Authors: Peter Robinson
‘It’s got character,’ Barker replied. ‘Seriously, Chief Inspector, we’re not quite so well off as you think. Teddy here’s been living on credit ever since he
bought up Hebden’s Gift Shop, and the doc’s making as much as he can fiddle from the NHS.’ Barnes just glared, not even bothering to interrupt. ‘And I’m just dying for
someone to buy the film rights to one of my books. Harry was loaded, true, but when it came, it came as a bit of a surprise to him, and he didn’t know what to do with it. Apart from quitting
his job and moving up here to devote himself to his studies, he didn’t change his way of life much. He wasn’t really interested in money for its own sake.’
‘You say it came as a surprise to him,’ Banks said. ‘I thought he inherited it from his father. Surely he must have known that he was in for a sizeable inheritance?’
‘Well, yes he did. But he didn’t expect as much as he got. I don’t think he really paid much mind to it. Harry was a bit of an absent-minded prof. Took after his father. It
seems that the old man had patents nobody knew about tucked away all over the place.’
‘Was Steadman mean, stingy?’
‘Good heavens, no. He always paid for his round.’
Hackett smiled tolerantly while Barnes sighed and excused Barker’s flippancy. ‘What he’s trying to say in his charming manner,’ the doctor explained, ‘is that none
of us feel we belong to the country club set. We’re comfortable here, and I’m not being facetious when I say it’s a damn good pint.’
Banks looked at him for a moment then laughed. ‘Yes, it is, isn’t it?’ he agreed.
This was another thing Banks had picked up during his first year in the north – the passion a Yorkshireman has for his pint. The people in Swainsdale seemed to feel the same way about
their beer as a man from, say, Burgundy would feel about wine.
Banks got himself another drink and, by directing the conversation away from the murder, managed to get everyone talking more openly on general matters. They discussed ordinary things, it turned
out, just like anyone else: politics, the economy, world affairs, sport, local gossip, books and television. They were three professionals, all more or less the same age, and all – except
perhaps Barnes – just a little out of place in a small community that had its roots deep in agriculture and craftsmanship.
Penny Cartwright locked and bolted the sturdy door behind her, drew the thick curtains tight and switched on the light. After she had put down her package and dropped her shawl
over a chair, she went around the room lighting candles that stood, at various lengths, on saucers, in empty wine bottles and even in candlesticks.
When the room was flickering with tiny bright flames which made the walls look like melting butter, she turned out the electric light, slipped a tape in the cassette player and flopped down on
the sofa.
The room was now as private and cosy as a womb. It was the kind of place that looked bright and happy in sunlight, and warm and intimate by candlelight. There were a few things tacked to the
walls: a postcard-size reproduction of Henri Matisse’s
The Dance
, which a friend had sent her from New York; a framed copy of Sutcliffe’s photograph,
Gathering Driftwood
;
and a glossy picture showing her singing at a concert she and the band had given years ago. Shadowed by candlelight, the alcoves at both sides of the fireplace overflowed with personal knick-knacks
such as shells, pebbles and the kind of silly keepsakes one buys in foreign lands – things that always seem to bring back the whole atmosphere of the place and details of the day on which
they were bought: a plastic key ring from Los Angeles, a miniature slide viewer from Niagara Falls, a tiny porcelain jar emblazoned with her zodiac sign, Libra, from Amsterdam. Mixed in with these
were earrings, which Penny collected, of all shapes and colours.
Penny took out papers and hash from a battered Old Holborn tin and rolled a small joint; then she unwrapped the half-bottle of Bell’s. There seemed no point getting a glass, so she drank
straight from the bottle, and the whisky burned her tongue and throat as it sank to stir a warm glow deep inside her.
The tape played unaccompanied traditional folk songs – a strong clear woman’s voice singing about men going off to war, lifeboat disasters, domestic tragedies and supernatural lovers
of long ago. With part of her mind, Penny studied the vocal style critically; she admired the slight vibrato, but winced at the blurring on some of the high notes. As a professional, or an
ex-professional, it was second nature to her to listen that way. Finally, she decided that she liked the woman’s voice, flaws and all. It had enough warmth and emotional response to the
lyrics to make up for the occasional lapses in technique.
One song, about a murder in Staffordshire over two hundred years ago, she knew well. She had sung it herself many times to appreciative audiences in pubs and concert halls. It had even been on
the first record she had made with the band, and its modal structure had stood up well to the addition of electric guitars and percussion. But this time it sounded fresh. Though the song had
nothing to do with the bad news she had heard that afternoon, murder was murder, whether it had been committed the previous night or two hundred years ago. Perhaps she would write a song herself.
Others would sing it or listen to it in warm secure rooms hundreds of years in the future.
The whisky and hash were doing their work; Penny was drifting. Suddenly, the memory of that summer so many years ago sprang clear as yesterday into her mind. There had been many good years, of
course, many good times before the craziness of fame spoiled it all, but that summer ten years ago stood out more than the rest. As she relived it, she could smell the green warmth of the grass and
catch the earth and animal scents on the feather-light breeze.
Then the general memory crystallized into one particular day. It was hot, so hot that Emma had refused to move out of the shade for fear of burning her sensitive skin. And Michael, who was
sulking for some reason, had stayed at home reading Chatterton’s poems. So it was just Penny and Harry. They had walked all the way over to Wensleydale, Harry, tall and strong, leading the
way, and Penny keeping up the best she could. That day, they had sat high on the valley side above Bainbridge, below Semerwater, where they ate salmon sandwiches and drank chilled orange juice from
a flask as they basked in the heat and looked down on the tiny village with its neat central green and Roman fort. They could see the whitewashed front of the fifteenth-century Rose and Crown, and
the River Bain danced and sparkled as it tripped down the falls to join the gleaming band of the Ure.
Then the scene dissolved, broke apart and shifted back in time. So vividly had Harry recreated the past in her mind that she felt she had been there. The valley bottom was marshy and filled with
impenetrable thickets. Nobody ventured there. The hillmen built circular huts in clearings they made high on the valley sides near the outcrops of limestone and grits, and it was there that they
went about the business of hunting, raising oats, and breeding a few sheep and cattle. A Roman patrol marched along the road just below where they sat, strangers in a cold alien landscape but sure
of themselves, their helmets shining, heavy cloaks pinned at the chest with enamelled brooches.
The two scenes overlapped: ten years ago and seventeen hundred years ago. It had all been the same to Harry. She could sense the stubborn pride of the Brigantes and the confidence of the Roman
conquerors. She could even, in a way, understand why Queen Cartimandua had sided with the invaders, who brought new, civilized ways to that barbaric outpost. The tension spread throughout the dales
as Venutius, the Queen’s ex-husband, and his rebellious followers prepared for their last stand at Stanwick, north of Richmond. Which they lost.
Harry brought it all alive for her, and if there had been, sometimes, an inexplicable awkwardness and uneasiness between them, it had always disappeared when the past became more alive than the
present. How bloody innocent I was then, Penny thought, laughing at herself, and all of sixteen, too. How long it took me to grow up, and what a road it was.
Then she remembered the coins they had gone to see in the York museum –
VOLISIOS
,
DUMNOVEROS
and
CARTIMANDUA
, they
were marked – and the pigs of lead stamped
IMP
,
CAES: DOMITIANO: AVG. COS: VII
, and, on the other side, BRIG. The Latin words had seemed like
magical incantations back then.
And so she drifted. The joint was long finished, the tape had ended, the level in the whisky bottle had gone down and the memories came thick and fast. Then, as suddenly as they had started,
they ceased. All Penny was left with was blankness inside; there were vague feelings but no words, no images. She worked at the bottle, lit new cigarettes from the stubs of old ones, and at some
point during the evening the tears that at first just trickled down her cheeks turned into deep, heart-racking sobs.
Monday morning
dawned on Helmthorpe as clear and warm as the five previous days. While this wasn’t exactly unprecedented, it would have been enough to dominate
most conversations had there not been a more sensational subject closer at hand.
In the post office, old bent Mrs Heseltine, there to send her monthly letter to her son in Canada (‘Doin’ right well for ’imself . . .’E’s a full perfesser
now!’), was holding forth.
‘Strangled by a madman,’ she repeated in a whisper. ‘And right ’ere in our village. I don’t know what the world’s coming to, I don’t. We’re none
of us safe anymore, and that’s a fact. Best keep yer doors locked and not go out after dark.’
‘Rubbish!’ Mrs Anstey said. ‘It was ’is wife as done it. Fer t’ money, like. Stands to reason. Money’s t’ root of all evil, you mark my words.
That’s what my Albert used ter say.’
‘Aye,’ muttered Miss Sampson under her breath. ‘That’s because ’e never made any, the lazy sod.’
Mrs Dent, having read every lurid novel in Helmthorpe library and some especially imported from Eastvale and York, was more imaginative than the rest. She put forward the theory that it was the
beginning of another series of moors murders.
‘It’s Brady and Hindley all over again,’ she said. ‘They’ll be digging ’em up all over t’ place. There was that Billy Maxton, disappeared wi’out a
trace, and that there Mary Richards. You’ll see. Digging ’em up all over t’ place, they’ll be.’
‘I thought they’d run off to Swansea together, Billy Maxton and Mary Richards,’ chipped in Letitia Stanford, the spindly postmistress. ‘Anyway, they’ll be
questioning us all, no doubt about that. That little man from Eastvale, it’ll be. I saw ’im poking about ’ere all day yesterday.’
‘Aye,’ added Mrs Heseltine. ‘I saw ’im, too. Looked too short for a copper.’
‘’E’s a southerner,’ said Mrs Anstey, as if that settled the matter of height once and for all.
At that moment, the bell jangled as Jack Barker walked in to send off a short story to one of the few magazines that helped him eke out a living. He beamed at the assembled ladies, who all
stared back at him like frightened prunes, bid them good morning, conducted his business, then left.
‘Well,’ sighed Miss Sampson indignantly. ‘And ’im a friend of Mr Steadman’s too. I’d like to see what the poor man’s enemies is doing.’
‘He’s an odd one, all right,’ Letitia Stanford agreed. ‘Not the killing type, though.’
‘And how would you know?’ asked Mrs Dent sharply. ‘You should read some of ’is books. Fair make you blush, they would. And full of murder, too.’ She shook her head
and clucked her tongue slowly at the sprightly figure disappearing down the street.
Sally Lumb sat in her best underwear before the dressing table mirror. Her long honey-blonde hair was parted in the middle and brushed neatly over her white shoulders. A short,
carefully maintained fringe covered just enough of her high forehead. As she studied her milky skin, she decided it was about time she did some sunbathing. Not too much, because she was so fair and
it made her red and sore, but just an hour or so each day to give her skin a deep golden hue.
She had a good face, and she knew all her weak points. Her eyes were fine – big, blue and beguiling – and her nose was perfectly in proportion, with just a hint of a bob at its tip.
If anything was wrong, it was her cheeks; they were a little too plump and her cheekbones weren’t well enough defined. It was only puppy fat, though. Like that around her hips and thighs, it
would disappear completely in time. Nevertheless, there were ways to play down its effect right now, so why wait? The same with her mouth. It was too full – voluptuous would be the kindest
word – and that wasn’t likely to change by itself.
Sally studied the array of tubes, palettes, brushes, sticks and bottles in front of her, then made her skilful choice of the correct shades and tints calculated to highlight the best and obscure
the worst of her facial features. After all, Chief Inspector Banks was from London, so she’d heard, and he would naturally expect a woman always to look her best.
As she applied the cosmetics, she ran through the scene in her mind, imagining what she would say, and how he would jump up and dash off to make an arrest. Her name would be in all the papers;
she would be famous. And what better start could an aspiring star wish for? The only thing better than that, she thought, carefully drawing her eyeliner, would be to catch the killer herself.
Banks sat in his office and gazed out over the market square with its ancient cross and uneven cobbles. The gold hands of the blue-faced clock on the church stood at ten
fifteen. A small group of tourists stood in front of the plain sturdy building taking photographs, and shoppers in twos and threes ambled along narrow Market Street. Banks could hear occasional
calls of greeting through his open window. He had been at the office for almost two hours, keen to read and digest all the information on the Steadman case as it came in.