A Dedicated Man

TWO

On High Street, Banks glimpsed Penny Cartwright nipping into the Bridge. Consulting his watch and his stomach, he decided it was well past lunch time, and he could do with a pie and a pint if the landlord had any food left.

Penny was at the bar shaking her umbrella when she glanced over her shoulder and saw Banks enter.

‘Can’t a lady indulge her alcoholic cravings without the police turning up?’ she asked sharply.

‘Of course,’ Banks replied. ‘As a matter of fact, I’d be honoured if you’d join me for a late lunch.’

Penny looked at him through narrowed eyes. ‘Business or pleasure, Inspector?’

‘Just a chat.’

‘For “chat” read “interrogation”, I’ll bet. Go on then. I must be a fool. You’re buying.’

They were lucky enough to get two steak and mushroom pies and Penny asked for a double Scotch. Carrying the drinks, Banks followed her into the lounge.

‘Why don’t they do something with this place?’ he asked, looking around and turning his nose up.

‘Why should they? I wouldn’t have taken you for one of these horse-brass and bedpan types.’ Penny stood her umbrella by the fireplace and sat down, shaking her hair.

Banks laughed. ‘I always thought they were bed-warmers. And no, I’m not, not at all. Give me spittoons and sawdust any day. I was simply thinking that the owner might see renovations as a way to do more business in the long run.’

‘Oh, Inspector Banks! I can see you’re not a true Yorkshireman yet. We don’t care about a speck or two of dirt in these parts. It’s the company and the ale that count, and this is one place the locals can count on for both.’

Banks grinned and accepted the criticism with a humble sigh.

‘So what is it you want to know this time?’ Penny asked, lighting a cigarette and leaning back in her chair.

‘I enjoyed your performance last night. I liked the songs, and you’ve got a beautiful voice.’

Did she blush just a little? Banks couldn’t be sure, the lighting in the room was so dim. But she faltered over accepting the compliment and was clearly embarrassed.

The pies arrived and they each took a few bites in silence before Banks opened the conversation again.

‘I’m stuck. I’m not getting anywhere. And now there’s a girl gone missing.’

Penny frowned. ‘Yes. I’ve heard.’

‘Do you know her? What do you think might have happened?’

‘I know Sally a little, yes. She always wanted to know about the big wide world out there. I think she was secretly a bit disappointed with me for leaving it behind and coming home. But she struck me as a sensible girl. I can’t really picture her running off like that. And she was born and raised in these parts, like me. She knows the countryside around here like the back of her hand, so she wasn’t likely to get lost either.’

‘Which leaves?’

‘I don’t like to think about it. You hear of young girls going missing so often in the cities. But here…’ Penny shuddered. ‘I suppose it could mean we’ve got a maniac in our midst. What are the police doing, apart from buying me lunch?’

It was the second time Banks had been asked that, and he found it just as depressing to have so little to say in reply again. But Penny understood about the weather; she knew how dangerous it made Swainsdale, and she showed a surprising amount of sympathy for Banks’s obvious frustration.

They sat in silence again and returned to their food. When they had finished, Banks put his knife and fork down and faced Penny.

‘Tell me about your father,’ he said.

‘You sound like a bloody psychiatrist. What about him?’

‘You must know better than anyone else what a hothead he is?’

‘I probably gave him reason enough.’

‘You mean the city, the wild life?’

She nodded. ‘But honestly, you make it sound much worse than it was. What would you do in that position? Everything was new. I had money, people I thought were my friends. It was exciting then, people were trying new things just for the hell of it. My father didn’t speak to me for a long time after I left. I couldn’t explain; it was just too claustrophobic at home. But when I came back he was kind to me and helped me to get set up in the cottage. He takes it upon himself to act as my protector, I know. And yes, he has a temper. But he’s harmless. You can’t seriously suspect him of harming Harry, can you?’

Banks shook his head. ‘Not any more, no. I think it was too well planned to be his kind of crime. I just wanted to know how you saw things. Tell me more about Michael Ramsden.’

Flustered, Penny reached for another cigarette. ‘What about him?’

‘You used to go out with him, didn’t you? Can I have one of those?’

‘Sure.’ Penny gave him a Silk Cut. ‘You know I used to go out with him. So what? It was years ago. Another lifetime.’

‘Were you in love?’

‘In love? Inspector, it’s easy to be in love when you’re sixteen, especially when everybody wants you to be. Michael was the bright boy of the village, and I was the talented lass. It was one match my father didn’t oppose, and he’s always held it against me that we didn’t marry.’

‘Did you think of marrying?’

‘We were talking about getting engaged, like kids do. That’s as far as it went. Look, I was young and innocent. Michael was just a boy. That’s all there is to it.’ Penny shifted in her seat and pushed her hair back over her shoulders.

‘Was it a sexual relationship?’

‘None of your bloody business.’

‘Did he ditch you?’

‘We just drifted apart.’

‘Is that all?’

‘It’s all you’re getting.’ Penny stood up to leave, but Banks reached out and grabbed her arm. She stared at him angrily, and he let go as if he had received an electric shock. She rubbed the muscle.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘Please sit down again. I haven’t finished yet. Look, you might think I’m just prying into your personal life for the fun of it, but I’m not. I don’t give a damn who you’ve slept with and who you haven’t slept with, what drugs you’ve taken and what you haven’t taken, unless it relates to Harold Steadman’s murder. Is that clear? I don’t even care how much hash you smoke now.’

Penny eyed Banks shrewdly. Finally she nodded.

‘So why did you split up?’ Banks asked.

‘Buy me another drink and I’ll tell you.’

‘Same again?’ Banks got up to go to the bar.

Penny nodded. ‘I can’t promise it’ll be interesting, though,’ she called after him.

‘There was nothing mature about our relationship,’ she said as Banks sat down with a pint and a double Scotch. ‘Neither of us really knew anything different until something else came along.’

‘Another man?’

‘No. Not until later. Much later.’

‘You mean university for Michael and a singing career for you?’

‘Yes, partly. But it wasn’t as simple as that.’

‘What do you mean?’

Penny frowned as if she had just thought of something, or tried to grasp the shadow of a memory. ‘I don’t know. We just drifted apart, that’s all there is to it. It was summer, ten years ago. Every bit as hot as this one. I told you it wasn’t exciting.’

‘But there must have been a reason.’

‘Why do you want to know?’

‘Because I think the answer to Steadman’s death lies in the past, and I want to know as much about it as possible.’

‘Why do you think that?’

‘I’m asking the questions. Did he dump you because you wouldn’t have sex with him?’

Penny blew out a stream of smoke. ‘All right, so I wouldn’t let him fuck me. Is that what you want to hear?’ The word was clearly meant to shock Banks.

‘You tell me.’

‘Oh, this is bloody insufferable. Here.’ She tossed him another cigarette. ‘Maybe sex was part of it. He was certainly getting persistent. Perhaps I should have let him. I don’t know… I’m sure I was ready. But then he seemed different. He got more withdrawn and distant. Things just felt strange. I was changing, too. I was singing in the village pubs and Michael was studying to go to university. Harry and Emma were up for quite a while and it was hot, very hot. Emma would hardly go outside because her skin burned so easily. Harry and I spent quite a bit of time at the Roman site near Fortford. It was just being excavated then. We went for walks as well, long walks in the sun.’

‘Did Michael go with you?’

‘Sometimes. But he wasn’t very interested in that kind of thing then. He’d just discovered the joys of English Literature. It was all Shelley, Keats, Wordsworth and D. H. Lawrence for him. He spent most of the time with his nose stuck in a book of poems, whether he was with us or not. That’s when he wasn’t trying to stick his hands up my skirt.’

‘Must have been Lawrence’s influence.’

Penny’s lips twitched in a brief smile. She put her hand to her forehead and swept back her hair. ‘Maybe.’

‘And Mrs Steadman?’

‘As I said, she didn’t like the sun. Sometimes she’d come if we went in the car and sit under a makeshift parasol by the side of the road while we had a picnic like characters from a Jane Austen novel. But she wasn’t really interested in the Romans or folk traditions, either. Maybe it wasn’t the best of marriages, I don’t know. Lord knows, they didn’t have much in common. But they put up with it, and I don’t think they treated each other unkindly. Harry shouldn’t have married, really. He was far too dedicated to his work. Mostly I just remember him and me tramping over the moors and naming wild flowers.’

Steadman must have been in his early thirties then, Banks calculated, and Penny was sixteen. That wasn’t such an age difference to make attraction impossible. Quite the contrary: he was exactly the age a girl of sixteen might be attracted to, and Steadman had certainly been handsome, in a scholarly kind of way, right up to the end.

‘Didn’t you have a crush on Harry?’ he asked. ‘Surely it would have been perfectly natural?’

‘Perhaps. But the main thing – the thing you don’t seem able to understand – is that Harry really wasn’t like that. He wasn’t sexy, I suppose. More like an uncle. I know it must be hard for you to believe, but it’s true.’

If I don’t believe it, Banks thought, it’s not for want of people trying to convince me. ‘Don’t you think Michael might have seen the relationship differently?’ he suggested. ‘A threat, perhaps. An older, more experienced man. Might that not have been why he seemed strange?’

‘I can’t say I ever thought of it that way,’ Penny answered.

Banks wasn’t sure whether he believed her or not; she lied and evaded issues so often he was becoming more and more convinced that she was an actress as well as a singer.

‘It’s possible though, isn’t it?’

She nodded. ‘I guess so. But he never said anything to me. You’d think he would have, wouldn’t you?’

‘You didn’t argue? Michael never said anything about you going off with Harry? He didn’t always insist on accompanying you?’

Penny shook her head at each question.

‘He was very shy and awkward,’ she said. ‘It was very difficult for him to express himself emotionally. If he did think anything, he kept it to himself and suffered in silence.’

Banks sipped his pint of Theakston’s, brooding on how best to put his next question. Penny offered him another Silk Cut.

‘If I read you right, Inspector,’ she said, ‘you seem to be implying that Michael Ramsden might have killed Harry.’

‘Am I?’

‘Come on! Why all the questions about him being jealous?’

Banks said nothing.

‘They became great friends, you know,’ Penny went on. ‘When Michael graduated and got interested in local history, he helped Harry a lot. He even persuaded his firm to publish Harry’s books. It was more than just a publisher-author relationship.’

‘That’s what I was wondering,’ Banks cut in, seizing his opportunity. ‘Is there any possibility of a homosexual relationship between them? I know it sounds odd, but think about it.’

Unlike Barker, Penny took the question seriously before concluding that she doubted it very much. ‘This had better not be a trick,’ she said. ‘I hope you’re not trying to trap me into admitting intimate knowledge of Harry’s sexual preferences.’

Banks laughed. ‘I’m not half as devious as you make out.’

Her eyes narrowed sharply. ‘I’ll bet. Anyway,’ she went on, ‘I really can’t help you. You’d think you’d know all about a friend you’ve known for years, but it’s just not so. Harry could have been gay, for all I know. Michael, on the other hand, seemed very much like a normal adolescent, but there’s no reason why he couldn’t have been bi. Who can tell these days?’

And she was right. Banks had known a sergeant on the Metropolitan force for six years – a married man with two children – before finding out at the inquest into his suicide that he had been homosexual.

‘You still seem to be saying Michael did it,’ she said. ‘In fact, you’re hounding all of us – his friends. Why? Why pick on us? What about his enemies? Couldn’t it have been somebody just passing through who killed Harry?’

Banks shook his head. ‘Contrary to popular belief,’ he said, ‘very few murders happen that way. I think the myth of the wandering vagrant killer was invented by the aristocracy to keep suspicion away from their own doorsteps. Most often people are killed by family or friends, and motives are usually money, sex, revenge or the need to cover up damaging facts. In Harold Steadman’s case, we found no evidence of robbery and we’ve had no luck so far in digging up an enemy from his past. Believe me, Ms Cartwright, we dig deep. We’ve been checking the alibis of anyone outside his immediate circle who might have had even the remotest reason for killing him. Really, not many people walk around the country bashing others on the head for no reason. So far, statistics and evidence point to someone closer to home. According to his friends, though, he was too damn perfect to have an enemy, so where am I supposed to look? Obviously Mr Steadman was a far more complicated man than most people have admitted, and his network of relationships wasn’t a simple one either. His murder wasn’t a spur of the moment job, or at least the killer was frightened or coldblooded enough to throw us off the scent by moving the body.’

‘And you’re not going to stop pestering us until you know who it is?’

‘No.’

‘Are you close?’

‘I can’t see it if I am, but detection doesn’t work like that, anyway. It’s not a matter of getting closer like a zoom lens, but of getting enough bits and pieces to transform chaos into a recognizable pattern.’

‘And you never know when you have enough?’

‘Yes. But you can’t predict when that moment will come. It could be in the next ten seconds or the next ten years. You don’t know what the pattern will look like when it’s there, so you might not even recognize it at first. But, soon enough, you’ll know you’ve got a design and not just a filing cabinet full of odds and sods.’

‘What about money as a motive?’ Penny asked. ‘Harry was very well off.’

‘He didn’t leave a will, which was foolish of him. Naturally, it all goes to Mrs Steadman. It would have been more convenient for us if he’d left it all to the National Trust and we could have pulled in the first nutty conservationist we could find, but life isn’t as easy as fiction. Motive and opportunity just don’t seem to go together in this case.’

‘Well, that’s your problem, isn’t it?’

‘Yes. Have I explained why I’m pestering you so much now?’

‘Very clearly, thank you,’ Penny said, giving him a mock bow.

‘You don’t see Michael much these days?’

‘No, not often. Occasionally in the Bridge. He was always especially awkward with me after we split up, though. You’re not suggesting that Michael is still in love with me, are you? Let me get this right. He thought Harry and I were having an affair all those years ago and backed off. But all the time he’s been holding a grudge. He worked his way into Harry’s confidence over the years just looking for an opportunity to do away with him, and finally took his revenge. Am I right?’

Banks laughed, but it sounded hollow. Perhaps Ramsden did have sufficient motive, but he would have been hard-pushed to make an opportunity. First of all, he could hardly come to Helmthorpe and hang around in the car park all evening waiting, even if he was certain Steadman would be going there. And if Steadman had gone to York, how did his car get back to Helmthorpe? Ramsden could hardly have driven two cars, and he would have needed his own to get home. There were certainly no buses at that time of night, and he would not have risked arranging for a taxi.

‘It’s ludicrous,’ Penny said, as if she had been listening in on Banks’s thoughts. ‘I see what you mean when you say you’re stuck.’ She finished her drink, put down the glass, and stood up to leave.

Banks stayed on, drinking rather gloomily and craving another cigarette. Then Hatchley walked in. The sergeant brought two pints over and wedged himself into the chair Penny had just left.

‘Any developments?’ Banks asked.

‘Weaver’s men have talked to someone who saw Sally Lumb in the public call box on Hill Road at four o’clock Friday afternoon,’ Hatchley reported. ‘And someone else thinks he saw her walking along Helmthorpe High Street at about nine o’clock.’

‘What direction?’

‘East.’

‘She could have been going anywhere.’

‘Except west,’ Hatchley said. ‘By the way, I’ve been in touch with a mate of mine in York. Keeps tabs on all the queers and perverts down there, and there’s nothing on Ramsden at all. Not a dicky bird.’

‘I didn’t think there would be,’ Banks said glumly. ‘We’re barking up the wrong tree, Sergeant.’

‘That’s as maybe, but who’s going to lead us to the right ’un?’

Banks watched the rain stream down the dirty window-pane and sighed. ‘Do you think the two are linked?’ he asked. ‘Steadman and the Lumb girl?’

Hatchley wiped his lips with the back of his hand and burped. ‘Bit of a coincidence, isn’t it? The girl has the only piece of real information we get about the dumping of Steadman’s body, and she goes missing.’

‘But she’d already told us what she knew.’

‘Did the killer know that?’ Hatchley asked.

‘It doesn’t matter, does it? He didn’t even know anybody had heard him burying Steadman below Crow Scar, unless…’

‘Unless the girl let him know.’

‘Right. Either intentionally or otherwise. But that still assumes she knew more than she told us, that she knew who it was.’

‘Not if it was unintentional,’ Hatchley pointed out. ‘A girl like that tells all her friends, maybe hints that she knows more than she does. This is a small place, remember. It’s not like London. It’s easy to be overheard here, and word travels quickly.’

‘The coffee bar,’ Banks muttered.

‘Come again?’

‘The coffee bar. The place she hung around with her friends. Come on, we’d better question those girls again. If they know what Sally knew, they could be in danger as well. I didn’t want them to think that Sally had been killed, or that her disappearance had anything to do with Steadman, but there’s no time for softly-softly any more.’

Hatchley gulped down the rest of his pint, then dragged himself to his feet and plodded along behind.