. If she had got there herself, then how? She couldn’t have walked, especially dressed the way she was; she was too far from anywhere for that. Someone must have given her a lift and either dropped her off or dumped her.
The telephone snapped Banks out of his stream of thought.
‘I think I know the identity of the girl whose photo they showed on the news tonight,’ the caller said. ‘I just can’t believe she’s dead.’
‘You knew her?’
‘Adrienne Munro,’ repeated the caller. ‘That’s her name.’
‘Was she a friend of yours?’
‘Not a friend. A student. I’m a lecturer at Eastvale College. Biology. Adrienne was one of my students. One of the brightest. I can’t quite believe what I just saw.’
A student. That perhaps explained why nobody had reported her missing yet. She could have been in a hall of residence, or lived alone in one of the many flats and bedsits that thronged the college area. ‘Could you please come by the infirmary and confirm that identification, Mr...?’
‘Stoller. Luke Stoller. Would I have to look at her?’
‘We can arrange for video identification. We’ll still have to go to the family for formal identification, of course, but you could really help us out here. We’d hardly want to upset the poor girl’s parents if we’re not sure it’s their daughter.’
‘No. Of course not. I can see that. Naturally, I’ll come. I don’t know why I’m being so squeamish. I teach biology, after all. I’ve dissected a frog or two in my time. It’s just... someone you know. Especially someone so vital, so young. Christ, Adrienne was only nineteen. Just starting her second year.’
‘Was she studying biology?’
‘Agricultural sciences. Biology was one of her required components.’
‘Maybe we can talk to you about her later, once we know a bit more about what’s going on? For the moment, though, the identification would be a huge first step.’
‘I can meet you in reception at the infirmary in about fifteen or twenty minutes, if that’s all right?’
‘Excellent.’ Banks hung up the phone and went down to the squad room to find Winsome. She should have no trouble tracking down Adrienne Munro’s address, and that of her parents.
Luke Stoller identified the body as that of Adrienne Munro, and Winsome came up with the necessary addresses. While Banks and Winsome waited for Adrienne’s parents to be driven down from Stockton to make a formal identification, they obtained a key from her landlord and walked down the tree-lined street of tall Victorian houses to number 27, where Adrienne Munro had a bedsit on the second floor. The bare branches stood in stark silhouette against the streetlights and above them, the clear crisp night was full of stars. Inside the building, it was warm, the stair carpet was clean and relatively new and the walls of the staircase and landings were decorated with tasteful reproductions of old masters. A smell of curry permeated the building, but that was to be expected in any student digs. Curry was cheap to make, and takeaways were plentiful.
As bedsits go, Adrienne’s was fairly spacious, though the roof did slope at quite an angle over the bed itself. You’d bang your head when you got up in the night if you weren’t careful, Banks thought, realising he was now at the age when he had to get up in the night far more often than he did as a student.
They put on their gloves and began the search.
The room came with an en suite, which consisted of a tiny walk-in shower, toilet and sink. There was barely room for towels on the narrow rack and flimsy shelves. Still, it was better than a toilet and bathroom down the hall, shared with the rest of the house. The medicine cabinet revealed nothing but a toothbrush, toothpaste, deodorant, nail clippers, a shaver, paracetamol and various cosmetics. There was no sign of prescription drugs, no contraceptive pills or devices, either in the bathroom or in any of Adrienne’s bedside drawers. Nor were there any obvious signs of vomit in the sink, toilet or bathtub.
The room itself was tidy, the bed made, dishes lying on the draining board next to the sink. Banks ran his finger over one of the plates. Quite dry. It felt like a cosy home away from home, with a certain warmth about it and an aura of being someone’s safe and special place or refuge. Above the small desk was a shelf of books, mostly textbooks on animal welfare and behaviour and wildlife conservation, along with a few paperbacks by Philippa Gregory, Antonia Fraser and Bernard Cornwell, showing a predilection for historical fiction. The ubiquitous Game of Thrones set of paperbacks was there, too, and it appeared to have been read. There was even an illustrated copy of Black Beauty, which also looked well thumbed, probably a relic from her childhood.
One drawer held a passport, issued in March of the previous year, a bank statement showing a balance of £2,342 — perhaps the residue of her student loan — and Adrienne’s birth certificate, National Health card, student rail pass and other pieces of official paper. There was no sign of a driving licence. Another held a small amount of costume jewellery. Banks handed it all to Winsome, who bagged everything for later examination. All seemed in order, and it didn’t appear as if anything untoward had taken place in Adrienne’s bedsit, but the whole place would still require a thorough forensic search by a CSI team. For now, Banks thought, it would do no harm for him to get a little ahead of the game. On the desk sat a laptop and a mobile phone, which he asked Winsome to bag.