Strange Affair (33 page)

Banks thought back on his chat with Corinne the previous evening. He had found out a lot about his brother through talking to her. Roy loved the
Goon Show
and Monty Python; he did a hilarious Ministry of Silly Walks impersonation and quite a decent version of the Four Yorkshiremen sketch; New York was still his favourite city, Italy his favourite country; he had recently taken up digital photography and all the photos on his walls were his; he played golf and tennis regularly; he supported Arsenal (typical, Banks thought, who lumped Arsenal in the same category as Manchester United, the best teams money could buy); his favourite colour was purple; his favourite food was wild mushroom risotto, his favourite wine Amarone; he loved opera and often took Corinne to Covent Garden (though she admitted that she never quite
got
opera); and they both enjoyed going to see Hollywood musicals and old foreign films with subtitles – Bergman, Visconti, Renoir, Fellini.

Roy gave money to beggars in the street but complained when he thought he was being overcharged in shops and restaurants. He could be moody, and Corinne had to confess that she never quite knew what was going on in his mind. But
she loved him, as she told Banks when her tears flowed for the second time, after the third glass of wine, no matter that she hadn’t known where she stood with him for weeks, no matter that he had left her largely alone to deal with the trauma of her abortion. She had still hoped, somehow, that he would tire of his new conquest and come back to her.

There was only one family photograph in Roy’s entertainment room, and Banks walked over to look at it. It was taken on the prom at Blackpool, Banks remembered, in August, 1965, and you could see the Tower in the background.

There they stood, all four of them, parents on the inside and, flanking them, Roy, freckled then, his hair a lot fairer than it was when he got older, and Banks at fourteen looking moody and what he supposed passed for cool back then, in his black drainpipe trousers and polo-neck Beatles jumper. He hadn’t really looked at the photo closely before, but when he did he realized that it must have been taken by Graham Marshall, who had accompanied the Banks family on that holiday only a week or so before he disappeared during his Sunday morning paper round.

This was the holiday when Banks had fallen for the beautiful Linda, who worked behind the counter at the local coffee bar. She was far too old for him, but he had fallen nonetheless. Then he and Graham had picked up a couple of girls at the Pleasure Beach, Tina and Sharon, and taken them under the pier for a bit of hanky-panky. He didn’t remember having the photograph taken, but that was no surprise. He hardly remembered Roy being on that holiday, either. What fourteen-year-old would waste his time hanging around with his nine-year-old brother?

Graham Marshall was dead, another murder victim, and now Roy. Banks looked at his father in an old grey V-necked
pullover, shirt sleeves rolled up, cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth, hair swept back with Brylcreem. Then he looked at his mother, hardly a dolly bird, but surprisingly young and pretty, with a full-bodied perm and a summer dress showing off her trim waist, smiling into the camera. What would they find when they explored her insides next week? Banks wondered. Would she survive? And his father, after all this trauma? Banks was beginning to feel as if everyone he came into contact with was cursed, that all his companions became hostage to death, like the wraiths that haunted “Strange Affair.”

Then he told himself to stop being so maudlin. He had solved Graham Marshall’s murder more than thirty-five years after it had been committed, his mother would survive the operation, and his father’s heart would go on beating for a long time yet. Roy was dead and Banks would find out who killed him. And that was that.

As Banks was getting ready to head out to try Gareth Lambert again, his mobile rang.

“Alan, it’s Annie.”

“Thought you were on your way home.”

“So did I, but something’s come up.”

Banks gripped the phone tighter. “What?”

“Technical support have worked out where the digital photo on your brother’s mobile was taken.”

“How on earth did they manage that?”

“From the list of abandoned factories,” Annie said. “There were some letters visible on a wall in the background:
NGS
and
IFE
. One of the factories listed was Midgeley’s Castings, and one of the older detectives on the team remembered he used to pass by the place on his way to school and they had a sign that read
MIDGELEY’S CASTINGS
:
CAST FOR LIFE
. The place shut down in 1989 and nobody’s done anything with it since.”

“Where is it?”

“By the river down Battersea way. I’m sorry to be so brutal, Alan, but the tide experts also agree that it’s very likely the area where your brother’s body was dumped in the river, so it’s looking more and more as if it was Roy in the foreground of the picture. We’re heading out there now. Want to come?”

“You know I do. What does Brooke have to say?”

“He’s okay with it. Meet us there?”

“Fine.”

Annie gave him an address and directions and Banks hurried out to his car.

“DS Browne?”

“Speaking.”

“This is DC Templeton from Eastvale. How are things down your way?”

“Fine, thanks. Anything new?”

“Maybe,” said Templeton, fingering the plastic bag on the desk in front of him. “I went to talk to Roger Cropley’s wife and found him at home. Says he’s got a summer cold but I didn’t notice any sniffles. Anyway, I think I rattled him a bit more. He seemed nervous when I told him that Paula Chandler, the woman who got away, thought she might be able to recognize her attacker.”

“But that’s not true,” Susan said.

“Cropley doesn’t know that. And I think his wife might know a lot more than she’s letting on, too. Anyway, I’ve got an idea. Did your SOCOs do a thorough trace evidence search of the victim’s car?”

“I’m sure they did,” said Susan. “But there was no evidence
that the killer was ever in the car. He clearly dragged her out and into the bushes.”

“But he’d have to lean in to apply the chloroform.”

“True. What are you getting at?”

“You’ve still got all the collected samples, I assume? Hair? Skin?”

“Of course.”

“And the car?”

“That, too. Look, what’s going on?”

“Can you check if they found any dandruff on the seat back?”

“Dandruff?”

“Yes.”

“I’ll check,” said Susan. “What do you have in mind?”

“I’ve been on the Web, and it all sounds a bit complicated, but as far as I can gather you can get DNA from dandruff. I mean, it is just skin, isn’t it?”

“It won’t do us much good,” said Susan, “unless we have a sample for comparison.”

“Er…well, as a matter of fact, we might have.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’ve got a sample of Cropley’s dandruff. Can I send it down to you?”

“I trust you didn’t ask Mr. Cropley for this?”

Templeton laughed. “No. Believe me, he gave it quite freely, though.”

“That’s not the point,” Susan said. “I’m sure you know as well as I do that you have to get the suspect’s written permission even for a non-intimate sample, unless you’ve detained him for a serious offence and the super gives permission to take one.”

“I know my PACE regulations,” said Templeton. “What I’m saying is that this could confirm my suspicions. If you knew it was him, if
we
knew it was him, then it would make a difference and we could start to build a real case. He doesn’t have to know about the previous sample. Nobody does except you and me. Right now we’ve got no real grounds to arrest him and demand a sample, but if the sample he gave me matches any of the dandruff found in the car, then we’d know where to look and you can be damn sure we’d come up with something to arrest him for. After that…well, then we’d get an official sample, of course.”

“What if it’s not him?”

“Then he’s off the hook.”

“But there’d be records, paperwork relating to the first test. These things are expensive.”

“I know that, but so what? It needn’t come out. Surely you must know
someone
at the lab with a bit of discretion? How is anybody going to know?”

“A good defence lawyer would use it as ammunition against our case.”

“Only if he found out. Besides, it wouldn’t matter. By that point we’d have
officially
matching DNA which we’d have no trouble getting admitted, all by the book. You can’t argue with that. Christ, I’ll even pay for the test myself if that’s your problem.”

“That’s not the problem. And I doubt you could afford it, anyway. The point is that if it does turn out to be Cropley, the real evidence could be thrown out because of what you’re asking. It’s iffy. No, I don’t like this at all.”

Templeton sighed. He hadn’t realized what a stickler DS Browne was. “Look,” he said, “do you want this guy or not? Maybe it’ll rule him out. I don’t know. But we should at least
keep an eye on him. If I’m right – and the DNA would prove that one way or another – he’s done it before and he’ll do it again. What do you think? Wouldn’t you like to
know
?”

Templeton felt himself tense during the silence that followed.

Finally, Susan Browne said, “Send it down. I’ll talk to my SIO, see what I can do. I’m not promising anything, though.”

“Great,” said Templeton. “It’s already on the way.”

Banks felt more trepidation than he could ever have imagined as he walked with Brooke and Annie over the weeds and stony ground towards the dirty brick factory, its ugly facade covered in Day-Glo graffiti. Was he now going to see the exact spot where his brother had been shot and killed? Little Roy, whom he’d saved from a bully and scarred with a toy sword. He gritted his teeth and felt his neck and arm muscles tense up.

The doors looked forbidding, but they were easily opened, and the three were soon crossing the vast factory floor, footsteps echoing. There was something about abandoned factories, with the gaping holes in their roofs, rusted old machines, drums, pallets and weeds growing through cracks in the walls and floor, that always disturbed Banks. He thought it had something to do with a dream that had scared him when he was young, but he couldn’t remember the details. He also thought it had something to do with the ball-bearings factory across the road from his parents’ house, though it had been in operation during his time there and he had no unpleasant experiences associated with it. There had always been derelict houses, workshops and factories, though, and he had explored most of them with his friends, tracking down imaginary monsters. Whatever the reason, places like that still gave him the shivers, and this one was no exception.

“You do take me to the nicest places, Dave,” said Annie. “This is almost as cheerful as that street in Bow.”

“At least it’s not raining today,” Brooke said.

A rat scuttled out from under a rusted sheet of metal and practically ran over Annie’s feet on its way out. She pulled a face but made no sound. Sunlight lanced through missing sections of roof, illuminating the dust motes the three of them kicked up as they walked. The large windows behind their protective grilles were all broken, and shattered glass was strewn all over the floor, sparkling in the rays of light. Here and there were oily puddles and damp patches from the previous night’s rain.

At the centre of the factory floor, almost hidden by rusty machines, Banks saw a wooden chair. On the floor beside it lay snake-like lengths of cord.

“Better stand back,” said Brooke as they approached it. “The SOCOs will be here soon and they won’t appreciate it if we trample all over their scene.”

Banks stood and looked. He thought he could see spots of blood on the cord and splatters on the ground near the chair. For a moment, he pictured Roy tied there, felt his terror as he knew he was going to die in this filthy place, then his policeman’s instinct kicked in and he tried to interpret what he was seeing.

“Roy was shot in the head with a .22, like Jennifer Clewes, right?” he said.

“That’s right,” said Brooke.

“And there was no exit wound?”