Innocent Graves (47 page)

Jela
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i
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’
s eyes were wide open now. He nodded and glanced over at Gristhorpe for reassurance he wasn’t going to be left alone with this madman. Gristhorpe remained expressionless.

“Because of you, an innocent girl was brutally murdered. Now, I might not be able to charge you with murder, as I would like to
do, but I’ll certainly get something on you that’ll put you away for a long, long time. Understand me?”

“I want lawyer.”

“Shut up. You’ll get a lawyer when we’re good and ready to let you. For the moment, listen. Now, I don’t think we’ll have much trouble getting Daniel and Rebecca Charters to testify that you tried to extort money from them in order to alter the story you told against Daniel Charters. That’s extortion, for a start. And we’ll also get you for tampering with evidence, wasting police time and charges too numerous to mention. And do you know what will happen, Ive? We’ll get you sent back to Croatia is what.”

“No! You cannot do that. I am British citizen.”

Banks looked at Gristhorpe and the two of them laughed. “Well, maybe that’s true,” Banks said. “But you do know who Deborah Harrison’s father is, don’t you? He’s
Sir
Geoffrey Harrison. A very powerful and influential man when it comes to government affairs. Even you must know something of the way this country’s run, Ive. What would you say for your chances now?”

Jela
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turned pale and started chewing his thumbnail.

“Are you going to co-operate?”

“I know nothing.”

Banks leaned forward and rested his elbows on the table. “Ive. I’ll say this once more and then it’s bye-bye. If you don’t tell us what you know and where you found the diary, then I’ll personally see to it that you’re parachuted right into the middle of the war zone. Clear?”

Jela
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sulked for a moment, then nodded.

“Good. I’m glad we understand one another. And just because you’ve behaved like a total pillock, there’s one more condition.”

Jela
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’
s eyes narrowed.

“You drop all charges against Daniel Charters and make a public apology.”

Jela
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bristled at this, but after huffing and puffing for a minute or two, agreed that he had, in fact, misinterpreted the minister’s gesture.

Banks stood up and took Jela
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ć
’
s arm. “Right, let’s go.”

They drove him to St Mary’s, and he led them along the tarmac path, onto the gravel one and into the thick woods behind the
Inchcliffe Mausoleum. A good way in, he paused in front of a tree and said, “Here.”

Banks looked at the tree but could see nothing out of the ordinary, no obvious hiding-place. Then Jela
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reached his hand up and seemed to insert it right into the solid wood itself. It was then that Banks noticed something very odd about the yew trees. Not very tall, but often quite wide in circumference, they were hard, strong and enduring. Some of the older ones must have been thirty feet around and had so many clustered columns they looked like a fluted pillar. The one they stood before had probably been around since the seventeenth century. The columns were actually shoots pushing out from the lower part of the bole, growing upwards and appearing to coalesce with the older wood, making the tree look as if it had several trunks all grafted together. It also, he realized, provided innumerable nooks and crannies to hide things. What Deborah had sought out for a hiding-place, and Jela
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had seen her use, was a knot-hole in this old yew, angled in such a way that it was invisible when you looked at it straight on.

Banks moved Jela
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aside and reached his hand inside the tree. All he felt was a bed of leaves and strips of bark that had blown in over the years. But then, when he started to dig down and sweep some of this detritus aside, he was sure his fingers brushed something smooth and hard. Quickly, he reached deeper, estimating that Deborah could have easily done the same with her long arms. At last, he grasped the package and drew it out. Gristhorpe and Jela
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stood beside him, watching.

“Looks like you missed the jackpot, Ive,” Banks said.

It was a small square object wrapped in black bin-liner, folded over several times for good insulation. When Banks unfolded it, he brought out what he had hoped for: a computer diskette.

III

Back at the station, Banks handed the floppy disk to Susan Gay and asked her if she could get a printout of its contents. He hoped it had survived winter in the knot-hole of the yew. It should have
done; it had been wrapped in plastic and buried under old leaves, wood chips and scraps of bark, which would have helped preserve it, and the winter hadn’t been very cold.

Ten minutes later, Susan knocked sharply on Banks’s office door and marched in brandishing a sheaf of paper. Her hand was shaking, and she looked pale. “I think you’d better have a look at this, sir.”

“Let’s swop.” Banks pushed the diary towards her and picked up the printout.

De-bo-rah. De-bo-rah.
How the syllables of your name trip off my tongue like poetry. When was it I first knew that I loved you? I ask myself, can I pinpoint the exact moment in time and space where that magical transformation took place and I no longer looked at a mere young girl but a shining girl-child upon whose every movement I fed hungrily. When, when did it happen?

Oh, Deborah, my sweet torturer, why did I ever, ever have to see you pass that moment from childhood to the flush of womanhood? Had you remained a mere child I could never have loved you this way. I could never have entertained such thoughts about your straight and hairless child’s body as I do about your woman’s body.

I seek you out; yet I fly from you. On the surface, all appears normal, but if people could see and hear inside me the moment you come into a room or sit beside me, they would see my heart pulling at the reins and hear my blood roaring through my veins. That day you won the dressage and walked towards me in your riding-gear, that moist film of sweat glistening on the exquisite curve of your upper lip … and you kissed me on the cheek and put your arm around me … I felt your small breast press softly against my side and it was all I could do to remain standing let alone furnish the required and conventional praise … well done … well done … wonderful … well done, my love, my Deborah.

The first time I saw you naked as a woman you were standing in the old bathtub at Montclair looking like Botticelli’s Birth of Venus. Remember, my love, there were no locks on the doors at Montclair. One simply knew when private rooms were engaged and refrained from entering. Mistakes were made, of course, but honest mistakes. Besides, it was family. They aren’t prudes about such things, the French, Sylvie’s people. I hoped only for a brief glimpse of your nakedness as you bathed. I knew I couldn’t linger, that I must apologize and dash out as if I had a made a mistake before you even realized I had seen you. So fast, so fleeting a glimpse. And even now I wonder what would have happened had I not witnessed you in your full glory.

For you were standing up, reaching for the towel, and your loveliness was on display just for me. Steam hung in the air and the sunlight that slanted through the high window cast rainbows all about you. Droplets of moisture had beaded on your flushed skin; your wet hair clung to your neck and shoulders, long strands pasted over the swellings of your new breasts, where the nipples, pink as opening rosebuds stood erect. Even that early in womanhood your waist curved in and swelled out at the narrow hips. Between your legs a tiny triangle of hair like spun gold lay on the mound of Venus; the paradise I dream of; drops of water had caught among the fine, curled hairs, forming tiny prisms in the sunlight; some just seemed to glitter in clear light like diamonds …

I have other images locked away inside me: the thin black bra strap against your bare shoulder, the insides of your thighs when you cross your legs …

And so it went on. Again, it wasn’t solid evidence, but it was all they had. Banks had no choice but to act on it.

IV

Owen gazed out of the train window into the darkness. Rain streaked the dirty glass and all he could see was reflections of the lights behind him in the carriage. He wished he could get another drink, but he was on the local train now, not the InterCity, and there was no bar service.

As the train rattled through a closed village station on the last leg of his journey, Owen thought again of how he had walked the
London streets all night in the rain after killing Michelle, half-hoping the police would pick him up and get it over with, half-afraid of going back to prison, this time forever.

He had covered the whole urban landscape, or so it seemed; the west end, where the bright neons were reflected in the puddles and the nightclubs were open, occasional drunks and prostitutes shouting or laughing out loud; rainswept wastelands of demolished houses, where he had to pick his way carefully over the piles of bricks with weeds growing between them; clusters of tower blocks surrounded by burned-out cars, playgrounds with broken swings; and broad tree-lined streets, large houses set well back from the road. He had walked through areas he wouldn’t have gone near if he had cared what happened to him, and if he hadn’t been mugged or beaten up it wasn’t for lack of carelessness.

But nothing had happened. He had seen plenty of dangerous-looking people, some hiding furtively in shop doorways or hanging around in groups smoking crack in the shadows of tower-block stairwells, but no-one had approached him. Police cars had passed him as he walked along Finchley Road or Whitechapel High Street, but none had stopped to ask him who he was. If he hadn’t known different, he would have said he was leading a charmed life.

At one point, close to morning, he had stood on a bridge watching the rain pit the river’s surface and felt the life of the city around him, restful perhaps, but never quite sleeping, that hum of energy always there, always running through it like the river did. He didn’t think it was Westminster Bridge, but still Wordsworth’s lines sprung into his mind, words he had read and memorized in prison:

Well, perhaps the air wasn’t exactly “smokeless,” Owen thought, but one has to make allowances for time.

Owen felt tired and empty. So tired and so empty.

Eastvale Station was in the north-eastern part of the town, on Kendal Road a couple of miles east of North Market Street. It was only a short taxi-ride to the town centre. But Owen didn’t want to go to the centre, or, tired as he was, home.

He was surprised the police weren’t waiting for him at the station, as they probably would be at his house. He didn’t want to walk right into their arms, and however empty he felt, however
final
every second of continued freedom seemed, he still didn’t want to give it up just yet. Perhaps, he thought, he was like the cancer patient who knows there’s no hope but clings onto life through all the pain, hoping for a miracle, hoping that the disease will just go away, that it was all a bad dream. Besides, he wanted another drink.

Whatever his reasons, he found himself walking along Kendal Road. The day had been so hot and humid that the cooler evening air brought a mist that hung in the air like fog. At the bridge, he looked along the tree-lined banks towards town and saw the high three-quarter moon and the floodlit castle on its hill reflected in the water, all blurry in the haze of the summer mist.

Walking on, he came to the crossroads and saw the Nag’s Head. Well, he thought, with a smile, it would do as well as anywhere. He had come full circle.

V

By the time Banks and Gristhorpe got Chief Constable Riddle’s permission to bring Michael Clayton in for questioning, which wasn’t easy, it was already dark. One of the conditions was that Riddle himself be present at the interview.

Banks was pleased to see that Clayton, as expected, was at least mildly intimidated by the sparse and dreary interview room, with its faded institutional-green walls, flyblown window, table and chairs bolted to the floor, and that mingled smell of urine and old cigarette smoke.

Clayton made the expected fuss about being dragged away from his home, like a common criminal, to the police station, but
his confidence had lost a bit of its edge. He was wearing sharp-creased grey trousers and a white short-sleeved shirt; his glasses hung on a chain around his neck.

“Are you charging me with something?” Clayton asked, folding his arms and crossing his legs.

“No,” said Gristhorpe. “At least not yet. Chief Inspector Banks has a few questions he wants to ask you, that’s all.”

Jimmy Riddle sat behind Clayton in the far corner by the window, so the suspect couldn’t constantly look to him for comfort and reassurance. Riddle seemed folded in on himself, legs and arms tightly crossed. He had promised not to interfere, but Banks didn’t believe it for a moment.

“About what?” Clayton asked.

“About the murder of your goddaughter, Deborah Harrison.”

“I thought you’d finished with all that?”

“Not quite.”

He looked at his watch. “Well, you’d better tell him to get on with it, then. I’ve got important work to do.”

Banks turned on the tape recorders, made a note of the time and who was present, then gave Clayton the new caution, the same one he had given Owen Pierce eight months ago. Formalities done, he shuffled some papers on the desk in front of him and asked, “Remember when we talked before, Mr Clayton, and I asked you if you had been having an affair with Sylvie Harrison?”