II

All day Monday Banks seethed with impatience. He had made great efforts to put the Thelma Pitt business out of his mind over the weekend, mostly for the sake of his family. On Saturday, they had driven into York to do some shopping and on Sunday they had all gone on a vigorous walk from Bainbridge to Semerwater, in Wensleydale. It was a brisk day, sunny and cool, but they were all warm enough in their walking gear.

On Monday morning, though, Banks took off his Walkman, hardly having noticed which opera he'd been listening to, slammed it shut in the drawer and shouted for Hatchley.

"Sir?" the sergeant said, red-faced with the effort of running upstairs.

Banks looked at him sternly.

"You'd better do something about the shape you're in, Sergeant," he said first. "You'd not be much use in a chase, would you?"

"No, sir," Hatchley replied, gasping for breath.

"Anyway, that's not what I want to see you about. Anything from the clinics?"

"No, sir."

"Damn!" Banks thumped the desk.

"You did ask us to let you know, sir," Hatchley reminded him. "I'm sure you'd have heard if there'd been any news over the weekend."

Banks glared at him. "Of course," he said, scratching his head and sitting down.

"It can take'up to ten days, sir."

"When would that take us to?"

"Wednesday or Thursday, sir."

"Thursday," Banks repeated, tapping a ruler against his thigh. "Anything could happen before then. What about Moxton?"

"Moxton, sir?"

"Micklethwaite, as he calls himself now."

"Oh, him. Nothing there either, I'm afraid."

Banks had ordered surveillance on Moxton, assuming that he might try to warn his partner, whoever that was.

"He didn't do much at all," Hatchley added, "though he did go and visit the woman."

"Thelma Pitt?"

"Yes, sir."

"And?"

"And nothing, sir. Stayed about fifteen minutes, then drove home. Seemed a bit pissed off, if you ask me. Slammed the car door. He stayed in all Saturday night, went for a walk on Sunday morning, washed his car, dropped in for a quick drink at that posh place, the Hope and Anchor, about nine o'clock, then went home and stayed there."

"Did he talk to anyone at the Hope and Anchor?"

"Only the landlord, sir."

"Anyone we know?"

"No, sir. Straight as a die. Never even sold short measure, far as we can tell."

Banks took a deep breath. "All right, Sergeant. Thank you," he said, softening his tone a little to mollify Hatchley. "Have some coffee sent up, will you?"

"Sir?"

Banks grinned. "I know it's awful muck, but I need it all the same."

"Will do," Hatchley said, lingering. "Er… Sir?…"

"What is it?"

"Have you got any idea who it was, sir? The rapist?"

"I'm not sure, Sergeant. It could be that Sharp kid and his mate or a pair very much like them. It's the same ones who robbed the old ladies and pissed on the Ottershaws' VCR-that I am sure about."

"And the Matlock killing?"

Banks shook his head. "I don't think so. That's something different. Another problem altogether."

"Why not bring the Sharp kid in for questioning?"

"Because I can't prove anything. Do you think I wouldn't have had him in before if I had something on him? Besides, I'm not certain yet that he is the one, I just got the feeling there was something wrong when I talked to him and his father."

"That bit about the bad tooth, sir. If he-"

Banks waved his hand as if to brush aside a fly. "By itself it's nothing. You know that as well as I do. On the other hand, if he's got the clap…"

"We could always bring him in, just to shake him up a bit."

"No good. His father would insist on being present. He'd probably send for a bloody lawyer, too, then they'd just clam up on us. If Sharp's our lad, we need evidence before we tackle him again or we'll lose him for good."

Hatchley scratched the seat of his pants. "What about the woman?" he asked.

"Thelma Pitt?"

"Yes."

"She said she couldn't positively identify them. We don't want to take any risks on this. When we get him, I want him to stay, not walk off on some technicality. Besides, I'd rather not put her through it until we've got a bit more to go on. If it's Sharp, we know he's got the clap. Sooner or later, he'll turn up at one of the clinics. Then we'll haul him in."

Hatchley nodded and went back downstairs.

When the coffee came, Banks realized all over again why he usually took his breaks in the Golden Grill. He sat with his chair turned to face the window, smoked and stared blankly over the market square, watching the first activities of the morning. Delivery vans double parked outside the shops; the minister, glancing at his watch, hurried into the church; a housewife in a paisley headscarf rattled the door of Bradwell's Grocery, which didn't appear to be open yet.

But all this was mere activity without meaning to Banks. He was close to solving the robberies and the rape of Thelma Pitt-he knew that, he could feel it in his bones-but there was nothing he could do to hurry things along. As so often in his job, he had to be patient; this time he literally had to let nature take its course.

Slowly, while he smoked yet another cigarette, the market square came to life. As the first tourists stepped into the Norman church, Bradwell's Grocery finally opened its doors and took delivery of boxes of fruit from an orange van with a sombrero painted on its side. The woman in the paisley headscarf was nowhere to be seen.

By mid-morning, Banks was sick of being cooped up in his office. He told Sergeant Rowe he was going out for half an hour or so, then went for a walk to burn off some of his impatience.

He hurried across the market square, fastening his overcoat as he went, then cut down the narrow back-streets and through the flower gardens to the riverside.

The slowly increasing cloud cover had not yet quite blotted out the sun, but it had drawn a thin veil over it that weakened the light and gave the whole landscape the look of a watercolor in pale greens, yellows, orange, brown and red. The scent of rain came on a chilling wind, which seemed to be blowing from the northwest, along the channel of Swainsdale itself. The breeze hurried the river over the terraced falls and set up a constant skittering sound in the trees that lined the banks. Leaves were already falling and scraping along the ground. Most of them ended up in the water.

Across the Swain was another pathway, and behind that more trees and flowerbeds. The houses that Banks could just see through the waving branches were the ones fronting The Green, which separated them from the East Side Estate. Banks knew that Jenny's house was among them, but he couldn't tell which one it was from that distance and angle.

He pushed his hands deep into his overcoat pockets, hunched his shoulders and hurried on. The exercise was doing the trick, driving chaotic thoughts from his mind and helping him work up an appetite for lunch.

He doubled back around the castle to the market square. Hatchley and Richmond were lunching in the Queen's Arms when he got there, and Hatchley stopped in mid-sentence when he saw his boss enter. Banks remembered that he had been rude to the sergeant that morning and guessed that they were complaining about him. Taking a deep breath, he joined them at their table and set things right again by buying both his men a pint.