Innocent Graves

II

Ive Jelačić was surly after his night in the cells. Banks had him brought up to an interview room and left him alone there for almost an hour before he and Superintendent Gristhorpe went in to ask their questions. They didn’t turn the tape recorder on.

“Well, Ive,” said Banks, “you’re in a lot of trouble now, you know that?”

“What trouble? I do nothing.”

“Where did you get that diary?”

“What diary? I never see that before. You policeman put it on me.”

Banks sighed and rubbed his forehead. He could see it was going to be one of those days. “Ive,” he said patiently, “both Mile Pavelič and Vjeko Batorac have seen you with the diary. You asked them to read it for you. You even hit Vjeko when he tried to hang onto it.”

“I remember nothing of this. I do nothing wrong. Vjeko and I, we quarrel. Is not big deal.”

“Come on, lad,” said Gristhorpe, “help us out here.”

“I know nothing.”

Gristhorpe gestured for Banks to follow him out of the room. He did so, and they stood silently in the corridor for a few minutes before going back inside. It seemed to work; Jelačić was certainly more nervous than he had been before.

“Where you go?” he asked. “What you do?”

“Listen to me, Ive,” said Banks. “I’m only going to say this once, and I’ll say it slowly so that you understand every word. If it hadn’t been for you, an i

Jelačić shrugged. “Maybe he did. Maybe court was wrong.”

“But more important even than Owen Pierce’s suffering is Ellen Gilchrist’s life. If it hadn’t been for you, Ive Jelačić, that girl might not have had to die.”

“I tell you before. In my country, many people die. Nobody ca-”

Banks slammed his fist on the flimsy table. “Shut up! I don’t want to hear any more of your whining self-justification and self-pity, you snivelling little turd. Do you understand me?”

Jelačić’s eyes were wide open now. He nodded and glanced over at Gristhorpe for reassurance he wasn’t going to be left alone with this madman. Gristhorpe remained expressionless.

“Because of you, an i

“I want lawyer.”

“Shut up. You’ll get a lawyer when we’re good and ready to let you. For the moment, listen. Now, I don’t think we’ll have much trouble getting Daniel and Rebecca Charters to testify that you tried to extort money from them in order to alter the story you told against Daniel Charters. That’s extortion, for a start. And we’ll also get you for tampering with evidence, wasting police time and charges too numerous to mention. And do you know what will happen, Ive? We’ll get you sent back to Croatia is what.”

“No! You ca

Banks looked at Gristhorpe and the two of them laughed. “Well, maybe that’s true,” Banks said. “But you do know who Deborah Harrison’s father is, don’t you? He’s Sir Geoffrey Harrison. A very powerful and influential man when it comes to government affairs. Even you must know something of the way this country’s run, Ive. What would you say for your chances now?”

Jelačić turned pale and started chewing his thumbnail.

“Are you going to co-operate?”

“I know nothing.”

Banks leaned forward and rested his elbows on the table. “Ive. I’ll say this once more and then it’s bye-bye. If you don’t tell us what you know and where you found the diary, then I’ll personally see to it that you’re parachuted right into the middle of the war zone. Clear?”

Jelačić sulked for a moment, then nodded.

“Good. I’m glad we understand one another. And just because you’ve behaved like a total pillock, there’s one more condition.”

Jelačić’s eyes narrowed.

“You drop all charges against Daniel Charters and make a public apology.”

Jelačić bristled at this, but after huffing and puffing for a minute or two, agreed that he had, in fact, misinterpreted the minister’s gesture.

Banks stood up and took Jelačić’s arm. “Right, let’s go.”

They drove him to St. Mary’s, and he led them along the tarmac path, onto the gravel one and into the thick woods behind the Inchcliffe Mausoleum. A good way in, he paused in front of a tree and said, “Here.”

Banks looked at the tree but could see nothing out of the ordinary, no obvious hiding-place. Then Jelačić reached his hand up and seemed to insert it right into the solid wood itself. It was then that Banks noticed something very odd about the yew trees. Not very tall, but often quite wide in circumference, they were hard, strong and enduring. Some of the older ones must have been thirty feet around and had so many clustered columns they looked like a fluted pillar. The one they stood before had probably been around since the seventeenth century. The columns were actually shoots pushing out from the lower part of the bole, growing upwards and appearing to coalesce with the older wood, making the tree look as if it had several trunks all grafted together. It also, he realized, provided i

Banks moved Jelačić aside and reached his hand inside the tree. All he felt was a bed of leaves and strips of bark that had blown in over the years. But then, when he started to dig down and sweep some of this detritus aside, he was sure his fingers brushed something smooth and hard. Quickly, he reached deeper, estimating that Deborah could have easily done the same with her long arms. At last, he grasped the package and drew it out. Gristhorpe and Jelačić stood beside him, watching.

“Looks like you missed the jackpot, Ive,” Banks said.

It was a small square object wrapped in black bin-liner, folded over several times for good insulation. When Banks unfolded it, he brought out what he had hoped for: a computer diskette.

III

Back at the station, Banks handed the floppy disk to Susan Gay and asked her if she could get a printout of its contents. He hoped it had survived winter in the knot-hole of the yew. It should have done; it had been wrapped in plastic and buried under old leaves, wood chips and scraps of bark, which would have helped preserve it, and the winter hadn’t been very cold.

Ten minutes later, Susan knocked sharply on Banks’s office door and marched in brandishing a sheaf of paper. Her hand was shaking, and she looked pale. “I think you’d better have a look at this, sir.”

“Let’s swap.” Banks pushed the diary towards her and picked up the printout.

De-bo-rah. De-bo-rah. How the syllables of your name trip off my tongue like poetry. When was it I first knew that I loved you? I ask myself, can I pinpoint the exact moment in time and space where that magical transformation took place and I no longer looked at a mere young girl but a shining girl-child upon whose every movement I fed hungrily. When, when did it happen?

Oh, Deborah, my sweet torturer, why did I ever, ever have to see you pass that moment from childhood to the flush of womanhood? Had you remained a mere child I could never have loved you this way. I could never have entertained such thoughts about your straight and hairless child’s body as I do about your woman’s body.

I seek you out; yet I fly from you. On the surface, all appears normal, but if people could see and hear inside me the moment you come into a room or sit beside me, they would see my heart pulling at the reins and hear my blood roaring through my veins. That day you won the dressage and walked towards me in your riding-gear, that moist film of sweat glistening on the exquisite curve of your upper lip…and you kissed me on the cheek and put your arm around me…I felt your small breast press softly against my side and it was all I could do to remain standing let alone furnish the required and conventional praise…well done…well done…wonderful…well done, my love, my Deborah.