Watching the Dark (Inspector Banks Mystery) Read Online Free PDF Page B

said Banks. ‘You think it was Quinn?’
    ‘All I’m saying is that we need to keep an open mind. Back to the girl. You say she’s young?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘Underage?’
    ‘Just young.’
    ‘But if it even appeared that way, he could have lost his job,’ Gervaise pointed out.
    ‘I still think that for Quinn the biggest fear would have been his wife finding out. Anything else he could have brushed off, or dealt with. There’s no proof the girl’s underage. And she’s certainly a very attractive woman. Any man would be proud to be seen with her. Christ, some of his mates at work might even have envied him.’
    Gervaise rolled her eyes.
    ‘What?’
    ‘Never mind. Why do you think he kept the photos with him?’
    ‘I don’t know. In my experience, people hang on to the strangest things for the strangest of reasons. Can’t complain. It makes our job easier in the long run. Maybe he was proud of himself for pulling her, and they were some sort of trophy? Maybe he was in love with her, and they were all he had left? Maybe he’d just got hold of them? Maybe he was going to pass them on to someone? Quinn obviously didn’t expect that he would never return to his room at St Peter’s last night, and that someone else would find them, unless . . .’
    ‘Yes?’
    ‘Unless that was why he left them there. As some form of insurance against something happening to him.’
    ‘You mean he was expecting to be killed?’
    ‘No, not that. Expecting trouble, maybe, if he’d agreed to meet someone he was wary of, to pay off the blackmailer, say. But I doubt very much that he expected to be hurt or killed. He may have left the pictures in his room as a form of insurance, in case something went wrong. They weren’t very well hidden. Quinn was one of us. He knew we’d find them on the first pass. Which means they may be important now that something has happened to him. Not just insurance, but evidence. She may be important. We need to find her.’
    ‘It’s not much to go on, though, is it? A handful of photographs?’
    ‘I don’t know,’ said Banks. ‘I suppose we can get someone to trawl through the escort agency file photos, check the online dating services, see if she turns up on one of them?’
    ‘So you think he was meeting someone he knew out there last night, maybe about something connected with the girl and the photos?’
    ‘I don’t know. Perhaps he even thought he was meeting the girl herself? That would cause him to be less on guard.’
    ‘Maybe he did meet her,’ suggested Gervaise. ‘Maybe she killed him.’
    ‘It’s possible,’ Banks agreed. ‘But it’s far too early to speculate. One way or another, I think the pictures are connected with his murder, which is what makes me think of blackmail, that they must have been taken while his wife was still alive to be of any use to anyone.’ Banks paused. ‘Any chance of a few extra bodies?’
    ‘You know what it’s like these days, Alan. But I’ll ask ACC McLaughlin, see what I can do. And I’ll take care of the media. I should bring our Press Officer in on this. One of our own. A high-profile case. I’ll set up a conference.’
    ‘Appreciated. Winsome and the others are already working on the staff and patient interviews at St Peter’s, but we also need to go over Bill Quinn’s old cases, talk to his colleagues, see if anyone had a grudge against him big enough to kill him, any hard men recently released from jail, that sort of thing. I’ll start by paying DI Ken Blackstone a visit in Leeds before I head out to Rawdon to check out Quinn’s house. Ken knew Bill Quinn fairly well, so he should be able to tell me a bit more about what sort of copper he was. We also need his mobile phone records. Credit card and bank statements, too.’ Banks glanced over at the trophies on the bookcase. ‘Er . . . by the way, I noticed a few archery awards there. You don’t happen to know anything about crossbows, do you?’
    ‘Afraid not,’ said