Banks wished his son, Brian, could be there. Unlike Banks, he had watched enough baseball on Channel 4 to be able to understand the game. When Banks first took his seat, the only baseball term he knew was home run, but by the end of the third innings, Gregson had explained all about RBIs, the tops and bottoms of the innings, designated hitters, knuckle balls, the bullpen, bunting, the balk rule, pinch hitters and at least three different kinds of pitches.
The game mounted to an exciting conclusion, and the boy next to him spilled his crisps all over the floor.
Finally, the home crowd went wild. Down five-four at the bottom of the ninth, with two out, the sixth Blue Jay up drove one home with all the bases loaded – a grand slam, Gregson called it. That made the score eight-five, and that was how the game ended.
They pushed their way out of the stadium, and Gregson negotiated the heavy traffic up Spadina to Bloor, where they stopped in at the Madison for a farewell drink.
‘Are you planning to do anything about the Culver woman?’ Gregson asked.
Banks sipped his pint of Conner bitter. They were out on the patio, and the late afternoon sun beat down on his shoulders.
‘No,’ he answered. ‘What did she do, after all?’
‘From the sound of it, she withheld evidence. She was a material witness. If she’d spoken up, this new homicide might never have happened.’
Banks shook his head. ‘She didn’t have much choice really. I know what you mean, but you’ve got to understand what things are like around Swainshead. It’s not like Toronto. She couldn’t tell what she knew. There was loyalty, yes, but there was also fear. The Colliers are a powerful family. If she’d stayed we might have got something out of her, but on the other hand something might have happened to her first.’
‘So she left under threat?’
‘That’s the way I’d put it, yes.’
‘And you think this Collier guy killed Allen because he knew too much?’
‘I think it was more to do with what Allen intended to do with his knowledge. I can’t prove it, but I think he was going to blackmail Stephen Collier. Julie Culver disagrees, but from what one of Allen’s boozing buddies told me, he had some plan to get back home to England. I think he asked Collier for the money to come home and live in Swainshead again, or maybe to fix him up with a job. Collier’s brother teaches at a small public school, and Allen was a teacher. Maybe he suggested that Stephen tell Nicholas to get him a job there. Instead, Stephen decided to get rid of Allen the same way he did with Addison.’
‘Shit,’ said Gregson. ‘I’d no idea Toronto was so bad that people would stoop to blackmail to get out of here.’
Banks laughed. ‘Maybe it’s just that Swainsdale is so beautiful people would do anything to get there. I don’t know. Allen was seriously disturbed, I think. A number of things took their toll on him: the divorce, the distance from home, the disappointment of not getting the kind of job that would really challenge his mind. Someone told me that he had gone beyond the parochial barriers of most English teachers, but he found himself in a system that placed no value on the exceptional, a system that almost imposed such barriers. The teaching he was doing was dreary, the students were ignorant and uninterested, and I think he tended to blame it on the local educational system. He thought things would be better in England. He probably remembered his own grammar school days when even poor kids got to learn Latin, and he thought things were still like that. Perhaps he didn’t even think he was doing anything really bad when he approached Collier. Or maybe he did. He had plenty of cause to resent him.’
‘That old British class system again?’
‘Partly. It’s hard to figure Allen out. Mostly, he seems like a decent person gone wrong, but he also had a big chip on his shoulder all along. I don’t suppose we’ll ever know what really motivated him.’
‘But you do have your killer.’
‘Yes – if he hasn’t done a bunk. But we’ve no proof yet.’
‘He knows you’re here, on to the girl?’
‘The whole village knows. We’ve got a man there.’
‘Well, then . . . What time’s your flight?’
‘Nine o’clock.’ He looked at his watch. ‘Christ, it’s six now. I’d better get back and pick up my stuff.’
‘I’ll drive you,’ Gregson said. ‘I’m off duty all day, and it can be a real hassle getting to the airport.’
‘Would you? That’s great.’
At the house, Banks packed his meagre belongings and the presents he had bought for his family, then left a thank-you note with the bottle of Scotch for Gerry. In a way, he felt sad to leave the house and neighbourhood that had become familiar to him over the past week: the sound of streetcars rattling by; the valley with its expressway and green slopes; the downtown skyline; the busy overflowing Chinese shops at Broadview and Gerrard.
The traffic along Lakeshore Boulevard to the airport turn-off wasn’t too heavy, and they made it with plenty of time to spare. The two policemen swapped addresses and invitations outside the departures area, then Gregson drove straight off home. Banks didn’t blame him. He’d always hated hanging around airports himself if he didn’t have a plane to catch.
After the queue at the check-in desk, the trip to the duty-free shop and the passage through security and immigration, it was almost time to board the plane. As they took off, Banks looked out of the window and saw the city lit up in the twilight below him: grids and figure eights of light as far as he could see in every direction except south, where he could pick out the curve of the bay and the matt silver-grey of Lake Ontario.
Once in the air, it was on with the Walkman – Kiri te Kanawa’s soaring arias seemed most appropriate this time – down the hatch with the Johnnie Walker and away with the food. A seasoned traveller already. This time even the movie was tolerable. A suspense thriller without the car chases and special effects that so often marred that type of film for Banks, it concentrated on the psychology of policeman and victim.
He slept for a while, managed to choke down the coffee and roll that came for breakfast, and looked out of the window to see the sun shining over Ireland.
It was nearly ten o’clock in the morning, local time, when he cleared customs and reclaimed his baggage. Among the crowd of people waiting to welcome friends and relatives stood Sandra, who threw her arms around him and gave him a long kiss.
‘I told Brian and Tracy they should come, too,’ she said, breaking away and picking up the duty-free bag, ‘but you know what they’re like about sleeping in on Sunday mornings.’
‘So it’s not that they don’t love me any more?’
‘Don’t be silly. They’ve missed you as much as I have. Almost.’
She kissed him again, and they set off for the car.
‘It’s a bloody maze, this place,’ Sandra complained, ‘and they really fleece you for parking. Then there’s roadworks everywhere on the way. They’re still working on Barton bridge, you know. It was misty too, high up in the Pennines. Oh, I am going on, aren’t I? I’m just so glad to see you. You must be tired.’
Banks stifled a yawn. ‘It’s five in the morning where I am. Where I was, rather. And I can’t sleep on planes. Anything interesting happen while I was away?’
Sandra frowned and hesitated. ‘I wasn’t going to tell you,’ she said, loading the small case and the duty-free bag into the boot of the white Cortina, ‘at least not until we got home. Superintendent Gristhorpe called this morning just before I set off.’
‘On a Sunday morning? What about?’
‘He said he wants to see you as soon as you get back. I told him what state you’d be in. Oh, he apologized and all that, but you’ve still got to go in.’
‘What is it?’ Banks lit cigarettes for both Sandra and himself as she drove down the spiral ramp from the fourth floor of the multi-storey car park out into the sunlit day.
‘Bad news,’ she said. ‘There’s been another death in Swainshead.’
PART THREE:
12
ONE
‘Accidental death! Don’t you think that’s just a bit too bloody convenient?’
Sergeant Hatchley shrugged as if to imply that perhaps if Banks didn’t go gallivanting off to the New World such things might not happen. ‘Doctor says it could have been suicide,’ he said.
Banks ran his hand through his close-cropped black hair. It was twelve thirty. He was back in his office only an hour after arriving home, jet-lagged and disoriented. So far, he hadn’t even had a chance to admire his favourite view of the cobbled market square. The office was smoky and a cup of black coffee steamed on the desk. Superintendent Gristhorpe was keeping an appointment with the deputy chief constable, whose personal interest in events was a measure of the Colliers’ influence in the dale.
‘And where the hell was Richmond?’ Banks went on. ‘Wasn’t he supposed to be baby-sitting the lot of them while I was away?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Where was he then?’
‘Asleep at the Greenocks’, I suppose. He could hardly invite himself to spend the night with the Colliers, could he?’
‘That’s not the point. He should have known something was wrong. Send him in.’
‘He’s just gone off duty, sir.’
‘Well, bloody well bring him back again!’
‘Yes, sir.’
Hatchley stalked out of the office. Banks sighed, stubbed out his cigarette and walked over to the window. The cobbled market square was still there, a bit rain drenched, but still there. Tourists posed for photographs on the worn plinth of the ancient market cross. The church door stood open and Banks could hear the distant sound of the congregation singing ‘Jerusalem’.
So he was home. He’d just had time to say hello to Brian and Tracy, then he’d had to hurry down to the station. He hadn’t even given them their presents yet: a Blue Jays sweatshirt for Brian, the Illustrated History of Canada for his budding historian daughter, Tracy, and a study of the Group of Seven, with plenty of fine reproductions, for Sandra. They were still packed in his suitcase, which stood next to the duty-free cigarettes and Scotch in the hall.
Already Toronto was a memory with the quality of a dream – baseball, the community college, Kleinburg, Niagara Falls, the CN Tower, and the tall downtown buildings in black and white and gold. But Staff Sergeant Gregson, the Feathers crowd and Anne Ralston/Julie Culver weren’t a dream. They were what he had gone for. And now he’d come back to find Stephen Collier dead.
There was no suicide note; at least nobody had found one so far. According to Nicholas Collier, John Fletcher and Sam Greenock, who had all been with Stephen on his last night at the White Rose, Stephen, always highly strung and restless, had seemed excessively nervous. He had got much more drunk than usual. Finally, long beyond closing time, they had had to help him home. They had deposited Stephen fully clothed on his bed, then adjourned to Nicholas’s half of the house, where they had a nightcap. John and Sam then left, and Nicholas went to bed.
In the morning, when he went to see how his brother was, Nicholas had discovered him dead. The initial findings of Dr Glendenning indicated that he had died of suffocation. It appeared that Stephen Collier had vomited while under the influence of barbiturates and been unable to wake up. Such things often happened when pills and booze were mixed, Glendenning had said. All that had to be determined now was the amount of barbiturate in Stephen’s system, and that would have to wait until the post-mortem. He had suffered from insomnia for a long time and had a prescription for Nembutal.
So what had happened? According to Hatchley, Stephen must have got up after the others left and taken his sleeping pills as usual, then gone downstairs and played a record – Mozart’s Jupiter Symphony was still spinning on the turntable – had another drink or two of Scotch from a tumbler, which was still half full, gone back upstairs, taken some more sleeping pills and passed out. By that time, given how much he’d had to drink, he probably wouldn’t have remembered taking the first lot of pills. The only question was, did he do it deliberately or not? And the only person who could answer that was Stephen himself.
It was damned unsatisfactory, Banks thought, but it looked like an end to both the Addison and Allen cases. Stephen Collier had certainly confessed to Anne Ralston. He knew that Banks would find her and that when she heard Bernie had been killed, she would pass on the information. He must have gone through a week of torment trying to decide what to do – make a run for it or stay and brazen it out. After all, it was only her word against his. The strain had finally proved too much for him, and either accidentally or on purpose – or accidentally on purpose – he had put an end to things, perhaps to save himself and the family name the ignominy of a trial and all the publicity it would bring down on them.
Feeling calmer, Banks lit another cigarette. He finished his coffee and determined not to haul Richmond over the coals. After all, as Hatchley had said, the constable couldn’t be everywhere at once. He still felt restless though; his nerves were jangling and his eyes ached. He had that strange and disturbing sensation of wanting to sleep but knowing he couldn’t even if he tried. When he rubbed his chin, he could feel the bristles. He hadn’t even had time for a shave.
When Richmond arrived, they walked over to the Queen’s Arms. After the morning sunshine, it had turned cool and rainy; a wonderful relief after the hellish steam bath of Toronto, Banks thought as he looked up and let the rain fall on his face. Cyril, the landlord, rustled them up a couple of ham and tomato sandwiches. They found an empty table in a corner, and Banks got the drinks in.
‘Look, I’m sorry for dragging you back, Phil,’ he said, ‘but I want to hear your version of what happened.’
‘In the White Rose, sir?’
‘The whole week. Just tell me what you saw and thought.’
‘There’s not very much to tell, really,’ Richmond said, and he gave Banks his version of the week’s events in as much detail as he could.
‘Katie Greenock went off with Stephen Collier on Friday afternoon, is that right?’
‘Yes, sir. They went for a walk up Swainshead Fell. I took a walk up Adam’s Fell and I could see them across the dale.’
‘Did they go towards the hanging valley?’
‘No, sir, they didn’t go over the top – just diagonal, as far as the river’s source. It’s about halfway up and a bit to the north.’
Banks wondered if anything had gone on between Katie and Stephen Collier. It seemed unlikely, given the kind of woman she seemed to be, but he was sure that she had surrendered to Bernard Allen. And in her case, the old-fashioned term ‘surrendered’ was the right word to use. Banks recalled the image of Katie standing in the market square, soaked to the skin, just before he’d left, and he remembered the eerie feeling he’d had that she was coming apart at the seams. It would certainly be worth talking to her again; at the very least she would be able to tell him something more about Collier’s state of mind on the day before he died.
‘What about Saturday night in the White Rose? How long were you there?’
‘From about nine till closing time, sir. I tried to pace myself, not drink too much.’
Banks grinned, remembering his own nights in the Toronto pubs. ‘A tough job, eh? Never mind. Notice anything?’
‘Like I told the super and Sergeant Hatchley, sir, it seemed pretty much of a normal night to me.’
‘You didn’t think Stephen Collier was drinking more than usual?’
‘I don’t know how much he usually drank, sir. I’d say from the other three nights I saw him in the White Rose during my stay, he did drink more on Saturday. But it was Saturday night. People do overdo it a bit then, don’t they? No work in the morning.’
‘Unless you’re a copper.’
Cyril called last orders and Banks hurried to the bar for another two pints.
‘What was the mood like at the table?’ he asked when he got back.
‘A bit festive, really
.’
‘No arguments, no sullen silences?’
‘No. Everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves. There was one thing . . .’
‘Yes?’
‘Well, I couldn’t hear anything because Sam and Stephen were talking quite loudly, but I got the impression that at one point John Fletcher and Nicholas Collier were having a bit of a barney.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I’m just going by the expressions on their faces, sir. It looked like Nicholas was angry with Fletcher for some reason and Fletcher just brushed him aside.’
‘Did the others appear to notice?’
‘No. Like I said, sir, they were talking, arguing about politics or something.’
‘And this was Nicholas Collier and John Fletcher, not Stephen?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Odd. How did Stephen seem?’
‘I’d say he was a fairly happy drunk. Happier than he ever seemed sober.’
‘What was he drinking?’
‘They were all drinking beer.’
‘How many pints would you say Stephen had?’
Richmond flushed and fiddled with his moustache. ‘I wasn’t really counting, sir. Perhaps I should have been, but . . .’
‘You weren’t to know he’d be dead in the morning. Don’t worry. It’s the bane of our lives. If we all had twenty-twenty hindsight our job’d be a lot easier. Just try and remember. Picture it as clearly as you can.’
Richmond closed his eyes. ‘At a guess, I’d say about five or six, sir.’
‘Five or six. Not a lot, really, is it? Not for a Yorkshire-man, anyway. And he was practically legless?’
‘Yes, sir. Maybe he was drinking the vodka as well.’
‘What vodka?’
‘I’m not clear on it, but I remember Freddie Metcalfe, the landlord, muttering something about having to change the bottle after one of them had been up and bought a round. It was busy and he said he needed eight hands to do his job.’
The Hanging Valley Page 22