A Dedicated Man ib-2

by Peter Robinson

  A Dedicated Man

  ( Inspector Banks - 2 )

  Peter Robinson

  Peter Robinson

  A Dedicated Man

  1

  ONE

  When the sun rose high enough to clear the slate roofs on the other side of the street, it crept through a chink in Sally Lumb’s curtain and lit on a strand of gold blonde hair that curled over her cheek. She was dreaming. Minotaurs, bank clerks, gazelles and trolls cavorted through the barns, maisonettes and Gothic palaces of her sleep. But when she awoke a few hours later, all she was left with was the disturbing image of a cat picking its way along a high wall topped with broken glass. Dreams. Most of them she ignored. They had nothing to do with the other kind of dreams, the most important ones that she didn’t have to fall asleep to find. In these dreams, she passed her exams and was accepted into the Marion Boyars Academy of Theatre Arts. There she studied acting, modelling and cosmetic technique, for Sally was realistic enough to know that if she lacked the dramatic talent of a Kate Winslet or a Gwyneth Paltrow, she could at least belong to the fringes of the world of glamour.

  When Sally finally stirred, the bar of sunlight had shifted to the floor beside her bed, striping the untidy pile of clothes she had dropped there the night before. She could hear plates and cutlery in the kitchen downstairs, and the rich smell of roast beef wafted up to her room. She got up. It was good policy, she thought, to get downstairs as soon as possible and help with the vegetables before her mother’s call – ‘It’s on the table!’ – came grating up to her. At least by showing a willingness to help, she could probably avoid too probing an investigation into her lateness last night.

  Sally stared at herself in the full-length mirror of her old oak wardrobe. Even if there was still a little puppy fat around her hips and thighs, it would soon go away. On the whole, she decided, she had a good body. Her breasts were perfect. Most people, of course, complimented her on her long silky hair, but they hadn’t seen her breasts. Kevin had. Just last night he had caressed them and told her they were perfect. Last night they had gone almost all the way, and Sally knew that the next time, soon, they would. She looked forward to it with a mixture of fear and desire that, according to what she had read in magazines and books, would soon fuse into ecstasy in the heat of passion and longing.

  Sally touched her nipple with the tip of her forefinger and felt a tingle in her loins. The nipple hardened and she moved away from the mirror to get dressed, her face burning.

  Kevin was good. He knew how to excite her; ever since summer began he had played carefully with the boundaries of her desire. He had pushed them back a little further each time, and soon the whole country would be his. He was young, like Sally, but still he seemed to know instinctively how to please her, just as she imagined an experienced older man would know. She even thought she loved Kevin a bit. But if someone else came along – somebody more mature, more wealthy, more sophisticated, someone who was at home in the exciting, fast-paced cities of the world, well, after all, Kevin was only a farm boy at heart.

  Dressed in designer jeans and a plain white T-shirt, Sally drew back the curtains. When her eyes had adjusted to the glare, she looked out on a perfect Swainsdale morning. A few fluffy little clouds – one like a teddy bear, another like a crab – scudded across the piercing blue sky on a light breeze. She looked north up the broad slope of the valley side, its rich greens interrupted here and there by dark patches of heather and outcrops of limestone, to the long sheer wall of Crow Scar, and noticed something very odd. At first she couldn’t make it out at all. Then she squinted, refocused and saw, spreading out along the slope just above the old road, five or six blue dots which seemed to be moving in some kind of pattern. She put her finger to her lips, thought for a moment, then frowned.

  TWO

  Fifteen miles away in Eastvale, the dale’s largest town, somebody else was anticipating a Sunday dinner of succulent roast beef and Yorkshire pudding. Detective Chief Inspector Alan Banks lay flat on his stomach in Brian’s room watching an electric train whizz around bends, over bridges, through signals and under papier mache mountains. Brian himself was out riding his bike in the local park, but Banks had long since given up the pretence that he only played with the trains for his son’s sake and finally admitted that he found the pastime even more relaxing than a hot bath.

  He heard the phone ring out in the hall, and a few seconds later his daughter, Tracy, shouted through, ‘It’s for you, Dad!’

  As Banks rushed downstairs, the aroma from the kitchen made his mouth water. He thanked Tracy and picked up the receiver. It was Sergeant Rowe, desk officer at Eastvale Regional Headquarters.

  ‘Sorry to bother you, sir,’ Rowe began, ‘but we’ve just had a call from Constable Weaver over in Helmthorpe. Seems a local farmer’s found a body in one of his fields this morning.’

  ‘Go on,’ Banks urged, snapping into professional gear.

  ‘Chap said he was looking for a stray sheep, sir, when he found this body buried by a wall. Weaver says he shifted one or two stones and it’s a dead ’un all right. Looks like someone bashed ’is ’ead in.’

  Banks felt the tightening in his stomach that always accompanied news of murder. He had transferred from London a year ago, sickened by the spiralling of senseless violence there, only to find in the Gallows View case that things could be just as bad, if not worse, up north. The business had left both him and Sandra emotionally exhausted, but since then things had settled down. There’d been nothing but a few burglaries and one case of fraud to occupy his attention, and he had really begun to believe that murders, peeping Toms and vicious teenagers were the exception rather than the rule in Eastvale.

  ‘Tell Constable Weaver to get back up there with as many local men as he can muster and rope off the area. I want them to start a systematic search, but I don’t want anyone else closer to the body than ten yards. Got that?’ The last thing he needed was half a dozen flatfoots trampling down the few square feet where clues were most likely to be found.

  ‘Tell them to put everything they find into marked envelopes,’ he went on. ‘They should know the procedure, but it won’t do any harm to remind them. And I mean everything. Used rubbers, the lot. Get in touch with Detective Sergeant Hatchley and Dr Glendenning. Tell them to get out there immediately. I’ll want the photographer and the forensic team too. Okay?’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ Sergeant Rowe replied. He knew that Jim Hatchley would be enjoying his usual Sunday lunchtime pint in the Oak and that it would give Banks a great deal of satisfaction to interrupt his pleasure.

  ‘I suppose the super’s been informed?’

  ‘Yes, sir. It was him as said to tell you.’

  ‘It would be,’ Banks complained. ‘I don’t suppose he wanted to miss his Sunday dinner.’ But he spoke with humour and affection. Superintendent Gristhorpe, of all his new colleagues, was the one who had given him the most support and encouragement during the difficult transition from city to country.

  Banks hung up and slipped on his worn brown jacket with the elbow patches. He was a small, dark man, in appearance rather like the old Celtic strain of Welshman, and his physique certainly didn’t give away his profession.

  Sandra, Banks’s wife, emerged from the kitchen as he was preparing to leave. ‘What is it?’ she asked.

  ‘Looks like a murder.’

  She wiped her hands on her blue checked pinafore. ‘So you won’t be in for dinner?’

  ‘Sorry, love. Doesn’t look like it.’

  ‘And I don’t suppose there’s any point in keeping it warm?’

  ‘Shouldn’t think so. I’ll grab a sandwich somewhere.’ He kissed her quickly on the lips. ‘Don’t worry. I’ll give you a call as soon as I know wh
at’s happening.’

  Banks drove his white Cortina west along the valley bottom by the riverside. He was entitled to a police car and driver, but he actually enjoyed driving and preferred his own company when travelling to and from a case. A generous mileage allowance more than compensated for the cost.

  With one eye on the road and one hand on the wheel, he flipped through an untidy pile of cassette tapes on the passenger seat, selected one and slipped it into the deck.

  Though he swore that his passion for opera had not waned over the winter, he had to admit that he had been sidetracked into the world of English vocal and choral music. It was a change Sandra heartily approved of; she had never liked opera much in the first place, and Wagner had been the last straw for her. After she had finally gone so far as to attack one of his tapes with a magnet – the one with ‘Siegfried’s Funeral March’ on it, Banks remembered sadly – he had got the message. With Ian Partridge singing Dowland’s ‘I Saw My Lady Weepe’, he drove on.

  Like the larger and more famous Yorkshire Dales, Swainsdale runs more or less from west to east, with a slight list towards the south, until the humble river loses itself in the Ouse. At its source near Swainshead, high in the Pennine fells, the River Swain is nothing more than a trickle of sparkling clear water, but in carving its way down towards the North Sea it has formed, with the help of glaciers and geological faults, a long and beautiful dale which broadens out as it approaches the Vale of York. The main town, Eastvale, dominated by its Norman castle, sits at the extreme eastern edge of the dale and looks out over the rich, fertile plain. On a clear day, the Hambleton Hills and the North York Moors are visible in the distance.

  He saw Lyndgarth on the valley side to the north, near the dark ruins of Devraulx Abbey, and passed through peaceful Fortford, where the remains of a Roman fort were still under excavation on a hillock opposite the village green. Ahead, he could see the bright limestone curve of Crow Scar high up on his right, and, as he drew closer, he noticed the local police searching a field marked off by irregular drystone walls. The limestone shone bright in the sun, and the walls stood out against the grass like pearl necklaces on an emerald velvet cushion.

  To get to the scene, Banks had to drive through Helmthorpe, the dale’s central market village, turn right at the bridge on to Hill Road, and then turn right again on to a narrow road that meandered north-eastwards about halfway up the valley side. It was a miracle that the track had ever been tarmacked – probably a gesture towards increasing tourism, Banks guessed. No good for tyre tracks, though, he thought gloomily.

  Being more used to getting around in the city than in the countryside, he scraped his knee climbing the low wall and stumbled over the lumpy sods of grass in the field. Finally, out of breath, he got to where a uniformed man, presumably Constable Weaver, stood talking to a gnarled old farmer about fifty yards up the slope.

  By the side of the north-south wall, loosely covered with earth and stones, lay the body. Enough of its covering had been removed to make it recognizable as a man. The head lay to one side, and, kneeling beside it, Banks could see that the hair at the back was matted with blood. A jolt of nausea shot through his stomach, but he quickly controlled it as he began to make mental notes about the scene. Standing up, he was struck by the contrast between the beautiful, serene day and the corpse at his feet.

  ‘Anything been disturbed?’ he asked Weaver, stepping carefully back over the rope.

  ‘Not much, sir,’ the young constable replied. His face was white and the sour smell on his breath indicated that he had probably been sick over the wall. Natural enough, Banks thought. Probably the lad’s first corpse.

  ‘Mr Tavistock here’ – he gestured towards the whiskered farmer – ‘says he just moved those stones around the head to see what his dog was scratting at.’

  Banks looked at Tavistock, whose grim expression betrayed a man used to death. Ex-army, most likely, and old enough to have seen action in two world wars.

  ‘I were lookin’ fer one ’o my sheep,’ Tavistock began in a slow, thick Yorkshire accent, ‘and I saw that there damage to t’ wall. I thought there’d bin a c’lapse.’ He paused and rubbed his grizzly chin. ‘There shouldn’t a bin no c’lapse in a Bessthwaite wall. Bin there sin’ eighteen thirty, that ’as. Any road, old Ben started scratting. At first I thought nowt on it, then…’ He shrugged as if there was nothing more to be said.

  ‘What did you do when you realized what it was?’ Banks asked.

  Tavistock scratched his turkey neck and spat on the grass. ‘Just ’ad a look, that’s all. I thought it might a bin a sheep somebody’d killed. That ’appens sometimes. Then I ran ’ome’ – he pointed to a farmhouse about half a mile away – ‘and I called young Weaver ’ere.’

  Banks was dubious about the ‘ran’ but he was glad that Tavistock had acted quickly. He turned away and gave instructions to the photographer and the forensic team, then took off his jacket and leaned against the warm stone wall while the boffins did their work.

  THREE

  Sally slammed down her knife and fork and yelled at her father: ‘Just because I go for a walk with a boy it doesn’t mean I’m a tramp or a trollop or any of those things!’

  ‘Sally!’ Mrs Lumb butted in. ‘Stop shouting at your father. That wasn’t what he meant and you know it.’

  Sally continued to glare. ‘Well that’s what it sounded like to me.’

  ‘He was only trying to warn you,’ her mother went on. ‘You have to be careful. Boys try to take advantage of you sometimes. Especially a good-looking girl like you.’ She said it with a mixture of pride and fear.

  ‘You don’t have to treat me like I’m a baby, you know,’ Sally said. ‘I’m sixteen now.’ She gave her mother a pitying glance, cast another baleful look at her father, and went back to her roast beef.

  ‘Aye,’ said Mr Lumb, ‘and you’ll do as you’re told till you’re eighteen. That’s the law.’

  To Sally, the man sitting opposite her was at the root of all her problems, and, of course, Charles Lumb fitted easily into the role his daughter had assigned him: that of an old-fashioned, narrow-minded yokel whose chief argument against anything new and interesting was, ‘What was good enough for my father and his father before him is good enough for you too, young lady.’ There was a strong conservative streak in him, only to be expected of someone whose family had lived in the area for more generations than could be remembered. A traditionalist, Charles Lumb often said that the dale as he had loved it was dying. He knew that the only chance for the young was to get away, and that saddened him. Quite soon, he was certain, even the inhabitants of the dales villages would belong to the National Trust, English Heritage or the Open Spaces Society. Like creatures in a zoo, they would be paid to act out their quaint old ways in a kind of living museum. The grandson of a cabinetmaker, Lumb, who worked at the local dairy factory, found it hard to see things otherwise. The old crafts were dying out because they were uneconomic, and only tourists kept one cooper, one blacksmith and one wheelwright in business.

  But because Lumb was a Yorkshireman through and through, he tended to bait and tease in a manner that could easily be taken too seriously by an ambitious young girl like Sally. He delivered the most outrageous statements and opinions about her interests and dreams in such a deliberately deadpan voice that anyone could be excused for not catching the gentle, mocking humour behind them. If he had been less sarcastic and his daughter less self-centred, they might have realized that they loved each other very much.

  The thing was, though, Charles Lumb would have liked to see more evidence of common sense in his daughter. She was certainly a bright girl, and it would be easy for her to get into university and become a doctor or a lawyer. A damn sight easier, he reflected, than it was in his day. But no, it had to be this bloody academy, and for all he tried, he could see no value in learning how to paint faces and show off swimsuits. If he had thought she had it in her to become a great actress, then he might have been more supportive
. But he didn’t. Maybe time would prove him wrong. He hoped so. At least seeing her on the telly would be something.

  Sally, after a few minutes’ sulking, decided to change the topic of conversation. ‘Have you seen those men on the hill?’ she asked. ‘I wonder what they’re doing?’

  ‘Looking for something, I shouldn’t wonder,’ her father replied dryly, still not recovered from the argument.

  Sally ignored him. ‘They look like policemen to me. You can see the buttons of their uniforms shining. I’m going up there to have a look after dinner. There’s already quite a crowd along the road.’

  ‘Well, make sure you’re back before midnight,’ her mother said. It cleared the air a bit, and they enjoyed the rest of their meal in peace.

  Sally walked up the hill road and turned right past the cottages. As she hurried on she danced and grabbed fistfuls of dry grass, which she flung up high in the air.

  Several cars blocked the road by the field, and what had looked from a distance like a large crowd turned out to be nothing more than a dozen or so curious tourists with their cameras, rucksacks and hiking boots. It was open country, almost moorland despite the drystone walls that criss-crossed the landscape and gave it some semblance of order. They were old and only the farmers remembered who had built them.

  There was more activity in the field than she could recollect ever seeing in such an isolated place. Uniformed men crawled on all fours in the wild grass, and the area by the wall had been cordoned off with stakes and rope. Inside the charmed circle stood a man with a camera, another with a black bag and, seemingly presiding over the whole affair, a small wiry man with a brown jacket slung over his shoulder. Sally’s eyesight was so keen that she could even see the small patches of sweat under his arms.