Innocent Graves

Acclaim for
Innocent Graves

“Robinson adds another level of nuance to his already fully dimensioned fiction and takes a quantum leap as a writer.”

—
Publishers Weekly
(starred review)

“Robinson’s work has an energy and imagination that makes it as fresh as it was in the beginning. In fact, this novel is one of the top three so far. This one is good right to the end.”

—
The Globe and Mail

“The characters have complexity and the issues range broad and deep, raising interesting moral questions about bigotry, class privilege and the terrible crime of being different.”

—
The New York Times Book Review

“First-class work. Banks and his assistant Susan Gay are good company, the plot twists frequent and surprising.”

—
People
(“Page-Turner of the Week”)

“Peter Robinson’s eighth Inspector Banks adventure,
Innocent Graves
, is one of the best of this creditable series…. Smoothly diverting entertainment with several cunning twists.”

—
Toronto Star

Acclaim for
Wednesday’s Child

“His best work yet…. You really won’t put this one down until the final paragraph.”

—
The Globe and Mail

“He is steadily ascending toward the pinnacle of crime fiction.”

—
Publishers Weekly

“With
Wednesday’s Child
, Peter Robinson shows himself to be one of the very best crime novelists, and much more in control of his material and disturbing in his vision than certain much lauded composers of ‘psychological’ crime fiction…. This is a superb book, and disturbing.”

—
Books in Canada

Acclaim for
Dead Right

“Dead-on again…. There is a sense of an older style of mystery writing at work within his series, a throwback to Josephine Tey and Ngaio Marsh…. With nine Inspector Banks novels under his belt, Robinson has delivered enough instalments now to make for a satisfying, long read, beginning with
Gallows View
and culminating with
Dead Right
.”

—
Edmonton Journal

“A very satisfying read…. Like the late great Raymond Chandler, Peter Robinson writes good mysteries laced with social comment.”

—
Calgary Herald

“You can maintain the quality in a series if you just pay careful attention to the details. Robinson does…. This book is full of good characters and topical relevance. Robinson knows how to make a moral point and not lose sight of the story.”

—
The Globe and Mail

Acclaim for
In a Dry Season

“The successful combination of the personal and the professional makes
In a Dry Season
another Robinson winner, well-written, deftly plotted and satisfyingly complete.”

—
The London Free Press

“Peter Robinson is an expert plotter with an eye for telling detail … the characters have complexity and the issues range broad and deep.”

—
The New York Times Book Review

“Those who have not discovered Peter Robinson’s literary procedurals should not miss
In a Dry Season
. A seamless weaving of the past and present, with each illuminating the other.”

—
San Antonio Express-News

PENGUIN CANADA

INNOCENT GRAVES

PETER ROBINSON
grew up in Leeds, Yorkshire. He emigrated to Canada in 1974 and attended York University and the University of Windsor, where he was later writer-in-residence. His many awards include five Arthur Ellis Awards, the Edgar Award for best short story, The Crime Writers’ Association’s Dagger in the Library Award, the Torgi talking book of the year, France’s Grand Prix de Littérature Policière and Sweden’s Martin Beck Award. His books have been published internationally to great acclaim and translated into fifteen languages. Peter Robinson lives in Toronto.

Other Inspector Banks mysteries

Gallows View

A Dedicated Man

A Necessary End

The Hanging Valley

Past Reason Hated

Wednesday’s Child

Final Account

Dead Right

In a Dry Season

Cold Is the Grave

Aftermath

The Summer That Never Was

Playing with Fire

Strange Affair

Piece of My Heart

Inspector Banks collections

Meet Inspector Banks

(includes
Gallows View, A Dedicated Man
and
A Necessary End
)

Inspector Banks Investigates

(includes
The Hanging Valley, Past Reason Hated
and
Wednesday’s Child
)

The Return of Inspector Banks

(includes
Innocent Graves, Final Account
and
Dead Right
)

Also by Peter Robinson

Caedmon’s Song

No Cure for Love

Not Safe After Dark

INNOCENT GRAVES

Peter Robinson

PENGUIN CANADA

Published by the Penguin Group

Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4P 2Y3 (a division of Pearson Canada Inc.)

Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, U.S.A. Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

Penguin Ireland, 25 St Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd)

Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd)

Penguin Books India Pvt Ltd, 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi – 110 017, India

Penguin Group (NZ), cnr Airborne and Rosedale Roads, Albany, Auckland 1310, New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd)

Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa

Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

First published in a Viking Canada hardcover by Penguin Group (Canada), a division of Pearson Canada Inc., 1997

Published in Penguin Canada paperback by Penguin Group (Canada), a division of Pearson Canada Inc., 2002

Published in this edition, 2006

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 (WEB)

Copyright © Peter Robinson, 1996

All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

Publisher’s note: This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Manufactured in Canada.

Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

Visit the Penguin Group (Canada) website at
www.penguin.ca

Special and corporate bulk purchase rates available; please see

www.penguin.ca/corporatesales
or call 1-800-399-6858, ext. 477 or 474

For Sheila

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I would first of all like to thank several people for reading and commenting upon the manuscript through its several drafts: my agent, Dominick Abel; Cynthia Good, from Penguin Books Canada; Natalee Rosenstein, from Berkley; and my copy editor, Mary Adachi.

I would also like to acknowledge expert help from a variety of sources. Thanks, as ever, to Detective Sergeant Keith Wright, of Nottingham CID, who answered my frequently silly questions with his characteristic patience and humour. Thanks also to Pamela Newall, from the Centre for Forensic Sciences, for saving me from sounding like a complete idiot on DNA, to Paul Bennett for reading and commenting on the trial scenes, to John Halladay for further information on legal procedure and to Dr Marta Townsend for the displacement.

In addition, I would like to offer special thanks to Elly Pacey and Nancy Gali´c for the Croatian insults and to Emily Langran for the Yorkshire schoolgirl slang. And, last but not least, I must thank John Irvine for keeping my computer going through thick and thin, and for the occasional wicked line.

As usual, any mistakes are entirely my own and are made in the interests of the story.

ONE

I

The night it all began, a thick fog rolled down the dale and enfolded the town of Eastvale in its shroud. Fog in the market square, creeping in the cracks between the cobbles; fog muffling the sound of laughter from the Queen’s Arms and muting the light through its red and amber panes; fog rubbing and licking against cool glass in curtained windows and insinuating its way through tiny gaps under doors.

And the fog seemed at its thickest in the graveyard of St Mary’s Church, where a beautiful woman with long auburn hair wandered barefoot and drunk, a wineglass full of Pinot Noir held precariously in her hand.

She weaved her way between the squat, gnarled yews and lichen-stained stones. Sometimes she thought she saw ghosts, grey, translucent shapes flitting among the tombs ahead, but they didn’t frighten her.

And she came to the Inchcliffe Mausoleum.

It loomed ahead out of the fog, massive and magnificent: classical lines formed in marble, steps overgrown with weeds leading down to the heavy oak door.

But it was the angel she had come to see. She liked the angel. Its eyes were fixed on heaven, as if nothing earthly mattered, and its hands were clasped together in prayer. Though it was solid marble, she often fancied it was so insubstantial she could pass her hand right through it.

She swayed slightly, raised her glass to the angel and drained half the wine at one gulp. She could feel the cold, damp earth and grass under her feet.

“Hello, Gabriel,” she said, voice a little slurred. “I’m sorry but I’ve sinned again.” She hiccupped and put her hand to her mouth. “’Scuse me, but I just can’t seem to—”

Then she saw something, a black-and-white shape, sticking out from behind the mausoleum. Curious, she squinted and stumbled towards it. Only when she was about a yard away did she realize it was a black shoe and a white sock. With a foot still in it.

She tottered back, hand to her mouth, then circled around the back of the tomb. All she could make out were the pale legs, the fair hair, the open satchel and the maroon uniform of St Mary’s School for Girls.

She screamed and dropped her glass. It shattered on a stone.

Then Rebecca Charters, wife of the vicar of St Mary’s, fell to her knees on the broken glass and started to vomit.

II

The fog tasted of ashes, thought Detective Chief Inspector Alan Banks, as he pulled up his raincoat collar and hurried down the tarmac path towards the faint, gauzy light. Or perhaps he was being fanciful. Even though he hadn’t seen the body yet, he felt that familiar clenching in his stomach that murder always brought.

When he reached the scene, just off a narrow gravel path past the shrubbery, he saw the blurred silhouette of Dr Glendenning through the canvas screen, bent over a vague shape lying on the ground, like a dumb-show in a Jacobean drama.

Fog had played havoc with the usual order of arrival. Banks himself had been at a senior officers’ meeting in Northallerton when he got the call, and he was consequently almost the last person to arrive. Peter Darby, crime-scene photographer, was there already, and so was Detective Inspector Barry Stott, who, for reasons clear to anyone who saw him, was more commonly known as “Jug-ears.” Stott, who had recently been transferred from Salford upon his promotion from detective sergeant, was a temporary replacement for DS Philip Richmond, who had gone to Scotland Yard to join a special computer unit.