In a Dry Season (56 page)

“Okay.” Annie followed him outside, still feeling dazed. She sat on a striped deck-chair, feeling the warmth of the canvas against the backs of her bare thighs, the feeling that always reminded her of summers in St Ives. Banks was reading the
Sunday Times
book section, trying to pretend everything was just fine, but she knew he was rattled, too. Perhaps even more than she was. After all, he had been married to the woman for more than twenty years.

Annie stared into the distance at a straggling line of ramblers walking up Witch Fell, whose massive shape, like a truncated witch's hat, took up most of the western skyline. Crows wheeled over the heights.

“Are you okay?” Banks asked, looking up from his paper.

“Fine,” she said, mustering a smile. “Fine.”

But she wasn't. She told herself she should have known how fleeting happiness was; how foolish it is to expect it at all, and what a mistake it is to allow oneself to get too close to anyone. Closeness like that stirs up all the old demons, the jealousy, the insecurity—all the things she thought she had mastered. The only possible
outcome is pain. A shadow had blotted out her sun, just the way Witch Fell obscured the sky; a snake had crawled into her Eden. What, she wondered, would be the cost?

Eighteen

B
anks and Hatchley walked across Market Street to the Golden Grill for toasted teacakes and coffee. Rain had finally come to the Dales, and the place was almost empty. Doris, the proprietor, claimed they were only the fourth and fifth customers to pass through her door that day.

“Does that put us in line for summat special, like?” Hatchley asked. “Maybe a free cuppa?”

She slapped his arm and laughed. “Get away with you.”

“Worth a try,” said Hatchley to Banks. “Never ask, never get. I used to know a bloke years back who claimed he asked every girl he met if she'd go to bed with him. Said he only got slapped in the face nine times out of ten.”

Banks laughed, then he asked, “Have you heard anything on that nationwide inquiry you put out yet?”

“Something came in this morning, as a matter of fact,” said Hatchley. “That's what I wanted to talk to you about. Lass called Brenda Hamilton. Bit of a tart by all accounts. Not a prossie by trade, but she wasn't averse to opening her legs for anyone who looked like he had a bob or two to spare. Anyway, she was found dead in a barn.”

“
MO
?”

“Strangled and stabbed. In that order.”

“It certainly
sounds
promising.”

Hatchley shook his head. “Don't get your hopes up.

There's a couple of problems.”

“What problems?”

“Location and time-frame. It happened in Suffolk in August
1952
. I only mentioned it because it was the same
MO
.”

Banks chewed on his teacake and thought it over. “Any suspects?”

“Naturally, the farmer who owned the barn came in for a close look, but he had a watertight alibi. I'd have sent for more details, but . . . well, it's not likely to be connected with our business, is it?”

“Even so, it wouldn't do any harm to ask a few more questions.”

“Maybe not. But that's seven years after Gloria Shackleton was killed. It's a long gap for the kind of killer we're looking at. It also happened in another part of the country.”

“There could be reasons for that.”

“And I doubt there'd be any American Air Force personnel around by then, would there? I mean the war was long over. Most of them went off to the Pacific after
VE
day, and the rest buggered off home as soon as they could.”

“You're probably right, Jim, but let's be thorough. Get onto East Anglia and ask them for more details. I'll ask
DS
Cabbot to contact the
USAFE
people again and see if she can find out anything.”

“Will do.”

Back in his office, Banks put off phoning Annie at Harkside, smoking a cigarette instead and staring out of the window. A warm slow rain fell on the market square,
darkening the cobbles and the ancient market cross. It wasn't bringing much relief; the air was still sticky and humid. But slowly the clouds were gathering, the humidity increasing. One day soon it would break and the heavens would open. There were only a couple of cars parked in the square, and the few people in evidence ambled around under umbrellas, looking gloomily at the shops. Radio Three was playing a programme of British light music, and Banks recognized the signature theme of “Children's Favourites.”

The reason he was avoiding talking to Annie was that Sunday had gone badly after Sandra's visit. Both Banks and Annie had been on edge, conversation awkward, and she had eventually left just after lunch, forgoing the afternoon walk, claiming she had things to see to back in Harkside. They hadn't spoken to one another since.

At the time, Banks had not been sorry to see her go. He was more upset than he had let on by Sandra's visit, and it annoyed him that he felt that way. After all,
she
had a new boyfriend,
Sean.
Why did she have to turn up just then, when everything was going so well? What gave her the right to burst in and act so shocked that
he
was seeing someone, knocking everyone's feelings out of kilter? How would she like it if he just dropped in on her and Sean without even phoning first? And he
had
wanted to talk to her, especially after his little heart-to-heart with Brian. Now God only knew when he would get the chance again.

He also realized that Sandra had been upset by what she saw, too. The withering coolness and sarcastic tone were her way of reacting to her own discomfort. He still had feelings for her. You can't just lose your feelings that quickly for someone you loved for so long. Love lost or
rejected may first turn to hate, but only over time does it become indifference.

Finally, he plucked up the courage and picked up the phone. “How's it going?” he asked.

“Fine.”

“You sound distracted.”

“No, I'm not. Just a bit busy. Really. It's fine.”

Banks took a deep breath. “Look, if it's about Sunday, I'm sorry. I had no idea Sandra was going to turn up. I also didn't think it would have so much of an effect on you.”

“Well, you don't always know about these things till they happen, do you? As I said, I'm fine. Except I've got a lot on my plate right now. What's on your mind?”

“Okay, if that's how you want to play it. Get onto your military contacts again and see if you can find out anything about
US
Air Force presence in Suffolk in
1952
.”

“What about it?”

“Find out if there were any bases left, for a start. And if there were, which was the nearest one to Hadleigh. If there was one, I'd also like a list of personnel.”

“Right.”

“Can you do it today?”

“I'll try. Tomorrow at the latest.”

“Annie?”

“What?”

“Can't we get together and talk about things?”

“There's nothing to talk about. Really. Look, you know I'm off home on holiday in a couple of days. I've got a lot to do before I go. Maybe when I get back. Okay? In the meantime, I'll get that information to you as soon as I can. Goodbye.”

Feeling more depressed than ever after that pointless
conversation, Banks glanced at the pile of paper beside the computer on his desk:
SOCO
search results, post-mortem, forensic odontology. None of it contradicted what they had previously estimated; nor did any of it tell him anything more.

What would have happened if Gwen had done as she should have and reported finding Gloria's body? A good copper might have asked around and not simply tried to pin the murder on Matthew. And maybe not. Too late for asking questions now; they were all dead except Vivian. Poor Gloria. She saw Matthew as her
penance
. Somehow that told Banks more about her than anything else.

And what if Vivian's ending was the real lie? The ultimate irony. What if Gwen herself had committed the murder?

Vivian Elmsley put her book down as the train pulled out of Wakefield Westgate on Thursday. It would only be a few more minutes to Leeds now, and built-up the whole way: a typical Northern industrial landscape of shabby redbrick housing estates, low-rise office buildings, sparkling new shopping centres, factory yards full of stacked pallets wrapped in polythene, kids fishing in the canal, stripped to the waist. The only untypical thing was the sticky sunlight that seemed to encase everything like sugar water.

The publisher's rep was supposed to meet Vivian at the station and accompany her to the Metropole Hotel, where she would be staying until Sunday. She had book-signings in Bradford, York and Harrogate, as well as in Leeds, but it made no sense to move everything lock, stock and barrel from one hotel to another every day. The
cities were close enough together. The rep would drive her around.

Not that Vivian needed any help to find the hotel; the Metropole wasn't more than a couple of hundred yards from City Square, and she knew exactly where it was. She had stayed there with Charlie the time they went to Michael Stanhope's exhibition in
1944
. What an evening they had made of it. After the show, they went to a classical concert and then to the
21
Club, where they had danced until late. That was why she had asked to stay there again this trip. For memory's sake.

She was nervous. It wasn't anything to do with this evening's reading at Armley Library, or the Radio Leeds interview tomorrow afternoon, but with meeting Chief Inspector Banks and his female sidekick again. She knew they would want to interview her after studying the manuscript; there was no doubt she was guilty of something. But what could she do? She was too old and too tired to run. She was also too old to go to jail. The only way now was to face up to whatever charges might be brought and hope her lawyer would do a good job.

No one, she supposed, could stop the press finding out the gory details eventually, and there was no doubt that they would go to town on the story. She wasn't sure she could face public humiliation. Perhaps, if they didn't arrest her, she would leave the country again, the way she had done so many times with Ronald. Why not? She could work anywhere, and she had enough money to buy a little place somewhere warm: Bermuda, perhaps, or the British Virgin Islands.

Once again Vivian cast her mind back to the events of fifty years ago. Was there something she had missed? Had
she got it all wrong? Had she been so ready to suspect Matthew that she had overlooked the possibility of anyone else being guilty? Banks's questions about Michael Stanhope and about
PX
, Billy Joe, Charlie and Brad had shocked and surprised her at first. Now she was beginning to wonder. Could one of them have done it? Not Charlie, certainly—he was dead by then—but what about Brad? He and Gloria had been arguing a lot towards the end; she had even seen them arguing through the flames at the
VE
-day party. Perhaps the night she died he had gone to put his case forward one last time, and when she turned him down he went berserk? Vivian tried to remember whether Brad had been the kind to go berserk or not, but all she could conclude was that we all are, given the right circumstances.

Then there was
PX
. He had certainly lavished a lot of gifts on Gloria in that shy way of his. Perhaps he had hoped for something in return? Something she hadn't wanted to give? And while Billy Joe seemed to have moved on to other women quite happily, Vivian remembered his bitterness at being ditched for a pilot, the smouldering class resentment that came out as jibes and taunts.

People said they didn't have a class system in America, but Billy Joe had definitely been working-class, like the farm labourers in Yorkshire, while Charlie was from a well-established Ivy League background, and Brad had come from new west-coast oil money. Vivian didn't think the Americans lacked class distinction so much as they lacked a tradition of inherited aristocratic titles and wealth— which was probably why they all went gaga over British royalty.

The train was nearing Leeds City Station now, wheels squealing as it negotiated the increasingly complicated
system of signals and points. It had been a much faster and easier journey than the one Vivian had made to London and back with Gloria. She remembered the pinprick of blue light, the soldiers snoring, her first look at the desolation of war in the pale dawn light. She had slept most of the way back to Leeds, a six- or seven-hour journey then, and after she got back to Hobb's End, London had grown more and more distant and magical in her imagination, until it might easily have been Mars or ancient Rome.

Looking back, she began to wonder if perhaps it was
all
just a story. As the years race inexorably on, and as all the people we know and love die, does the past turn into fiction, an act of the imagination populated by ghosts, scenes and images suspended forever in water-glass?