On Christmas Eve at four o’clock the Queen’s Arms was packed. Businessmen, off work early for the holidays, loosened their ties, smoked cigars and laughed themselves red in the face at dirty jokes; friends met for a last few drinks before parting to spend the holidays with their families; groups of female office workers drank brightly coloured concoctions and laughed about the way the mail-room boy’s hands had roamed during the office party. A large proportion of the Eastvale police force, denied their favourite spot by the fire, had pulled together two round tables with dimpled copper tops and cast-iron legs for their own party. It was a movable feast; men nipped over from the station for a quick one, then returned to cover for others. Even Fred Rowe managed to drop by for a couple of pints while young Tolliver took over the front desk. The only real continuity was provided by the CID – Gristhorpe, Banks, Richmond and Susan Gay – who had managed to hang on to their chairs amidst the chaos around them.

Everyone seemed to be having a good time. The atmosphere was cheery with its blazing fire and green and red decorations. The only thing Banks found objectionable, especially after a couple of pints, was the music that Cyril, the landlord, had piped in for the occasion. It sounded like airport-music versions of Christmas carols Gristhorpe didn’t seem to mind, but he was tone-deaf.

After the visit to Conran’s, they had achieved very little that day, and nothing more would be achieved by working longer. By mid-afternoon it had been almost impossible to reach anyone on the phone. If you did happen to be lucky enough, all you got for your trouble was a drunken babble in the earpiece. Police work may never stop completely, but it does slow down at times. The only coppers working harder than ever now would be the road patrols chasing after drunken drivers.

Richmond had talked to Caroline’s staff at the Garden Café, but found out nothing more about her. No, they had never suspected she might be a lesbian; she had kept her private life to herself, just as Conran had said. She was cheerful and friendly, yes, good with customers, but a closed book when it came to her personal life. She never talked about boyfriends or shared her problems, as some of the other women did.

Richmond had also dropped in on Christine Cooper and taken her through her story again. The details matched word for word. He had first taken the initiative of phoning his mother and asking her what had happened on the 22 December broadcasts of Emmerdale Farm and Coronation Street. Passing himself off as a fan who had missed his favourite programmes, he asked Christine Cooper to give him a blow by blow description of them, which she did. That accounted for her whereabouts between seven and eight o’clock. Caroline Hartley had last been seen alive around seven-twenty, answering the door to a female visitor. Unless Christine Cooper had nipped out during the commercials and stabbed her with the handy kitchen knife, or unless she was such a cunning killer she had videotaped the television programmes in case someone asked about them, then it looked as if she was out of the running. So far, Richmond had not been able to satisfy himself about her husband’s alibi, but he planned to pay a visit to Barnard Castle after Christmas, when the shop reopened.

The only new fact he had discovered, via the PNC, was that Caroline Hartley had been arrested for soliciting in London five years ago. That seemed to back up what her brother, Gary, had said about her life there, but it still left a lot unsaid. Had Gary actually known what she was doing, or had he made an inspired guess? Both he and Caroline’s father said that Caroline had never contacted them during her time in London. Were they lying? If so, why?

For the moment, though, the festive season chased away day to day concerns. Even Susan Gay was knocking back the Old Peculiar and chatting with the others more easily than she usually did.

‘What are you doing over the holidays?’ Banks asked her over the racket.

‘Going home.’

‘Because if you’re stuck for somewhere,’ he went on, ‘you can always join us for Christmas dinner. I know you don’t get enough time off to really go anywhere.’

‘Thanks,’ Susan said, ‘but it’s all right. Sheffield’s not that far.’

Banks nodded. Richmond, he knew, would be spending the day with his family in town. Gristhorpe was coming to the Banks’s this year. For their first two Christmases up north, Banks and his family had gone out to his farmhouse where Mrs Hawkins, the woman ‘what did for him’, had done them proud. This year, however, Mrs Hawkins and her husband had been invited to their daughter’s in Cambridge. It would be the first Christmas away for them, but as the daughter had recently borne them a grandchild, they could hardly refuse. Gristhorpe had played hard to get at first, but had succumbed without too much of a fight at Banks’s third invitation. Banks suspected that it was actually Sandra’s telling Gristhorpe that the house was now a ‘smoke-free environment’ that had finally tipped the balance.

At five o’clock, Banks decided it was time to leave. He had had three pints of Theakston’s bitter, just about the right amount to work up an appetite. Sandra would be expecting him for dinner. He was due to help with the big meal tomorrow – mostly the dull stuff, he imagined, chopping vegetables and setting the table, as his cooking skills were limited – but tonight was Sandra’s treat.

He said his goodbyes and wandered out into the snow, which had been falling on and off all day. Opposite, the blue lamp outside the police station shed its avuncular light. Banks didn’t know why he hated it so much, but he did. It was phoney, a kind of cheap nostalgia for a time when things were simpler – or at least we fooled ourselves into believing they were simpler – when the goodies wore white and the baddies wore black. Maybe it really had been like that, but Banks doubted it. Certainly nothing could ever have been simple for the Caroline Hartleys and Veronica Shildons of this world.

Anyway, he told himself, no more gloomy thoughts. He stuck on his headphones and fiddled with the Walkman in his pocket. The music he’d chosen was his own tribute to the season: Benjamin Britten’s A Ceremony of Carols. It was difficult, though, to put the case out of his mind: not the investigation, the details or the leads, but the sheer fact of Caroline Hartley’s brutal murder. Even at the pub he had felt at times like a spectator, watching everyone celebrate, but was held back from joining in by what he had seen at number eleven Oakwood Mews. Still, it was Christmas Eve and he had to make an effort to be jolly for his family’s sake.

The snow was crisp and squeaky. At last Eastvale had the white Christmas it had been screaming for during the past three or four rainy ones. Coloured lights winked on and off in windows, and Banks felt for a moment that fleeting sense of peace and relaxation in the air that seems to arise and flourish briefly when the commercial fervour of the season begins to abate.

He remembered his own childhood Christmases: the sleepless nights before the big day; the early mornings opening presents; the disappointment the year his parents hadn’t been able to buy him the bicycle he wanted because his father was out of work; the joy two years later when he got an even better one than he had expected.

At home, the decorations were up, the lights were on and the children were brimming with excitement and curiosity about their presents. At least Tracy was. Brian, being seventeen, was much more cool about the whole thing.

‘No, you can’t open them tonight,’ Banks told his daughter.

‘But Laura Collins says they do at her house. Oh, go on, Dad. Please!’

‘No!’ Banks wasn’t about to have a lifetime’s tradition changed because of Laura Collins. Tracy pouted for a while, but she wasn’t the kind to sulk for long.