Inspector Banks: Wednesday's Child Part 21

TEN.

I.

In the evening beyond the venetian blinds in Banks's office, puddles gleamed between the cobbles, and water dripped from the crossbars of lamp-posts, from eaves and awnings. Muted light glowed behind the red and amber windows of the Queen's Arms, and he could hear the buzz of laughter and conversation from inside. The square itself was quiet except for the occasional click of high-heels on cobbles as someone walked home from work late or went out on a date. An occasional gust of cool evening air wafted through his partly open window, bringing with it that peculiar fresh and sharp after-the-rain smell. It made him think of an old John Coltrane tune that captured in music just such a sense of an evening after rain. He could make out the gold hands against the blue face of the church clock: almost eight. He lit a cigarette. The gaslights around the square-an affectation for tourists-came on, dim at first, then brighter, reflecting in twisted sheets of incandescent light among the puddles. It was the time of day Banks loved most, not being much of a morning-person, but his epiphany was interrupted by a knock at the office door, shortly followed by PC Tolliver and DC Susan Gay leading in an agitated Les Poole.

"Found him at the Crown and Anchor, sir," explained Tolliver. "Sorry it took so long. It's not one of his usual haunts."

"Bit up-market for you, isn't it, Les?" Banks said. "Come into some money lately?"

Poole just grunted and worked at his Elvis Presley sneer. Tolliver left and Susan Gay sat down in the chair beside the door, getting out her notebook and pen. Banks gestured for Poole to sit opposite him at the desk. Poole was wearing jeans and a leather jacket over a turquoise T-shirt, taut over his bulging stomach. Even from across the desk, Banks could smell the beer on his breath.

"Now then, Les," he said, "you might be wondering why we've dragged you away from the pub this evening?"

Les Poole shifted in his chair and said nothing; his features settled in a sullen and hard-done-by expression.

"Dunno."

"Have a guess."

"You found out something about Gemma?"

"Wrong. I'm working on another case now, Les. The super's taken that one over."

Poole shrugged. "Dunno then. Look, shouldn't I have a brief?"

"Up to you. We haven't charged you with anything yet. You're just helping us with our enquiries."

"Still ... what do you want?"

"Information."

"About what?"

"Can you read, Les?"

"Course I can."

"Read the papers?"

"Now and then. Sporting pages mostly. I mean, most of your actual news is bad, isn't it? Why bother depressing yourself, I always say."

Banks scratched the thin scar beside his right eye. "Quite. How about the telly? That nice new one you've got."

Poole half rose. "Now look, if this is about that-"

"Relax, Les. Sit down. It's not about the Fletcher's warehouse job, the one you were going to tell me you know nothing about. Though we might get back to that a bit later. No, this is much more serious."

Poole sat down and folded his arms. "I don't know what you're on about."

"Then let me make it clear. I can do it in two words, Les: Carl Johnson. Remember, the bloke I asked you about a couple of days ago, the one you said you'd never heard of?"

"Who?"

"You heard."

"So what. I still don't know no Ben Johnson."

"It's Carl, Les. As in Carl Lewis. Better pay more attention to those sporting pages, hadn't you? And I think it was a bit too much of a slip to be convincing. Don't you, Susan?"

Banks looked over Poole's shoulder at Susan Gay, who sat by the door. She nodded. Poole glanced around and glared at her, then turned back, tilted his head to one side and pretended to examine the calendar on the office wall, a scene of the waterfalls at Aysgarth in full spate.

"According to the governor of Armley Jail," Susan said, reading from her notes to give the statement authority, "a Mr Leslie Poole shared a cell with a Mr Carl Johnson for six months about four years ago."

"Bit of a coincidence, isn't it, Les?" Banks said.

Poole looked up defiantly. "What if it is? I can't be expected to remember everyone I meet, can I?"

"Have we refreshed your memory?"

"Yeah, well ... now you mention it. But it was a different bloke. Same name, all right, but a different bloke."

"Different from whom?"

"The one you mean."

"How do you know which one I mean?"

"Stands to reason, dunnit? The bloke who got killed."

"Ah. That's better, Les. And here was me thinking you weren't up on current affairs. How did you hear about it?"

"Saw it on the telly, didn't I? On the news. Someone gets croaked around these parts you can't help but hear about it somewhere."

"Good. Now seeing as this Carl Johnson you heard about on the news is the same Carl Johnson you shared a cell with in Armley Jail-"

"I told you, it was a different bloke!"

Banks sighed. "Les, don't give me this c.r.a.p. I'm tired and I'm hungry. I haven't eaten since elevenses, and here I am sticking around out of the goodness of my heart just to talk to you. I'm trying to be very civilized about this. That's why we're in my nice comfortable office just having a friendly chat instead of in some smelly interview room. Listen, Les, we've got prison records, we've got fingerprints, we've got warders who remember. Believe me, it was the same person."

"Well, b.u.g.g.e.r me!" Les said, sitting up sharply. "What a turn-up for the book. Poor old Carl, eh? And here was me hoping it must have been someone else."

Banks sighed. "Very touching, Les. When did you last see him?" "Oh, years ago. How long was it you said? Four years."

"You haven't seen him since you came out?"

"No. Why should I?"

"No reason, I suppose. Except maybe that you both live in the same town?"

"Eastvale ain't that small."

"Still," said Banks, "it's a bit of a coincidence, isn't it? He's been in Eastvale a few months now. It strikes me that, given your records, the two of you might have got together to do a little creative thievery. Like the Fletcher's warehouse job, for example. I'm sure Carl was versatile enough for that."

"Now there you go again, accusing me of that. I ain't done nothing."

"Les, we could drive down to your house right now, pick up the television and the compact music centre, maybe even the video, too, and likely as not prove they came from that job."

"Brenda bought those in good faith!"

"b.o.l.l.o.c.ks, Les. What's it to be?"

Poole licked his lips. "You wouldn't," he said. "You wouldn't dare go and take them away, not after what's happened to poor Brenda." A sly smile came to his face. "Think how bad it would look in the papers."

"Don't push me, Les." Banks spoke quietly, but the menace in his voice came through clearly. "What we're dealing with here is a man who was gutted. Ever been fishing, Les? Ever cleaned a fish? You take one of those sharp knives and slit its gullet open to empty the entrails. Well, someone took a knife like that, someone who must have known Carl Johnson pretty well to get so close to him in such a remote spot, and stuck the knife in just above his b.a.l.l.s and dragged it slowly up his guts, sliced his belly b.u.t.ton in two, until it got stuck on the chest bone. And Carl's insides opened up and spilled like a bag of offal, Les. If his jacket hadn't been zipped up afterwards they'd have spilled all over the b.l.o.o.d.y dale." He pointed at Poole's beer-belly. "Do you know how many yards of intestine you've got in there? Are you seriously telling me that I'll let a few stolen electrical goods get in the way of my finding out who did that?"

Poole held his stomach and paled. "It wasn't me, Mr Banks. Honest, it wasn't. I've got to go to the toilet. I need a p.i.s.s."

Banks turned away. "Go."

Poole opened the door, and Banks asked the uniformed PC standing there to escort him to the gents.

Banks turned to Susan. "What do you think?"

"I think he's close, sir," she said.

"To what?"

"To telling us what he knows."

"Mm," said Banks. "Some of it, maybe. He's a slippery b.u.g.g.e.r is Les."

He lit a cigarette. A short while later, Poole returned and resumed his seat.

"You were saying, Les?"

"That I'd nothing to do with it."

"No," said Banks. "I don't believe you had. For one thing, you haven't got the bottle. Just for the record, though, where were you last Thursday evening?"

"Thursday? ... Let me see. I was helping my mate in his shop on Rampart Street."

"You seem to spend a lot of time at this place, Les. I never took you for a hard worker before, maybe I was wrong. What do you do there?"

"This and that."

"Be more specific, Les."

"I help out, don't I? Make deliveries, serve customers, lug stuff around."

"What's your mate's name again?"

"John."

"John what."

"John Fairley. It's just a junk shop. You know, old 78s, second-hand furniture, the odd antique. Nothing really valuable. We empty out old people's houses, when they snuff it, like."

"Nothing new? No televisions, stereos, videos?"

"You're at it again. I told you I had nothing to do with that. Let it drop."

"What's he look like, this John Fairley?"

"Pretty ordinary."

"You can do better than that."

"I'm not very good at this sort of thing. He's strong, you know, stocky, muscular. He's a nice bloke, John, decent as they come."

"What colour's his hair?"

"Black. Like yours."

But Banks could see the guilt and anxiety in Poole's eyes. John's shop was where they fenced the stuff, all right, and John Fairley's description matched that of the man Edwina Whixley had seen coming down from Carl Johnson's flat, vague as it was.

"Do we know him, Les?"

"Shouldn't think so. I told you, he's straight."

"If I went to see this mate of yours, this John, he'd tell me you were in the shop all evening Thursday, would he?"

"Well, not all evening. We worked a bit late, unloading a van full of stuff from some old codger from the Leaview Estate who croaked a few weeks back."

"What time did you finish?"

"About seven o'clock."

"And where did you go after that?"

"Pub."

"Of course. Which one?"

"Well, first we went to The Oak. That's the nearest to Rampart Street. Had a couple there, just to rinse the dust out of my mouth, like, then later we went down the local, The Barleycorn."

"I a.s.sume you were seen at these places?"