Banks clinked glasses. ‘Congratulations. But don’t be too hard on Kevin. We all need to find our place in the world. I don’t know whether to be grateful or not, but neither of mine is showing any signs of marriage yet, let alone child-rearing.’ Banks’s son Brian was touring in France, Holland and Germany with the Blue Lamps, and his daughter Tracy had recently moved to Newcastle, where she was working at the university and doing a part-time postgraduate degree in History, with a view to becoming a teacher, or a university lecturer.
‘I’ll let you know what it’s like.’
‘How’s Audrey?’ Audrey was Blackstone’s ex-wife.
‘Don’t know. I never hear from her. Jackie tells me she’s buggered off to the Dordogne with some retired chartered accountant.’
‘That’s one place to avoid when you do retire, then. It must be full of boring English émigrés. It’s funny you should bring up retirement,’ Banks went on. ‘Madame Gervaise mentioned it just the other day. Said if I keep my nose clean over the next while I might make super and not have to retire until I’m sixty-five.’
‘And can you?’
‘What?’
‘Keep your nose clean for a while?’
‘I’m not too sure about that. Something nasty’s brewing. I can feel it in my water.’
Their food arrived, and both paused while the waiter rearranged the cutlery and fussed about filling glasses from the bottled water they had ordered. When the flurry of activity had settled down, Blackstone took another sip of gin and tonic and said, ‘Do tell.’
‘I was just talking to Annie before you arrived,’ Banks said, ‘and she and Winsome re-interviewed a witness this afternoon. You know about the Gavin Miller case? A disgraced college lecturer chucked over the side of a railway bridge?’
‘I’ve read something about it, but you’d better fill me in on the details.’
Banks told him in as concise detail as possible about Gavin Miller’s death and their investigation into its circumstances, including his and Gerry Masterson’s foray into the life and times of Lady Veronica Chalmers and family. By the time he had finished, they had almost done with their main courses, and Blackstone was already halfway through his second drink. When the waiter asked if they wanted dessert, both declined and ordered coffees.
‘So what’s your problem?’ Blackstone asked, when the waiter had gone.
‘Too many suspects, but none that really stand out. Flimsy alibis, no forensics, one or two of our favourites not physically capable of chucking the victim over the bridge — the sides were quite high — too little in his life to help us track down useful connections. It’s all a bit of a jumble. I was telling Gerry Masterson just the other day that I’m beginning to wonder if they weren’t both Russian sleeper agents called back to action and something went wrong.’
‘That bad, is it? But you seem to have narrowed it down to two lines of inquiry,’ Blackstone pointed out. ‘The Lady and the college crowd.’
‘That’s true. But there are too many suspects in the college crowd, and the Lady’s been ruled off limits.’
‘Since when did that stop you?’
‘It doesn’t. Usually.’ Banks grinned. ‘You’re right. It hasn’t.’
‘And that’s why you can’t see yourself keeping your nose clean for a while?’
Banks leaned forward. ‘She’s got something to do with it, I’m certain of it, Ken. Maybe she didn’t kill him, in fact I’m almost certain she didn’t kill him, but there’s a connection beyond all the things we’ve learned already, and I just can’t seem to grasp it.’
‘That’s usually because there are vital pieces missing. This is what you have your DC Masterson running around after?’
‘She’s keen.’
‘She won’t be so keen if your chief constable finds out. Or even AC Gervaise.’
‘Let me worry about that.’
‘Fair enough. And what exactly do you expect her to find out?’
‘Primarily, some connection between Veronica Bellamy, as she then was, and Gavin Miller from their university days.’
‘And if there isn’t one?’
‘Back to the drawing board. Drugs are still a possibility. But I’m certain there is.’
‘OK. Let’s say for the sake of argument that there is. So what? What could it possibly have to do with his murder forty years later?’
‘You know how these things go, Ken. A buried secret, perhaps? A shared crime? I won’t know until Gerry comes up with something solid, will I?’
‘By which time you’ll have pissed off the bosses so badly that you might as well start applying for that security guard’s job right now. And take your DC with you, for what career she’ll have left.’
‘I knew I could always depend on you to cheer me up, Ken.’
Blackstone sipped some coffee and grinned. ‘You wouldn’t want it any other way.’
‘But if I’m right, then nobody’s career is damaged, and we’ve caught a criminal. A rich one, perhaps, but a criminal nonetheless.’
‘But you said she couldn’t possibly have done it.’
‘She could afford to have it done.’
‘Aha, the old hired assassin trick.’
‘Why not? It beats the passing tramp trick. Come on, Ken, you know it happens.’
‘And just how is Lady Veronica Chalmers going to find a hired assassin to do her bidding? In the local pub?’
‘If I knew the answer to that, I’d have her in custody. I’m not saying the whole thing makes sense yet.’
‘You’re telling me it doesn’t. Honestly, Alan, you’ve met her, talked to her a couple of times, poked into her past. Do you really see her as the kind of woman who would hire someone to kill someone?’
‘How do I know?’
‘Trust your judgement. You used to.’
‘Then, no, I don’t. But maybe her husband was involved?’
‘You said he was away in New York.’
‘I mean in finding someone to do the job. Theatrical producer. He must know some pretty dodgy types, surely?’
‘Maybe. I’m sure there are a lot of actors out there who’d kill for a part in one of Sir Jeremy Chalmers’ shows. But as far as I can see, all you’ve got is a random pile of different coloured bricks.’
‘I can still build a prison from them, if only I had a few more.’
‘If you build it, they will come.’
Banks laughed.
‘Seriously, Alan, after what you’ve told me, my money’s on the college crowd and the possible drug connection.’
‘Why?’
‘Because it sounds like a nasty business that went down there, and it’s something you know about, with a number of definable suspects. And because methamphetamine, coke, heroin and the like are dangerous and very profitable substances. People who make their money from those sort of things wouldn’t think twice about chucking someone off a bridge if they thought he was going to start competing with them or rat them out to us. The Kyle kid was in jail, fair enough, but dealers have people they work for, or who work for them, and what Miller did might have annoyed someone at a very high level, someone McClusky worked for. Just theorising.’
‘But four years had gone by, Ken. Why the long wait?’
‘You could say the same about forty years. More so. Something obviously happened to trigger events, either way. Once you find that trigger, you’ll be on the home stretch.’
Chapter 10
Gerry Masterson pulled up outside the modern semi in Stockton around the time Banks was leaving Armley Jail to meet Ken Blackstone. It had taken her all day on the phone and the Internet to track down Judy Sallis, who had agreed to talk to her about what she could remember of her days as an English student at the University of Essex from 1971 to 1974.