Bad Samaritan (16 page)

28

Next day and Alessandra Rossi has just listened to my latest theory.

‘No way, Ray,' she says with certainty. ‘No way did that man kill his daughter.'

‘So why, then? Why run under a bus?'

‘Who knows?' Ale is driving. Takes her eyes off the road in front of her to look at me. ‘Grief does crazy things to people.'

‘Couldn't sleep for thinking about this last night.' I repeat my theory. ‘Surely, as a parent you want answers? You want to know what happened and that keeps you going.'

‘No two people react the same way, Ray.'

I make a non-committal sound in answer and look out of my side of the car. We're in a line of traffic on the M8, crossing the wide, grey ribbon that is the River Clyde. The driver in the blue Vauxhall alongside is moving his mouth rapidly. As if accompanying his favourite song on the radio. I study him some more. Read the furrowed brow and think, nah, he's shouting at some poor sap on the other end of the phone. His top button is open and his tie unloosened. I can see his hair is damp with sweat. That's technology for you. We don't even get respite from the world when we're in a car.

Ale speeds up and we lose him.

‘Seems we're all under pressure, eh?'

‘What?'

‘Is grief the only pressure Kevin Banks is under?'

‘I think everything else will be relegated to the Who Gives a Fuck file.' Pause. ‘Do you think she'll be in?' asks Ale.

‘If she's not at home, she'll be at the hospital, by her husband's side. And we'll get her there.'

‘What are they saying? Coma?'

‘A medically induced one until the swelling in the brain goes down. He's also got a large selection of broken bones.'

‘Jeez.

We both lapse into our own thoughts, and fifteen minutes later we're in suburbia and rolling up outside the Banks's house.

Jennie Banks has a long, lean face that has been hardened by recent events into her judgement of the world. And planet Earth can go nuclear for all she cares. Her arms are crossed tight, as if to hold in her crushing disappointment.

‘Yes?' she asks, with one foot placed behind the door as if she can only allow the world entry one tiny piece at a time.

I explain who I am and ask if we can come in. She simply turns round and walks into her living room without speaking. We follow, Ale first, and I close the front door behind me.

‘I was just heading out,' Jennie says as she cushions herself into a chair. And not one person in the room is convinced by this statement. Least of all her. She drums the fingers of her right hand on the arm of the chair. Her left hand is wedged firmly into her armpit. She stills the movement of her fingers and stares at the carpet in front of her. Looks from me to Ale. Her sight lighting on each of us so briefly, as if to look at someone else hurts.

‘Need to go and visit my husband. He's been in some sort of…' It takes a real effort for her to speak, and I wonder if she has been medicated against the worst of her pain.

‘We know, Mrs Banks,' I say. ‘Have you been in touch with the hospital to find out the latest news?'

‘I'll get…' she searches for the name of her neighbour, ‘…Tom from next door to phone for me.' She wipes at her eyes as if trying to improve her vision. ‘It's all so confusing. All that medical speak.'

Alessandra tells her what we know.

‘Oh,' Jennie Banks says. ‘Right.' She looks out of the window. ‘Funny that, eh? Another head injury. Like father, like daughter.' Her bottom lip trembles for a moment. Then stops. It's like she's gone to the well to find there are no more tears.

‘We're really sorry to bother you again, Mrs Banks. We just wanted to run through the events of that night again.'

‘I don't…' She shakes her head so slow it's as if she's on a different clock than us. ‘Aileen went out with her pal. Just like she
'd
done a hundred times before.'

‘She didn't say where she was going? Who she hoped to meet? There were no new friends in her life that you were aware of?' Ale asks in the most apologetic tone she can muster. And as she speaks, Jennie Banks's head maintains the same slow movement from side to side.

‘Aileen was a secretive wee madam. Even kept changing her Facebook name so I couldn't find what she was up to.'

‘And you and Mr Banks stayed in that night?'

‘Barely have a social life. Been married too long.' A small snort is as close to laughter as she can manage. ‘I went to bed at my usual, just after ten. Kevin stays up late when Aileen is out. Says he can't sleep till he knows she's home and…' she stumbles over the word, ‘…safe.' She crosses her legs. ‘One thing you can take to the bank. That man truly cares for his daughter.'

From the way she trails off after saying this, I can't help but read she doubts that the same level of care ever extended to her.

Ale stands up, signalling an end to the questions. She looks at me as if to say, enough, the poor woman can't take any more.

‘Mind if I use your…' Ale asks.

‘It's at the top of the stairs.'

* * *

Back in the car. Before Ale drives off she turns to me.

‘Well?'

‘Seems Mr Banks still has his alibi,' I answer.

‘Interesting though.' She stares out of the window with an enigmatic smile.

‘Go on, spill,' I say.

‘I didn't need to go wee-wee,' she says, and the smile is now a full-blown grin. ‘I was checking. Mrs Banks has a well-stocked drug cabinet up there.'

‘Aye?'

‘She's got some heavy-duty stuff. And the thing is, the date on her pills is for a few months ago. She was prescribed this stuff yonks ago. She's on 500mg for Christ's sake. Something was not well in her world before this happened. Kevin Banks could have had a brass band playing in there and she wouldn't have had a clue.'

‘So, he could have gone out and she would have been none the wiser.'

We both say at the same time, ‘The nosy neighbour.'

* * *

Tom Sharp is all but wringing his hands with excitement at the thought he might be able to help us. He offers to make us a cup of tea. We refuse, saying we don't have time to come in. Last time we saw him, I remember thinking this guy could talk for Scotland.

‘You want to run through the events of that night again? Aye?'

‘Please,' I say. ‘We'll get you down to the office to make a formal statement in due course, but we just wanted to check a couple of things first.'

‘Sure, sure.' He nods and runs through his original story. Dwelling on Aileen's pal, Karen with the big boobies, for so long that I feel the urge to slap him out of it.

‘So, you're having your toasted bagel with banana,' I'm impressed by my own power of recall. ‘Aileen comes down the drive. Gets in the car and off they go.'

‘Sure, sure.'

‘Anything happen after that?'

‘You guys want a nice cuppa tea?' he asks again.

‘No thanks, Mr Sharp,' I answer. ‘We have a lot to get through today.'

‘Any more comings and goings from the Banks' house?' asks Ale.

He shakes his head. ‘I closed the curtains and put on the telly. If I remember right it was NCIS I was watching. Good stuff that. Keeps the old grey matter tuned in, you know. Must be right smart people coming up with all those stories. There was one…'

‘And what time did you go to bed that night?' I interrupt before we get a blow by blow account of the entire series.

‘Same time as every other night. 10:30. A fella needs his routine, you know.'

‘And you heard nothing more from the Banks?'

He cocks his head back. Thinks. Shakes his head. ‘Nope. Not until the next morning at least. Soon as my head hits the pillow, I'm out. It's all about the routine. You young people could learn something about that from your elders. I expect you are up and out and about till all hours?'

‘You don't know the half of it, Mr Sharp,' I say before he can continue, and take a step back from his door. ‘Thanks for your time.'

‘You're welcome, son.'

I take another step. Stop and turn back.

‘One more thing. You said last time that about eighteen months ago you believed that Mr Banks was having an affair?'

‘Aye.'

‘Any more developments on that front recently?' asked Ale.

‘I'm not exactly their confidante, hen. Who knows what's going on in a marriage, eh? What I do know is that the shouting might have stopped, but Jennie Banks still wasn't a happy woman. Always has that drawn look about her, you know? As if she's the camel and she's waiting for that one last straw to fall.'

29

We're back in the office. I'm staring at a dark computer screen and thinking I'll switch it on in a minute. Ale is looking at me as if I've got a ponytail growing out of one of my nostrils.

‘What?' I demand.

‘What was that all about?' she asks, and with a sharp movement of her head indicates Peters' desk.

‘The man's a bawbag, Ale. The sooner we all accept that the better,' I answer, trying to dampen down my irritation at the man. As soon as we were back in the office, he was over checking if we had anything to add to the investigation. A perfectly reasonable thing to do, but coming from him, and in addition being a reminder of how I had fucked things up, I all but told him to go fuck himself.

‘You'll get no argument from me on that score, Ray. But if you want to be kept on this case … kept in the office and not forced to take leave … you need to accept he's chief investigating officer and give him the details he needs to know.' She leans forward and pins me in my seat with a look.

‘I know,' I say and exhale. ‘Every time I see his ugly face I just want to take a cheese grater to it.'

‘Take another deep breath, Ray,' Ale says. Smiles. ‘Out with anger and in with love.'

‘Fuck off, Rossi.'

We share a laugh, and I feel a little of the tension lift.

I push a button and my computer flares into life. My email inbox is a tad on the busy side.
You have 187 unread emails,
it tells me. I groan and scroll down the senders and headings. One jumps out at me and with a self-satisfied smile I aim my mouse and click. The satisfaction comes from the fact that the medical guys don't know that Peters has taken over the case and that this should have gone to him.

It's the post-mortem report, and I have to read it several times before I can make any sense of the medical speak. It seems that poor Aileen Banks suffered from an extradural haemorrhage caused by a ruptured middle meningeal artery.

The forensics person has invited me to phone them if I have any questions. I dial their number.

‘DI Ray McBain here,' I say when they answer. ‘Thanks for your report…' I read the name on the email, ‘Doctor Flannery.'

‘You have questions?' she asks with a soothing lilt that has strains of the song ‘Molly Malone' running through it.

‘Yeah. If you could translate for this thick Jock, that would be grand.'

‘Happy to, DI McBain.'

‘Call me Ray.' And I want to keep this young woman talking. For hours if need be.

‘Happy to, Ray…' She infuses my name with a smile that carries down the line. ‘This is the file for Aileen Banks, yes? Extradural haemorrhage or EDH is most often due to a fractured temporal or parietal bone damaging the middle meningeal artery or vein, with blood collecting between the dura and the skull.' Before I can interrupt, she adds quickly, ‘It is typically caused by trauma to the temple just beside the eye.'

‘Right,' I say.

‘Remember that young Aussie cricketer who died last year?'

‘You're speaking to a Scotsman and you're referencing a cricket incident?' I say, but a TV news report flashes up from my memory. A fast ball to the temple and in a terrible accident a young man dies playing the sport he loves.

‘Sorry,' she laughs.

‘No worries,' I say. ‘I have a faint memory of some poor kid getting hit on the head and dying a couple of days later.'

‘Well, this is the same kind of injury. But in this instance death happened a good deal sooner. I would suggest within minutes, rather than days.'

With that pearl of information, my instinct to continue to flirt with Dr Flannery is completely curbed.

‘And another thing you need to consider,' she says after a pause for thought, ‘is that people who suffer this often have a lucid period straight after the injury. So your girl might not have suffered the injury where she was found.'

‘So she could have been struck and moved, of her own volition, somewhere else where she deteriorated and died?'

‘Yeah. This happened late in the evening? In the city centre?'

‘Aye.'

‘Someone could have seen her. Thought she was drunk and without realising that she was dying, left her to sober up.'

I shudder at this.

‘Any way of telling if that's what happened here?'

‘Sorry, no. I'm just giving you a hypothetical. She could have been struck and died on the spot, but in many of these injuries … we reckon about a third … the wounded is able to move and speak and all that before they deteriorate into death.'

I thank her and she rings off.

‘And?' Ale is in my face.

I relay the information.

‘Bloody hell,' she replies and shakes her head. ‘Poor girl. The thought of her staggering about, dying and people thinking she's just pissed…'

We lapse into silence, each of us lost in our imaginings of the Aileen Banks's last moments. Guilt sours my mouth. If I hadn't been so lost in my own troubles we could have found the guy who did this.

‘Don't go there, Ray,' says Ale.

‘What are you…'

‘I can tell what you're thinking. What's past is past. We're in a better place now. Thinking what might have been isn't going to help.'

‘Sure, sure,' I reply in imitation of the nosy neighbour. Humour is my line of last defence as I deflect from how accurately Ale read me. But still…

I see her again. Beside the dumpster. Confused. Scared.

Dying.

‘We need to go and have another look at the CCTV pictures,' I say. Something is nagging at my mind. There's something obvious here that we're missing.

‘DNA results in yet?'

‘No.'

‘You're chasing them, right?'

Ale gives me a look, as if to say,
don't push it, mate
. Then reaches for her mouse. Clicks a couple of times. Reads something from the screen and then punches a number into her desk phone. Speaks. Listens. Hangs up.

‘There's a backlog.'

‘There's always a fucking backlog.'

‘Another couple of days is what they're saying.'

* * *

We've been sitting here for hours, and I'm wondering if your eyes can get repetitive strain injury. We're in CCTV central. Banks of screens and rows of seated viewers. How the hell can they keep their concentration, I wonder?

The staff were incredibly helpful. Probably relieved to get away from the tedium. They provided a desk and a screen and quickly linked in to the date and area of the city we were interested in.

I lean my head back, twist from side to side and hear the bones grind. I stretch my arms out to each side and groan.

‘If this was TV they
'd
have seen something by now,' Ale says.

‘Yeah, well, what can I say? Life disappoints.'

‘And on that philosophical note…' Ale moves her eyes from mine to the screen in front of us. ‘Jesus, the things you see when you've not got a gun.'

The street is empty apart from one man. He's walking strangely. Then he stops. Looks around to see if he has an audience. Then he reaches back between his cheeks and has an energetic scratch. Clearly this isn't sufficient, because then he slips his hand under the waist band of his trousers and goes at it again. We can see the look of relief on his face and Ale giggles.

Just then a couple walks into view. Hand in hand. They exchange a look as they assess the antics of the young man. They are too far away from the camera for us to make out their features. But something about the woman has me on alert.

‘That's Helen Davis,' I say and pause the action on the screen.

Ale leans forward. Peers. ‘So it is.'

We both look at the man. And if my expression is a mirror image of Ale's, my mouth is hanging open.

‘Oh my God,' we both say at exactly the same time.