A Dedicated Man

SIX

As Banks approached Helmthorpe later that Saturday morning, the coloured tents across the river strained at their ropes in the wind and rain like the sails of hidden boats, and the dark water danced wildly with ripples. In such weather, the houses themselves looked like dull outcrops of the stone they were built from, and the valley sides were shrouded in haze. A few locals and unfortunate holidaymakers tramped the streets.

Banks pulled into the small parking space next to the police station, and the first person he saw inside was PC Weaver. The constable looked pale, and there were dark smudges under his eyes.

‘We can’t even organize a search,’ he said, pointing out of the window. ‘Our men would get bogged down on the moors, and the visibility’s hopeless.’

‘I know,’ Banks said. ‘Any luck?’

Weaver shook his head. ‘Her parents last saw her just before they went out for the evening at about seven thirty. Before that, her friends saw her in the coffee bar earlier in the afternoon. We’ve not had time to ask much yet, sir. I’ve still got some lads out there. There’ll likely be more information coming in before long.’

Banks nodded. ‘And she didn’t say to anyone where she was going?’

‘No, sir. Her mother thought she might have met her boyfriend somewhere.’

‘Did she?’

‘He says not, sir,’ Weaver pointed toward a bedraggled young man in a clinging wet T-shirt and soggy jeans, hair plastered down by the rain. ‘That’s him there, sir. He’s pretty upset, and I see no reason not to believe him.’

‘Have you questioned him?’

‘Just talked to him, really, sir. Not questioned him proper. I mean, I thought I’d leave that…’

‘That’s fine, Constable,’ Banks said, smiling his approval. ‘You did right.’

He walked over to Kevin, who was staring fixedly at a ‘Crime Doesn’t Pay’ poster and chewing his fingernails. Banks introduced himself and sat down on the bench.

‘How long have you known Sally?’ he asked.

Kevin rubbed his eyes. ‘Years, I suppose. We only started going out together this summer.’

‘How do you feel about Swainsdale?’

‘What?’

‘How do you feel about living in the dales, your home? Sally doesn’t like it much, does she? Wasn’t she always talking about going away?’

‘Oh aye, she talked,’ Kevin said scornfully. ‘She’s full of big talk is Sally. Got a lot of grand ideas.’

‘Don’t you think she might have run off to London or somewhere, then?’

Kevin shook his head. ‘No. I can’t see her leaving like that. That’s why I’m worried. She’d’ve telled me.’

‘Perhaps she’s running from you, too.’

‘Don’t be daft. We’ve just started going together. We’re in love.’ He bent forward and put his head in his hands. ‘I love her. We’re going to get married, start a little farm… I know Sally, and she just wouldn’t run off without telling me. She wouldn’t.’

Banks held himself back from agreeing. Whatever Kevin believed, there was still hope. He couldn’t picture Sally Lumb settling down to domestic rural life in the dales, though. Kevin had a lot to learn about women and about dreams, but he seemed a decent and honest enough boy on the surface. Banks was inclined to agree with Weaver and see no harm in him, but he had to press on with the questioning.

‘Did you talk to Sally yesterday?’ he asked.

Kevin shook his head.

‘You didn’t see her at all yesterday evening?’

‘No. I was playing cricket with some mates over in Aykbridge.’

‘Did Sally know about that? Didn’t she expect to see you?’

‘Aye, she knew. You can’t see each other every night, can you?’ he burst out. ‘You’d soon get sick of each other, then, wouldn’t you? You’ve got to do other things sometimes, don’t you?’

He was blaming himself, and Banks helped him fight back the guilt. He wanted to ask him about the night he and Sally had heard the car; he wanted to know if she had said anything more about it, or if either of them had noticed something they hadn’t mentioned. But if he did that, he realized, he would be putting ideas into Kevin’s mind, making him think that Sally’s disappearance was somehow related to Steadman’s murder. He would have to do that eventually, but it could wait. If there was anything, Kevin would probably blurt it out himself in his attempt to help find Sally.

It was almost noon. If the girls were going to meet up as usual in the coffee bar, they’d probably be there by now, Weaver told him. Banks dashed out to the car. In good weather, he would have walked the short distance, but after only a moment’s exposure to the heavy rain, droplets were running down his neck from his sodden collar.

The three girls sat in silence, toying with straws angled in their Coke cans. Banks told them who he was and pulled up a chair to the stained and cracked Formica table. The video games and pinball machine were silent.

‘Do you think Sally’s the kind of girl to run away without telling anyone?’ he asked first.

They all shook their heads slowly. The plain-looking girl with thick glasses, who had introduced herself as Anne Downes, answered, ‘She’s full of ideas, is Sally. But that’s all they are. She’s nowhere to run to. She doesn’t know anyone outside Swainsdale.’

‘Was she doing well at school?’

‘Well enough,’ replied Kathy Chalmers, the one with the henna hair. ‘She’s clever. Not a swot, like. She could always get away without studying much and get good marks. She’s bound to pass all her exams.’

‘A sensible girl, you’d say?’

‘As sensible as any of us teenagers,’ Anne Downes answered, and the irony wasn’t lost on Banks. ‘It depends on your point of view.’

Kathy gave a short giggle and blushed. ‘I’m sorry,’ she apologized, putting her hand over her mouth. ‘But her parents might not have thought she was sensible. You know parents.’

Being one himself, Banks did. ‘But she’s not the kind of girl to. ..’ He paused, searching for words to avoid the phrase ‘get into trouble’, with all its connotations. ‘She doesn’t cause trouble, make a nuisance of herself?’

Kathy shook her head. ‘No. Not at all. She’s well behaved enough. Gets on well with most of the teachers. She’s just full of ideas, like Anne said. A big dreamer. She wouldn’t do anything to hurt anybody.’

Banks wondered if the girls connected Sally’s disappearance with the Steadman business; her visit to the Eastvale station was exactly the kind of thing she’d tell them about, and he wanted to know if she had made any remarks. Again, the problem was to avoid alerting and alarming them.

‘I suppose you know she came to see me a few days ago?’ he began casually. ‘And I agree, she struck me as being exactly like you all say – bright, full of plans, well behaved. I didn’t really get to hear much about any of her ideas, though.’

Kathy Chalmers blushed again. The other girl, Hazel Kirk, who had so far sat silently throughout the conversation, began to seem ill at ease. Again it was Anne Downes who answered with a forthrightness completely in harmony with her precocious intelligence.

‘Take this murder business,’ she began. ‘I suppose that’s what she went to see you about?’

Banks nodded.

‘Well, she found it all rather glamorous, exciting, as if it was something she was watching on telly. I don’t mean to say she wasn’t sorry about poor Mr Steadman, we all were, it’s just that she didn’t see it from that point of view. To Sally it was an adventure. Do you know what I mean? It was all a bit of a game with her as the heroine.’

This was exactly what Banks wanted. He nodded in appreciation of Anne’s observation. ‘Did she talk about it much?’ he asked.

‘Only in a mysterious kind of way,’ Anne answered.

‘As if she knew something nobody else did?’

‘Yes. Exactly like that. I think it made her feel important, that she’d noticed something and been to see you. She thought you were rather dishy at first.’ Anne said this with a perfectly straight face, as if she didn’t quite know what the word meant. ‘Then she seemed disappointed with your response. I don’t know what it was, she didn’t say, but she got even more mysterious as the week went on.’

‘Did she say anything specific?’

‘Oh, she tried to convince us that she was hot on the trail,’ Anne said, adjusting her glasses. ‘That she had an idea who dunnit. But that’s all. Just hints. She didn’t do anything about it, as far as I know.’

Banks was dreading the moment, which surely couldn’t be far off, when Anne would realize the significance of his line of questioning. But luckily it didn’t come. He thanked the girls for their time and, as he left, noted again how distracted Hazel Kirk seemed to be. Instead of questioning her there and then, he decided to leave it for a while and see what developed.