“Napoleon’s?”

“Yeah. You know, the casino. And he took me to the races a couple of times – once at Pontefract and once at Doncaster. That’s about it, really. Oh, and we went dancing now and then. Quite fleet on his feet is Robert.”

Banks coughed and stubbed out his cigarette. “Dancing? The casino?”

“Yes. He loves a flutter, does Robert. It worried me sometimes the way he’d go through a hundred or more some nights.” She shrugged. “But it wasn’t my place to say, was it? I mean it wasn’t as if we were married or anything, or even living together. And he seemed to have plenty of money. Not that that’s what interested me about him.” She pulled at her necklace again. “Can’t you tell me what’s going on, Chief Inspector? It’s not the same person that was murdered, is it? I was so upset when I saw the paper this morning. Tell me it’s a case of mistaken identity.”

Banks shook his head. “I don’t know. Maybe he had a double. Did he ever say anything about being married?”

“No, never.”

“Did he have an appendix scar?”

This time, Pamela blushed. “Yes,” she said. “Yes, he did. But so do lots of other people. I had mine out when I was sixteen.”

“When you spent time together,” Banks said, “did he always come here, to your house? Didn’t you ever visit him at his hotel?”

She frowned. “Hotel? What hotel?”

“The one he stayed at when he was in town, I assume. Did you always meet here?”

“Of course not. Sometimes he came here, certainly. I’ve nothing to be ashamed of, and I don’t care what the neighbors say. Bloody racists, some of them. You know, my mum and dad came over to Shipley to work in the woollen mills in 1952. Nineteen fifty-two. They even changed their name from Jaffrey to Jeffreys because it sounded more English. Can you believe it? I was born here, brought up here, went to school and university here, and some of them still call me a bleeding Paki.” She shrugged. “What can you do? Anyway, you were saying?”

“I was asking why you never saw him at his hotel.”

“Oh, that’s easy. I don’t know what you’re talking about. You see, it can’t be the same person, can it? That proves it.” She leaned forward quickly and clapped her hands. The bracelet spiralled. “You see, Robert didn’t stay at any hotel. Sometimes he came here, yes, but not always. Other times I went to his place. His flat. He’s got a flat in Headingley.”

3

Banks turned the Yale key in the lock and the three of them stood on the threshold of Robert Calvert’s Headingley flat. It was in the nice part of Headingley, more West Park, Banks noted, not the scruffy part around Hyde Park that was honeycombed with student bedsits.

It hadn’t been easy getting in. Pamela Jeffreys didn’t have a key, so they had to ask one of the tenants in the building to direct them to the agency that handled rentals. Naturally, it was closed at four o’clock on a Saturday afternoon, so then they had to get hold of one of the staff at home and arrange for her to come in, grumbling all the way, open up the office and give them a spare key.

And no, she told them, she had never met Robert Calvert. The man was a model tenant; he paid his rent on time, and that was all that mattered. One of the secretaries probably handed him the key, but he’d had the place about eighteen months and turnover in secretaries was pretty high. However, if Banks wanted to come back on Monday morning… Still, Banks reflected as they stood at the front door, all in all it had taken only about an hour and a half from the first time they had heard of the place, so that wasn’t bad going.

“Better not touch anything,” Banks said as they stood in the hallway. “Which is the living room?” he asked Pamela.

“That one, on the left.”

The door was ajar and Banks nudged it open with his elbow. The bottom of the door rubbed over the fitted beige carpet. Susan Gay and Pamela walked in behind him.

“There’s only this room, a bedroom, kitchen and bathroom,” Pamela said. “It’s not very big, but it’s cozy.”

The living room was certainly not the kind of place Banks could imagine Mary Rothwell caring much for. Equipped with all the usual stuff – TV, video, stereo, a few jazz compact discs, books, armchairs, gas fireplace – it smelled of stale smoke and had that comfortable, lived-in feel Banks had never sensed at Arkbeck Farm. Perhaps it was something to do with the old magazines – mostly jazz and racing – strewn over the scratched coffee-table, the overflowing ashtray, the worn upholstery on the armchair by the fire, or the framed photographs of a younger-looking Rothwell on the mantelpiece. On the wall hung a framed print of Monet’s “Waterloo Bridge, Grey Day.”

They went into the bedroom and found the same mess. The bed was unmade, and discarded socks, underpants and shirts lay on the floor beside it.

There was also a small desk against one wall, on which stood a jar of pens and pencils, a roll of Sellotape and a stapler, in addition to several sheets of paper, some of them scrawled all over with numbers. “Is this the kind of thing you’re looking for?” Pamela asked.

Carefully, Banks opened the drawer and found a wallet. Without disturbing anything, he could see, through the transparent plastic holder inside, credit cards in the name of Robert Calvert. He put it back.

A couple of suits hung in the wardrobe, along with shirts, ties, casual jackets and trousers. Banks felt in the pockets and found nothing but pennies, sales slips, a couple of felt-tip pens, matches, betting slips and some fluff.

As wood doesn’t usually yield fingerprints, he didn’t have to be too careful opening cupboards and drawers. Calvert’s dresser contained the usual jumble of jeans, jumpers, socks and underwear. A packet of condoms lay forlornly next to a passport and a selection of Dutch, French, Greek and Swiss small change in the drawer of the bedside table. The passport was in the name of Robert Calvert. There were no entry or exit stamps, but then there wouldn’t be if he did most of his travelling in Europe, as the coins seemed to indicate. On the bedside table was a shaded reading lamp and a copy of The Economist.

The kitchen was certainly compact, and by the sparsity of the fridge’s contents, it looked as if Calvert did most of his eating out. A small wine-rack stood on the counter. Banks checked the contents: a white Burgundy, Veuve Clicquot Champagne, a Rioja.

Calvert’s bathroom was clean and tidy. His medicine cabinet revealed only the barest of essentials: paracetamol tablets, Aspro, Milk of Magnesia, Alka Seltzer, Fisherman’s Friend, Elastoplast, cotton swabs, hydrogen peroxide, Old Spice deodorant and shaving cream, a packet of orange disposable razors, toothbrush and a half-used tube of Colgate. Calvert had squeezed it in the middle, Banks noticed, not from bottom to top. Could this be the same man who returned his used matches to the box?

“Come on,” Banks said. “We’d better use a call-box. I don’t want to risk smudging any prints there may be on the telephone.”

“What’s going on?” Pamela asked as they walked down the street.

“I’m sorry,” Susan said to her. “We really don’t know. We’re not just putting you off. We’re as confused as you are. If we can find some of Robert’s fingerprints in the flat, then we can check them against our files and find out once and for all if it’s the same man.”

“But it just can’t be,” Pamela said. “I’m sure of it.”

A pub on the main road advertised a beer garden at the back, and as they were all thirsty, Banks suggested he might as well make the call from there.

He phoned the station and Phil Richmond said he would arrange to get Vic Manson to the flat as soon as possible.

That done, he ordered the drinks and discovered from the barman that Arsenal had won the FA Cup. Good for them, Banks thought. When he had lived in London, he had been an Arsenal supporter, though he always had a soft spot for Peterborough United, his home-town team, struggling as they were near the bottom of the First Division.