Watching the Dark (Inspector Banks Mystery)

by Robinson, Peter

  Soon they were driving across the open moorland, and while it was still as bumpy, at least they were more or less on the flat. This had once been an area of about two or three thriving villages, Banks knew. There was an isolated old house known locally as the School House, which was exactly what it had been even as late as the First World War. After that, the moorland had fallen into decline and never recovered. The military had been making noises for years about taking it over for manoeuvres, but they already had plenty of land in the area, and they didn’t seem to need Garskill Moor yet.

  There were roads, tracks or laneways criss-crossing the rolling tracts of gorse and heather, and soon the bumpiness of the ride improved somewhat. Joanna took her hand away from her mouth, but she was still pale. Winsome didn’t seem bothered by any of it. Jarrow drove slowly, straight ahead. It was an interesting landscape, Banks thought. People often assume the moorland that runs along the tops between dales is flat and barren, but this landscape was undulating, with surprising chasms appearing suddenly at one side or the other, unexpected becks lined with trees, clumps of bright wildflowers, and the ruined flues and furnaces of abandoned lead mines in the distance. Even in the pale April sunlight, it resembled an abandoned land, an asteroid once settled, then deserted.

  ‘Does nobody live up here any more?’ Banks asked.

  ‘Not for miles. There used to be an old woman in the School House. Everybody thought she was a witch. But she died a couple of years ago. Nobody’s moved in since, so that’s falling to rack and ruin, too.’

  ‘Are we almost there?’ Joanna asked from the back.

  ‘Not far now, miss,’ Jarrow assured her. ‘You just hold on there. It’s in a hollow, so you can’t really see it until you come right up on it.’

  They crossed over a tiny stone bridge and bumped along beside a fast-flowing beck for a while, then up the steep bank, along the top and, sure enough, as they turned a corner by a small copse, there, in the hollow, stood Garskill Farm; or rather, the ruins of Garskill Farm.

  Actually, it didn’t look as bad as Banks had been led to expect. The three solid limestone buildings, arranged around what might have once been a pleasant garden or courtyard, were for the most part structurally intact, though there were slates missing from roofs here and there, and all the windows were broken. Most of them had been boarded up. The two outlying buildings were smaller, and had probably been used for storage, while only the central, larger building was meant to house people. Even so, if anyone was squatting there, they must be desperate.

  Jarrow pulled to a halt by the remains of a drystone wall, which had clearly marked the border of the property. They all got out of the Range Rover. Banks felt shaky, as if all his joints had worked a bit loose, and Joanna Passero immediately turned her back and walked a few yards away before resting her palms on her knees and bending to vomit quietly into the shrubbery. Everyone pretended to ignore her. Even Banks felt no desire to take the piss. Only Winsome had had the sense to bring bottled water, and she offered some to Joanna who immediately accepted and thanked her, apologising to everyone for her little display of weakness. The wind howled around them and seemed to use the buildings as musical instruments, whistling in the flues and rattling loose window boards like percussion. Mrs Boscombe had certainly been right about how eerie it was up there.

  Banks stepped over some variously shaped stones that had once formed the drystone wall. A lot of skill had no doubt gone into building that wall, he thought, and now it had collapsed, brought down by stray cattle or sheep, or winter storms freezing the water in the cracks and expanding. Such drystone walls were built to withstand most things nature could throw their way, but they needed a little repair work now and then, a little tender loving care.

  Finding himself standing in a garden completely overgrown by weeds, mostly nettles and thistles up to thigh height, Banks paused and turned to address the others. ‘OK,’ he said, stepping back. ‘There doesn’t seem to be any kind of an easy way in here, and if anyone was using the place you’d think they’d at least clear a way in and out.’

  ‘Round the other side?’ Winsome said.

  ‘Exactly. So let’s make our way around the perimeter and see if we can’t find an easier access point. And be careful. There are bloody nettles and thistles everywhere. Winsome, will you take Inspector Passero and check out that first outbuilding, on the left there. PC Jarrow, you come with me, and we’ll start with the centre building, then we’ll all meet up in the one on the far right.’

  ‘I’ve got a couple of torches in the Range Rover,’ said Jarrow. ‘We might need them in there.’

  ‘Good idea,’ said Banks.

  They waited until Jarrow brought the torches and tested them, then Banks led the way around the remains of the garden wall, just as overgrown on the outside as on the inside, and along the end of the building to their left. They were at the back of the house now, and able to step into the yard over a ruined section of wall. When they arrived at the doorway of the first building, Winsome and Joanna pushed it open and disappeared inside. Banks and Jarrow continued across a stretch of high grass to the back of the house itself.

  It was just as dilapidated as the outbuildings from the outside, though it might have been a grand house in its day. Banks stopped before they got to the door and pointed. Jarrow followed his gaze. The pathway worn through the undergrowth from the door to a driveway that crossed the back of the property was clear to see. Obviously, if one or more people had been squatting here, they needed to be able to get in and out, no matter how far they had to walk to the nearest shop or telephone. Ultimately, through a network of unfenced roads, tracks and laneways, if they had any means of transport they could connect with the A66, and from there to Carlisle, Darlington, the M1, A1, and pretty much anywhere else in the country. But the quickest way to Ingleby was the way Banks and the others had just come.

  There were no signs of any cars around, except the burned-out chassis of an old Morris Minor in a backyard filled with rusty farm, gardening and mining equipment. Banks’s father used to drive a Morris Minor years ago. He remembered family outings to the countryside as a child, his mother and father sitting proudly up front, him and his brother Roy fighting in the back. They were good memories: hot sweet tea from a Thermos, orange juice and sandwiches and buns in a field by the river, or even on a roadside lay-by, ice creams, swimming in the river shallows if it was a warm enough day.

  The implements were nothing unusual. Banks had seen similar things in some of the Dales’ museums. The closest anything came to transport was an old wooden cartwheel with most of the spokes missing. The silence beyond the wind was even more all-encompassing up here than in Ingleby. A curlew’s sad call drifted from the distant moors, but that was all, apart from Jarrow’s heavy breathing and the moaning of the wind in the flues, a loose board clattering somewhere. There was a heavy wooden door with peeling green paint wedged into the doorway at the back, halfway along the building. A simple push from Jarrow’s shoulder opened it and they walked inside, switching on their torches. It seemed to be one long room, like the banquet hall of an old Viking dwelling or a school dormitory, and the torchlight picked out two rows of thin foam mattresses. There were ten on each side, all stained and damp. Here and there, two of the mattresses had been pulled close together, as if their occupants were trying to mimic a double bed or huddle close for warmth. There were no pillows. Whoever had been there, it looked as though they were gone. The walls were stone, and there was no ceiling, only bare rafters holding up the roof. In one or two places, the tiles and surfacing had disappeared, letting in the light from outside. Rain, too, no doubt, as the buckets carefully placed under each hole attested. Dirty blankets lay bunched up beside most of the mattresses.

  The smell was almost overwhelming. A human smell, only magnified: dirty socks, urine, vomit, sweat. The smell of poverty and desperation. Gnawed bones, chicken legs most likely, and some empty takeaway food cartons and Costa Coffee cups littered the floor. McDonald�
�s. Burger King. Kentucky Fried Chicken. The food must have been freezing before it got here, Banks thought, even though someone must have had a car. The nearest McDonald’s was probably the one in Eastvale, at least fifteen miles away. Still, perhaps it was better than nothing. There appeared to be no cooking or food storage facilities here.

  At the far end of the room was a trough of murky water with a long spoon on a hook, curved at the bottom so it could be used for drinking. Next to it, behind a ratty, moth-eaten curtain, was a bucket. Banks didn’t need the torchlight to show him what was in it. He turned away in disgust. His eyes lighted on a tattered paperback lying beside one of the mattresses. He knelt down and picked it up carefully. It wasn’t in English, and he couldn’t guess what language it was from any of the words, though the sheer number of consonants, and the odd symbols crowning some of the letters, made him think of Polish. The paper was already faded, and some of the pages were torn. Banks put it back.

  ‘What do you think?’ Jarrow whispered.

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Banks, still kneeling by the thin foam mattress. He stood up and brushed off his trousers. ‘I can tell you one thing, though. I doubt very much we’re dealing with Gypsies or Travellers. They don’t usually live like this.’

  ‘Squatters?’

  ‘More like it. Let’s go.’

  Glad to be outside again, Banks and Jarrow took a few deep breaths of relatively fresh air and watched the women coming over to meet them. ‘It’s a rudimentary loo,’ Winsome said, ‘though there’s no sewage system from what I can see.’

  ‘There’s a sort of basic shower, too,’ Joanna added. ‘It’s hooked up to a cold water tank. There doesn’t seem to be any hot.’

  ‘There wouldn’t be,’ said Banks. ‘Someone would have to pay for that. Maybe they fill a cold water tank from the beck, or just let the rain collect.’ He told them what he and Jarrow had found in the larger building.

  Winsome and Joanna poked their heads inside and came out quickly. ‘My God,’ said Winsome. ‘What’s been happening here?’

  ‘I’m not sure,’ said Banks. ‘It looks like a squat, but do you remember that converted barn outside Richmond a few years back? It was in a bit better shape than this set-up, but not much. They found a whole bunch of unskilled migrant labourers living there in dreadful conditions. They were mostly Eastern European, and they’d been enticed over here by promises of work. For a fee, of course. Instead they found themselves basically bound in slavery to a gangmaster, owing so much money they could never pay their way out of it, and what they did have to pay left them nothing to live on – or to run away with.’

  ‘The kind of people Warren Corrigan preys on,’ said Winsome.

  Banks gave her an appreciative glance. ‘So you do listen to the briefings?’

  Winsome smiled. ‘Of course, sir. Sometimes.’

  ‘The impression I got was that he operates mostly in the cities, but it’s a good point. Keep it in mind. It looks very much as if Bill Quinn’s team might have had a man on the inside. We’ll have a little talk with pal Corrigan soon.’ Banks glanced towards the final, and smallest, of the three buildings. The boards were still in the windows, and the back door was shut, though, again, it proved not to be locked, and it wasn’t much of a barrier against Jarrow’s firm shoulder.

  At first, the two torch beams picked out nothing except a pile of dirty bedding, another trough of filthy water, a rickety old chair and a few damp ragged towels and lengths of rope. A broken broom handle leaned against the wall by the door, and Banks used it to poke among the tangle of sheets and blankets on the floor. The handle touched something firm but yielding. Already feeling that clenching in his gut that warned him what was coming, Banks used the stick to hook and pull away the rest of the sheets and blankets, and the four of them gazed down on a man’s body. He was naked, and his skin gleamed with a strange greenish tinge in the artificial light. He was thin, he had longish, greasy dark hair and the beginnings of a beard, and beside him, among the heap of filthy bedding, was a worn donkey jacket and a pair of dirty jeans.

  As the strong fingers worked on the muscles around her neck and shoulders, Annie finally gave herself up to Daniel Craig’s magic touch. Her breath came sharply, and her whole body tingled with warmth and pleasure. His hands slid down the small of her back towards the base of her spine. She waited for the touch of his lips and that slight scrape of five o’clock shadow in the sweet spot between her neck and shoulder, then he would turn her over, his lips would continue slowly down her body, and his hands would––

  ‘That’s it for today, love.’

  The gravelly voice shattered Annie’s erotic reverie. Of course it wasn’t Daniel Craig; it was just Old Nobby, the St Peter’s masseur. Old Nobby was ex-navy and a bit long in the tooth, with anchor tattoos on both forearms and enough of the sea-dog about him that his other nickname around the place was Popeye. But he had magic fingers, was a damn fine masseur, and Annie found that if she closed her eyes and let herself drift, he could be anyone she wanted him to be for half an hour.

  ‘Thanks, Nobby,’ Annie said, pulling the bathrobe around her and securing the belt as she sat up. She might not mind letting Daniel Craig see her charms, but not Old Nobby. Not that he seemed interested. He had his back turned to her, and he was bent over the desk filling out forms. She liked Nobby. He was a bit of an amateur philosopher. He had an open and inquiring mind and often seemed happy to chat for ages about practically nothing at all after sessions. The conversations were almost as relaxing as the massages, though not quite as sexually stimulating. Her skin still tingled pleasantly. Whether he knew of the effect he had on her, she had no idea, and she was certainly not going to ask him.

  Now that Annie was back in the real world, she could hear sounds from outside. Though St Peter’s was trying to drag itself back to normal – the regular massage routine, for example – the place was still crawling with police and CSIs. It shouldn’t take much longer now, though, she thought. All the guests and most of the part-time staff had been questioned, according to Winsome, some more than once, their backgrounds and alibis no doubt thoroughly checked, and it didn’t seem as if anyone from the centre either knew anything or had anything to do with what had happened to Bill Quinn. There might still be some connection they hadn’t unearthed yet, but Annie doubted it. Whatever fate had befallen Bill Quinn, she believed, had happened because of outside, and had come from outside. It had followed him here, or found him here, without any help from St Peter’s itself. His presence here had been no secret; no tip-off from the inside would have been needed for anyone who wanted to locate him.

  ‘You’re doing a grand job, Nobby,’ she said.

  Nobby turned from his paperwork and sat on the only office chair. Annie remained perched on the edge of the massage table.

  ‘Thanks, lass,’ he said. ‘Bad business, all this, eh?’ He gestured towards the activity outside.

  ‘It certainly is.’

  ‘You knew him?’

  ‘No. You?’

  ‘Just professionally, like.’

  ‘Did he talk much?’

  ‘Sometimes. You know, I’ve always thought a good massage can work a bit like hypnosis. Take a person deep down to those long forgotten places, events and feelings. Sometimes that’s where the answer lies.’

  Sexual fantasies, too, Annie thought. She wondered if Bill Quinn had dreamed of the girl in the photo as Nobby’s fingers worked their magic on him. Or was it different for a man, especially when it was another man touching him? ‘What do you mean?’ she asked.

  Nobby shifted to make himself more comfortable. His chair creaked. ‘Must get this bloody thing oiled. I suppose what I mean is that often the root of the problem isn’t obviously physical. Even something as simple as neck pain or back pain.’

  ‘You mean like when something’s psychosomatic?’ she said.

  ‘A massage can work both ways, you know.’ Nobby held his hands up. ‘Lethal weapons,’ he said, and laughed.

/>   Annie laughed with him, but she guessed there was more than a grain of truth in what he said. After all, rumour had it that he had been seconded to the SAS at one time.

  ‘You have to be careful not to exacerbate the problem,’ he went on. ‘As you can attest better than most, nerves are sensitive things.’

  ‘I certainly can. What about Bill Quinn?’

  ‘His neck? There wasn’t a lot wrong with it, as far as I could tell. Certainly not the kind of physical problems you had when we first started our sessions.’

  ‘Swinging the lead?’

  Nobby paused before answering. ‘No. I don’t think so. We can resist getting better for any number of reasons we’re not aware of.’

  ‘Like what?’ she asked.

  ‘The usual. Fear. Despair. Indifference. Indecision. Lack of confidence. Guilt, even.’

  ‘And in Bill’s case?’

  ‘He was troubled.’

  ‘By what? Did he talk to you, Nobby? Did he tell you something?’

  ‘No, not in the way you mean. Not anything you could put your finger on.’ Nobby flashed her a crooked grin. ‘Always the copper first, I suppose, eh?’

  ‘Well, I am due to start working on the case officially on Monday. Thought I might get a head start.’

  ‘Aye, well. To answer your question, yes, we talked sometimes.’

  ‘And you didn’t tell the police officer who questioned you?’