Hanging Valley ib-4

by Peter Robinson

  He knew he had to be right though; Bernard Allen had frequented an English-style pub, and he must have had drinking companions who would be mourning his loss.

  On Thursday at about three fifteen, Banks got off a streetcar outside the Feathers, in the east end of the city. The inside door opened opposite a small darts area: two boards against a green baize backing, pockmarked with misses. To his left was the pub itself, all darkly gleaming wood, polished brass and deep red velvet upholstery. And it was cool.

  The wall opposite the bar was covered with framed photographs, mostly of English and Scottish scenes.

  Banks recognized a pub he knew in York, Theakston’s brewery in Masham, a road sign he’d often passed on the way to Ripon and, most surprising of all, a photo of the Queen’s Arms in Eastvale’s cobbled market square. It was an odd sensation, seeing that. He was in a pub over three thousand miles from home looking at a photo of the Queen’s Arms. Eerie.

  The place was almost empty. Near the door sat a group of four or five people listening to a silver-haired man with a lived-in face and a Lancashire accent complain about income tax.

  Banks stood at the bar close to a very tall man with short neat hair. He was smoking a pipe and staring abstractedly into space as if musing about the follies of mankind. Behind the bar, above the till, was a small Union Jack.

  ‘I’ll have a pint of Creemore, please,’ Banks said, noticing the logo on one of the pumps.

  The barmaid smiled. She had curly auburn hair and brown eyes full of humour and mischief. When she walked over to the end of the bar to fill a waitress’s order, Banks noticed she was wearing a very short skirt. It did more than justice to a fine pair of legs.

  ‘Quiet,’ Banks commented, when she placed the ice-cold pint in front of him.

  ‘It usually is at this time,’ she said. ‘We get busy around five when people drop in after work.’

  Banks took a deep breath and reached for the photographs in his jacket pocket. They were getting dog-eared. He was so used to disappointment that he put hardly any enthusiasm into his question: ‘I don’t suppose you had a regular here by the name of Bernard Allen, did you?’

  ‘Bernie?’ she said. ‘Bernie who got killed over in England?’

  Banks could hardly believe his ears. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Did you know him?’

  The barmaid’s eyes turned serious as she spoke. ‘He was a regular here,’ she said. ‘I wouldn’t say I really knew him, but I talked to him now and then. You know, like you do when you’re waitressing. He was a nice guy. Never made any trouble. It was terrible what happened.’

  ‘Did he drink alone?’

  ‘No. There was a group of them - Bernie, Glen, Barry and Ian. They always sat on that corner over there.’

  She pointed to a round table opposite the far end of the bar.

  ‘Was there ever a woman with them?’

  ‘Sometimes. But I never talked to her. Why do you want to know all this? Are you a cop or something?’

  Banks decided on honesty. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘But I’m here unofficially. We think Bernie met an old friend over here who might have some information for us. It could help us find out who killed him.’

  The barmaid rested her elbows on the bar and leaned forward.

  Banks showed her the photographs. ‘Is this her?’

  She looked closely and frowned. ‘It could be. The shape of the face is the same, but everything else is different. These must be old photos.’

  ‘They are,’ Banks said. ‘But it could be her?’

  ‘Yes. Look, I’m sorry, I can’t stand here talking. I honestly don’t know much more. Jack over there used to talk to Bernie sometimes. He might be able to help.’

  She pointed to a man on the periphery of the group near the entrance. He was a solidly built man with a moustache and a fine head of greyish hair, in his mid to late thirties, Banks guessed. At the moment he seemed to be poring over a crossword puzzle.

  ‘Thank you.’ Banks picked up his half-finished pint and walked over to the table. He introduced himself and Jack told him to pull up a chair. The Lancastrian at the next table lit a cigarette and said, ‘I’ll just have another gin and tonic, then I’ll go.’

  ‘We weren’t really close friends,’ Jack said when Banks had asked about Bernie, ‘but we had some decent conversations.’ He had a Canadian accent, which surprised Banks. He’d assumed that apart from the bar staff all the regulars were British.

  ‘What did you talk about?’

  ‘Books, mostly. Literature. Bernie was about the only other guy I knew who’d read Proust.’

  ‘Proust?’

  Jack gave him a challenging look. ‘Greatest writer who ever lived. He wrote Remembrance of Things Past.’

  ‘Maybe I’ll give him a try,’ Banks answered, not sure what he was letting himself in for. He tended to follow through on most of his self-made promises to read or listen to things other people recommended, though time constraints always ensured he had a huge backlog.

  ‘Do that,’ said Jack. ‘Then I’ll have someone to talk to again. Excuse me.’ He got up and went to the washroom.

  The Lancastrian belched and said to the waitress, ‘Gin and tonic please, love. No fruit.’

  Banks observed the other people at the table: a small slim youth with an earring and a diamond stud in his left ear; a taller thin-faced man with a crewcut and glasses; a soft-spoken man with a hint of an Irish accent. They were all listening to a Welshman telling jokes.

  Jack sat down again and ordered another pint of Black Label. The waitress, a nicely tanned blonde with a beautiful smile, took Banks’ order for another Creemore too, and delivered both drinks in no time. Banks paid, leaving her a good tip - one thing he’d soon learned to do on his pub crawl of Toronto.

  ‘Did you know any of Bernie’s friends?’ he asked.

  Jack shook his head. ‘Self-important Brits, for the most part. They tend to pontificate a bit too much for my liking. But Bernie seemed to have transcended the parochial barriers of most English teachers.’

  Marilyn Rosenberg, at Toronto Community College, had said much the same thing in a different way.

  Whether it was a plus or a minus in her eyes, Banks hadn’t been sure.

  ‘When do they usually come in?’

  ‘About five, most days.’

  Banks looked at his watch; it was just after four.

  ‘Thanks a lot,’ he said. ‘By the way, six across is sculls. “Rows - of heads, we hear!” Head… skull. To row… to scull.’ Jack raised his eyebrows and filled in the answer.

  They worked at the crossword together for the next hour as the place filled up. At quarter past five, they were puzzling over ‘Take away notoriety and attack someone (6)’ when two men in white shirts and business suits walked in.

  ‘That’s them over there,’ Jack said. ‘Excuse me if I don’t join you.’

  Banks smiled. ‘Thanks for your help, anyway.’

  ‘Nice meeting you,’ Jack said, and they shook hands. ‘Defame. Of course!’ he exclaimed just before Banks moved away. ‘“Take away notoriety and attack someone.” Defame. Amazing how you get so much more done when there are two minds working at it.’

  Banks agreed. It was the same with police work. He could certainly have done with some help on this trip.

  Not Sergeant Hatchley - he hadn’t the self-control to separate work from a pub crawl - but DC Richmond would have been fine.

  When he got to their table, the two men had already taken the opportunity to loosen their ties, take off their suit jackets and roll up their sleeves. One was tall and skinny with a bony face and fine blond hair plastered flat against his skull to cover the receding hairline; the other, who only came up to his friend’s shoulders, was pudgy and also balding. What little hair he had stood out like a kind of mist or halo around his head. He wore a fixed smile on his lips, and his dark eyes darted everywhere.

  Banks walked over to them and told them why he was in Toronto.

  ‘I’m Ian
Grainger,’ said the tall blond one. ‘Sit down.’

  ‘Barry Clark,’ the other said, still smiling and looking everywhere but at Banks.

  ‘Glen should be along in a while,’ Ian said. ‘How can we help you?’

  ‘I’m not sure if you can. I’m looking for Anne Ralston.’

  For a moment, both men frowned and looked puzzled.

  ‘You might know her as Julie.’

  ‘Oh, Julie. Yes, of course,’ Barry said. ‘You lost me there for a second. Sure we know Julie. But what could she have to do with Bernie’s murder?’ His accent was English, as was Ian’s, but Banks couldn’t place either of them exactly.

  ‘I don’t honestly know if she had anything to do with it,’ Banks said, ‘but she’s the only real lead we’ve got.’ He explained about her disappearance just after the Addison murder.

  The drinks arrived just before Glen Tadworth, a dark-bearded, well padded young man with a pronounced academic stoop and a well developed beer belly, walked over to join them. His red shirt seemed glued to his skin, and there were wet patches under the arms and across the chest. He carried a battered black briefcase stuffed with papers, which he plonked on the floor as he sat down and sighed.

  ‘Bloody students,’ he said, running his hand through his greasy black hair. ‘“Dover Beach” - a simple enough poem, you’d say, wouldn’t you?’ He looked at Banks as he talked, even though they hadn’t been introduced. ‘One bright spark came up with the theory that it was about Matthew Arnold’s hangover. Quite elaborate, it was too. The “grating roar” was the poet being sick. And as for the “long line of spray”…

  Well, I suppose one should be grateful for their inventiveness, but really…’ He threw his hands up, then reached over and took a long swig from Ian’s pint.

  ‘Don’t mind him,’ Barry said, managing to keep his eyes on Banks for a split second as he spoke. ‘He’s always like this. Always complaining.’ And he introduced them.

  ‘From Swainsdale, eh?’ Glen said. ‘A breath of fresh air from the old country. Lord, what I’d give to be able to live back there again. Not Swainsdale in particular, though it’d do. I’m from the West Country myself - Exeter. The accent’s flattened out a bit over the years here, I’m afraid.’

  ‘Why can’t you go back if you want to?’ Banks asked, reaching for another cigarette. ‘Surely you weren’t sent into permanent exile?’

  ‘Metaphorically, my dear Chief Inspector, metaphorically. You know, some people have got hold of the idea that we expatriates, scattered around the ex-colonies and various watering holes of Europe and Asia, are all pipe-puffing Tories enjoying life without income tax.’

  ‘And aren’t you?’

  ‘Far from it. Where is that waitress? Ah, Stella, my dear, a pint of Smithwick’s please. Where was I?

  Exile. Yes. If the government really did seek our proxy votes in the next election, I think they’d bloody well regret it. Most of us feel like exiles. We have skills that no one back home seems to value any more.

  It’s hard enough getting jobs here, but at least it’s possible. And they pay well. But I, for one, would be perfectly happy to do the same work back home for less money. There’s hardly a day goes by when I don’t think about going back.’

  ‘What about Bernie?’

  ‘He was as bad as Glen, if not worse,’ Barry said. ‘At least recently he was. Full of nostalgia. It’s time-travel they’re after really, you know, not just a flight across the Atlantic. All of us baby boomers are nostalgic when it comes down to it. That’s why we prefer the Beatles to Duran Duran.’

  Banks also liked the Beatles better than Duran Duran, a group that his son, Brian, had inflicted on him once or twice before moving on to something new. He thought it was because of the quality of the music, but maybe Barry Clark was right and it was more a matter of nostalgia than anything else. His own father had been just the same, he remembered, going on about Glenn Miller, Nat Gonella and Harry Roy when Banks had wanted to listen to Elvis Presley, The Shadows and Billy Fury.

  ‘The longer you’re away, the more you idealize the image of home,’ Barry went on, eyes roving the room.

  The place was packed and noisy now. People stood three deep at the bar. Jack, Banks noticed, had been joined by a small pretty woman with short dark hair laid flat against her skull. The Lancastrian and his friends had left. ‘Of course, what people don’t realize is that the country’s changed beyond all recognition,’ Barry continued. ‘We’d be foreigners there now, but to us home is still the Queen’s Christmas message, the last night of the Proms, Derby Day, a Test Match at Lords, the FA Cup Final -

  without bloodshed! - leafy lanes, a green and pleasant land. Ordered and changeless. Bloody hell, even the dark Satanic mills have some sort of olde worlde charm for homesick expatriates.’

  ‘Damn right,’ Glen said. ‘I’d work in a bloody woollen mill in Bingley if it meant being back home. Well, maybe… It’s the wistfulness of the exile, you see, Chief Inspector. You get it a lot in poetry. Especially the Irish.’

  Banks was beginning to see what Jack had meant.

  ‘Bernie was just the same,’ Ian said. ‘You should have heard him going on about Yorkshire. It was bloody Dales this and bloody Dales that. You’d think he was talking about paradise. You’ll never catch me going back to live over there. Canada’s a great place as far as I’m concerned.’

  ‘That’s because you’re in real estate,’ Glen said. ‘You’re making a bloody fortune. Is that all you care about - the material things? What about your soul, your roots?’

  ‘Oh, shut up, Glen. You’re getting tiresome.’

  ‘If he could have got a job over there,’ Banks asked, ‘do you think he would have gone back?’

  ‘Like a shot,’ Ian answered. The others agreed.

  ‘Did he ever mention anything about a job?’

  ‘He did say there was a chance of getting back to stay,’ Glen said. ‘Lucky bastard. But I didn’t know whether to believe him or not.’

  ‘What was this chance?’

  ‘He didn’t say. Very hush-hush, apparently.’

  ‘Why?’

  Glen scratched his shoulder and tried to unstick the shirt from his armpit. ‘Dunno. It was just one of those nights when you’ve had a few too many, if you know what I mean. Bernie said something about a plan he had to get himself back home.’

  ‘But he gave you no details?’

  ‘No. Said he’d let us know after he got back.’

  ‘Was it a job he mentioned?’

  ‘Not specifically, no. Just a chance to get back. I assumed it must have been some possible job offer. How else would he be able to live?’

  ‘How attached was he to teaching?’

  ‘He liked it up to a point,’ Glen answered. ‘It was something he was good at. He should have been teaching at university. He was good enough, but there aren’t any jobs. Like most of us though, he hated the conditions he had to work in and he despised the students’ wilful ignorance. They don’t know anything and they don’t want to know - unless it’s in a ballpark or on video. They expect you to spoon-feed them knowledge, then ask them to regurgitate it in a test. For that they expect to be given an A-plus, no matter how bad their writing or how inaccurate their answers. I could go on-’

  ‘You usually do, Glen,’ Barry cut in, ‘but I don’t think Mr Banks wants to hear it.’

  Banks smiled. ‘Actually, I am running out of time,’ he said. ‘I need to find Julie as quickly as possible. Do you know where she lives?’

  ‘No,’ said Ian. ‘She just comes in on a Friday after work for a couple of drinks.’

  ‘It’s somewhere near here, I think,’ Barry added. ‘She mentioned sunbathing in Kew Gardens once.’

  ‘Have you any idea what surname she’s using?’

  ‘It’s Culver, isn’t it?’ Barry said. ‘Or Cleaver, Carver, something like that.’

  None of the others could improve on Barry’s contribution.

  ‘Do you know where
she works?’

  ‘In one of those towers near King and Bay,’ Ian answered. ‘The TD Centre or First Canadian Place. She complained that the elevators made her ears go funny.’

  ‘That’s a lot of help,’ Glen said. ‘Do you know how many businesses operate from those places?’

  Ian shrugged. ‘Well, that’s all I know. What about you?’

  Glen and Barry both shook their heads.

  ‘She should be in here at about six tomorrow though,’ Barry said. ‘She hasn’t missed a week yet.’

  ‘Fine. Look, would you do me a favour? If she turns up early or if I’m late, please don’t tell her I want to see her. It might scare her off. You know how some people react to the police.’