A Dedicated Man

FIVE

The police station didn’t look at all like Sally expected. For one thing, the old Tudor-fronted building was modern inside, and the walls weren’t papered with ‘wanted’ posters. Instead, it was more like one of those pleasant open-plan offices with potted plants all over the place and nothing but screens separating the desks behind the reception area. It smelled of furniture polish and pine-scented air-freshener.

She told the polite young man at the front desk that she wanted to see Chief Inspector Banks, the man in charge of the Helmthorpe murder. No, she didn’t want to tell the young man about it, she wanted the chief inspector. She had important information. Yes, she would wait.

Finally, her persistence paid off and she was shown upstairs to a network of corridors and office doors with things like ‘Interview Room’ stencilled on them. There she was given a seat and asked if she would mind waiting a few moments. No. She folded her hands in her lap and stared ahead at a door marked, disappointingly, ‘Stationery Supplies’.

The minutes dragged on. She wished she had brought a copy of Vogue to flip through like at the dentist’s. Suddenly sounds of scuffling and cursing came from the stairwell and three men fell into the corridor only feet from where she was sitting. Two of them were obviously police, and they were struggling with a handcuffed third who wriggled like an eel. Finally, they dragged him to his feet again and hauled him off down the hall. He was squirming and swearing, and at one point he managed to twist free and run back down the hall towards her. Sally was terrified. At least half of her was. The other half was thinking how exciting, how much like Hill Street Blues it was. The policemen caught him again before he got too close and hustled him into a room. Sally’s heart beat fast. She wanted to go home, but the chief inspector came out of his office and ushered her inside.

‘I’m sorry about that,’ he apologized. ‘It doesn’t happen often.’

‘Who is he?’ Sally asked, wide-eyed and pale.

‘A burglar. We think he broke into Merriweather’s Stereo Emporium last week.’

Sally found herself sitting before a flimsy metal desk littered with paper clips, pens and important-looking folders. The air was thick with pipe smoke, which reminded her of her father. She coughed, and Banks, taking the hint, went to open the window. Fragments of conversation drifted up on the warm air from Market Street.

Banks asked Sally what she wanted.

‘It’s private,’ she whispered, looking over her shoulder and leaning forward. She was unsettled by what she had just witnessed and found it much harder to get started than she had imagined. ‘I mean,’ she went on, ‘I want to tell you something but you have to promise not to tell anyone else.’

‘Anyone?’ The smile disappeared from his lips but still lingered in his lively brown eyes. He reached for his pipe and sat down.

‘Well,’ Sally said, turning up her nose at the smoke like she always did at home, ‘I suppose it’s up to you, isn’t it? I’ll just tell you what I know, shall I?’

Banks nodded.

‘It was last Saturday night. I was up below Crow Scar in that little shepherd’s shelter – you know, the one that’s almost collapsed.’ Banks knew it. The derelict hut had been searched after the discovery of Steadman’s body. ‘Well, I heard a car. It stopped for about ten or fifteen minutes, then drove off.’

‘Did you see it?’

‘No. I only heard it. I thought it was maybe a courting couple or something at first. But they’d stay longer than that, wouldn’t they?’

Banks smiled. It was clear from the girl’s desire for secrecy and her knowledge of the temporal requirements of courting exactly what she had been doing in the shepherd’s shelter.

‘Which direction did the car come from?’ he asked.

‘The village, I think. At least, it came from the west. I suppose it could have come from over the dale, up north, but there’s nothing much on that road for miles except moorland.’

‘Where did it go?’

‘Up along the road. I didn’t hear it turn round and come back.’

‘The road that leads to Sattersdale, right?’

‘Yes, but there’s plenty of other little roads that cross it. You could get almost anywhere from it.’

‘What time was this?’

‘It was twelve fourteen when it stopped.’

‘Twelve fourteen? Not just after twelve, or nearly quarter past twelve? Most people aren’t so accurate.’

‘It was a digi-’ Sally stopped in her tracks. Banks was looking down at her wrist, on which she wore a small black watch with a pink plastic strap. It wasn’t digital.

‘Better tell the truth,’ he said. ‘And don’t worry, your parents needn’t know.’

‘I wasn’t doing anything wrong,’ Sally blurted out, then she blushed and calmed down. ‘But thank you. I don’t think they’d understand. Yes, I was with somebody. My boyfriend. We were just talking.’ This didn’t sound convincing, but Banks didn’t regard it as any of his business. ‘And then this car came,’ Sally continued. ‘We thought it was getting late anyway, so Kev, my boyfriend, looked at his watch – it’s a digital one with a light in it – and it said twelve fourteen. I knew I should have been home hours ago, but I thought I might as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb. We just stayed where we were not paying it much mind really, then when we heard it go Kevin looked at his watch again and it said twelve twenty-nine. I remember because it was funny. Kevin said they hadn’t much time to…’

Sally stopped and reddened. It had been all too easy, once she got going, to forget who she was talking to. Now, she realized, she had not only told this strange man with the pipe her boyfriend’s name but had also given him the impression that she knew all about what men and women did together at night in cars on lonely hillsides.

But Banks didn’t pursue her romantic activities. He was far more concerned about the accuracy of the information he was getting than about her love life. Besides, she looked at least nineteen – old enough to take care of herself, whatever her parents thought.

‘I imagine Kevin, your boyfriend, could confirm these times?’ he asked.

‘Well… if he had to,’ she answered hesitantly. ‘I mean, I told him I wouldn’t mention his name. We don’t want any trouble. My mum and dad wouldn’t like it, see. I told them we were at his house watching telly. They’d tell his mum and dad where we really were and they’d stop us seeing each other.’

‘How old are you, Sally?’

‘Sixteen,’ she answered proudly.

‘What do you want to do with your life?’

‘I want to be an actress. At least, I want to be involved in films and theatre, that kind of thing. I’ve applied to the Marion Boyars Academy of Theatre Arts.’

‘I’m impressed,’ Banks told her. ‘I hope you get accepted.’ He noticed that she was already a dab hand at make-up. He had thought she was nineteen. Most girls of her age never seemed to know when enough was enough, but Sally obviously did. Her clothes sense was good too. She was dressed in white knee-socks and a deep-blue skirt, gathered at the waist, that came to just above her dimpled knees. On top she wore a white cotton blouse and a red ribbon in her gold-blonde hair. She was a beautiful girl, and Banks wouldn’t have been at all surprised to see her on stage or on television.

‘Is it true you’re from London?’ Sally asked.

‘Yes.’

‘Did Scotland Yard send you?’

‘No. I moved here.’

‘But why on earth would you want to come up here?’

Banks shrugged. ‘I can think of plenty of reasons. Fresh air, beautiful countryside. And I had hoped for an easier job.’

‘But London,’ Sally went on excitedly. ‘That’s where it all happens. I went there once on a day trip with the school. It was fabulous.’ Her wide eyes narrowed and she looked at him suspiciously. ‘I can’t understand why anyone would want to leave it for this godforsaken dump.’

Banks noted that in about twenty seconds Sally’s opinion had undergone a radical reversal. At first she had been coquettish, flirtatious, but now she seemed disdainful, almost sorry for him, and much more brusque and businesslike in her manner. Again, he could hardly keep from smiling.

‘Did you know Harold Steadman?’

‘Is that who… the man?’

‘Yes. Did you know him?’

‘Yes, a bit. He often came to the school to give lectures on local history or geology. Boring stuff mostly about old ruins. And he took us on field trips sometimes to Fortford, or even as far as Malham or Keld.’

‘So the pupils knew him quite well?’

‘As well as you can know a teacher.’ Sally thought for a moment. ‘But he wasn’t really like a teacher. I mean, I know it was boring and all that, but he liked it. He was enthusiastic. And he even took us to his home for hot dogs and pop after some of the trips.’

‘Us?’

‘Yes, the pupils who lived in Helmthorpe or Gratly. There were about seven of us usually. His wife made us all some food and we just sat and talked about where we’d been and what we’d found. He was a very nice man.’

‘What about his wife, did you know her?’

‘Not really. She didn’t stick around with us. She always had something else to do. I think she was just shy. But Mr Steadman wasn’t. He’d talk to anybody.’

‘Was that the only time you saw him? At school, on trips?’

Sally’s eyes narrowed again. ‘Well, apart from in the street or in shops, yes. Look, if you mean was he a dirty old man, the answer’s no.’

‘That’s not what I meant,’ Banks said. But he was glad that she had reacted as if it was.

He made her go through the story again while he took down all the particulars. She gave the information unwillingly this time, as if all she wanted was to get out of the place. When she finally left, Banks slouched back in his chair and grinned to think that all his appeal, all his glamour, had been lost in his move from London to Eastvale. Outside in the market square the clock chimed four.