A Dedicated Man

by Peter Robinson

  ‘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.’

  ‘Why did Steadman drink here, do you think?’

  ‘Steadman?’ Weaver seemed surprised to be so quickly jolted back to business. ‘Liked the beer, I suppose. And he was pally with a few of the regulars.’

  ‘But he had money, didn’t he? A lot of money. He certainly didn’t get that house on the cheap.’

  ‘Oh yes, he had money. Rumour has it he inherited over a quarter of a million from his father. His pals have money too, but they’re not nobs. Much more down-to-earth.’

  Banks was still puzzled why someone so well off would drink in such a dump, good beer or not. By rights, Steadman ought to have been chugging champagne by the magnum to wash down his caviar. Those were London terms, though, he reminded himself: ostentatious display of wealth. Maybe people with over a quarter of a million who lived in Helmthorpe by choice were different. He doubted it. But Steadman certainly sounded unusual.

  ‘Liked his drink, did he?’

  ‘Never known him drink too much, sir. I think he just enjoyed the company here.’

  ‘Glad to get away from the wife?’

  Weaver reddened. ‘I wouldn’t know about that, sir. Never heard anything. But he was a funny sort of chap.’

  ‘In what way?’

  ‘Well, sir, like I said, he used to be a professor at Leeds University. When he inherited the money, he just packed in his job, bought the old Ramsden house and moved up here.’

  ‘Ramsden house?’ Banks cut in. ‘That wouldn’t have anything to do with Michael Ramsden, would it?’

  Weaver raised an eyebrow. ‘As a matter of fact, sir, yes,’ he answered. ‘It was his parents’ house. Used to be a bed-and-breakfast place when Steadman and his wife started coming up here for their holidays ten years ago or more. Young Michael went to university and landed a good job with a publishing firm in London. Then, when old Mr Ramsden died, the mother couldn’t afford to keep on the house, so she went off to live with her sister in Torquay. It all happened at just the right time for Steadman.’

  Banks looked at Weaver in astonished admiration. ‘How old are you?’ he asked.

  ‘Twenty-one, sir.’

  ‘How do you manage to know so much about things that happened before your time?’

  ‘Family, sir. I was born and raised in the area. And Sergeant Mullins. He runs the show around here usually, but he’s on holiday right now. There’s not much escapes Sergeant Mullins.’

  Banks sat in silence for a moment and enjoyed his beer as he sifted th
e information.

  ‘What about Steadman’s drinking companions?’ he asked finally. ‘What kind of people are they?’

  ‘He brought them all together, sir,’ Weaver answered. ‘Oh, they all knew each other well enough before he moved up here, like, but Steadman was a friendly sort, interested in everything and everyone. When he wasn’t busying himself with his books or poking around ruins and abandoned mines he was quite a socializer. There’s Jack Barker, for one – you might have heard of him?’

  Banks shook his head.

  ‘Writer. Mystery stories.’ Weaver smiled. ‘Quite good really. Plenty of sex and violence.’ He blushed. ‘Nothing like the real thing, of course.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know,’ Banks said, smiling. ‘Go on.’

  ‘Well, sir, he’s been here three or four years. Don’t know where he started from. Then there’s Doc Barnes, born and raised hereabouts, and Teddy Hackett, local entrepreneur. He owns the garage over there, and a couple of gift shops. That’s all, really. They’re all fortyish. Well, Doc Barnes is a bit older and Barker’s in his late thirties. An odd group, when you think about it. I’ve been in here a few times when they were together and from what I could hear they’d take the mickey out of Steadman a bit, him being an academic and all that. But not nasty like. All in good fun.’

  ‘No animosity? You’re certain?’

  ‘No, sir. Not as far as I could tell. I don’t get in here as often as I’d like. Wife and kid, you see.’ He beamed.

  ‘Work, too.’

  ‘Aye, that keeps me busy as well. But I seem to spend more time giving directions to bloody tourists and telling the time than dealing with local affairs. Whoever said “If you want to know the way, ask a policeman” ought to be shot.’

  Banks laughed. ‘The locals are a fairly law-abiding lot, then?’

  ‘On the whole, yes. We get a few drunks now and then. Especially at the Hare and Hounds disco, as I said. But that’s mostly visitors. Then there’s the odd domestic dispute. But most of our troubles come from tourists leaving their cars all over the place and making too much noise. It’s a peaceful place, really, though there’s some as would say it’s boring.’

  At this point, Sergeant Hatchley walked in and joined them. He was a bulky, fair-haired and freckle-faced man in his early thirties, and he and Banks had developed a tolerable working relationship despite some early hostilities – partly due to north-south rivalry and partly to Hatchley’s having hoped for the job Banks got.

  Hatchley bought a round of drinks and they all ordered steak and kidney pies, which turned out to be very tasty. Not too much kidney, as Weaver remarked. Banks complimented the landlord and was rewarded with an ambiguous ‘Aye.’

  ‘Anything new?’ Banks asked the sergeant.

  Hatchley lit a cigarette, lounged back in his chair, rubbed a hand like a hairy ham across his stubbly cheek, and cleared his throat.

  ‘Nowt much, by the look of things. Old Tavistock went looking for a stray sheep and dug up a fresh corpse. That’s about the strength of it.’

  ‘Was it unusual for him to go poking around by that wall? Would other people be likely to go there?’

  ‘If you’re thinking that anyone could expect to dump a body there and leave it undiscovered for weeks, then you’re barking up the wrong tree. Even if old Tavistock hadn’t gone out looking for his bloody sheep, someone would’ve come along soon enough – hikers, courting couples.’

  Banks sipped some more beer. ‘So he wasn’t dumped there for concealment, then?’

  ‘Shouldn’t think so, no. Probably put there just so we’d have to leg it halfway up to Crow bloody Scar.’

  Banks laughed. ‘More likely so we wouldn’t know where he was killed.’

  ‘Aye.’

  ‘Why wasn’t Steadman reported missing, sir?’ Weaver cut in. He seemed anxious to restore to the chief inspector the respect that Hatchley appeared to be denying him.

  Banks told him. Then he told Hatchley to get back to the Eastvale station, find out as much as he could about Steadman’s background and collate any reports that came in.

  ‘What about the press?’ Hatchley asked. ‘They’re all over the place now.’

  ‘You can tell them we’ve found a body.’

  ‘Shall I tell them who it is?’

  Banks sighed and gave Hatchley a long-suffering look. ‘Don’t be so bloody silly. Not until we’ve got a formal identification you can’t, no.’

  ‘And what will you be doing, sir?’

  ‘My job.’ Banks turned to Weaver. ‘You’d better get back to the station, lad. Who’s in charge?’

  Weaver blushed again, his pinkness deepening to crimson. ‘I am, sir. At least, I am at the moment. Sergeant Mullins is away for two weeks. Remember I told you about him, sir?’

  ‘Yes, of course. How many men have you got?’

  ‘There’s only two of us, sir. It’s a quiet place. I called some of the lads in from Lyndgarth and Fortford to help with the search. There’s not more than half a dozen of us altogether.’

  ‘All right, then,’ Banks said, ‘it looks like you’re in charge. Get a request for information printed up and distributed – shops, pubs, church notice board. Then start a house-to-house enquiry up Hill Road. That body wasn’t carried all the way up there, and somebody might just have seen or heard a car. At least it’ll help us narrow down the time of death. All right?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘And don’t worry. If you need any more men, let Eastvale station know and they’ll see what they can do. I’m going to pay Michael Ramsden a visit myself, but if you ask for Sergeant Rowe, I’ll make sure he has full instructions.’

  He turned to Hatchley again. ‘Before you go back, go and tell the men up in the field that they’re temporarily transferred to Helmthorpe and they’re to take their orders from Constable Weaver here. They’ll probably understand the situation already, but make it official. And check the car park for a beige Sierra.’ He gave Hatchley the number of the car and handed him the keys. ‘It’s Steadman’s car,’ he added, ‘and while it doesn’t look as if he got to use it last night, you never know. It might tell us something. Get forensic on to it right away.’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ Hatchley said through clenched teeth as he left. Banks could almost hear the ‘three bags full, sir’ that the sergeant probably added when he got outside.

  He grinned broadly at the nonplussed young constable and said, ‘Don’t mind him; he’s probably just got a hangover. Now, off you go, Weaver. Time to get to work.’

  Alone, he slipped his new pipe from his jacket pocket and stuffed it with shag. Drawing in the harsh tobacco, he coughed and shook his head. He still couldn’t get used to the damn thing; maybe mild cigarettes would be better, after all.

  TWO

  Excited, Sally had watched Banks drive off towards the village and followed in the same direction. She stopped to pick a campion by the hedgerow and casually admired its pinkish-purple colour, the petals like a baby’s splayed fingers. Then, thinking about what she had to tell her friends, she let it drop and hurried on her way.

  She had actually seen the man, the policeman in charge, close up, and had had to stifle a giggle as he lost his footing climbing the low wall. It was obvious he wasn’t used to bounding about the northern countryside; perhaps he’d been sent up by Scotland Yard. She found his gaunt angled face under the short neat black hair attractive, despite a nose that had clearly been broken and imperfectly reset. The sharp restless eyes expressed energy and power, and the little white scar beside his right eye seemed, to Sally, a mark of exotic experience. She imagined he’d got into a fight to the death with a blood-crazed murderer. Even though he seemed too short for a policeman, his wiry body looked nimble and strong.

  At the western edge of the village, near the Bridge, was a coffee bar where Sally and her friends hung out. The coffee was weak, the Coke warm and the Greek owner surly, but the place boasted two video games, an up-to-date jukebox and an ancient pinball machine. Of
course, Sally would rather have expertly applied a little make-up and passed for eighteen in one of the pubs – especially the Hare and Hounds on disco night – but in such a small community everyone seemed to know a little about everyone else’s business, and she was worried in case word got back to her father. She had been in pubs in Eastvale with Kevin, though even that was risky with the school so close by, and in Leeds and York, which were safer, and nobody had ever questioned her about her age.

  The door rattled as she pushed it open and entered to the familiar bleeping of massacred aliens. Kathy Chalmers and Hazel Kirk were engrossed in the game, while Anne Downes looked on coolly. She was a bookish girl, plain and bespectacled, but she wanted to be liked; and if that meant hanging around with video-game players, then so be it. The others teased her a bit, but never maliciously, and she was blessed with a sharp, natural wit that helped her hold her own.

  The other two were more like Sally, if not as pretty. They chewed gum, applied make-up (unlike Sally, they did this badly) and generally fussed about their hair and clothes. Kathy had even got away with a henna treatment. Her parents had been furious, but there was nothing much they could do after the fact. It was Hazel, the sultry, black-haired one, who spoke first.

  ‘Look who’s here,’ she announced. ‘And where have you been all weekend?’ The glint in her eye implied that she knew very well where Sally had been and who she had been with. Under normal circumstances Sally would have played along, hinting at pleasures she believed Hazel had only read about in books, but this time she ignored the innuendo and got herself a Coke from the unsmiling Greek. The espresso machine was hissing like an old steam engine and the aliens were still bleeping in their death throes. Sally leaned against the column opposite Anne and waited impatiently for a silence into which she could drop her news.

  When the game was over, Kathy reached for another coin, a manoeuvre that necessitated arching her back and stretching out her long legs so that she could thrust her hand deep enough into the pocket of her skintight Calvin Kleins. As she did this, Sally noticed the Greek ogling from behind his coffee machine. Choosing her moment for best dramatic effect, she finally spoke: ‘Guess what. There’s been a murder. Here in the village. They dug up a body under Crow Scar. I’ve just come from there. I’ve seen it.’