In a Dry Season

by Peter Robinson

  Though the health fascists had finally succeeded in banning smoking from every police station in the country, Banks lit a cigarette. He had been quietly ignoring the no-smoking order for a while now. In the larger open-plan stations, you couldn’t get around it, of course; you simply had to go outside. But here, in the old Tudor-fronted warren, he had his own office. With the door closed and the window open, who would know? What did he care, anyway? What were they going to do, put him in detention?

  Watching a couple of pretty young tourists dressed in T-shirts and shorts sitting eating ice lollies on the raised parapet of the market cross, Banks started to drift into pleasurable fantasies involving Annie Cabbot and her red wellies. He had been fantazising a lot lately, and he didn’t know whether it was a healthy sign or not.

  Officially, of course, fellow police officers did not sleep together. Especially DCIS and sergeants. That was a real no-no. From one perspective it could be called sexual harassment, and from the other, sleeping your way to the top.

  In reality, it happened all the time. All over the country, coppers were shagging one another like rabbits, fucking away like minks, regardless of rank. Murder scenes in particular got them going: sex and death, the old aphro-disiac combination.

  Dream on, he told himself, snapping out of the fantasy. The truth was that Annie Cabbot wouldn’t have him, and he wouldn’t try it anyway. Any facility at chatting up women he may have had as a teenager had deserted him now. How do you start that sort of thing all over again? He was too old to go out on dates and worry about whether a good-night kiss would be welcome. Or a nightcap. Or an invitation to stay the night. Or who should take care of the condoms. The whole idea made him feel nervous and awkward. He wouldn’t know where to begin.

  He had had only one sexual encounter since Sandra left, and that had been a complete disaster. In his cups at Susan Gay’s farewell party in the Queen’s Arms, Banks had picked up a woman called Karen something-or-other. Or perhaps Karen had picked him up. Either way, the beer was boosting his confidence, and Karen was tipsy and definitely frisky. Instant lust. Without much preamble, they went back to his place where, after only the briefest of hesitations, they got into a clinch and fell onto the sofa, clothes flying everywhere. Despite the booze, everything worked just fine.

  Somehow, later, they must have crawled up into the bed, because Banks awoke around four in the morning with a pounding headache, a naked woman wrapped around him and a burning desire to be alone. He had used Karen—as perhaps she had used him—and now all he wanted to do was discard her. Instead, he lay awake beside her thinking gloomy thoughts until she stirred in the early dawn and said she had to go home. He didn’t object, didn’t show any tenderness on parting, and he never saw her again.

  The telephone dragged him out of his depressing memory and back to his desk. It was Geoff Turner, the forensic odontologist. This reminded Banks that he had a dentist’s appointment looming, and he had hated the dentist’s since his school days. Maybe he would have an excuse to cancel if this case went anywhere.

  “Alan?”

  “Geoff. You’re fast. Any news?”

  “Nothing dramatic. Too soon for that. But I was keen to make a start. I’ve always been fascinated by skeletal remains.” Banks thought of Dr Williams caressing the skeleton’s pelvic region. “Pervert.”

  Turner laughed. “Scientifically, I mean.”

  “Go on.”

  “I’m calling from the lab. What I wanted to do first of all was confirm Dr Williams’s estimate of her age at the time of death. He’s right. The third molars are up—that’s wisdom teeth to you laymen—but the apexes haven’t quite closed yet, nor have the medial sides of the incisal sutures. The third molars don’t usually come up until your early twenties, so there’s our first clue. Then the apexes are usually closed by the age of twenty-five and medials by thirty. Which makes her mid-twenties, give or take a year or two.”

  “Thanks, Geoff. Any idea how long she’s been down there?”

  “Hold your horses. I told you I’ve only managed a quick look so far. What few fillings there are seem to indicate fairly recent dental work, if that’s of any interest to you. And by recent, I mean twentieth-century.”

  “Any closer? A rough guess?”

  “By the look of the material and techniques, probably not later than the forties, if that’s any help.”

  “Are you sure it’s not more recent? Like nineties?” “No way. You might not believe it when you’re sitting in the chair, but dentistry’s come a hell of a long way in the past thirty years or so, and this mouth shows no signs of that. No modern techniques or materials. You’d expect some acrylic resins to be used in restoration work, but there are none in evidence here. There are also several missing teeth.”

  “Could that have happened after death?”

  “You mean could the killer have pulled her teeth out?” “Could he?”

  “Possible, but unlikely. They look like pretty clean extractions to me.”

  “She can’t have been buried between 1953 and this summer, if that’s any help.”

  “Then I’d say definitely before 1953. Acrylic plastics came into general use in the forties.”

  “Are you sure it couldn’t just be someone who neglected her teeth?”

  “It’s not a matter of neglect, Alan, though I’ll get back to that in a moment. It’s materials and procedures.”

  “Go on.”

  “There’s not much more to tell, really. Just a couple of vague ideas.”

  “Where would we be in our business without vague ideas?”

  Turner laughed. “You shouldn’t say that to a scientist. It’s heresy. Anyway, I can’t be certain until the X-rays, but we’re not talking top-quality dental work here and we’re also not talking regular visits. If I had to guess, I’d say this lass only went to the dentist’s when she had a problem.”

  “What do you mean?” asked Banks, who was beginning to feel even more empathy with the victim. He felt exactly the same way about dentists.

  “The fillings might have lasted a few years longer, had she lived, but in one case the decay wasn’t quite eradicated. That sort of thing. A bit sloppy. Also, as I said, there are signs of neglect, which may indicate we’re dealing with someone from a poor background, someone who couldn’t afford the best treatment. Quite often, you know, girls had all their teeth pulled out in their twenties and wore dentures for the rest of their lives.”

  “Right. Thanks, Geoff.” Banks had always thought that the idea of paying for so much pain was the quintessence of masochism.

  “Another possibility is wartime.”

  “Really? Why do you say that?”

  “Think about it. Most of the good young dentists and doctors were in the forces, and there were only old dod-derers left. Poor equipment. Repairs were hard to get done. Military got priority over everything.”

  “Right. I didn’t think of that.”

  “And there’s another thing.”

  “There is?”

  “We didn’t get the National Health Service until 1948.

  Before that you had to pay for dental work. Naturally, the working class had the hardest time of it.”

  “Didn’t they always,” said Banks, remembering his father coming home silent and exhausted after long shifts at the steel factory and his mother falling asleep in the evenings after spending her day cleaning other people’s houses. “So possibly wartime, possibly poor?”

  “Right.”

  “Thanks again. I owe you, Geoff.”

  “It’ll be my pleasure to collect. Of course, if you could track down her actual dentist, if there are still records . . . ”

  “We’re trying,” said Banks. “But it happened a long time ago. How long is a dentist likely to hang onto old records, even if he is still alive?”

  “True enough. Best of luck, Alan. Talk to you later.” Banks put down the receiver and leaned back in his chair to think about what he had just heard. Both Ioan Williams and Geoff Tur
ner agreed that the skeleton had not been put there after Thornfield Reservoir dried up earlier in the summer, and Dr Williams had estimated the late thirties at the earliest. So the victim wasn’t a hundred years old or more; she was more like fifty or sixty. Which meant that if she had been between twenty-two and twenty-eight when she was killed, she would probably have been between seventy or eighty had she lived. Not only might she still be alive, then, but so might her killer, and so might a witness, or at least someone who remembered her.

  This was quickly turning into a real case. What had been dug up from Thornfield Reservoir was no longer just a collection of filthy old bones; in Banks’s mind, she was slowly assuming flesh. He had no idea what she had really looked like, but in his mind’s eye he could already see a sort of amalgam of the wartime film stars in the fashions of the period: Greer Garson, Deanna Durbin, Merle Oberon. What he needed to know next was her name; that would make her even more real to him.

  He looked at his watch. Just turned four. If he set off now, he could be in Harkside in an hour or so. Plenty of time to compare notes with Annie.

  Five

  As weddings go, Matthew and Gloria’s was a relatively small affair. A few family members came from as far away as Eastvale and Richmond, some of them distant uncles, aunts and cousins I hadn’t seen for years. Gloria had no family, of course, so the rest of the guests were made up of people from the village. Mrs and Mrs Kilnsey from the farm were there, though Mr Kilnsey looked terrified for his mortal soul to find himself in the Church of England, that hotbed of idolatry.

  Gloria had also insisted on inviting Michael Stanhope, as they had become quite close friends, and he looked almost as uncomfortable as Mr Kilnsey to find himself in such hallowed surroundings. He was sober, though, and at least he had made the effort to shave, comb his hair and wear a decent, if rather frayed and shiny, suit. He also remembered to remove his hat during the service.

  I must say Gloria looked radiantly beautiful. With her angelic face and earthly figure, she had a natural advantage to start with. Wizard as she was at making things, she had decided it was more expedient to buy her wedding dress. She had found one on sale at Foster’s in Harkside for two pounds ten shillings. It was a simple white affair, neither voluminous nor trailing half a mile of material, both elegant and tasteful. She did, however, make her own veil out of lace, which wasn’t rationed. Whether she had set them with sugar and water or not, I don’t know, but her glistening blonde sausage-curls tumbled to her shoulders in an even more dazzling array than usual.

  Gloria had bought her wedding dress almost as soon as Mother gave her blessing, so she was all right, but wouldn’t you know it, clothes rationing came into force the Sunday before the wedding. Luckily, we had all got used to mending and making do by then. Matthew dug out his only suit and we had it cleaned and pressed. It would have cost him almost an entire half-year’s clothes ration to get newly kitted out. Mother put on her best flowered frock, adding a belt here and a little lace there, just to make it look new, and she bought a hat for the occasion, hats being one of the few items of clothing, along with lace and ribbon, not rationed.

  Cynthia Garmen and I were bridesmaids and we wore matching taffeta dresses made out of some old curtains. Just for an extra special touch, I cut up some lace to trim our knickers. I don’t know about Cynthia—she certainly never said anything— but the things made my thighs itch through the entire service.

  It was 7 June 1941, a lovely day, with clouds like trails of spilled milk spelling out Arabic characters in the sky.

  The ceremony went smoothly. Reverend Graham conducted the service with his usual oratorical skill and gravity. Barry Naylor, Matthew’s best man, didn’t forget the ring, and they all got their lines right. Nobody fainted, though it was exceedingly hot in the church. Mother shed a few tears. There was no confetti, of course, there being a paper shortage, and there was something else different that nagged away at the back of my mind, but I didn’t remember what it was until much later that night.

  We stood outside for photographs. Film was expensive and hard to obtain, but we weren’t going to let Matthew’s wedding day go by without some sort of visual record, and one of his friends from the Home Guard, Jack Cheswick, fancied himself as a bit of an amateur photographer. Mr Truewell, the chemist, was obliging, and the film cost us only twenty Passing Cloud. Luckily for us, the pictures turned out all right, though the album got lost in one of the many moves that came later.

  We held the reception in the church hall. Of course, I had done most of the catering myself, though I was able to leave the last-minute assembly to my helpers, Sue and Olive. We had to apply in Leeds for an allocation of rations, and Sue, who had got married herself just a couple of months earlier, had warned me it was advisable to double your estimate of the number of guests. Consequently, I said we were expecting a hundred people. Even so, we only got two ounces of tea, which we had to eke out with some of our own ration to make it even drinkable.

  Luckily, our first American food on Lend-Lease had just arrived in the shop, so we had Spam for sandwiches, and tinned sausage meat, which was wonderful for making sausage-rolls because you could also use the fat left in the tin to make the pastry. There wasn’t much to drink, but we did manage to get a keg of watery beer from the Shoulder of Mutton and we brought out some sweet sherry we had been keeping in our cupboard. Mr Stanhope supplied a bottle of gin and some wine. The wedding cake was the biggest disappointment. Icing had been banned nearly a year ago, so we had to make do with a cardboard and crêpe fake. Still, it looked nice in the photographs.

  The highlight of the reception was the band. Matthew’s friend Richard Bright played trumpet with the Victor Pearson Dance Band, so we got at least half the band to come and play for their supper.

  Gloria and Matthew led off the dancing, of course, and a lump came to my throat as I watched them. After that, it was a free-for-all. The music was all right if you liked that sort of thing, but I found it all either too noisy and frenetic or too mushy and sentimental.

  I talked to Michael Stanhope for a while and he remarked on how beautiful he thought Gloria looked and what a lucky man Matthew was. For once, he didn’t say anything nasty about the war. Betty Warden, who had managed to wangle an invitation somehow, sat with her nose in the air most of the night, disapproving of everything and everyone, but I must say that when she danced with William Goodall, she seemed like a different person. So did he, for that matter. Almost human, both of them.

  Alice Hill was cheerful and talkative as ever, and I rather think she developed a fancy for Eric Poole that very night. They certainly danced closely together often enough.

  Gloria came up to me at one point—she had changed now into a long, flared skirt and a pink blouse—with a little sweat beaded on her brow and upper lip from dancing too energetically. Her eyes were shining. I think she’d had a drink or two.

  She rested her soft, delicate hand on my arm. “This is the happiest day of my life, Gwen,” she said. “Do you know, just six months ago I thought I would never laugh or dance again. But thanks to you, your mother and, of course, dear Matt . . . Thank you, Gwen, thank you so much.” Then she leaned forward quickly and clasped me to her bosom, giving me a little peck on the cheek. It was awkward, and with her being so small I had to bend. I could smell the gin on her breath. I’m sure I blushed, but she didn’t remark on it.

  “I haven’t seen you dancing,” she said.

  I shook my head. “I don’t. I mean, I can’t.”

  “I’ll teach you,” she said. “Not right now, of course . . . but I’ll teach you. Will you let me?”

  I nodded stupidly. “Yes. If you want.”

  “It’s the least I can do.”

  Then she excused herself and went to talk to Mother and Cynthia, smiling on everyone she passed with those Hardy-heroine eyes of hers.

  I did my bit, moving from table to table, being polite to my distant relations, removing Uncle Gerald’s hand from my knee without drawin
g attention to the fact that it was there.

  The local people started to drift home around sunset to make sure they had all got their blackout curtains in place. Our relations were staying with friends in Harkside, so they began to leave, too, before it got too dark to see their way across the fields.

  Matthew and Gloria went to Bridge Cottage for their first night together as man and wife. Whether this was their first time together, I have no idea. It may be hard to believe now, when everyone seems to be very sophisticated about sex, but I knew very little of such things back then. I had no idea, for example, what men and women actually did when they made babies.

  The next day they were going to Scarborough for a three-day honeymoon. Matthew had already booked a room at a guest house in St Mary’s, near the castle. After that, it was back to university for Matthew—with his finals coming up soon—and back to Top Hill Farm for Gloria, though she would live at Bridge Cottage and walk or cycle to and from work.

  Mother was talking to Sue and Olive at the door when I finally excused myself through tiredness and set off for home alone. It had been a long, hard day.

  Though it was late, a deep purple and vermilion glow still lit the sky in the west, behind the dark mill. The streets were quiet, but I could still hear music coming from the church hall behind me. Back home, I made sure that the blackout curtains were drawn tightly, then, weary to the bone, I went to bed.

  It was only when I was on the very edge of sleep and heard the thrumming and droning of the bombers taking off from Rowan Woods RAF base that I remembered what had bothered me so much outside the church after the wedding.