‘That gives your future Home Secretary a motive perhaps, but not Ronnie.’
‘Except Oliver Litton doesn’t know anything about it. At least, I’m assuming he doesn’t, if neither you nor Ronnie told anyone. Her immediate family doesn’t even know.’
‘I didn’t, and I doubt that she did.’ Jarvis started coughing again. When he had finished, he said, ‘I don’t know how I can help you. I don’t really understand what any of this means.’
‘Me, neither,’ said Banks, smiling. ‘That’s why I’m asking the questions.’
‘If you think this Gavin Miller was blackmailing Ronnie over her fling with me,’ Jarvis said, ‘and that it had any importance for her, that he was a threat of any kind, then it seems to me as if you’re saying it gives her a pretty strong motive for killing him.’
‘Not necessarily. We know she couldn’t have done it.’
‘Hired someone, then.’
‘It’s possible,’ Banks said. ‘But if Miller was blackmailing Lady Chalmers, there may have been others, victims we don’t know about, and one of them might have killed him. He was desperately short of money when he was killed, and who’s to know to what lengths he might have gone, who he might have antagonised?’
‘Well, I didn’t do it,’ said Jarvis.
Banks smiled. ‘No,’ he said. He heard a low-flying aircraft pass overhead on its way to some regional airport. It was late afternoon, and already getting dark.
‘You think I might have hired a Russian hit man? I’m sorry to disappoint you, but I don’t have those contacts any more. Everything’s changed over there. They’re not interested in the revolution any more. The communists used to take over countries with tanks; now if they want another country, the Russian mafia just buys one.’
‘I did have a theory that both Ronnie and Gavin Miller might have been recruited by the Russians back in the day.’
Jarvis laughed. ‘Them? Recruited? That’s a good one.’
‘But they were active, weren’t they, the Russians? In 1972. With money, with helping spread chaos and setting the scene for a communist revolution?’
‘They were buzzing around, yes, but it was the union leaders they were interested in, not students standing on the sidelines, like Ronnie and Miller. Oh, they had a few agitators there, people who could turn a peaceful demonstration into a riot. But the Russians had no use for intellectuals. No more than Pol Pot did. And when it comes right down to it, I really didn’t have a lot of time for the Russians. I didn’t like them, and I never trusted them. We used each other. It was a convenience.’ He looked around the allotment and said, ‘Believe it or not, I love this place. I love this country. I’m proud of my homeland. It’s where I belong. It’s where I’ll die. Now if only we could get rid of the bastards in power and change the system, make it a fairer and more egalitarian place to live, I’d die a happy man.’
‘I’m not sure Lady Chalmers would want to change it now.’
‘Well, she wouldn’t, would she? I must say, you disappoint me, Mr Banks. Russian sleepers? Your ideas are getting very far-fetched.’
Banks scratched his chin. ‘I disappoint myself sometimes,’ he said. ‘Too much imagination, I suppose. You can’t help me any further, then?’
‘I don’t see how I can, do you? I’ve got nothing to hide. Yes, we had a fling, yes, I’ve had a soft spot for her in my heart ever since, and I’ve followed her career. But from a distance. Vicariously. The closest I’ve got is reading a Charlotte Summers book.’ He smiled. ‘And what drivel that was. We’ve never met, written or spoken in all the intervening years, though I have thought of it many times, and I haven’t told anyone about the affair. Including my wife and family, though I didn’t marry until two years after Essex. And I’d very much appreciate it if you’d respect that and give me the same courtesy. It’s not as if you’ll have to hold your tongue for very long.’
‘It’s not in my plans to spread the word, Mr Jarvis, believe me. What happened with your own family? Did you have children?’
‘Aye. A girl and a boy.’
‘Did the lad become a miner?’
‘Shit, no! Do you think I’d encourage them to do that after what you’ve heard me say here today? No.’ His expression turned sad. ‘Though it might have been better in some ways if he had.’
‘Why’s that?’
‘Oh, Eddie’s turned out, all right, I suppose. He’s a lathe operator, but you know what the manufacturing sector’s been like these past three decades or so. Thatcherland. She gutted the north. He’s been in and out of work like a yo-yo most of his life. It takes its toll. He drinks. Got divorced last year, lost custody of the kids. And my daughter Stef married an idle sod who doesn’t know the meaning of the word “work”. Never done a day’s hard graft in his life, like his father before him. All he does is go to the pub and back and provide her with more mouths to feed. I warned her. I told them. But do they listen?’ He shook his head. ‘For all my ideals and my beliefs, Mr Banks, I can’t exactly say I’ve brought up a family to be proud of.’
‘You shouldn’t be so hard on yourself.’
‘Easy for you to say, with a son in a successful rock band.’
Banks couldn’t mask his surprise. How …?’
‘I read the papers, Mr Banks, and I watch telly. I might be old and dying, but I’m not square. There aren’t that many coppers with sons in the charts. Now, I’m more of a Shostakovich man myself.’ Jarvis reached for another cigarette.
‘About Shostakovich,’ said Banks. ‘I’m very fond of him, myself. I think the whole question of where he stood in relation to Stalin is fascinating. Any insights into that?’
13
The red sports car was parked in its usual place on the gravel drive outside Brierley House. Clearly, Lady Chalmers’ local garage hadn’t got around to taking it in for repairs yet. When Banks got out of the Porsche, he walked over to the MG to check out the damage. It wasn’t too bad, he thought. The front headlamp was smashed, the tyre ripped, the fender and passenger door gouged and dented by the crash through the fence. But all that could be easily fixed. What interested Banks were the scratches and dents on the driver’s side. They could hardly have been caused by the fence.
Neither Oriana nor Lady Chalmers was in immediate evidence, and it was a dishevelled Sir Jeremy who opened the door. Wearing a baggy grey sweater and faded jeans, he was unshaven and looked as if he hadn’t slept in days. The telltale tufts of hair sculpted into whorls and flattened areas by a pillow showed that he had at least tried to catch a nap.
‘Banks, it’s you,’ he said, clearly distraught. ‘Have you seen it? We were expecting it back yesterday, but it didn’t get here until this morning, just before you arrived. Come in. I want to talk to you.’
He led Banks into a study, or office, that was clearly his, with theatrical posters on the walls, the iconic Les Mis and Cats, along with some for his own productions: The Power and the Glory, Carmilla and On the Beach. There were a number of trophies and awards of various shapes, sizes and materials on the bookcases, slotted between rows of theatre books and bound scripts. The wainscoting was dark and the wallpaper above it not much lighter. This room didn’t have the panoramic view of the town, but of the house next door across the separating lawn. Banks guessed that Sir Jeremy probably didn’t spend a lot of time here, as he had offices in London and spent a great deal of time travelling.
‘Sit down. Sit down.’ It sounded more like a command than a request. Banks sat. Sir Jeremy flopped into his leather swivel chair. ‘You saw it?’
‘I take it you mean the damage to Lady Chalmers’ car?’ he said.
‘Well, of course. What do you think? What do you make of it?’
‘She was lucky it was a barbed-wire fence she drove through,’ said Banks. ‘A drystone wall would have been a lot more serious, even if she hadn’t gone into the river.’
‘Yes, yes,’ said Sir Jeremy, ‘but I mean the other side. The driver’s side.’
‘What did
Lady Chalmers say?’
‘She was still very groggy from the sedative when I spoke to her, but she said she doesn’t know how it happened. Perhaps someone ran into the car while it was parked somewhere.’
‘Have you seen the marks before?’
‘No, but I’ve been away, and I must admit I’ve been so busy it’s been a long time since I actually paid any attention to Ronnie’s car.’
‘Wouldn’t she have had the damage fixed rather than leave it for so long?’
‘Hmm,’ said Sir Jeremy. ‘I’m not so sure. Ronnie can be remarkably blasé about material things. She’s been known to procrastinate. If it were left to Ronnie, it would probably sit in the drive for a week or two first. Usually I organise things like that, or Oriana might if I’m away.’
‘The damage seems fresh to me.’
‘Me, too. That’s just it. Now she’s drawn in on herself. Put the shutters up. She says she just wants to be left alone for a while, that she’s fine and needs a bit of peace and a little space to regroup. Fair enough. But I’m worried, Banks.’
‘What do you think happened?’
‘I think it’s more than likely that someone deliberately ran her into that fence, no doubt with the thought that she would land in the river and drown.’
‘You think it was attempted murder?’
‘Well, what does it look like to you, man?’
‘Who could have done that?’
‘No idea. Someone must have followed her, seized the opportunity.’
‘Why?’
‘How should I know? That’s your job. But if you ask me, it was probably something to do with whoever killed this Gavin Miller.’
‘What did the Derbyshire police say?’
‘Nothing.’
‘Have they started an investigation?’
‘I don’t know. I don’t think so. According to Oriana, the officers who brought Ronnie home just wanted to make sure she was all right. They were very polite. They didn’t ask any questions. I think she had already told them what happened.’
‘And she hadn’t mentioned any other car being involved?’
‘Apparently not. Is that what it is, though? What I thought when I saw the damage? What I just told you?’
‘There could be other explanations,’ said Banks. ‘We shouldn’t jump to conclusions.’
‘What other explanation?’
‘You said yourself that it might be older damage she hadn’t got around to getting repaired.’ But even as he spoke, Banks doubted this explanation. He had visited Brierley House a few times, and had on at least one occasion admired the old red MG parked there. He didn’t remember seeing any damage at all; the car had always seemed superbly well cared for, in the way you often find with antique motors. ‘Or it could have been an accident,’ he went on.
‘But Ronnie didn’t mention another car. That’s just it. She said she went off the road, and the damage on the driver’s side is old. Is she lying to me?’
Banks wasn’t going to tell him that he suspected Lady Chalmers had been doing a lot of lying lately. ‘The weather conditions were dreadful,’ he said. ‘Perhaps Lady Chalmers didn’t even notice that another car glanced into her side?’
‘Oh, come on. You’re grasping at straws.’
‘So you’re convinced that someone gave her a nudge towards that river?’
‘What else could it be? The scratches, the way she seemed so frightened, so shocked.’
‘That could all have been due to the accident,’ Banks said. ‘But I take your point seriously. Any idea who might have done such a thing?’
‘None at all.’
‘Do you mind if we take the car in for a forensic examination? That should tell us a great deal about how the damage occurred, and it might even give us a way of identifying the other car involved if there was one.’
‘Be my guest.’
‘And there’s one more thing.’
‘Yes?’
‘Do I have your permission to talk to Lady Chalmers again? Alone.’
It was a fine late afternoon, the rain staying at bay for the second day in a row, with even a little weak sunshine breaking through the cloud cover, and temperatures in the mid-teens. Warm enough, at any rate, to go without an overcoat. It had taken Gerry a good part of the day to fill in the gaps Banks needed filling in before paying his next visit to Lady Chalmers, but thanks to her determination and resourcefulness, he thought he had what he needed now.
Lady Chalmers was sitting in the garden, a dark blue knitted shawl wrapped around her shoulders, her flaxen hair resting on it straight and damp, as if fresh from the shower. From that angle, Banks could even see a little grey in it. When he came up beside her to take the other wicker chair, she turned and looked up at him. He saw some of the beauty that Joe Jarvis must have seen in her forty years ago: the eyes, the porcelain complexion. Then she smiled sadly at him, and he saw the beauty of that, too. He also saw the bruise on her left temple and the cut and swollen lower lip, but those were the only visible results of her accident.
‘I thought you’d come,’ she said. It wasn’t an accusation or a complaint, just a weary statement of fact.
Banks sat down. ‘Will you tell me what happened?’
Lady Chalmers gazed at the view below, the cobbled market square, the castle on its hill, the formal gardens leading down to the river, the old church in the foreground, the constant background noise of the terraced falls. The shadows, where there were any, were lengthening as the winter sun was setting fast. ‘I’d like to tell you,’ she said. ‘It’s tearing me apart. I feel if I don’t tell someone soon, I’ll … I don’t know what. But it’s so hard. You see, I’ve never told anyone. Not Jem, not Francesca, not Sam or Angelina, not Oriana. Not anyone.’
‘Not even Joe Jarvis?’
She looked at Banks, just a hint of surprise in her expression. ‘Not even Joe. You’ve talked to him?’
‘Yes.’
‘I should have known you’d find out about him. How is he?’
‘Not so good.’ Banks stopped short of going into detail. ‘He’s very ill, in fact.’
It was as if a cloud passed over her face. ‘I’m sorry to hear that. I haven’t seen or heard from him in over forty years, but I’m still sorry to hear that.’ She put her hand over her heart. ‘Do you understand that?’
‘I think so.’
‘I love my family, Mr Banks. I’d do anything to protect them. I think you know that, too.’
‘That’s not always possible, but if it’s me you’re worried about, you needn’t be. All I want is the person who killed Gavin Miller. I’m not in the business of spilling family secrets.’
‘That would be inevitable, I think,’ she said. ‘If I’m right. But I think you may also suspect that much already.’
‘I still need to hear it from you. If it helps, you’re right, I do think I know most of it already.’
‘A reward for your persistence?’
‘A ghost to be laid. A festering wound to be cleansed.’
‘If only.’ She stared out at the view again.
‘I’m still only guessing at this point, but I think Oliver Litton is your son. Am I right?’
Lady Chalmers said nothing for a long time. Banks saw a muscle tic beside her jaw. In the end, she inclined her head in the slightest of nods. ‘How do you know?’
‘I said it was a guess, and it was. Mostly. I spotted a resemblance when I examined some old photos of Joe Jarvis, back in his political firebrand days. It was just a little thing, hardly realised consciously, but it stuck in my mind. There were the photos of you and Oliver together on your screen saver, as well, the last time we talked. There wasn’t such a strong resemblance – he takes mostly after his father – but you and your sister were alike, and there was definitely something in his looks that made me think of her. Or you. And there was definitely something about the way you looked standing together that felt like more than just aunt and nephew. It just sort of snagged in my memory.’
Banks remembered a similar photograph of his mother and his late brother Roy that had that same indefinable quality of mother and son. Pride, definitely, a sort of ‘I made this’ expression.
‘Then I did the maths,’ Banks went on. ‘When I heard that you went down to Buxton for Oliver’s birthday on such a miserable night, I wondered why, and when I found out that Oliver was indeed born in November 1972, which meant that he was conceived in January or February, I became even more convinced that I might be on to something. That was when Joe Jarvis and the South Yorkshire miners were in residence at Rayleigh. And when my colleague then discovered that you didn’t return to the University of Essex for your second year until December, two months into the first term, that did it for me. It could be easily proven, of course, by DNA tests.’
‘There’s no need for that,’ Lady Chalmers said.
‘What happened? How did Gavin Miller find out?’
‘Mostly doing the maths, I should imagine. But he had a lot more than you to go on to start with. I think he always knew, or suspected. Don’t forget: he was there. He walked in on me and Joe once.’
‘I know about that.’
‘Well, Gavin was a bit of a pest, to be honest, following me about and such. We did go out for a while, but I broke it off with him at the end of the first term, before Christmas. He didn’t want to take no for an answer. Nothing violent or anything, just a constant, irritating presence. He may well have followed me to Buxton and spied on me over the summer. I thought I saw him on the one or two rare occasions I ventured into town.’
‘That was while you were pregnant?’
‘Yes, but before I was showing. I was lucky, I suppose, in that my “baby bump”, as they call them these days, was easy to cover up with loose clothing for quite a long time into the pregnancy. As you have probably guessed, I didn’t want the baby, but the idea of abortion was abhorrent to me. I knew that Tony and Fran had been trying for a baby for ages without any success, so it seemed the perfect solution. Fran and I were very close. When I got pregnant, I ran crying to her and told her everything. But I didn’t want anyone else to know, not my parents, not anyone except the three of us.’
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