Close to Home

by Peter Robinson

  “We need to find out where he went. I’m going to talk to Luke’s parents again tomorrow. They might be able to help now that we know a bit more about his movements. I’ll be talking to Lauren Anderson, too, and perhaps Gavin Barlow.”

  “Why?”

  “Maybe there was still something going on between Luke and Rose, and maybe her father didn’t approve.”

  “Enough to kill him?”

  “Enough to make it physical. We still can’t say for certain that anyone murdered Luke. Anyway, I’d like to know where they both were the night Luke disappeared. Maybe it was Rose he went to see.”

  “Fair enough,” said Banks. “And don’t forget that Martin Armitage was out and about that night, too.”

  “Don’t worry. I won’t.”

  “What’s happened with him, by the way?”

  “He appeared before the magistrates this afternoon. He’s out on bail till the preliminary hearing.”

  “What about Norman Wells?”

  “He’ll mend. When will you be back?”

  “Tomorrow or the day after.”

  “Getting anywhere?”

  “I think so.”

  “And what are you up to tonight?”

  “School reunion,” said Banks, walking back into the pub. An approaching car seemed to be going way too fast, and Banks felt a momentary rush of panic. He ducked into a shop doorway. The car sped by him, too close to the curb, and splashed water from the gutter over his trouser bottoms. He cursed.

  “What is it?” Annie asked.

  Banks told her, and she laughed. “Have a good time at your school reunion,” she said.

  “I’ll tell you all about it when I see you.” He ended the call and returned to his seat. Dave and Paul had been making uneasy small talk in his absence, and Dave seemed glad to see him come back.

  “So you’re a copper,” said Paul, shaking his head when Banks sat down again. “I still can’t get over it. If I’d had to guess, I’d have said you’d end up a teacher or a newspaper reporter or something like that. But a copper…”

  Banks smiled. “Funny how things turn out.”

  “Very queer, indeed,” muttered Dave. His voice sounded as if the beer was having an early effect.

  Paul gave him a sharp glance, then tapped Banks’s arm. “Hey,” he said, “you’d have had to arrest me back then, wouldn’t you? For being queer.”

  Banks sensed the tension escalating and moved on to the subject he’d been wanting to talk about from the start: Graham. “Do either of you remember anything odd happening around the time Graham disappeared?” he asked.

  “You’re not working on the case, are you?” asked Dave, eager to be given a change of subject.

  “No,” said Banks. “But I’m interested in what happened. I mean, I am a copper, and Graham was a mate. Naturally, I’m curious.”

  “Did you ever tell them about that bloke by the river?” Paul asked.

  “It didn’t lead anywhere,” Banks said, explaining. “Besides, I think it’s a lot closer to home.”

  “What do you mean?” Paul asked.

  Banks didn’t want to tell them about the photograph. Apart from Michelle, he didn’t want anyone to know about that if he could help it. Maybe he was protecting Graham’s memory, but the idea of people seeing him like that was abhorrent to Banks. He also didn’t want to tell them about Jet Harris, Shaw and the missing notebooks. “Do you remember Donald Bradford?” he asked. “The bloke who ran the newsagent’s.”

  “Dirty Don?” said Paul. “Sure. I remember him.”

  “Why did you call him Dirty Don?”

  “I don’t know.” Paul shrugged. “Maybe he sold dirty magazines. It’s just something my dad called him. Don’t you remember?”

  Banks didn’t. But he found it interesting that Paul’s dad had known about Bradford’s interest in porn. Had his own father known? Had anyone told Proctor and Shaw all those years ago when they came to conduct the interviews? Was that why the notebooks and action allocations had to disappear, so that suspicion wouldn’t point toward Bradford? Next to the family, Donald Bradford should have come under the most scrutiny, but he had been virtually ignored. “Did Graham ever tell you where he got those magazines he used to show us inside the tree?”

  “What magazines?” Dave asked.

  “Don’t you remember?” Paul said. “I do. Women with bloody great bazookas.” He shuddered. “Gave me the willies even then.”

  “I seem to remember you enjoyed them as much as the rest of us,” said Banks. “Do you really not remember, Dave?”

  “Maybe I’m blanking it out for some reason, but I don’t.”

  Banks turned to Paul. “Did he ever tell you where he got them?”

  “Not that I remember. Why? Do you think it was Bradford?”

  “It’s a possibility. A newsagent’s shop would be a pretty good outlet for things like that. And Graham always seemed to have money to spare.”

  “He once told me he stole it from his mother’s purse,” said Dave. “I remember that.”

  “Did you believe him?” Banks asked.

  “Saw no reason not to. It shocked me, though, that he’d be so callous about it. I’d never have dared steal from my mother’s purse. She’d have killed me.” He put his hand to his mouth. “Oops, sorry about that. Didn’t mean it to come out that way.”

  “It’s all right,” said Banks. “I very much doubt that Graham’s mother killed him for stealing from her purse.” On the other hand, Graham’s father, Banks thought, was another matter entirely. “I think there was more to it than that.”

  “What?” Paul asked.

  “I don’t know. I just think Graham had something going with Donald Bradford, most likely something involving porn. And I think that led to his death.”

  “You think Bradford killed him?”

  “It’s a possibility. Maybe he was helping distribute the stuff, or maybe he found out about it and was blackmailing Bradford. I don’t know. All I know is that there’s a connection.”

  “Graham? Blackmailing?” said Dave. “Now, hold on a minute, Alan; this is our mate Graham we’re talking about. The one whose funeral we just went to. Remember? Stealing a few bob from his mum’s purse is one thing, but blackmail…?”

  “I don’t think things were exactly as we thought they were back then,” said Banks.

  “Come again?” said Dave.

  “He means none of you knew I was queer, for a start,” said Paul.

  Banks looked at him. “But we didn’t, did we? You’re right. And I don’t think we knew a hell of a lot about Graham, either, mate or not.” He looked at Dave. “For fuck’s sake, Dave, you don’t even remember the dirty magazines.”

  “Maybe I’ve got a psychological block.”

  “Do you at least remember the tree?” Banks asked.

  “Our den? Of course I do. I remember lots of things. Just not looking at those magazines.”

  “But you did,” said Paul. “I remember you once saying pictures like that must have been taken at Randy Mandy’s. Don’t you remember that?”

  “Randy Mandy’s?” Banks asked. “What the hell’s that?”

  “Don’t tell me you don’t remember, either,” said Paul, exasperated.

  “Obviously I don’t,” said Banks. “What does it mean?”

  “Randy Mandy’s? It was Rupert Mandeville’s place, that big house up Market Deeping way. Remember?”

  Banks felt a vague recollection at the edge of his consciousness. “I think I remember.”

  “It was just our joke, that’s all,” Paul went on. “We thought they had all sorts of sex orgies there. Like that place where Profumo used to go a couple of years earlier. Remember that? Christine Keeler and Mandy Rice-Davies?”

  Banks remembered Christine Keeler and Mandy Rice-Davies. The newspapers had been full of risqué photographs and salacious “confessions” around the time of the Profumo scandal. But that was in 1963, not 1965.

  “I remember now,” sa
id Dave. “Rupert Mandeville’s house. Bloody great country mansion, more like. We used to think it was some sort of den of iniquity back then, somewhere all sorts of naughty things went on. Whenever we came across something dirty we always said it must have come from Randy Mandy’s. You must remember, Alan. God knows where we got the idea from, but there was this high wall and a big swimming pool in the garden, and we used to imagine all the girls we fancied swimming naked there.”

  “Vaguely,” said Banks, who wondered if there was any truth in this. It was worth checking into, anyway. He’d talk to Michelle, see if she knew anything. “This Mandeville still around?”

  “Wasn’t he an MP or something?” said Dave.

  “I think so,” Paul said. “I remember reading about him in the papers a few years ago. I think he’s in the House of Lords now.”

  “Lord Randy Mandy,” said Dave, and they laughed for old times’ sake.

  Conversation meandered on for another hour or so and at least one round of double Scotches. Dave seemed to stick at a certain level of drunkenness, one he had achieved early on, and now it was Paul who began to show the effects of alcohol the most, and his manner became more exaggeratedly effeminate as time went on.

  Banks could sense Dave getting impatient and embarrassed by the looks they were receiving from some of the other customers. He was finding it harder and harder to imagine that they had all had so much in common once, but then it had been a lot easier and more innocent: you supported the same football team, even if they weren’t very good; you liked pop music and lusted after Emma Peel and Marianne Faithfull; and that was enough. It helped if you weren’t a swot at school and if you lived on the same estate.

  Perhaps the bonds of adolescence weren’t any more shallow than those of adulthood, Banks mused, but it had sure as hell been easier to make friends back then. Now, as he looked from one to the other—Paul growing more red-faced and camp, Dave, lips tight, barely able to keep his homophobia in check—Banks decided it was time to leave. They had lived apart for over thirty years and would continue to do so without any sense of loss.

  When Banks said he had to go, Dave took his cue, and Paul said he wasn’t going to sit there by himself. The rain had stopped and the night smelled fresh. Banks wanted a cigarette but resisted. As they walked the short distance back to the estate, none of them said much, sensing perhaps that tonight marked the end of something. Finally, Banks got to his parents’ door, their first stop, and said good night. They all made vague lies about keeping in touch and then walked back to their own separate lives.

  Michelle was eating warmed-up chicken casserole, sipping a glass of sauvignon blanc and watching a television documentary on ocean life when her telephone rang late that evening. She was irritated by the interruption, but thinking it might be Banks, she answered it.

  “Hope I didn’t disturb you,” Banks said.

  “No, not at all,” Michelle lied, putting her half-eaten food aside and turning down the volume with the remote control. “It’s good to hear from you.” And it was.

  “Look, it’s a bit late, and I’ve had a few drinks,” he said, “so I’d probably better not drop by tonight.”

  “You men. You take a girl to bed once, and then it’s back to your mates and your beer.”

  “I didn’t say I’d had too much to drink,” Banks replied. “In fact, I think I’ll phone for a taxi right now.”

  Michelle laughed. “It’s all right. I’m only teasing. Believe me, I could do with an early night. Besides, you’ll only get in trouble with your mother. Did you find out anything from your old pals?”

  “A bit.” Banks told her about Bradford’s “Dirty Don” epithet and the rumors they used to hear about the Mandeville house.

  “I’ve heard of that place recently,” Michelle said. “I don’t know if Shaw mentioned it, or if I read about it in some old file, but I’ll check up on it tomorrow. Who’d have thought it? A house of sin. In Peterborough.”

  “Well, I suppose, strictly speaking, it’s outside the city limits,” said Banks. “But going by the photo I found in Graham’s guitar and the information you got from Jet Harris’s ex-wife, I think we’d better look into anything even remotely linked with illicit sex around the time of Graham’s murder, don’t you?”

  “That’s it!” Michelle said. “The connection.”

  “What connection?”

  “The Mandeville house. It was something to do with illicit sex. At least it was illicit back then. Homosexuality. There was a complaint about goings-on at the Mandeville house. I read about it in the old logs. No further action taken.”

  “Tomorrow might turn into a busy day, then,” said Banks.

  “All the more reason to get an early night. Can you stick around to help, or do you have to head back up north?”

  “One more day won’t do any harm.”

  “Good. Why don’t you come to dinner tomorrow?”

  “Your place?”

  “Yes. If I can tempt you away from your mates in the boozer, that is.”

  “You don’t have to offer dinner to do that.”

  “Believe it or not, I’m quite a good cook if I put my mind to it.”

  “I don’t doubt it for a moment. Just one question.”

  “Yes?”

  “I thought you told me you hadn’t seen Chinatown.”

  Michelle laughed. “I remember saying no such thing. Good night.” And she hung up, still laughing. She noticed the photo of Ted and Melissa from the corner of her eye and felt a little surge of guilt. But it soon passed, and she felt that unfamiliar lightness again, a buoyancy of spirit. She was tired, but before calling it a night, she went into the kitchen, pulled out a box of books and flipped through them before putting them on her shelves. Poetry for the most part. She loved poetry. Including Philip Larkin. Then she hefted out a boxful of her best china and kitchenware. Looking around at the mostly empty cabinets, she tried to choose the best place for each item.

  Chapter 18

  All the way to Swainsdale Hall Annie worried about what she was going to say to the Armitages. Their son had lived a good part of his life unknown to them, mixed with people they didn’t know and wouldn’t approve of, especially Martin. But don’t all kids? Annie had grown up in an artists’ commune near St. Ives, and some of the people she had mixed with would have made Martin Armitage’s hair stand on end. Even so, she hadn’t told her father about the wild group she took up with one summer, whose idea of fun was a Saturday-afternoon shoplifting expedition in town.

  The view over Swainsdale looked gloomy that morning in the low cloud and impending rain, dull gradations of gray and green. Even the patches of yellow rapeseed on the far hillsides looked jaundiced. As Annie rang the doorbell, she felt a surge of anxiety at the thought of seeing Martin Armitage again. It was foolish, she knew; he wasn’t going to assault her—not in front of his wife—but she still had an aching jaw, two loose teeth and an upcoming dentist’s appointment by which to remember their last meeting.

  Josie opened the door and the dog sniffed Annie’s crotch as she walked in. Josie collared it and took it away. Only Robin Armitage sat on the large living room sofa in jeans and a navy-blue top, flipping through a copy of Vogue. Annie breathed a sigh of relief. Maybe Martin was out. She’d have to talk to him, but a little procrastination wouldn’t do any harm. Robin wore no makeup and seemed to have grown older since Luke’s death. She looked as if a strong gust of wind would blow her away. She stood up when Annie entered, gave her a thin smile and bade her sit down. She asked Josie to bring in some coffee.

  “Is your husband not home?” Annie asked.

  “He’s in his study. I’ll ask Josie to send for him when she brings the coffee. Are you making any progress?”

  “Some,” said Annie. “That’s why I wanted to talk to you both again, ask you a few questions.”

  “Are you all right? Your mouth still looks bruised.”

  Annie put her hand up to her jaw. “I’m fine.”

  �
��I’m really sorry for what happened. I know Martin is absolutely guilt-stricken.” She managed a weak smile. “It’ll take him all his courage to come down and face you again.”

  “No hard feelings,” Annie said, which wasn’t exactly the truth, but there was no point taking it out on Robin.

  Josie came in with the coffee and digestive biscuits on a tray and Robin asked her to call Mr. Armitage down. When he walked into the living room a couple of minutes later, Annie felt a wave of panic. It passed, but it left her heart pounding and her mouth dry. This was ridiculous, she told herself, but her body couldn’t help but respond that way to whatever aura of violence Martin Armitage emanated. It just seemed closer to the surface in him than in most people.

  Naturally, he was contrite and embarrassed. “Please accept my apologies,” he said. “I don’t know what came over me. I’ve never laid a finger on a woman before.” Robin patted his knee.

  “It’s all right,” said Annie, eager to move on.

  “Of course, if there are any medical expenses…”

  “Don’t worry about it.”

  “How’s Mr. Wells?”

  Annie had talked with the hospital and discovered that, while Norman Wells’s physical injuries were healing well, the psychological damage went a lot deeper. He seemed, they said, to be suffering from depression. He couldn’t sleep, but he didn’t want to get out of bed, had no interest in food and seemed unconcerned about his future. Hardly surprising, Annie thought, given what the poor sod had been through over the past week or so. And now the newspapers had got hold of the story, there’d be no more bookshop for Wells. Once everyone knew what he had been accused of, nobody would go down there, or if they did, it would only be to cause damage. Norman Wells would become a pariah.

  “He’ll be fine,” Annie said. “Actually, I have a few more questions for the both of you.”

  “I can’t imagine what more we can tell you,” said Robin. “But please go ahead.”

  “First of all, do either you or your husband have a prescription for Valium or any other form of diazepam?”

  Robin frowned. “Martin doesn’t, but I do. Nerves.”