Innocent Graves by Peter Robinson Read Free Book Online

all known sex offenders in the county. You know the procedure. If anyone sounds likely, make enquiries. After that, ask around at some of the restaurants and cafés in the St Mary’s area, places that might have been closed after eight or nine last night, when the uniforms did their house-to-house. You never know, our man might have stopped off for a cup of tea on his way to the graveyard.”
    Stott nodded.
    “And, I’d also like you to try and find out anything you can about Jela č i ć from records, immigration, wherever. Does he haveform back home? Has he ever committed a sex offence of any kind there?”
    Stott scribbled notes on his pad.
    “Susan, I’d like you to team up with me and check out a few things closer to home. For a start we’ve got to find out exactly what Deborah’s movements were yesterday, who saw her last. Okay?”
    “Yes, sir.”
    “So if there’s nothing else,” Banks said, “let’s get on with it. Everyone check in with the murder room at regular intervals.”
    Given their tasks, they drifted away. Except DC Susan Gay, who topped up her milky coffee and sat down again.
    “Why me, sir?” she asked.
    “Pardon?”
    “Why am I teamed up with you on this? I’m only a DC. By rights it should—”
    “Susan, whatever your rank, you’re a good detective. You’ve proved that often enough. Think about it. Taking Jim Hatchley around to a girls’ school, a vicarage and Sir Geoffrey Harrison’s … It would be like letting a bull loose in a china shop.”
    Susan’s lips twitched in a smile. “What exactly will we be doing?”
    “Talking to the family, friends, teachers. Trying to find out if this isn’t just the sex murder it seems, and if someone had a reason to want Deborah Harrison dead.”
    “Are you going to check her parents’ alibis?”
    Banks paused for a moment, then said, “Yes. Probably.”
    “The chief constable won’t like it, will he?”
    “Won’t like what?”
    “Any of it. Us going around poking our noses into the Harrison family background.”
    “Maybe not.”
    “I mean, it’s pretty common knowledge around the station that they’re in the same funny-handshake brigade, sir. The chief constable and Sir Geoffrey, that is.”
    “Oh, is it?”
    “So rumour has it, sir.”
    “And you’re worried about your career.”
    “Well, I’ve passed my sergeant’s exam, as you know. I’m just waiting for an opening. I mean, I’m with you all the way, sir, but I wouldn’t want to make enemies in the wrong places, not just at the moment.”
    Banks smiled. “Don’t worry,” he said, “it’s my balls on the chopping-block, not yours. I’ll cover you. My word on it.”
    Susan smiled back. “Well, that’s the first time not having any balls has ever done me any good.”
    II
    When she woke up shortly after eight o’clock on Tuesday morning, Rebecca Charters felt the hammering pain behind her eyes that signalled another hangover.
    It hadn’t always been like this, she reminded herself. When she had married Daniel twelve years ago, he had been a dynamic young cleric. She had loved his passionate faith and his dedication just as she had loved his sense of humour and his joy in the sensual world. Lovemaking had always been a pleasure for both of them. Until recently.
    She got up, put on her dressing-gown against the chill and walked over to the window. When they had first moved to St Mary’s six years ago, her friends had all said how depressing and unhealthy it would be living in a graveyard. Just like the Brontës, darling, they said, and look what happened to them.
    But Rebecca didn’t find it at all depressing. She found it strangely comforting and peaceful to consider the worms seething at their work just below the overgrown surface. It put things in perspective. It also reminded her of that Marvell poem Patrick had quoted for her just on the brink of their affair, when things could have gone either way:
    But at my back I always hear
    Time’s wingèd chariot