Playing With Fire

“No, nothing like that. It’s just something that crossed my mind earlier, and Phil might have some ideas, that’s all.”

“All right,” said Banks. “Tell him to come to the station tomorrow.”

“Oh, come on, Alan. He’s a friend, not a suspect. How about the Queen’s Arms? Lunch?”

“If we’ve got time. Tomorrow might be a busy day.”

“If we’ve got time.”

“Okay,” said Banks.

A

Chapter 8

DC Winsome Jackman hated Yorkshire winters. She didn’t think much of the summers, either, but she really hated the winters. As she got out of her nice warm car in front of Patrick Aspern’s house on Sunday morning, she felt a pang of longing for home, the way she often did when the cold and damp got to her even through her thick sweater and lined raincoat. She remembered the humid heat back home, way up in Jamaica’s Cockpit Country, the lush green foliage, the insects chirping, the bright flame trees, banana leaves click-clacking overhead in the gentle breeze from the ocean, remembered how she used to walk up the steep hill home from the one-room schoolhouse in her neat uniform, laughing and joking with her friends. She missed her mother and father so much she ached for them sometimes. And her friends. Where were they all now? What were they doing?

Then she remembered the shanties, the crippling poverty and hopelessness, the way so many men treated their women as mere possessions, chattels of no real value. Winsome knew she had been lucky to get out. Her father was a police corporal at the Spring Mount station, and her mother worked at the banana-chip factory in Maroon Town, sitting out back in the shade with the other women, gossiping and slicing bananas all day. Winsome had worked for two summers at the Holiday I

And it wasn’t only the white folk. There were handsome black men from New York, London and Toronto, with thick gold chains hanging around their wrists and necks, their wives all dressed up in the latest fashions. What a world theirs was, with all the movies, fashions, cars and jewelry they wanted. Of course, the reality fell a long way short of her imagination, but on the whole she was happy in England; she thought she had made the right move. Apart from the winters.

She sensed, rather than saw, a number of curtains twitch as she walked up the path to ring Aspern’s doorbell. A six-footone black woman ringing your doorbell was probably a rare event in this neighborhood, she thought. Anyway, winter or not, it was nice to get away from the computer for a while, and out of the office. And she was on overtime.

A man answered her ring, and she was immediately put off by the arrogant expression on his face. She had seen looks like that before. Other than that, she thought he was probably handsome in a middle-aged English sort of way. Soft strands of sandy hair combed back, unusually good white teeth, a slim, athletic figure, loose-fitting, expensive casual clothes. But the expression ruined everything.

He arched his eyebrows. “Can I help you?” he asked, looking her up and down, the condescension dripping like treacle from his tongue. “I’m afraid there’s no surgery on Sundays.”

“That’s all right, Dr. Aspern,” Winsome said, producing her warrant card. “I’m fit as a fiddle, thank you very much. And I probably couldn’t afford you, anyway.”

He looked surprised by her accent, no doubt expecting some sort of incomprehensible patois. The Jamaican lilt was still there, of course, but more as an undertone. Winsome had been in Yorkshire for seven years, though she had only been in Eastvale for two since her transfer from Bradford, and she had unconsciously picked up much of the local idiom and accent.

Aspern examined her warrant card and handed it back to her. “So first they sent the organ-grinder, and now they send the monkey.”

“Excuse me, sir?”

“Never mind,” said Aspern. “Just a figure of speech. You’d better come in.”

Winsome got the impression that Aspern sca

He showed her into a sitting room with cream wallpaper, a large blazing fireplace and a couple of nice landscape paintings on the wall. A recent medical journal lay open on the glass-topped coffee table beside a half-empty cup of milky tea.

“What is it this time?” he asked.

Winsome sat in one of the armchairs without being asked and crossed her long legs. Aspern perched on the sofa and finished off the tea.

“Where were you last night, sir?” Winsome asked.

“What?” Aspern’s superior expression was replaced by one of puzzlement and anger.

“I think you heard me.”

“Let’s say I just didn’t believe what I’m hearing.”

“Okay,” said Winsome, “I’ll repeat the question. Where were you last night?”

“Has he put you up to this?”

“Who?”

“You know damn well who I’m talking about. Banks. Your boss.”

“DCI Banks issues the actions, sir, and I just carry them out. I’m merely a humble DC. I’m not privy to his i

“Here, of course,” Aspern answered after a short pause. “Where the hell else do you think I’d be, with my daughter so recently deceased? Out for a night on the town?”

“I understand she was your stepdaughter?” Winsome said.

“I always thought of her as my own.”

“I’m sure you did. No blood relation, though. Probably a good thing.”

Aspern’s face darkened. “Now, look here, if Banks has been putting ideas in your head…”

“Sir?”

Aspern took a few calming breaths. “Right,” he said. “I see. I understand what you’re up to. Well, it won’t work. Last night Fran and I both stayed in and watched television, hoping for something to take our minds off what’s happened.”

“Did you succeed?”

“What do you think?”

“What did you watch?”

“A film on Cha

“Is your wife here at the moment?”

“She’s resting. As you can imagine, this has been very hard on her. Anyway, she’d only corroborate my statement.”

“I’m sure she would,” said Winsome. “We’ll let her rest for now.”

“Very good of you, I’m sure.”

“But you must admit it’s not a very strong alibi, is it? It’s been my experience that wives will often stand by their husbands, no matter what horrors or atrocities they might be guilty of.”

“Well, I’m not guilty of anything,” said Aspern, getting to his feet. “So if that’s all, I’ll bid you good-bye. I don’t have to sit around and listen to your filthy insinuations.”

Winsome held her ground. “What insinuations would those be, sir?”

“You know what I’m talking about. Banks obviously briefed you on his groundless suspicions, and you’re here to do his dirty work for him. It won’t wash. I’ll be complaining to my MP about the both of you.”