“Well, I’m sorry but I can’t help you. I would if I could, honest.” Fairfax paused again for a moment. “Is there a chance that she didn’t take her own life, like it was an accident, or somebody did it to her?”
“Do you know of anyone who might have done something like that to her?”
“No. But there could be another explanation, couldn’t there? Other than suicide, I mean.”
“There could be,” Banks conceded. “When did you last talk to her?”
“If you have her mobile you’ll know. It was last week. Wednesday or Thursday. She called me.”
“Did she sound any different from usual?”
“No.”
“What did you talk about? It was a short conversation.”
“We were supposed to go to a demonstration on the weekend. She rang to tell me she couldn’t make it.”
“Did she say why?”
“No.”
“How did she sound.”
“Same as usual.”
“Does POLICE AWARE mean anything to you?”
“It’s that yellow sign you stick in broken-down cars when you leave them on country roads, isn’t it?”
“That’s right.”
“Then I don’t understand the question. What else should it mean? Why should it mean anything other than what it says?”
“That’s what I’m asking you. Does it mean anything else? Does it have any special significance for you? Or for Adrienne?”
“Well, no, I guess. I can’t say as I’ve ever thought about it, and Adrienne certainly never mentioned it. Why?”
“Have you ever had a prescription for sleeping pills?”
“You must be joking.”
“Not at all.”
“Then, no. I’ve never had any trouble sleeping. And I don’t like taking pills, not even paracetamol. Before you even go there, I don’t do drugs.”
“Nobody says you do, Colin.”
“But it always comes up, doesn’t it? Student. Ergo, must be drugs somewhere.”
“Are there?”
“No.”
“What about E?”
“Never tried it.”
“Adrienne took it at The Cellar Club with her friends.”
“Maybe she did. But I wasn’t a part of that crowd. And I don’t like The Cellar Club.”
“Does it surprise you that Adrienne took drugs?” Winsome asked.
“Maybe she did E occasionally with her mates. But she wasn’t a druggie.”
“Let’s just go back to this Mia for a minute,” Banks said. “Can you tell us what she looked like?”
“Mia? She was about the same height as Adrienne, around five six, very attractive, with an olive complexion and brown eyes. It was weird, though. I mean, you could tell she had a great figure, but she dressed it down, if you know what I mean. Dressed to cover it up. I never saw her in a skirt or a dress or anything, just jeans and baggy sweatshirts and stuff. And her hair was messy, like she didn’t bother with it much.”
“Long or short?”
“Medium really.” He touched his shoulders. “Reddish brown and sort of wavy.”
“You say she had an olive complexion. Was she Asian, or black?”
“Neither. Not that dark. Just sort of Mediterranean, you know? Or South American. But she wasn’t foreign. I mean, she was English. I think she came from somewhere down south. Winchester, if I remember right. Somewhere with a cathedral, anyway.”
That really helped a lot, Banks thought. “How old was she?”
“About my age, I’d guess. Twenty or so.”
“So you did talk to her?”
“Once or twice. She just wasn’t very friendly towards me. Not forthcoming. A bit monosyllabic.”
“And you’ve no idea what became of her?”
“None at all. It was like she just disappeared into thin air.”
Winsome put her notebook away and she and Banks stood up.
“Thanks for your time, Colin,” said Banks. “We’re sorry about Adrienne, but believe me, we’re doing our best to find out what happened to her. Here’s my card. If you think of anything that might be relevant, however minor it may seem, please let us know.”
Colin took the card. “Thanks, man,” he said. “Yeah, I will.”
7
THE CHURCH BELLS WERE RINGING. CLANGING WAS MORE like it—real Hunchback of Notre Dame clanging—as if they were just across the street. Which they were. Annie remembered that she was staying at Carrie and Don’s house in the close and it was Saturday morning. Must be a wedding. She opened one gummy eye and saw that she was in a child’s room—Tabitha’s, obviously—with Disney princesses and fairy-tale castles dotted all over the pink wallpaper. Under the window sat piles of stuffed animals and a glass-fronted bookcase ran the gamut from Beatrix to Harry Potter. When Annie grasped the duvet to pull it over her head, she saw that it was covered with appliqué robins and wrens. A stuffed owl stared at her from pride of place on the dresser.
Annie’s head was pounding and her mouth was dry. Sure signs of a hangover. She spotted the glass of water on the bedside table and downed half of it in one gulp. That felt better. Then she fumbled in her handbag for the handy pack of Panadol Extra Advance she always carried with her, took three and washed them down with the rest of the water. She then rested her head back on the pillow and took stock.
At least she was alone. That was a good start. She didn’t think she had done anything terrible or outrageous last night, though she did remember a bloke chatting her up until his wife saw what was going on and intervened. Rather rudely, Annie thought. Then there was the handsome crime writer. She might even have kissed him and given him her phone number, but that was all. Afterwards, it was slim pickings as most of the partygoers drifted off home. In the end there was just Annie and her friends talking about old times. Hence the hangover. Still, she thought, stirring and throwing off the duvet, she’d had a good girly time with her friends Carrie, Pat, Natalie and Fran, none of whom she’d seen for a while. It was Carrie’s party, and she and Don had shipped the kids off to Grandma’s for the night. Most of the guests had been connected with local bookshops—The Little Ripon Bookshop, and White Rose, in nearby Thirsk—hence the sprinkling of local writers. The men had simply provided a brief distraction from discussions of Jane Austen and Sara Paretsky.
There had been no police presence other than Annie herself. Carrie had left the force five years ago for a more stress-free life of running a secondhand bookshop. Annie had taken one or two well-meant jibes about police incompetence, corruption and so on, but in general people had either given her a wide berth or accepted her as one of the gang. Which she was. She had known Fran and Natalie, Carrie’s best friends for years, even if the booksellers were relatively new to her. It was good to live a part of her life outside the police, she felt.
At least she had been able to put the dysfunctional or deceased Hadfield family out of her mind for the evening. Poppy would probably be proud of her for getting so drunk. And maybe also for that little dance she and Fran and Carrie had done around the Ripon market square at midnight, until the local police constable had told them politely to go home. For a moment, Annie had considered telling him who she was and pulling her rank, but she hadn’t. She can’t have been that drunk, then, after all, except dancing on cobbles in high heels was hardly the act of a sober person. The last she had heard from Gerry before she left for the party was that both Poppy’s alibis held up. She was where she said she was on the weekend of Laurence Hadfield’s disappearance. The previous evening, before leaving for Ripon, and after some difficulty and a lot of swearing, along with a bribe of a bottle of VSOP cognac, Annie had stashed Poppy away in a discreet little boutique hotel in Eastvale until she could figure out her next move.
It was freezing in Tabitha’s room, so Annie pulled on her last night’s clothes as quickly as she could, grabbed her bag, stopped by the bathroom for a quick wash and a spot of makeup, then headed downstairs. She heard voices and
found Fran and Natalie leaning on the island in the kitchen, where the coffeemaker was gurgling and emitting its seductive aroma.
Fran smiled. “Well, look who’s up at last.”
Annie pulled a face and glanced at her watch. Only 9:30. “It’s not that late,” she said. “Them bloody bells would wake up Sleeping Beauty. I didn’t do anything really out of line last night, did I? Please tell me I didn’t.”
Fran and Natalie laughed. “Apart from that striptease and the lap dance you gave Steve, you mean? Not at all.”
“Bastards,” said Annie, smiling. “I think I might remember something like that.” She picked up a mug from the counter, noticing it had a picture of Elvis Presley on it, pulled the coffeepot towards her and poured. The automatic machine hadn’t finished its business, and a thin stream of coffee dripped from its basket and sizzled on the hotplate. “Shit!” Annie quickly put the pot back.
Fran and Natalie laughed again. “Oh, Annie,” Natalie said. “What can we do with you?”
“A nice fry-up wouldn’t go amiss right now,” Annie answered.
“Thought you were a veggie,” Natalie said.
Annie scowled. “Yeah, well, but . . . you ever tasted a veggie sausage?”
“You mean the ones without meat? Isn’t that what they always used to be like here?”
Fran laughed and pointed. “There’s the bread and there’s the toaster. The marmalade’s in the top cupboard. And we’re back on butter. Apparently it’s better for you. Margarine is full of carcinogens or something.”
Annie sipped some coffee then went and put two slices of white bread in the toaster.
“The brown’s healthier,” said Fran.
“But how can you tell when it’s done?”
They both laughed at that. “It was a fun night,” Natalie said. “We mustn’t leave it so long again.”
“How’s the birthday girl?” Annie asked.
“Carrie? Still asleep,” said Fran. “Probably enjoying the first lie-in she’s had in ages without the kids to wake her.”
“You know she loves them to death.” Annie did, too. She was even godmother to one of them—Melissa, age nine—and when she thought of Carrie’s life there were times that she felt she had lost so much by deciding not to have children herself. Not that it was entirely too late—not physically, at any rate, perhaps—but in many ways it was. For a start, she would need a suitable man. Or maybe just an anonymous donor. She scrapped that thought.
The toast popped up. Annie reached for the knife and butter on the side and started spreading. “Hope Carrie had a good time last night.”
“Oh, she did,” said Fran.
Annie was enjoying her coffee and toast when her mobile made its sixties police car sound. “Shit!”
“Just leave it,” said Natalie.
“Can’t. It might be work.”
“Big case on?”
“Big enough.” Annie found her mobile before it stopped and went into the living room for some privacy. She saw the caller was PC Dave Kingsley, who was supposed to be keeping an eye on Poppy’s hotel.
“DI Cabbot?”
“Speaking.” Annie could hear a hubbub in the background. The loud voice sounded like Poppy’s, and she guessed the calmer conciliatory one belonged to the desk clerk or manager. She let out a long sigh. “OK, constable, what’s going on there?”
“There’s a bit of a fracas, to be honest, ma’am.”
“I can hear that for myself. What sort of a fracas?”
“It’s Miss Hadfield, ma’am. She’s creating an awful fuss. Refusing to pay her bill. She was down in the middle of the night shouting her lungs out, too, but the night manager and the desk clerk sorted things out.”
Annie raised her eyes skywards. “So what do you want me to do about it now?”
“I think you’d better get over here as soon as you can, ma’am. This time I think she’s going to—”
Just then Annie heard a scream of rage and frustration followed by what sounded like a large vase smashing against a wall. The shock waves reverberated through her hungover brain like a kick in the head. The Panadol clearly hadn’t taken effect yet, no matter how fast the packet said it acted.
“I’m in Ripon right now,” Annie said. “Keep a lid on things as best you can. Don’t let anyone leave. I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”
Annie went to the hall, grabbed her coat, felt for her car keys in the pocket then called out a hasty farewell to Fran and Natalie, who stood in the kitchen doorway looking puzzled. “Tell Carrie I’m really sorry,” Annie added as she turned the doorknob. “And wish her a happy birthday again from me. I’ll ring later. Got to go.” She paused before closing the door and grinned. “One day I’ll tell you about it.”
“ANNA AKHMATOVA,” said Linda, pushing her empty lunch plate aside. “She was a strange one. Beautiful, though you’d hardly think it from existing photos. But elegant, aristocratic. Modigliani sketched her, you know. They were lovers for a while. And like all her lovers, he left her. She was always ill. Suffered from TB and heart problems all her life. Not to mention the revolution, the problems of surviving Stalin’s Russia and the Second World War. Like all artists in Russia, she had to be so careful what she said, or didn’t say. Especially if she committed it to paper. Don’t forget, if you fell afoul of the authorities, it wasn’t just yourself you put in danger. It was your entire family and circle of friends. Sometimes they would leave you free, so you could suffer the guilt of causing your family’s murder. She ended up lonely and sad, with most of her friends and family and lovers and fellow writers dead or in the gulag, but she was celebrated. That was always important to her. That people loved her poetry. She could be very competitive.”
“Do you feel the same way?”
Linda pursed her lips and thought for a moment, swirling her red wine in the glass. “Competitive? Not so much, no. My life has been very different, of course—for one thing, I have never had to live under a totalitarian regime—and I think the English attitude towards writing poetry is very different from the Russian approach. We’re probably more Larkin than Pushkin, on the whole. Oh, I tell myself I don’t give a fuck what the critics say, but I’ll fume or cry over a bad review like anyone else. I suppose if you do put yourself out there, then you want to be appreciated, celebrated, even, not shat on. But that’s not the reason you do it. That’s a different sort of compulsion.”
They were having lunch in the Low Moor Inn, a pub Banks had discovered quite by accident in the middle of nowhere, vast stretches of wild inhospitable moorland all around. For some reason, they had taken to frequenting it for their occasional poetry sessions. Today the landscape was shrouded in a grey gauzy haze, with patches of frost still visible on distant stretches.
The pub was squat and sturdy with thick stone walls, a fireplace you could stand up in and watercolors of local scenes all over the rough plastered walls. The dining room was quiet, conversations a gentle rising and falling murmur around them, no music or machines to break the spell. They had finished their discussion of Eliot’s “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” just before Banks had asked Linda about Akhmatova. Banks had found Eliot’s poem fascinating, though he admitted he couldn’t really understand it. Linda had said that didn’t matter and that he had to get rid of that archaic and irritating habit of wanting to translate poems into rational prose in his mind. He thought he had imagination, but often poetry defeated him; maybe it was because he’d been thinking like a policeman for too many years. Still, he tried, and the effort was rewarding.
“Why are you asking about Akhmatova, by the way?” Linda asked. “I don’t believe I’ve ever talked about her before.”
“Someone mentioned her to me the other night,” Banks said. “Why?”
“I’m not sure you should be getting into poetry in translation just yet. Especially Akhmatova.”
“Difficult, is she?”
“Not especially. Not on the surface of it. But there are particular difficulties w
ith just about anything Russian artists produced in the last century.”
“Rather like with anything their politicians produce in this century.”
Linda laughed. “Well, they do have a complex history.”
Banks nodded. “I’m a big Shostakovich fan, but half the time I feel lost and stupid when I try to work out the context of his life, the secret meanings of his symphonies and quartets. What Stalin really defined as true socialist realist music and what he dismissed as ‘formalism’ or unpatriotic bourgeois drivel.”
“I know what you mean. I think you’d have to be Russian to even attempt an answer to those questions, though Julian Barnes wrote a fine book about Shostakovich recently.”
“Yes,” said Banks. “I read it. But it must have been different for a poet. Music doesn’t carry meaning in the same way words do. It’s more subjective, perhaps.”
“True. And it wasn’t only criticism of the Party that went against you, it was also embrace of the personal, the romantic. Bourgeois individualism. Anna could sound like a lovesick schoolgirl, even in her sixties, but there was always some image, some phrase, metaphor or observation, that would pull the rug from under you, throw you sideways. Maybe it would be a cynical comment on her own emotions, or something like that, but it constantly changes and challenges your perception of what you’ve just read, puts everything in a different context.”
“Most poetry does that for me,” Banks said. “Like most cases.”
Linda laughed again. “Maybe that’s why so many people try to avoid poetry at all costs.” She paused to drink some wine. “I visited Russia once, you know. Just Moscow and St. Petersburg. I saw all the usual sights: the Kremlin, St. Basil’s, the Hermitage, the Nevsky Prospekt, but I remember being struck constantly whenever I saw elderly people in the streets with what some of them must have lived through. The suffering showed in the lines of the old women’s faces, in the hunched, stiff figures of the men. And even then, when I was there in the early nineties, there were still long queues for what little was in the shops. I thought of the famines, the siege of Leningrad, Stalingrad, the purges, all the depredations visited on that country—and no, I didn’t forget that so much harm was done by the Russians to themselves, not an invading army, though it must often have seemed that way. All in the name of Communism. And the terrible things they did to the countries around them—but there’s something very . . . I don’t know . . . something that really puts you in your place when you visit somewhere like that, with such a weight of history. Now Putin. Have you ever been there?”
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