Playing With Fire

“Can you get on with it, then?” said Whitaker, tapping his left hand against the desk. His foot was jumping, too, Banks noticed. Nervous, then. Something to hide? Or just angry?

Banks glanced at Hatchley, who raised his eyebrows. “Get on with it?” Hatchley repeated. “It’s not often we get someone telling us to get on with it, is it, sir?”

“That’s true,” said Banks. “Still, we’ll do as you say, Mr. Whitaker, and get on with it. If you’ve nothing to hide, and if you’re truthful with us, you’ll be opening up that shop again in no time.”

Whitaker leaned back in the chair. He was wearing a beige jacket over a dark blue polo-neck sweater. Banks tried to match him with the description he had of McMahon’s visitor from Mark Siddons, but all he could conclude was that the description was vague enough to fit Whitaker and a hundred or more others.

“When we talked to you the other day,” Banks said, “you told us that you sold books and prints on occasion to Thomas McMahon.”

“Yes. I did. So what?”

“Do you know why he wanted them?”

“I already told you, I had no idea.”

“I think you do, Mr. Whitaker.”

Whitaker’s eyes narrowed. “Oh?”

“Yes,” said Banks. “Want to know what I think? I think you deliberately sought out certain books and prints for Thomas McMahon, at his request.”

Whitaker folded his arms. “Why would I do that?”

“You’re an art dealer, aren’t you?”

“In a small way, yes, I suppose so. More of a local agent, really.”

“And you probably know a bit about forgery.”

“Now, hang on a minute. What are you suggesting?”

Banks repeated the lecture he’d first heard from Phil Keane about the re-use of old endpapers and prints. Whitaker listened, making a very bad job of pretending he hadn’t a clue what Banks was talking about.

“I still don’t see what any of this has to do with me,” he said, when Banks had finished.

“Oh, come off it,” said Hatchley. “You were in it together. You and McMahon. You supplied him with the right sort of materials, he turned out the forgeries, you sold them, and then you split the profits. Only he got greedy, threatened to expose you.”

“That’s ridiculous. I did no such thing.”

“Well, you must admit,” said Banks, “that it all looks a bit dodgy from where I’m sitting.”

“I can’t help it if you have a suspicious nature. It must be your job.”

Banks smiled. “The job. Yes, it does tend to make one a little less ready to accept the sort of bollocks you’ve been dishing out so far. Why don’t you just admit it, Leslie? You had something going with McMahon.”

Whitaker faltered a moment, but kept quiet.

“Maybe you didn’t kill him,” Banks went on. “But you know something. You knew why he wanted those books and prints, and I’ll bet he paid above the odds for them. Your cut, nicely bypassing the taxman. What was Roland Gardiner’s role?”

“I don’t know who you’re talking about.”

“Come off it, Leslie. Roland Gardiner. He died in a caravan fire in Je

“And you think I…?”

“That’s what I’m asking. Because if you didn’t kill him, and if you didn’t kill McMahon, then maybe you’re next.”

Whitaker turned pale. “You can’t mean that. Why would you say that?”

“Stands to reason,” said Hatchley. “These things happen when thieves fall out.”

“I am not a thief.”

“Just a figure of speech,” Hatchley went on. “See, if you weren’t the ringleader, as you swear you weren’t, then you were just one of the underlings, and two of them are dead. See what I mean? Stands to reason.”

“No,” said Whitaker, regaining his composure. “It doesn’t stand to reason at all. Your whole premise is rubbish, absolute rubbish. I’ve done nothing.”

“Except supply Thomas McMahon with the paper necessary for his forgeries,” said Banks.

“I didn’t know what he was doing with the damn stuff.”

“We think you did.”

Whitaker folded his arms again. “Well, that’s your problem.”

“No. It’s yours. What kind of car do you drive?”

“A Jeep. Why?”

“What kind of Jeep?”

“A Cherokee. Four-wheel drive. I live out Lyndgarth way. The roads can be bad.”

A Jeep Cherokee was close enough to a Range Rover or any other kind of four-wheel drive station wagon for Banks, especially when the cars had only been spotted through the woods by people who had little knowledge of the various shapes and forms the vehicles took. “Color?”

“Black.”

Again, close enough to dark blue. “Where were you last Thursday evening?”

“At home.”

“Where’s that?”

“Lyndgarth, as I said.”

“Alone?”

“Yes. I’m recently divorced, if you must know.”

“Not much of an alibi, is it?” Hatchley cut in.

Whitaker looked at him. “I wasn’t aware I’d be needing one.”

“That’s what they all say.”

“Now, look-”

“All right, Mr. Whitaker,” said Banks, “you can argue with my sergeant later. We’ve got more important matters to cover right now. Where were you on Saturday evening?”

“Saturday? I…”

“Yes?”

Whitaker thought for a moment, then he looked at Banks, triumphant. “I was at a di

“What time did you arrive?”

“Eight o’clock.”

Banks felt his hopes wane. If Whitaker really was with nine other people at eight o’clock Saturday, and the fire started around eight forty-five, it seemed to let him off. Especially as it took at least an hour to drive from Lyndgarth to Harrogate. But watertight alibis, in Banks’s experience, were made to be broken.

“We will check, you know.”

“Go ahead,” said Whitaker. “Do you want their names? The others?”

“You can give them to Detective Sergeant Hatchley later.”

“I don’t see that we have anything more to talk about, do you?”

“Plenty,” said Banks. “I still want to know what role Gardiner played in all this, and why he had to die, too.”

“I’ve told you I never heard of any Gardiner. I’m an antiquarian bookseller. I occasionally deal in works of art. That’s my only co

Banks paused for a moment, whispered something in Hatchley’s ear, mostly for effect, then turned back to Whitaker. “The way things look right now, Leslie,” he said, “I think it’s time to move on to the next stage.”

“Next stage? What do you mean?”

“Well, this is just a preliminary interview, you understand. Just to get the lie of the land, so to speak. I’m not satisfied with what I’ve heard. Not satisfied at all. So now we take it a step further. We go over your finances, your car, your clothes, your business dealings, your life, with a fine-tooth comb, and if we find any of the evidence we’re looking for, we haul you back in.”

Whitaker swallowed. “You can’t do that,” he said, without much conviction.

Banks stood up. “Yes, we can,” he said. “And we will. Detective Sergeant Hatchley will take down those names now.”

On Monday afternoon, results started trickling in from the lab. First of all, Andrew Hurst’s clothes were clean, as expected, and so were Da

Banks would like to think that Aspern was involved somehow, but he very much doubted the good doctor had set the fires. Even so, he reminded himself that Patrick Aspern didn’t have a decent alibi for either fire, and that he could have gone to see Tina on the day of the boat fires, then returned later. Perhaps she had threatened to tell the world what he’d done to her. He could have started the fire on McMahon’s boat to draw the inquiry away from Tina. As yet, nobody had had any luck trying to locate Paul Ryder, Christine Aspern’s birth father. Banks didn’t imagine he was important to the case, as he had never even known his daughter, but at least he ought to know what had happened to her.