Sleeping in the Ground

by Peter Robinson

  ‘The pretending?’

  ‘You know what I mean.’ Annie sniffed. ‘So that’s the impression we got, and I think Gerry would agree that Maureen Tindall was edgy, nervous, always worried about the time, and maybe that wasn’t all caused by the recent trauma. That’s all. Not that it matters so much. And we checked with Dr Graveney. The appointment was genuine, and she kept it.’

  ‘There was also that business about repeating “It can’t be” when we were talking about the killer maybe having a reason to hurt someone in the wedding party,’ said Gerry.

  ‘Disbelief sounds pretty reasonable to me, under the circumstances,’ said Gervaise.

  ‘But it wasn’t just that, ma’am.’ Gerry glanced at Annie, who gave her the go ahead. ‘It was the way she said it. It seemed to us that the mention of Wendy Vincent made her think of something, or make some sort of connection which she then refused to tell us about. She quickly became very eager for us to move on, to leave, even, and not come back. I don’t know. Maybe I’m being fanciful.’

  ‘You think there could be something in that?’ said Banks.

  ‘I don’t know. I haven’t been able to find any connection with Martin Edgeworth. He was a few years younger than Maureen Tindall, and he grew up in Lincolnshire, so I doubt there is any. And Laura wasn’t even born then. But the direction of the whole inquiry seems to be changing now.’

  ‘Indeed it does.’ Banks finished his coffee, though it was a little too bitter for his taste. ‘What do you think about Maureen Tindall?’ he asked Jenny Fuller.

  ‘I couldn’t possibly say without talking to her, but people do get hung up on punctuality and such, for example, which is a little bit different from simply being on time. It’s not especially abnormal. It may be a sign of general anxiety. As for the other thing, who knows? I imagine what Gerry here is trying to say is that she thinks there was something about Maureen Tindall’s past, or her daughter’s or husband’s past, that she didn’t want to touch upon, was maybe worried you would uncover, so she changed the subject.’

  ‘That’s what it felt like,’ said Gerry.

  ‘Well, we can’t always trust our feelings on these matters,’ said Jenny. ‘It bears further examination, though, I’d say.’

  ‘OK,’ said Banks. ‘Well done, the two of you. Gerry, do you think you can work your magic and get us some more background on that old murder, dig even deeper than you dug before?’

  ‘I’ll do my best, sir.’

  ‘Doug, you can also keep working on the old dental practice for now, ex-patients and so on. Who knows, something could have happened there. Perhaps Edgeworth made a mistake and ruined someone’s smile, or sexually assaulted a female patient under anaesthetic. It happens. I might wander back up to the club tomorrow and talk to Geoff McLaren the manager. According to Ollie Metcalfe at the White Rose, he was a drinking buddy of Edgeworth’s. I keep thinking that if Edgeworth didn’t do it but his guns did, then the club’s a good place to start looking.’

  ‘Another thing,’ said AC Gervaise. ‘You mentioned the extra clothes and the use of a hammer, Alan.’

  ‘Yes. I was just about to get to that.’

  ‘Well, let me pip you to the post. Show you I’ve still got what it takes.’ Gervaise smiled. ‘What brand were they? The clothes.’

  ‘They’re from Walkers’ Wearhouse. Their own brand.’

  ‘Then we need to check with all branches of Walkers’ Wearhouse. I know it’s a very large and popular chain, but we should be able to manage it. And someone needs to go down to the evidence locker first thing tomorrow and find out if Edgeworth had a ballpeen hammer in his tool chest, and if so, could it have been used to cause the blow on his head. DI Cabbot, can you supervise that? There may still be minute traces of blood.’

  ‘Certainly,’ said Annie.

  ‘Let’s call it a night, then,’ Gervaise said. ‘We’ve all got more than enough to keep us busy from tomorrow on.’

  There was a letter waiting for Banks when he got home after the meeting, along with the circulars, bills and the latest copy of Gramophone magazine. It was handwritten, postmarked Scarborough, and there was an almost illegible address in the top left-hand corner that he could just about make out was in Filey. He didn’t get many real letters these days. He put the junk on the table by the door and took Gramophone and the letter with him into the kitchen. Ray was stopping over with friends in the Lake District tonight, Banks remembered, and he was glad to have the cottage to himself for an evening. Not that he minded Ray staying there while he found a suitable home of his own, and the cooking was a definite plus, but it was good to have the conservatory to himself again, the chance to relax and listen to whatever music he wanted to hear. Ray wasn’t much of a classical fan. He loved sixties’ rock and jazz, mostly, which was fine, but Banks still missed his Schubert, Shostakovich and Beethoven. When he had tried to play a Borodin string quartet or some Chopin nocturnes, Ray hadn’t grumbled or made any comment, he had simply talked all the way through it as if it were mere background music.

  Luckily, there was some of Ray’s excellent lasagne left over from the other night, and Banks stuck it in the microwave, then he poured himself a glass of Primitivo and walked through to the entertainment room. He hadn’t bothered tidying up since Ray had been around, and there were books, CD jewel cases and DVD boxes scattered around on just about every available surface. He had recently bought a disc of Alice Coote singing French mélodies, so he put that on, making sure it was routed through the speakers in the conservatory. He couldn’t understand sung French very well, except for a few lines of Françoise Hardy and Jacques Brel, but he enjoyed the music of the language. And the sweetness of the singer’s voice, of course.

  After the team meeting, he was more convinced than ever that there was something fishy about the whole St Mary’s business. Even AC Gervaise seemed to agree, and he had expected more resistance from her. True, profiles aren’t always accurate, and Jenny had quite reasonably complained that she didn’t have enough to go on, but the comparison between what they knew of spree killers or mass murderers and what they had been able to discover about Martin Edgeworth’s character, life and actions just didn’t match up. Then there were the forensic and pathology details. It might be a long haul ahead, but there had to be a way of getting to the bottom of it.

  In the meantime, Banks was curious about the letter, which lay on top of Gramophone on the table beside him. He turned on the reading lamp, which reflected in the windows, effectively blotting out the dark mass of the hills outside.

  Banks held the letter in one hand and tapped its sharp edge on the palm of his other, stretching the anticipation. He didn’t recognise the handwriting. Right now, it could be anything – good news, bad news, a death, a birth, a favour asked, an offer, a piece of news that could change his life – but as soon as he opened it, its promise would evaporate and it would simply be what it was. There would be no further room for speculation. It could be from one of his few surviving school friends, for example. Or maybe it was from someone he had come across on a case he had worked. Or a distant uncle leaving him a fortune. The longer he held it unopened, the longer the tension would last. Eventually, though, he gave up teasing himself and opened it as carefully as he could, in case he needed to decipher the address in the top left corner for a reply.

  In the light of the lamp, he read the surprisingly clear script:

  Dear Alan,

  I hope you don’t mind me writing to you out of the blue like this. It took me a while to track down your address, but I finally managed. Maybe I should have been a detective, ha-ha!

  First let me explain. I’m Julie Drake, Emily’s best friend from uni – or university, as we used to call it back in the day. You might remember me as we used to hang around together quite a lot in the pubs and at gigs. I remember you were with us when we saw Bowie live just days before Ziggy Stardust came out. The place was three-quarters empty and he invited everyone to come up to the front. I remember he sat on
the edge of the stage at one point and sang ‘Amsterdam’ with only an acoustic guitar. We were so close I could have touched him. My boyfriend at the time was Andy Mathers, and I think the two of you got along OK. You had similar tastes in music, at any rate, and I remember you both enjoyed a pint or two when you could afford it. Andy and I split up in third year.

  But that’s enough about me. The reason I’m writing to you is that Emily and I remained close friends until the very end. I thought I saw you at her funeral, but when I came out after the service you were gone, and my eyes were bleary with crying. Still, I’m sure it was you I saw. I won’t say you haven’t changed, but it’s odd how you can sometimes immediately recognise someone you haven’t seen for going on forty years. At least it happens to me often enough. I even saw Andy a couple of years ago and recognised him immediately, despite his lack of hair and the extra stone or two around the middle.

  I spent a lot of time with Emily in her last few weeks, even held her hand at the end, and I have to tell you first of all that she was unbelievably brave. The cancer had got to her liver by then and we knew there was no hope. Of course, most of the time I wasn’t the only one there, her family was very supportive, but we did get a lot of time alone together, just the two of us sitting, listening to music sometimes. She still loved Bowie best of all and she cried buckets when he died, but she’d come to like classical music as well, and it was Schubert’s string quintet she wanted at the end. Mostly we just spent our time talking, talking, talking (you must remember I could never shut up!). Sometimes because of the morphine she was given to rambling, and a lot of her thoughts seemed to go back to years ago when we all knew each other. She spoke about you a lot, both in her lucid and rambling moments. I think in some way she always had a special love for you despite the years apart. I remember thinking when I was around you all that time ago that as a couple you emanated a special sort of love, but that’s just romantic old me being sentimental with hindsight.

  I suppose by now you must be wondering when I’m going to get to the point. If there is a point. Well, there is. I just thought you’d like to know that she didn’t forget you. She felt guilty about breaking up like that, and there are some things she wanted me to tell you, or at least she said it would be OK to tell you after she’d gone, but they’re not things I can write in a letter. I retired from teaching a while ago, and my husband and I are running a B & B not too far from you, in Filey. If you get the chance to come out here sometime soon, I’d be happy to have a chat. Come anytime. It’s off season. Just give me a ring first. My husband Marcel is a superb chef and he will cook us a fantastic meal.

  In the meantime, I hope you think of Emily sometimes and remember her with as much fondness and love as I do. She was one of the special ones.

  Best Wishes XX

  Julie

  She added her email, address and phone number in a postscript. Filey wasn’t that far, and Banks was sure he could manage a quick visit. He remembered Julie Drake quite well. As best girlfriends often were, she and Emily were different as chalk and cheese. Julie was – or had been back then – a vivacious, flirtatious brunette who often seemed quite manic in proximity to Emily’s cool blond presence. Julie had an attractive full figure: large breasts, a pert nose and big eyes. She favoured low-cut tops to reveal a tempting glimpse of cleavage. She also had a reputation for chasing the boys that Banks had often felt was undeserved. He had once seen her crying alone at a party when she thought no one was watching, while the boy she had come with was chatting up a prettier and more sophisticated girl, and more often than not, she went home alone. Banks felt that she probably tried too hard and set her sights on the wrong men. He could recognise the signs. After all, he had set his sights on the wrong woman often enough.

  Banks felt his eyes prickle as he put the letter aside. Schubert’s string quintet, the very same piece of music Mahler had asked to hear on his deathbed, or so Linda Palmer had told him. He wondered whether Emily had known that.

  Reading Julie’s words transported him back over forty years. Romantic and sentimental, indeed. He remembered the last time he had seen Emily. They had met in Hyde Park on a glorious summer’s day in 1973. Everyone was out enjoying the sunshine. Lovers embraced on the grass, children kicked plastic footballs around, businessmen sat with their jackets off and shirtsleeves rolled up, reading newspapers, and shorthand typists adjusted their office clothing as tastefully as possible to get lunchtime tans.

  Banks was propped up against a tree not far from the Serpentine reading a second-hand paperback edition of The Exorcist. When he saw Emily walking towards him, he felt an immediate sense of foreboding. She had been distant and moody of late, and there was something in her expression, in the way she smiled at him, that made him feel apprehensive. It wasn’t long before she was telling him that she didn’t think they should see each other any more, that things had run their course and they were going in different directions and neither of them would be truly happy if they carried on together. He didn’t understand any of what she was saying. They hadn’t had a fight – they rarely fought, in fact – and in his mind things had been going well, except for the moodiness. He guessed that perhaps there was someone else, but Emily swore blind there was no one. She just needed a break, some distance between them.

  In the end, it didn’t matter what Banks said, whether he understood it or not. The result was the same. It was over. Back to drunken nights at someone’s party, half-hearted fumblings on a pile of lumpy coats in the spare bedroom. Hangovers and guilt in the morning. Then came the lonely nights of Leonard Cohen albums and cheap wine by candlelight. That went on pretty much until he decided to drop out of his business studies course and join the police. He wasn’t even sure why he did that to this day. Maybe it started as an act of rebellion and a cure for heartbreak, like joining the Foreign Legion. His father hated him for it, and his mother only managed a fair job of pretending to approve until the first time he got his name in the papers years later. But it had turned out to be a good life for him; he couldn’t imagine having taken any other course. He certainly wasn’t cut out for business, and he’d made a mess of most of his relationships. Emily had no doubt been better off without him. He was convinced he had an emotional blind spot somewhere. He remembered that he had even thought all was well years later between him and his wife Sandra, up to the point when she left him for another man. He didn’t know why that had happened, either. It wasn’t that he had failed to lead an unexamined life, just that his life had failed the examination.

  He put the letter aside and guzzled some wine. Alice Coote was singing ‘Le spectre de la rose’, one of his favourite songs from Les nuits d’été to the sound of rain running down the window outside. Banks drank and listened, mulling over the letter as he did so. Did he really want to talk to Julie Drake? He decided that he did. He had to admit that he was curious as to what Emily might have said about him as she lay dying some forty years after they had been in love for a while.

  When Alice Coote finished, he went back into the entertainment room to dig out his copy of the string quintet, one of the last pieces of music Schubert had written in his short life.

  Chapter 9

  The Edgeworth house was still a crime scene when Banks pulled up the following morning, although the investigation had been scaled down. An officer stood guard in the taped-off drive, and Banks had to show his warrant card to get past him. Banks wondered who the young PC had pissed off to be given such a boring task.

  ‘Anyone else been around?’ he asked.

  ‘Nobody, sir. The CSIs come and go, but that’s about it. And the pathologist was here. Dr Glendenning.’

  ‘Nobody trying to sneak in?’

  ‘A couple of curious neighbours, but I sent them packing, sir.’

  ‘Get their names and addresses?’

  The young officer seemed horror-stricken. ‘Nobody said to do that, sir.’

  ‘Don’t worry about it. Just remember in future, right?’

 
; The young man swallowed. ‘Yes, sir.’

  Banks ducked under the tape and walked into the back garden, which was separated from the hill beyond by a wooden fence and a low hedge. There were no trees to spoil the view, which was magnificent, even in the gloom of the day. At least the rain had stopped.

  The hillside stretched up gently at first, then became steeper and steeper until its summit was lost in the clouds. Banks noticed a gate in the back fence, and beyond it a well-worn path meandered up the hillside, disappearing into the mist like the hill itself. The scene reminded Banks of an ancient Chinese painting he had seen in an art gallery: tiny human figures walking on a similar path halfway up a huge mountain whose peak was lost in mist. Perhaps this wasn’t on such a grand scale, but it was impressive enough.

  So this was where Edgeworth went for his walks every Saturday and Sunday morning, according to Ollie Metcalfe. The whole village had been questioned, and nobody had seen Edgeworth since his visit to the White Rose on Friday night. Could he have gone for his walk on Saturday morning before the wedding and met someone up there, either by arrangement or by clever planning on the other’s part? If so, what had transpired? Had he invited this person into his home? If so, why? Edgeworth’s people-mover had been seen by a couple of villagers just after midday on Saturday, heading for the main Swainsdale road, which would have taken him eventually to Fortford and St Mary’s. Nobody had seen the driver’s face, as the windows were tinted, so he couldn’t definitely be identified as Martin Edgeworth. It could have been anyone.

  The house was locked, but Banks had brought a key, and after leaving his overcoat in the vestibule, he entered the kitchen. It was as he had last seen it on the night they had discovered Martin Edgeworth’s body. Somebody had washed the cups they used for their tea, but other than that, nothing had changed: the granite-topped island, the big red Aga, the stainless-steel fridge and freezer units. As Banks remembered, it had been immaculate, all surfaces polished or sparkling. A faint hint of antibacterial cleaner in the air.