“I doubt if the motive was robbery, either.” Annie told Banks more detail than she had given him over the phone about her conversation with Kelly Soames and what little she had discovered about Barber from her.

“And the timing is interesting,” Banks added.

“What do you mean?”

“Was he killed before or after the power cut? All the doc can tell us is that it probably happened between six and eight. One bloke left the pub at seven and came back around quarter past. The others bear this out, but nobody saw him in Lyndgarth. Banks consulted his notes. Name of Calvin Soames.”

“Soames?” said Annie. “That’s the barmaid’s name. Kelly Soames. He must be her father. I recognized him when he dropped her off.”

“That’s right,” said Banks.

“She said he’s always in the pub when she’s working. I know she was terrified of him finding out about her and Nick.”

“I’ll have a talk with him tomorrow.”

“Go carefully, Alan. He didn’t know about her and Nick Barber. Apparently he’s a very strict father.”

“That’s not such a terrible thing, is it? Anyway, I’ll do my best. But if he really did know…”

“I understand,” said Annie.

“And don’t forget Jack Tanner,” said Banks. “We don’t know what motive he might have had, but he had a connection with the victim, through his wife. We’d better check his alibi thoroughly.”

“It’s being done,” said Annie. “Ought to be easy enough to check with his darts cronies. And I’ve got Kev following up on all the blokes who left the pub between the relevant times.”

“Good. Now the tourist couple, the Browns, say they arrived at about a quarter to eight and thought they saw a car heading up the hill, right?”

Annie consulted the notes she had taken in the incident van. “Someone from the youth hostel, a New Zealander called Vanessa Napier, told PC Travers that she saw a car going by at about half past seven or a quarter to eight on Friday evening, shortly after the lights went off. She was looking out of her window at the storm.”

“Did she get any details?”

“No. It was dark, and she doesn’t know a Honda from a Fiat.”

“Doesn’t help us much, does it?”

“It’s all we’ve got. They questioned everyone in the hostel and Vanessa’s the only one who saw anything.”

“She’s not another one been shagging our Nick, too, has she?”

Annie laughed. “I shouldn’t think so.”

“Hmm,” Banks said. “There seem to have been more comings and goings between half past seven and eight than there were earlier.”

“Yorkshire Electricity confirms the power went out at seven twenty-eight p.m.”

“The problem is,” Banks went on, “that if the killer came from some distance away and timed his arrival for half seven or a quarter to eight, he can’t have known there would be a power cut, so it’s not a factor.”

“Maybe it gave him an opportunity,” Annie said. “They’re arguing, the lights go out, Nick turns to reach for his cigarette lighter and the killer seizes the moment and lashes out.”

“Possibly,” said Banks. “Though the darkness would have made it a bit harder for him to search the cottage and be certain he took away everything he needed to. Also, your eyes need time to adjust. Look at the timing. Mrs. Tanner showed up at eight. That didn’t give him much time to search in the dark and check Barber’s car.”

“He might have had a torch in his own vehicle.”

“He’d still have had to go and get it. There would’ve been no reason for him to be carrying one if he arrived before the power cut.”

“Does the electricity failure really matter, then?”

“I think we can assume that the killer would have done what he came to do anyway, and if the lights went out, that just gave him a better opportunity.”

“What about the Browns? Their timing is interesting.”

“Yes,” said Banks. “But do they strike you as the types to kill someone and then drop by the local pub for a pint?”

“It was dark. There was no electricity. Maybe the local was as good a place to hide as any.”

“What about blood?”

“Winsome checked after the lights came back on,” Annie said. “She didn’t see any signs, but they’d hardly have hung around till the lights came back on if they were hiding bloodstains. We could hardly strip-search everyone.”

“True,” said Banks. “Look, we’ve still got a long way to go. You mentioned that Nick Barber was a writer?”

“That’s what Kelly said he told her.”

“Who’d want to kill a writer?”

“There were plenty I wanted to kill when I was at school doing English,” said Annie, “but they were all dead already.”

Banks laughed. “But seriously.”

“Well, it depends what kind of writer he was, doesn’t it?” Annie argued. “I mean, if he was an investigative journalist onto something big, then someone might have had a reason to get rid of him.”

“But what was he doing up here?”

“There are plenty of cupboards full of skeletons in North Yorkshire,” countered Annie.

“Yes, but where to begin? That’s the problem.”

“Google?” suggested Annie.

“That’s a start.”

“And shouldn’t we be going to London?”

“Monday morning,” said Banks. “Then we’ll be able to talk to his employer, if we can find out who it is. You know how useless Sundays are for finding anything out. I’ve asked the locals to keep an eye on the place until then to make sure no one tries to get in.”

“What about next of kin?”

“Winsome sorted that, too. They live just outside Sheffield. They’ve already been informed. I thought you and Winsome could go and talk to them tomorrow.”

“Fine,” said Annie. “I was only going to wash my hair, anyway. Oh, there’s one more thing. About that book.”

“Yes?”

“It looks as if he might have bought it just over the road here. Kelly said she met him coming out of the secondhand bookshop.”

Banks consulted his watch. “Damn, it’ll be closed now.”

“Is it important?”

“Could be. It didn’t look as if the figures were written in the same hand as the price, but you never know.”

“We can ring the owner at home, I suppose.”

“Good idea,” said Banks.

“From the way you’re still sitting there, I assume you’re expecting me to do it?”

“If you would. Look, I’m sick of this bloody bitter lemon. As far as I’m concerned, we’re off duty, working on our own time, and if Lady Gervaise wants to make something of it, then good luck to her. I’m having a pint. You?”

Annie smiled. “Spoken like a true rebel. I’ll have the same. And while you’re getting them in…” She took her mobile phone from her briefcase and waved it in the air.

Banks had to wait until a party of six tourists, who couldn’t make up their minds what they wanted to drink, had been served, and when he got back with two foaming pints of Black Sheep, Annie had finished. “Well, he certainly didn’t do it,” she said. “Fair bristled at the idea of anyone writing anything but the price in books, even the blank pages at the back. Sacrilege, he said. Anyway, he remembers the book. It only came in the day before Nick Barber bought it last Wednesday, and he checks them all thoroughly. There was nothing written in the back then.”

“Interesting,” said Banks. “Very interesting indeed. We’ll just have to wait and see what young Gavin makes of it, won’t we?”

Saturday, 13th September, 1969

Yvonne sat upstairs at the front of a number 16 bus heading for the city center chewing on her fingernails and wondering what to do. Some clever sod had taken a marker to the NO SPITTING sign and altered it to read NO SHITTING. Yvonne lit a cigarette and pondered her dilemma. If she was right, it could be serious.

It had happened the previous evening, when her father came home late from work, as usual. He’d been taking something out of his briefcase when a photograph had slipped to the floor. He’d put it back quickly and obviously thought she hadn’t seen it, but she had. It was a picture of the dead girl, the one who had been stabbed on Sunday at the Brimleigh Festival, and with a shock, Yvonne had realized she recognized her: Linda.