A Necessary End (19 page)

Jack Crocker's face had as many lines as a tough teacher gives out in a week, and its texture looked as hard as tanned leather. He had a misshapen blob of a nose, and his eyes were so deeply hooded they looked as if they had been perpetually screwed up against the wind. His cloth cap and old, flapping greatcoat set the final touches. His crook, a long hazel shaft with a metal hook, leaned against the wall.

“Christ,” Banks heard Burgess mutter behind him. “A bloody shepherd!”

“I don't mind if I do,” Crocker said, accepting a drink. “I were just fetching some ewes in for lambing, like, and I kicked that there knife.” He placed the knife on the table. It was a flick-knife with a five-inch blade and a worn bone handle. “I didn't touch it, tha knows,” he went on, putting a surprisingly smooth and slender forefinger to the side of his nose. “I've seen telly.”

“How did you pick it up?” Burgess asked. Banks noticed that his tone was respectful, not hectoring as usual. Maybe he had a soft spot for shepherds.

“Like this.” Crocker held the ends of the handle between thumb and second finger. He really did have beautiful hands, Banks noticed, the kind you'd picture on a concert pianist.

Burgess nodded and took a sip of his Watney's. “Good. You did the right thing, Mr Crocker.” Banks took an envelope from his pocket, dropped the knife in, and sealed it.

“Is it t'right one, then? T'one as killed that bobby?”

“We can't say yet,” Banks told him. “We'll have to get some tests done. But if it is, you've done us a great service.”

“'T'weren't owt. It's not as if I were looking fer it.” Crocker looked away, embarrassed, and raised his pint to his lips. Banks offered him a cigarette.

“Nay, lad,” he said. “In my job you need all t'breath you can muster.”

“Where did you find the knife?” Burgess asked.

“Up on t'moor, Eastvale way.”

“Can you show us?”

“Aye.” Crocker's face creased into a sly smile. “It's a bit on a hike, though. And tha can't take thy car.”

Burgess looked at Banks. “Well,” he said, “it's your part of the country. You're the nature-boy. Why don't you go up the moor with Mr Crocker here, and I'll phone the station to send a car for me?”

Yes, Banks thought, and you'll have another pint of Watney's while you're warming your hands in front of the fire.

Banks nodded. “I'd get that knife straight to the lab if I were you,” he said. “If you send it through normal channels they'll take days to get the tests done. Ask for Vic Manson. If he's got a spare moment he'll dust it for prints and persuade one of the lads to try for
blood-typing. It's been exposed to the elements a bit, but we might still get something from it.”

“Sounds good,” Burgess said. “Where is this lab?”

“Just outside Wetherby. You can ask the driver to take you straight there.”

Burgess went over to the phone while Banks and Crocker drank off their pints of Black Sheep bitter and set off.

They climbed a stile at the eastern end of Mortsett Lane and set off over open moorland. The tussocks of moor grass, interspersed with patches of heather and sphagnum, made walking difficult for Banks. Crocker, always ahead, seemed to float over the top of it like a hovercraft. The higher they climbed, the harsher and stronger the wind became.

Banks wasn't dressed for the moors, either, and his shoes were soon mud-caked and worse. At least he was wearing his warm sheepskin-lined coat. Though the slope wasn't steep, it was unrelenting, and he soon got out of breath. Despite the cold wind against his face, he was sweating.

At last, the ground flattened out into high moorland. Crocker stopped and waited with a smile for Banks to catch up.

“By heck, lad, what'd tha do if tha 'ad to chase after a villain?”

“Luckily, it doesn't happen often,” Banks wheezed.

“Aye. Well, this is where I found it. Just down there in t'grass.” He pointed with his crook. Banks bent and poked around among the sods. There was nothing to indicate the knife had been there.

“It looks like someone just threw it there,” he said.

Crocker nodded. “It would've been easy enough to hide,” he said. “Plenty of rocks to stuff it under. He could've even buried it if he'd wanted.”

“But he didn't. So whoever it was must have panicked, perhaps, and just tossed it away.”

“Tha should know.”

Banks looked around. The spot was about two miles from Eastvale; the jagged castle battlements were just visible in the distance, down in the hollow where the town lay. In the opposite direction, also about two miles away, he could see the house and outbuildings of Maggie's Farm.

It looked like the knife had been thrown away on the wild moorland about halfway or more on a direct line between Eastvale and the farm. If someone from the farm had escaped arrest or injury at the demo, it would have been a natural direction in which to run home. That meant Paul or Zoe, as Rick and Seth had been arrested and searched. It could even have been the woman, Mara, who might have been lying about staying home all evening.

On the other hand, anyone could have come up there in the past few days and thrown the knife away. That seemed much less likely, though, as it was a poor method of disposal, more spontaneous than planned. Certainly it seemed to make mincemeat of one of Banks's theories—that a fellow policeman might have committed the murder. Again, the finger seemed to be pointing at Maggie's Farm.

Banks pulled the sheepskin collar tight around his neck and screwed up his eyes to keep the tears from forming. No wonder Crocker's eyes were hooded almost shut. There was nothing more to be done up here, he decided, but he would have to mark the spot in some way.

“Could you find this place again?” he asked.

“'Course,” the shepherd answered.

Banks couldn't see how; there was nothing to distinguish it from any other spot of moorland. Still, it was Crocker's job to be familiar with every square inch of his territory.

He nodded. “Right. We may have to get a few men up here to make a more thorough search. Where can I get in touch with you?”

“I live in Mortsett.” Crocker gave him the address.

“Are you coming back down?”

“Nay. More ewes to fetch in. It's lambing season, tha knows.”

“Yes, well, thanks again for your time.”

Crocker nodded curtly and set off further up the slope, walking just as quickly and effortlessly as if he were on the flat. At least, Banks thought, turning around, it would be easier going down. But before he had even completed the thought, he caught his foot in a patch of heather and fell face forward. He cursed, brushed himself off and carried on. Fortunately, Crocker had been going the other way and hadn't seen his little accident, otherwise it would have been the talk of the dale by evening.

He got back over the stile without further incident and nipped into the Black Sheep for another quick pint and a warm-up. There was nothing he could do now but wait for Burgess to finish at the lab. Even then, there might be no results. But a nice set of sweaty fingerprints on a smooth surface could survive the most terrible weather conditions, and Banks thought he had glimpsed flecks of dried blood in the joint between blade and handle.

EIGHT

I

A sudden, heavy shower drove the merchants from the market square. It was almost time to pack up and leave anyway; market days in winter and early spring were often cold and miserable affairs. But the rain stopped as quickly as it started, and in no time the sun was out again. Wet cobblestones reflected the muted bronze light, which slid into the small puddles and danced as the wind ruffled them.

The gold hands on the blue face of the church clock stood at four-twenty. Burgess hadn't returned from the lab yet. Banks sat waiting by his window, the awkward venetian blind drawn up, and looked down on the scene as he smoked and drank black coffee. People crossed the square and splashed through the puddles that had gathered where cobbles had been worn or broken away. Everyone wore grey plastic macs or brightly coloured slickers, as if they didn't trust the sun to stay out, and many carried umbrellas. It would soon be dark. Already the sun cast the long shadow of the Tudor-fronted police headquarters over the square.

At a quarter to five, Banks heard a flurry of activity outside his office, and Burgess bounded in carrying a buff folder.

“They came through,” he said. “Took them long enough, but they did it—a clear set of prints and a match with Gill's blood type. No doubt about it, that was the knife. I've already got DC Richmond running a check on the prints. If they're on record we're in business.”

He lit a Tom Thumb and smoked, tapping it frequently on the edge of the ashtray whether or not a column of ash had built up. Banks went back to the window. The shadow had lengthened; across
the square, secretaries and clerks on their way home dropped in at Joplin's newsagent's for their evening papers, and young couples walked hand in hand into the El Toro coffee bar to tell one another about the ups and downs of their day at the office.

When Richmond knocked and entered, Burgess jumped to his feet. “Well?”

Richmond stroked his moustache. He could barely keep the grin of triumph from his face. “It's Boyd,” he said, holding out the charts. “Paul Boyd. Eighteen points of comparison. Enough to stand up in court.”

Burgess clapped his hands. “Right! Just as I thought. Let's go. You might as well come along, Constable. Where's Sergeant Hatchley?”

“I don't know, sir. I think he's still checking some of the witness reports.”

“Never mind. Three's enough. Let's bring Boyd in for a chat.”

They piled into Banks's Cortina and headed for Maggie's Farm. Banks played no music this time; the three of them sat in tense silence as the river-meadows rolled by, eerie in the misty twilight. Gravel popped under the wheels as they approached the farm, and the front curtain twitched when they drew up outside the building.

Mara Delacey opened the door before Burgess had finished knocking. “What do you want this time?” she asked angrily, but stood aside to let them in. They followed her through to the kitchen, where the others sat at the table eating dinner. Mara went back to her half-finished meal. Julian and Luna shifted closer to her.

“How convenient,” Burgess said, leaning against the humming refrigerator. “You're all here together, except one. We're looking for Paul Boyd. Is he around?”

Seth shook his head. “No. I've no idea where he is.”

“When did you last see him?”

“Last night, I suppose. I've been out most of the day. He wasn't here when I came back.”

Burgess looked at Mara. Nobody said anything. “One of you must know where he is. What's it to be—now or down at the station?”

Still silence.

Burgess walked forward to pat Julian on the head, but the boy pulled a face and buried his head in Rick's side. “It'd be a shame,”
Burgess said, “if things got so that you couldn't look after the kids here and they had to be taken away.”

“You'd never dare!” Mara said, her face flushed. “Even you can't be as much of a bastard as that.”

Burgess raised his left eyebrow. “Can't I, love? Are you sure you want to find out? Where's Boyd?”

Rick got to his feet. He was as tall as Burgess and a good thirty pounds heavier. “Pick on someone your own size,” he said. “If you start messing with my kid's life, you'll bloody well have me to answer to.”

Burgess sneered and turned away. “I'm quaking in my boots. Where's Boyd?”

“We don't know,” Seth said quietly. “He wasn't a prisoner here, you know. He pays his board, he's free to do what he wants and to come and go as he pleases.”

“Not any more he isn't,” Burgess said. “Maybe you'd better get Gypsy Rose Lee here to ask the stars where he is, because if we don't find him soon it's going to be very hard on you lot.” He turned to Banks and Richmond. “Let's have a look around. Where's his room?”

“First on the left at the top of the stairs,” Seth said. “But you're wasting your time. He's not there.”

The three policemen climbed the narrow staircase. Richmond checked the other rooms while Banks and Burgess went into Paul's. There was only room for a single mattress on the floor and a small dresser at the far end, where a narrow window looked towards Eastvale. Sheets and blankets lay rumpled and creased on the unmade bed; dirty socks and underwear had been left in a pile on the floor. A stale smell of dead skin and unwashed clothes hung in the air. A couple of jackets, including a parka, hung in the tiny cupboard, and a pair of scuffed loafers lay on the floor. There was nothing much in the dresser drawers besides some clean underwear, T-shirts and a couple of moth-eaten pullovers. A grubby paperback copy of H.P. Lovecraft's
The Shadow over Innsmouth
lay open, face down on the pillow. On the cover was a picture of a semi-transparent, frog-faced monster dressed in what looked like an evening suit. Out of habit, Banks picked the book up and flipped through the pages to see if Boyd had written anything interesting in the margins or on the blank pages at the back. He found nothing. Richmond came in and joined them.

“There's nothing here,” Burgess said. “It doesn't look like he's scarpered, though, unless he had a lot more clothes than this. I'd have taken a parka and a couple of sweaters if I'd been him. What was the weather like on the night Gill was stabbed?”

“Cool and wet,” Banks answered.

“Parka weather?”

“I'd say so, yes.”

Burgess took the coat from the closet and examined it. He pulled the inside of each pocket out in turn, and when he got to the right one, he pointed out a faint discoloured patch to Banks. “Your men must have missed this the other day. Could be blood. He must have put the knife back in his pocket after he killed Gill. Hang on to this, Richmond. We'll get it to the lab. Why don't you two go have a look in the outbuildings? You never know, he might be hiding in the woodpile. I'll poke around a bit more up here.”