“Like?”

Annie swallowed and looked away. “Like Luke’s dead, sir. It happens sometimes with kidnappings. He tried to escape, struggled too hard…”

“But the kidnapper can still collect. Remember, the Armitages can’t possibly know their son’s dead, if he is, and the money’s just sitting there for the taking. If you weren’t seen, then only Martin Armitage and the kidnapper know it’s there.”

“That’s what puzzles me, sir. The money. Obviously a kidnapper who makes a ransom demand is in it for the money, whether the victim lives or dies. Maybe he’s just being unduly cautious, waiting for dark, as I suggested earlier.”

“Possibly.” Gristhorpe looked at his watch. “Who’s up there now?”

“DC Templeton, sir.”

“Organize a surveillance rota. I’ll ask for permission to plant an electronic tracking device in the briefcase. Someone can put it there under cover of darkness, if the damn thing hasn’t been picked up before then.” Gristhorpe grunted. “Might as well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb. ACC McLaughlin will have my guts for garters.”

“You could always blame me, sir.”

“Aye, you’d like that, wouldn’t you, Annie, a chance to get bolshie with the bigwigs?”

“Sir-”

“It’s all right, lass. I’m only teasing you. Haven’t you learned Yorkshire ways yet?”

“Sometimes I despair that I ever will.”

“Give it a few more years. Anyway, that’s my job. I can handle the brass.”

“What about the Armitages, sir?”

“I think you’d better pay them another visit, don’t you?”

“But what if their place is being watched?”

“The kidnapper doesn’t know you.” Gristhorpe smiled. “And it’s not as if you look like a plainclothes copper, Annie.”

“And I thought I’d put on my conservative best.”

“All you have to do is wear those red boots again. Are their telephone calls still being intercepted?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Then how the devil…?”

“The same thing puzzled me. Martin Armitage said the call from Luke came through on his mobile, so I’m assuming it was the kidnapper’s call he was talking about.”

“But why wouldn’t he just use the regular land line?”

“Armitage said he and Robin were supposed to go out to dinner that night, so Luke didn’t think they’d be home.”

“He believed they would still go out to dinner, even after he’d disappeared? And he told his kidnapper this?”

“I know it sounds odd, sir. And in my judgment, Martin Armitage is the last person Luke would call.”

“Ah, I see. Signs of family tension?”

“All under the surface, but definitely there, I’d say. Luke’s very much his mother’s son, and his biological father’s, perhaps. He’s creative, artistic, a loner, a dreamer. Martin Armitage is a man of action, a sportsman, bit of a macho tough guy.”

“Go carefully, then, Annie. You don’t want to disturb a nest of vipers.”

“There might be no choice if I want honest answers to my questions.”

“Then tread softly and carry a big stick.”

“I’ll do that.”

“And don’t give up on the kid. It’s early days yet.”

“Yes, sir,” Annie said, though she wasn’t at all certain about that.

The old street looked much the same as it had when Banks lived there with his parents between 1962 and 1969 – from “Love Me Do” to Woodstock – except that everything – the brickwork, the doors, the slate roofs – was just that little bit shabbier, and small satellite dishes had replaced the forest of old television aerials on just about all the houses, including his parents’. That made sense. He couldn’t imagine his father living without Sky Sports.

Back in the early sixties, the estate was new, and Banks’s mother had been thrilled to move from their little back-to-back terrace house with the outside toilet to the new house with “all mod cons,” as they used to say. As far as Banks was concerned, the best “mod cons” were the indoor WC, a real bathroom to replace the tin tub they had had to fill from a kettle every Friday, and a room of his own. In the old house, he had shared with his brother Roy, five years younger, and like all siblings, they fought more than anything else.

The house stood near the western edge of the estate, close to the arterial road, across from an abandoned factory and a row of shops, including the newsagent’s. Banks paused for a moment and took in the weathered terraced houses – rows of five, each with a little garden, wooden gate, low wall and privet hedge. Some people had made small improvements, he noticed, and one house had an enclosed porch. The owners must have bought the place when the Conservatives sold off council houses for peanuts in the eighties. Maybe there was even a conservatory around the back, Banks thought, though it would be folly to add an extension made almost entirely of glass on an estate like this.

A knot of kids stood smoking and shoving one another in the middle of the street, some Asian, some white, clocking Banks out of the corners of their eyes. Locals were always suspicious of newcomers, and the kids had no idea who he was, that he had grown up here, too. Some of them were wearing low-slung baggy jeans and hoodies. Mangy dogs wandered up and down the street, barking at everything and nothing, shitting on the pavements, and loud rock music blasted out of an open window several houses east.

Banks opened the gate. He noticed that his mother had planted some colorful flowers and kept the small patch of lawn neatly trimmed. This was the only garden she had ever had, and she always had been proud of her little patch of earth. He walked up the flagstone path and knocked at the door. He saw his mother approach through the frosted glass pane. She opened the door, rubbed her hands together as if drying them, and gave him a hug. “Alan,” she said. “Lovely to see you. Come on in.”

Banks dropped his overnight bag in the hall and followed his mother through to the living room. The wallpaper was a sort of wispy autumn-leaves pattern, the three-piece suite a matching brown velveteen, and there was a sentimental autumnal landscape hanging over the electric fire. He didn’t remember this theme from his previous visit, about a year ago, but he couldn’t be certain that it hadn’t been there, either. So much for the observant detective and the dutiful son.

His father was sitting in his usual armchair, the one with the best straight-on view of the television. He didn’t get up, only grunted, “Son. How you doing?”

“Not bad, Dad. You?”

“Mustn’t complain.” Arthur Banks had been suffering from mild angina and an assortment of less specified chronic illnesses for years, ever since he’d been made redundant from the sheet-metal factory, and they seemed to get neither better nor worse as the years went on. He took pills occasionally for the chest pains. Other than that, and the damage booze and fags had wreaked on his liver and lungs over the years, he had always been fit as a fiddle. Short, skinny and hollow-chested, he still had a head of thick dark hair with hardly a trace of gray. He wore it slicked back with lashings of Brylcreem.

Banks’s mother, plump and nervy, with pouchy chipmunk cheeks and a haze of blue-gray hair hovering around her skull, fussed about how thin Banks was looking. “I don’t suppose you’ve been eating properly since Sandra left, have you?” she said.

“You know how it is,” said Banks. “I manage to gulp down the occasional Big Mac and fries now and then, if I’ve got time to spare.”

“Don’t be cheeky. Besides, you need proper food. In for tea?”

“I suppose so,” Banks said. He hadn’t thought about what he was going to do once he actually got home. If truth be told, he had imagined that the local police – in the lovely form of DI Michelle Hart – would find his offer of help invaluable and give him an office at Thorpe Wood. But that clearly was not to be. Fair enough, he thought; it’s her case, after all. “I’ll just take my bag up,” he said, heading for the stairs.