Banks nodded and turned to Leila. She was an attractive young woman with short dark hair and pale skin, marred only by a nose ring and another ring by the side of her right eye. She was wearing a soft tan kidskin jacket over her T-shirt, and the regulation distressed jeans. Banks sometimes thought they must be issued on entrance to all institutions of further education.
‘Sorry to keep you waiting,’ Banks said. ‘But I suppose DCI Blackstone has already told you it’s important.’
‘It’s OK,’ said Leila. ‘There are worse places to wait. I can’t tell you any more than I told her, though.’ She gestured towards DC Musgrave.
‘It’s very important that we find this Mia as soon as possible,’ said Banks.
‘Like I said, I’ll do my best.’
‘Can you to tell me what happened, how you met?’
Leila sighed and put her knife and fork down. Conversations rose and fell around them, but Banks fixed his attention on her words.
‘We met here,’ she said. ‘Not this room, in the beer garden. It was a fine day near the beginning of term.’
‘Not so long ago, then?’
‘Couple of months or so.’
‘Was it your first time here?’
‘No. I’m a second-year student. It’s my local. I live down on Bainbrigge Road.’
‘So you’re here quite a lot?’
‘Quite a lot, yeah.’
‘And you’d never seen her before?’
‘No.’
‘What did she tell you?’
‘She said she was an English student from Bristol, but she’d got fed up of it down there and transferred. She’d heard Leeds was a good place.’
‘Did you ever see her around campus?’ Annie asked.
‘No. But I’m in psychology. Our departments aren’t exactly close.’
‘How about the student pub, the coffee shops?’
Leila just shook her head.
‘So you got talking,’ Banks said. ‘What happened then?’
‘Nothing, really. I mean we talked about music, and stand up. Discovered we both like stand up. We had a few drinks. Maybe a few too many in my case, truth be told.’
‘Was there anything unusual about your conversation?’
‘Not really. Just...’ She gave a shake of her head. ‘I could have been misreading her, but at one point I thought she was telling me I could make a lot of money if I wanted.’
‘Did she tell you how?’
‘Just that she knew people, men, who would happily pay to be seen with me. I mean, she didn’t make it sound like prostitution or anything, but I sort of took it that way.’
‘How did you react?’ Annie asked.
‘I told her I wasn’t interested in men.’
‘And then?’
‘She backed off, but...’
‘What did you talk about next?’
‘I can’t remember it all.’ She gestured towards Blackstone and DC Musgrave. ‘Like I told them, I was a bit pissed by then. Only the long and short of it is I went home with her and we spent the night together. I’m a lesbian.’
She said it proudly and defiantly, as if expecting some sort of shocked reaction.
‘So she took you to her home?’ Banks said.
‘Yes. I... I mean, I share a house with a couple of other students. There’s never enough privacy. Mia has her own place.’
‘Good,’ said Banks. ‘So you know where she lives.’
Leila bit her lower lip. ‘I should, I know. I can remember the street but I’m not exactly sure about the house. Like I said, we’d had a few drinks. I mean, it’s not something I do every night, get picked up by a strange woman in a pub.’
‘I don’t suppose it is,’ said Banks. ‘Did you see her again?’
Leila looked angry and took a long pull on her lager before answering. ‘No,’ she spat. ‘She gave me a phone number, and I called her the next day. It was... I mean, I liked her. I thought we really hit it off. We’d had a good time, and I thought maybe, you know, maybe she just cared about me a little bit, maybe there might be a relationship or something.’
‘But?’
‘She never answered. Not then, not ever. It was like she could see who it was calling and just pressed the red button on me.’ She shook her head slowly. ‘I don’t know why. It wasn’t meant to be a one-night stand. I don’t do one-night stands.’
‘It was nothing to do with you,’ said Banks. ‘It’s my guess she had other things that required her attention. It was just bad timing.’ But this was the one mistake Mia had made, the careless moment he had been waiting for, and it had occurred at a time when all was going well for her, and when whatever happened later to Adrienne and Sarah was still part of an unimaginable future. Mia let her guard down with Leila, let her feelings and her desires run away with her, with no reason whatsoever to believe that her lapse would come back to haunt her. But it had. ‘Did you ever try to find her?’
Leila seemed embarrassed by the question. Finally, she said, ‘I went back a couple of times, hung around the street, hoping to see her.’
‘Did you?’
‘No. I felt like a fool. I mean, we’d only spent the one night together. What did I expect?’
‘You didn’t think of knocking on a few doors, asking after her?’
‘I thought of it, but when it came to it, I didn’t dare. I mean, maybe if I’d seen her in the street I might have plucked up courage to talk to her, but if she thought I’d been tracking her down, stalking her, or whatever...’ She let her voice trail off.
‘I understand,’ said Banks. ‘You still have the phone number?’
Leila nodded towards Blackstone and DC Musgrave. ‘I gave it to them.’
‘They’re working on it at the station,’ said Blackstone. ‘Shouldn’t take long.’
‘Pay-as-you-go?’
‘They don’t think so.’
‘Excellent.’ Banks guessed that Mia would have given Leila her real phone number, not one of the throwaways she used for business. He looked back at Leila, who seemed saddened by reliving her night of dashed hopes. ‘Can you show us the street, at least?’ he asked.
Leila nodded.
There was no sense in them all going, so Banks and Annie drove off with Leila while Blackstone and DC Musgrave returned to their headquarters at Elland Road.
Following Leila’s directions, Banks headed back towards the university and turned left off Headingley Lane before they reached Hyde Park, into an area of grand old houses. The street that Leila eventually pointed out was less grand than some of the others, but nonetheless impressive, all walled stone mansions with gables and turrets.
‘Pretty much all of these houses are divided into flats,’ Leila said. ‘I remember thinking it was a bit upmarket for a student, but, well, by then, I wasn’t all that much interested in how she managed to pay for it. I just remember it was nice, the furnishings and all. And big.’
‘But you can’t remember which one it was?’
‘They all look the same from the outside, and the streetlights are widely spaced and not very bright. It was dark and Mia was driving. Maybe she shouldn’t have been, but it wasn’t that far. We were talking, then she’d pulled into a drive. I didn’t notice which one.’
‘Do you remember the car?’
Leila shook her head. ‘I really wasn’t paying attention to the car.’
‘What about when you left the following morning?’
‘I walked home. My head was spinning a bit, and I had a bit of a hangover. I wasn’t really paying attention to my environment. I mean, despite the headache and all, I was feeling pretty good. It had been a long time, you know, since I met someone. I was sure I’d see her again. I mean, I’d no reason to try and memorise where she lived. I thought she’d ring me.’
As they stood at the end of the street and looked at the two rows of similar houses facing one another, Banks knew it wouldn’t take them long to find Mia’s, even if they had to resort to knocking on doors. But before they could make a move, Banks’s mobile went off. It was Blackstone with the address. The phone number was registered to a Mariela Carney. Number 36, Flat 5.