When the body was completely uncovered, everyone stood back as if they were at a funeral paying their last respects before the interment rather than at an exhumation. The moor was silent but for the wind whistling and groaning among the stones like lost souls. Mick Blair was crying, Banks noticed. Either that or the chill wind was making his eyes water.
“Seen enough, Mick?” he asked.
Mick sobbed, then abruptly turned away and vomited noisily and copiously into the gorse.
Banks’s mobile rang as he turned away to go back to his car. It was Stefan Nowak, and he sounded excited. “Alan?”
“What is it, Stefan? Identified the sixth victim?”
“No. But I thought you’d like to know immediately. We’ve found Payne’s camcorder.”
“Tell me where,” said Banks, “and I’ll be with you as fast as I possibly can.”
Maggie was tired when her train pulled into City Station around nine o’clock that evening, half an hour late due to a cow in a tunnel outside Wakefield. Now she had an inkling of why the British complained so much about their trains.
There was a long queue at the taxi rank, and Maggie only had a light holdall to carry, so she decided to walk around the corner to Boar Lane and catch a bus. There were plenty of them that stopped within a short walk of The Hill. It was a pleasant evening, no sign of rain here, and there were still plenty of people on the streets. The bus soon came and she sat at the back downstairs. Two elderly woman sat in front her, just come from the bingo, one with hair that looked like a sort of blue haze sprinkled with glitter. Her perfume irritated Maggie’s nose and made her sneeze, so she moved even farther back.
It was a familiar journey by now, and Maggie spent most of it reading another story in the new Alice Munro paperback she had bought on Charing Cross Road. She had also bought the perfect present for Lucy. It nestled in its little blue box in her holdall. It was an odd piece of jewelry and had immediately caught her eye. Hanging on a thin silver chain, it was a circular silver disc about the size of a ten-penny piece. Inside the circle, made by a snake swallowing its own tail, was an image of the phoenix rising. Maggie hoped that Lucy would like and appreciate the sentiment.
The bus turned the last corner. Maggie rang the bell and got off near the top of The Hill. The streets were quiet and the western sky was still smeared with the reds and purples of sunset. There was a slight chill in the air now, Maggie noticed, giving a little shiver. She saw Mrs. Toth, Claire’s mother, crossing The Hill with some fish and chips wrapped in newspaper and said hello, then turned to the steps.
She fumbled for her keys as she made her way up the dark steps overhung with shrubbery. It was hard to see her way. A perfect place for an ambush, she thought, then wished she hadn’t. Bill’s telephone call still weighed on her mind.
The house seemed to be in darkness. Perhaps Lucy was out? Maggie doubted it. Then she got past the bushes and noticed a flickering light coming from the master bedroom. She was watching television. For a moment, Maggie felt the uncharitable wish that she still had the house to herself. The knowledge that there was someone in her bedroom bothered her. But she had told Lucy she could watch television up there if she wanted, and she could hardly just march in and kick her out, tired as she was. Perhaps they should change rooms if Lucy just wanted to watch television all the time? Maggie would be quite happy in the small bedroom for a few days.
She turned the key in the lock and went inside, then put down her bag and hung up her jacket before heading upstairs to tell Lucy she had decided to come back early. As she glided up on the thick pile carpet she could hear sounds from the television but couldn’t make out what they were. It sounded like somebody shouting. The bedroom door was slightly ajar, so without even thinking to knock, Maggie simply pushed it open and walked in. Lucy law sprawled on the bed naked. Well, that wasn’t too much of a surprise after this morning’s display, Maggie thought. But when she turned to see what was on television she didn’t want to believe her eyes.
At first she thought it was just a porn movie, though why Lucy should be watching something like that and where she had got it from were beyond her, then she noticed the homemade quality, the makeshift lighting. It was some sort of cellar, and there was a girl who appeared to be tied to a bed. A man stood beside her playing with himself and shouting obscenities. Maggie recognized him. A woman lay with her head between the girl’s legs, and in the split second it took Maggie to register all this, the woman turned, licked her lips and grinned mischievously at the camera.
Lucy.
“Oh, no!” Maggie said, turning to Lucy, who was looking at her now with those dark, impenetrable eyes. Maggie put her hand to her mouth. She felt sick. Sick and afraid. She turned to leave but heard a sudden movement behind, then felt a splitting pain at the back of her head, and the world exploded.
The pond was gathering the evening light by the time Banks got there after taking Mick Blair back to Eastvale, making sure Ian Scott and Sarah Francis were under lock and key, and picking up Jenny Fuller on his way out of town. Winsome and Sergeant Hatchley could take care of things at Eastvale until tomorrow morning.
The colors shimmered on the water’s surface like an oil slick, and the ducks, having noticed so much human activity, were keeping a polite and safe distance, and no doubt wondering where the expected chunks of bread had got to. The Panasonic Super 8 camcorder lay, still attached to its tripod, on a piece of cloth on the bank. DS Stefan Nowak and DCI Ken Blackstone had stayed with it until Banks could get there.
“Are you sure it’s the one?” Banks asked Ken Blackstone.
Blackstone nodded. “One of our enterprising young DCs succeeded in tracking down the branch where Payne bought it. He paid cash for it, on the third of March last year. The serial number checks out.”
“Any tapes?”
“One in the camera,” said Stefan. “Ruined.”
“No chance of restoration?”
“All the king’s horses…”
“Only the one? That’s all?”
Stefan nodded. “Believe me, the men went over every inch of the place.” He gestured to take in the area of the pond. “If any tapes had been dumped here, we’d have found them by now.”
“So where are they?” Banks asked nobody in particular.
“If you want my guess,” said Stefan, “I’d say whoever chucked the camcorder in the lake dubbed them on to VHS. There’s some loss of quality, but it’s the only way you can watch them on a regular VCR, without the camcorder.”
Banks nodded. “Makes sense to me. Better take it to Millgarth and lock it up safe in the property room, though what good it’s going to do us now, I don’t know.”
Stefan bent to pick up the camera, wrapping it carefully in the cloth, as if it were a newborn baby. “You never know.”
Banks noticed the pub sign about a hundred yards away: The Woodcutter’s. It was a chain pub, that much he could tell even from a distance, but it was all there was in sight. “It’s been a long day, and I haven’t had my tea yet,” he said to Blackstone and Jenny after Stefan had driven off to Millgarth. “Why don’t we have a drink and toss a few ideas around?”
“You’ll get no objection from me,” said Blackstone.
“Jenny?”
Jenny smiled. “Not much choice, have I? I came in your car, remember? But count me in.”
They were soon settled at a corner table in the almost empty pub, which Banks found to his delight was still serving food. He ordered a beef burger and chips along with a pint of bitter. The jukebox wasn’t so loud that they couldn’t hear themselves talk, but it was loud enough to mask their conversation from any nearby tables.