A Dedicated Man

by Peter Robinson

Banks glanced at his watch and walked out slowly; his footsteps echoed in the silence. Yes, it was impressive, and he could begin to see what Steadman found so fascinating about northern history.

  But he also remembered Hackett’s outburst about false romanticized views of the past. The wealthy city officials and merchants had gone to great trouble to make sure that Queen Victoria’s route avoided the more squalid areas of the city: row upon row of overcrowded back-to-backs with leaky roofs and damp walls where the nameless masses lived. It was from their labours and in their name, the name of civic pride, that such glories as the Town Hall were built, yet they were condemned to live in squalor and then accused of becoming animals. There had even been one man, a chemist according to Gristhorpe, who had perfumed the air outside his shop as the royal progress passed. It all depended on what side you were on, Banks thought, as to what your perspective was.

  He consulted his pocket map and walked up between the Town Hall and the library, carried on along Caverley Street past the Civic Hall, a white building with twin pointed towers and colourful gardens, then past the General Infirmary and Leeds Polytechnic and into the outer reaches of the university campus. Finally, he came to a quadrangle surrounded by modern office-style buildings. It was a long way from the dreaming spires of Oxford and Cambridge, but Leeds was supposed to be a red-brick university, even if there were no red bricks in sight.

  He found Darnley’s office in the History Department with the help of an angular bespectacled secretary. After a quick firm handshake, Darnley was ready for a pub lunch.

  ‘Talbot’s going to meet us there,’ he explained. ‘He’s got a session with one of his doctoral students right now.’

  He led Banks across a dirt path behind the building and on to a narrow cobbled street. The pub was actually part of a hotel, and it stood back from the road at the end of a short driveway. As it was such a warm sunny day, they sat at one of the outside tables.

  Darnley was a tall man about forty, well built and fit. He had a trace of a northern accent and did not seem at all the absent-minded professor type that Banks had expected. His short brown hair was neatly combed and although his suit seemed half a size too big, it was of good quality. It had probably been a perfect fit when he bought it, Banks guessed, but like many men of his age, fearing heart attacks and other plagues of the sedentary life, he had begun to exercise.

  The two men sipped draught Guinness, squinting in the bright sun, and Banks laid his pipe, tobacco and lighter on the table.

  ‘Aha, a pipe-smoker, I see,’ Darnley noted. ‘Touch of the Maigret, eh? Thought of taking it up myself but it’s too much trouble. Wasted years trying to stop smoking, cutting down, switching to milder brands, and in the end I found the only way to bloody well stop was cold turkey.’

  ‘It can’t have been as easy as you make it sound,’ Banks said, stuffing his pipe with rubbed flake and tamping it gently.

  ‘No, no, it wasn’t.’ Darnley laughed. ‘I had a few relapses. But I’ve been playing a lot of squash and tennis lately and running a few miles each day. You’d be surprised how that kind of thing puts you off smoking. You’d never believe it, but a year or so ago I was overweight, drinking too much – ugh!’

  ‘Doctor’s orders?’

  ‘Told me point-blank. “Go on like you are doing, and I’ll give you another ten years at most.” It was a toss-up which would go first – heart, liver or lungs. Anyway, he said if I shaped up the sky’s the limit. Well, not in so many words, but I got the point.’ He watched Banks light his pipe. ‘Still,’ he said, ‘I suppose you need props in your business. False sense of security and all that.’

  Banks smiled and admitted it helped. He liked the look of curiosity and intelligence in Darnley’s eyes.

  ‘I hope you don’t think you need it with me? I mean, I’m not a suspect, am I?’ He was smiling, but the tension showed in the tight set of his lips.

  ‘Not yet,’ Banks replied, returning his gaze.

  ‘Touché. You mean if I start to put myself forward as one, all offers are welcome?’

  ‘I shouldn’t worry about it,’ Banks assured him. He was still trying to work out the best approach to this edgy intelligent man whose quick playful exterior no doubt masked a mind like a steel trap and covered up a complex, perhaps even devious, personality.

  He decided to play along a little longer, certain that the arrival of Talbot would alter the light-hearted mood. ‘You might as well tell me where you were last Saturday night, though,’ he asked.

  Darnley looked at him, bright eyes twinkling but hard. ‘Do you know, Chief Inspector, I have no alibi at all for last weekend. I had a lot of work to do so I stayed in all Saturday evening marking examination papers and reading a new account of the Peterloo massacre. Of course, my wife was at home too, but I don’t suppose she counts, does she?’

  Banks laughed. ‘I wouldn’t know till I asked her, would I?’

  ‘You’re a canny man, as the Scots say. No, I don’t suppose you would.’

  ‘Why weren’t you at the funeral yesterday?’

  ‘Wasn’t invited, was I? Neither of us. Actually, I didn’t even know about it. I only knew about Harry because I read it in the Yorkshire Evening Post.’

  ‘You’d lost touch?’

  ‘Sort of, yes.’

  After a little more banter and a good draught of stout, Darnley seemed to relax more. Trying to establish the conversation as one between professionals, Banks asked the professor about his job: ‘I suppose you need props, too? It can’t be easy standing up there alone in front of a hundred or so students and just talking for an hour.’

  ‘Put like that, it does sound rather awful,’ Darnley conceded. ‘You get used to it, of course, but you’re right, there’s always a bit of stage fright till you get going. I’ve always got my notes to fall back on, though. No teacher worth his salt dries up in front of a class. You can always waffle and students would never know the difference. Sometimes I think I could tell them that Adolf Hitler was one of the heroes of twentieth-century politics and they’d just write it down without question. But props . . . yes . . . One tends to find a position one is comfortable in. Funny thing, that. Some people pace back and forth, some hunch over the lectern, and others sit on the edge of a desk and fold their arms. One chap I knew always used to play with his keys while he was lecturing. Trouble was, they were in his trouser pocket and the students all thought he was playing with himself.’

  They both laughed. ‘What about Harry Steadman?’ Banks asked casually.

  Darnley squinted. ‘Harry was good,’ he answered. ‘It’s true we’ve been out of touch and I’ve not seen much of him since he left, but we were quite close at one time, and I was sorry to hear about his death. I’d say we were colleagues rather than friends, if there’s a difference. He was exceptionally bright – but I suppose you know that already. Ambitious, yes, but only in his field. He genuinely believed in what he was doing: teaching, research, breaking new ground. He thought it all had some real value for society. And, believe me, that’s rare these days. There’s so much cynicism around in education, especially as the government doesn’t seem to set much store by us any more.’

  Banks nodded. ‘It’s the same with crime. You’re fighting a losing battle, or so it seems most of the time, and that’s no good for anyone’s professional pride.’

  ‘But at least the government believes in your value: pay rises, recruitment, modern equipment.’

  ‘True,’ Banks agreed. ‘But it’s all long overdue.’ He didn’t want to get sidetracked into an argument, especially as he had many objections to the way the government seemed to look upon the police as a private army of paid bully boys to pit against people with genuine grievances and a constitutional right to air them. A copper with humanist socialist leanings would be a bit hard for Darnley to take, he thought. Besides, he was a detective – CID, a paid thinker – and he didn’t have to go on crowd control, bashing the bonces of the proletariat.

  ‘I’m envious,�
� Darnley said. ‘That’s all. I just wish we could get a larger slice of the cake, too. Academics are very big on pride as well, believe me. Harry was a good lecturer and he always managed to stimulate enthusiasm among his students. That’s hard to do these days when you’re in competition with television, video games and God knows what. Stop me if I’m beginning to sound too much like a good reference for him, but it’s true. Most of all, he loved research, real field work, and that’s why he left. When he found himself with enough money to do as he pleased, that’s exactly what he did. Some chaps might have packed it all in and buggered off to the south of France for a life of idleness, sin and luxury, but not Harry. He was a dedicated man.’

  At this point they were joined by a smaller, pudgy man, bald except for a few wisps of grey hair above his ears. He had a deeply ingrained frown in his broad brow and a tiny pursed mouth that gave him, overall, a surly and miserly look. His cultured voice was surprisingly soft, and Banks wondered how he managed with a large room full of students. He proved rather taciturn, and after they had ordered roast beef sandwiches and another round of stout, he simply sat and listened as Banks and Darnley went on talking.

  ‘I think I’ve got a fairly clear picture of Mr Steadman’s professional life now,’ Banks said. ‘It’s something everyone seems to agree on – bright, dedicated, obsessed even.’

  At this Talbot tut-tutted, and when he spoke his voice was redolent of Cambridge quadrangles, effete dons and afternoon glasses of amontillado. ‘Surely, er, Chief Inspector, an obsession is something we might define as intrinsically unhealthy, wouldn’t you say? I don’t mean to nit-pick over semantics, of course, but one must admit that the term has definite connotations of mental imbalance. Harold Steadman was most certainly not unbalanced; therefore, he was not obsessed.’ And all the time he talked he frowned, as if the usage really upset him.

  Banks apologized. ‘I didn’t mean to imply anything as drastic as that. No, I realize that there’s a difference between dedication and obsession. What I’d like to know is whether he found time for other pursuits. Social life, for example. Did he mix, go to parties, drink?’

  Talbot returned in moody silence to his drink, perhaps to contemplate the exact OED definition of ‘obsessed’, as if such eccentricities as ‘social life’ were best left to the lower classes.

  ‘Do you know, Godfrey,’ Darnley said cheerfully, oblivious to his colleague’s disdain, ‘the chief inspector might not be far wrong.’ He turned to Banks and winked. ‘Yes, Harry liked a few drinks now and then, and he went to the occasional faculty party. But he was never really at ease socially – especially when he was out of his element, so to speak, when there was nobody to talk to about his field. He didn’t care much for sports, never watched television, and he certainly wasn’t a woman chaser.’

  ‘Do you mean he was uncomfortable in the presence of non-academics?’

  ‘Oh no, not that at all. I didn’t mean to give you that impression. Harry certainly wasn’t an academic snob. As a matter of fact he invited me up to Gratly once, shortly after he’d moved, and we spent a very pleasant evening in a dingy local with a thriller writer and some other chaps. No, Harry would talk to anybody. That was one of his beefs against academic life, the rampant intellectual snobbery. What I mean is that his heart was in his work and his work was basically to do with people, so he enjoyed their company. There’s a strong human element in his field, you know. It’s not all abstract. He was interested in ordinary people, their background and ways of life. I suppose you know that his main fields were industrial archaeology and the Roman occupation? But he also loved folk music, local lore, things like that. He was fascinated by the history of trade unions, the early working class radicals. So you could say that Harry was quite at home with the common man, he’d just no time for petty chit-chat like you so often get at parties. He always tended to edge conversations in the direction of his interests.’

  Talbot nodded in grudging agreement and lit a cigarette. ‘Let me put it this way, Chief Inspector Banks,’ he said in a tone of professor to lowly student. ‘If you were to – if you were able to – sit down now and talk to Harold Steadman, he would probably begin by asking you about your job, how you feel about it, just to get things going. He would discover where you come from and find out about your family background. Then, depending on how interesting he found all that, he would either question you further – say, if your father had been a union man or a farm labourer in the dales – or he would proceed to tell you about the history of your area, how it fits in with the rest of the country, what the Romans did there, and so on. People usually enjoyed his company. He could sense when he was becoming a bore and would usually stop and listen politely for a while. Of course,’ Talbot added, with a deft flick of ash, ‘if he found you boring, then you wouldn’t get much out of him. Am I right, Darnley?’

  Darnley nodded.

  ‘What about Mrs Steadman?’ Banks asked. ‘Did you see much of her when she was in Leeds?’ He addressed the question to Talbot, who seemed to have become quite garrulous, but it was Darnley who answered.

  ‘At first we did, yes. Quite a pretty little thing, really. Naturally, they were in a new environment and wanted to meet people and settle in. But like many faculty wives, she soon withdrew. It’s common enough, believe me. My wife, for example, wouldn’t be seen dead at an academic gathering these days. It bores them, you see. And they let themselves go over the years. You know, not bothering much about their appearance any more.’

  Banks couldn’t be sure whether Darnley was talking about his own wife or about Emma Steadman.

  The conversation moved on to generalities again, with Darnley doing most of the entertaining, and Banks soon realized he wasn’t going to learn anything more of value.

  When he left, he carried away with him the image of a young couple – perhaps not unlike Sandra and himself in the old days – newly married, the husband beginning what was likely to be a distinguished academic career. There were long summer holidays in Gratly at the Ramsden house; there was the young ambitious Michael courting Penny, the flower of the dale; it was pure peace and innocence with nothing but a bright future ahead for them all.

  For Steadman, things seemed to get better and better; for Emma, there was withdrawal from the dull academic life into domestic boredom; for Penny, a wild exciting fling in the fast lane which left her isolated and cynical, cut off from her roots; and for Ramsden, a steady advance up the publishing ladder and a return to his beloved north. It all sounded so idyllic, but one of them was dead. What had gone wrong and why?

  An hour later he was no closer to the solution, but his spirits felt lighter, despite the clouds, as he drove into the dales countryside and sang along with Britten’s versions of old English folk songs.

  SIX

  They were sipping Coke and talking about boys under the scornful lascivious eyes of the old Greek. Hazel Kirk had had her first date with Terry Preston, son of the local grocer, the previous night, and she was titillating her friends with an account of her attempt to keep his wandering hands from her most private parts. Once in a while she would blush while describing the indefinable feelings she had had when she failed in her task.

  But Sally Lumb, usually so interested – not to mention condescending – during such discussions, seemed preoccupied. The others noticed, but Hazel, for one, was not going to be done out of her moment of glory simply because madam was sulking.

  Anne Downes, perhaps more sensitive to mood and certainly less interested in boys and their inexplicable desires, waited patiently until Kathy Chalmers had stopped giggling and tried to change the subject.

  ‘They haven’t caught him yet, you know,’ she announced, adjusting her glasses on the bridge of her nose.

  ‘Who?’ Hazel asked abruptly, annoyed at being dragged away from other, more important thoughts.

  ‘The killer, of course. Who else? The man who killed Mr Steadman.’

  ‘How do you know it was a man?’ Hazel asked. It was a
question she’d heard on countless television programmes.

  ‘Stands to reason, doesn’t it,’ Anne snorted. ‘It’d have to be a pretty strong woman to slug him and carry him all the way up that field below Crow Scar.’

  ‘Mrs Butterworth could have done it,’ Kathy chipped in. They all giggled. Mrs Butterworth was the butcher’s wife, an enormous red-faced woman who towered above her meek hunched husband.

  ‘Don’t be silly,’ Anne said, allowing herself a smile. ‘Why should she do it? Besides, the effort would probably give her a heart attack.’

  ‘Jimmy Collins told me the police have been talking to Penny Cartwright and the major,’ Kathy said. ‘He said the old man didn’t give them much time.’

  ‘How would Jimmy Collins know?’ Anne asked.

  ‘He was in the shop downstairs. “Where there’s a will, there’s a way,” my mother always says. I think Penny did it. I think her and Mr Steadman were having a torrid love affair and when she wanted him to leave his wife and marry her he wouldn’t do it so she killed him.’

  ‘Don’t be so stupid,’ Anne said. ‘If it was really like that she’d have killed Mrs Steadman, not him.’

  That silenced Kathy, but Hazel picked up the thread. ‘Well if that wasn’t why,’ she said, ‘there could have been plenty of other reasons. Everybody knows she went away for ages and took drugs and was pro . . . prom . . .’

  ‘Promiscuous?’ suggested Anne.

  ‘Yes, promiscuous, clever clogs – that’s what I said. Maybe she had his baby or he knew something about her past. They’ve known each other a long time, you know.’

  The others were silent, taking it all in. ‘You might be right about the last bit,’ Anne allowed, ‘but she wouldn’t kill him just because she had his baby, would she? I think it was Jack Barker.’

  ‘Why would he do it?’ Kathy asked.

  ‘Maybe he was just doing research for his next book,’ Hazel joked.

  ‘And maybe he’s in love with Penny Cartwright and wanted to get Mr Steadman out of the way so he could have her all to himself,’ Anne said. ‘And there’s another thing: I heard the police gave Teddy Hackett a nasty time the other day.’