He was blaming himself, and Banks helped him fight back the guilt. He wanted to ask him about the night he and Sally had heard the car; he wanted to know if she had said anything more about it, or if either of them had noticed something they hadn’t mentioned. But if he did that, he realized, he would be putting ideas into Kevin’s mind, making him think that Sally’s disappearance was somehow related to Steadman’s murder. He would have to do that eventually, but it could wait. If there was anything, Kevin would probably blurt it out himself in his attempt to help find Sally.
It was almost noon. If the girls were going to meet up as usual in the coffee bar, they’d probably be there by now, Weaver told him. Banks dashed out to the car. In good weather, he would have walked the short distance, but after only a moment’s exposure to the heavy rain, droplets were running down his neck from his sodden collar.
The three girls sat in silence, toying with straws angled in their Coke cans. Banks told them who he was and pulled up a chair to the stained and cracked Formica table. The video games and pinball machine were silent.
‘Do you think Sally’s the kind of girl to run away without telling anyone?’ he asked first.
They all shook their heads slowly. The plain-looking girl with thick glasses, who had introduced herself as Anne Downes, answered, ‘She’s full of ideas, is Sally. But that’s all they are. She’s nowhere to run to. She doesn’t know anyone outside Swainsdale.’
‘Was she doing well at school?’
‘Well enough,’ replied Kathy Chalmers, the one with the henna hair. ‘She’s clever. Not a swot, like. She could always get away without studying much and get good marks. She’s bound to pass all her exams.’
‘A sensible girl, you’d say?’
‘As sensible as any of us teenagers,’ Anne Downes answered, and the irony wasn’t lost on Banks. ‘It depends on your point of view.’
Kathy gave a short giggle and blushed. ‘I’m sorry,’ she apologized, putting her hand over her mouth. ‘But her parents might not have thought she was sensible. You know parents.’
Being one himself, Banks did. ‘But she’s not the kind of girl to . . .’ He paused, searching for words to avoid the phrase ‘get into trouble’, with all its connotations. ‘She doesn’t cause trouble, make a nuisance of herself?’
Kathy shook her head. ‘No. Not at all. She’s well behaved enough. Gets on well with most of the teachers. She’s just full of ideas, like Anne said. A big dreamer. She wouldn’t do anything to hurt anybody.’
Banks wondered if the girls connected Sally’s disappearance with the Steadman business; her visit to the Eastvale station was exactly the kind of thing she’d tell them about, and he wanted to know if she had made any remarks. Again, the problem was to avoid alerting and alarming them.
‘I suppose you know she came to see me a few days ago?’ he began casually. ‘And I agree, she struck me as being exactly like you all say – bright, full of plans, well behaved. I didn’t really get to hear much about any of her ideas, though.’
Kathy Chalmers blushed again. The other girl, Hazel Kirk, who had so far sat silently throughout the conversation, began to seem ill at ease. Again it was Anne Downes who answered with a forthrightness completely in harmony with her precocious intelligence.
‘Take this murder business,’ she began. ‘I suppose that’s what she went to see you about?’
Banks nodded.
‘Well, she found it all rather glamorous, exciting, as if it was something she was watching on telly. I don’t mean to say she wasn’t sorry about poor Mr Steadman, we all were, it’s just that she didn’t see it from that point of view. To Sally it was an adventure. Do you know what I mean? It was all a bit of a game with her as the heroine.’
This was exactly what Banks wanted. He nodded in appreciation of Anne’s observation. ‘Did she talk about it much?’ he asked.
‘Only in a mysterious kind of way,’ Anne answered.
‘As if she knew something nobody else did?’
‘Yes. Exactly like that. I think it made her feel important, that she’d noticed something and been to see you. She thought you were rather dishy at first.’ Anne said this with a perfectly straight face, as if she didn’t quite know what the word meant. ‘Then she seemed disappointed with your response. I don’t know what it was, she didn’t say, but she got even more mysterious as the week went on.’
‘Did she say anything specific?’
‘Oh, she tried to convince us that she was hot on the trail,’ Anne said, adjusting her glasses. ‘That she had an idea who dunnit. But that’s all. Just hints. She didn’t do anything about it, as far as I know.’
Banks was dreading the moment, which surely couldn’t be far off, when Anne would realize the significance of his line of questioning. But luckily it didn’t come. He thanked the girls for their time and, as he left, noted again how distracted Hazel Kirk seemed to be. Instead of questioning her there and then, he decided to leave it for a while and see what developed.
9
ONE
It was time to concentrate on the Steadman case again. However disturbing her disappearance was, Banks thought, Sally Lumb might turn up in Birmingham or Bristol any moment. But Steadman was dead and his killer was still free.
He told Weaver where he was going and drove up the hill to Gratly, turning right after the small low bridge in the centre of the hamlet and pulling up outside Jack Barker’s converted farmhouse by the side of the broad beck. The water was already running faster and louder over the series of terraced falls. In a day or two, when the rain percolated down from the moorlands and higher slopes, the stream would turn into a deafening torrent.
Banks realized as he rang the doorbell that he had not visited Barker at home before, and he wondered what the house would reveal of the man.
‘Oh, it’s you, Chief Inspector,’ a puzzled-looking Barker said, after keeping Banks waiting at the door for an unusually long time. ‘Come in. Excuse my surprise but I don’t get very many visitors.’
Banks took off his wet mac and shoes in the hall and followed Barker inside. Although it wasn’t cold, the rain had certainly put a damp chill in the stone, and Banks decided to keep his jacket on.
‘Do you mind if we talk in the study?’ Barker asked. ‘It’s warmer up there. I’ve just been working, and that’s where the coffee pot is. You look as if you could do with some.’
‘Good idea,’ Banks replied, following his host through a sparsely furnished living room and up a very narrow flight of stone stairs into a cosy room that looked out on the fell sides at the back of the house. Two walls were lined with books, and by a third, where the door was, stood a filing cabinet and a small desk stacked with papers. Barker’s work table, on which an electric typewriter hummed, stood directly by the window. Through the streaming rain, the sharply rising slope outside had the look of an Impressionist painting. At the centre of the room was a low coffee table. The red light of the automatic drip-filter machine was on, and the Pyrex pot was half full of rich dark coffee. By the table, there were two small but comfortable armchairs. The two men sat down with their coffee; both took black, no sugar.
‘I’m sorry to disturb you at work,’ Banks said, sipping the refreshing liquid.
‘Think nothing of it. It’s an occupational hazard.’
Banks raised an eyebrow.
‘What I mean is,’ Barker explained, ‘that if you work at home, you’re at home, aren’t you? Fair game for any salesman and bill collector. Somehow, the old Protestant work ethic won’t allow most people to accept that writing books in the comfort of one’s own home is really work, if you see what I mean. I can’t think why, mind you. It was common enough for weavers and loom operators to work at home before the Industrial Revolution. These days, work has to be something we hate, something we do in a noisy dirty factory or an antiseptic fluorescent office. No offence.’ But Banks could tell by the sparkle in his eyes that Barker was baiting him gently. ‘None taken,’ he replied. ‘As a matter of
fact, I’d be happier to spend a bit more time in my office and less of it tramping about the dales in this weather.’
Barker smiled and reached for a cigarette from the packet on the table. ‘Anyway,’ he said, ‘I don’t seem to get many visitors, except salesmen. I take the phone off the hook, too. Work was going well. I’d just got to a good part, and it’s always been my practice to stop for a while when things get good. That way I feel excited about going back to work later.’
‘That’s an interesting work habit,’ Banks remarked, trying to ignore the craving he felt when Barker lit his cigarette and inhaled deeply.
‘Sorry,’ Barker said, offering him a cigarette as if he had read his mind.
Banks shook his head. ‘Trying to stop.’
‘Of course. You’re a pipe man, aren’t you? Please feel free. Pipe smoke doesn’t bother me at all.’
‘It broke.’
After the two of them had laughed at the absurdity of the broken pipe, Banks gave in. ‘Perhaps I will have a cigarette,’ he said. As he reached for one, he noticed Barker tense up to face the inevitable questions. The cigarette tasted good. Every bit as good as he remembered. He didn’t cough or feel dizzy. In fact, he felt no indication that he had ever given up cigarettes in the first place; it was like a reunion with a long lost friend.
‘So, what can I do for you this time?’ Barker asked, putting unnecessary emphasis on the last two words.
‘I suppose you’ve heard about the girl from the village, Sally Lumb?’ he asked.
‘No. What about her?’
‘You mean you don’t know? I’d have thought in a community this size the news would spread fast. People certainly knew about Harold Steadman soon enough.’
‘I haven’t been out since I walked Penny home after the folk club last night.’
‘The girl’s missing,’ Banks told him. ‘She didn’t go home last night.’
‘Good Lord!’ Barker said, looking towards the window. ‘If she’s wandered off and got lost in this weather . . . What do you think?’
‘It’s too early to know yet. She could have got lost, yes. But she grew up around here and she seemed like a sensible girl.’
‘Run away?’
‘Another possibility. We’re checking on it.’
‘But you don’t think so?’
‘We just don’t know.’
‘Have you got search parties out?’
‘We can’t in this weather.’
‘But still . . . Something’s got to be done.’
‘We’re doing all we can,’ Banks assured him. ‘Did you know her?’
Barker narrowed his eyes. ‘I wouldn’t say I really knew her, no. I’ve seen her around, of course, to say hello to. And she once came to me about a school project. Pretty girl.’
‘Very,’ Banks agreed.
‘I don’t suppose that’s what you came to talk to me about though, is it?’
‘No.’ Banks stubbed out his cigarette. ‘I wanted to ask you about Penny Cartwright.’
‘What about her?’
‘Are you in love with her?’
Barker laughed, but Banks could see the strain in his eyes. ‘What a question. I don’t know whether to tell you it’s none of your business or applaud your insight.’
‘You are, then?’
‘I’ll admit I’m rather smitten with Penny, yes. What red-blooded young bachelor wouldn’t be? But I don’t see what my feelings for her have to do with anything else.’
‘Was she having an affair with Harold Steadman, do you think?’
Barker gazed at Banks for a few moments. ‘Not that I know,’ he answered slowly. ‘But how would I know?’
‘You knew the two of them quite well.’
‘True. But a man’s private life . . . and a woman’s? If they wanted to conceal something like that from the world, it wouldn’t have been very difficult, would it? Even here, it could be done. Look, if you want my answer to your question, you’ll have to understand that it’s just an opinion, like yours. Certainly neither of them confided in me, or anything like that. And I’d say no, they weren’t having an affair. As you guessed, I am very fond of Penny and, given that, I’d naturally be interested in her relationships. As far as I can make out though, their friendship was based on mutual respect and admiration, not sexual desire.’
This was almost exactly what Banks had heard from Penny herself and from Emma Steadman. Indeed, the only person who seemed to think differently about Penny and Harold Steadman was the major, and he was very much a victim of his own obsessions. But what if he was right?
‘You seemed rather sharp last night when I mentioned Michael Ramsden,’ Banks said, changing tack. ‘Do you have any particular reason to dislike him?’
‘I don’t dislike him. I hardly even knew him. He’s been in the Bridge a few times with Harry, and he always seemed pleasant enough. I will admit that I found something a little sly about him, a bit off-putting, but that’s a minor personal reaction; it’s neither here nor there.’
‘I suppose you knew about his relationship with Penny?’
‘Yes, and I’m quite willing to confess to a touch of instinctive lover’s jealousy. Come to that, I may have been envious of her relationship with Harry, too; it seemed so close and easy. But I’ve no claim on Penny’s emotions, sad to say. And as far as Ramsden was concerned, that was years ago. They can’t have been more than kids.’
‘Where were you then?’
‘What? On the night of the twelfth of February, nineteen sixty-three, between the hours of—’
‘You know what I mean.’
‘Ten years ago?’
‘Yes.’
‘I lived in London then, in a poky little bedsit in Notting Hill writing real novels that nobody wanted to buy. Penny wasn’t around when I first came to Gratly – we didn’t meet till she came back – but I did see her play once down south.’
‘Why do you think Ramsden and Penny split up?’
‘How should I know? It’s not a question I’ve concerned myself with. Why does any young couple split up? I suppose they felt themselves moving in different directions. Christ, they were only kids.’
‘That was when Michael lived at home with his parents, wasn’t it? In the same house Steadman and his wife used to visit on holidays?’
‘Yes,’ Barker answered. ‘Ten years ago. It was just before Ramsden went off to university. Penny was just discovering her talent then. Harry told me he used to teach her folk songs he’d collected.’
‘And the kids just drifted apart?’
‘Well, Michael went to university, and Penny went all over the place with the group. That kind of folk music was still popular then. It still is, actually. I mean, there’s always a sizeable audience for it.’
‘How was Penny discovered?’
‘The usual way, as far as I know. An agent for a record company was scouting the provinces for new folk talent. He offered her a chance to make a demo and off she went. The rest is history, as they say.’
‘Has she talked to you about the past much, the time she spent away?’
‘Not a great deal, no.’ Barker seemed interested in the conversation now, despite himself. He poured more coffee and Banks cadged another cigarette. ‘I’m sure you know, Chief Inspector,’ he went on, ‘that we all have phases of our lives we’re not particularly proud of. Often circumstances give us the opportunity to behave in a careless irresponsible way, and most of us take it. It pains me to admit that I was once a very young Teddy boy and I even ripped a few seats in the local fleapit.’ He grinned. ‘You won’t arrest me, will you?’
‘I think the statute of limitation has run out on seat-ripping,’ Banks answered, smiling. ‘It would be rather difficult to prove, too.’
‘You make me feel old.’ Banks sighed. ‘But do you see what I mean? Penny was not only young and inexperienced, she was also, for the first time in her life, fairly well off, popular, in with the “in crowd”. I don’t doubt that she tried drugs and th
at sex was a fairly casual matter. “Make love, not war,” as they used to say. But the important thing is that she grew up, left all that behind and pulled her life together. Plenty of people don’t survive the modern music world, you know; Penny did. What I’d like to know is why on earth you seem so obsessed with the events of ten years ago.’
‘I don’t know,’ Banks answered, scratching the scar at the side of his eye. ‘Everybody speaks so highly of Steadman. He didn’t seem to have an enemy in the world. Yet somebody murdered him. Don’t you find that strange? He wasn’t robbed, and his body was taken up to the hillside below Crow Scar. We don’t know where he was killed. I suppose what I’m saying, Mr Barker, is that if the answer isn’t in the present, which it doesn’t seem to be, then it must be in the past, however unlikely that may seem to you.’
‘And has this background information given you any clues?’
‘None at all. Not yet. But there’s one more thing that’s been on my mind. Could Harold Steadman have been a homosexual?’
Barker almost choked on his coffee. ‘That takes the biscuit,’ he spluttered, wiping at the spilled liquid on his lap. ‘Where on earth did you get a wild idea like that?’
Banks saw no reason to tell him that he had got the idea from Sergeant Hatchley, who had said in the Queen’s Arms, in his usual manner, ‘About this Steadman business, those weekend trips to Ramsden’s place; do you think he was queer?’
Banks had admitted that it was an angle he had not considered; he had taken Steadman’s dedication to work at face value and presumed that the overnight visits took place for the reasons Ramsden and Mrs Steadman had given him.
‘Even assuming you’re right,’ Banks had said, ‘it doesn’t really help us much, does it? His wife can’t have killed him out of disgust – she has an alibi. And Ramsden would hardly have killed his lover, even if he could have.’
‘There’s blackmail, though,’ Hatchley had suggested. ‘Steadman was a rich man.’
‘Yes. It’s a possibility. Who do you think was blackmailing him?’
‘Could have been anyone he knew: Barker, the girl, Barnes, one of his old mates from Leeds.’
A Dedicated Man Page 19