A Dedicated Man ib-2

by Peter Robinson

  She asked the middle-aged walker standing next to her what was going on, and the man told her he thought there’d been a murder. Of course. It had to be. She’d seen similar things on the telly.

  FOUR

  Banks glanced back towards the road. He’d noticed a flashing movement, but it was only a girl’s blonde hair catching the sun. Dr Glendenning, the tall, white-haired pathologist, had finished shaking limbs and inserting his thermometer in orifices; now he stood, cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth, muttering about what a warm night it had been as he made calculations in his little red notebook.

  It was just as well, Banks thought as he looked over at the spectators, that two of the forensic team had first examined the roadside. They had found nothing – no skid marks or tyre tracks on the tarmac, no clear footprints on the grassy verge – but it looked as if someone or something had been dragged up the field from the road.

  Glendenning confirmed that the victim had been killed elsewhere and merely dumped in this isolated spot. That would cause problems. If they had no idea where the man had been killed, they wouldn’t know where to start looking for the killer.

  The doctor rambled on, adjusting his column of figures, and Banks sniffed the air, feeling again that it was too fine a day and too beautiful a spot for such unpleasant business. Even the young photographer, Peter Darby, as he snapped the body from every conceivable angle, said that normally on such a day he would be out photographing Rawley Force at a slow shutter speed, or zooming in on petals with his macro lens, praying that a bee or a butterfly would remain still for as long as it took to focus and shoot. He had photographed corpses before, Banks knew, so he was used to the unpleasantness. All the same, it was worlds away from butterflies and waterfalls.

  Glendenning looked up from his notebook and screwed up his eyes in the sunlight. A half-inch of ash floated to the ground, and Banks found himself wondering whether the doctor performed surgery with a cigarette in his mouth, letting ash fall around the incision. Smoking was strictly prohibited at the scene of a crime, of course, but nobody dared mention this to Glendenning.

  ‘It was a warm night,’ he explained to Banks, with a Scottish lilt to his nicotine-ravaged voice. ‘I can’t give an accurate estimate of time of death. Most likely, though, it was after dark last night and before sunrise this morning.’

  Bloody wonderful! Banks thought. We don’t know where he was killed but we know it was sometime during the night.

  ‘Sorry,’ Glendenning added, catching Bank’s expression.

  ‘Not your fault. Anything else?’

  ‘Blow to the back of the head, if I may translate the cumbersome medical jargon into layman’s terms. Pretty powerful, too. Skull cracked like an egg.’

  ‘Any idea what weapon was used?’

  ‘Proverbial blunt instrument. Sharp-edged, like a wrench or a hammer. I can’t be more specific at this point but I’d rule out a brick or a rock. It’s too neat and I can’t find any trace of particles. Full report after the autopsy, of course.’

  ‘Is that all?’

  ‘Yes. You can have him taken to the mortuary now if you’ve finished with the pictures.’

  Banks nodded. He asked a uniformed constable to send for an ambulance, and Glendenning packed his bag.

  ‘Weaver! Sergeant Hatchley! Come over here a minute,’ Banks called, and watched the two men walk over. ‘Any idea who the dead man was?’ he asked Weaver.

  ‘Yes, sir,’ the pale constable answered. ‘His name’s Harry Steadman. Lives in the village.’

  ‘Married?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Then we’d better get in touch with his wife. Sergeant, would you go over to Mr Tavistock’s house and take an official statement?’

  Hatchley nodded slowly.

  ‘Is there a decent pub in Helmthorpe?’ Banks asked Weaver.

  ‘I usually drink at the Bridge, sir.’

  ‘Food?’

  ‘Not bad.’

  ‘Right.’ Banks turned to Hatchley. ‘We’ll go and see Mrs Steadman while you attend to Tavistock. Let’s meet up in the Bridge for a bite to eat when we’ve done. All right?’

  Hatchley agreed and lumbered off with Tavistock.

  There was no chance of a roast beef dinner at home now. In fact, there would be few meals at home until the crime was solved. Banks knew from experience that once a murder investigation begins there is no stopping and little slowing down, even for family life. The crime invades meal times, ablutions and sleep; it dominates conversation and puts up an invisible barrier between the investigator and his family.

  He looked down at the village spread out crookedly by a bend in the river, its grey slate roofs gleaming in the sun. The clock on the square church tower said twelve thirty. Sighing, he nodded to Weaver, and the two of them set off towards the car.

  They passed through the small crowd, ignoring the local reporter’s tentative questions, and got into the Cortina. Banks cleared the cassettes from the passenger seat so that Weaver could sit beside him.

  ‘Tell me what you know about Steadman,’ Banks said as he reversed into a gateway and turned around.

  ‘Lived here about eighteen months,’ Weaver began. ‘Used to come regular for holidays and sort of fell in love with the place. He inherited a fortune from his father and set himself up here. Used to be a university professor in Leeds. Educated chap, but not stuck-up. Early forties, bit over six-foot tall, sandy hair. Still quite young-looking. They live in Gratly.’

  ‘I thought you said they lived in the village.’

  ‘Same thing really, sir,’ Weaver explained. ‘You see, Gratly’s just a little hamlet, a few old houses off the road. Doesn’t even have a pub. But now the newer houses have spread up the hill, the two are as near as makes no difference. The locals like to keep the name, though. Sense of independence, I suppose.’

  Banks drove down the hill towards the bridge. Weaver pointed ahead over the river and up the opposite valley side: ‘That’s Gratly, sir.’

  Banks saw the row of new houses, some still under construction; then there was a space of about a hundred yards before the crossroads lined with older cottages.

  ‘I see what you mean,’ Banks said. At least the builders were doing a tasteful job, following the design of the originals and using the same local stone.

  Weaver went on making conversation no doubt intended to help him forget the sight of his first corpse. ‘Just about all the new houses in Helmthorpe are at this side of the village. You’ll get nothing new on the east side. Some bright sparks say it’s because it was settled from the east. Vikings, Saxons, Romans and whatnot. Course, you don’t find many traces of them now, but the place stills seems to spread westwards.’ He thought about what he’d said for a moment and added with a smile, ‘Spreads slowly, that is, sir.’

  Much as Banks was interested in snippets of local history, he lost track of Weaver’s words as he drove over the low stone bridge and crossed Helmthorpe High Street. He cursed to himself. It was early Sunday afternoon and, from what he could see around him, that meant car-washing time in the village. Men stood in driveways in front of garages with their sleeves rolled up and buckets of soapy water by their sides. Shiny car roofs gleamed and water dripped from doors and bumpers. Polished chrome shone. If Harry Steadman had been dumped from a local car, all traces of that grisly journey would have been obliterated by now in the most natural way: soaped and waxed over, vacuumed and swept out.

  Steadman’s house, last in a short block running left from the road, was larger than Banks had imagined. It was solidly built and looked weather-beaten enough to pass for a historic building. That meant it would sell for a historic price, too, he noted. A double garage had been built on the eastern side, and the large garden, bordered by a low wall, consisted of a well-kept lawn with a colourful flower bed at its centre and rose bushes against the house front and the neighbour’s fence. Leaving Weaver in the car, Banks walked down the crazy paving and rang the doorbell.

&
nbsp; The woman who answered, holding a cup of tea in her hand, looked puzzled to find a stranger standing before her. She was plain-looking, with stringy, lifeless brown hair, and wore a pair of overlarge, unbecoming spectacles. She was dressed in a shapeless beige cardigan and baggy checked slacks. Banks thought she might be the cleaning lady, so he phrased his greeting as a question: ‘Mrs Steadman?’

  ‘Yes,’ the woman answered hesitantly, peering at him through her glasses. He introduced himself and felt the familiar tightening in his stomach as he was ushered into the living room. It was always like that. No amount of experience purged that gut-wrenching feeling of sympathy that accompanied the soothing, useless words, the empty gestures. For Banks there was always a shadow: it could be my wife, it could be someone telling me about my daughter. It was the same as that first glimpse of the murder victim. Death and its long aftermath had never become a matter of routine for him but remained always an abomination, a reminder one hardly needed of man’s cruelty to his fellow man, his fallen nature.

  Although the room was messy – a low table littered with magazines, knitting spread out on a chair, records out of their sleeves by the music centre – it was clean, and sunlight poured over the red and yellow roses through spotless mullioned windows. Above the large stone fireplace hung a romantic painting of what Swainsdale must have looked like over a hundred years ago. It hadn’t changed all that much, but somehow the colours seemed brighter and bolder in the picture, the contours more definite.

  ‘What is it?’ Mrs Steadman asked, pulling a chair forward for Banks. ‘Has there been an accident? Is something wrong?’

  As he broke the news, Banks watched Mrs Steadman’s expression change from disbelief to shock. Finally, she began to weep silently. There was no sobbing; the tears simply ran down her pale cheeks and dripped on to the wrinkled cardigan as she stared blankly ahead. They could have been caused by an onion, Banks found himself thinking, disturbed by her absolute silence.

  ‘Mrs Steadman?’ he said gently, touching her sleeve. ‘I’m afraid there are a few questions I have to ask you right away.’

  She looked at him, nodded and dried her eyes with a screwed-up Kleenex. ‘Of course.’

  ‘Why didn’t you report your husband missing, Mrs Steadman?’

  ‘Missing?’ She frowned at him. ‘Why should I?’

  Banks was taken aback, but he pressed on gently. ‘I’m afraid you’ll have to tell me that. He can’t have come home last night. Weren’t you worried? Didn’t you wonder where he was?’

  ‘Oh, I see what you mean,’ she said, dabbing at her damp, reddened cheeks with the crumpled tissue. ‘You weren’t to know, were you? You see, I wasn’t expecting him home last night. He went out just after seven o’clock. He said he was calling for a pint at the Bridge – he often went there – and then driving on to York. He had work to do there and he wanted to make an early start.’

  ‘Did he often do that?’

  ‘Yes, quite often. Sometimes I went with him, but I was feeling a bit under the weather last night – summer cold, I think – and besides, I know they get much more done without me. Anyway, I watched television with Mrs Stanton next door and let him go. Harry stayed with his publisher. Well, more of a family friend really. Michael Ramsden.’

  ‘What kind of work did they do on a Sunday?’

  ‘Oh, it wasn’t what you or I would understand by work. They were writing a book. Harry mostly, but Michael was interested and helped him. A local history book. That was Harry’s field. They’d go off exploring ruins – Roman forts, old lead mines, anything.’

  ‘I see. And it was normal for him to go the night before and stay with Mr Ramsden?’

  ‘Yes. As I’ve said, they were more like friends than anything else. We’ve known the family for a long time. Harry was terrible at getting up in the morning, so if they wanted a full day, he’d go over the night before and Michael would be sure to get him up on time. They’d spend the evening going over notes and making plans. I’d no reason to report him missing. I thought he was in York.’ Her voice faltered and she started to cry again.

  Banks waited and let her dry her eyes before asking his next question. ‘Wouldn’t Mr Ramsden be worried if he didn’t arrive? Didn’t he call you to find out what had happened?’

  ‘No.’ She paused, blew her nose and went on. ‘I told you, it wasn’t that kind of work. More like a hobby, really. Anyway, Michael doesn’t have a telephone. He’d just assume that something had come up and Harry couldn’t make it.’

  ‘Just one more thing, Mrs Steadman, then I won’t bother you any further today. Could you tell me where your husband might have left his car?’

  ‘In the big car park by the river,’ she replied. ‘The Bridge hasn’t got a car park of its own so the customers use that one. You can’t really leave cars in the street here; there’s not room enough.’

  ‘Do you have a spare key?’

  ‘I think he kept one around. I don’t use it myself. I have an old Fiesta. Just a moment.’ Mrs Steadman disappeared into the kitchen and returned a few moments later with the key. She also gave Banks the number of Steadman’s beige Sierra.

  ‘Could you tell me where Mr Ramsden lives, too? I’d like to let him know what’s happened as soon as possible.’

  Mrs Steadman seemed a bit surprised, but she gave the information without questions. ‘It’s not so hard to find,’ she added. ‘There are no other houses within half a mile yet. Do you need me to… er.. .’

  ‘To identify the body?’

  Mrs Steadman nodded.

  ‘Yes, I’m afraid we do. Tomorrow will do, though. Is there anyone you can get to stay with you for a while?’

  She stared at him, her features ugly and swollen with crying; her eyes looked fishy behind the harsh magnification of the glasses. ‘Mrs Stanton, next door… if you would.’

  ‘Of course.’

  Banks went next door. Mrs Stanton, a long-nosed, alert-looking little woman, immediately grasped the situation. Banks sympathized with her shock. ‘I know,’ he said. ‘It must seem so abrupt. To think that you saw him only last night.’

  She nodded. ‘Aye. And to think what was happening while me and Emma were watching that silly old film. Still,’ she ended stoically, ‘who are we to question the ways of the good Lord?’ She told her husband, who sat slouched in an armchair reading his News of the World, to keep an eye on the roast, then went over to comfort her neighbour. Sure that he was leaving the widow in capable hands, Banks returned to his car and got in next to Weaver, who had regained his pinkish colour.

  ‘I’m sorry, sir,’ he mumbled. ‘About being sick. I’ve-’ ‘

  Never seen a corpse before? I know. Never mind, Constable, there’s a first time for everyone, more’s the pity. Shall we go to the Bridge for a bite to eat?’ Weaver nodded. ‘I’m starving, myself,’ Banks went on, starting the car, ‘and you look like you could do with a drop of brandy.’

  As he drove the short distance down to the Bridge on Helmthorpe High Street, Banks thought about his interview with Mrs Steadman. It had made him feel edgy and uneasy. At times, after the initial shock, her reaction had seemed more like relief than grief. Perhaps the marriage had been shaky, Banks found himself thinking, and Mrs Steadman had suddenly found herself both wealthy and free. Surely that would explain it?

  2

  ONE

  Weaver pulled a face. ‘I don’t like brandy, sir,’ he admitted sheepishly. ‘My mum always used to give me a drop for medicinal purposes whenever I got a cold as a lad. Never could stomach the stuff.’

  The two of them sat in a corner of the Bridge’s quiet lounge. Banks nursed a pint of hand-drawn Theakston’s bitter, and Weaver complained about his brandy.

  ‘Did it do you any good?’ Banks asked.

  ‘I suppose so, sir. But it always reminds me of medicine, of being poorly, if you follow my drift.’

  Banks laughed and went to buy Weaver a pint to chase away the bad taste. They were waiting for Detective Sergeant
Hatchley, who was still with Tavistock, no doubt enjoying a good cup of tea or something stronger and, perhaps, a plateful of roast beef.

  ‘Tell me,’ Banks asked, ‘why is this place so empty? It’s Sunday dinner time and the village is crawling with tourists.’

  ‘That’s right, sir,’ Weaver said. His boyish face had fully regained its natural pink flush. ‘But look around you.’

  Banks looked. They were in a small lounge with faded wallpaper and a cracked brown ceiling. A few water-colours of local scenes, reminiscent of the ones in old railway carriages, covered the most obvious damp spots on the walls. The tables were worn and scored from years of dominoes and shove-ha’penny, and ringed by generations of overflowing beer glasses; around the edges were charred semicircles where cigarettes had been left to burn out. A rack holding tongs and a bent poker stood by the small tiled fireplace. True, it didn’t look much.

  ‘There are three pubs in Helmthorpe, sir,’ Weaver began, counting them off on his chubby red fingers. ‘That’s if you don’t count the country club, for the nobs. There’s the Dog and Gun, and the Hare and Hounds; they’re for the tourists mostly. Real olde worlde country inns, if you get my meaning, sir – horse brasses, copper bedwarmers, antique tables with kneecapper wrought-iron legs, you name it. They have big old fireplaces too, all done up with black lead. Now that every pub in Christendom seems to offer real ale, it’s got trendy to advertise a real fire.

  ‘The Dog and Gun’s a kind of family place with tables out back by the river and a little enclosed area for the kiddies to play in, and the Hare and Hounds is more for the younger set. They have a disco there every Friday and Saturday in season and you get a lot of the campers going along. That’s when we get most of our bother here – the odd fight, that kind of thing. Some nights during the week they have folk music, too. A bit more civilized, if you ask me.’

  Weaver sniffed and nodded towards the wall. ‘And then there’s this place. It’s fairly new by village standards – Victorian, I’d say at a pinch. And it’s all that’s left for the serious drinkers. The only people who drink here are the locals and a few visitors who know about the beer. It’s a pretty well-guarded secret. Course, on weekends you do get a few hikers and whatnot in the public bar. They’ve all read their good beer guides these days, it seems. But they never cause much trouble; they’re a quiet lot, really.’