According to the Athertons’ statement, their son wrote to say he was coming to see them en route to Scotland. He said he was on his way to join some sort of commune and arrived at Eastvale station on the London train at three forty-five in the afternoon, July 11, 1969. By ten o’clock that night, he was dead. He didn’t have transportation of his own, so his father had met him at the station in the Land Rover and driven him back to the farm.
Banks picked up a sheet of lined writing paper, yellowed around the edges. A separate sheet described it as an anonymous note received at the Eastvale police station about a week after the coroner’s verdict. All it said, in block capitals, was: “Ask Atherton about the red Volkswagen.”
Next came a brief interview report, in which a PC Wythers said he had questioned the Athertons about the car and they said they didn’t know what he was talking about. That was that.
Banks supposed it was remotely possible that whoever was in the red Volkswagen had killed Joseph Atherton. But why would his parents lie? According to the statement, they all had spent the evening together at the farm eating dinner, catching up on family news, then Joseph went up to his room to unpack and came down in his stocking feet. Maybe he’d been smoking marijuana, as Gristhorpe suggested. Anyway, he slipped at the top of the stairs and broke his neck. It was tragic, but hardly what Banks was looking for.
He heard a sound at the door and looked up to see Susan Gay.
“Found anything, sir?” she asked.
“Maybe,” said Banks. “One or two loose ends. But I haven’t a clue what it all means, if anything. I’m beginning to wish I’d never seen Mr. Jerry Singer.”
Susan smiled. “Do you know, sir,” she said, “he almost had me believing him.”
Banks put the file aside. “Did he? I suppose it always pays to keep an open mind,” he said. “That’s why we’re going to visit Mrs. Atherton.”
V
THE ATHERTON FARM was every bit as isolated as Gristhorpe had said, and the relentless rain had muddied the lane. At one point Banks thought they would have to get out and push, but on the third try, the wheels caught and the car lurched forward.
The farmyard looked neglected: bedraggled weeds poked through the mud; part of the barn roof had collapsed; and the wheels and tines of the old hay rake had rusted.
Mrs. Atherton answered their knock almost immediately. Banks had phoned ahead so their arrival wouldn’t frighten her. After all, a woman living alone in such a wild place couldn’t be too careful.
She led them into the large kitchen and put the kettle on the Aga. The stone-walled room looked clean and tidy enough, but Banks noted an underlying smell, like old greens and meat rotting under the sink.
Mrs. Atherton carried the aura of the sickroom about with her. Her complexion was as gray as her sparse hair; her eyes were dull yellow with milky blue irises; and the skin below them looked dark as a bruise. As she made the tea, she moved slowly, as if measuring the energy required for each step. How on earth, Banks wondered, did she manage up here all by herself? Yorkshire grit was legendary, and as often close to foolhardiness as anything else, he thought.
She put the teapot on the table. “We’ll just let it mash a minute,” she said. “Now, what is it you want to talk to me about?”
Banks didn’t know how to begin. He had no intention of telling Mrs. Atherton about Jerry Singer’s “previous lifetime,” or of interrogating her about her son’s death. Which didn’t leave him many options.
“How are you managing?” he asked first.
“Mustn’t grumble.”
“It must be hard, taking care of this place all by yourself?”
“Nay, there’s not much to do these days. Jack Crocker keeps an eye on the sheep. I’ve nobbut got a few cows to milk.”
“No poultry?”
“Nay, it’s not worth it anymore, not with these battery farms. Anyway, seeing as you’re a copper, I don’t suppose you came to talk to me about the farming life, did you? Come on, spit it out, lad.”
Banks noticed Susan look down and smile. “Well,” he said, “I hate to bring up a painful subject, but it’s your son’s death we want to talk to you about.”
Mrs. Atherton looked at Susan as if noticing her for the first time. A shadow crossed her face. Then she turned back to Banks. “Our Joseph?” she said. “But he’s been dead thirty years or more.”
“I know that,” said Banks. “We won’t trouble you for long.”
“There’s nowt else to add.” She poured the tea, fussed with milk and sugar, and sat down again.
“You said your son wrote and said he was coming?”
“Aye.”
“Did you keep the letter?”
“What?”
“The letter. I’ve not seen any mention of it anywhere. It’s not in the file.”
“Well, it wouldn’t be, would it? We don’t leave scraps of paper cluttering up the place.”
“So you threw it out?”
“Aye. Bert or me.” She looked at Susan again. “That was my husband, God rest his soul. Besides,” she said, “how else would we know he was coming? We couldn’t afford a telephone back then.”
“I know,” said Banks. But nobody had asked at the railway station whether Bert Atherton actually had met his son there, and now it was too late. He sipped some tea; it tasted as if the tea bag had been used before. “I don’t suppose you remember seeing a red Volkswagen in the area around that time, do you?”
“No. They asked us that when it first happened. I didn’t know owt about it then, and I don’t know owt now.”
“Was there anyone else in the house when the accident occurred?”
“No, of course there weren’t. Do you think I wouldn’t have said if there were? Look, young man, what are you getting at? Do you have summat to tell me, summat I should know?”
Banks sighed and took another sip of weak tea. It didn’t wash away the taste of decay that permeated the kitchen. He signaled to Susan and stood up. “No,” he said. “No, I’ve nothing new to tell you, Mrs. Atherton. Just chasing will-o’-the-wisps, that’s all.”
“Well, I’m sorry, but you’ll have to go chase ’em somewhere else, lad. I’ve got work to do.”
VI
THE QUEEN’S ARMS was quiet late that afternoon. Rain had kept the tourists away, and at four o’clock most of the locals were still at work in the offices and shops around the market square. Banks ordered a pork pie, then he and Jenny Fuller took their drinks to an isolated corner table and settled down. The first long draft of Theakston’s Bitter washed the archive dust and the taste of decay from Banks’s throat.
“Well,” said Jenny, raising her glass of lager in a toast, “to what do I owe the honor?”
She looked radiant, Banks thought: thick red hair tumbling over her shoulders, emerald green eyes full of humor and vitality, a fresh scent that cut through the atmosphere of stale smoke and made him think of childhood apple orchards. Though Banks was married, he and Jenny had once come very close to getting involved, and every now and then he felt a pang of regret for the road not taken.
“Reincarnation,” said Banks, clinking glasses.
Jenny raised her eyebrows. “You know I’ll drink to most things,” she said, “but really, Alan, isn’t this going a bit far?”
Banks explained what had happened so far that day. By the time he had finished, the barman delivered his pork pie, along with a large pickled onion. As Jenny mulled over what he had said, he sliced the pie into quarters and shook a dollop of HP Sauce onto his plate to dip them in.
“Fantasy,” she said finally.
“Would you care to elaborate?”
“If you don’t believe in reincarnation, then there are an awful lot of strange phenomena you have to explain in more rational ways. Now, I’m no expert on parapsychology, but most people who claim to have lived past lifetimes generally become convinced through hypnosis, dreams, and déjà vu experiences, like the ones you mentioned, or by spontaneous recall.”
“Exactly what it sounds like. Suddenly remembering past lifetimes out of the blue. Children playing the piano without lessons, people suddenly speaking foreign languages, that kind of thing. Or any memory you have but can’t explain, something that seems to have come from beyond your experience.”
“You mean if I’m walking down the street and I suddenly think of a Roman soldier and remember some sort of Latin phrase, then I’m recalling a previous lifetime?”
Jenny gave him a withering look. “Don’t be so silly, Alan. Of course I don’t think that. Some people might, though. People are limitlessly gullible, it seems to me, especially when it comes to life after death. No, what I mean is that this is the kind of thing believers try to put forward as proof of reincarnation.”
“And how would a rational psychologist explain it?”
“She might argue that what a person recalls under hypnosis, in dreams, or wherever, is simply a web of fantasy woven from things that person has already seen or heard and maybe forgotten.”
“But he says he’s never been here before.”
“There’s television, books, films.”
Banks finished his pork pie, took a swig of Theakston’s, and lit a Silk Cut. “So you’re saying that maybe our Mr. Singer has watched one too many episodes of All Creatures Great and Small?”
Jenny tossed back her hair and laughed. “It wouldn’t surprise me.” She looked at her watch, then drained her glass. “Look, I’m sorry but I must dash.” And with that, she jumped up, pecked him on the cheek, and left. Jenny was always dashing, it seemed. Sometimes he wondered where.
Banks thought over what she had said. It made sense. More sense than Singer’s reincarnation theory and more sense than suspecting Joseph Atherton’s parents of covering up their son’s murder.
But there remained the unsubstantiated story of the letter and the anonymous note about the red Volkswagen. If somebody else had driven Joseph Atherton to the farm, then his parents had been lying about the letter. Why? And who could it have been?
VII
TWO DAYS LATER, sorting through his mail, Banks found a letter addressed to him in longhand. It stood out like a sore thumb among the usual bundle of circulars and official communications. He spread it open on his desk in front of him and read.
Dear Mr. Banks,
I’m not much of a one for letter writing so you must forgive me any mistakes. I didn’t get much schooling due to me being a sickly child but my father always told us it was important to read and write. Your visit last week upset me by raking up the past I’d rather forget. I don’t know what made you come and ask those questions but they made me think it is time to make my peace with God and tell the truth after all these years.
What we told the police was not true. Our Joseph didn’t write to say he was coming and Bert didn’t pick him up at the station. Joseph just turned up out of the blue one afternoon in that red car. I don’t know who told the police about the car but I think it might have been Len Grimond in the farm down the road because he had fallen out with Bert over paying for repairs to a wall.
Anyway, it wasn’t our Joseph’s car. There was an American lass with him called Annie and she was driving. They had a baby with them that they said was theirs. I suppose that made him our grandson, but it was the first time we ever heard about him. Our Joseph hadn’t written or visited us for four years and we didn’t know if he was alive or dead. He was a bonny little lad about two or three with the most solemn look on his face.
Well, it was plain from the start that something was wrong. We tried to behave like good loving parents and welcome them into our home, but the girl was moody and she didn’t want to stay. The baby cried a lot and I don’t think he had been looked after properly, though it’s not my place to say. And Joseph was behaving very peculiar. His eyes looked all glassy with tiny pupils. We didn’t know what was the matter. I think from what he said that he just wanted money.
They wouldn’t eat much though I cooked a good roast for them, and Yorkshire puddings too, but our Joseph just picked at his food and the girl sat there all sulky holding the baby and wanting to go. She said she was a vegetarian. After we’d finished the dinner Joseph got very upset and said he had to go to the toilet. By then Bert was wondering what was going on and also a bit angry at how they treated our hospitality even if Joseph was our son.
Joseph was a long time in the toilet. Bert called up to him but he didn’t answer. The girl said something about leaving him alone and laughed, but it wasn’t a nice laugh. We thought something might be wrong with him so Bert went up and found Joseph with a piece of string tied around his arm heating something in a spoon with a match. It was one of our silver anniversary spoons he had taken from the kitchen without asking. We were just ignorant farmers and didn’t know what was happening in crime and drugs and everything like you do, Mr. Banks, but we knew our Joseph was doing something bad.
Bert lost his temper and pulled Joseph out of the toilet. When they were at the top of the stairs, Joseph started swearing at his father, using such words I’ve never heard before and would blush to repeat. That’s when Bert hit him. On God’s honor, he didn’t mean to hurt him. Joseph was our only son and we loved him even though he was breaking my heart. But when Bert hit him Joseph fell down the stairs and when he got to the bottom his head was at such a funny angle I knew he must have broken his neck.
The girl started screaming, then took the baby and ran outside and drove away. We never saw her again or our grandson and I don’t know what has become of him. There was such a silence like you have never heard when the sound of the car engine vanished in the distance and Joseph was laying at the bottom of the stairs all twisted and broken. We tried to feel his pulse and Bert even put a mirror to his mouth to see if his breath would mist it but there was nothing.
I know we should have told the truth and we regretted it for all those years. We were always brought up to be decent honest folk respecting our parents and God and the law. Bert was ashamed that his son was a drug addict and didn’t want it in the papers. I didn’t want him to go to jail for what he had done because it was really an accident and it wasn’t fair. He was suffering more than enough anyway because he had killed his only son.
So I said we must throw away all the drugs and needle and things and take our Joseph’s shoes off and say he slipped coming down the stairs. We knew that the police would believe us because we were good people and we had no reason to lie. That was the hardest part. The laces got tied in knots and I broke my fingernails and in the end I was shaking so much I had to use the scissors.
And that is God’s honest truth, Mr. Banks. I know we did wrong but Bert was never the same after. Not a day went by when he didn’t cry about what he’d done and I never saw him smile ever again. To this day I still do not know what has become of our grandson but whatever he is I hope he is healthy and happy and not as foolish as his father.
By the time you read this letter I’ll be gone to my resting place too. For two years now I have had cancer and no matter what operations they do it is eating me away. I have saved my tablets. Now that I have taken the weight off my conscience I can only hope that the good Lord sees fit to forgive me my sins and take me unto his bosom.
Yours sincerely,
Betty Atherton
Banks put the letter aside and rubbed his left eye with the back of his hand. Outside, the rain was still falling, providing a gentle background for Finzi’s “Clarinet Concerto” on the portable cassette. Banks stared at the sheets of blue vellum covered in Betty Atherton’s crabbed hand, then he cursed, slammed his fist on the desk, went to the door, and shouted for Susan Gay.
VIII
“HER NAME IS Catherine Anne Singer,” said Susan the next afternoon. “And she was relieved to talk to me as soon as I told her we weren’t after her for leaving the scene of a crime. She comes from somewhere called Garden Grove, California. Like a lot of young Americans, she came over to ‘do’ Europe in
the sixties.”
The three of them—Banks, Susan, and Jenny Fuller—sat over drinks at a dimpled, copper-topped table in the Queen’s Arms, listening to the summer rain tap against the diamonds of colored glass.
“And she’s Jerry Singer’s mother?” Banks asked.
Susan nodded. “Yes. I just asked him for her telephone number. I didn’t tell him why I wanted it.”
Banks nodded. “Good. Go on.”
“Well, she ended up living in London. It was easy enough to get jobs that paid under the counter, places where nobody asked too many questions. Eventually, she hooked up with Joseph Atherton and they lived together in a bedsit in Notting Hill Gate. Joseph fancied himself as a musician then—”
“Who didn’t?” said Banks. He remembered taking a few abortive guitar lessons himself. “Sorry. Go on.”
“There’s not a lot to add, sir. She got pregnant, wouldn’t agree to an abortion, though apparently Joseph tried to persuade her. She named the child Jerry, after some guitarist Joseph liked called Jerry Garcia. Luckily for Jerry, Annie wasn’t on heroin. She drew the line at hash and LSD. Anyway, they were off to join some Buddhist commune in the wilds of Scotland when Joseph said they should drop in on his parents on the way and try to get some money. She didn’t like the idea, but she went along with it anyway.
“Everything happened exactly as Mrs. Atherton described it. Annie got scared and ran away. When she got back to London, she decided it was time to go home. She sold the car and took out all her savings from the bank, then she got the first flight she could and settled back in California. She went to university and ended up working as a marine biologist in San Diego. She never married, and she never mentioned her time in England, or that night at the Atherton farm, to Jerry. She told him his father had left them when Jerry was still a baby. He was only two and a half at the time of Atherton’s death, and as far as he was concerned he had spent his entire life in Southern California.”
Summer Rain: An Inspector Banks Short Story Page 2