The Hanging Valley

by Peter Robinson

  ‘You mean you didn’t know?’ Banks said, sipping his Scotch.

  ‘Didn’t know what?’

  ‘About Anne Ralston.’

  ‘Look here. If this is some kind of a game . . .’

  Did he or didn’t he? Banks couldn’t be sure. Sam Greenock would know the answer to that – when he got home, and if he could be persuaded to talk.

  ‘Anne’s turned up again.’

  ‘But . . . where?’

  ‘Bernard Allen knew where she was. He told the Greenocks. Surely Sam told you?’

  ‘No. No, I’d no idea. How is she? What happened?’

  ‘I don’t know all the details,’ Banks said. ‘Just that she’s alive and well and living in Canada. Are you sure nobody told you?’

  ‘I’ve already said so, haven’t I? This is a complete surprise to me. Though I was sure she’d turn up somewhere, some day.’ He went over and poured himself another drink; his hand was shaking. Banks glanced sideways at Nicholas, who sat impassively in his chair. There was no way of telling what he knew or didn’t know.

  Banks and Hatchley finished their drinks and stood up.

  ‘I’m sorry it came as such a shock, Mr Collier,’ Banks said. ‘I just thought you ought to know.’

  ‘Yes, of course,’ Stephen said. ‘I’m very grateful to you. If you do hear anything else . . .’

  ‘We’ll let you know.’

  ‘There is just one thing,’ Stephen said, standing in the doorway. ‘What has this to do with Bernard Allen’s death? Do you see any connection?’

  ‘I don’t know, Mr Collier,’ Banks said. ‘I really don’t know. It does seem like a bit of a coincidence though – Anne disappearing the day after Addison’s killing, then turning up again, so to speak, around the time of Allen’s murder. It makes you wonder, doesn’t it?’

  And they walked back over the bridge, where the three men stood like shadows in the soft light. On impulse, Banks sent Hatchley on ahead and stopped.

  ‘Do you remember Anne Ralston?’ he asked the gnarled spokesman.

  As was his custom, the man spat in the fledgling River Swain before answering. ‘Aye. Allus in and out o’ there.’ He nodded over at the Collier house.

  ‘Have you seen her at all over the last few years?’

  ‘Nay. She flitted.’

  ‘And she hasn’t been back?’

  He shook his head.

  ‘Have you seen either Mr or Mrs Greenock go over to the Collier house this afternoon?’

  ‘Aye,’ the man said. ‘Sam Greenock went over about three o’clock.’

  ‘To see Stephen or Nicholas?’

  ‘It were Mr Stephen’s door he knocked on.’

  ‘And did Stephen Collier answer it?’

  The man scowled. ‘Aye, course he did.’

  ‘How long was Mr Greenock in there?’

  ‘Baht ten minutes.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Banks said, heading for the guest house. ‘Thank you very much.’

  He heard his reluctant informant hack into the beck again, then the murmur of their voices rose up behind him.

  THREE

  Katie Greenock hurried away when she saw Banks coming, but he couldn’t help noticing that she moved with some difficulty.

  ‘Katie!’ he called, hurrying down the hall after her and grasping her elbow.

  She spun round and faced him, one hand over her stomach. Her face was white and tense with suppressed pain. ‘What do you want?’ she asked angrily. ‘Haven’t you caused enough trouble?’

  ‘There’ll be a lot more before this business is over, Katie. I’m sorry, but there it is. You’ll just have to learn to face the world. Anyway, that’s not why I called you. What’s wrong? You look ill.’

  ‘Nothing’s wrong.’

  ‘You’re white as a ghost. And what’s wrong with your stomach? Does it ache?’

  ‘What do you care?’ she asked, breaking away.

  ‘Is it Sam? Has he hurt you?’

  ‘I don’t know what you mean. I’ve got a tummy ache, that’s all.’

  ‘Did you tell Sam you’d told me about Anne?’

  ‘I had to, didn’t I? He knew there was something wrong. I’m not good at hiding things.’

  ‘And what did he do, beat it out of you?’

  ‘I told you, I’ve just got a tummy ache. Leave me alone, I feel sick.’

  ‘Where is he?’

  She gestured with her head. ‘In back.’

  ‘Will you stay out here for a few minutes, Katie, while I talk to him?’

  Katie nodded and edged into the dining room.

  Banks walked down the hall and knocked on the door that separated the Greenocks’ part of the house from the rest. Sam let him in.

  ‘Chief Inspector Banks,’ he said. ‘What a surprise. I hope nothing’s wrong?’

  ‘Has your wife told you we had a little talk earlier today?’

  Greenock sat down. ‘Well, yes. She did right, too. I’m her husband.’

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me about the Ralston woman earlier, as soon as we found out it was Bernard Allen feeding the maggots up in the hanging valley? This is the second time you’ve obstructed our investigation, and I’m having serious thoughts about taking you in.’

  ‘Now hold on a minute.’ Sam stood up again and puffed out his chest. ‘You can’t come round here making accusations like that.’

  ‘She said she told you that Bernard had met up with Anne Ralston in Canada.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘So you should have told me.’

  ‘You never asked.’

  Banks glared at him.

  ‘I didn’t think it was relevant. Dammit, Chief Inspector, the woman’s been gone for five years.’

  ‘You know bloody well how important she is. She’s important enough for you to dash out and tell Stephen Collier that Katie had told me what Bernie said. What’s going on, Greenock? Just what is your involvement in all this?’

  ‘Nothing,’ Sam said. ‘There’s nothing going on. I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

  ‘But you did go over to Stephen Collier’s this afternoon?’

  ‘So what? We’re friends. I dropped in for a drink.’

  ‘Did you also dash over a few weeks ago and tell him what Bernie said about Anne Ralston turning up?’

  ‘I didn’t tell anyone.’

  ‘I think you did. I also think you told him this afternoon that your wife had let the cat out of the bag to me about Anne Ralston. Didn’t you?’

  ‘I did no such thing. And you can’t prove it either.’

  ‘I will prove it,’ Banks said. ‘Believe me, I will. And when I do, your feet won’t touch the ground.’

  ‘You don’t scare me,’ Sam said.

  Banks drew closer and Greenock backed towards the wall. They were both about the same size, though Sam was heavier.

  ‘I don’t?’ Banks said. ‘Well, I bloody well should. Where I come from, we don’t always do things by the book. Do you know what I mean?’ It was Hatchley’s line, Banks knew, but it wasn’t as if he was intimidating some scared kid. Sam was a villain, and Banks knew it. His dark eyes glittered with pent-up energy and Sam flinched as he felt his shoulder blades make contact with the wall.

  ‘Leave me alone!’ Sam shouted. ‘I’ll bloody report you, I will.’

  Banks sneered. ‘That’s a laugh.’ Then he backed away. ‘Keep out of my sight, Greenock,’ he said. ‘If I want you, I’ll know which rock to look under. And when I do, I’ll have proof. And if I see or hear any more evidence – even the merest hint – that you’ve been hurting your wife again, I’ll make you bloody sorry you were ever born.’

  FOUR

  ‘Will there be anything else?’ the waitress asked, clearing away the empty plate.

  ‘What? Oh, yes. Yes. Another cup of tea, please.’ Katie Greenock had to pull herself back from a very long way. It would be her third cup but why not? Let it simply be another part of her little rebellion.

  She sat at a tabl
e with a red-checked cloth – very clean, she noticed – by the window of the Golden Grill in Eastvale. The narrow street outside was busy with pedestrians, even in the thin drizzle, and almost directly opposite her was the whitewashed building with the black beams and the incongruous white-on-blue sign over the entrance: police.

  It was early Monday afternoon, and she didn’t know what she was doing in Eastvale. Already she was beginning to feel guilty. It was simply a minor gesture, she tried to convince herself, but her conscience invested it with the magnitude of Satan’s revolt.

  That morning, at about eleven o’clock, she had felt so claustrophobic cleaning the rooms that she just had to get out – not only out of the house, but out of Swainshead itself for a while. Walking aimlessly down the street, she had met Beryl Vickers, a neighbour she occasionally talked gardening with, and accepted her offer of a lift into Eastvale for a morning’s shopping. Beryl was visiting her sister there, so Katie was left free to wander by herself for a few hours. After buying some lamb chops and broccoli at the indoor market for that evening’s dinner, she had found the Golden Grill and decided to rest her feet.

  She had only been sitting there for fifteen minutes when she saw three men come out of the pub next door and hurry through the rain back into the police station. Two of them she recognized – the lean dark inspector and his fair heavy sergeant – but the young athletic-looking one with the droopy moustache and the curious loping walk was new to her. For a moment, she thought they were sure to glance over their shoulders and see her through the window, so she covered the side of her face with her hand. They didn’t even look.

  As soon as she saw the inspector, she felt again the bruises that Sam had inflicted on her the previous afternoon. She knew it wasn’t the policeman’s fault – in fact, he seemed like a kind man – but she couldn’t help the association any more than she could help feeling one between room five and what she had let Bernie do to her.

  ‘What’s wrong with you?’ Sam had asked when he came home.

  Katie had tried to hide her red-rimmed eyes from him, but he grasped her chin between his thumb and forefinger and asked her again. That was when she told him the police had been back and the inspector had interrogated her so hard she couldn’t hide it from him any more.

  Sam had hit the roof.

  ‘But it’s not that important,’ Katie protested. ‘It can’t be!’

  ‘That’s not for you to say,’ Sam argued. He threw up his hands. ‘You stupid bloody bitch, have you any idea what trouble you might have caused?’

  Though she was scared, Katie still felt defiant. ‘What do you mean, trouble?’ she asked, her lower lip trembling. ‘Trouble for who?’

  ‘For everyone, that’s for who.’

  ‘For your precious Colliers, I’ll bet.’ As she said it, her image was of Nicholas, not Stephen.

  And that was when Sam hit her the first time, a short sharp blow to the stomach. She doubled up in pain, and when she was able to stand again he thumped her left breast. That hurt even more. She collapsed on the sofa and Sam stood over her. His face was red and he was breathing oddly, in short gasps that seemed to catch in his throat. ‘If we make something of ourselves in this place,’ he said, ‘it won’t be any thanks to you.’

  He didn’t hit her any more. He knew when enough was enough. But later that night, in bed, the same cruel hands grasped the same wounded breast. He pulled her roughly to him, and there was nothing she could do about it. Katie shuddered, trying to shake off the memory.

  ‘Will that be all?’ the waitress asked, standing over her again.

  ‘Oh, yes. Yes, thank you,’ Katie said, paying the bill. Awkwardly, aware of the ache in her breast and the Black Forest gateau sitting uneasily in her sore stomach, she made her way out into the street. She had one more hour of freedom to wander in the rain before meeting Beryl near the bus station at two thirty. Then she would have to go home and face the music.

  FIVE

  After a pub lunch in the Queen’s Arms and a chat with Hatchley and Richmond about the case, Banks was no further ahead. Back in his office, he sat down, sent for some coffee and put his feet up on the desk to think things out. When PC Craig arrived with the coffee – looking very put out, no doubt because Susan Gay had coerced him into carrying it up – Banks lit a Silk Cut and went over what he’d got.

  Richmond had discovered that Les Haines, Bernie Allen’s brother-in-law, had done a brief stretch in Armley Prison for receiving stolen goods (i.e. two boxes of Sony E-120 video cassette tapes). It was his second offence, hot on the heels of an assault charge against a man in an alley outside a Leeds bar. But Haines had been at work on the day of Allen’s murder, so he would have had no opportunity to get to Swainshead and back, even if there had been some obscure family motive. Besides, as Banks well knew, just because a man has a record as a petty thief, it doesn’t make him a murderer. Esther had been at home with the kids, as usual, and Banks could hardly visualize her trailing them up to the hanging valley and knocking off her brother.

  Most interesting of all were the Colliers’ alibis, or lack of them. Nicholas never taught classes on Friday mornings, but he usually went in anyway and used the time for paperwork. On the Friday in question, however, the headmaster’s administrative assistant remembered seeing him arrive late, at around eleven o’clock. This was nothing unusual – it had happened often enough before – but it did leave him without a valid alibi.

  Stephen Collier, it turned out, had no meetings scheduled for that day, again quite normal in itself, and nobody could remember whether he had been in or not. Work days, the world-weary secretary explained to Sergeant Hatchley, are so much the same that most office workers have difficulty remembering one from another. Mr Collier was often off the premises anyway, and the people who actually ran the business never saw much of him.

  PC Weaver from Helmthorpe, who had been questioning people in Swainshead that morning, reported that nobody remembered seeing Bernard Allen out there on the morning in question, let alone noticed anyone follow him.

  At about two o’clock, Richmond popped his head round the door. He’d been using the computer to check with various business agencies and immigration offices, but so far he’d found no one in Swainshead with Canadian connections. Except for Stephen Collier, who dealt with a Montreal-based food products corporation.

  ‘What’s a food product, do you think?’ Banks asked Richmond.

  ‘I wouldn’t know, sir. Something that’s not real food, I’d imagine.’

  ‘And I thought he was trading Wensleydale cheese for maple syrup. That reminds me: what time is it in Toronto?’

  Richmond looked at his watch. ‘It’ll be about nine in the morning.’

  ‘I’d better phone the Mounties.’

  ‘Er . . . they won’t be Mounties, sir. Not in Toronto.’ Richmond stroked his moustache.

  ‘Oh? What will they be?’

  ‘The Toronto Metropolitan Police, sir. The RCMP’s federal. These days they mostly do undercover work and police the more remote areas.’

  Banks grinned. ‘Well, you learn something new every day.’

  When Richmond had left, he lit a cigarette and picked up the phone. There was a lot of messing about with the switchboard, but after a few minutes of clicks and whirrs, the phone started ringing at the other end. It wasn’t the harsh and insistent sound of an English telephone though; the rings were longer, as were the pauses between them.

  When someone finally answered, it took Banks a while to explain who he was and what he wanted. After a few more clicks, he finally got through to the right man.

  ‘Chief Inspector Banks? Staff Sergeant Gregson here. And how’s the old country?’

  ‘Fine,’ said Banks, a little perplexed by the question.

  ‘My father was a Brit,’ Gregson went on. ‘Came from Derbyshire.’ He pronounced the e as in clergy, and shire came out as sheer. ‘Do you know it?’ he asked.

  ‘Oh, yes. It’s just down the road.’

&nb
sp; ‘Small country.’

  ‘Right.’

  Gregson cleared his throat and Banks could hear papers rustling three thousand miles away. ‘I can’t say we’ve got any good news for you,’ the Canadian said. ‘We’ve had a look around Allen’s apartment, but we didn’t find anything unusual.’

  ‘Was there an address book?’

  ‘Address book . . . let me see . . .’ More paper rustled. ‘No. No address book. No diary.’

  ‘Damn. He must have taken them with him.’

  ‘Makes sense, doesn’t it? If he was going on vacation he’d be sure to want to send pretty postcards to all his buddies back home.’

  ‘What about his friends? Have you seen any of them?’

  ‘We talked to his colleagues at work. There’s not many of them around. College finishes in early May, so teachers are pretty thin on the ground at this time of year. Nice work if you can get it, eh? Now they’re all off swimming in the lake and sunning themselves on the deck up at their fancy summer cottages in Muskoka.’

  ‘Is that like a villa in Majorca?’

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘Never mind. What did they have to say?’

  ‘Said he was a bit aloof, stand-offish. Course, a lot of Brits over here are like that. They think Canada’s still part of the Empire, so they come on like someone out of The Jewel in the Crown.’

  ‘Did you find his ex-wife?’

  ‘Yup. She’s been in Calgary for the past six months, so you can count her out.’

  ‘Apparently, there was a lover,’ Banks told him. ‘Someone at the college. That’s why they got divorced.’

  ‘Have you got a name?’

  ‘Sorry.’

  Gregson sighed. ‘I’d like to help you, Chief Inspector, I really would,’ he said, ‘but we can’t spare the men to go tracking down some guy who ran off with Allen’s wife. We just don’t have the manpower.’

  ‘No, of course not.’

  ‘Besides, people don’t usually steal a man’s wife and then kill him.’