Read Online Watching the Dark (Inspector Banks Mystery) by Peter Robinson - Free Book Online
Authors: Peter Robinson
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DVDs, a few movies that had been given away in the Sunday papers over the past year or so, and several books, mostly on Quinn’s hobbies, but mixed in with book club novels with titles like Twiddling my Fingers in Timbuktu , Dwarf Throwing in Darwin , or Blowing Eggs in Uzbekistan , nestling beside a couple of well-thumbed Mills and Boons.
Upstairs were four bedrooms, the smallest of them set up as a study. The cabinets and drawers stood open, covered with fingerprint powder. A cheap inkjet printer sat on the desk. Banks glanced down at the power socket bar and saw one charger plugged in that wasn’t connected to anything. ‘Laptop?’ he asked Palmer.
‘Looks that way. If so, it’s gone.’
‘Any signs of a desktop?’
‘No. That was it.’
‘Bugger. No files, no emails, nothing.’
‘We could access the server. There could be emails stored there. But someone’s been thorough. If there were any portable storage devices, flash drives and the like, they’ve also been taken.’
‘Any prints?’
‘Only Quinn’s.’
‘I’ll have a closer look here later. Let’s move on.’
Two of the bedrooms were obviously the children’s, and had been for a number of years. Now that they were both grown up, they probably just stayed there when they came back from university for the holidays. One was a light airy space containing a storage unit stuffed with old dolls and a bookcase full of classics. Banks pulled out a copy of Middlemarch and saw the inscription, ‘To Jessica with love from Auntie Jennifer on your 15th birthday.’ Banks whistled between his teeth. Reading Middlemarch at fifteen was pretty good going; reading Middlemarch at any age was pretty good going. Like most people, Banks had watched it on TV.
The second room, which bore a plaque marking it as ‘Robbie’s Room’, was much darker in colour scheme and had little sign of childhood memorabilia other than a collection of model boats, but there were a few festival and concert posters on the walls: Green Man Festival 2010, Glastonbury 2009, Elbow, Kaiser Chiefs, Paolo Nutini. Banks noticed the electric guitar resting against a small amp in one corner. It reminded him of his own son Brian. No doubt Quinn’s son owned at least one other guitar, probably acoustic; he wouldn’t go off to university for weeks on end without one. There was also a compact CD player, but very few CDs. He probably downloaded most of his music. As for books, there were a few science-fiction and fantasy titles, old copies of MOJO , and that was it.
The third bedroom, the largest, clearly belonged to Quinn and his wife. Like the living room, it was tidy, the bed made, no discarded clothing on the floor, but there was more dust on the windowsill. The wardrobe held a hamper full of dirty laundry. Banks wondered what would happen to it now that its owner was dead. Would it ever be washed? Maybe one of Quinn’s children would wash it and give it to Oxfam.
‘Better go through that lot, too,’ Banks said to DS Palmer. ‘You never know what people leave in their pockets and put in the wash.’
‘Don’t worry,’ said Palmer. ‘We have. Not even so much as a used tissue or bus ticket. And there are no signs of disturbance in any of the bedrooms.’
Banks and Palmer returned to the study. Set aside at the edge of the desk was a small heap of file folders. ‘We picked those up off the floor,’ Palmer said. ‘It’s mostly just a lot of general correspondence, day-to-day stuff, bills and so on. We’ll take it all in and go through it in detail, but these may be of more immediate interest.’
Banks doubted it. Not if someone had already been through the place first. He picked up the first folder. Harry Lake. Like most good detectives, Quinn supplemented his official notes and reports with his own observations. These often consisted of intuitions, gut feelings and imaginative ramblings that wouldn’t make it past his SIO’s scrutiny. They might be worth taking back to
Upstairs were four bedrooms, the smallest of them set up as a study. The cabinets and drawers stood open, covered with fingerprint powder. A cheap inkjet printer sat on the desk. Banks glanced down at the power socket bar and saw one charger plugged in that wasn’t connected to anything. ‘Laptop?’ he asked Palmer.
‘Looks that way. If so, it’s gone.’
‘Any signs of a desktop?’
‘No. That was it.’
‘Bugger. No files, no emails, nothing.’
‘We could access the server. There could be emails stored there. But someone’s been thorough. If there were any portable storage devices, flash drives and the like, they’ve also been taken.’
‘Any prints?’
‘Only Quinn’s.’
‘I’ll have a closer look here later. Let’s move on.’
Two of the bedrooms were obviously the children’s, and had been for a number of years. Now that they were both grown up, they probably just stayed there when they came back from university for the holidays. One was a light airy space containing a storage unit stuffed with old dolls and a bookcase full of classics. Banks pulled out a copy of Middlemarch and saw the inscription, ‘To Jessica with love from Auntie Jennifer on your 15th birthday.’ Banks whistled between his teeth. Reading Middlemarch at fifteen was pretty good going; reading Middlemarch at any age was pretty good going. Like most people, Banks had watched it on TV.
The second room, which bore a plaque marking it as ‘Robbie’s Room’, was much darker in colour scheme and had little sign of childhood memorabilia other than a collection of model boats, but there were a few festival and concert posters on the walls: Green Man Festival 2010, Glastonbury 2009, Elbow, Kaiser Chiefs, Paolo Nutini. Banks noticed the electric guitar resting against a small amp in one corner. It reminded him of his own son Brian. No doubt Quinn’s son owned at least one other guitar, probably acoustic; he wouldn’t go off to university for weeks on end without one. There was also a compact CD player, but very few CDs. He probably downloaded most of his music. As for books, there were a few science-fiction and fantasy titles, old copies of MOJO , and that was it.
The third bedroom, the largest, clearly belonged to Quinn and his wife. Like the living room, it was tidy, the bed made, no discarded clothing on the floor, but there was more dust on the windowsill. The wardrobe held a hamper full of dirty laundry. Banks wondered what would happen to it now that its owner was dead. Would it ever be washed? Maybe one of Quinn’s children would wash it and give it to Oxfam.
‘Better go through that lot, too,’ Banks said to DS Palmer. ‘You never know what people leave in their pockets and put in the wash.’
‘Don’t worry,’ said Palmer. ‘We have. Not even so much as a used tissue or bus ticket. And there are no signs of disturbance in any of the bedrooms.’
Banks and Palmer returned to the study. Set aside at the edge of the desk was a small heap of file folders. ‘We picked those up off the floor,’ Palmer said. ‘It’s mostly just a lot of general correspondence, day-to-day stuff, bills and so on. We’ll take it all in and go through it in detail, but these may be of more immediate interest.’
Banks doubted it. Not if someone had already been through the place first. He picked up the first folder. Harry Lake. Like most good detectives, Quinn supplemented his official notes and reports with his own observations. These often consisted of intuitions, gut feelings and imaginative ramblings that wouldn’t make it past his SIO’s scrutiny. They might be worth taking back to
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