A Necessary End

by Peter Robinson

  “So he saw nothing?”

  “No. He said he heard somebody shout—he didn’t catch the words—and after that it was chaos.”

  That seemed to square with what Tony Grant and Tim and Abha had said about the riot’s origin. Banks took a sip of Sauternes and watched it make legs down the inside of his glass.

  “Did he ever mention PC Gill to you?”

  Jenny shrugged. “He may have done. I didn’t have much to do with the demo, as I said.”

  “Did you ever hear the name?”

  “I don’t know.” Jenny was getting prickly. “I can’t say I pay much attention to Dennis’s political concerns. And if you’re going to take a cheap shot at that, forget it. Unless you want a lap full of hot coffee.”

  Banks decided it was best to veer away from the subject of Osmond. “You know the people at Maggie’s Farm, don’t you?” he asked.

  “Yes. Dennis got friendly with Seth and Mara. We’ve been up a few times. I like them, especially Mara.”

  “What’s the set-up there?”

  Jenny swirled the cognac and took another sip. “Seth bought the place about three years ago,” she said. “Apparently, it was in a bit of a state, which was why he got it quite cheaply. He fixed it up, renovated the old barn and rented it out. After Mara, Rick came next, I think, with Julian. He was having some problems with his wife.”

  “Yes, I’ve heard about his wife,” Banks said. “Do you know anything else about her?”

  “No. Except according to Rick her name must be Bitch.”

  “What about Zoe?”

  “I’m not sure how she met up with them. She came later. As far as I know she’s from the east coast. She seems like a bit of a space cadet, but I suspect she’s quite shrewd, really. You’d be surprised how many people are into that New Age stuff these days. Looking for something, I suppose . . . reassurance . . . I don’t know. Anyway, she makes a good living from it. She does the weekly horoscope in the Gazette, too, and takes a little booth on the coast on summer weekends for doing tarot readings and what not. You know, Madame Zoe, Gypsy Fortune Teller . . .”

  “The east coast? Could it be Scarborough?”

  Jenny shook her head. “Whitby, I think.”

  “Still,” Banks muttered, “it’s not far away.”

  “What isn’t?”

  The waitress brought coffee, and Banks lit another cigarette, careful to keep the smoke away from Jenny.

  “Tell me about Mara.”

  “I like Mara a lot. She’s bright, and she’s had an interesting life. She was in some religious organization before she came to the farm, but she got disillusioned. She seems to want to settle down a bit now. For some reason, we get along quite well. Seth, as I say, I don’t know much about. He grew up in the sixties and he hasn’t sold out—I mean he hasn’t become a stockbroker or an accountant, at least. His main interest is his carpentry. There’s also something about a woman in his past.”

  “What woman?”

  “Oh, it was just something Mara said. Apparently Seth doesn’t like to talk about it. He had a lover who died. Maybe they were even married, I don’t know. That was just before he bought the farm.”

  “What was her name?”

  “Alison, I think.”

  “How did she die?”

  “Some kind of accident.”

  “What kind?”

  “That’s all I know, really. I’m not being evasive. Mara said it’s all she knows, too. Seth only told her because he got drunk once. Apparently he’s not much of a drinker.”

  “And that’s all you know?”

  “Yes. It was some kind of motor accident. She got knocked down or something.”

  “Where was he living then?”

  “Hebden Bridge, I think. Why does it matter?”

  “It probably doesn’t. I just like to know as much as I can about who I’m dealing with. They were involved in the demo, and every time I question someone, Maggie’s Farm comes up.”

  It would be easy enough to check the Hebden Bridge accident records, though where Gill might come into it, Banks had no idea. Perhaps he had been on traffic duty at the time? He would hardly have been involved in a religious organization either, unless he felt a close friend or relation had been brainwashed by such a group.

  “What about Paul Boyd?” he asked.

  Jenny paused. “He’s quite new up there. I can’t say I know him well. To tell you the truth—and to speak quite unprofessionally—he gives me the creeps. But Mara’s very attached to him, like he’s a younger brother, or a son, even. There’s about seventeen years between them. He’s another generation, really—punk, post-sixties. Mara thinks he just needs tender loving care, something he’s never had much of, apparently.”

  “What do you think of Paul professionally?”

  “It’s hard to answer that. As I said, I haven’t really talked to him that much. He seems angry, antisocial. Maybe life at the farm will give him some sense of belonging. If you think about it, what reason does he have to love the world? No adult has ever given him a break, nor has society. He feels worthless and rejected, so he makes himself look like a reject; he holds it to him and shouts it out, as people do. And that,” Jenny said with a mock bow, “is Dr Fuller’s humble opinion.”

  Banks nodded. “It makes sense.”

  “But it doesn’t make him a killer.”

  “No.” He couldn’t think of any more questions without returning to the dangerous territory of Dennis Osmond, and things had gone so well for the past half hour or so that he didn’t want to risk ending the evening on a sour note. Jenny was bound to be guarded if he really started pushing about Osmond again.

  Banks picked up the bill, which Jenny insisted on sharing, and they left. The drive home went smoothly, but Banks felt guilty because he was sure he was a bit over the limit, and if anyone ought to know better about drunken driving, it was a policeman. Not that he felt drunk. After all, he hadn’t had much to drink, really. He was perfectly in control. But that’s what they all said when the crystals changed colour. Jenny told him not to be silly, he was quite all right. When he dropped her off, there was no invitation to come in for a coffee, and he was glad of that.

  Luckily, he thought as he tried to fall asleep, Jenny hadn’t pushed him about his own theories. If she had, he would have told her—and trusted her to make sure it got no further—about his little chat with Tony Grant on Marine Drive, the implications of which put a different light on things.

  On the one hand, what Grant had told him made the possibility of a personal motive for killing Gill much more likely. He didn’t know who might have had such a motive yet, but according to what Tim and Abha had said, almost any of the demonstrators—especially the organizers or people close to them—would have known to expect Gill at the demo. And if Gill was there, wasn’t it a safe bet that violence would follow?

  On the other hand, Banks found himself thinking that if Gill had enemies within the force, perhaps a fellow policeman, not a demonstrator, might have taken the opportunity to get rid of him: someone whose wife or girl-friend Gill had fooled around with, for example; or a partner in crime, if he had been on the take. Tony Grant hadn’t thought so, but he was only a naïve rookie, after all.

  It wasn’t an idea Banks would expect Burgess to entertain for a moment; for one thing, it would blow all political considerations off the scene. But another policeman would have expected Gill to cause trouble, could have arranged to be on overtime with him and could have been sure of getting away. None of which could be said for any of the demonstrators. Nobody searched the police; nobody checked their uniforms for Gill’s blood.

  Maybe it was the kind of far-fetched theory one usually got on the edge of sleep and would seem utterly absurd in the morning light. But Banks couldn’t quite rule it out. He’d known men on the Metropolitan force more than capable of murdering fellow officers, and in many cases, the loss would hardly have diminished the quality of the human gene pool. The only way to find out abo
ut that angle, though, was to press Tony Grant even further into service. If there was anything in it, the fewer people who knew about Banks’s line of investigation, the better. It could be dangerous.

  And so, the Sauternes still warm in his veins and a stretch of cold empty bed beside him, Banks fell asleep thinking of the victim, convinced that someone not too far away had had a very good reason for wanting PC Edwin Gill dead.

  SEVEN

  I

  Banks turned up the track to Gristhorpe’s old farmhouse above Lyndgarth, wondering what the superintendent was doing at home on a Wednesday morning. The message, placed on his desk by Sergeant Rowe, had offered no explanation, just an invitation to visit.

  Pulling up in front of the squat, solid house, he stubbed out his cigarette and ejected the Lightning Hopkins cassette he’d been listening to. Breathing in the fresh, cold air, he looked down over Swainsdale and was struck by the way Relton and Maggie’s Farm, directly opposite on the south side of the dale, formed almost a mirror image of Lyndgarth and Gristhorpe’s house. Like the latter, Maggie’s Farm stood higher up the hillside than the village it was close to—so high it was on the verge of the moorland that spread for miles on the heights between dales.

  Looking down the slope from the farmhouse, Banks could see the grey-brown ruins of Devraulx Abbey, just west of Lyndgarth. On the valley bottom, Fortford marked the western boundary of the river-meadows. Swainsdale was at its broadest there, where the River Swain meandered through the flats until it veered south-east to Eastvale and finally joined the Ouse outside York.

  In summer, the lush green meadows were speckled with golden buttercups. Bluebells, forget-me-nots and wild garlic grew by the riverside under the shade of ash and willow. The Leas, as they were called locally, were a favourite spot for family picnics. Artists set up their easels there, too, and fishermen spent idle afternoons on the riverbank and waded in the shallows at dusk. Now, although the promise of spring showed in the grass and clung like a green haze around the branches of the trees, the meadows seemed a haunted and desolate spot. The snaking river sparkled between the trees; and a brisk wind chased clouds over from the west. Shadows flitted across the steep green slopes with a speed that was almost dizzying to watch.

  Gristhorpe answered the door and led Banks into the living room, where a peat fire burned in the hearth, then disappeared into the kitchen. Banks took off his sheepskin-lined car-coat and rubbed his hands by the flames. Outside the back window, a pile of stones stood by the unfinished dry-stone wall that the superintendent worked on in his spare time. It fenced in nothing and went nowhere, but Banks had enjoyed many hours placing stones there with Gristhorpe in companionable silence. Today, though, it was too cold for such outdoors activity.

  Carrying a tray of tea and scones, Gristhorpe returned and sat down in his favourite armchair to pour. After small talk about the wall and the possibility of yet more snow, the superintendent told Banks his news: the enquiry into the demo had been suspended.

  “I’m on ice, as our American cousins would put it,” he said. “The Assistant Chief Commissioner’s been talking to the PCA about getting an outsider to finish the report. Maybe someone from Avon and Somerset division.”

  “Because we’re too biased?”

  “Aye, partly. I expected it. They only set me on it in the first place to make it look like we were acting quickly.”

  “Did you find anything out?”

  “It looks like some of our lads over-reacted.”

  Banks told him what he’d heard from Jenny and Tim and Abha.

  Gristhorpe nodded. “The ACC doesn’t like it. If you ask me, I don’t think there’ll be an official inquiry. It’ll be postponed till it’s no longer an issue. What he’s hoping is that Superintendent Burgess will come up with the killer fast. That’ll satisfy everyone, and people will just forget about the rest.”

  “Where does that leave you?”

  “I’m taking a few days’ leave, on the ACC’s advice. Unless anything else comes up—something unconnected to Gill’s death—then that’s how I’ll stay. He’s right, of course. I’d only get in the way. Burgess is in charge of that investigation, and it wouldn’t do to have the two of us treading on each other’s toes. But don’t let the bugger near my office with those foul cigars of his! How are you getting on with him?”

  “All right, I suppose. He’s got plenty of go, and he’s certainly not stupid. Trouble is, he’s got a bee in his bonnet about terrorists and lefties in general.”

  “And you see things differently?”

  “Yes.” Banks told him about the meeting with Tony Grant and the possibilities it had opened up for him. “And,” he added, “you’d think Special Branch would have known if there’d been some kind of terrorist action planned, wouldn’t you?”

  Gristhorpe digested the information and mulled it over for a few moments, then turned his light-blue eyes on Banks and rubbed his chin. “I’ll not deny you might be right,” he said, “but for Christ’s sake keep your feet on the ground. Don’t go off half-cocked on this or you could bring down a lot of trouble on yourself—and on me. I appreciate you want to follow your own nose—you’d be a poor copper if you didn’t—and maybe you’d like to show Dirty Dick a thing or two. But be careful. Just because Gill turned out to be a bastard, it doesn’t follow that’s why he was killed. Burgess could be right.”

  “I know that. It’s just a theory. But thanks for the warning.”

  Gristhorpe smiled. “Think nothing of it. But keep it under your hat. If Burgess finds out you’ve been pursuing a private investigation, he’ll have your guts for garters. And it won’t be just him. The ACC’ll have your balls for billiards.”

  “I don’t know as I’ve got enough body parts to go around,” Banks said, grinning.

  “And this conversation hasn’t taken place. I know nothing about what you’re up to, agreed?”

  “Agreed.”

  “But keep me posted. God, how I hate bloody politics.”

  Banks knew that the superintendent came from a background of Yorkshire radicals—Chartists, the anti-Corn Laws crowd—and there was even a Luddite lurking in the family tree. But Gristhorpe himself was conservative with a small “c.” He was, however, concerned with the preservation of human rights that had been fought for and won over the centuries. That was how he saw his job—as a defender of the people, not an attacker. Banks agreed, and that was one reason they got along so well.

  Banks finished his tea and looked at his watch. “Talking of Dirty Dick, I’d better be off. He’s called a conference in the Queen’s Arms for one o’clock.”

  “Seems like he’s taken up residence there.”

  “You’re not far wrong.” Banks explained about Glenys and put on his car-coat. “Besides that,” he added, “he drinks like a bloody fish.”

  “So it’s not only Glenys and her charms?”

  “No.”

  “Ever seen him pissed?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Well, watch him. Drinking’s an occupational hazard with us, but it can get beyond a joke. The last thing you need is a piss-artist to rely on in a tight spot.”

  “I don’t think there’s anything to worry about,” Banks said, walking to the car. “He’s always been a boozer. And he’s usually sharp as a whippet. Anyway, what can I do if I think he is overdoing it? I can just see his face if I suggest a visit to AA.”

  Gristhorpe stood by the car. Banks rolled the window down, slipped Lightning Hopkins back in the slot, and lit a cigarette.

  The superintendent shook his head. “It’s about time you stopped that filthy habit, too,” he said. “And as for that racket you call music . . .”

  Banks smiled and turned the key in the ignition. “Do you know something?” he said. “I do believe you’re becoming an insufferable old fogey. I know you’re tone-deaf and wouldn’t know Mozart from the Beatles, but don’t forget, it wasn’t that long ago you gave up smoking yourself. Have you no bad habits left?”

&nbs
p; Gristhorpe laughed. “I gave them all up years ago. Are you suggesting I should take some up again?”

  “Wouldn’t be a bad idea.”

  “Where do you suggest I start?”

  Banks rolled up the window before he said, “Try sheep-shagging.”

  But judging by the raised eyebrows and the startled smile, Gristhorpe could obviously read lips. Grinning, Banks set off down the track, the still, deserted river-meadows spread out below him, and headed for the Eastvale road.

  II

  Jenny was already five minutes late. Mara nursed her half of mild and rolled a cigarette. It was Wednesday lunch-time, and the Black Sheep was almost empty. Apart from the landlord reading his Sun, and two old men playing dominoes, she was the only other customer in the cosy lounge.

  Now that the time was close, she was beginning to feel nervous and foolish. After all, she didn’t know Jenny that well, and her story did sound a bit thin. She couldn’t put the real problem into words. How could she say that she suspected Paul had killed the policeman and that she was even beginning to be afraid living in the same house, but despite it all she wouldn’t give him away and still wanted to keep him there? It sounded insane without the feelings that went with it. And to tell Jenny that she just wanted information for a story she was writing hardly ranked as the important reason for the meeting she had claimed on the telephone. Perhaps Jenny wasn’t going to come. Maybe Mara hadn’t responded to the answering machine properly and she hadn’t even got the message.

  All she could hear was the sound of asthmatic breathing from one of the old men, the occasional rustling of the newspaper, and the click of dominoes as they were laid on the hard surface. She swirled the beer in the bottom of her half-pint glass and peered at her watch again. Quarter past one.

  “Another drink, love?” Larry Grafton called out.

  Mara flashed a smile and shook her head. Why was it that she didn’t mind so much being called “love” by the locals, but when Burgess had said it, her every nerve had bristled with resentment? It must be something in the tone, she decided. The old Yorkshiremen who used the word were probably as chauvinistic as the rest—in fact, sex roles in Dales family life were as traditional as anywhere in England—but when the men called women “love,” it carried at least overtones of affection. With Burgess, though, the word was a weapon, a way of demeaning the woman, of dominating her.