Sleeping in the Ground: An Inspector Banks Novel (Inspector Banks Novels)

by Peter Robinson

  “But you said Frank Dowson was thick. It sounds a bit sophisticated for someone like him, hiding the body like that.”

  “I only said that his lawyer claimed diminished responsibility. And I said he had a low IQ, that’s all. It doesn’t mean he had no self-preservation instinct. He wasn’t without a certain low cunning. And you’d better watch it. You’ll have the political correctness squad after you if you go around calling intellectually challenged people thick.”

  “Even the least intelligent of us can be quite cunning under the right circumstances,” said Jenny.

  Gristhorpe sighed. “Aye, lass. You can say that again. He managed to elude our grasp for fifty years, at any rate. And he committed more rapes during that time. They said that was one of the things that finally led them to him. The crimes corresponded with the periods of his leave from the navy. That and his conviction five years ago for handling stolen goods and committing actual bodily harm. Only God knows how many rapes he committed on his travels around the world.”

  “Do you remember anything else about the Wendy Vincent’s family background?” Jenny asked.

  “From what I could gather,” said Gristhorpe, “the parents weren’t abusive, just neglectful. It was the drink, of course. They could hardly take care of themselves, let alone two kids. Her dad was a bit of a wide boy, too, in and out of work, Beatles-style haircut, fancied himself as a musician. The mother was a hardworking charlady when she had a job, but she got fired as often as not for absenteeism. There was a younger brother called Mark. He was only eleven at the time of the murder and, naturally, he was pretty shaken up, but maybe still a bit too young to take it all in. Frank Dowson came from an even more dodgy family on the same estate. His old man was a fence. Kept a lockup across town full of stuff that ‘fell off the back of a lorry.’ Small stuff, but we kept an eye on him. Frank had a younger brother called Billy Dowson, about Mark Vincent’s age. They were mates, as far as we could gather. Part of the same gang. And I don’t mean ‘gang’ like you hear it used today. They never did owt more than knock on a few doors and run away and lather a few doorknobs with treacle. Typical Mischief Night behavior. Mostly I should imagine they sat around in some den or other and smoked Park Drives and pored over dirty magazines and felt grown up. There was a sister, too. Cilla. She was sixteen and already on the game. But Frank Dowson didn’t live with his parents at the time. Like I said, he’d joined the merchant navy, and he only dropped by occasionally, when he was on leave. That’s one reason we didn’t follow up the way we should have. Nobody told us he was in the area when the murder occurred, so we neglected to check with the naval authorities to see if he had an alibi. It was sloppy police work. No excuses. Except there were more villains on that estate than you could shake a stick at. But I still can’t see how any of this is connected with your wedding shootings.”

  “Nor can I,” said Banks. “What we need is a connection between Martin Edgeworth and the shooter, but we don’t know who the shooter is. All we have so far is a connection, however tenuous, between one member of the wedding party and this fifty-year-old crime. I think we’ll try to track down some of the people who were involved, if they’re still alive. Billy Dowson, maybe his sister, Cilla, Wendy’s brother, any other members of the gang. See if anyone remembers something that might help. Do you know what happened to them?”

  “I didn’t keep in touch,” said Gristhorpe. “And as far as I know, both families moved away from the estate fairly soon after the investigation ground to a halt. I know Wendy’s mum and dad split up not long after and the lad, Mark, was packed off to live with an aunt and uncle in Ferry Fryston or some such place, but don’t quote me on it. I can give you some names, and you should be able to find them easily enough with your modern methods.”

  “Gerry should be able to take it from there,” said Banks. “She’s good with computer research.”

  “And now,” said Gristhorpe, looking toward Jenny, “what have you been doing these past few years?”

  “Why is it people always seems to retire to places like this?” asked Annie as Gerry drove along a narrow, winding road just beyond Sedburgh. They were almost in the Lake District, and the change was apparent in the shapes of the mountains and rolling hills, much older here, bigger and more rounded.

  “I suppose they’re after a bit of peace and quiet after fifty years of the daily grind, commuting and what have you,” said Gerry.

  “It’s either somewhere like this or some seaside hellhole like Bognor or Blackpool.”

  “Nobody retires to Blackpool.” Gerry swung the wheel at a particularly awkward corner. The tires slipped on the shiny road surface.

  “Watch it,” Annie said as they almost scraped a drystone wall. “When my time comes, I’m going to retire to London,” she announced. “Spend my days in the art galleries and my nights in the theaters and pubs. After that, I’ll be out clubbing until dawn.”

  Gerry laughed. “Better hurry up, then.”

  Annie gave her a sideways glance. “You think I’m too old, don’t you?”

  “Maybe if you just put in your thirty. Do you think that’s what you’ll do, or will you follow in the boss’s footsteps?”

  “Depends on whether I win the lottery,” Annie said. “Ah, here we are. Village of Little-Feather-up-the-Bum.”

  “It’s Featheringham,” said Gerry. “Little Featheringham.”

  “Thank God Alan isn’t here or we’d be getting a lecture about how Wordsworth wrote some stupid poem sitting up on that hill over there.”

  “We’re not quite in Wordsworth territory yet. And I got my A-level English. I know a thing or two about Wordsworth, myself.”

  “Spare me the details. In love with his sister or something, wasn’t he? Pervert. But it’s a fine place for a dentist to retire. Maybe he’s got a cellar full of reclining chairs and slow drills, those pointy things they try and pull your filling out with, and those scrapers they use to clean your teeth? Could be a real torture chamber down there. Nobody could hear you scream. Are you sure you’re ready for this?”

  Gerry pulled up outside the squat cottage. A thin column of smoke twisted from the chimney. “I don’t suppose we need to worry about parking around here,” she said. “Or the Krook lock.”

  “Doubt it,” said Annie, slipping out of the car.

  A short path led from the red wooden gate to the front door. Jonathan Martell answered almost immediately after Annie rang the bell, and she had to admit that he wasn’t quite what she had expected of a retired dentist. Slim, trim and handsome in a white V-neck cricket jumper over a blue button-down oxford, jeans and Nike trainers, he appeared a lot younger than she had expected, for a start. He also had a fine head of wavy brown hair and a nice smile. She found herself wondering if he was married. He was wearing a ring, she noticed, but experience had taught her that didn’t always mean anything. They shook hands, and he led them through to the living room. The ceilings were low and criss-crossed with weathered wooden beams, but it was a cozy space, and the fire burned in the hearth. The walls were dotted with local landscapes, some of them quite good, in Annie’s eyes, and a number of framed photographs on the mantelpiece above the fire: Martell on a beach somewhere with an exotic dark-haired young beauty, Martell standing in the garden with his arms around the shoulders of two young children; a professional portrait of the beautiful woman, no doubt his wife, whose teeth were far whiter than Annie’s. She ran her tongue over molars. They felt furry and jagged. It was odd, she thought as she settled into the comfortable armchair perhaps just a little too close to the fire, but it was as if a whole lifetime had flashed in front of her eyes when she entered the cottage. Not her own lifetime, necessarily, but a lifetime, nonetheless.

  “Can I get you anything?” Martell asked. “I know you’re driving, but I’m sure a small port or sherry wouldn’t do any harm.”

  “Tea, please, if you’ve got any,” said Annie.

  “Do you have herbal?” Gerry asked.

  “What a heal
thy pair of coppers,” said Martell. “Peppermint? Chamomile?”

  They agreed on peppermint, and Martell disappeared into the kitchen to make it. Annie glanced around the room, its mullioned windows offering a fine view of the open fields across the lane, a range of mountains rising beyond, their summits lost in cloud; the hiss and crackle of logs burning; whiff of wood smoke and warm leather in the air. Annie shifted her legs away from the heat. She felt that she could almost fall asleep here.

  Martell came back in no time with a teapot and mugs on a tray, along with a glass of amber liquid. “Whiskey,” he said. “I’m not driving anywhere today.” He gestured to the window. “I was supposed to be playing a round of golf later, but it looks like rain.”

  A golfer, then, Annie thought. Still, nobody’s perfect. “You never know around these parts,” she said.

  “Too true.” Martell sat down and crossed his legs. Annie noticed that his jeans had creases, which meant they must have been ironed. Which meant he was married, after all.

  As if to confirm her suspicions, Martell went on, “I’m sorry my wife Françoise isn’t here to greet you, too, but she’s gone into Carlisle to do some shopping.”

  Françoise, Annie thought. Shopping. She tasted the bitter ashes of defeat. Françoise had no doubt borne him two adorable children and still managed to keep her gorgeous figure without exercise or diet. Or maybe she was the replacement model, the trophy wife he took up with after he dumped his first wife, the one who helped him pay his way through dental college? She decided to banish any further speculation from her mind and stick with Nick Fleming. He might be a bit humdrum, but he was handsome enough, they had a good laugh, and he did take her to the pictures and to plays and galleries and nice restaurants in York and Harrogate. They had even been to the First Direct Arena in Leeds once to see Morrissey. Nick would do. For now.

  “I don’t suppose your wife knows a great deal about your dental practice, or about your partner, Martin Edgeworth,” Annie said.

  “Ex-partner. And no. Not a lot. Though Françoise did know Martin, of course. We had many good times with him and Connie before they split up.”

  “How long were you in partnership?” Gerry asked.

  “It must have been about twelve years.”

  “And before that?”

  “We each had our own private practice. Martin in Eastvale and me in Durham.”

  “The partnership worked well?”

  “Very well,” said Martell.

  “So there was no particular reason for packing it in?” Annie asked.

  “No. It was just time. We had both made plenty of money. In addition to some NHS work, we had private patients, too. Martin specialized in cosmetic dentistry, and the NHS doesn’t cover a lot of that, of course. And I’m afraid it’s also a matter of the old cliché. It really does get rather dull poking and prodding about in people’s mouths day after day. Unpleasant, even.” He smiled. Dazzling white. He leaned forward and passed them their tea from the table and picked up his whiskey. “Don’t worry,” he said. “The other dental cliché doesn’t apply. I’m not an alcoholic. I just enjoy a dram or two of whiskey before lunch.”

  Annie shrugged to indicate that she didn’t care whether he liked a tumbler or got pissed to the gills. Maybe he had a cylinder of nitrous oxide in his den, too. “I understand that you and Martin Edgeworth also remained friends after you gave up the partnership?”

  “Yes,” said Martell. “We didn’t see one another every day, of course, like we used to do at work, but we’d get together every now and then for a couple of drinks or a meal, or a trip to Headingley for the cricket. We’re both big cricket fans. Were. I mean, he was.”

  “This was during the last three years?”

  “Yes. After the practice wound down, and after Connie left him, which was a little over two years ago.”

  “I should imagine he was devastated by the breakup?”

  “Not really. By the time it happened, I think he’d prepared himself for the worst, strengthened his defenses. Deep down, he knew he was better off without her.”

  “What was wrong with her?”

  “Connie? She was manipulative, unfaithful, a spendthrift and a liar.”

  “And those are just her good points,” said Annie with a smile.

  “I’m sure you get the idea.”

  “I do. You didn’t like her very much.”

  Martell laughed. “Actually, that’s not completely true. Connie was also a lot of fun. A great hostess, wonderful conversationalist, and she had a wicked sense of humor. People are complicated. Sometimes you have to take the good with the bad. But surely Connie doesn’t have anything to do with all this?”

  “No, not at all. I suppose we’re still trying to build up a picture of Martin Edgeworth. He seems rather elusive.”

  Martell laughed. “Elusive? Martin? He was one of the most open and honest people I’ve ever met.”

  “Perhaps it’s just my suspicious nature. I always get the impression there’s more hidden beneath the surface.”

  “Not with Martin. And I’ve known him for nigh on twenty years. That’s why I can’t believe any of this.”

  “Any of what?”

  Martell tasted the whiskey and seemed to enjoy it. “The shootings. That Martin could have had anything to do with them.”

  “But he did like his guns?”

  “In the same way I like my golf clubs.”

  “You could kill someone with a golf club, too.”

  Martell laughed. “True, but that’s not what I mean. It was a sport, for each of us. Something we enjoyed and, if I say so myself, were good at. When you spend every day doing what we did, you appreciate something that takes you far away from it. And Martin had a very competitive nature.”

  “Shooting never appealed to you?”

  “No. I’ve nothing against it, per se, but I never felt the inclination to get involved.”

  “What we’re thinking,” Gerry said, leaning forward, “was that Mr. Edgeworth may have had some sort of accomplice, perhaps even someone who tricked, forced or blackmailed him into doing what he did. This is in complete confidence, of course. We have no evidence. We’re just trying to cover every possible angle.”

  “Well, that’s very open-minded of you, I must say. Naturally, it makes far more sense to me than the idea that Martin simply decided it would be a good idea to go and shoot a few people.”

  “If there was someone who forced him or blackmailed him, have you any idea who this person might have been?”

  “You think I would know?”

  “One of the possibilities we have to consider,” Annie said, “is that it was someone he met while he was practising, or at least someone who had befriended him in the last while and whom he might have mentioned to others. A patient, perhaps, or another dentist, a supplier. We thought that seeing as you spent quite a bit of time with him he might have mentioned someone?”

  “Not that I can think of.”

  “Do you know whether anyone would have had reason to blackmail him?”

  “Martin? You must be joking.”

  “Just trying to get things straight, that’s all.”

  “No. I don’t.”

  “Nothing odd or unusual happened over the past while, the period leading up to the shootings? No sudden new friends? He wasn’t worried or upset about anything. Distracted? Concerned?”

  “Not as far as I could tell. Everything seemed normal the last time I saw him.”

  “When was that?”

  “About a week or so before the . . . incident.”

  “You’re sure there was no one bothering him, no one new in his life? A woman, perhaps?”

  “Martin wasn’t especially in the market for a new wife. His experience of the previous one was still a bit raw, and he liked his life the way it was. No, I can’t think of anyone. I knew most of his friends and acquaintances, at least in passing.”

  “You’re sure there was no one else?”

  “The onl
y one I can think of is that he mentioned a bloke Gord a few times. That was quite recent. And someone I never met.”

  “Gord?” said Annie. “Who was that?”

  “Someone he went rambling with on the weekends sometimes. I didn’t get the impression that it was regular—I know Martin used to appreciate his walks alone—but he did mention meeting this bloke up on the moors one morning, and they got chatting. You know what it’s like when people share enthusiasms?”

  Annie nodded. “Yes. Yes, I do. Do you know anything more about this Gord? His last name, where he lived, what he looked like?”

  “I’m afraid not. It’s just someone Martin went rambling with occasionally.”

  Annie made a mental note to have Banks ask about this person at Edgeworth’s local and around his shooting-club friends. The name had never come up before, though the idea of someone approaching Edgeworth on one of his walks had certainly crossed Annie’s mind.

  “There was one little thing,” said Martell, “though I doubt it’s of any relevance.”

  “You never know,” said Annie. “Best tell us.”

  “It was funny, but Martin once told me he thought he was being followed.”

  “When was this?”

  “Last November sometime. You know, when the days were getting shorter and the winter gloom was moving in.”

  “Did he give you any details?”

  “He laughed it off. We both did.”

  “Where did he think he was being followed from?”

  “From the club to his home.”

  Annie leaned forward and tried to put a sense of urgency in her voice. “This could be important, Mr. Martell. Can you remember anything else, anything at all, about what he said.”

  “Just that he said he’d seen the same car on two or three occasions when he left the shooting club. It’s a quiet road up there. You don’t get much traffic.”