Free Final Account by Peter Robinson

of which had been smoked.
    Banks felt a surge of respect for the late Keith Rothwell. But perhaps the cigarettes helped to explain something, too. Banks was certain that Mary Rothwell would never have permitted her husband to pollute the house with his filthy habit. Smoking, then, could be the main reason he liked to sneak off to the Black Sheep or the Rose and Crown every now and then. It certainly wasn’t drinking. A secret smoker, then? Or did she know? He found no gold lighter, only a sulphurous old box of Pilot matches; and Rothwell was the kind of person who put his spent matches back in the box facing the opposite direction from the live ones.
    It was almost six when the phone rang: Vic Manson calling from the forensic lab. Vic spent almost as much time with the Scene-of-Crime team from North Yorkshire Headquarters, in Northallerton, as he did at the lab, and though Banks knew Vic was a fingerprints expert, he sometimes wasn’t sure exactly what he did or where he really worked.
    â€œWhat have you got for us?” Banks asked.
    â€œHold your horses.”
    â€œSocial call, is it, then?”
    â€œNot exactly.”
    â€œThen what?”
    â€œThe wadding, for a start.”
    â€œWhat about it?”
    â€œWe managed to get some more of the paper unfolded. It wasn’t too badly burned inside. Anyway, the document analysts say it’s good magazine quality, probably German. No prints. Nothing but blurs. It’s not your common-or-garden girlie magazine, but it’s not hard-core perversion either. The fullest picture we could get seemed to be a shaved vagina with a finger touching the clitoris. Bright red nail varnish. The fingernail, that is.”
    â€œThat must be the other side of what I saw,” said Banks. “Does it help?”
    â€œIt might do. Apparently there are people who have a fetish about shaved vaginas. It’s something to go on, anyway.”
    Banks sighed. “Or maybe our killer’s just got a warped sense of humour. We can check with the PNC, anyway, see if there’s been any similar incidents. What about the weapon?”
    â€œTwelve-gauge, double-barrel. Judging by the amount of shot we’ve collected, the bastard who did it must have used both of them.”
    â€œAnything from the house?”
    â€œNo prints, if that’s what you mean. They wore gloves. And there was nothing special about the rope they used to tie up the wife and daughter, either. By the way, remember one of the chairs was wet, the one overturned by the table?”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œIt was urine. The poor lass must have been so scared she pissed herself.”
    Banks swallowed. That was Alison’s chair. She was the one who had eventually made her way to the sewing basket and toppled her chair. “Any footprints?” he asked.
    â€œWe’re still working on it, but don’t hold your breath. The ground had pretty much dried out after last week’s rain.”
    â€œOkay, Vic, thanks for calling. Keep at it and keep me informed, okay?”
    â€œWill do.”
    After he had hung up, Banks lit another cigarette and walked over to the window again. Most of the tourists were getting in their cars, removing the crook-locks and driving home. The cobbles, cross and church front looked slate grey in the dull afternoon light. At the far side of the square, the El Toro coffee bar and Joplin’s newsagent’s seemed to be doing good business.
    Banks thought of Alison, who had shown so much courage in telling them about what had happened at Arkbeck Farm. Someone had scared her so much she had sat in her own urine, probably for hours. The idea of her indignity and humiliation made him angry. He vowed he would find whoever was responsible for doing that to her and make damn sure they suffered.
    III
    The Queen’s Arms was always busy at six o’clock on a Friday, and it was only through good luck and quick reflexes that Banks and Susan Gay