Children of the Revolution

Chapter 12

The little coffee shop on Market Street wasn’t part of a chain, and Banks had always enjoyed the care and dedication the owners put into the brews and blends they made. He arrived a little early on Wednesday morning, and as he had been at the office already for an hour and a half reviewing the paperwork on the Miller case, drinking coffee from the machine, he decided on green tea instead.

He had gathered from Oriana the previous evening that Lady Chalmers had been driving home from Anthony Litton’s house near Buxton. It was Oliver’s birthday. Ronnie knew he was spending it with his father on his way back to London from some meetings in Manchester, and she had decided to go and pay him a surprise visit. Everyone told her she shouldn’t have been driving. The weather was terrible. Apparently, Anthony Litton had told her she should stop over, but she wanted to come home. She was driving back through the Peaks when her car went through a fence and off the road beside a swollen, fast-flowing river. She would have been washed away if the car wheels hadn’t got stuck in the deep mud on the riverbank.

Paramedics had attended her at the scene, and then she had been examined briefly at the nearest hospital. Her injuries weren’t serious, Oriana had said, just a few cuts and bruises, but mostly shock. She had insisted on going home. The doctors had no objection, and the local police all loved Oliver Litton, so it wasn’t hard to find a volunteer to drive her. The car would be towed back later.

Banks was sipping the slightly bitter but aromatic tea when the bell over the door pinged and Oriana walked in. She looked frazzled and drawn, which was only to be expected, given that she had probably had little or no sleep. The owner’s wife, Sandy, came over to ask if she wanted anything, and she ordered a latte. The place wasn’t too busy, and they had Classic FM playing quietly in the background.

Once Oriana had sat down and removed her tan jacket, she seemed to be a little shy and uncomfortable to find herself alone with Banks in a café, even though they had already had lunch together. She was casually but stylishly dressed in jeans and russet-coloured top, with a dark green silk scarf around her neck. Banks could hear Sandy making the latte, the violent grinding of the espresso machine and the hissing of steam heating milk. It all sounded rather like someone sucking the dregs of a soft drink through a straw. ‘How is Lady Chalmers?’ he asked.

Oriana kept her eyes down and stared at the tablecloth the whole time she talked. ‘She’s fine. Well, you know, still a bit dazed, but that’s mostly from the sedative. The doctor’s been, and she says she’ll have a few nasty bruises but no permanent disfigurement or anything like that. He says she had a lucky escape. It was also fortunate that she wasn’t driving too fast, she was wearing a seatbelt, and that the fence slowed her down even more. A little more momentum, and that would have been it.’

‘It’s not that often you can call crashing through a fence and getting stuck in the mud lucky.’

Oriana glanced up at him and smiled. ‘No,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry about phoning you so late last night. It’s just so... embarrassing. I panicked. I didn’t know where to turn. What can I say?’

‘You don’t have to apologise,’ Banks told her. ‘I’m just glad to hear that she’s on the mend. Sir Jeremy got back all right?’

‘About half-past one, yes. He’s exhausted, too.’

‘I’m not surprised.’ Sandy delivered Oriana’s latte. ‘You were clearly worried about more than just Lady Chalmers’ immediate injuries last night. You said she was frightened?’

Oriana nodded. ‘That’s what worried me the most.’

‘You’ve said this before, that since Gavin Miller’s murder she’s been edgy and nervous.’

‘Yes. It’s true.’

‘But she hasn’t told you why?’

‘No. I’ve asked her once or twice. Indirectly, I suppose, you know, if anything was bothering her, but she always said no. One time she just smiled and said it was nothing I should worry about. That was as far as I could get with her.’

It was about as far as Sir Jeremy had got, too, Banks remembered. ‘Does she usually confide in you? I mean, are you close friends?’

‘I like to think so, yes. I know there’s an age difference, but I think of her more as a big sister than a mother figure. Believe me, if you met my mother, you’d soon realise how little I need a mother figure.’

‘And your father?’

Oriana blushed. ‘My father’s a sweet man. I adore him.’

‘Tell me about what happened last night.’

‘I already told you. It was just as I said on the telephone. Ronnie rang me from the hospital, told me she’d had an accident, but assured me she was all right and the police were bringing her home.’

‘What time was this?

‘About half-past nine.’

‘So she wasn’t stopping at her brother-in-law’s for very long?’

‘No. She drove down about four o’clock. They were to have an early dinner, just Ronnie, Tony and Oliver. Oliver’s wife and children were in London, and Fran, Tony’s wife, died a couple of years ago.’

‘Yes, I know,’ said Banks.

Oriana raised an eyebrow, then went on. ‘After dinner, Oliver had to leave for London immediately. His driver was waiting. It was dark, of course, and raining very hard. I don’t know if you know that part of the country, but there are a lot of minor roads, many unlit. It’s also quite hilly. It can be very treacherous.’

‘I know a little about the Peak District,’ Banks said. ‘I’ve been there once or twice for days out, many years ago.’

‘With your wife and children? Brian and...?’

‘Tracy. Yes. Have you ever been there, to Anthony Litton’s house?’

‘Once or twice. Yes.’

‘But not last night?’

‘No.’

‘Why not? Boyfriend? Hot date, instead, perhaps?’

Oriana smiled. ‘I should say that’s an impertinent question and refuse to answer it, but I did ask you about your wife. It’s simple, really. I just stayed in, read for a while, then Angelina and I watched a movie. If you want to know—’

‘I don’t need to know what movie you watched. I’m not treating you as a suspect in anything. I don’t need an alibi.’

Oriana made a mock pout. ‘Oh. How disappointing.’

Banks laughed. ‘It’s not often I get that response. Besides, it’s not as if you really have one, is it? An alibi, I mean.’ He drank some more green tea, and went on. ‘And the thing I didn’t tell you when you asked about my wife was that we’ve been divorced for more than ten years now.’ Banks paused. ‘You seemed to indicate last night that Lady Chalmers thought she was in some kind of danger? Can you tell me any more about that?’

‘I think perhaps I overreacted. She was in shock, as you said. Perhaps a little of her panic spread to me.’

‘Was she driving the MG?’

‘Yes. She loves it, even in bad weather, when it would be much more sensible to drive the Rav 4.’

‘ “Who Drove the Red Sports Car”?’ Banks said.

‘I’m sorry?’

‘Oh, nothing. Just a song. Van Morrison. Lady Chalmers would know it. Where’s the car now? Was it badly damaged?’

‘Apparently not. They’re supposed to be towing it back up today or tomorrow.’

‘Oriana,’ said Banks quietly, ‘can you please keep what we’ve talked about, even that we met, to yourself for the time being? Give me a couple of days. I’ll see what I can dig up. Keep a close eye on Lady Chalmers. If possible, don’t let her go out alone.’

‘Is she really in danger?’

‘It’s possible.’

‘But why?’

‘That,’ said Banks, ‘is what I would like to try and find out.’

‘Why did you want to have lunch with me?’ Winsome asked Lisa as they took their seats in the Maharaja, an old pub recently converted into an Indian restaurant. The smells of cumin and coriander permeated the air. The decor was pure upmarket-Indian-restaurant-in-a-box, with dark wood panelling, brass or carved wooden statues of elephants and many-armed gods, paintings of women in saris with red dots on their foreheads, lots of gilt edging and deep velvety red curtains, wall-hangings and banquettes. Even the waiter had an Indian accent. He probably was Indian.

‘Do I have to have a reason?’ Lisa was certainly dressed for the occasion, though the Maharaja was casual as far as dress code went. She wore a navy skirt, and a matching tailored jacket over her cream blouse. She was even wearing tights and seemed to have applied a little make-up. Winsome thought she looked as if she were going to a job interview. They didn’t attract anywhere near as many glances as they had in the coffee shop a few days earlier.

‘Not at all,’ Winsome said. ‘I’m just surprised, you know. I mean what you’ve just been through, reliving your past, it can’t have been easy. Often in things like that, most people, well, they tend to blame the one who pushed them a bit.’

‘I’m not most people.’

‘I can see that. You scrub up nicely, by the way.’

Lisa blushed, and they ordered rogan josh, chicken tikka, aloo gobi, and raita and naans to accompany the meal. Winsome liked to eat Indian food using her bread as a scoop for pieces of meat drenched in sauce. Lisa ordered a bottle of Stella, but Winsome was sticking to Diet Coke. And plenty of water. ‘I don’t suppose you can tell me anything about how the case is going, can you?’ Lisa asked.

‘I can’t. Not even if I knew anything. But as far as I know, there are no new developments.’

‘Do you think you’ll ever find out who did it?’

‘We’ll do our best, Lisa. That’s all I can say. Now, how are you?’

‘I’m fine, I suppose.’

‘Was there any particular reason you wanted to see me?’

‘It must have been quite difficult for you, too, the other night, when I unburdened myself on you. I don’t usually do that. It was like opening a floodgate. I don’t know how you did it.’

‘I didn’t do anything,’ Winsome said. ‘The time was right for you. It must have been a terrible experience, the period you described, and this business brought it all back. If it’s worth anything, I think you’ve done a remarkable job of coming through it.’

‘Hardly,’ said Lisa. ‘But thank you for saying so. I’m still half-paralysed with fear and self-loathing most of the time.’

‘What are you dressed up for, anyway? Are you after a job or something?’

‘Would you employ me?’

‘Not up to me, but I can’t see why anybody wouldn’t. You’re bright and enthusiastic, even presentable at the moment.’

‘Hey!’

Winsome smiled. ‘Sorry.’

‘As a matter of fact I’m trying for a job in that pub over the road from your police station.’

‘The Queen’s Arms?’

‘That’s the one. A “proper job”, as you called it. I haven’t had a lot of experience, but they’re advertising, and I know someone who used to work there. She’ll put in a good word for me. It’s a start. I’ll continue with my writing, of course. That’s my real passion. Do you think they’ll... you know...’ She touched her piercings.

‘It might be a good idea to remove some of them, if you can. Temporarily, of course.’

Lisa nodded. ‘I thought so. OK.’

‘It’s not that they’re prejudiced or anything, I’ve seen girls working there with piercings, but people who deal with the public on a daily basis tend to be just a little bit on the conservative side when it comes to body art.’

‘I understand. It’s all right. I’m getting a bit bored with them, anyway, to tell you the truth.’ She fingered her eyebrow ring. ‘And that one even hurts a bit.’

Winsome laughed. ‘Then it would be a good place to start.’ She paused. ‘I can put in a good word for you, too, if you’d like me to?’

‘You would?’

‘Of course. I’m not saying my word would count for a lot there, but they know me. There is one thing, though.’

‘Oh?’

‘The drugs.’

‘Don’t worry, I won’t toke up on the job.’

‘That’s not what I...’ Winsome laughed. ‘Oh, never mind.’

Their food arrived, delivered by the small Indian waiter in the white suit, who smiled and bowed before them and said, ‘Happy eating.’ Winsome tore a naan in half and scooped out a mouthful of rogan josh. Delicious.

They both ate in silence for a while, nothing but the quiet hum of conversations and the distant sound of sitar and tablas. ‘Is there something you wanted to tell me?’ Winsome asked after a while.

Lisa looked her in the eye. ‘I think you know there is. That’s what I like about you. You don’t push it, do you? But you know things. You make people want to tell you things of their own free will. It’s different.’

‘I’m still a policewoman at heart, Lisa, so be careful.’

‘You mean, don’t tell you anything that might incriminate me?’

‘Something like that.’

‘Don’t worry. You’ve had plenty of chances to arrest me, and you haven’t done it yet.’ Lisa paused, and they both carried on eating for a while. ‘I didn’t tell you everything,’ she said finally.

‘I don’t imagine you did.’

‘Do you know what I’m going to say?’

‘I have a good idea, but I’d still rather hear it from you.’

‘Then you can say you knew it all along?’

Winsome regarded her in all seriousness, then she spooned up some chicken tikka in the ragged remains of her naan. ‘I wouldn’t do that unless it was true.’

Lisa contemplated her for a moment. ‘No,’ she said. ‘You wouldn’t. As you might have guessed, it’s something else that doesn’t reflect too well on me.’

‘You’re too hard on yourself.’

‘Hear me out first.’

‘I’m listening.’

‘I lied to you when I told you I didn’t find the boy who did it. Is that what you suspected?’

‘I’m all ears,’ said Winsome. ‘You did seem to brush over that part of the story rather too quickly. I’d like to know the full story. Unless you murdered him and dumped his body in the River Aire, of course. Then you might be better off keeping your own counsel.’

‘It wasn’t anything like that. Mick, one of the blokes who was with us at the concert that night, knew him. His name was Rob, and he was up from Bradford, as I said. I made out to Mick that I was interested in Rob, you know, said a few flattering things, but I didn’t know how to get in touch with him. Mick told me. This would have been about a week after it happened, before I knew I was pregnant. Not that it would have made any difference.’

‘So what did you do?’

‘I went to Bradford and located him. It wasn’t hard. He was a student at the uni there, and he lived in a bedsit on one of those streets off Great Horton Road, opposite the main campus.’

‘What happened when you found him?’

‘I watched him. I got a bed and breakfast nearby, and I watched him. I must have spent hours waiting for him to set off to classes. I followed him, watched where he went, who he talked to, what he did. The student pub at night, pictures with a girl, all that sort of thing. And do you know what?’

‘What?’

‘The thing that surprised me most, even in the fragile and angry state that I was in, was just how fucking ordinary he was, how he’d done something momentous and horribly destructive to me, yet he just went about his life chatting, laughing, watching movies, going to classes, as if nothing had ever happened. I mean, I expected a monster, right? Remember, all I really knew was what had been done to me, and I wasn’t even certain about that. But the more I watched him, the more ordinary I saw he was.’

‘What had you been planning to do?’

‘Planning? I don’t know. I assumed something would occur to me, when the time came.’

‘And did it?’

‘I suppose so, but hardly what I expected. I thought I might even kill him at one time, or at least chop his balls off and shove them down his throat. You know, stick a dildo up his arse and tattoo I AM A RAPIST PIG or something on his chest. But I’m not Lisbeth Salander. Sorry if I’m shocking you. Do you know that book?’

‘I’ve seen the film,’ said Winsome. ‘The one with Daniel Craig.’ She remembered how much it had made her squirm. She certainly wouldn’t go and see any of the others in the trilogy, or read them.

‘It was mostly him being so ordinary that got to me. I had a knife with me. Is that illegal?’

‘Probably.’

‘But I never used it. I was just going to knock on his door one night, force him at knifepoint to take me up to his flat, then do all that stuff to him.’

Winsome wiped her hands on a crisp linen serviette. ‘Few people could really do that, Lisa. You do realise that, don’t you? Most of us aren’t violent by nature; we shy away from it. I gather you changed your mind?’

‘It didn’t seem like that. I mean, I was improvising. Not even sure my mind was made up. I can only say that with hindsight, you know, that I wanted to hurt him the same way he’d hurt me. An eye for an eye. Maybe I watched him for too long. Maybe it was like that Stockholm syndrome thing, and I became too fond of him. I don’t think so, but you know what I mean. I spent so long watching him that he became human and ordinary, no longer a rapist monster.’

‘Lisa, you should have gone to the police.’

She showed a flash of anger. ‘Yes? And what would he have said? He’d have denied it, that’s what, then he might have beaten me up or something, and got away with that, too. And what proof did I have? His word against mine. What do you think you would have done if I’d walked into your office and told you what I’m telling you now?’

‘Calm down,’ said Winsome. ‘I’m sorry. I know we seem... ineffective... sometimes, but our hands are tied. All I’m saying is we would have tried. I would have tried.’

‘It wouldn’t have made any difference, anyway. I don’t think I could have stood up in court and gone through it all, with the prosecution making out I was a slut and that I asked for it and all that.’

‘It might not have been that way.’

‘Tell me about it.’

They sat silently for a while. Winsome had lost her appetite, and she left the remains of the lunch. Lisa didn’t seem interested in eating any more, either. The waiter asked their permission and cleared away the mess. Lisa ordered another Stella. Winsome could see how hard this was for her, and felt for her. She determined to make no more judgements, no more comments about what she thought Lisa ought to have done. ‘I’m sorry, Lisa. I just have a copper’s nature, that’s all. I know where you’re coming from, believe me. I know why you didn’t report it. Most victims don’t, and that just makes our job a million times harder. But I don’t blame you. I do want to know what you actually did.’

Lisa studied her and nodded. ‘After about a week in Bradford, watching him and following him, plotting in my imagination in bed at night what I was going to do to him, I finally approached him. It was in a square, by the university. He was by himself, but there were plenty of people around. I went up to him and called him by his name. At first, I could tell he didn’t recognise me, then it dawned on him. I could sense it, that he was getting ready to scarper. “Before you run away,” I said, “I just want you to know that I know you drugged me and raped me, and it was a cowardly, cruel and vicious thing to do, and I hope you rot in hell for it.” It wasn’t as effective as it might have been because I was scared and angry and I had a hell of a job holding back the tears.’

‘How did he react?’

‘He turned pale, then he just started shaking his head in horror and backing away, Finally, he turned tail and ran.’

‘And you?’

‘I went back to Eastvale and got pissed. I bottled it. Don’t you see? I had my chance, and I bottled it.’

The allotments were bordered on one side by a railway line on a raised embankment beside a canal, and on the other three by an old estate of weathered redbrick terraces and semis. Though it had originally been a council estate, most of the houses, at least the best of them, had been privately owned since Thatcher put them up for grabs in 1980. Whether Joe Jarvis believed in private property and owned one, Banks didn’t know. He probably thought it made more sense than the local council owning it.

As Banks approached via a ginnel between the ends of two terraces, a diesel train rattled along the railway track. Banks could see the passengers looking up from their newspapers and books as they passed by. He saw the little parcels of land in front of him and noticed that most of them were waterlogged. Here, on their small patches of earth, the locals grew root vegetables, the occasional herb bush, even tomatoes and marrows, but there were none in sight at the moment. Nothing seemed to be growing. The place seemed blighted and barren, as if suffering the effects of some biblical curse. Rain was all well and good for growing things, Banks thought, but not this deluge. Surely Noah was somewhere around shepherding pairs of animals on to his ark. Still, Banks thought as he followed the path Mrs Jarvis had said would take him to her husband’s allotment, it wasn’t raining today, and for small mercies like that he must be grateful.

Even the cindered path between the allotments was muddy, and Banks wished he had put on his wellies instead of his slip-ons. He approached the small hut, where he became aware of a shadowy, still figure sitting on a chair in the open doorway. ‘Mr Jarvis?’ he said, approaching.

‘Who wants to know?’

Banks held out his warrant card. The man examined it and grunted. ‘I should’ve known.’

‘Can I talk to you?’

‘What about?’

‘Ronnie Bellamy.’

The man’s expression didn’t change, but Banks could sense a flurry of confused emotions running through him. He was frail, hollow-chested, his skin like paper, face furrowed with wrinkles, his dark eyes sunk deep in their sockets, the whites a greyish-yellow colour, with a wide gap between the bottom of the iris and the lower eyelid. Sanpaku. Banks remembered the term from an old John Lennon song. He’d had to look it up. It was Japanese for ‘three whites’ and rumoured in some branches of alternative medicine to indicate serious illness in a person.

‘Now there’s a blast from the past,’ Jarvis whispered. ‘She’s all right, isn’t she? Nothing’s happened to her? You haven’t come to bring me bad news?’

‘She’s fine,’ said Banks. ‘Well, more or less. May I sit down?’

Jarvis contemplated him for a moment, then he grunted, got up unsteadily and disappeared into the small shed. When he came out he was carrying a blue-and-white striped fold-up chair, which he handed to Banks. There wasn’t room for the two of them in the doorway, and Jarvis clearly wasn’t budging from his spot, so Banks set up opposite him, careful to avoid sinking the legs in the mud. The last thing he wanted was to go arse over heel in the middle of an interview, unofficial as it was. Sometimes he thought he had a career death wish, breaking all the rules in the book. If Jarvis came out with anything important, anything useable in court, the CPS would be down on Banks like a ton of bricks for not conducting the interview under the proscribed conditions. Not to mention AC Gervaise and ACC McLaughlin.

‘Why do you want to talk to me about Ronnie?’ Jarvis asked once they were settled. He pulled an unfiltered Senior Service from a battered packet of ten and lit it with a match. The first drag set him off coughing, but he soon recovered. ‘And before you ask,’ he said. ‘I’ve been diagnosed with terminal cancer. I stopped smoking for nigh on twenty years, but I always vowed I’d start again if it didn’t matter any more. Now it doesn’t. Death’s not far away. I can smell it coming.’

‘I’m sorry to hear that,’ said Banks.

‘Oh, I don’t want your pity. I’ve made my peace, what there was to make, and I regret nothing. I’m not afraid. I just want you to know you’re talking to a dying man. There’s nothing you lot can do to me any more.’

‘I don’t want to do anything to you,’ said Banks, ‘except talk.’

‘Then you must excuse me. My past experience with the police has been quite different.’

‘So I understand,’ said Banks. ‘If it’s of any interest to you, my father tried his damnedest to argue me out of joining the force. You’re a hero of his. He was a sheet metal worker, but he never forgot the miners’ strikes of the seventies and eighties, and the way the police taunted the pickets, flashing their overtime pay.’

Banks could have sworn a little smile crossed Jarvis’s features, but it was gone as soon as it started. ‘Have you ever been down a mine, Mr Banks?’

‘I took the kids to the National Coal Mining Museum in Wakefield once. We had a tour.’

Jarvis waved his cigarette dismissively. ‘If you had, you’d wonder why we fought so bloody hard to keep the infernal places open. Awful dark dangerous frightening holes, they are. Every time that lift gate closed on me, I felt panic, a constriction in my throat, a tightness in my chest.’ He tapped his chest and coughed again. ‘Then the heat, the darkness, the smell, the coal dust, the noise. But they were the lifeblood of the community. That’s why we fought to keep them open. The men who worked there were heroes. And they’d die for each other. To the private owners, then to the NCB after nationalisation, we were nothing but slaves. Worthless menials. Poor pay, no pithead facilities, no proper ventilation, dangerous working conditions. I ask you, Mr Banks, is that any way to treat your heroes? It was like what happens to some of those young men coming back from Iraq or Afghanistan after enduring the most dreadful and dangerous conditions for their country. They’re shunned. It’s as if people are suddenly ashamed or afraid of them. Of what they’ve done. Of what they’ve had to do to defend their country. Our communities were closed down. Our members lost their jobs, their livelihoods. And nobody cared. What could we do but fight for them, fight for ourselves and our communities? We gave everything.’ He trod out his cigarette. ‘My grandfather used to come home from his shift or from the pub, and he was so exhausted it was all he could do to sit at the table, drink his John Smith’s Magnet ale, and chain-smoke Woodbines. I don’t remember him ever saying a word to me. He could never get rid of the coal dust from the lines in his face and hands. Never get it from under his nails or out of his hair. He was untouchable. He was remote. He was a miner. He was a hero. Dead at fifty-nine from silicosis. And you have to understand all that to understand why it was something that we fought so hard for, as hard and dangerous a living as it was, as filthy, like living in hell. But it was all we had.’

Jarvis went through another coughing fit. Banks wanted to bring the topic around to Veronica Chalmers, but he felt it best to let Jarvis get the vitriol out of his system, if he ever could. Perhaps it was the years of public speaking and stirring up the mob, but Jarvis did seem both eloquent and long-winded, as if he were constantly addressing an audience. ‘I understand what you’re saying, Mr Jarvis. It’s not a life I could ever have lived. But I’d like to talk about the early days, the ‘72 strike. The University of Essex.

‘Oh, I know you don’t want to hear it,’ Jarvis said. His eyes twinkled for a moment. ‘But nobody gets away without the lecture. It’s my stock-in-trade. Essex, you say? It was Essex that politicised me, and a lot of that was down to Ronnie, believe it or not. Before then, I was just a hungry, angry miner after better pay and better working conditions. Afterwards, I was committed to the creation of a workers’ state. We used to take the piss out of students all the time, and believe me, most of them deserved it. They were an idle bunch of drug-taking long-haired wastrels with their heads up their arses. But some of them... well, some of them knew what they were talking about, and they did it with a passion and commitment that couldn’t fail to move you.’

‘And Ronnie Bellamy was one of those?’

‘Ronnie was... oh, aye,’ he said. ‘But it was more than that. Can you understand what it was like for me, a young lad from the South Yorkshire mines with little education worth speaking of, and there I was, with all those young brainy sods, who not only seemed to understand and sympathise with our plight, but could put it in a broader context. The thing was, they hadn’t a clue what to do about it. It was us who showed them how to organise. The flying pickets, the tactics, and all the rest. They got an inside view of what the strategy of a strike was about, and I like to think it changed their way of thinking a bit. Not about the cause, mind you, but what to do about it.’

‘And you? The strike changed you?’

‘Oh, aye. I realised the value of education, for a start, and I took practical steps, took courses, read books. History, politics, economics, poetry, novels, the lot. Books opened up a whole new world for me. I’m still no intellectual, but I can hold my head up in any academic gathering. I’m not afraid of the intellectuals any more. There’s a price, mind you.’

‘Oh?’

‘Aye. Have you ever read Tony Harrison?’

‘No.’

‘He’s a poet from Leeds. Read him. He understands it best. When someone like me, coming from where I come from, gets educated, he loses touch with his roots, he gets educated out of his class, and he leaves his culture behind. Abandons it for another, you might say, and he ends up in a kind of limbo. He can’t go back to what he left behind, and he isn’t accepted anywhere else.’

‘That happened to you?’

‘To some extent, aye. I fought against it, but even after Essex, when the process had barely begun, going home just wasn’t the same again. It felt like a wrench. I was restless, eager for more. Not money, but knowledge. And the more I got, the less I had in common with most of the people around me, the people I grew up with. Read Tony Harrison. You’re the son of a sheet metal worker, yourself, but you seem educated. You should understand.’

Banks did understand. Certainly being a policeman separated him from the rest of society, but even before that, his college diploma and experience of the academic life in the London of the late sixties and early seventies had also singled him out as different. It always felt jarring when he went back home to Peterborough and found his old friends doing the same things they had done before, stuck in the same old dead-end jobs, saving up for the new house, another baby on the way, a new car. Most of them would never move more than a mile from where they were born. Oh, they would travel; there would be exotic holidays — Costa Del Sol, Crete, Tunisia, Sharm-el Sheikh, even Goa, Acapulco and Orlando — but their minds would never move far from the semi in Peterborough. They took the piss out of him mercilessly for the clothes he wore, the way he talked and the thoughts and ideas he expressed. It had all happened to him, too, later, of course — wife, family, mortgage, car — and no matter how badly that had ended, he wouldn’t have had it any different for the world. But he had never stopped learning, and he knew what Joe Jarvis meant when he said education cuts you off from your class and from your roots. Perhaps it makes you free, too, but freedom can be a frightening and dangerous thing when you feel so alone. Another diesel rattled by, this one almost empty. ‘About Ronnie Bellamy,’ he said again.

Jarvis smiled, showing uneven but healthy teeth. ‘You must forgive me. I do tend to ramble sometimes. I see it as an old man’s prerogative. Especially one who doesn’t have long left.’

‘Old?’

‘I’m sixty-five. And dying, remember?’

‘You had a fling with Ronnie Bellamy at Essex during the time they put you up there in the student residence, didn’t you?’

‘How did you find out about that?’

‘That doesn’t matter. Is it true?’

Jarvis stared at him, then he got up and disappeared in the shed, returning with a half bottle of Famous Grouse and two tea mugs. ‘You’ll join me?’

Banks thought it wise to agree. Besides, he liked Famous Grouse.

Jarvis poured them each a generous measure and sat down again. ‘I don’t know what you’d call it. A fling? Maybe. A brief romance, perhaps? Whatever it was, it was all new to me. The excitement of the strike, the travel, these students with their generosity and their idealistic notions. New to them, too. They’d never seen the likes of us before. We were the reality. The true face of the working class they’d just talked about in their meetings. We swore, we farted, we sang rugby songs. We smoked, we drank, we fought. We thought Les Dawson and Bernard Manning were funny. We were what it was all about, what they’d been reading about, and here we were, in with them, ready to give the ruling classes a good working over. Suddenly the revolution was real, the workers’ state a real possibility.’

‘And Ronnie was a part of that?’

‘For me, yes. Ronnie was special. I felt some sort of spark with her the first time we met. I loved her passion, commitment and fierce intelligence, and her grasp of ideology, her ability to explain it, even to a thickie like me. I’d never even thought about most of the things we discussed. Class war, means of production, and all the rest of the Marxist dialectic. She taught me to think. And she was just a lost little rich girl trying to find herself in the world. Way out of my league, of course, but somehow that didn’t seem to matter very much. She was posh, but she never talked down. And she was a proper bobby-dazzler, as they used to say. That sweet smile, those big green eyes. Believe it or not, I was a handsome, strapping young lad back then. I suppose I was a bit of rough for her, and she was a taste of caviar and champagne for me. Yes, we did have a passionate romance. A fling, I suppose you’d have to call it, really. I don’t know if there was much real love involved, but there was certainly a powerful infatuation. Nature took its course, and for a while I was living in another world. The colliery didn’t exist. The pit. South Yorkshire didn’t exist. My life was in that bedroom, or out on the picket line, or just sitting talking in the student pub. With Ronnie. A far cry from Mexborough, I can tell you. I suppose I was dazzled by it all.’

‘I’m not here to judge your action, Mr Jarvis,’ Banks said.

‘Then why are you here, if you’re not after something and Ronnie is fine?’

‘It’s a difficult case. Sensitive. A man called Gavin Miller was found dead near Eastvale, where I work. He’s been murdered.’

‘Surely Ronnie isn’t a suspect? Believe me, she couldn’t harm anyone.’

‘Not even in the service of the revolution?’

‘We’re not all heartless murderers, Mr Banks.’

‘No. I’m sorry. We discovered that she knew him when they were both at the University of Essex in the period we’re talking about, and that they’d also been in contact recently. Were you and Ronnie inseparable during your time at Essex?’

‘Yes. Pretty much. Two weeks it lasted. Two weeks. I can remember it all as if it were yesterday. Have you talked to her lately? Have you seen her? How does she look? I’ve seen photos in the paper, of course, I know she’s famous now, but...’

‘She’s still beautiful, Mr Jarvis. You’d swear she wasn’t a day over forty.’

He nodded. ‘I knew she would be. That sort of beauty never fades.’ He paused, lost in memories. ‘She’d have a hell of a shock if she could see me now, wouldn’t she?’ He coughed again. Banks watched a barge passing slowly by on the canal and wondered if it was carrying coal.

‘How many people knew about the relationship?’ Banks asked.

Jarvis cleared his throat. ‘Nobody. Well, there’s Ronnie and me, of course, and maybe one or two of the other MS — Marxist Society — members. It’s impossible to keep something like that a complete secret, but we were discreet for the most part. And it’s not as if we were the only ones who’d paired up. It was happening all over the campus.’

‘What about her boyfriend, Gavin Miller?’

‘That’s the one who got killed?’

‘Yes.’

‘I didn’t know his name, but he obviously knew. I mean, we were stark bollock naked when he barged in once. There’s not much mistaking what’s happening in a situation like that, is there?’

Banks couldn’t help but smile. ‘I suppose not. Was anything ever said about it?’

‘No. He buggered off as soon as he saw what was what. No heroics. Ronnie told me she was finished with him, anyway. He was just still mooning after her, writing poems and whatnot. I got the impression he was becoming a bit of a nuisance, but we never really mentioned him again. I can’t believe he’d still be getting in touch with her after all these years.’

‘We think it’s possible that somebody, maybe Miller, might have been blackmailing Ronnie, and that it could have been over her affair with you. However discreet you were, it’s pretty obvious that Gavin Miller knew about it, and he’d have been easily able to follow your career over the years.’

‘But what interest would that possibly hold for anyone?’

‘She’s Lady Chalmers now.’

‘I know. But they’re not going to take that away from her just because she had a fling with a striking miner forty years ago, are they?’

‘Well,’ said Banks, ‘think about it. She was a rich girl, and you, as you say, were a striking miner. It makes an interesting story. And with her nephew Oliver Litton about to become Home Secretary, or so the pundits would have us believe, and your history of Russian connections, communism, backroom deals, trips to Moscow and the like, any journalist worth his salt could easily make something out of it.’

‘That gives your future Home Secretary a motive perhaps, but not Ronnie.’

‘Except Oliver Litton doesn’t know anything about it. At least, I’m assuming he doesn’t, if neither you nor Ronnie told anyone. Her immediate family doesn’t even know.’

‘I didn’t, and I doubt that she did.’ Jarvis started coughing again. When he had finished, he said, ‘I don’t know how I can help you. I don’t really understand what any of this means.’

‘Me, neither,’ said Banks, smiling. ‘That’s why I’m asking the questions.’

‘If you think this Gavin Miller was blackmailing Ronnie over her fling with me,’ Jarvis said, ‘and that it had any importance for her, that he was a threat of any kind, then it seems to me as if you’re saying it gives her a pretty strong motive for killing him.’

‘Not necessarily. We know she couldn’t have done it.’

‘Hired someone, then.’

‘It’s possible,’ Banks said. ‘But if Miller was blackmailing Lady Chalmers, there may have been others, victims we don’t know about, and one of them might have killed him. He was desperately short of money when he was killed, and who’s to know to what lengths he might have gone, who he might have antagonised?’

‘Well, I didn’t do it,’ said Jarvis.

Banks smiled. ‘No,’ he said. He heard a low-flying aircraft pass overhead on its way to some regional airport. It was late afternoon, and already getting dark.

‘You think I might have hired a Russian hit man? I’m sorry to disappoint you, but I don’t have those contacts any more. Everything’s changed over there. They’re not interested in the revolution any more. The communists used to take over countries with tanks; now if they want another country, the Russian mafia just buys one.’

‘I did have a theory that both Ronnie and Gavin Miller might have been recruited by the Russians back in the day.’

Jarvis laughed. ‘Them? Recruited? That’s a good one.’

‘But they were active, weren’t they, the Russians? In 1972. With money, with helping spread chaos and setting the scene for a communist revolution?’

‘They were buzzing around, yes, but it was the union leaders they were interested in, not students standing on the sidelines, like Ronnie and Miller. Oh, they had a few agitators there, people who could turn a peaceful demonstration into a riot. But the Russians had no use for intellectuals. No more than Pol Pot did. And when it comes right down to it, I really didn’t have a lot of time for the Russians. I didn’t like them, and I never trusted them. We used each other. It was a convenience.’ He looked around the allotment and said, ‘Believe it or not, I love this place. I love this country. I’m proud of my homeland. It’s where I belong. It’s where I’ll die. Now if only we could get rid of the bastards in power and change the system, make it a fairer and more egalitarian place to live, I’d die a happy man.’

‘I’m not sure Lady Chalmers would want to change it now.’

‘Well, she wouldn’t, would she? I must say, you disappoint me, Mr Banks. Russian sleepers? Your ideas are getting very far-fetched.’

Banks scratched his chin. ‘I disappoint myself sometimes,’ he said. ‘Too much imagination, I suppose. You can’t help me any further, then?’

‘I don’t see how I can, do you? I’ve got nothing to hide. Yes, we had a fling, yes, I’ve had a soft spot for her in my heart ever since, and I’ve followed her career. But from a distance. Vicariously. The closest I’ve got is reading a Charlotte Summers book.’ He smiled. ‘And what drivel that was. We’ve never met, written or spoken in all the intervening years, though I have thought of it many times, and I haven’t told anyone about the affair. Including my wife and family, though I didn’t marry until two years after Essex. And I’d very much appreciate it if you’d respect that and give me the same courtesy. It’s not as if you’ll have to hold your tongue for very long.’

‘It’s not in my plans to spread the word, Mr Jarvis, believe me. What happened with your own family? Did you have children?’

‘Aye. A girl and a boy.’

‘Did the lad become a miner?’

‘Shit, no! Do you think I’d encourage them to do that after what you’ve heard me say here today? No.’ His expression turned sad. ‘Though it might have been better in some ways if he had.’

‘Why’s that?’

‘Oh, Eddie’s turned out, all right, I suppose. He’s a lathe operator, but you know what the manufacturing sector’s been like these past three decades or so. Thatcherland. She gutted the north. He’s been in and out of work like a yo-yo most of his life. It takes its toll. He drinks. Got divorced last year, lost custody of the kids. And my daughter Stef married an idle sod who doesn’t know the meaning of the word “work”. Never done a day’s hard graft in his life, like his father before him. All he does is go to the pub and back and provide her with more mouths to feed. I warned her. I told them. But do they listen?’ He shook his head. ‘For all my ideals and my beliefs, Mr Banks, I can’t exactly say I’ve brought up a family to be proud of.’

‘You shouldn’t be so hard on yourself.’

‘Easy for you to say, with a son in a successful rock band.’

Banks couldn’t mask his surprise. How...?’

‘I read the papers, Mr Banks, and I watch telly. I might be old and dying, but I’m not square. There aren’t that many coppers with sons in the charts. Now, I’m more of a Shostakovich man myself.’ Jarvis reached for another cigarette.

‘About Shostakovich,’ said Banks. ‘I’m very fond of him, myself. I think the whole question of where he stood in relation to Stalin is fascinating. Any insights into that?’