Standing in the shadows, p.10
Standing in the Shadows, page 10
Banks and Ray had argued the merits of photography, too. “Those who can, paint,” said Ray, “and those who can’t, take photographs.” Banks had argued that photography was, or could be, an art in its own right, and backed up his argument with famous names—Henri Cartier-Bresson, Ansel Adams—but all to no avail. There was no way you could get the heart involved in setting a few knobs and pushing a button, Ray had argued.
“Mum and some of the others in the commune took photos, though,” Annie went on, “so there are a few old albums lying around, but better than a family album of snapshots, we have Ray’s sketchbooks. Every major occasion is in there, in some form or another. My first steps, communion, a family holiday in Provence, even my mother’s funeral.”
“That’s original,” Banks said. “Typical of Ray.”
Annie gave him a sharp glance. “There was nothing typical about Ray.”
“I meant . . . Oh, never mind. You said you’d appreciate a helping hand. What with?”
“The Witch’s things.”
Annie had taken to calling Zelda “the Witch.” In her mind, Zelda was to blame for Ray’s death. Banks had tried to explain that Zelda couldn’t help being abducted by old enemies, no matter how much her disappearance had upset Ray. But Annie argued that she shouldn’t have had such enemies in the first place. That she was a disturbed young woman who had beguiled and seduced Ray for his money, and eventually caused his death. There was no winning this war, or even a battle, Banks knew, so he generally shied away from the subject. There was no doubt that Zelda was trouble, but then, so was Ray. He had smoked too much, drunk too much, worked too hard and never took any exercise.
“What kind of help?” Banks said.
“I’d like you to deal with it.”
“What do you mean?”
“What I say. Deal with it. Get rid of it. Her stuff. All of it. Clothes, artworks, personal effects. I don’t want to see, hear or smell any traces that woman was ever in this house. Do it any way you like. Fire would probably work best.”
“That’s quite a job,” Banks said.
“Will you help me, or should I get someone else? No doubt I’d find a few willing arsonists on our books.”
Banks sighed. “I’ll help you,” he said.
“And you’re welcome to keep anything of hers you want. Even the nude drawings and paintings Ray did of her. Especially them. I can’t bear to look at them.”
Banks noticed a sheet covering some paintings in the corner, ones of Zelda he remembered from his last visit. He guessed that Annie would have also removed the charcoal sketches from the walls in the kitchen and dining area, some of them nudes that had made him feel a little uncomfortable when he and Annie first had dinner with Ray and Zelda. Was that really only about a year ago?
“That’s crazy,” Banks said. “They must be worth a fortune. Why don’t you just sell them?”
“I’d rather burn them than profit from them,” Annie said. “And if you won’t take them, that’s exactly what I’ll do. I don’t want a trace of her remaining. I might even burn down that wooden hut she used for a studio in the garden.”
“Are you thinking of moving in here?” Banks asked. “It’s yours now. And it’s a lot bigger than where you’re living at the moment. Closer to work, too.”
Annie’s house was tiny—“bijou” would have been a kind word to describe it—and it also suffered from being in the centre of a higgledy-piggledy network of ginnels and snickets. Banks called the area “the labyrinth” because it was almost impossible to find your way through without a length of string to follow.
“I don’t know,” Annie said. “I might. I’ll have to think about it.”
“You don’t need the money from selling it,” Banks said. “I’m sure Ray left you well provided for.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“Ray was a very wealthy man, Annie. You know that. His paintings sold. Have done for years. He’s famous.”
“What about the Witch?”
“You know as well as I do that he left something to provide for her, too. He loved her, Annie. Take it or leave it. It was a heart attack that killed Ray, not her. Years of living without a thought for tomorrow. He had a good life, and he was happy towards the end, with Zelda. True, he was heartbroken when she was abducted, but who wouldn’t be? You need to accept that.”
Annie gave him a withering glance, then turned away. “No doubt she’ll come crawling out from under her rock now she knows she can get her hands on his money.”
Zelda had made it clear she had no interest in any inheritance. Perhaps the money could somehow be put into trust, Banks thought, and she would be in a position to claim it one day, if she changed her mind, or at least give it to charity. But for now, she needed to be left alone. Besides, all that was for the lawyers to sort out.
“Any LPs you want?” he asked.
“You must be joking. I don’t even have a hi-fi.”
“A turntable’s what you need.”
“Whatever. Take them. They’re yours. Ray left them specifically to you.”
“It’ll take me a couple of trips to move out everything you want rid of,” he said. “There’s not all that much room in my boot. Besides, I have to get some shelves built back home.”
“Take your time,” Annie said, searching in her shoulder bag and tossing him a key. “But don’t take too long. Maybe rent a van. I’m going away for a while before making my mind up about what to do.”
“Probably a good idea,” Banks said. “Have a nice holiday. Where are you thinking of going?”
“I don’t know yet. I think I’ll just drive to the airport and take the first flight out.”
“Better hope it’s not just going to East Midlands.”
Annie didn’t laugh.
3 December 1980
Baldy and Ginger were there to meet me when I got off the paternoster lift after my Milton lecture on Wednesday morning. That meant they must have been to the department administrator’s office to find out where I was. So now everyone would know I was a person of interest to the police. Soon the whole university would start to think I was the Yorkshire Ripper.
People watched as I walked away between the burly, balding DI Glassco and slighter, ginger-haired DC Marley. One of the watchers was Jill, to whom I had been talking as we came down in the lift. At least they hadn’t handcuffed me. The wind was up and I had to wrap my scarf around my neck to stop it flapping about. Despite the weather, we could have easily walked to Millgarth, just off the Headrow, in far less time than it took to walk to their car, parked on Willow Terrace Road, and drive around the fiendish city centre one-way system until we pulled up outside the police headquarters, which looked more like a prison, with its rows of narrow slit windows. “Fortress” Millgarth certainly deserved its nickname. It was as unwelcoming a building as ever could be, a squat four or five storeys—it was hard to tell which, as there were no windows at all for the first twenty feet or so—of pure brutalist monstrosity.
I must confess I was still in somewhat of a daze as they ushered me inside, through their various security protocols and into a corridor lined with noticeboards between office doors badly in need of a fresh coat of paint. The place smelled too. Cigarette smoke mostly, of course, but other, less obvious odours—a whiff of urine, sweat and fear. I knew from reading the papers that Millgarth housed the famous “Ripper Room,” centre of activities for the ongoing hunt for the killer, and I certainly saw plenty of activity in the corridors on my way to the interview room. I doubt that everyone rushing about carrying file folder and shouting out greetings was part of the Ripper inquiry—naturally, there were other cases to deal with, too—but the sense of urgent activity was overpowering.
The interview room provided a relatively quiet haven, despite smelling of mould and stale tobacco smoke. I was left alone there, no doubt with a guard outside the door, for a good hour or so, while Glassco and Marley probably enjoyed a cup of tea and three or four fags. The metal table was bolted to the floor and the chairs were uncomfortable. Mine had a wobbly leg at the front, so I spent a bit of time rocking back and forth on it. But the room was so bland I couldn’t even describe the colour of the walls. They hadn’t searched me or confiscated my possessions, and I still had my books with me, so I suppose I could have read some of Paradise Lost, but it’s hard to concentrate on Milton when you’re sitting in a police interview room suspected of being the Yorkshire Ripper, awaiting a grilling. Would they hit me, use the rubber hosepipe, or apply some more discreet and undetectable form of torture I couldn’t run screaming to the press about? I’m just not that cool a customer, so I smoked a couple of roll-ups and passed the time gnawing at my fingernails, shifting about in my hard chair and worrying about what they would ask me and how unlikely my answers might seem.
Finally, the door opened and DI Glassco came in, closely followed by a forbidding but attractive WPC in uniform, who sat next to him with a pad in front of her and pen in her hand.
“This is WPC Raglan,” said Glassco. “We won’t be taping this interview, so she’ll be taking notes.” He rolled up his shirtsleeves and loosened his tie. Strands of Brylcreemed black hair lay plastered to his skull in a comb-over.
I wiggled in my chair. “Is this how you usually do things? Is that legal?”
“In this case, yes. This is just an informal chat, Nick. It’s what we call an ‘intelligence interview.’ You haven’t been arrested or charged with anything. No caution necessary. It is voluntary, isn’t it?”
“Does that mean I’m free to leave?”
“Any time you want.”
“I suppose so, then. What about a solicitor? Do I need one?”
Glassco smiled sideways at WPC Raglan, then turned back to me. “Too much telly,” he said. “I’ve already told you you’re not being arrested or charged with anything. Sure, you can have your solicitor if you want. Have you even got one? Most people don’t. But if you do, we’ll probably have to caution you and things can get awkward after that. Detention and so on. We’ve got cells downstairs. Not big ones, but big enough. Can’t you just have a chat with me? Help us out. If you’ve done nothing, you’ve nothing to be afraid of. As far as we’ve been able to ascertain, you have no criminal record and have never been in trouble with the police. Is that true?”
“Yes.”
He spread his hands. “Then . . .”
“OK,” I said. “But why bring me here? Why not just come and see me at home again?”
Glassco glanced around the room. “I’ll agree this is a disagreeable environment—it could probably do with a lick of paint and a few colourful posters—but we have facilities here we lack in the home.”
I wondered what those facilities might be—that aforementioned rubber hosepipe, for example?—but kept my mouth shut. Best just get this over with as quickly as possible, I thought.
“So can we start?” Glassco asked.
I nodded.
He referred to his notebook, open on the table before him. “The last time we talked, you told me you’d seen Alice Poole on the night she disappeared.”
“That’s right. She was going out as I was coming in.”
“And there was nothing unusual in her manner, nothing to indicate there was anything wrong, that she was afraid of anything? Or anyone?”
“No. I . . .”
“You were what, Nick?”
“Nothing.”
“Go on. You were going to say something. It doesn’t matter how unimportant you think it was.”
“Why won’t you tell me anything? I still don’t know what happened to Alice, except you think someone killed her. Did the Ripper do this or not?”
“We can’t divulge specifics of the investigation to you. Surely you must be aware of that?”
“But the papers . . . I mean, they just said her body had been found in Burley Park and there were ‘similarities’ to the Ripper killings. What similarities? What happened to her? How did she get there? Did she suffer?”
“We don’t know whether she suffered,” said Glassco. “And we’re still trying to find out what happened to her. All I can tell you is that if we’re right about this so far, it was quick.”
“That’s something, I suppose,” I muttered.
Glassco took an Embassy Regal from his packet and offered one to WPC Raglan. She accepted and he lit them both with a gold lighter. He didn’t offer me one so I rolled my own.
“Can I continue with my questions?” Glassco asked.
I took a long drag. “Yes. Sorry.”
“I want you to tell me what you were going to say.”
“It was nothing, really, but I got the impression that Alice seemed preoccupied.”
Glassco frowned. “In what way?”
“It’s hard to say. That’s why I didn’t . . . but I bumped into a friend of hers from the Marxist Society in the coffee lounge a couple of days ago, and he asked me if Alice had settled her problems with her boyfriend.”
“This would be Mark Woodcroft?”
“Yes.”
“And this friend—her name?”
“His. Gary Kirk.”
“What exactly did this Kirk say to you?”
“He asked me if I knew whether she’d resolved her ‘little problem.’”
“What problem would this be?”
“I’ve no idea. I didn’t know she had one.”
“Go on.”
“I asked him about it, and he said she’d given him to believe that she was having boyfriend problems.”
“Meaning Mark Woodcroft?”
“Of course.”
“But she could have meant you, couldn’t she? You were her boyfriend at one time, weren’t you? You didn’t tell us about that.”
“Yes, but not then. Not since May. And it didn’t seem relevant. Besides, I wondered the same, who he meant, so I asked him. Gary Kirk. He said she specifically meant Mark.”
“How could he be so sure?”
“I don’t know. But he was.”
“Anything else?”
“No.”
“So neither of you ever found out what this problem was and whether it was resolved?”
“That’s right. I never saw her again.”
“So what was it about her when you passed each other that evening? What disturbed you?”
“I told you. It was nothing. Just the way she walked, and her voice.”
“What about her voice?”
“It was clipped, tight. She just said something about the weather being bad and that she had to go. She was in a hurry. I thought she didn’t want to stand around in the rain. I didn’t blame her. My fish and chips were getting wet. But she was more businesslike than usual.”
“What do you mean?”
“It was more the sort of walk she had. When she meant business. You didn’t get in her way when she walked like that. I called it her clickety-clack walk, but she didn’t like it when I said that. Thought I was making fun of her.”
“Did it happen often?”
“No. Not often at all. That’s why it struck me as odd.”
“Why didn’t you tell us this the last time we talked to you?”
“I told you. It was nothing, just a passing impression, that’s all. Gone as fast as it came.”
“And you thought she was angry with Mark Woodcroft, not you?”
“Of course. I knew I’d done nothing to upset her. She had no reason to be mad at me. Believe me, I know what that feels like. But I hadn’t talked to her in days, and that last time we met, everything had been amicable enough.”
“Didn’t you feel just a little pleased that Mark was in for a good talking-to?”
“Maybe a little. But why don’t you ask him what happened? Where is he? You can ask him about all this. Have you found him yet?”
“We’re still looking,” said Glassco. “Do you have any idea where he might be?”
“Me? No, of course not.”
“Can you remember anything else about Alice that evening? What was she wearing, for example?”
“Jeans, a light blue puffer jacket, ankle boots.”
“And you mentioned an overnight bag last time. Are you sure about that?”
“Yes. Not a bag really. A sort of rucksack.”
“The sort of thing you use to go camping?”
“Yes. But maybe not as big. And you’d never catch Alice camping.”
“Strictly three-star hotels?”
“As many stars as she could get.”
“Was money a problem between you two?”
“Money’s always a problem when you’re a student. But no, I wouldn’t say it was an issue with us. Her parents were generous. I mean, they paid her rent to keep the Penthouse on over the summer, even though she was mostly at home in Lincolnshire. But we were both on a pretty similar student budget. It wasn’t as if she had to pay for me when we went to the pictures or anything.”
“And the hotels?”
“A bit of a joke between us. We went around Europe the summer before this one and stayed at some pretty ropey places, even youth hostels. It didn’t bother her, but it was clear she’d rather have been in the Ritz. Certainly not in a tent.”
“OK,” said Glassco, glancing at his watch. “Like a cup of tea?”
“Tea would be nice,” I said. “How long is this going to go on?”
“Not long. Just a few more questions. Need the toilet or anything?”
“No, thanks.”
“Cathy, love, get us a couple of teas, will you?” Glassco glanced at me again. “Milk and two sugars?”
“Fine,” I said.
WPC Raglan blew out a long plume of smoke, stubbed out her cigarette and left the room, with a sharp glance back at Glassco. While she was gone, Glassco amused himself by shifting around the papers on the table. When WPC Raglan returned with the tea on a tray, she was accompanied by a tall, slim man, a few years older than Glassco, but with more hair. He wore a dark brown suit, mauve shirt and a striped tie with little silver shields on it that probably denoted membership of some local rugby or cricket club. A gold tie clip held it in place. Neither Glassco nor Raglan introduced him, and he simply leaned back on the doorjamb and stood there, arms folded, as Glassco picked up the questioning again.
