Innocent Graves Read Online Free PDF

figure to fill it out, it still looked good on her. But then anything would probably have looked good on such youth, such energy, such potential.
    Deborah was smiling and holding the mast with one hand; with the other she held back a long strand of blonde hair from her face, as if the wind were blowing it out of place. Even though the girl in the picture glowed with health and life, it was the same one who now lay in Eastvale mortuary.
    “I’m afraid it’s not a mistake,” he said, glancing at the photograph beside it. It showed two smiling young men in cricket whites, one of them unmistakably Sir Geoffrey, standing together in a quadrangle. The other man, who had his arm casually draped over Sir Geoffrey’s shoulder, could easily have been the other person in the room about twenty-five years ago. Even now, he was still slim and good-looking, though the sandy hair above his high forehead was receding fast and thinning on top. He was wearing what looked like very expensive casual clothes—black cords and a rust-coloured cotton shirt—and a pair of gold-rimmed spectacles hung around his neck on a chain. “Michael Clayton,” he said, getting up and shaking Banks’s hand.
    “Michael’s my business partner,” said Sir Geoffrey. “And my oldest friend. He’s also Deborah’s godfather.”
    “I live just around the corner,” said Clayton. “As soon as Geoff heard the news … well, they phoned me and I came over. Have there been any developments?”
    “It’s too early to say,” said Banks. Then he turned to Sir Geoffrey and Lady Harrison. “Did you know if Deborah was planning on going anywhere after school?”
    Sir Geoffrey took a second to refocus, then said, “Only the chess club.”
    “Chess club?”
    “Yes. At school. They meet every Monday.”
    “What time is she usually home?”
    Sir Geoffrey looked at his wife. “It’s usually over by six,” Lady Harrison said. “She gets home about quarter past. Sometimes twenty past, if she dawdles with her friends.”
    Banks frowned. “It must have been after eight o’clock when Detective Inspector Stott came to break the bad news,” he said. “But you hadn’t reported Deborah missing. Weren’t you worried? Where did you think she was?”
    Lady Harrison started to cry. Sir Geoffrey gripped her hand. “We’d only just got in ourselves,” he explained. “I was at a business reception at the Royal Hotel, in York, and the damn fog delayed me. Sylvie was at her health club. Deborah has a key. She is sixteen, after all.”
    “What time did you get back?”
    “About eight o’clock. Within minutes of each other. We thought Deborah might have been home and gone out again, but that wasn’t like her, not without letting us know, and certainly not on a night like this. There was no note, no sign she’d been here. Deborah’s not … well, she usually leaves her school blazer over the back of a chair, if you see what I mean.”
    “I do.” Banks’s daughter Tracy was just as untidy.
    “Anyway, we were worried she might have been kidnapped or something. We were just about to phone the police when Inspector Stott arrived.”
    “Have there ever been any kidnap threats?”
    “No, but one hears about such things.”
    “Could your daughter have been carrying anything of value? Cash, credit cards, anything?”
    “No. Why do you ask?”
    “Her satchel was open. I was just wondering why.”
    Sir Geoffrey shook his head.
    Banks turned to Michael Clayton. “Did you see Deborah at all this evening?”
    “No. I was at home until I got Geoff’s phone call.”
    Sir Geoffrey and Lady Harrison sat on the white sofa, shoulders slumped, holding hands like a couple of teenagers. Banks sat on the edge of the armchair and leaned forward, resting his hands on his knees.
    “Inspector Stott says Deborah was found in St Mary’s graveyard,” Sir Geoffrey said. “Is that true?”
    Banks nodded.
    Anger suffused Sir Geoffrey’s face. “Have you talked to that bloody