Watching the Dark

by Peter Robinson

  ‘Please yourself,’ said Winsome with a shrug. ‘You’re the boss.’

  There were several cottages clustered around the small square facing the telephone box, and Banks had noticed the net curtains twitching in one of them while they had been standing there. ‘Let’s start with that one,’ he said. The cottage he pointed to had a gate of blackened iron railings and worn steps leading up to the arched stone porch around the door. Creeping vegetation covered almost the entire front of the building like something from a horror movie Banks remembered seeing many years ago.

  A few seconds after Banks rang the bell, an elderly woman answered the door. She reminded him of Margaret Thatcher; at least her hair did. The rest of her was plump and matronly, like a cook from a television costume drama, and she was dressed for gardening, in baggy trousers and a shapeless jumper. Banks showed his warrant card and introduced Winsome. Joanna lingered at the bottom of the garden, inspecting the herbaceous borders, as if not quite sure what to do. Banks identified her for the woman anyway, just for the record.

  ‘Gladys,’ the woman said. ‘Gladys Boscombe. Please, come in. I saw you looking at our telephone box, and you don’t seem like the usual tourist types we get.’ She had a hint of a Yorkshire accent, but it sounded to Banks as if she had worked at adding a veneer of sophistication to it over the years.

  Banks and Winsome followed her first into the hall, then through to the living room. Joanna didn’t seem at all sure what to do, so Banks gestured for her to accompany them. It was a small room, and it seemed crowded with the four of them in it, but they each found somewhere to sit, and Gladys Boscombe dashed off to make tea. Nobody had refused her offer. The front window was open a couple of inches, despite the chill, and the silence was punctuated only by birds singing. The room smelled of lavender. The velour sofa and armchairs were covered with lace antimacassars, and even the hard-backed chair Banks sat on had a covered seat cushion. Knick-knacks stood on every surface and filled every alcove: delicate porcelain figurines of piping shepherds or waiting princesses, whorled seashells and pebbles, silver-framed family photographs, a carved ivory and ebony chess set.

  That gave him a sudden, sharp memory of Sophia, who had been his girlfriend until a few months ago. She liked to collect shiny pretty things, too, and he had been partly responsible for some of them being vandalised. She had never forgiven him for that; in a way, it had helped precipitate the end of their relationship. He still missed Sophia, despite everything, and sometimes he thought he should try to get in touch with her again, try to rekindle the spark, which he was certain was still there. Then he remembered how she had ignored his calls and emails before, and he didn’t want to risk rejection again. Her ‘dear John’ email had been banal, chatty and brutal. He remembered how low it had made him feel, and how he had half-drunkenly responded with some gibberish he could hardly remember now. He wished he had acted in a more grown-up manner, been more accepting and kind. Clearly such happiness as he had known in those few brief weeks they had been together was not meant for him. Sometimes he felt dragged down by the recent past, and he wanted desperately to get beyond it, to be OK with Annie, with Tracy, with Sophia, even though he realised he would probably never see her again. Right now, there was nobody in his life except family and friends, and that was just fine for the moment. He had nothing to give anyone else.

  Gladys Boscombe came back with the tea service on a silver tray, delicate little rose-patterned china cups rimmed with gold, matching saucers and teapot. She put the tray down on the low table in front of the fireplace and beamed at them. ‘We’ll just let it mash a few minutes, shall we? Giles will be sorry to miss you. That’s my husband. He’s always been interested in detective stories. Never missed a Midsomer Murders. The proper ones, you know, with John Nettles. But he’s out walking the lads on the moor. Perhaps he’ll be back soon.’

  ‘Your children still live with you?’ She looked far too old to have children young enough to take for a walk, but Banks thought it best to be polite.

  Mrs Boscombe patted her hair. She ought to be careful or she’d cut herself, he thought. ‘Oooh, don’t be silly, young man. Both our children are long grown up and moved away. No, I mean the lads, Jewel and Warris, the Jack Russells.’

  ‘Ah, of course.’ Banks managed to suppress his laughter at the thought of two Jack Russells named after a pair of music hall comedians. Jimmy Jewel and Ben Warris; he hadn’t thought or heard of them in years. Must be dead now, he supposed, along with their contemporaries Mike and Bernie Winters. ‘Right. Thanks, Mrs Boscombe. We’re here about the telephone box, as you might have gathered.’

  Mrs Boscombe eased herself down on the sofa beside Winsome. ‘Yes, I couldn’t think for the life of me why you were all standing around it chatting, then examining it like some museum exhibit. I can’t imagine why on earth you would be interested in that old thing,’ she said, a note of distaste creeping into her tone. ‘True, I suppose it is famous in its way, but it’s still an eyesore. And some of the people it seems to attract . . .’ She gave a mock shudder.

  ‘Actually,’ said Banks, ‘that’s what we’re interested in. The people it attracts.’

  ‘Tourists, mostly. A lot of foreigners. They leave their litter in the street and keep their car engines running, filling the air with that dreadful carbon monoxide. Some of them even stand and smoke cigarettes. I suppose we should think ourselves fortunate it doesn’t draw the younger generation, or it would soon be vandalised, no doubt, but even so . . .’ Mrs Boscombe poured the tea, offering milk and sugar to all who wanted it. When Banks lifted the cup to take his first sip, he felt that he ought to stick his little finger in the air. Joanna did so, he noticed. She caught him glancing and blushed.

  ‘Do the villagers use it often?’

  Her eyes widened. ‘Villagers? Why would we? We all have proper telephones. Some of the newcomers even have mobiles.’

  What year was it here? Banks wondered. And just how new were the newcomers? He was surprised that mobiles even got coverage in such a remote area, but there were towers all over the place these days. Still, the fact remained that Bill Quinn had received two telephone calls from the very box in question over the period he had been at St Peter’s. That certainly didn’t smack of passing tourists; it indicated deliberation, rather than chance. ‘Perhaps for privacy, or a fault on the home line?’ Banks suggested. ‘Have you noticed anyone you know using that public telephone over the past week or two?’

  ‘I haven’t noticed anyone I know using it for the past year or two,’ Mrs Boscombe replied.

  ‘Are any of the cottages rentals?’

  Mrs Boscombe bristled. ‘I should think not. We have strict rules about that sort of thing in the village. Besides, who’d want to rent a cottage here? There’s no pub, no general store, nothing. You’d have to go all the way to Lyndgarth for anything like that.’

  ‘Perhaps someone who likes the country air, a walker, bird watcher, naturalist? Some people enjoy the solitary existence, at least for a while.’

  ‘Perhaps. But there are no rental cottages available in the village.’

  ‘Mrs Boscombe,’ Banks said, hoping not to betray in his tone the desperation and frustration he was feeling. ‘It’s very important. We have information that someone we’re investigating received two telephone calls from that box within the past ten days. Now, does that sound like a tourist to you?’

  Her face lit up. ‘No, it certainly doesn’t. The tourists rarely use the telephone, or if they do, they use it only once. Mostly they just take photographs of their husbands or wives pretending to use it. Is it a true mystery then? Has there been a murder? Oh, I do so wish Giles were here.’ She checked her watch. ‘Perhaps if you could just stay for another half hour or so? He’s usually not so long. More tea? I have fresh scones.’

  The prospect of spending any longer in the cramped living room surrounded by twee knick-knacks and a garrulous old woman had about as much appeal as a poke in the eye with a sharp stick. Winsome
and Joanna were looking twitchy, too, Banks noticed. ‘Can you think of anyone?’ he asked. ‘You have the perfect view of the place. If the locals don’t use it, and the tourists don’t use it, then who does?’

  ‘Only the Gypsies, I suppose, if you care to count them.’

  ‘Gypsies?’

  She waved her hand in the air. ‘Oh, you know. Gypsies, Travellers. Whatever they call themselves. They don’t stop anywhere long enough to have proper telephones installed, do they, and I don’t suppose they can afford mobiles, anyway. Not when they’re all on the dole.’

  ‘Who are these people?’

  ‘I’m afraid I have no idea. I’ve just seen them in the village occasionally, a man and a woman, separately. It may be terribly superficial of me to jump to conclusions, but there it is. Greasy hair, dirty clothes, unshaven face. And you should see the man.’

  It took Banks a moment, but he glanced at Mrs Boscombe and saw the glimmer of a smile on her face. She’d cracked a joke, knew it, and was proud of it. He laughed, and the others laughed with him. ‘So did you see this Gypsy man or woman use the telephone recently?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes. A couple of times in the past week or two,’ Mrs Boscombe said.

  ‘But they weren’t together?’

  ‘No.’

  Banks took out the photo of the girl with Bill Quinn. ‘Is she anything like the woman you mentioned?’ he asked.

  She shook her head. ‘I didn’t get a good look at her, but I would say the one I saw was older, and she had a bit more flesh on her bones. No, it wasn’t her.’

  ‘OK,’ said Banks, feeling disappointed. If the photo had been taken a few years ago, the woman might have changed, he thought. ‘What about the man? What can you tell me about him?’

  ‘I’m afraid I don’t know anything about him, or about any of them.’

  ‘Are there any others?’

  ‘I don’t know. I only saw the two of them use the phone, and it was always after dark. I could only see what I did because the box is well-lit, of course.’

  ‘Do you remember what days?’

  ‘Not really. I think the man was last here on Tuesday about nine, because I’d just finished watching Holby City, a little weakness of mine. The woman . . . it might have been Sunday. Or maybe Saturday. The weekend, I think, anyway.’

  ‘Can you describe him?’

  ‘I could only see him in the light from the telephone box. About your height, perhaps, wearing dirty jeans and a scruffy old donkey jacket, hair over his collar, hadn’t been washed in a while, beginnings of a beard and moustache.’

  ‘Fat or thin?’

  ‘Maybe just a little more filled out than you. Certainly not fat, not by any stretch of the imagination.’

  ‘The colour of his hair?’

  ‘Dark. Black or brown, it would be impossible to say exactly.’

  ‘Did he talk on the telephone for long?’

  ‘I don’t know. I didn’t linger at the window to watch. All I know is by the time I’d finished what I was doing, he was gone again. Say maybe fifteen or twenty minutes.’

  That didn’t quite match the four-minute call that Quinn had received from the box last Tuesday, so perhaps the man had made more than one call. The records from the phone box would tell them what other numbers had been called. If he had phoned Bill Quinn at about nine o’clock on Tuesday, that would have been during quiz night, so perhaps Quinn had missed quiz night because he had been expecting the call. It was a possibility, at any rate. ‘Is there anything else you can remember about this man?’ Banks asked. ‘How old would you say he was?’

  ‘I have no idea. Quite young. Mid-thirties, perhaps? The beard may have made him look older, of course.’

  ‘Would you recognise him again?’

  ‘I don’t know. I couldn’t really make out any clear features, if you know what I mean. I’m quite good at remembering faces, though, even if I’m not very good at describing them. I might remember him.’

  ‘Do you know where the camp is?’

  ‘There isn’t one, really. Not exactly a camp, as such.’

  Banks’s shoulders slumped. ‘So you don’t know where he was living?’

  ‘I didn’t say that. I said there isn’t a Gypsy camp as such. Giles told me he heard it from a rambler that there’s someone living up at the old Garskill Farm. It’s about two miles away, on the moors. I can’t imagine what the poor fellow was doing walking up near there, even if he is a rambler, as it’s well off the beaten track and . . . well . . . it’s not the sort of place one wants to be alone.’

  ‘Why is that?’

  ‘One hears stories. Old stories. It’s a wild part of the moor. Most people give it a wide berth. There’s something eerie about the place.’

  ‘You mean it’s haunted?’

  ‘That’s what some folk believe.’

  ‘And you?’

  ‘I’ve no cause to go up there. It’s wild moorland. You’d risk getting lost – sometimes those fogs creep up all of a sudden, like, and you can’t see your hand in front of your face. And there are bogs, fens, mires, old lead mine workings, sinkholes. It’s not safe.’

  ‘Good enough reason not to go there, then,’ said Banks, smiling. ‘Even without the ghosts. What about kids? Is it somewhere the local kids might go to drink, take drugs or have sex?’

  ‘No. There aren’t really any local kids around here, and there are plenty of places nearer Lyndgarth or Helmthorpe for that sort of thing. Less remote, perhaps, but a lot more comfortable.’

  ‘So you think this man and the woman you saw might be squatting up at Garskill Farm?’

  ‘It’s the most likely place.’

  ‘Tell me about it.’

  ‘Not much to tell, really. Someone must own it, but I can’t tell you who. It’s been abandoned as long as I can remember. Falling to rack and ruin. I’m not even certain it was ever a working farm. It’s my guess it belonged to whoever owned the lead mines, and when the industry died years back, well, they moved on.’

  Why on earth, Banks wondered, would someone walk two miles each way twice, eight miles in all, to talk to Bill Quinn on a public telephone if it wasn’t important? Clearly whoever had done it didn’t have access either to a closer land line, or to a mobile, or he feared that someone might be listening in to his conversations. But why? And what, if anything, did he have to do with Bill Quinn’s murder?

  They heard the sound of the gate opening and dogs barking. Mrs Boscombe got to her feet. ‘Ah, here’s Giles and the lads. He will be glad to see you. You can tell him about all about the murders you’ve solved. I’ll just put the kettle on again.’

  There was no easy way up and over the dale to Garskill Farm, Giles Boscombe had explained, before they managed to cut short his analysis of what should be done about the presence of Gypsies and Travellers. Neither Banks’s Porsche nor Winsome’s Toyota would make it up the winding track, let alone over the top and across the moorland. There were probably other ways in – from the north, perhaps, or even the east or west – but they would most likely involve long detours and, no doubt, getting lost. Even if mobiles worked, satnavs weren’t always reliable in this desolate part of the world. People often mixed up the dales and the moors, but Brontë country was a few miles south-west of where they were, though the moorland landscape on the tops between the dales had many similarities with the moors the Brontës had walked.

  There were no village bobbies any more; like the oggie man, they were a thing of the past. But Banks did happen to know that the Safe Community officer in Lyndgarth happened to drive a Range Rover, and when they raised him on the phone, he sounded only too willing to whizz over to Ingleby and do his best to get them as close to Garskill Farm as possible.

  When Constable Vernon Jarrow arrived, they left their own cars by the telephone box and piled into his Range Rover, Banks in the front and Winsome and Joanna in the back. PC Jarrow was a pleasant, round-faced local fellow with the weather-beaten look of a countryman. He said he was used to dr
iving off road. Banks got out and opened the gate to the winding lane up the daleside, closing it behind him. Jarrow drove slowly and carefully, but the Range Rover still bumped over the rocks sticking out of the dirt and the ruts made by tractors. Some of the bends were almost too tight, but he made them. Banks was reminded of a tour bus he had once taken with Sandra to an ancient site in Greece, hugging the edge of a steep precipice all the way.

  ‘Do you know Garskill Farm?’ he asked Jarrow over the noise of the engine.

  ‘I know of it,’ Jarrow answered. ‘It’s been like that for years. Abandoned.’

  ‘Ever been up there?’

  ‘No reason to.’

  ‘Not even just to check on it?’

  Jarrow gave Banks a bemused sideways glance. ‘Check on what? There’s nothing there.’

  ‘Mrs Boscombe heard rumours there’s been some Gypsies or Travellers staying up there recently.’

  Jarrow grunted. ‘They’re welcome. Long as they don’t cause any trouble in the community.’

  ‘How do you know they haven’t?’

  ‘I’d have heard about it, wouldn’t I?’

  It seemed like unassailable logic. Banks didn’t blame Jarrow for not checking out every square inch of his patch as frequently as possible, but that kind of complacency in assuming that he would know the minute anything was wrong was no excuse. Still, he let it go. After all, the man was driving them to a remote spot, and there was no sense in giving him a bollocking on the way.

  When the track came to the east–west lane halfway up the daleside, PC Jarrow kept going straight on, up the daleside, where the road became even more rudimentary, so much so that it was hard to make out at all sometimes, forcing them back in their seats. Soon, they were weaving between outcrops of limestone, bouncing around even more than on the rutted track below. If Banks had contrived this whole business to irritate and upset Joanna Passero he couldn’t have done a better job, he realised, as he caught a glimpse of her ashen face in the rear-view mirror, hand to her mouth. But he hadn’t, and he found himself feeling sorry for her. He had no idea that she suffered from carsickness, and she hadn’t said anything. Still, there was nothing he could do about it at this point; she would simply have to hold on.