Chapter 7

1

The Merrion Centre was one of the first indoor shopping malls in Britain. Built on the northern edge of Leeds city center in 1964, it now seems something of an antique, a monument to the heady sixties’ days of slum clearance, tower blocks and council estates.

Covered on top, but open to the wind at the sides, it also suffers competition from a number of more recent, fully enclosed, central shopping centers, such as the St. John’s Centre, directly across Merrion Street, and the plush dark green and brass luxury of the Schofields Centre, right on The Headrow.

Still, the Merrion Centre does have a large Morrison’s supermarket, Le Phonographique discotheque – the longest surviving disco in Leeds – a number of small specialty shops, a couple of pubs, a flea market and the Classical Record Shop, which is how Banks had come to know the place quite well. And on a warm, windless May afternoon it can be pleasant enough.

Banks found Clegg’s Wines and Spirits easily enough. He had phoned Melissa Clegg an hour or so earlier, still smarting over his acrimonious parting with Pamela Jeffreys in the park, and she had told him she could spare a little time to talk. It was odd, he thought, that she hadn’t seemed overly curious about his call. He had said that it concerned her husband, yet she had asked for no details.

He opened the door and found himself in a small shop cluttered with bottles and cases. There were a couple of bins of specials on the floor by the door – mostly Bulgarian, Romanian and South African varietals, and some yellow “marked down” cards on a few of the racks that lined the walls to his right and left, including a Rioja, a Côtes du Rhône and a claret.

Banks looked at the racks and thought he might take something home for dinner, assuming that he and Sandra ever got the chance to sit down to dinner together again, and assuming that she wanted to. Perhaps they could have that wine, candlelight and Chopin evening he had had to cancel when the Rothwell enquiry got in the way.

Behind the counter ranged the bottles of single malt Scotch: Knockando, Blair Athol, Talisker, Glendronach. Evocative names, but he mustn’t look too closely. He had a weakness for single malt that Sandra said hit them too hard in the pocket. Besides, he still had a drop of Laphroaig left at home.

The spotty young man behind the counter smiled. “Can I help you, sir?” He wore a candy-striped shirt with the sleeves rolled up and his tie loose at the neck, the way Banks always wore his own when he could get away with it. His black hair had so much gel or mousse on that it looked like an oil slick.

“Boss around?” Banks asked, showing his card.

“In the back.” He lifted up the counter flap and Banks went through. Stepping over and around cases of wine, he walked along a narrow corridor, then saw on his left a tiny office with the door open. A woman sat at the desk talking on the phone. It sounded to Banks as if she were complaining over non-delivery of several cases of Hungarian Pinot Noir.

When she saw him, she waved him in and pointed to a chair piled high with papers. Banks moved them to the edge of the desk and she grinned at him over the mouthpiece. There were no windows, and it was stuffy in the back room, despite the whirring fan. The office smelled of freshly cut wood. Banks took his jacket off and hung it over the back of the chair. He could feel the steady draft of the fan on the left side of his face.

Finally, she put the phone down and rolled her eyes. “Some suppliers… ”

She was wearing a yellow sun-dress with thin straps that left most of her nicely tanned and freckled shoulders and throat bare. About forty, Banks guessed, she looked as if she watched what she ate and exercised regularly, tennis probably. Her straight blonde hair, parted in the middle, hung just above her shoulders, framing a heart-shaped face with high cheekbones. It was a cheerful face, one to which a smile was no stranger, and the youthful, uneven fringe suited her. But Banks also noticed marks of stress and strain in the wrinkles under her blue-gray eyes and around her slightly puckered mouth. A pair of no-nonsense glasses with tortoiseshell frames dangled on a cord around her neck.

“Your phone call piqued my curiosity,” she said, leaning back in her chair and linking her hands behind her head. Banks noticed the shadow of stubble under her arms. “What has Danny-boy been up to now?”

“I’m sorry?” said Banks. “I don’t follow.”

“Didn’t Betty tell you?”

“Tell me what?”

“Oh, God, that woman. Gormless. About Danny and me. We’re separated. Have been for about two years now. It was all perfectly amicable, of course.”

Of course, Banks thought. How often had he heard that? If it was all so bloody amicable, he wondered, then why aren’t you still together? “I didn’t know,” he said.

“Then I’m sorry you’re probably on a wild goose chase.” She changed her position, resting her hands on the desk and playing with a rubber band. There were no rings on her fingers. “Anyway, I’m still intrigued,” she said. “I am still fond of Danny. I would be concerned if I thought anything had happened to him. It hasn’t, has it?”

“Do you still see one another?”

“From time to time.”

“When did you last see him?”

“Hmm… ” She pursed her lips and thought. “A couple of months ago. We had lunch together at Whitelocks.”

“How did he seem?”

“Fine.” She stretched the rubber band tight. “Look, you’ve got me worried. All this interest in Danny all of a sudden. First those clients of his. Now you.”

Banks pricked up his ears. “What clients?”

“On Saturday. Saturday afternoon. Just a couple of businessmen wondering if I knew where he was.”

“Did they know you were separated?”

“Yes. They said it was a long shot and they were sorry to bother me but they’d had an appointment scheduled with him that morning and he hadn’t shown up. He’d mentioned me and the shop at some time or other, of course. He often does, by way of sending me business. What a sweetheart. Anyway, they asked if I had any idea where he was, if he’d suddenly decided to go away for the weekend. As if I’d know. It all seemed innocent enough. Is something wrong?”

“What did they look like?”

She described the same two men who had visited Betty Moorhead. It wouldn’t have been difficult for them to find out about Melissa’s shop – perhaps even Betty had told them – and if they were looking for Clegg, it was reasonable to assume that his ex-wife might know where he was. She must have convinced them quickly that she neither knew nor cared.

The rubber band snapped. “Look,” she said, “I’ve a right to know if something’s happened to Danny, haven’t I?”

“We don’t know if anything has happened to him,” Banks said. “He’s just gone missing.”

She breathed a sigh of relief. “So that’s all.”

Banks frowned. “His secretary seems worried enough. She says it’s unusual.”

“Oh, Betty’s a nice enough girl, but she is a bit of an alarmist. Danny always did have an eye for the ladies. That’s one reason we’re no longer together. I should imagine if he’s gone missing, then something came up, so to speak.” She grinned, showing slightly overlapping front teeth.

“Wouldn’t he at least let his secretary know where he was?”

“I’ll admit that is a bit unusual. While Danny was never exactly tied to his desk, he didn’t like to be too far from the action. You know the type, always on his car phone to the office. Who knows? Maybe he’s having a mid-life crisis. Maybe he and his bit of crumpet have gone somewhere where there are no telephones. He’s such a romantic, is Danny.”

The phone rang and Mrs. Clegg excused herself for a moment. Banks caught her half of the conversation about an order of méthode champenoise. A couple of minutes later she put the phone down. “Sorry. Where were we?”